Coop VS AI?

[boka]

Will this game feature 2 player versus AI capability?

[MikeyD]

It will if you two are sitting side -by-side sharing the keyboard.

[womble]

There have been ways described, I think, of passing half-completed game files between players to add more orders. It's been oft-stated by BF that co-op play 'proper' is a metric long ton of work and won't be in BN, though it's on their list of features to add in the future. Their very long list.

[boka]

That's such a shame, because in my opinion you're hard pressed to get gameplay of the same quality anywhere else, and in Theatre of War the AI is straight up retarded if played against in a coop setting :/

[dkchapuis]

Co-play has always been the feature I most wanted in the new engine. More important than new graphics, 1:1, real time.

Any chance in one of the cmbn modules?

[dieseltaylor]

What I don't understand is why people might prefer playing the AI rather than each other. Winning or losing to a computer means nothing to me - but then perhaps I like humans and playing mind games too much.

[boka]

To me it's just a habit; out of the games I play a vast majority of them are coop games, say for instance Company of Heroes with the Blitzkrieg mod is what I currently play.

I think for me the teamplay is kind of the essence of it, I enjoy playing as a team with my friend far more than I enjoy playing against him.

[womble]

What I don't understand is why people might prefer playing the AI rather than each other. Winning or losing to a computer means nothing to me - but then perhaps I like humans and playing mind games too much.

Not everyone is competitive. I've always preferred to play in a team of humans vs the AI, with 'appropriate' handicaps (overwhelming numbers in RTS's, or no human handicap at all in FPSs cos I r rubish at FPS) to create a challenge.

That said, I think the CM community is of the kind where I'd be happy to get involved in HvH games, as the attitude seems less sociopathic than the Internet norm. I'll still want to get to grips with the mechanics and such vs the AI, before inflicting my nubity on a human opponent.

[Schrullenhaft]

"Any chance in one of the cmbn modules?"

No. The modules typically will not add game play features. They will add content/units, scenarios and campaigns, but not major game play features.

I suspect that "co-op" and "multi-multi-player" are a long ways off in terms of development. I'm fairly certain we will be beyond the next family of games (West Front/Bulge Oct/Nov '44-'45); possibly beyond the first East Front game and probably beyond CMSF2 (or whatever the next modern game may be called) before such a feature is coded up.

[boka]

That's a real shame, although I can appreciate how much work it'd be to get this into the game. Looks like I'm going to keep having to turn to other locales for that then

[ClarkWGriswold]

Even the CMx1 games let you play with more than one person per side. You just can't play against the AI this way. But it's relatively trivial to setup a PBEM game with 2-on-1 or 2-on-2 play.

[Tactical Wargamer]

"Any chance in one of the cmbn modules?"

No. The modules typically will not add game play features. They will add content/units, scenarios and campaigns, but not major game play features.

I suspect that "co-op" and "multi-multi-player" are a long ways off in terms of development. I'm fairly certain we will be beyond the next family of games (West Front/Bulge Oct/Nov '44-'45); possibly beyond the first East Front game and probably beyond CMSF2 (or whatever the next modern game may be called) before such a feature is coded up.

Surprising. It seems to be in more and more games. Paradox is a big believer in Coop strategy games. I think you might miss the boat on this in the future. Oh well the list is long and one does have to prioritize.

[boka]

Surprising. It seems to be in more and more games. Paradox is a big believer in Coop strategy games. I think you might miss the boat on this in the future. Oh well the list is long and one does have to prioritize.

As rightly they should; in my opinion strategy is most fun when shared. Say for instance that I want to do a weapons support role, supporting by artillery and mortar fire while my friends men get slaughtered in the trenches... So much fun

[Markus86]

For me this is the most wanted feature, too. I don't like playing against friends, but with friends (in realtime). Hopefully it will be in one of the addons, or in a sequel.

[dkchapuis]

I suspect that "co-op" and "multi-multi-player" are a long ways off in terms of development. I'm fairly certain we will be beyond the next family of games (West Front/Bulge Oct/Nov '44-'45); possibly beyond the first East Front game and probably beyond CMSF2 (or whatever the next modern game may be called) before such a feature is coded up.

I sure hope that isnt correct.

I would like to see the list of features that would add more to the game than co-play would. For me I dont think there is one (and before anybody goes loco, I know they arent making the game just for me).

