My impressions

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Larsen
2. Waypoints is a must. That's were the strategy kicks in. One has to maneuver his/her forces. It should be harder with green and soviet units but the opportunity should be there or make the phases shorter. Say, 20 sec the order phase and 10 sec the reaction phase. Otherwise one has only one waypoint for 120 sec of combat. That sucks.

Good idea for limited waypoints but Koios can't do it yet. Too many waypoints and you wonder how could the officer order the tank to go here, turn here, go there, turn there, go there. All in 40 seconds?

3. In reaction phase there should be an opportunity to halt, to change facing, to retreat, or to move forward until some target is spotted. As of right now I can't even charge the unit facing in reaction time. That is definitely wrong.

Do you know the average reaction time for any of this?

4. Engage->Target command for ANY UNIT IN THE PLATOON (AND NOT ONLY HQ) will cancel all the movement orders for the units that are moving. At least that how it works for me and I think that is a wrong.

It works differently for me. In fact I wish I could cancel all targets that were assigned with one click.

5a. There were extensive discussions about ability of mounted units to fire on the Battlefront forum. People were doing all kind of historical research. The eventual consensus was that the although unit had such an opportunity they never or very rarely used it and almost never rode halftracks into combat. I guess I can do a search on the BTS forum and find out those threads if you want. I remember one of the posters was Michael Dorosh who also posts here. You can send him an e-mail and I am sure he will give back the details.

So don't put the infantry in the halftracks and go into combat.

5b. Soviet small arms fire should not be able to penetrate German halftracks unless at a very short distance thus any infantry riding in those halftracks should not suffect any casualties or being suppressed unless the distance is very close and the fire comes from the side.

Penetrate? It's a halftrack not a M3 Bradley.
It doesn't have a top so the troops heads stick out like it was a moving foxhole. Are you saying troops in foxholes can't suffer casualties?
Are these guys bulletproof?

6. I have seen a few instances when I ws firing indict HE fire at a squad and not only causing 0 casualties but also having 0 effect ont eh squad's morale.

I've used area HE to kill a dugin PaK38 that was behind a building and I could only see the the end of the sandbags and an ammo box. It took about 6 phases with several tanks but when I was finally able to peek around the corner it was dead.

7. Hm. I think the progression of units morale should be OK-Suppressed-Pinned-Routed. If unit is routed it runs away, pinned or not. Period. If pinned it just keeps heads down and does not return fire. the way your model works is unless I kill infantry squad I can't be sure that it won't get up and start shooting back next phase. That is not right. The way it works now you have 2 checks. So if the squad is piined and routed it will stay put. If the morale check succeeds twice next phase it will go to normal and start shooting. Not good. Basically routed if piined is the same as pinned. Morale checks suceeds and it's OK to shoot.

I think it's working perfectly now. No you can't be sure if a squad going to recover or not. The enemy is not going to hold up fingers for the number of troops left in his squad. You'd be lucky to even know if he's suppressed, pinned, routed or playing possum. I don't see why some troops of a pinned or suppressed unit can't fire? They just have a reduced effect.

8. I think there should be 2 numbers. You have all the CPU power. Calculate the chance to knock the unit out. The chance to hit some area multiply by the chance to penetrate that area and multiply by the chance to kill if penetrated. Add all the numbers for diffent areas and that will give a chance to kill. Should not be hard. The second number should just give you a chance to hit the target. CM gives two numbers and that is convenient.

And what field manual are the troops feverishly looking up to find this information? The firing unit might know if its a difficult target to hit but that's about it. At some point too much information is unrealistic borgness.

This is what a Panzer man might have knowledge of. Unfortunately its not correct.

9b. CM does not give accuracy tables but it gives the initial velocity for the shell and penetration numbers for the shel of different armor angles at diffent distancies. You can do better. Instead of velocity just give the probability to hit something of certain size.

Like armor flaking? How does the shooter know armor is flaking inside an enemy tank? Or even if something is a partial penetration?

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Larsen

I played CM extensively (multiplayer of course) from 2000 (or was it 1999? I don't remember) to 2004. That is one fun game.

