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Why infantry combat in CMx2 is so different


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skelley,

Units do remember what they were firing and attempt to keep tracking them in the event that they become visible again. In CMx1 a unit would forget about what it was shooting at within a second or two (we did try and fudge some temporary memory). But as far as I can tell, units will not routinely fire rounds at targets they can't see unless ordered to by Area Fire.

Vark,

Most of your answers are "yes, and it worked that way in CMx1 as well". Here are some exceptions:

. In CM 1 when a 'volley' was fired did all weapons of the same group fire, ie Rifles, SMG's etc? It would explain why the Russian SMG troops were as effective as the Grim Reapers scythe!

When a CMx1 unit fired at a target at 100m, for example, all weapons capable of firing at 100m would add their firepower (which was range dependent) to the outgoing "volley". And yes, that is why SMG units were so very effective. There was no variation of "well, this time only 2 soldiers fired, and this time 5 managed to get a shot off". It was always 100% available firing 100% of the time.

2. Does this now mean the squad leaders proficiency affects the squads performance, ie targetting, morale etc? In CM 1 a weakness was the lack of any representation of this apart from the psychic influence of the platoons the damn it sarge! we was good at hiding but now the lines are black, not red I've forgotten how to do it" syndrome. I really hope the guy with the SMG is now better modeled than someone who's good at shooting close range.

Leadership Bonuses, in both systems, add value to the Leader in different ways. In CMx2 a Leader with a good bonus has a positive effect on all the unit's stats, a bad bonus a negative effect.

4. Will doctrine be represented, the US semi-auto rifle enabled a high rate of fire at area targets, the bolt action rifles represented a tradition of firing at identified targets (hence the post-war revisions to infantry docrine that followed the analysis combat in WWII). Obviously the Germans were ahead of the game with their MG series being specifically designed to engage rapidly moving and fleeting targets with maximun fire power.

Naturally simulated and it is pretty well visible in CM:SF, not to mention CM:A with its bolt action rifles mixed in.

6. Will we ever have the ability to organise out squads into formations (line arrow head, double interval etc)?

We have no plans on letting the Human specifically direct this. However, we do want the TacAI to do a better job with internal spacing based on conditions.

9. How does the psychological state of the men, taking fire, taking casualties affect their accuracy, ROF and aquisition time and will training mitigate these affects?

Morale reduces accuracy. Being pinned affects RoF. Morale affects RoF if the soldiers "cower" or worse.

Steve

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Thanks Steve, just to clarify, when you are talking leaders does that mean Squad leaders as well in CM2?

Overall sounds far more realistic, as I said in a previous post you could run the same small scenario using CM1 and CM2 to show how far the engine has progressed. Perhaps a reinforced company versus platoon taking a fortified position. Similar tactics could be employed by both sides but we could see how the greater fidelity, accuracy and simulation of CM 2 radically changes the outcome, or not. The previously discussed falling back example would be perfect, in the CM 1 game the player tries to fall back with the inevitable result, in CM2 when he orders it the squad survives relatively intact. We could then see how more/less effective tactics are compared to CM1, and give the potential buyer/old time CM veteran, who did not buy CM SF, a real taste of what is to come! Just a thought.

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Haven't play it yet, but I will nevertheless hazard a prediction.

Typical games of CMBNx2 will show dramatically higher casualty rates among the infantry, concentrated into much shorter periods of the overall engagement, than were typically seen in CMBB or CMAK.

And they were not too low to begin with, but if anything too high to begin with.

I make this prediction based simply on the likely impact of the "engineering" and 1:1 rather than "design for effect" and full squad approach being used. I consider it extremely unlikely that the real world aspects that reduce battle losses in real firefights will be simulated with anything approaching the accuracy and attention, that I expect will be lavished on basic interactions like spotting, shooting, flight of projectiles and hits or interception by cover.

It is the perennial experience of "engineered" game design that the attempt to achieve realism by literalism of the simulation, achieves simulation of the most readily simulated bits of real combat, and doesn't even come close on others. And that the former will always include the most intentional and planned aspects of shooting range firepower, while the neglected elements will include a host of harder to simulate and disparate factors, that all tend to make for lower combat effectiveness per unit and moment engaged. With the result being a prediction of vastly higher lethality per engaged unit and per unit time, than seen in real combat, outside of the most extreme outliers of blood massacres.

