CM:N - the simple things request thread

[sand digger]

Seeing the other threads are full of chatter and tech head stuff, I'm starting this one for the simple minded players, like me. Yep I admit it Anyway, here are a few, some may already be in the pipeline, being a WW2 person I have not played CM since CMAK.

* Realistic infantry behaviour when under fire. In CMAK, trying to get the infantry to rush those last few meters was a nightmare. When fired upon they invariably went to ground and wriggled around until shot. Run away or continue on to victory or death please, going to ground in the open a few meters from the enemy is nonsense.

* Artillery effect on infantry, shock and awe if you like. Infantry should operate at a reduced efficiency during and immediately after being shelled, mortared, etc. This effect should linger for a time, gradually lifting, better troops will recover more quickly. So if you prepare your attack properly it should be rewarded for its overall effect, not just the immediate casualty result.

* The ability to shell anywhere, you have limited ammo though. CMAK was unrealistic in that you could not shell an area unless someone could see it. You should be rewarded for the judicious use of limited ammo and that includes educated guesses as to where the enemy may be and being able to shell around an area you are about to attack to delay reinforcements, etc. This ability should go hand in hand with a realistic observation regime though, it would be nice to see whats ahead gradually unfold in detail as your observation ability improves in capacity and moves forward.

* Simple command effects. This sort of incidential stuff can be really annoying and distracting if it has significant effects, and requires significant attention, on the performance of your forces. They should know what they have to do and get on and do it without higher attention anyway.

Far as I'm concerned gameplay is everything, you need to be rewarded and punished as you play, surprise and variety is very important, if a player can develop a surefire attack or defence formula the game is ruined. And a equal emphasis on defending please, attacking is great but defending should be just as satisfying when you get something right.

Comments? Suggestions?

[ChrisND]

Comments? Suggestions?

I'll post more in a bit, but my main comment for now is that not all of these are "simple" to implement. Not that I don't agree with any/all of them being implemented.

[Ryujin]

* Realistic infantry behaviour when under fire. In CMAK, trying to get the infantry to rush those last few meters was a nightmare. When fired upon they invariably went to ground and wriggled around until shot. Run away or continue on to victory or death please, going to ground in the open a few meters from the enemy is nonsense.

Not necessarily for panicked troops, they're not always going to act in their best interest and getting up and running away at that range is going to be just as bad as running at the enemy. Higher quality troops will resist suppression better, but generally you shouldn't expect troops to charge into short range enemy fire. Since you haven't played CMSF, I'll add now that there is 1:1 troop modeling, sometimes a few soldiers will be cowering and others may return fire, so they may be slightly more effective under heavy fire, but they're still probably not going to do what you want unless you set them to high experience and high, near fanatical, moral.

* Artillery effect on infantry, shock and awe if you like. Infantry should operate at a reduced efficiency during and immediately after being shelled, mortared, etc. This effect should linger for a time, gradually lifting, better troops will recover more quickly. So if you prepare your attack properly it should be rewarded for its overall effect, not just the immediate casualty result.

This is another thing I've noticed in CMSF (and probably by extension normandy), troops will take a lot of suppression, kicked up dust will obscure their view, and the moral can take a big hit if casualties were taken. Suppression will last for a little while after the barrage and moral will be down for much longer if the barrage was effective. An ineffective shelling on experienced troops is of course not going to have as much of an impact. So for CM:N, I imagine you'll see the effects you're talking about.

* The ability to shell anywhere, you have limited ammo though. CMAK was unrealistic in that you could not shell an area unless someone could see it. You should be rewarded for the judicious use of limited ammo and that includes educated guesses as to where the enemy may be and being able to shell around an area you are about to attack to delay reinforcements, etc. This ability should go hand in hand with a realistic observation regime though, it would be nice to see whats ahead gradually unfold in detail as your observation ability improves in capacity and moves forward.

Couldn't you shell everywhere in CMAK? I swear I remember doing it all the time and the accuracy was really bad. That said in CMx2 you could only shell everywhere during the setup phase, after that you had to see it. I'd second getting this feature back, as long as the accuracy is realistic, especially for non-preplanned or TRP firemissions. That and TRPs would be nice, so you could have one or two preregistered.

The artillery modeling is better in CMx2 and your FO has to walk in spotting rounds. If he can fire on target's he can't see in CMN, you'd just have to hope they're on target the first time.

* Simple command effects. This sort of incidential stuff can be really annoying and distracting if it has significant effects, and requires significant attention, on the performance of your forces. They should know what they have to do and get on and do it without higher attention anyway.

