Bitter Glory

[dogancan]

ORIGINAL: Anraz
Well I think we should make a few steps back and separate random effects and other factors which might influence on time of production. If we do so, we may see that even without random effects (for example) a carrier of the same design in different countries not necessarily will be produced for the same amount of time. Also prototypes are more costly than serial builds. Maybe for some players it won`t be enough, but it is impossible to meet everyone’s needs.

That is perfect.

[Anraz]

Hi! This part of the Diary is special because it was a team effort, made on Sunday morning while eating leftovers from eight pizzas. It was possible, as some of you know, thanks to our another team gathering in Lodz. This time there were 12 people which is a considerable difference in comparison to 3 years ago, when there were only 4 of us (the gathering itself took place in almost the same place). It`s interesting what will happen in another 3 years.

A characteristic feature of most of our gatherings is a certain culinary ritual, but this is not the place to advertise a certain restaurant chain. There is usually also a main subject of a gathering, in this case it was talking sea battles over, and especially the aspects of torpedoing (described later). It is worth to mention a certain project which we are finishing right now, and which had its own couple-of-minutes long presentation made for. A new element in our gatherings was a series of integration games, which generated lots of laughs in every participant and our mutual relations and understanding were considerably improved. Drawing of likenesses was especially interesting, but of course graphic artists had an evident advantage over others. We plan to hold an RPG session during the next gathering. As an ex- seriously engaged player I can’t wait. In addition the next gathering will be connected with a pre-alpha presentation of “Bitter Glory”. I don’t know myself which will be more interesting.

But back to the game subject, a key discussion was about sea battles, particularly battles of World War II in which torpedo attacks were especially important. We talked about most cases of sinking battleships, battles in the Ironbottom Sound, German subs’ fights and also Japanese surface ships’ torpedo attacks. As we determined earlier, torpedo attacks will be less efficient the bigger the attacking ship is, which will be seen in the ship constructor (and it is quite a “fearsome” tool with millions of combinations). I hope this is quite intuitive and doesn’t require much justification, if anyone still has some doubts you can look it up, especially the English class “R” battleships, which had torpedo launchers but in practice never used them. That led to dismantling those launchers during the war, and partly even before.

In the end we decided to focus on a good representation of the underwater warfare, including the limitations of submarines of that time. We want to show that an u-boat can only fight for a short time, and that the torpedo reserves are limited which in turn forces her to restock them in port or at a supply vessel if possible. In practice this means that u-boats and other torpedo-launching ships can only fire them a limited number of times!
An indirect effect of this is the torpedo boats’ effectiveness – as they can fire only one salvo if they miss they become nothing more than ducks on a shooting gallery. Wasn’t this like that in reality?

http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-03/edwwrxjqa.png

[Anraz]

Logistic center

Supposedly short notes are the best. Looking at such a sentence from the perspective of the passing week, which was about getting back to health, it shows that our gathering was too intense.

One of the more interesting aspects of “Bitter Glory” is the logistic system. A system based on nodes called logistic centers (LC). They function as magazines, places to store all sorts of goods manufactured in a subordinated region, trade transport reload junctions and a kind of administration units. In consequence there is no single central goods storage. Of course for player’s comfort there is an indication of the total amount of resources available throughout his country. Those are the information shown on the upper status bar.

As the logistic centers control a certain area it’s easy to deduce that they have their own operation range. Such limitation prevents from covering whole Africa with just one logistic center. Even if someone would change the logistic center’s operation range by moding certain values, still a weak road network would stand in the way as the transport is completely dependent on the infrastructure. It is perhaps even more important than the range of logistic centers. It strongly influences the gameplay.

Communication between LCs is automatic, but if you like, you can create transports between any centers. If you like you can create your own LC in your own regard, in any place ignoring the AI. But you still have to remember that this certain point has to have a high enough infrastructure level or it must be on the coast.

Not only the delivery of supplies needs roads, it works both ways. Collection of resources also needs them. There is no road connecting a hex with a region’s controlling junction – there is no resources’ transport.

A center acts almost as a separate mini-country. Every country is a combination of such cooperating structures. Small countries such as Switzerland will be satisfied with one or two LCs, bigger countries like Poland will have a couple of them. Enormous countries such as USA, Great Britain or USSR will use many such separate junctions.

http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-03/awoliqoab.png

[Anraz]

Hello! Pleased with our another demo and with the charm of air units whooshing across hexes, I’ve decided to write you a couple of words about… modding the game.