The battle for Goose Green took 14 hours. 500 Brits faced 1000 Argentines with artillery support on terrain almost entirely open, with only modest rises providing some shielding to the men on either side. All of 70 men died in those 14 hours - about 20% Brits and the rest Argentines. I predict that no 1 to 1 engineered simulation of infantry combat will ever reproduce such an outcome. But reality - did.

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Hmmm... JasonC, did you even read my post? The whole point of writing it was that we're seeing the opposite than your prediction. And I've explained why, in great detail.

CMx1 was, for the most part, and "engineered" simulation. When we fell back on "design for effect" it was mostly because of technical limitations and/or not knowing what we were doing. The elements that people were most happy with turned out to be the "engineered" ones. Vehicle modeling being the prime example. The elements that people were least happy with were the "design for effect" features. Infantry modeling is probably the biggest example of that. Which is why CMx2 is even more weighted towards "engineered" and even less towards" design for effect".

"Design for effect" simulations are very brittle because the effects must be anticipated ahead of time and solutions engineered to ensure a certain outcome is consistently achieved. In simple simulations this can be done, especially when Human players are taken out of the equation or are have their choices so constricted that the game consists of basically playing a logic flow chart.

A flanking move, in a game, that could NEVER happen in real life still needs to have combat effects applied within the game. It's one of the primary reasons very few "historical" battles in wargames, no matter how carefully constructed, come out with results similar to real life. Partly because in real life the other possible outcomes aren't known since we only have one outcome to compare against.

An example of the latter is at the strategic level. What would have happened if Rommel had been given a free hand to conduct the defense of Normandy his way? Would the outcome have come out differently than it did? Well, who knows. But if a game allows people to play as Rommel, you're likely going to have people who do not deliberately hamstring themselves to the historical limitations.

Therefore, for a variety for reasons there isn't a wargame out there that does a good job at producing the same (or even similar) results as real life on a battle for battle basis. Even at the strategic level this is true. I've conquered the Soviet Union more times than I can count :)

The reasons for this gap between real life results and game results has very little to do with things being either "engineered" or " designed for effect". Instead, games would require very unfriendly features that would cause the game to be so unenjoyable, or even playable, that nobody would want care to purchase it.

So I'm not sure what your point is other than to say that no wargame, at least not made for a commercial audience, can simulate Good Green. And if that's your point, I agree 100%.

Steve

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I always did think the accuracy of small arms in CMSF was a little too high (or perhaps, cover not adequate enough), but on the same account, you only have 1-2 hours to finish your scenario and thus that needs to be taken into consideration. I imagine however, CMBN will have accuracy of many weapon systems much reduced.

I think it is worth mentioning that many CMx1 players probably picked up and tried CMx2 in the very early days. The game is VASTLY improved, especially from an infantry stand point, these days. And I expect CMBN to be even better.

Your infantry units find cover better, react to fire better, path find better. For example, there were times in the early days where units struggled for LOS on berms, or targeting infantry at the top of roofs. These days they move around into a better position to fire, and stick to cover much better. The game is truly enjoyable and believable now (as opposed to many frustrating moments in the early days), and I can't wait to see what Normandy brings.

One thing I'd LOVE to see in the initial release of Normandy, or later patches, is more suppressive fire on the part of the TacAI. At the moment the game is a bit clinical with its suppressive fire (I understand improvements were introduced along the way, especially with contacts that faded out of view). I think this is especially true with MGs and such. I've never been in combat so its quite possible I'm talking out my ass, but if you look at combat videos there is a constant barrage of fire going down range. CMx2, unless you control it yourself (which can get tedious with large formations), fire tends to happen in spurts. I'd live to see the TacAI being more aggressive with its suppressive fires.

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Haven't play it yet, but I will nevertheless hazard a prediction.

Typical games of CMBNx2 will show dramatically higher casualty rates among the infantry, concentrated into much shorter periods of the overall engagement, than were typically seen in CMBB or CMAK.