The issue is not so much with the advanced modeling of command and control in CMx2, just the player feedback that needs to be tweaked. The C2 doesn't need to be dumbed down, just some quick way to see how your units are linked.

Far as I'm concerned gameplay is everything, you need to be rewarded and punished as you play, surprise and variety is very important, if a player can develop a surefire attack or defence formula the game is ruined. And a equal emphasis on defending please, attacking is great but defending should be just as satisfying when you get something right.

Comments? Suggestions?

One of the nice things about a less tradition wargame and more sim approach of CMx2 is that is harder to have a surefire plan or attack or defense, it plays less like "war chess".

The problem with defending is it can only really be done well in multiplayer, the AI tends to bungle most attacks rather badly unless they have overwhelming numbers.

That's my $.02.. oh and windowed mode please!

[Michael Emrys]

* The ability to shell anywhere, you have limited ammo though.

Disagree about the limited ammo part unless that is explicitly specified by the scenario maker. In general, artillery had unlimited ammo for game terms, especially at the start of a major offensive when they might even have been heavily overstocked. The proper effect for unobserved fire would be reduced accuracy and higher chance of scattering.

* Simple command effects. This sort of incidential stuff can be really annoying and distracting if it has significant effects, and requires significant attention, on the performance of your forces. They should know what they have to do and get on and do it without higher attention anyway.

Well that depends. In some armies, in certain formations, at certain points in the war that was true. But for most, the commander and his HQ was there as a necessity. Troops, especially those in conscript armies—which in WW II meant just about everybody—had a tendency to not do anything unless ordered to. The tendency was to go to ground, have a smoke, a drink, a meal, whatever, but mostly avoid getting your head shot off. The job of the junior officers and NCOs was to keep the men moving and in the fight. As such, its absence would severely impact the realism of the game for little gain in playability.

Michael

[ChrisND]

* Realistic infantry behaviour when under fire. In CMAK, trying to get the infantry to rush those last few meters was a nightmare. When fired upon they invariably went to ground and wriggled around until shot. Run away or continue on to victory or death please, going to ground in the open a few meters from the enemy is nonsense.

This is sort of a moot request, because infantry behavior in CMx2 has changed dramatically. What they typically do now when under fire is increase their speed. If they were going at QUICK, they now go at FAST. If they decide it is too much for them, they typically run for the nearest cover. If already in cover, they crawl around a bit, but a sometimes annoying behavior appears where they "cower". Still, behavior under fire is much improved.

* Artillery effect on infantry, shock and awe if you like. Infantry should operate at a reduced efficiency during and immediately after being shelled, mortared, etc. This effect should linger for a time, gradually lifting, better troops will recover more quickly. So if you prepare your attack properly it should be rewarded for its overall effect, not just the immediate casualty result.

Arty in cmx2 definitely has an effect on infantry performance (by way of morale), but in some cases they recover a bit too quickly for my tastes. Still though, with low-morale infantry you can get a lot of MIAs just from morale hits due to artillery.

* The ability to shell anywhere, you have limited ammo though. CMAK was unrealistic in that you could not shell an area unless someone could see it. You should be rewarded for the judicious use of limited ammo and that includes educated guesses as to where the enemy may be and being able to shell around an area you are about to attack to delay reinforcements, etc. This ability should go hand in hand with a realistic observation regime though, it would be nice to see whats ahead gradually unfold in detail as your observation ability improves in capacity and moves forward.

Would be nice to have, although I wouldn't limit the shell count, but instead make it wildly inaccurate, with a longer spotting phase.

* Simple command effects. This sort of incidential stuff can be really annoying and distracting if it has significant effects, and requires significant attention, on the performance of your forces. They should know what they have to do and get on and do it without higher attention anyway.

I'm not really sure what you are asking for here. But the CandC chain in CMx2 is far more forgiving if you play on lower difficulty levels.

[scottie]

For the record, im back playing CMAK as of this weekend (just discovered the Windows7 patch ), really missed it actually. Fingers crossed i get the same long lasting appeal with CMx2:N.

* The ability to shell anywhere, you have limited ammo though. CMAK was unrealistic in that you could not shell an area unless someone could see it. You should be rewarded for the judicious use of limited ammo and that includes educated guesses as to where the enemy may be and being able to shell around an area you are about to attack to delay reinforcements, etc. This ability should go hand in hand with a realistic observation regime though, it would be nice to see whats ahead gradually unfold in detail as your observation ability improves in capacity and moves forward.

In CMAK you can do this with spotters , you cannot do it with on screen artillery.

Scott

[LJFHutch]

* Being able to place random foliage (maybe checkboxes?): you could check all of the major tree types and make quick good looking forests.