A considerable part of our team used to mod games. You could say that for those people modding games was a prelude to the present day. We always remember about that, especially when - as I’ve written some time before - players can always squeeze a little bit more from every game. Why not make it easier for them? In case of “Bitter Glory” our goal is to allow gamers to introduce as much of their changes to the game as possible. In practice it is only a matter of efficiency – writing everything in easily accessible and simple to edit scripts is theoretically possible but is not too efficient Moving even further in this direction we made it our point to allow as much data to be edited with a notepad as possible Of course we again hit logic barriers but we strive to make a very people-friendly game.

 
To fill those words with substance let’s look at the following example of a fragment of a script creating platoons in the platoon constructor:
 

http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-03/xajkofpso.png

 
The whole script is opened with Notepad++ (a free tool, easily downloadable from the net) where it’s more clearly presented but a standard notepad will do just fine. You can clearly see how trivial changing the formulas is. Well, I hope you can see that. Of course to complicate things a bit this script has a couple hundred lines, it will take some time to know it all, but I believe anyone with a minimum of determination will succeed. Especially when the whole script is at hand, the possibilities of changes are enormous. If anyone would have his own vision or any other motivation to make it work even a little differently, not only will he be able to change the modifiers and the whole formulas but even the construction of the constructor itself.

Second subject connected with modding the game is “peaceful” coexistence of many mods with one instance of the game. For example I have a couple of instances of one game on my hard drive. It’s a good game but it’s better with mods. Unfortunately every mod needs a clean install of the game. It’s a bit awkward. Luckily there’s a way to avoid this inconvenience. The best solution is a mod manager, which lets us choose what mod we would like to run with the game this time. It allows for great flexibility and eliminates the “competition” between mods when they all operate on bare game data. Based on my observations I believe such conduct isn’t common in strategy games but of course this isn’t anything revealing, if we look at AAA titles, such managers are commonplace.
 

http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-03/ndaklfltv.png

[Anraz]

Hi. Today I wante to write something about controlling territory, meaning the individual hexes.

I’ve mentioned the quantity of hexes on several occasions. It is a pretty big number, in connection with it, a big part of them is devoid of roads, uninhabited, with little economic or political importance, large part of the hexes has marginal or no importance at all. On Earth there are numerous desert and polar areas, high mountain ranges, endless forests or huge swamps (not seldom matching Europe in size), which belong to some country but in practice even its owner doesn’t have control over it.

When we look at a geographical atlas it is quite obvious, but when we look at a map in a strategy game while waging a war, things start to get complicated. It’s easy to imagine areas where there is no enemy army, but which are still under his administrative control, even though his armies where chased off a couple of hexes away. Some games deal with it by creating dynamic borders, delimited by units’ movement, or by occupying every province (or at least their neighbors, but it is not always possible), or by introducing key points, which are required to be captured and hold. As for the first method, it’s good for provinces, but the other two work well only with limited number of hexes. We have plenty, we should offer players a new solution.

A solution that should make you happy instead of frustrated, it’s quite simple and based on invaluable logistic centers, which also have administrative functions. I’ve mentioned before that every LC has its own range of action. This range assigns hexes to a particular center, that way we don’t need to send troops everywhere. For example if we’ve attacked a colony in Africa and beaten the defending troops, we don’t need to send our units to every hex worth our interest. We just need to create our own LC, which will organize our administration over the area in its range. The process of creating our administration is in fact the process of taking control of enemy hexes. There are of course some special requirements for this process to occur. It’s worth to mention especially the road infrastructure, which allows our administration to “reach” enemy hexes. Also the enemy units influence the range of a LC (frontline influence, partisans), as do enemy LCs.

In passing it’s worth to mention that our hex in theory, outside of LC’s range is in practice useless. It’s worth to remember that.

 In the end of this episode, in context of hex control I’ll add that administrative borders do not change as a result of army movement or LC’s influence, but only on the political plane. This will require an additional explaining in the future, but it’s nice to mention this interesting mechanism today.