Although I purchased all three of the games, I really didn't find them enjoyable at all. The games that I do play all have some sort of command-and-control structure in place, excepting Close Combat, which has very few units for the "company commander" to ramrod.

My real issue with the older game(s) is all the micro-plotting, the ultimate expression of which is the waypoint function. Ever try and get a column of vehicles moving down a road together? Man, what a mess! In this regard, the developer put in dueling-features, one that "apparently" gives players total control of unit pathing, and, conversely, a delay in the execution of that order, the result of which, on a road, ALWAYS gives the appearance of a cluster-****.

In my opinion, the greatest single weakness of the "other" game in question is its slavish adherence to the notion that an individual can do the thinking for dozens of friendly vehicles, crews and squads, their movement and targeting, right down to the meter. The waypoint function elevated micro-plotting to it's ultimate, absurd conclusion. Well, it just doesn't wash, it never did, and that's why the games are sitting on a shelf over on my bookcase.

My advice to aspiring PzC players? Have a mind-fart and forget about the older game. You're assumptions about the way that things are supposed to behave will only hamper you. They'll make it harder for you to adapt and be successful, gameplay wise.

Example: A platoon of AFV is given a RUSH order across a flat stretch of field five-hundred meters in depth. They begin to take AT fire from a woodline opposite their line of advance. What should the individual vehicles do for the rest of the phase? Well, first and foremost, they probably ought to continue their RUSH move. The vehicles ought to follow orders, except of course, upon failing a morale check, whereupon they could either fall back or halt and attempt to engage their assailants. My point? A platoon shouldn't be given such an order unless the woodline has been saturated with HE, and additional AP assets are in overwatch of the advance. Absent that, the platoon shouldn't have been given the order in the first place.

In approaching PzC, I had to unlearn most of what I had assimilated from the older games. And I can tell, with considerable certainty, that I don't play PzC the same way that a lot of players do on their first (or second) encounter with the program. I don't approach the turn sequence the same way. My moves are typically short and deliberate. I don't need waypoints because my units just aren't gonna move that far in the alloted time. If the situation dictates a change of approach, I HALT the vehicles in the reaction phase and try and target enemies that need to be neutralized. In regard to command and control, I can't for the life of me figure out how a company or battallion commander could assert more direction over a unit than that. For that matter, such a level of meddling in the behavior of the individual units may actually be excessive.

Is PzC perfect? Well, of course it's not. But, I'd humbly assert that it's doing some things right, the platoon commands and limits on micromanagement, that haven't been done before at this level, individual vehicle, crew and squad. I guess that the developers could return to the reservation and clone the clones, "CM-ME," but I, for one, would be sadly disappointed.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

Edit: I read this over and realized that it sounds sorta like a lecture. That wasn't my intention. Larsen has every right to express his gameplay preferences. His are no less valid than my own. Peace Brother!

[EagleMountainDK]

Well written PoE. Just my thoughts [;)]

[Erik Rutins]

Larsen,

ORIGINAL: Larsen
Eric, thank you very much for replying to my post. Ireally didn't expect any reply. But it is always a bonus to a developer if such a reply occurs. Again big thank you for that.
I will answer you in 1.2.3... manner since that way I know I will not miss anything.

No problem at all, we're always grateful when someone takes the time to not only play our games, but to post feedback for us on what they do or don't like.

1. I am not familiar with Crown of Glory, Forge of Freedom, V for Victory and Combined Arms but a quick search on Yahoo game me an answer that they are turn based, CA is hex based and are either operational or above level. I take your word that they are WEGO but the scale scares me - I guess I was not born to be a general.
Which x-com are you talking about? The original series were all turn based and the first game in the new series was RTS with a smart pause if I remember correctly. I loved JA series and Fallout. I loved 101 in Normandy and Wages of War. I wish I could find a decent squad level game.

Hm, I thought X-Com had a WEGO element, but that may be my memory playing tricks on me. On the operational side, if you can handle CM, but don't need eye candy, you may also want to try Highway to the Reich or Conquest of the Aegean. They are continuous time, but give a "WEGO" feel because of the pausable/controllable speed nature. With that said, I know that all scales aren't for everyone.

