Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy Video AAR

[Cull]

Observations of the first video from a CM:SF vet:

AI vehicles still bunch up at one action spot, just as they do in CM:SF, creating a bit of a cluster phuck.

Bailed tank crews do not seem to seek sensible cover, just as they don't in CM:SF. I saw one american crew in the first video run across a field toward woods and enemy troops, when they could have gone the other direction into a hedgerow.

These two items from your list bug me the most, but I'll deal with it.

The first one is just such a long-standing issue that it feels like it should be fixed by now. Clearly it's not easy or it would've been, but I assumed (yeah, I know) CMx2 would do it. I didn't play Shock Force but was surprised to hear that the issue was still around.

The second one....I don't know....it seems that if a crew has to bail, 95% of the time (the other 5% being random mechanical mishaps, bogging, etc) it means that the vehicle has taken a pounding and is inoperable or defenseless and, often, that there are WIA/KIA (or at least "stunned"/"shocked" crew members).

If those are indeed true, then in my mind the crew should bail in a "broken" state, run for the nearest cover, and go to ground. And I don't know of any situation in which they should move toward a (known/spotted) enemy, except maybe if (to use the old Squad Leader terminology again) they've gone "berserk"; that being very rare.

That's just my take on it; I could be way off and I certainly don't have an appreciation for the difficulty of coding it.

And now for the positives, because I haven't yet:

It looks very, very good. I wasn't sure at first watching the low-res version but I've looked at the screenshots (oh...five, six times) and I was pretty confident. Probably goes without saying that the Normandy setting simply highlights the visuals of CMx2 better than the Syrian setting could. The brief glimpses I got of arty impacts, buildings collapsing, vegetation moving, etc were magnificent.

From what I could tell, the AI seems far better than the CMx1 version, as expected.

Sounds are very impressive (well, except the recycled voices , but that's a non-issue).

Anyway, well done all! Can't wait to get me grubby mits on it.

forget what I said and (re)read what BloodyBucket just said

[Guest]

I'm not a programmer, and I have no idea if all of the physics calculations involved in creating historical outcomes has a major effect, but I can't help be disappointed by the graphical quality. I just have to wonder: if Company of Heroes came out 5 years ago, why can't CMBfN look even half as good as that? It's certainly a step up from CMx1, but I think there's still something severely lacking in the graphics department. It just looks like it was made by amateurs.

I'm not saying I could do better, and I'll probably enjoy the game regardless, but always in the back of my mind I'll be thinking "damn, I wish this was on the CoH graphics engine..."

The CoH graphics engine maxes out at a couple hundred men, tops, and nowhere near that many on screen. I know, I've tried it. Combat Mission supports far larger, more dynamic battlefields, and much larger numbers of troops. A test scenario I was using this morning had five companies of infantry assaulting across a river - and that's medium-sized. That's something like 600-700 men, and I can get all of them on screen at once. Try that with CoH. It won't work - they're designed for completely different things.

To top it off, you're aware that CoH had a budget of tens of millions of dollars, and had dozens of programmers and artists working on it, right?

I would say: try the game yourself. This is a Youtube video, of the game played very fast, taken from a high level. Play the demo. I think you'll find that the game looks pretty damned good when you're down on the ground playing it.

[Barkhorn1x]

I'm not a programmer, and I have no idea if all of the physics calculations involved in creating historical outcomes has a major effect, but I can't help be disappointed by the graphical quality. I just have to wonder: if Company of Heroes came out 5 years ago, why can't CMBfN look even half as good as that? It's certainly a step up from CMx1, but I think there's still something severely lacking in the graphics department. It just looks like it was made by amateurs.

I'm not saying I could do better, and I'll probably enjoy the game regardless, but always in the back of my mind I'll be thinking "damn, I wish this was on the CoH graphics engine..."

...and Company of Heroes is a more accurate a simulation of WWII combat than CMBN could ever hope to be.

Oh wait. No it's not. It's an arcady POS, isn't it? Why yes it is and all the great eye candy in the world can't hide that fact.

Sorry bud, if eye candy is all you are looking for then this is not the game for you.

[ClarkWGriswold]

Yeh, sometimes it does seem that the Sheldon Cooper charater from "The Big Bang Theory" likes to post to this discussion group.

We nit pick because we care. It's the people who don't care enough to bother that you have to worry about, because they're the ones who will have moved on to the next Call of Duty game in two months time. The nitpickers are the guys who stick around and, generally, contribute to the community.

[SNAFU]

We nit pick because we care. It's the people who don't care enough to bother that you have to worry about, because they're the ones who will have moved on to the next Call of Duty game in two months time. The nitpickers are the guys who stick around and, generally, contribute to the community.