* Hold fire and/or Stealth commands so that ambushes can work - nothing gives away your position like a solid burst of MG fire.

* Move to and assume formation - I'd love to be able to tell 5 tanks (all of which are scattered) to move to a location and assume a line formation. The way it works in TA Spring is interesting (you draw a line with the mouse and your units take up positions along it. Would cut out the time-consuming micromanagement a bit.

* Persistent orders - Would also be nice if units continued their actions after stopping to take cover for example, or did so at their own discretion.

* Probably not simple, but I'd love to be able to tell a unit to use a specific weapon against a target.

* More realistic effects - I don't mean any fancy graphics, but to have the dust/debris react in a more realistic manner after explosions and that sort of thing would be awesome. I have yet to see a game that does the mushroom cloud thingies after an explosion like what happens from a JDAM strike.

[scottie]

* Probably not simple, but I'd love to be able to tell a unit to use a specific weapon against a target.

Agree with this one , more control to play with the toys.

[c3k]

Oh, I'd love to have more ability to LIMIT certain uses of weapons. See my various threads on Bradley coax vice M242 use, sniper team security elements opening fire, Tow missile use, and M1 weapon targeting. I have also tossed out a few squad related threads.

For all _my_ desired tweaks (emphasis also on "desired" and "tweaks"), this is a great game system. I'm sure CM:N will be even better. (Part of the fun, kind of, is the angst of having your troops fire off the toy you wanted them to save, or, almost worse, watching the replay and cursing because they DIDN'T use the toy!)

Ken

[LJFHutch]

* Being able to toggle - place foliage or brush only on certain terrain in the editor. Would be good to have more control over where things are placed.

[scottie]

not too many things people are after then ?

Naval arty.

[LJFHutch]

* Edit: never mind, just found out you can delete them ...

[AslakH]

I want bridges in CM:N. Oh god I want bridges.

No bridges in CM:N = gamebreaker.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Bridges were in the very first bone.

[Mord]

I want bridges in CM:N. Oh god I want bridges.

No bridges in CM:N = gamebreaker.

Consider your game unbroken;

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1466&Itemid=404

Mord.

[Stingray]

Surrender - POW - In CMX1 enemy troops that surrender are visible and can be ordered to move to a holding pont. They just do not dissapear from the game.

Hope CM-N has this feature.

Stingray

[Michael Emrys]

Surrender - POW - In CMX1 enemy troops that surrender are visible and can be ordered to move to a holding pont. They just do not dissapear from the game.

Hope CM-N has this feature.

Yeah, me too. Probably low on BFC's feature list though. Somewhere just above dead cows.

Michael

[Mord]

Yeah, me too. Probably low on BFC's feature list though. Somewhere just above dead cows.

Michael

Dead cows are actually simple...flavor objects, could do dead horses too. These were some of the things I suggested way back. I hope they got in.

I was also thinking that they could do a work around with surrendering/breaking units...just have them break or surrender in groups, like when we split squads...it's not perfect but it's better than a giant "!".

Mord.

[Cambronne]

Rain!I want rain and mud.

Oh,and triggers for AI editor and AA able to shoot down planes.

[LJFHutch]

Rain!I want rain and mud.

Oh,and triggers for AI editor and AA able to shoot down planes.

Agreed, and ambient sounds like birds, wind, grass, streams, foliage rustling in wind etc.

[LJFHutch]

* Include a setting for a traditional tabletop wargame feel by actually having a table. I'd prefer it to the current system of having the map just stop.

I did a concept:

Probably not simple but it'd be awesome I think CMBB had something like this actually.

[Lt Belenko]

* Include a setting for a traditional tabletop wargame feel by actually having a table. I'd prefer it to the current system of having the map just stop.

I did a concept:

Probably not simple but it'd be awesome I think CMBB had something like this actually.

Who's grass mod are you using?

[AslakH]

Consider your game unbroken;

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1466&Itemid=404

Mord.

BRRRRIDGES!!!

Many cool scenarios can be made!

[LongLeftFlank]

I wish to hear the lamentation of their women.

Also, is that table for moody wargamers or do you wargame in a biker bar?

[LJFHutch]

I wish to hear the lamentation of their women.

Also, is that table for moody wargamers or do you wargame in a biker bar?

I was all out of steel/wood textures, so it had to be that one A wood finish would have been better, but I was lazy at that stage lol.

* The ability to place and delete (especially delete) elevation points using larger brushes (to quickly delete them for example). It takes so long - especially on larger maps - if you have to delete large areas of elevation.