And they were not too low to begin with, but if anything too high to begin with.

I make this prediction based simply on the likely impact of the "engineering" and 1:1 rather than "design for effect" and full squad approach being used. I consider it extremely unlikely that the real world aspects that reduce battle losses in real firefights will be simulated with anything approaching the accuracy and attention, that I expect will be lavished on basic interactions like spotting, shooting, flight of projectiles and hits or interception by cover.

Keep in mind two things:

-As Steve mentioned, the "scope" of CM is generally battles where both sides want a pretty decisive engagement and covers 1-2 hours of the heavy fighting. It's really not made for "less interesting" battles where one or both sides try to avoid any sort of heavy contact, surrender, withdraw, or simply stand off. You can do this in CM if you want, start a battle and then withdraw or stop your advance on contact and generally be much less aggressive. You'll find the casualties will be much lower.

In the case of Goose Green, there were periods of heavy fighting, a lot of hurry up and wait, and lots of withdrawing and maneuvering when one side decided they didn't want to decisively engage, and eventually a mass surrender by the Argentinians. If they hadn't surrendered but decide to fight on (a la almost every CM battle), the casualties would have been much higher. ~273 KIA+WIA were the casualties of the actual engagement.

-Secondly, an "engineered" game can abstract a number of things, just as a designed for effect game, it's more a matter of approach. Giving accuracy and attention to the real world aspects that reduce battle losses in real firefights is well, a matter of giving accuracy and attention, not choosing between the two methodologies in this case. Granted, it'll probably be much easier to do this with an engineered game as you can have these factors play an inherent role in deciding the outcome, instead of just deciding what seems like a good outcome for each situation and using that. Steve's mention of armor modeling on tanks is a good example of this.

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Exciting to know that there has been a lot of attention given to the infantry, that was the one aspect of CMAK etc that used to drive me crazy, not being able to successfully use recognised tactics particularly when attacking. I hate having to play a game in accordance with its mechanics irrespective of their realism.

Which reminds me, is bayonet use recognised? Not only for its physical effect but also for its shock value?

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Goose Green was not a low loss engagement. 18% of those engaged battle casualties, with just under 5% KIA, was in fact very high losses for an infantry engagement by historical standards. It counts as heavy fighting in open terrain. That it ended in a mass surrender by the losing side was certainly atypical, but the same battle outcomes normally lead to a losing side withdrawal instead. That it was a surrender rather than a withdrawal that ended the fighting was due to the isolated position and the overall strategic context, etc.

I brought it up because I was watching a History Channel item about it immediately before reading the thread. I am also reading Hastings book on the late war in the Pacific, and I note there that heavy fighting on Leyte results in a US company on the line for about 20 days described as gutted by the experience - and its losses amounted to 1 KIA and 4 WIA per day in action. Battle losses are simply vastly lower than anything like first person shooter modeling will ever simulate.

But no, this doesn't mean that no game can simulate actions like Goose Green. I think it could be simulated fairly accurately in the hex and counter board game Squad Leader that is oh about 30 years old. But designed for effect, and designed well. Not perfectly, no doubt.

I think even further design for effect additions to a system like CMBB could get closer. If that were the direction anybody wanted to go, but apparently it isn't. The pull of engineering literalism is overwhelming, and every single modern game designer for the computer seems hopelessly unable to resist that lure. I think it is a complete dry hole and that it has been for a generation, entirely predictably, by the way.

As for the claim that we are now seeing lower losses in CM2 combats than in CM1, I haven't seen the end of the AAR, but what I've read of it so far does not support the claim. I've no doubt it is true of the specific individual incident the original post cited, the withdrawal behavior, and the impact of relative spotting on it. Great. But in the AAR threads we've also seen a grenade fest in woods that covered the ground with bodies on both sides in a couple of minutes flat. And unforgiving microplacement leading to supposed "snipers" being KOed at 450 meters by one round, while completely stationary.