Or at the very least, give others something amusing to read.

[ClarkWGriswold]

During the second game tyrspawn mentions (at 1:00:00) that the two squads in the center are "about to retreat and are wavering". How do you know? It's hard to tell from jthe video, but I didn't see any telltale signs in the UI and couldn't see any obvious casualties. (I've only played the CMSF demo once, so I'm a noob to this UI).

[Jaws]

What is MSR and ASR? Was thinking Main Line of Resistance or something like that?

MSR Main Supply Route

ASR http://www.acronymfinder.com/ASR.html ;p

[Battlefront.com]

I'm not a programmer, and I have no idea if all of the physics calculations involved in creating historical outcomes has a major effect, but I can't help be disappointed by the graphical quality. I just have to wonder: if Company of Heroes came out 5 years ago, why can't CMBfN look even half as good as that?

Give us a few tens of millions of development dollars, a mandate to make a completely crappy simulation, and limit it to about company size... I am sure we could do a lot better.

It's certainly a step up from CMx1, but I think there's still something severely lacking in the graphics department. It just looks like it was made by amateurs.

What do you do for work? I bet if I saw your job performance I could probably rate you "incompetent amateur" if I compared whatever you do out of context. So unless you're a Wolfgang Puck or Bill Gates of whatever you do, you should be EXTREMELY cautious about throwing stones.

The truth is that we probably have more professional experience making wargames than the CoH team has making RTS games. What we don't have is tens of millions of Dollars and the freedom to make a game that is all fluff and no substance.

I'm not saying I could do better, and I'll probably enjoy the game regardless, but always in the back of my mind I'll be thinking "damn, I wish this was on the CoH graphics engine..."

And I wish all our customers had a flipp'n clue what they were talking about before they criticize. So let's just call it even.

Steve

[Baneman]

During the second game tyrspawn mentions (at 1:00:00) that the two squads in the center are "about to retreat and are wavering". How do you know? It's hard to tell from jthe video, but I didn't see any telltale signs in the UI and couldn't see any obvious casualties. (I've only played the CMSF demo once, so I'm a noob to this UI).

Just guessing, but when I watched the vid, it seemed as though the icon above the units in question was flashing - that might be the indicator...

[Rocky Balboa]

Kwazy dog, I don't think think your last post is relevant, it's not whether the tank is completely Ko'd its the fact that something that rarely happened in real life, happend twice in the same scenario that sets my alarm bells ringing.

The germans awarded the tank destruction badge in recocnition of the fact that it is a feat that is well out of the ordinary and takes a lot of luck and a brave man to accomplish. Out of all the photos of the wermacht you see, you only rarely see this decoration on the sleeve of a soldier and that is awarded for the singlehanded destruction of a tank by satchel charge, grenade bundle and panzerfaust or any hand held explosive. I stick by my original statement a single grenade taking out a tank, is pure John wayne stuff, twice in the same scenario is worrying, cheers.

Regardless of what happened to that tank in the video and we wont really know until we get the game in our hands, but the truth is that armor close assaulting dismounted infantry as we saw in the video is just a bad idea. In most real world situations, if a tank puts itself in that position with no infantry support of its own to protect it, its going to get taken out.

Based on what I saw, this appears to be correctly simulated in the game. If anything needs to be adjusted in the game, its the AI logic that allows tank commanders to just drive up to dismounted infantry without any suppression fire.

Infantry taking out tanks with greandes, MC, satchel charges or whatever didn't happen that frequently because tank commanders didn't get close enough to dismounted infantry to let it happen. Why do you need to get close when you can just stand back and pound with HE or MG fire right?

[Battlefront.com]

During the second game tyrspawn mentions (at 1:00:00) that the two squads in the center are "about to retreat and are wavering". How do you know? It's hard to tell from jthe video, but I didn't see any telltale signs in the UI and couldn't see any obvious casualties. (I've only played the CMSF demo once, so I'm a noob to this UI).

There's a "feel" for things that develops as the game unfolds. This is based on things like how well units respond to your commands, if they pack up and relocate to another spot without orders, curled up and not firing back, etc. To me, this sort of stuff (which is hard to be specific about) is the #1 way to know what your guys are/aren't capable of.

However, "feel" isn't the only way. You can see things in the UI like casualties, Morale state, Suppression, etc. and draw conclusions from that. Trust me, when a unit starts to become brittle you'll know soon enough. After a while you'll be able to get a sense of how close a unit is to breaking.

Another method is to just be intuitive about it. If you have a platoon up in a line and 2 Squads break, it's probable that the 3rd Squad is pretty close to breaking as well. Not that there isn't a lot of variation and dependencies based on unit attributes, because there is, but because the law of averages is a very good thing to use as a basis for decision making.