But seriously, what other game play features would you rather have than co-play.

I can think of a short list of necessities for a Bulge game:

- snow, ice, etc

I guess it is a very short list.

[Tactical Wargamer]

Well a WEGO TCP/IP or a pause key in RT so players don't have to have 4 hands to play the game re. click fest IMHO

[yllamana]

Cooperative play is my #1 most desired feature too. Honestly, it's very hard (or impossible) to sell the game to friends when there's no way for us to play together. Whether that's against the computer or other people, the rest of the game being awesome doesn't matter if there's no way to play that they're very interested in.

Of course, for good coop the AI not being as dumb as a brick would probably help too. In a CMSF campaign mission the other day I fought the computer into a surrender, then looked at the map and saw a full-strength, full ammo enemy ATGM team dutifully covering the 8m between the building they were in and the computer's edge of the map. Really, guys?

But yes, coop play (or at least some kind of team-based play) would do more than literally any other feature in getting my friends to pick up the game. Yes, it's more important than whatever 10 major game features or 100 bugfixes you care to name. There's just no reason for them to care about the game enough to spend $60 (or whatever) on it if there's no game mode they'd want to play.

It wouldn't have to have something like divided-up troops or anything. For all I care it could just let everyone on each side control all the troops and let you just split up platoons yourself if you wanted ("I'll control 1st Platoon, you control 2nd Platoon and the company HQ?"). But it needs a way to play with friends, and it needs to be something that uses TCP/IP, because I'll be damned if any game we play requires us to email turns to play coop.

And yes, it also needs the pause key or real WeGo in MP.

[Narsus]

How would a pause key even work in a RT head on multiplayer games, I can't think of something more frustrating than getting some guy that pauses the game every minute....

maybe if the game gave out so many pauses per game to each player, that lasted so long, that could work I guess, kinda like football

[yllamana]

How would a pause key even work in a RT head on multiplayer games, I can't think of something more frustrating than getting some guy that pauses the game every minute....

maybe if the game gave out so many pauses per game to each player, that lasted so long, that could work I guess, kinda like football

I was very surprised to read and still feel like I must have missed it somewhere and its really there, but no WEGO TCP/IP?

It would just let a player pause the game when they want, and then both players would have to unpause to resume, probably, with a very brief countdown? It'd be easily abused, but I think the main recourse there would be to not play with that person. With people who didn't it'd be invaluable in non-tiny games.

There's no WeGo TCP/IP. There's still WeGo single player and PBEM. Battlefront have said that they might be able to provide TCP/IP WeGo without playback at some point (though I'm not sure that would be for CMBN), but it seems to me that no playback is sort of missing part of what makes WeGo so awesome, the being able to watch the same action from a lot of different views. I'm sure many people feel differently though! I would go for real time pause instead, I think.

Coop is most important though! (staying on-message)

[dkchapuis]

How would a pause key even work in a RT head on multiplayer games, I can't think of something more frustrating than getting some guy that pauses the game every minute....

maybe if the game gave out so many pauses per game to each player, that lasted so long, that could work I guess, kinda like football

Age of empires had a 'maximum pauses' setting so that you could limit the pause-unpause battle. Seems pretty straight forward.

[Tactical Wargamer]

How would a pause key even work in a RT head on multiplayer games, I can't think of something more frustrating than getting some guy that pauses the game every minute....

maybe if the game gave out so many pauses per game to each player, that lasted so long, that could work I guess, kinda like football

Hey I'm all for coop play!! Kinda slow though with PBEM which unless your really good at RT it's is the only option. Coop play in PBEM is extremely slow I have found IMHO. Doable but frustratingly slow.

Re. RT games....

There are various ways of have timed pauses or # of pauses per game etc or adding a number of variable time scales. Allows one to slow things down when it gets really harry

[13]

Same here for coop play as the #1 feature. Unfortunately, they've already pretty much said no to this, so, boo.

I actually had a few guys in my platoon ask about the game. Told them about it, let them see it in action, etc. The thing that deterred most of them was not being able to play alongside each other. It's so much more fun discussing strategy, and trying things with friends, than playing against them, only having the after action to discuss what happened. But, they're happy playing MoW:Assault Squad right now. Ha.