Battle for Normandy Beta AAR 3

thewood

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One of the reasons they need to abandon RT. They tried to go for the larger audience. I'd like to see some official polling on their forum to see how well that was done rather than the phantom demographics they apparently rely on. If they're going to go back to what they do well, then go all the way back. I think reliance on real time is just going to hold them back from fully implementing the best product possible, since there will always be compromises between what is best for WEGO and best for RT.
I've been sayng that for almost four years. WEGO was sacrificed on the altar of RT. They have brought it back somewhat, but think of all the stuff left out that could have been put in if they hadn't spent so many resources on RT. If they are going to go RT, license the TOW engine and fix it up.
 

vulture

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But you're also the company commander, who has no ability to transmit an order magically down to every private and have it instantly understood and acted upon. Command delays seem like a decent way to reflect the sheer mechanics or order transmission, receipt and interpretation.

-dale

But that's just the point - you aren't the company commander. Or not exclusively. You are at various times (and simultaneously) the commander of each unit, and each level of the heirarchy up to the total commander of all the forces on the battlefield.

When you are commanding a greyhound armored car to reverse like a bastard because a panther just rolled in to view, you are doing so with your "armored car commander" hat on (like the driver is even going to wait for the order before he gets moving... :) ). A command delay in this circumstance is completely wrong.

When you give the same armored car a movement order to scout over a ridge to gain information to help the movement of an infantry platoon from a completely different formation you are doing it with your "overall commander" hat on - co-ordinating the actions of different units that know nothing about each other or their respective situations. A command delay - a long one - would be realistic in that scenario.

Ordering a tank along a road to get to a village that you have already secured might take a lot of waypoints (and thus suffer a long command delay in CMx1) but be conceptually very ismple and quick to order in real life.

Ordeing a tank up on to a ridge to a hull down position to engage enemy vehicles you expect to roll past unawares below might be do-able with one waypoint and a target arc in CMx1, but would be considerably more complex to convey in real life; just exactly which part of the alley below you want to cover; which part should you be hull down to (and by extenstion, which parts are you fully exposed to and which are still out of LoS).

Command delays, although they provided an interesting game mechanism (and imposed a semi-realistic limitation on low quality troops) just didn't correlate well with what delays would actually be in real life, and didn't account for the fact that you aren't always giving orders whilst wearing the same 'hat'.

All solutions to this problem are unrealistic of course. The pros and cons of command delays vs no command delays are endlessly debatable, beyond the fact that both have pros and cons.
 

vulture

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I've been sayng that for almost four years. WEGO was sacrificed on the altar of RT. They have brought it back somewhat, but think of all the stuff left out that could have been put in if they hadn't spent so many resources on RT. If they are going to go RT, license the TOW engine and fix it up.
OTOH I would more or less agree with this. I don't think it can really be denied that some WeGo functionality was lost (or not added in) because of the need to make things work in real time as well.
 

dalem

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But that's just the point - you aren't the company commander. Or not exclusively. You are at various times (and simultaneously) the commander of each unit, and each level of the heirarchy up to the total commander of all the forces on the battlefield.

-snip good stuff-

All solutions to this problem are unrealistic of course. The pros and cons of command delays vs no command delays are endlessly debatable, beyond the fact that both have pros and cons.
I tend to come down on the "less control" side, and cross my fingers that the game I'm playing has a good enough "TAC AI" or reasonable approximation thereof to handle the combo of "go over thare and look" and "oh crap we're gonna die unless we move right now" situations.

-dale
 

Scott Tortorice

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I played Command and Conquer, Starcraft and Close Combat to death until one day I realised that I was too old for real time. Around 2001. I have tried it again several times in the following years and just can't do it. Taking turns has it's problems too, especially against a human. WEGO is the best compromise for me.
Me, too. :D I notice that I am even getting too slow to play against an easy AI. :cry:

WEGO is CMs magic. It is what separates it from other games and makes it so enjoyable. Like others said, I really don't understand why BF ever pursued RT. The amount of resources they needed to dedicate to making the game work in two distinct modes - TB & RT - must have been significant (there's a reason why nobody does it). It's a tribute to their dedication that they got it to work as well as it does. But still, I don't think it was worth the trouble. If they wanted to expand their base, they should have found a way to get RT players to come up to them rather than taking CM down to the RT players.
 

