East Front Game

[wodin]

Blackstreet Dave has expressed that he wants to do that at some point, but I'm not sure it will be for the EF release..

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: Blackstreet

I have a question about the new game: will more players be able to participate in Multiplayer mode?

I ask because there are many people out there playing strategic games either using Kriegsspiel type rules, or not, but in any case, playing MP with many players on each side, giving different players different commands (and sometimes, different levels of command), and it seems that the Command Ops series is almost designed for this to make a perfect MP experience with many players on each side. For example, Scourge of War, another grand strategy game, has a very healthy MP community, playing games every evening often with over 10 players per side!

In fact, I would have thought that this is what any MoD contracts would be after in the CO series.

If you were going to do it properly, you'd have a setting for giving players limited intelligence of their own units too.

Just some thoughts.

In fact I was talking with my colleague Paul Scobell last night about this very issue. A couple of weeks back I asked him to look into how we could implement multiple commands. Well if the truth be told, his remit was to advise on how much work would be involved in getting a working test of such a feature.

So our thinking at the moment is that we would do this in two stages. The first being to do a two player version (as we do now) that had multiple commands per side and each command having its own processing thread. Basically dividing the forces up for each side into groups and then each group having its own intel database and processing actions for its forces. This would speed up the game on multi-core systems (and most PCs these days are multi-cores) and allow for bigger scenarios. How big we don't know, hence the purpose of doing a test.

The second stage would then be to develop the networking and UI so that we could have multiple players up to one per command, which is what you are after I believe.

Paul's advice is that there is a lot of work to be done. While we originally allowed for multiple commands we canned actually implementing that back in 1996 when it looked like just being too much work for us to finish with the budget we had. So we have to hive off a fair bit of the code form the Side class into the Command class and solve issues like syncing intel databases, plans and orders between commands that affect the same unit, splitting the action events ( fire, bombard, strike ) into two parts - initiation and resolution - and having multiple commands respond to action events if they each have units affected by the same fire event, comms between commands both reporting and orders etc.

The bottom line is this will be a big job. I am still mulling over whether it is worth giving this priority over other features on our wish list. One factor is that it should enable bigger maps and/or more units. We need more units to simulate realistic mounted ops ( ie mech/mot inf ) and I am worried about the performance hit if we don't implement multiple commands. Another factor is that in doing so we will hold up some other projects. Now if we had planty of money we could do it all. But we don't. Anyway I'm still mulling.

[wodin]

Dave, I know myself and a few others prefer the smaller unit count but over a few days scenarios..I hope the future games don't get bigger and bigger as I'm not sure I'd carry on with the series. As it is BFTB doesn't get as much play it deserves due to the very large unit count scenarios. What happens with these for me anyway is you have to play quite zoomed out and then it ends up just looking like a big chaotic jumble of units, you end up missing out on the refinement of the engine as it becomes to difficult to see it in action i.e watching units shake out into attack will get lost within lots of other units..

I like moderate amount of units but over decent length like two or three days.

I fear going to big the game will loose something..

[Arjuna]

wodin,

There is room for both small and large. There are others who have expressed their desire to play on a bigger canvass rather than just a segement of the operational area. Other's also want to have more realistic mounted operations. This necessiates an increase in the unit count. Either way we need more speed or to use the processing power available better. Multiple commands provides that. But that is not to say that smaller scenarios won't benefit. They will especially with the ability to model more realistic mounted ops and the ability for the game to run through quiet times like at night much faster.

[wodin]

Cool...I want dismounted Inf etc etc. I hope you have a good mix of scenarios in the EF game. Again I'm not too keen on ones that finish in less than two days either, they are over to quick. Three days or more upto division I'm more than happy with. Having a 19inch monitor is a pain to be honest aswell.

I just hope huge scenarios on massive maps doesn't end up like your out of control. I suppose you'd have to start giving orders at an even higher HQ level. I also think if your start going huge maps you need a mini map with the units on it aswell even if they are just dots you will know roughly where to jump to.

[miya]

ORIGINAL: wodin

Cool...I want dismounted Inf etc etc. I hope you have a good mix of scenarios in the EF game. Again I'm not too keen on ones that finish in less than two days either, they are over to quick. Three days or more upto division I'm more than happy with. Having a 19inch monitor is a pain to be honest aswell.

I just hope huge scenarios on massive maps doesn't end up like your out of control. I suppose you'd have to start giving orders at an even higher HQ level. I also think if your start going huge maps you need a mini map with the units on it aswell even if they are just dots you will know roughly where to jump to.