Those both sound like entirely predictable results of engineering literalism. If a man sits in the open, really complete open, and insufficiently camo'ed, at 450m from a tank with telescopic optics, it is possible he might be spotted in 2 seconds and killed with a single round. But sniper field craft isn't being simulated with anything like the attention that ballistics are - pretty clearly. I'm sure if 20 grenades denotated in a small overpacked wood in the space of 30 seconds, and men were up and trying to move and fight as each did so, and they were all moreover spraying at each other with automatic weapons in the mix, half to all of them would be killed or wounded practically instantly.

But I'm also pretty sure the first detonation would pin 90% of them flat to the ground for up to a minute solid, there would be a lot more reluctance and skukling, and nothing like that actual butcher bill at the end of it. Again, because the weapon effect parts about blast radii and test range casualty zones, and billiard table modeling with a few dodads of terrain, entirely accurately modeled, will predict mutual annihilation in seconds. While the reality of cover seeking, suppression, men in combat psychology, confusion, tunnel vision battle myopia, and every fold of micro terrain to exploit as cover, would actually let men survive even within 50 yards of each other, for minutes and sometimes for hours, as eye witness testimony from both world wars makes entirely clear.

If you go down the perfect engineering route you are certain to miss dozens of such factors and their huge cumulative impact. If you design for effect you can cross check the results with tactical realities from the real world. As soon as you abandon the design for effect principle, you lose contact with every variable in the real world you haven't explicitly thought of and coded beforehand, and the results will never correspond to reality. The direction of the error is also entirely predictable - heroic mutual annililation at loss rates far exceeding those seen in practice. This has happened in every single simulation that took the engineering literalist approach. And I predict it will again, because there is nothing here to change that outcome.

This isn't a criticism of BTS. It is a comment on the methods of simulation on the one hand, and tactically cross checked operations research outcomes on the other. The whole underlying idea that if only the salient elements of military interactions are translated to code literally enough, realism will result automatically, is false to the bottom of its boots. Which isn't a matter of the specific simulation, it is inherent in the entire approach. Irretrievably so, in my humble opinion.

One man's thoughts...

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To be fair, I don't think Steve was claiming that CMx2 is 100% realistic. In fact he's mentioned several times how CM and wargames in general result in higher casualties than real life. All he was claiming is that CMx2 is more realistic in infantry combat than CMx1 was, and I think anyone who's played both knows this is true.

As to ASL being more realistic in terms of outcomes, being designed for outcome, I would claim that it's far easier to design a board game for outcomes due to the far reduced variability of situations needing outcome designed for them. So yeah, maybe ASL produces realistic outcomes in a way that a high fidelity game like CMx2 can never hope to, but I know I'd rather play CMx2 any day.

Cheers

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There are two basic kinds of battles in modern war. The kind where at least one side is not willing to stand and fight, and the kind where both sides are unquestionably willing to stand and fight.

Most of the time, you get the first kind. One side sees that further investment at this place and this time will be unprofitable accord to its operational calculus, and gives ground or stops attacking. These kinds of battles result in relatively low casualties at any one time, although casualties may unsustainable in a prolonged engagement of several weeks or more

The second kind of battle is when both sides go all in, it is seen as a must win regardless of immediate losses. Tarawa is perhaps the ultimate example. The Marines took nearly five thousand casualties of something like 20,000 men committed and the 5000 Japanese defenders died nearly to a man.

Normandy produced quite a a lot of the second kind of fighting because the Allies wanted to break out into the rest of France, period. The Germans, once the General Staff removed Hitler's head from his #@^%^^ realized that the next place they were likely to hold the line was the Rhine, and went all in. The result was a lot of nasty combat where the butchers bill ran way up before one side blinked. At least until the Germans ran out of more or less everything, including soldiers. Patton stopped on the Franco German border a very few weeks later. Mostly because he had out run his own supplies. Proving that both sides were correct about the stakes.

There is a subset of the all in, usually between mismatched forces where mass surrender accounts for most of the losing sides casualties. Goose Green was one of these in the end. The Brits got into a position to start killing them in job lots and the Argentines gave up.

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I stand by what I've said. And there's a reason why developers tend towards engineered sims rather than outcome based. Because when the environment is extremely fluid and dynamic, a well engineered system tends to work better than an excellent outcome based system. CMx1 is an excellent case in point.