I played CM extensively (multiplayer of course) from 2000 (or was it 1999? I don't remember) to 2004. That is one fun game. Yep. No shame to make somehting like that but better. Check the forums there. It's been 3 years since the last game in the series and the boards are still very much alive. Not too many games can show that up.

Oh, I agree that CM was a huge success and a landmark achievement. It's just that we really aren't aiming to copy them, but rather to do a different take on 3D tactical gaming. We would absolutely like to be better and I think in quite a few ways we are. Where we have shortcomings, we're working to address those as this series continues.

2. Waypoints is a must. That's were the strategy kicks in. One has to maneuvre his/her forces. It should be harder with green and soviet units but the opportunity should be there or make the phases shorter. Say, 20 sec the order phase and 10 sec the reaction phase. Otehrwise one has only one waypoint for 120 sec of combat. That sucks.

We're planning to add some waypoint support, but I have to say that I don't have any problems getting strategies and tactics to work without them. I think having a waypoint or two on occasion would definitely be helpful though, but we are more focused on improving the pathfinding and offering some general platoon options that would guide it so that you don't actually need to plot each path from waypoint to waypoint. That's the goal, anyway.

Also, you currently have 40 seconds in each phase, so there's no instance where you go more than 40 seconds without either a reaction or the chance to enter a new platoon order.

3. In reaction phase there should be an opportunity to halt, to change facing, to retreat, or to move forward until some target is spotted. As of right now I can't even chage the unit facing in reaction time. That is definitely wrong.

Actually, you can, but you have to be in Engage or Defend orders from the Orders phase. This is by design. If you move into combat with a different platoon order, your platoon won't be quite as ready. Halt is available to all order types, as is target, but facing changes are only for Engage or Defend. We're still discussing the exact implementation of some type of withdrawal reaction, but as discussed elsewhere there are also pros and cons given the time scale to that.

4. Engage->Target command for ANY UNIT IN THE PLATOON (AND NOT ONLY HQ) will cancel all the movement oreders for the untis that are moving. At least that how it works for me and I think that is a wrong.

Ok, will check. I don't recall it working this way, but if it does, we'll change that.

5a. There were extensive discussions about ability of mounted units to fire on the Battlefron forum. People were doing all kind of historical research. The eventual consensus was that the although unit had such an opportunity they never or very rarely used it and almost never rode halftruck into combat. I guess I can do a search on the BTS forum and find out those threads if you want. I remember one of the posters was Michael Dorosh who also posts here. You can send him an e-mail and I am sure he will give back the details.

I agree that they rarely rode the halftracks into combat, but I also have evidence that on occasion, they did. Also, they could fire out if they chose to and even if they didn't, they were still in a thinly armored, open-topped vehicle. Hardly what I'd call safe and sound.

Right now, infantry that fires out of a halftrack does so at reduced firepower and firepower heading back at them is also reduced. We feel this reflects how a mounted attack would actually work. The player is free to attack mounted or unmounted, however he prefers. Attacking mounted definitely does put the halftracks more in harm's way but also brings some additional firepower from their MGs and does protect the mounted infantry more than they would be on foot in the open.

5b. Soviet small arms fire should not be able to penetrate german halftrucks unless at a very short distance thus any infantry riding in those halftrucks should not suffect any casualties or being suppressed unless the distance is very close and the fire comes from the side.

Well, many of the distances for these battles are fairly short and AFAIK within possible penetration distance. I'd welcome any info to the contrary as this is certainly something we could change.

6. I have seen a few instances when I ws fring indict HE fire at a squad and not only causing 0 casualties but also having 0 effect ont eh squad's morale.

It's definitely possible - area fire is not precise. However, I've certianly used it with good success, it's just not an immediate guaranteed effect. We're pretty happy with the lethality of it, but we want to up the suppression/pin chance even when a target unit does not take damage.