Steve

[MikeyD]

I hope people realize an 'ideal' camera height for conducting realtime gameplay is not the ideal height for you-are-there immersion. Compare this video to the screenshots - they're exactly the same game. Except at ground level you see the wood grain on the rifle stock, the soldiers' fingernails on their fingers, the crack in that cottage windowpane. If you're judging the graphics based on a super-compressed youtube film shot entirely at level 3 you might as well be complaining about how small the soldiers look too.

[Battlefront.com]

In most real world situations, if a tank puts itself in that position with no infantry support of its own to protect it, its going to get taken out.

...

Infantry taking out tanks with greandes, MC, satchel charges or whatever didn't happen that frequently because tank commanders didn't get close enough to dismounted infantry to let it happen. Why do you need to get close when you can just stand back and pound with HE or MG fire right?

Thanks for making the point I was going to make a few minutes before I did Whenever someone compares the game environment to real life one must be VERY careful to make adjustments for:

1. Small sampling of any one particular instance in a particular game with broad real world generalizations.

2. Situations within the game that are necessarily artificial because, when it boils down to it, it is a game.

An example of this is something like playing a game where a Jagdtiger takes out a whole company of Shermans before it's ammo supply runs out. Someone could say "hey, that's totally unrealistic! The most number of Shermans a Jagdtiger took out was 2. The game is broken". No, the game isn't broken. It's just that in real life a Jagdtiger crew never found itself in such a totally advantageous matchup against an American Commander who was sitting behind a computer screen issuing orders to make believe Shermans. Just like people who play as Wittmann in a CM game and then complain when they got knocked out in the first 3 minutes due to a lucky shot. There's nothing wrong with that sort of result, despite what someone expects of it from a historical standpoint.

There are tons of things in Combat Mission (of any flavor) that don't translate out well to the real world. Sometimes it's understandable and obvious, sometimes not. Sometimes there is something we can do about it, sometimes not. Often times what needs to be done isn't obvious to the player, but in this case Rocky Balboa had it right when he said that what should be improved is the AI's handling of tanks, not the simulation of close combat against tanks. As everybody here should know, AI will never be as smart as a Human player, unfortunately.

Steve

[panzermartin]

I think this is the best looking CM game so far. The comment above is a bit harsh. I'm a graphic junkie but I find the overall look very pleasing. Trees are improved compared to CMSF, the pallete is very nice and the visuals have that clean, realistic quality without overdone blurs, glares that make most FPS/wargames look like produced from the same faceless multinational.

Colors are great, the weathered roofs, the brown roads, the grass (always hard to achieve a good looking green). So no, not an amateur work by an means.

That being said, If the WW2 series hopefuly produce enough cash to invest more on the visual department, I would ultimately like to see some better SFX. Smoke, explosions, hit/damage on tanks, fire etc.

[Battlefront.com]

There's a long list of visual effects we would like to add. From a technical standpoint many of them are straight forward and won't likely impact framerates. What they do impact is our ability to put in other game features that people are looking forward to. Some of these, like flame throwers, are actually a combination of both graphics and gameplay requirements.

Steve

[ChrisND]

RE: this whole grenades vs. tanks thing. Can someone point out the offending time stamp where this occurs? I didn't see anything that couldn't be explained by PFs or panzerschrecks.

[Boche]

RE: this whole grenades vs. tanks thing. Can someone point out the offending time stamp where this occurs? I didn't see anything that couldn't be explained by PFs or panzerschrecks.

+1, i was searching for it when I saw the video but all kills that we saw seem to have been made by Pz or Pfs

[Battlefront.com]

I think the Pzschreck hits were pretty easy to see, but ND is correct that Panzerfaust hits aren't. Well, at least from a passive video audience standpoint.

Each German Squad generally has 2 Panzerfausts. Sometimes more, sometimes less. They can be lost in combat too. However, this theoretically means Chris' infantry had the ability to take out about 12 tanks without the need for grenades. The US player didn't even have 12 tanks IIRC, so it is statistically possible that 100% of the Sherman's tanks were taken out by either the Panther, a Panzerschreck, or Panzerfaust and 0% by grenades or rifle grenades.

Steve

[Frankster65]

What's most gratifying to me is seeing the scenarios play out like little stories. That's what made CMBO such an addicting game.

I think the nit-picking about grenades and bailed crews, besides being what gamers do by nature, is result of the great storytelling ability of the game. The downside to the huge leaps the graphics have made since CMBO may be a foray into the "uncanny valley". CMBO was kind of a cartoon of those tactical board games I loved come to life. Little things could be fudged and it wasn't so jarring.