Pretty much universally people feel that the vehicle modeling was better in CMx1 than vehicle modeling. Anybody want to dispute that? Well, this is actually false. We spent more time and resources on infantry modeling than vehicle modeling. It's a fact. But there were two reasons why we also agreed that infantry modeling didn't come out as well as vehicle modeling. And those the basic reason is that infantry modeling was mostly "effect" based and vehicle modeling was mostly "engineered".

From years of direct experience, we learned that there is a reason why developers "flock" to engineered solutions... simply put they work better. And so when we went to CMx2 the core of the game design was to make infantry behavior "engineered" to the fullest extent possible. And the results are vastly better now than they were in CMx1.

Still, CMx2 is a game and as a game it suffers from all kinds of game type problems. The expanded Objectives allows a good scenario designer to work around some, Relative Spotting works around others, etc. but at the end of the day BOTH players want to fight to the death. This isn't true in real life most of the time in most situations.

Now, I do agree with JasonC that paper and dice games sometimes (not always) could do pretty good outcome based results. But I've played my fair share of total annihilation battles with paper and dice, so I know it's not something that overly simplistic outcome based games can neatly sidestep either. Plus, they have a host of issues that make them compromised in other ways.

Steve

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I think it could be simulated fairly accurately in the hex and counter board game Squad Leader that is oh about 30 years old. But designed for effect, and designed well.

If you ask me, the problem with this approach is that the outcome is "designed" before the event takes place. This is useful for a "historical stats reproduction machine", but that machine cannot be applied to anything else than it was specifically designed for (or that which the designer wanted to achieve with it), or the outcome will be entirely irrelvant.

One man's thoughts...

Which would be more valuable if they were not based on a "hazardous" guess before even seeing the game.

IMO, one reason why you will constantly see relatively high casualties in any game is because we are (thankfully!) not playing with real lives. There are no ill effects of sending all your men to their death. And while morale for the individual soldier is simulated to some extent, that extent is very limited to the immediate situation the unit IS in, and not what it WILL be in. It only manages to offset the effects of a reckless armchair general by a little.

Lastly, let's not forget to compare apples to apples. Front line units generally had way higher casualty rates than if you take a whole battalion including supply, staff and others, obviously.

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And speaking of losses...

If that US company suffered 5 losses a day, that amounts to 100 losses over the period of 20 days that you specified, JasonC.

How many men in a company? 100 losses sounds pretty gutted to me :(. I agree it's not the same as losing 100 men in a 2-hour battle, but it's still pretty gruesome!

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Yeah combat mission doesn't simulate 2 days of rear area activity and entrenching or waiting for supplies and reinforcements. It can produce historical outcomes if players made their soldiers do historical things, but usually they don't. Can you imagine a three hour CM battle where your orders are to not leave your setup area but keep the enemy under observation?

There is an AAR of a battle in CM:Afghanistan where the player gets almost exactly the historical result, and that is simply using the game engine wiht all the variables plugged in, not cheating with design for effect.

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Jason, Goose Green is an interesting example but it poses several problems, if used as an example of the realism of a particular type of combat modelling. If ever their was a battle where everything went wrong for the nominally stronger (combat power not numbers) force Goose Green was it. Planned as a raid it morphed into an assault with a below strength battalion who had insufficient supporting weapons, especially artillery and using an overly rigid, phased attack, initially at night. Their opponents had left most supporting weapons behind in Argentina, in the rush to mobilise and have had their numbers vastly inflated by including air force personel, who took no part in the battle, apart from surrendering. They also were tactically inept and missed numerous chances to skewer the Paras, who at one stage could have lost an entire company, either KIA, wounded or captured (this from the mouths of the Paras who were there).

So we have a battle where there are numerous factors in play that reduce casualties, factors which are not always present in such large numbers. But you also have a battle where casualties were taken, at a rapid rate, by the attacker, anytime they were surprised or any offensive action was taken or, by the defender, when a force build up had allowed a stalemate to be broken. A fact repeated in other battles of that War (Longdon, Tumbledown etc) and which seems to generalise the fighting in present day Iraq and Afghanistan. So simply stating casualties does not tell the whole story, if the British had had to capture any of the objectives mentioned in 30 minutes, to win the 'game', the battles would have had far greater casualties.

