Depiction of foxholes in CM: Normandy

TacCovert4

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There is just so much more to discuss in normandy than in syria.

The syria campaigns tend to use mostly mechanized infantry operating in open terrain or MOUT.

Modern ATGMs, on average, kill tanks in 1 hit. LAWs tend to either get a kill, an immob, or no discernable effect. Either way, you're using chemical energy, so no need for the ballistics engine to work itself too hard.

Modern tanks tend to kill each other rather spectacularly.

Modern APCs tend to kill each other slowly with multiple mid-calibre penetrations.

Mobile warfare can be abstracted without foxholes, even though I've never seen a grunt that would sleep in the open or in his vehicle if he was stopped for more than a couple hours.

All of these things, which aren't germane to urban warfare, or armored cavalry clashes in the modern era, are germane to WWII. Therefore there is a lot more to discuss, because there is really a lot more work to be put into even the smallest WWII game than there is in a modern warfare game.
 

Sirocco

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What on earth is the difference between deforming the terrain during the game and deforming it at game setup?
I think he's referring to the "dual model" situation. A shell impact deforms the terrain and it's a clear binary on/off change. With prepared positions the engine has to flip back and forth depending on who's looking at it and whether the attacker had LOS to spot it. Which is something I think we all understand, and we've covered in previous discussions. He seems to be coming at it from a different angle here which just adds confusion.
 

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There is just so much more to discuss in normandy than in syria.

The syria campaigns tend to use mostly mechanized infantry operating in open terrain or MOUT.

Modern ATGMs, on average, kill tanks in 1 hit. LAWs tend to either get a kill, an immob, or no discernable effect. Either way, you're using chemical energy, so no need for the ballistics engine to work itself too hard.

Modern tanks tend to kill each other rather spectacularly.

Modern APCs tend to kill each other slowly with multiple mid-calibre penetrations.

Mobile warfare can be abstracted without foxholes, even though I've never seen a grunt that would sleep in the open or in his vehicle if he was stopped for more than a couple hours.

All of these things, which aren't germane to urban warfare, or armored cavalry clashes in the modern era, are germane to WWII. Therefore there is a lot more to discuss, because there is really a lot more work to be put into even the smallest WWII game than there is in a modern warfare game.
Good post. CMN is going to be really put under the microscope in a way that CMSF never was going to be. I'm hoping that behind the scenes that's leading to a real focus from the team to get this game right, and to get it out much closer to out of the box as is possible for a small team.
 

thewood

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I still look at CMSF as BFC taking our money to beta test the new engine. Now CMN is the main event.
 

dalem

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All the 1:1 questions people have brought up for the last 10 years are still there, and NONE of them have been answered satisfactorally. Even if CMx2 had things like assaulting armor, "close combat" (however you want to define grenade and shovel ranges), or guys riding tanks (can guys ride tanks in CMx2? I dunno.), it is clear that it will be able to "do it" no better than it was done in CMx1. So why bother in the first place?

But they did bother, and here they are. If they were pros they'd have already asked and answered these questions years ago and Steve would be able to give solid, short, and clear answers to all of it. Some of the choices they have to make are pretty huge. Let's say they finally determine, or pretend to have finally determined, after years of development, that their WWII Normandy game just "can't do" bocage.

Hmm. "Normandy" --> "No bocage" --> "bullpoop". Even though it would probably be correct to say that the average bocage fight probably wouldn't be missed by us players, its the SINGLE terrain feature most associated with that area of the planet in our minds. It's probably way more important that the modeling for thick stone-walled structures with the load bearing all on the perimeter of the building be correct, and that various barn, well, shed, stone fence, and wood fence representations work well. But WWII guys will freak if you call a game "Normandy" and get the farmhouses right and the bocage wrong.

Much like you can slap the Allied-centric guys around a bit TO&E wise and they'll just be happy to get a Sherman tank that works, but get the zimmerit pattern on unterstoffel von Sausage's ass boils wrong and you'll be run out of gametown on a burning rail. In that way Steve's correct: We're fairly predictable. :)

The other stuff is sort of important too: weather, water, cover, infantry that reacts appropriately to enemy infantry sitting in the same room, infantry that looks correct when hopping a ride on a tank...

I'll be interested to see how it develops, if it does.

-dale
 

Michael Dorosh

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1. All defensive elements, including trenches, can be located by the defending player during Setup.

2. The attacker will not see any defensive elements during Setup, therefore he can not base any of his deployments and pre-game planning on foreknowledge of where the defender's fixed positions will be.

3. Foxholes, bunkers, and "dug in" heavy weapons will have FoW. This means the attacker won't know where the defenses are until he spots them. They will, quite possibly, be subject to Absolute Spotting rules. Meaning, once one attacker spots something it stays on the map and doesn't disappear or reappear depending on which unit you select. The performance hit for doing Relative Spotting, in context with the framerate of the game as it is developed, will determine which way we go here.