7. Hm. I think the progression of units morale should be OK-Suppressed-Pinned-Routed. If unit is routed it runs away, pinned or not. Period. If pinned it just keeps heads down and does not return fire. the way your model works is unless I kill infantry squad I can't be sure that it won't get up and start shooting back next phase. That is not right. The way it works now you have 2 checks. So if the squad is piined and routed it will stay put. If the morale check succeeds twice next phase it will go to normal and start shooting. Not good. Basically routed if piined is the same as pinned. Morale checks suceeds and it's OK to shoot.

Well, I disagree that a routed, pinned unit should always run away. I see these guys as "breaking in place". Basically, they are busy having a nervous breakdown in their foxhole or whatever ground they are hugging. They're not very effective at all and won't do anything until they rally. If they unpin, they'll start crawling away while suppressed. If they unsuppress, they'll run. Note that failing morale and retreating in Panzer Command does not always mean a panicked rout, but can mean a tactical withdrawal or a semi-orderly retreat. In either case, the unit realizes that sticking its head up at that instant would be completely suicidal. You don't get pinned by chance, it means you are generally taking a lot of fire. The only thing it really says is that the squad or platoon made this decision on their own, since it's an automatic order, regardless of what you may have told them to do.

Note also that a pinned unit that is not routed is shooting at a significant reduction in firepower and is also very ineffective at close assault. While you may see them firing, they're much less likely to achieve much beyond suppression.

8. I think there should be 2 numbers. You have all the CPU power. Calculate the chance to knock the unit out. The chance to hit some area multiply by the chance to penetrate that area and multiply by the chance to kill if penetrated. Add all the numbers for diffent areas and that will give a chance to kill. Should not be hard. The second number should just give you a chance to hit the target. CM gives two numbers and that is convenient.

Coming up with a number isn't hard, but coming up with a meaningful number is. Do you consider the CM number meaningful for all targets? We can certainly take another look at this, but I think it will generally only be helpful in rough decision-making, which is usually fairly obvious anyway (i.e. that T-70 might not want to duel that PzKfw IVF2).

9a. Again this is 21 senture. What 10 sided dice? I play a computer game and don't roll any dices. What you do under the whood is not my business. And any graphical representation of the armor is much better than tables. I know that much since I spent some time in software development. The time of tables are gone like in away.

A lot of wargamers grew out of tables and dice, so they do make sense to many. In addition, like Tin Soldiers: Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, Panzer Command is based on a miniatures system and that's where this part of the data originates. For most players, 1 chance in 10 is just as clear as 10%. At least, I don't think understanding how many chances you have out of 10 is all that difficult. Let me give you a counter-example. We list infantry firepower according to the same scale, so if you have a firepower of 4, thats a 4/10 chance to actually cause casualties to an enemy unit if there are no other modifiers.

Since we're comparing to CM, how clear are the CM infantry firepower numbers for you in terms of planning? Do you have any idea how they are actually applied, such that you would know what having a firepower of 92 vs. 120 means in CM terms of actual effectiveness or chance of doing damage to an enemy unit?

9b. CM does not give accuracy tables but it gives the initial velocity for the shell and penetration numbers for the shel of different armor angles at diffent distancies. You can do better. Instead of velocity just give the probability to hit something of certain size.

Well, we do provide penetration numbers as well as accuracy numbers for each shell type at each range. The rules themselves incorporate the ballistic elements in their ratings, whereas in CM they are broken out and calculated in actual angles. Changing that would basically mean re-designing the entire game and we would end up, frankly, with a different system but I'm not sure a better one.

Now the general suggestion that we should look to improve how we present the data, I absolutely agree with. Some kind of more graphical representation makes sense and we'll see what we can do. However, it's not going to match the CM-style data because of the underlying design, which is more of a classic wargame design than a physics simulator.

Well, Eric, one more time big thank you for finding time to read my post and to answer to it. I really mean that. Sorry for typos. It's getting late here.

No problem, thanks again for your feedback.