I'll wait until the DAR is finished and the butchers bill is revealed but I will once more urge a side by side mini game using identical maps and forces but using both systems

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WillLight:

As to ASL being more realistic in terms of outcomes, being designed for outcome, I would claim that it's far easier to design a board game for outcomes due to the far reduced variability of situations needing outcome designed for them. So yeah, maybe ASL produces realistic outcomes in a way that a high fidelity game like CMx2 can never hope to, but I know I'd rather play CMx2 any day.

Well, I think JasonC is being a bit... kind to ASL. I am quite sure that ASL produces the same sorts of overly heavy casualty game results that CM and all other wargames produce. ASL is also full of "gamey" stuff that absolutely isn't accurate from a historical standpoint.

Dan/california,

There are two basic kinds of battles in modern war. The kind where at least one side is not willing to stand and fight, and the kind where both sides are unquestionably willing to stand and fight.

Absolutely. Using JasonC's line of reasoning, US Army units should just use paper and dice for training instead of getting out and doing highly realistic training. Why spend the money on maintaining NTC if really all you need is a couple of pieces of colored paper with some cardboard cutouts on it?

In real life it the NTC tests combat units in ways that no other form of wargaming to match. It's as "engineered" as you can possibly get, because the real equipment, communications protocols, doctrine, and of course soldiers are all there for real. Very few of these units come out of NTC with anything other than catastrophic losses, yet in the invasion of Iraq or Gulf War 1 these units suffered very few casualties against much larger opponents. So what gives? Fatal flaws in the NTC's engineered wargaming system? No, the "problem" is that the OPFOR at NTC is there to simulate the worst nightmare.

At NTC the OPFOR don't give up after the first shot is fired. They don't stay off the battlefield and instead go home to hide. They don't mill around disorganized because they have no comms with their HQ. They don't lose 90% of their heavy equipment before they even see their first American ground unit. Etc. They don't have leadership problems, they don't lack experienced NCOs, they don't weigh 20% less than their American counterpart due to a poor diet, they don't have cultural issues which interfere with being good soldiers... so on and so forth.

So what happens at NTC is the hapless US Army unit going in for training gets chewed up and spit out (usually) by an enemy that is probably more experienced and better trained than they are. Despite the fact that a real world matchup generally wouldn't happen like that.

NTC is a game. Combat Mission is a game. Both have solid simulations and behave accordingly given player input. Constrict these games to the same shackles of real life and the results might well be the same. Certainly there are plenty of CM:SF battles that can be won by Blue and yet only take a couple of casualties. But I don't think anybody here would want their gaming experience to be limited to just those types of battles. It's not a failure of the simulation if the players differently than their historical counterparts behaved. Well, unless the point of the simulation was to produce only those results, but as Moon said... that's not a game any more.

There is a subset of the all in, usually between mismatched forces where mass surrender accounts for most of the losing sides casualties. Goose Green was one of these in the end. The Brits got into a position to start killing them in job lots and the Argentines gave up.

Quite right. This is something that JasonC is over looking. Battles are a single known outcome of a great many variables. If one could go back in time and "replay" a battle things might have turned out entirely differently with even one variable changed. When you play a game you do get to change those variables. ESPECIALLY if you know in advance something about the battle. For example, who here would play a Villers Bocage battle as the Brits just like the Brits played it in real life? So no, I don't think there are many wargames out there that routinely (as played) produce similar historical results as specific battles because if only one outcome was possible... why would anybody play? It's like the nOoBs who sometimes post here and say they don't see the point in playing a TACTICAL battle because "the Germans lost the war, so what's the point?"

Steve

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The point with a designed-for-effect system is that you can only have designed-in parameters.

When you try and stretch the parameters to more closely resemble the real world they break down - otherwise they'd become massively unwieldy. Unit behind 1 tree, use rule 1, behind 2, rule 1 twice, with angle 1 twice * rule 2 etc.