4. All defensive works will be tailored to the conditions and circumstances of Western Europe, specifically Normandy, as much as possible. What you see now in CM:SF is tailored to that environment, which means the two won't be the same.
Steve's summary of how defences will be handled. Note point 2.

This isn't significant, in my opinion. Okay, so you can't see the defences during setup. But the way most scenario designers today are doing the battles in CM, they put in these unGodly long advances to contact and are making games that go 1 to 2 hours in length. So as soon as you hit "go" on turn 1, there is ample time to shift forces if you are the attacker, even in real time. The challenge may be to find better scenario designers - this was another reason I cracked on specific scenario designers in my earlier comments on this forum, with their 'shake and bake' scenario design formula of a square street grid, start 400 metres out, 'x' number of turns. Some designers are better at it, but there was a real criticism - especially of the MARINES scenarios which apparently were rushed to completion - that you could tell where the defenders were not by the fortification but by the terrain itself! The lack of barbed wire, roadblocks, etc. meant that scenario designers were putting in gullies and stuff to help break up the ground and aid the defender or attacker, but in at least one case I saw discussed online, there was a case in a MARINES scenario where the only gully on the map was the one which had the Syrian MG crew defending it. No big surprises there...

So point 2 has two problems with it

a) "pre-game planning" can actually still be done as "early-game planning" if the entrenchments, etc. are revealed at game start and there is a long advance-to-contact phase, as is common in so many CM scenarios, and

b) scenario designers will have a huge part to play in ensuring FOW through use not just of fortifications but the terrain itself - in short, don't telegraph where everyone is, or tailor the ground to the fighting
 

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Sounds all fine to me. It means trenches have no FoW (only in setup) but foxholes do. Bunkers should be under FoW since they are vehicles.

The only condition I have to place on this is that (unlike CMx1) foxholes need to offer some decent protection in all kinds of ground, nothing like the 45% exposure that they had in open ground in CMx1.
 

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There are still a lot of issues with pathfinding and trenches. You can plot a line down the length of a trench and because of action spots, half your squad ends up running and stopping outside the trench. That's how it was in 1.10. I haven't tried it in 1.11.
Somehow this does not surprise me. Getting guys to properly follow a trench should be at least as hard as getting vehicles to properly follow a road.


(Can vehicles actually follow a road in CMSF? :hmmm: )

John
 

Michael Dorosh

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Somehow this does not surprise me. Getting guys to properly follow a trench should be at least as hard as getting vehicles to properly follow a road.


(Can vehicles actually follow a road in CMSF? :hmmm: )

John
They can't follow each other is the real problem. Soldiers can't follow other soldiers in a trench just as there is no convoy movement for vehicles on a road. Although there is no "follow road" order in CMSF either even for single vehicles. The stated desire as I understand it was to keep the interface lean. The RT kind of demands it I guess.
 

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They can't follow each other is the real problem. Soldiers can't follow other soldiers in a trench just as there is no convoy movement for vehicles on a road. Although there is no "follow road" order in CMSF either even for single vehicles. The stated desire as I understand it was to keep the interface lean. The RT kind of demands it I guess.
The failure to address this part of the CM x 1 drunken driver syndrome is major indicator why CM x 2, designed in the shadows for real time single players, was such a crushing disappointment--even if it had been released in version 1.11.

Add the step down in scale--both in game content and playable number of units per game (which we new a little about in advance and was the #2 concern after no PBEM); WEGO that did not work well for months; the laughable terrain set; lack of weather; lack or real QB's; the fictional asymmetrical setting; no workable PBEM for many months; no close combat; no surrendering and (add a bunch of other stuff that escapes me at the moment), how could a CM x 1 fan have anything less than a severe reaction to being betrayed and confused?

Again--if BF had just been upfront with regard to the direction they were going, or even just letting us know that the CM x 2 engine was a serious departure from CM x 1--the betrayal part of this would have been largely mitigated. However, they wanted that pre-order cash.
 
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dalem

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They can't follow each other is the real problem. Soldiers can't follow other soldiers in a trench just as there is no convoy movement for vehicles on a road. Although there is no "follow road" order in CMSF either even for single vehicles. The stated desire as I understand it was to keep the interface lean. The RT kind of demands it I guess.
Last year I raised the following question elsewhere: Is part of the problem with CMx2 related to the fact that individual units are not aware of friendlies? I mean, would any of the problems with stacking the dead like cordwood at corners and such exist if Private Smith could actually "see" that Private Jones just ahead of him took a burst? I don't know if I'm framing the question correctly.

-dale
 

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Again--if BF had just been upfront with regard to the direction they were going, or even just letting us know that the CM x 2 engine was a serious departure from CM x 1--the betrayal part of this would have been largely mitigated. However, they wanted that pre-order cash.
I think they went pretty far in that direction actually. By the time of release I knew that CMx2 was way different than CMx1. Sure, Steve didn't hand out a detailed list or anything but I think he was very open about a "new direction".