As I’ve mentioned in one of the previous diaries, the game has a lot of temporary graphics at the moment. It hinders screenshot making, and I’m supposed to encourage you to this game In this situation here are some rendered models that will be converted into sprites later:


 American Houston cruiser:
http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-03/xhcfbrihj.png

Soviet Gangut battleship:
http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-03/aqgdbnxya.png

 Soviet Joseph Stalin transport ship:
http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-03/cgfeibsvl.png

[Joshuatree]

Here's a link to all the dev's diaries, in english: http://forum.wastelands-interactive.com/viewforum.php?f=105
And they contain a vast amount of info of this game. It sure looks promising.
 
Hope it's okay with Doomtrader and Anraz that I post a link here. [:)]
 
Most interesting screenshot.
 

 
 

[Anraz]

Hope it's okay with Doomtrader and Anraz that I post a link here.

It is OK

Most interesting screenshot.

It is the screenshot taken from a standalone programme meant to show part of BG. Anyone can tets it http://forum.wastelands-interactive.com ... php?t=1423

[Anraz]

Hello. This week we have a merged, double episode. You know, holidays have their own requirements, and simultaneously we are finishing work on an another project (about which I will surely write a couple of warm words). Summa summarum, another diary will be in two weeks, but it’s worth to wait..

As the Easter holidays are near, on behalf of the entire team as well as myself I’d like to wish you all happy Easter. May we all get some well deserved rest, gain some strength and develop even greater eagerness to play strategy games.

We wouldn’t be ourselves if we didn’t prepare an occasional postcard:

http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-04/fvcnbujsl.jpg


Today for a change, because it’s worth to use different form every now and then, a large part of the episode will be presented in points. Because this is a double episode, it behooves to write some more than in a regular one, even though it will probably still be less than in two separate episodes. As the science called marketing tries to teach, and as I often try to prove: 1+1=1.5


Going back to the technology subject, let’s try to characterize it in subsections:

1)    8 technology fields (not too many, not too little);
2)    little abstraction, little general technologies, especially those that don’t give anything;
3)    variant technologies (e.g. different engines, fuselages, etc.);
4)    wide array of weapons for the constructors (e.g. in the nose of a fighter plane you can mount 2 of 18 different mg and cannons);
5)    more inventions than could be researched in one game (necessity to making choices)
6)    no obligation to research every element (e.g. a ~60mm cannon is not required to research a ~70mm cannon);
7)    “backward rates” – some technologies can be researched even without required technologies (e.g. a poor country in 1945 can start research on a simple medium tank without the “light tank” technology);
8)    diverse time of researching technologies;
9)    limits on the speed of the arms race;
10)    amount of possible researched technologies dependant on scientific potential in a particular field;
11)    financing research from the budget (money as a motive power for scientific research)
12)    defined financial levels divided into research fields (practical control over priorities considering actual science status, well financed fields develop on their own);
13)    changing of  science potentials according to finance levels;
14)    shifting science potential between fields (in a limited scope scientists can be delegated to other research fields);
15)    changing of science potentials with events;
16)    ability to capture, exchange and trade of technologies.

Below a preliminary prototype of a technology window. Little things will change technically, but many will visually, as I’ve mentioned this is pre-alpha, and now, over a year before the premiere, we follow the “make it work” rule, and not the “make it beautiful” one

http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-04/rgbdlxydn.png


And now I go design another technologies…

...
trójpłat[ś] (triplane[m])
dwupłat[ś] (biplane[m])
górnopłat[ś] (high wing[m])
górnopłat+[ś] (high wing+[m])
górnopłat++[ś] (high wing++[m])

dolnopłat[ś] (low wing[m])
dolnopłat+[ś] (low wing+[m])
dolnopłat++[ś] (low wing++[m])

dwubelkowy dolnopłat - skośne skrzydła[ś] (twin boom low swept wing[m])

dolnopłat - skośne skrzydła[ś] (low swept wing[m])
dolnopłat - skośne skrzydła+[ś] (low swept wing+[m])


dolnopłat asymetryczny[ś] (asymetric low wing[m])
dolnopłat - skośne skrzydła[ś] (low swept wing[m])
dolnopłat - skośne skrzydła+[ś] (low swept wing+[m])

dolnopłat - trapezoidalne skrzydła[ś] (low trapezoidal wing[m])

dwubelkowy górnopłat[ś] (twin boom high wing[m])
dwubelkowy dolnopłat[ś] (twin boom low wing[m])
dwubelkowy dolnopłat - skośne skrzydła[ś] (twin boom low swept wing[m])

latające skrzydło[ś] (flying wing[m])
dolnopłat - silniki w osi [ś] (push-pull low wing[m])

dolnopłat - delta[ś] (low delta wing[m])
trapezoidalne skrzydła (trapezoidal wing[m])
...