So it's not "prefect engineered" solutions that are the problem, it's imperfect ones. And they will *always* be imperfect - but getting better.

CM tries to simulate high-intensity, balls-out battle - and IMO it does it better than anything else. The fundamentals are there, the majority of the parameters, and BFC are working on what they can.

If they were real men under the same orders I think you'd find an 80% tally with reality. It's just no-one gives the orders we give (bar possibly the Soviets early WWII) as they have force preservation, logistics and writing letters to worry about.

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Furthermore, if I am remembering correctly that Normandy has exit zones, so units can leave the map. It will now be possible to simulate a battle where one or both sides are not playing to their last chip. Just tweak the casualty points and allow one side to achieve victory even if they abandon the field, as long as they kill X percentage of the other side and keep Y percentage of their force in fighting shape.

By the way if exit zones could make it into the last patch for CMSF that would be fantastic. I realize it is also probably overly optimistic. The Syrians would really like the option. ;)

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If they were real men under the same orders I think you'd find an 80% tally with reality. It's just no-one gives the orders we give (bar possibly the Soviets early WWII) as they have force preservation, logistics and writing letters to worry about.

This is not necessarily true.

When I first started playing CMSF, I got high casualties. Way higher than the US sustained in real life. As the engine improved, and as my own tactical ability improved, my casualty count became in line far more with what was expected in real life.

The recent NATO campaigns basically force you to have less than 15% casualties or you get heavily penalized, force you to conserve ammo, and all your units are core, so any casualties you sustain follow on to the next missions. So they force you to adopt proper real life tactics. I use smoke like never before, I never move infantry around without suppressive fires, I never cross firing lanes without or cover, I don't drive vehicles around willy nilly without considering terrain.

The AI suffers unrealistic casualties, not because of an inherent flaw in the simulation, but because it not capable of using real life tactics. However, the AI's ability to preserve itself is considerably greater than what it used to be (like I mentioned in my earlier post), and I expect it to be even better in CM:Normandy.

This is actually a testament to the strength of the new engine. It can produce realistic results if you use realistic tactics, and it still produces realistic results if you use poor tactics.

The two major constraints of the game are: Unrealistic Time Limits. This is a CMSF issue purely installed by scenario designers for the sole purpose of making the game challenging, since the engine supports up to 4 hours now, and the lack of strategic vision by the enemy AI. In many cases in real life the AI would just withdraw instead of fight to the death, but that is beyond the scope of the game.

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I agree with JasonC on the lethality issue for infantry -- the number of casualties and the aggressiveness of infantry have always seemed excessive relative to what I'd expect in RL. At one point a year or two ago I was throwing up my hands in disgust at the game for this reason.

However, as CMSF has continued to patch and tweak the engine, I have since come to believe that a few custom tweaks plus robust scenario AND map design can take the edge off the lethality and allow reasonable replication of real world combat outcomes and challenges while also delivering a great gaming experience. Not perfect, sure, but pretty damn good.

The following are the key adjustment levers I employ:

1. Fewer windows/blind walls on buildings and put high compound walls around them. This makes units in the building less vulnerable to multiple suppressive/killing fires and forces the attacker to maneuver to get fire angles. And when things do get too hot they can retreat to the ground floor to rally.

2. In populated areas, lots of knocked out parked cars soak up bullets real well at ground level. And they sometimes catch fire, reducing LOS still further (and creating a nice battlefield atmosphere). Other doodads don't work nearly as well.

3. Lots of small and medium "shellholes" in open areas simulate the concept that men under fire are VERY good at quickly finding cover and decreasing their casualty rates after the first few shots. I still find annoyance at infantry's tendency to go to ground and cower in the kill zone when cover lies in the next Action Spot, but the problem is much improved. And a lot of this is a function of being careful with men in the open.

4. Lower motivation levels for squad infantry on both sides so they cower more readily and for longer instead of pouring on the rooty-toot. SW/MG teams would not be so reduced.

5. Extend scenario time limits, as DaveDash noted, to remove one incentive to rush things along and subject the pixeltruppen to damn fool risks no RL soldier would take. If a gamer lacks patience and wants instant gratification he can pay the price for that.