-dale
 

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I think they went pretty far in that direction actually. By the time of release I knew that CMx2 was way different than CMx1. Sure, Steve didn't hand out a detailed list or anything but I think he was very open about a "new direction".

-dale
Really--I don't know of a single person in the CM x 1 community who predicted the game to be primarily one designed to be played RT (at release WeGo was so awful you could hardly play it and it was clear that it was designed in RT--which was later admitted by BF and the beta testers) and would only be playable against the computer. We certainly didn't expect to have all the features missing that were pulled from CM x 1.

But if you mean that we knew it would be smaller in all respects--yeah we know it would be company size and that the WW II games would come in much smaller chunks than even CMBO. We also had a clue that the CM x 2 engine would be cranking out a lot more "stuff" than did CM x 1 because we knew that the files generated may have been too big to do PBEM. We also knew that the first game was going to be an asymmetrical hypo-war.

So upon release the engine was a much different animal than was CM x 1. It was also released in a much crappier state than was CMBO and took much longer to fix. As a result it was difficult for a very long time to tell what was broken and what was a missing feature. It also allowed BF to redefine to some degree what the game was about. That is they have slowly moved it back toward CM x 1. Major example--In the fall of 2007 Steve said that RT and WeGo were "equal partners". That simply was not true. But as a result of changes through the many patches over 1 1/2 years, is currently almost true.
 

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We didn't know about the fact that the Realtime option would not only be present, but that WEGO would be crippled to the point of uselessness. That was withheld from us before release.

Personally I think the fact that a mess was about to come was clear when 1:1 came instead of "bigger battles, bigger maps, more players". If you ever thought about TacAI a little deeper you know what that mean.
 

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Major example--In the fall of 2007 Steve said that RT and WeGo were "equal partners". That simply was not true.
Oh I'm not denying that a thick cloud of briney ink was laid down on R-Day. I'm just saying that we knew to expect something different. Completely different and broken as all hell; no, of course not.

-dale
 

dalem

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We didn't know about the fact that the Realtime option would not only be present, but that WEGO would be crippled to the point of uselessness. That was withheld from us before release.

Personally I think the fact that a mess was about to come was clear when 1:1 came instead of "bigger battles, bigger maps, more players". If you ever thought about TacAI a little deeper you know what that mean.
I agree with that, and everyone knows how I've hated the idea of 1:1 for years. Can't be done for a company game. And in my opinion, shouldn't be done.

-dale
 

jwb3

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Although there is no "follow road" order in CMSF either even for single vehicles. The stated desire as I understand it was to keep the interface lean. The RT kind of demands it I guess.
Right -- just like it kind of demands the ability to tell a vehicle to follow a road without having to use your precious human clock cycles to shepherd it every step of the way.

Which is the kind of inherent contradiction that helped CMx2 get in this mess to begin with, of course.


Last year I raised the following question elsewhere: Is part of the problem with CMx2 related to the fact that individual units are not aware of friendlies? I mean, would any of the problems with stacking the dead like cordwood at corners and such exist if Private Smith could actually "see" that Private Jones just ahead of him took a burst? I don't know if I'm framing the question correctly.
You're phrasing it well enough in the specific, though I don't know whether my answer will cover any other examples you might have been thinking of:

Sounds really complicated to program. It probably wouldn't be too hard to get the first several steps:

  • Smith sees Jones
  • Smith IDs Jones as friendly
  • Smith IDs Jones as "just took a burst"
These are all part of the engine's basic concepts; the last one presumably equates to the part of the engine which says, "The enemy tank is out of action, stop shooting at it."

But then where do you go from there? If Smith hasn't spotted the unit that shot Jones, how does he "think about" the threat? He'd basically have to categorically avoid the beaten zone, and route around it on the way to his goal. That would probably work much like the CMx1 routine where the outmatched tank fired a smoke dispenser and then tried to back out of LOS; sometimes it solved the problem very well, but the rest of the time it was not an effective reaction.

It would probably be even worse if Smith did spot the threat, because then the AI would have to figure out what to do about it, including analyzing all sorts of potential lines of sight and trying to figure out what to make of them.

Then there's the whole not-quite-1:1 aspect to the problem, where Smith and Jones are part of a single entity, so even though they move separately, they can't be allowed to diverge so wildly that they become two separate entities.

OTOH, Close Combat was able to solve that one -- individual soldiers moved together as part of their squad until one broke and fled. But then, once that happened he was never coming back to his unit.


John
 

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CM would have benefitted from some level of consciousness of it's situation, for example armour that moved in and then out of contact should be "remembered". Steve mentioned something along those lines but I don't know whether that was done for CMx2.
 

Michael Dorosh

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CM would have benefitted from some level of consciousness of it's situation, for example armour that moved in and then out of contact should be "remembered". Steve mentioned something along those lines but I don't know whether that was done for CMx2.
I remember a huge discussion of it even before release, actually.
 
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