[SS Hauptsturmfuhrer]

Reb, I think any talk of war, no matter the game name or maker, is cool here.

[Joshuatree]

Thanks for the update!

I do have a question if you don't mind. With all these technologies and sciences to develop, does it actually *do* something gamewise? I mean, I'm used to something like: Inf level 2 beats Inf level 1, unless Inf level 1 is more experienced and dug in. Fighter level 2 beats Fighter level 1, unless Fighter level 2 is disorganized... and so on. But when you say: " 4)    wide array of weapons for the constructors (e.g. in the nose of a fighter plane you can mount 2 of 18 different mg and cannons); " 18 different Mg's and cannon's ??
Do you feel gamewise that your fighter gets better with a better gun? I am very curious as to how that all works out.

[06 Maestro]

ORIGINAL: Widell
On the other hand, I would be happy to give a game with WitP:AE doing the naval stuff, maybe even switching to Harpoon level for certain combat action, TOAW for land battles and ToE levels, Eagle Day to Bombing of the Reich to deal with air op's and probably elements of AGEOD:ACW involved in building units and deciding on chain of command. Then add some Panther Games engine to play select land battles real time just like Harpoon would deal with fleet and certan aspects of air battles. Finally add the tech tree's (and some other parts) from HoI and the events and editor capabilties from AT. If you want economics included add stuff from the Capitalism series. I'm drooling already, but still.... would it make sense and be fun to play?

That's not just a game, that's a way of life[;)]. It would be great, if it could be done and one had the time to play it.

[06 Maestro]

For a bunch of "dreamers", there has been a lot of progress. It looks like a very interesting approach to the war. Some aspects sound much like the upcoming HoI3, but the look is very different. The map really looks good.

I wish you the best of luck in completing this project.

Edit: BTW, I hope the final version of the game will have an English test option[:)].

[Anraz]

ORIGINAL: Joshuatree
Thanks for the update!
I do have a question if you don't mind. With all these technologies and sciences to develop, does it actually *do* something gamewise? I mean, I'm used to something like: Inf level 2 beats Inf level 1, unless Inf level 1 is more experienced and dug in. Fighter level 2 beats Fighter level 1, unless Fighter level 2 is disorganized... and so on. But when you say: " 4) wide array of weapons for the constructors (e.g. in the nose of a fighter plane you can mount 2 of 18 different mg and cannons); " 18 different Mg's and cannon's ?? Do you feel gamewise that your fighter gets better with a better gun? I am very curious as to how that all works out.

I'm eager to answer any questions, although sometimes my answers might have been ambiguous
Regarding fighter issue - didn't I mention that also it is possible to vary a number of those weapons in a plane? So not only size, advancement and quality of weapon does matter but also number of barrels is a very important factor. Furthermore brute firepower is modified by maneuverability of plane - airframe and engine manifest its importance. There is no “unit model”, there are planes of your design produced by your industry formed according to organizations charts into air units. You can also design the charts... So we have an air unit composed of various planes, which gave its parameters to whole unit. And here come experience, military doctrine, leaders...

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
For a bunch of "dreamers", there has been a lot of progress. It looks like a very interesting approach to the war. Some aspects sound much like the upcoming HoI3, but the look is very different. The map really looks good.
I wish you the best of luck in completing this project.
Edit: BTW, I hope the final version of the game will have an English test option[:)].

We are trying to shy away from abundance of abstractions, which lead, at least in my opinions, to weird feeling that a game is no longer about the second world war, but about any war.
The main version of the game is in English. I post some Polish names with English translation as a curiosity, or maybe it was in order to give a hint that game is made in a far away country
Anyway who might mirror WW2 better then a group of[font="arial unicode ms"]　[/font]people devoted to it, a group from the country which was the most “touched” by WW2?