Actually, I am one of the players who likes to play on a bigger canvas, so multiple commands sounds interesting and exciting to me.
I imagine operations involving several corps and some of them are controlled by the AI.

[Alchenar]

In my mind's eye I would love to see the game scaled up to Theatre sized maps with multiple commands on each side. That's the only scale on which the player can choose the focus point for attacks and try to pull off genuinely original operations.


If I throw in massive amounts of wishful thinking and demographic hand-waving I can even see a game along the lines of World of Tanks - players get 'ownership' of various formation types which get spawned onto a map along with those of other players in two teams. As you play your formation gains experience and you can bolt-on additional units. Players move up being able to deploy brigades, divisions and corps as they gain currency. Paying customers get 'Hero' units. It would be lovely and totally unrealistic and I'm daydreaming because it'll never happen

[wodin]

Alchenar..one mans meat is another mans poison..I'd hate that.

I'm a great believer bigger isn't always better..I can understand big multiplayer scenarios where you just control a small force within it..or the AI controls some..but huge single player game..to me would be a confusing nightmare..and be to hard to control until it became a clickfest.

[jimcarravall]

The difficulty of programming all the variables of space, time, interoperability, and unit behaviors for larger scenarios aside, the difficulty of handling those could be addressed in terms that military commanders used.

According to his diary during World War II, Patton would not issue orders more than two echelons below his command level in a battle. He viewed his role as addressing the larger tactics / strategy assigned him by his commander and trusting his subordinate commanders to be proficient at the more detailed aspects of carrying out the battle vision within the bounds of their command.

There's enough unit, supply, commander proficiency, and intelligence feedback in Command Ops coupled with the ability to define specific subordinate unit activities and alter the order of battle into task groups to command in that manner.

Whether that's an interesting way for anyone playing the game to address a large operation in Command Ops is a different story.

One time I violate the rule is when my command ventures so far beyond an objective that I no longer get credit for its points in the victory calculations.

I'll break off a subordinate unit from a formation or move a directly assigned support unit to a "defend" position at the objective to address rear area occupation requirements the rules appear to require when FLOT moves beyond the objective's geographic limits.

[wodin]

I'd need alot more feedback through radio comms or the UI from my units if we get these huge scenarios..so I can at least keep track of what is going on and where..who is in trouble and who isn't etc etc. More radio feedback is something I've waned for awhile now.

[miya]

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah

The difficulty of programming all the variables of space, time, interoperability, and unit behaviors for larger scenarios aside, the difficulty of handling those could be addressed in terms that military commanders used.

According to his diary during World War II, Patton would not issue orders more than two echelons below his command level in a battle. He viewed his role as addressing the larger tactics / strategy assigned him by his commander and trusting his subordinate commanders to be proficient at the more detailed aspects of carrying out the battle vision within the bounds of their command.

There's enough unit, supply, commander proficiency, and intelligence feedback in Command Ops coupled with the ability to define specific subordinate unit activities and alter the order of battle into task groups to command in that manner.

Whether that's an interesting way for anyone playing the game to address a large operation in Command Ops is a different story.

One time I violate the rule is when my command ventures so far beyond an objective that I no longer get credit for its points in the victory calculations.

I'll break off a subordinate unit from a formation or move a directly assigned support unit to a "defend" position at the objective to address rear area occupation requirements the rules appear to require when FLOT moves beyond the objective's geographic limits.

As Dave in one of the videos said

"trust the AI to do a reasonable job"

[wodin]

The bigger the battle the higher up you give out orders the better the AI needs to be to reduce any micromanagement..not sure the AI (though the best out there) is really upto the task yet. I certainly would be worried if whole divisions where AI controlled only..maybe in a few years from now I'd have full confidence in the AI to manage such a big force.

[Alchenar]

ORIGINAL: wodin

The bigger the battle the higher up you give out orders the better the AI needs to be to reduce any micromanagement..not sure the AI (though the best out there) is really upto the task yet. I certainly would be worried if whole divisions where AI controlled only..maybe in a few years from now I'd have full confidence in the AI to manage such a big force.

Yeah that's certainly true.

[jimcarravall]

Unless someone's playing head to head with a human player, they're playing against the AI.

In that case, the AI is controlling the entire OPFOR to the human-controlled command.

If beating the AI controlling the OPFOR is satisfying, then allowing it to control administrative details of lower echelon units to the Human command ought to be useful to avoid micromanaging.