There are other tweaks as well, but they are all part of the existing toolkit. And CMBN looks like it offers even more goodies.

No matter what you are going to get a few pixeltruppen dying of dumb now and then, like Jon's snipers. But that doesn't invalidate the entire game or simulation experience. Pretend a stray mortar round landed on them. Or they actually ran away.

FWIW.

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Nice post LongLeftFlank. I do agree that lethality in CMSF in the earlier days was the biggest killer of the suspension of disbelief for me, and let's be honest, some issues still remain.

The biggest killers in CMSF I have noticed is A) movement with infantry, its quite possible to lose a man to some guy with an AK-47 at 400m when running around, and B) Rooftops and balconies are still death traps. Balconies in particular need some remodelling so the balcony isn't an area troops can walk onto, because moving out onto them is just asking to die.

I'd also be happy with a general level of 'tweak' for the abstract amount of cover in the game to be bumped up, especially in buildings, and accuracy to be reduced for the lowest experience troops.

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Jon's snipers were not the weak link in that chain... :D

There are tons of factors that go into higher casualties (infantry and vehicle alike) that have nothing to do with the simulate itself. Sometimes it is the sort of stuff listed above, such as map issues, but sometimes it's just that the defender doesn't care about surviving to the next battle. There is time compression problems inherent in wargames, and the interrelated other problems such as Player As God and knowing game parameters that help make decisions that no force would have in real life. These are simple reflections of game limitations. A really good game seeks to minimize these, as have all CM games. CMx2 goes even further in this regard and will go further still in the future.

Steve

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Alright, as long as my namesake has been mentioned I feel the need to point out that ASL and SL didn't track casualties at all. You had a squad and the squad was either good order, broken, or pinned (heroic, berzerk). In order to eliminate a squad the squad had to break twice. Did they all die? Who knows. The squad basically stopped functioning as a cohesive unit.

Did ASL do infantry combat well? I think so, given the limitations of using cardboard truppen. However, using that as a basis to compare casualties in Combat Mission is pretty much baseless since no casualties are tracked in ASL or SL. I have a great deal of experience playing both ASL and Combat Mission, and I can say without hesitation that CMx2 does infantry combat just as well or better than ASL does. I've even converted ASL scenarios directly into CMx1 and with a lot of tweaking I was able to get similar results to how the scenarios play out in ASL. I haven't had the pleasure of converting anything over in CMx2 though, but I'm confident that the conversions would work out even better than with CMx1. Comparing armored combat isn't even close - it's Combat Mission hands down. It's not even close.

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Alright, as long as my namesake has been mentioned I feel the need to point out that ASL and SL didn't track casualties at all. You had a squad and the squad was either good order, broken, or pinned (heroic, berzerk). In order to eliminate a squad the squad had to break twice. Did they all die? Who knows. The squad basically stopped functioning as a cohesive unit.

As a fellow ASL vet I want to second this opinion and state that basically everything ASL did was in the abstract. I mean, come on, all fire attacks against infantry fudged to fit the IFT (or IIFT :))?

What was more than a bit remarkable was how it all fit together. Oh and what Steve described as gamey (and I'm sure he is referring to critical hits, Heat of Battle, snipers and the like) I called chrome and enjoyed immensely.

Ahhh...but that was then and this is now. Viva CMx2 and may we be able to pre-order soon!

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"Gamey" is how people use the component pieces given to them. How many ASL battles were influenced by player made fires? I'm no ASL player but this is something that I remember coming up a few times. Is starting a fire "gamey"? No, but when it starts to be considered as a standard tactic it does. And to the degree it is used is the degree it is "gamey". In CMx1 it was misusing Jeeps ("Gamey Jeep Recon" as it was called) or overusing units like SMG squads. Every game has stuff like that.

My point was not to debase ASL/SL, but to say the same things you two just did... designing for effect is only as good as the effects designed. With the necessary limits on people's personal time, attention span, interest in reading rules during a game, doing math, etc. there's only so much that can be done. Which is why computer based wargames were amongst the very first games ever made for computers.

Steve

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