Michael Dorosh

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Me, too. :D I notice that I am even getting to slow to play against an easy AI. :cry:

WEGO is CMs magic. It is was separates it from other games and makes it so enjoyable. Like others said, I really don't understand why BF ever pursued RT. The amount of resources they needed to dedicate to making the game work in two distinct modes - TB & RT - must have been significant (there's a reason why nobody does it). It's a tribute to their dedication that they got it to work as well as it does. But still, I don't think it was worth the trouble. If they wanted to expand their base, they should have found a way to get RT players to come up to them rather than taking CM down to the RT players.
There is a "conspiracy theory" that BFC was pursuing a U.S. military contract. A real time requirement would be a realistic part of that theory. Close Combat, IIRC, was pursued by the U.S. military as well, and other real time commercially available software has also been used by various militaries, i.e. Steel Beasts, Tac Ops, etc. The only turn-based software I'm aware of being used in a military training setting was the CM:AK version produced specifically for the Australians. Even then I was under the impression it was done more for its historical aspect than its ability to translate real world tactics and decision making from the monitor to the battlefield.
 

wengart

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WEGO is CMs magic. It is what separates it from other games and makes it so enjoyable.
At one point I was of this opinion too and I would hardly ever play RT, but AI isn't good enough for me to warrant the time required to play it WEGO anymore. I mean I can do a 30 minute QB in 30-35 minutes but a 30 minute QB in wego will easily run 45-60 minutes.
 

Caractacus

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Here's a lo-res version of the colorized bocage map from the green books.

View attachment 33316
Oh yeah I'd have had no qualms if he had said that the "vast majority of the US area of operations in Normandy was bocage". But he said that the "vast majority of Normandy was bocage".

If you superimpose your area map over the full map of Normandy as shown here then you'll see it was much less than 50 percent:



I suppose I'm on permanent auto alert on for US-based WFBs who think that the US area of operations = Normandy :mad: :laugh:
 
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Michael Dorosh

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Oh yeah I'd have had no qualms if he had said that the "vast majority of the US area of operations in Normandy was bocage". But he said that the "vast majority of Normandy was bocage".

If you superimpose your area map over the full map of Normandy as shown here then you'll see it was much less than 50 percent:

I suppose I'm on permanent auto alert on for US-based WFBs who think that the US area of operations = Normandy :mad: :laugh:
Ah, but your map includes both Upper Normandy and Lower Normandy.View attachment 33350

Superimposing:

View attachment 33351

Almost all the fighting was confined to Lower Normandy - the Seine was always the long range goal, in fact, it was one of the D+90 objectives laid out by the OVERLORD planners.
 

Caractacus

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LOL.

Upper Normandy + Lower Normandy = Actual Normandy.

Bocage = not 'the vast majority' of Normandy, unlike what captain ignoramus claimed.

It's got nothing to do with where people were fighting, unless he said it had. And he didn't make that distinction.
 
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Elvis

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Bocage = not 'the vast majority' of Normandy, unlike what captain ignoramus claimed.
The guys makes a few hours worth of video AARs where he speaks off the top of his head while playing a game and doesn't make the distinction you do and he is "captain ignoramus". Hhmmmmm.
 

Michael Dorosh

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LOL.

Upper Normandy + Lower Normandy = Actual Normandy.

Bocage = not 'the vast majority' of Normandy, unlike what captain ignoramus claimed.

It's got nothing to do with where people were fighting, unless he said it had. And he didn't make that distinction.
But look again at the sentence you posted:

"vast majority of the US area of operations in Normandy was bocage"

He's correct. He's not saying "all of Normandy was bocage." The very sentence you are posting is simply saying that the majority of territory that the US Army fought through while in Normandy was bocage. It's a subtle distinction. The "U.S. area of operations in Normandy" did not include all of Normandy. That portion of Normandy that did make up its area of operations happened to be almost entirely bocage.
 

Elvis

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But look again at the sentence you posted:

"vast majority of the US area of operations in Normandy was bocage"

He's correct. He's not saying "all of Normandy was bocage." The very sentence you are posting is simply saying that the majority of territory that the US Army fought through while in Normandy was bocage. It's a subtle distinction. The "U.S. area of operations in Normandy" did not include all of Normandy. That portion of Normandy that did make up its area of operations happened to be almost entirely bocage.
You've misread what Caractacus said. He said what "captain ignoramus" should have said was "vast majority of the US area of operations in Normandy was bocage" but what he said was "vast majority of Normandy was bocage". Thus proving he is indeed "captain ignoramus". Promoted from Lt. Ignoramous though...Which is nice. I think.
.
 

Michael Dorosh

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You've misread what Caractacus said. He said what "captain ignoramus" should have said was "vast majority of the US area of operations in Normandy was bocage" but what he said was "vast majority of Normandy was bocage". Thus proving he is indeed "captain ignoramus". Promoted from Lt. Ignoramous though...Which is nice. I think.
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Ah, I stand corrected. Thanks for the clarification.
 
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