[Joshuatree]

"I'm eager to answer any questions, although sometimes my answers might have been ambiguous
Regarding fighter issue - didn't I mention that also it is possible to vary a number of those weapons in a plane? So not only size, advancement and quality of weapon does matter but also number of barrels is a very important factor. Furthermore brute firepower is modified by maneuverability of plane - airframe and engine manifest its importance. There is no “unit model”, there are planes of your design produced by your industry formed according to organizations charts into air units. You can also design the charts... So we have an air unit composed of various planes, which gave its parameters to whole unit. And here come experience, military doctrine, leaders... "
 
Thank you for your dedication Artur. And yes we are aware that it is made in a "far away" country [;)] Guess we all share the same hobby.
But as to my question concerning weaponstechnology, leaders, various planes types and so on and so forth... I guess most of us wargamers appreciate that kind of thing, but personally I ask myself this: How does this work out in the game? Can one "feel" in the game that one has the highest standards in weapon optics? I am used to games where you feel relieved to finally be able to produce say level 4 tanks (PzKpf IV, or Panther and so on), or you can finally produce the Focke Wulf fighter. Then you can say, *now* I can beat the T-34/85, or now I can beat the Spitfire, P-51, and so on.
But with this abundance of parameters... do you feel you actually have achieved something, or does it get tedious and a choar to do?
I hope I made myself clear.

[Anraz]

First of all lets get rid of this “lelvelwise thinking” Surly you can built better/bigger/ more reliable battleship, tank or fighter, but you also can built more and cheaper. Lets look at simple comparison between PzIVJ and PzIVH – J version was a little bit worse in terms of combat capability but also cheaper and it was intentional. There are much more examples n RL which break “level thinking”. T34/76B (1941 version) was more expensive/recourse consuming and of better quality then T34/76C(1942 version).
I think a better question should be like “do I have proper combination of quality and quantity of my tanks, antitank guns, tank destroyers, guns, small arms, etc to deal with my enemy's combination?” or “does my combination became better and better?”
“Things” as they were in RL are much more fascinating then “things” as they were represented in some other games so  I would like you to feel that you are playing “rock-paper-scissors” game, not “bigger is better” game
Anyway should you feel I haven't answered your question, don't hesitate to ask less general questions

[Joshuatree]

Thanks for your answer Anraz, much appreciated. Been reading your devdiary again: http://forum.wastelands-interactive.com/viewforum.php?f=105&sid=8de0b62e518ac2feb7d7989784edf1ba 
Lots of info to be found there, including screenshots. Ofcourse "levelling up" an unit is a simplified version of what's going on in RL, but it's done mostly because of gamemechanics and game fluidity... Like your RtV for instance. So I can't wait to see it in this game. Do you have, by any chance, an estimated release date?

[Scott_WAR]

ORIGINAL: Anraz

First of all lets get rid of this “lelvelwise thinking” Surly you can built better/bigger/ more reliable battleship, tank or fighter, but you also can built more and cheaper. Lets look at simple comparison between PzIVJ and PzIVH – J version was a little bit worse in terms of combat capability but also cheaper and it was intentional. There are much more examples n RL which break “level thinking”. T34/76B (1941 version) was more expensive/recourse consuming and of better quality then T34/76C(1942 version).
I think a better question should be like “do I have proper combination of quality and quantity of my tanks, antitank guns, tank destroyers, guns, small arms, etc to deal with my enemy's combination?” or “does my combination became better and better?”
“Things” as they were in RL are much more fascinating then “things” as they were represented in some other games so  I would like you to feel that you are playing “rock-paper-scissors” game, not “bigger is better” game
Anyway should you feel I haven't answered your question, don't hesitate to ask less general questions

Goos to hear. I had to stop playing GGWAW becasue the developer couldnt understand that tech isnt the end all be all of warfare. Higher numbers and better tactics CAN overcome superior tech,....but not in that game.

[Anraz]

ORIGINAL: Joshuatree
Like your RtV

Well, in fact principally patches to this game are ours (WI in mind).

ORIGINAL: Scott_WAR Higher numbers and better tactics CAN overcome superior tech

One with higher numbers and better strategy can beat the other who uses better tactics and superior technology combined with poor strategy. Does it remind you something?

[JudgeDredd]

I've been watching this and I have to be honest, I don't hold any hope for the future of a good, capable AI for a strategic game this side of my death.

I'm only posting here about this because I was initially very interested when I read about it, but I have been sorely disappointed with strategic AI in second world war games for so many years now, I've given up.

Good luck to you though.

[Lützow]

Hearts of Iron style titles are more about meticulous scheduling than operational warfare and there is always multiplayer gaming. That being said, I think Bitter Glory will have a tough stand against HoI 3.