This looks to be so close to an actual film that any little deviations from what each gamer perceives as realistic is going to be pounced on, because when things get that close to looking real that's what the mind does.

What a great time to be a gamer!

Very well said sir! Two thumbs up!

[ChrisND]

All in all I am very pleased.

The AI arty may need some work. There seemed to be a complete lack of it in scenario number one, maybe by design. There were some mortar barrages in the second scenario but poorly placed by the AI. Maybe this is the best it can be within the limitations of the AI, I don't know.

Pete

It sometimes does it well, and sometimes not. The AI surprised me once in Closing the Pocket when it landed a 105mm barrage on my German FO in the woodline! Playing as the US vs. the Germans, it also does quite an effective smoke screen as well, and it's pretty good about calling in more on the town.

If you see arty falling in open ground somewhere, it's likely a fire mission going awry and not a badly selected target.

[stikkypixie]

RE: this whole grenades vs. tanks thing. Can someone point out the offending time stamp where this occurs? I didn't see anything that couldn't be explained by PFs or panzerschrecks.

It seems they used rifle grenades.

[ChrisND]

I think the Pzschreck hits were pretty easy to see, but ND is correct that Panzerfaust hits aren't. Well, at least from a passive video audience standpoint.

This was leading into my point actually. People lament and wonder why you guys don't release videos and screenies earlier. Well Exhibit A: just look at the whole grenades vs tank thing going on here. Based on pretty much no information there's already calls that stuff is broken! It's possible that Tyrspawn is mistaken about what hit it, it's possible that it was a lucky and rare shot... but for some, nope, broken. FWIW, I've never seen a tank get actually KO'd by a grenade (the crew freaking and bailing is a different matter), and I've played this quite a bit.

[Bridger15]

The CoH graphics engine maxes out at a couple hundred men, tops, and nowhere near that many on screen. I know, I've tried it. Combat Mission supports far larger, more dynamic battlefields, and much larger numbers of troops. A test scenario I was using this morning had five companies of infantry assaulting across a river - and that's medium-sized. That's something like 600-700 men, and I can get all of them on screen at once. Try that with CoH. It won't work - they're designed for completely different things.

Oh wow, I wasn't aware that scale was possible. That would certainly explain a lot!

To top it off, you're aware that CoH had a budget of tens of millions of dollars, and had dozens of programmers and artists working on it, right?

Of course. Guess I'm spoiled

I would say: try the game yourself. This is a Youtube video, of the game played very fast, taken from a high level. Play the demo. I think you'll find that the game looks pretty damned good when you're down on the ground playing it.

I already preordered, I was just thinking out loud.

[Barkhorn1x]

I already preordered, ...

"Good boy CrapGame."

[Stndrtnfhr]

I got "stuck" watching the whole thing. I meant to just look at it a little, you know... to make sure it was good, but wound up watching the whole dang'd thing EVEN THOUGH I've played both of those scenarios. I guess that's a good sign? Chris did a great job!

It's really difficult to find solid data on the overpressure problems, but we decided that it even the Panzerfaust was probably too much for the average building. In theory the defenders could spend considerable time destroying the house in a way that would allow the overpressure to be minimized, but that isn't something we can simulate. So we do not allow firing from within buildings.

Modern Squad level AT weapons are usually capable of firing from within confined spaces. Consider this 50 years of advances in technology. The Javelin, for example, has a special feature which is called a "soft launch", which ejects the missile with minimum force, then the main motor kicks in outside of the enclosed space. Otherwise the crew would be killed.

Grenades used to knock out tanks could be either AT rifle grenades or well placed potato mashers. Throw one or two on the back deck of a tank and you will most likely knock it out. There's almost no armor and also lots of vents for shrapnel to get in. At the ranges seen in the first video, knockouts from regular hand grenades is quite possible.

Steve

Gentlemen,

I can tell you from experience that Battlefront has this almost exactly correct. My credentials: 28 years of active service as an Officer of Marines, and three tours in Iraq. It comes down to the size of the propellant charge. The Panzerfaust 100 and Panzer Schreck are absolutely too large to fire in confined space. The Panzerfaust 30 could be used with a reasonable affect on the firing unit. The Panzerfaust 60 will definitely have a supressive affect on the squad, and is at the outer limit of what could be fired from a building.

As a company grade officer we tested firing the LAAW, a 66mm light AT rocket, in a confined space, ONCE! It was something not allowed in training after the test and was only "approved" for use in combat under extreme conditions.

Now, this may be a modelling issue of all or nothing from the game stand point, I do not know if the game has the ability to designate allowing the different Panzerfaust models to be used in buildings. Only Battlefront can answer that.

S/F

Stndrtnfhr