Regards,

- Erik

[Larsen]

This will be my last post in this thread. I just thought I own you all a reply since you found time to read my posts and address the points tha tI thought were important.
To Mobius first.
1. What game do you want to play? If you want to play a Command and Control game then you don't need the waypoints. You ggive an order to platoon/company/battalion and so on to do something (get to this or that position, ot capture the objective, to hold the position and so on) and watch the execution. Actually, you won't even need the individual squads nad vehicles since the objective is set for a larger unit. I you want ot play a tactical level game where the orders are given to single squads/vehicles - you need viewpoints. Again, there were a lot of threads that addressed this issue in BTS forum (battlefront forum). Believe that or not there were a lot of discussions there that were not specific to CM but to game phylosophies, different unit characteristics and tactics used in WWII. I highly recommend to sift through archives of CMBO and CMBB. You may find a lot of usefull information if you like WWII games.
2. What rection time has to do with me ordering a unit to face this or that direction? Designers can incorporate any reaction time they think is correct. I just want to order a command to face the direction of fire. That's all. Actually units have to do that on their own without my interferience (that's how it works in CM and it's fine). If tank takes 2 minutes to turn 90 degrees than be it. But I want them to actually at least start turning. As of right now if the fire comes from the side they will rotate its turrect without rotating the body. There were some instancies when the tanks actually would rotate their body in the direction of the incoming fire but in most cases they don't. At least they don't do that when I play.
3. I am 100% sure that if the platoon is on move (rush and advance) and you order any tank in the platoon to target something all of the tanks in the platoon will cancel their moving orders and target the same target. I don't think it is supposed to work this way but that's how it works.
4. This is a conversation of deaf and blind. Kinda hard to communicate if you can't hear or see each other. What does me putting the squads in the HT and drive them to the obejective has to do with their ability to fire from HT?
5. German HT had a pretty dissent armor. Small arms soviet fire can't knock them out in the game at least I never observed such an effect in the PzC. Which means it can't penetrate it. And it shouldn't. Here is link to the HT info. It was pretty well armored. Especially in the fron. But side armor was also discent - 7mm. http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Pit/3515/251/
6. I also was able to knock out ATGs with indirect fire. But I was not able to do any damage against infantry - not even suppress them.
7. Routed untis have to run away. Sppressed untis need to have their firepower reduced, pinned don't return fire and routed jsut that - routed getting out of there.
8. Is it 1941 and am I a soldier on the battlefield? No, it's 2006 and I sit in from of my computer playing computer game. I don't ask for exact numbers. Something along the lines poor, good, OK, excellent will do. The rating also can depend on troop experience. The more experience the unit is the better the judgement is. I know pretty well what can be done at what ranges because I played a lot of CM but different games list the unit information and the gun ability different. Right now I have to go into the target tank screen to check what the developers put there then go to my tank and check the gun abilities at different ranges. Cubersome. Just give me the numbers. I will get them anyway. What's the point of getting me irritated at the game with going though all these unnessesery steps? It has to do more with game design and interface than with "field manual are the troops feverishly looking up to find this information". Software design in 21 centure learned something about making the interface user friendly. Let's use that knowledge.
9. Again a conversation of deaf and blind. Deaf tells the blind "we'll see". What does armor flanking has to do with penetration abilities? I don't want exact numbers but I want to know what my chances are. I can get that info anyway (see 8.)

To Prince of Eckmuhl
CM is a multiplayer game. CM AI can't compete with human. It's there only for testing purposes. As a multiplayer game CM is a lot of fun. But it is at least 3 years old (CMAK that is, CMBB is 5 years older I think and CMBO is 8 years old). PzC has to do better to justify the investment of human effort and money into the project. Otherwise wht's the point of making a game that alrady exists?


To Erik Rutins.
1. I really don't care about the graphics that much. I fyou noticed I didn't say a word about the graphics. After all in strategical games that is not that importand. CMBO graphics was fine with me. My two other favorite games (JA2 and Fallout 1,2) also had outdated graphics when they weer released. But boy weren't they fun! I am not too big on operational level games. I make an exception only for Civilization series but that's a differnt story.
2. As I said CM was/is a great game. You are playing on their field -WWII tactical combat, WEGO battle system, same level of detail (tanks, squads, machine guns and such). In order to justify the development of a new game it has to be batter than CM in most respects. Otherwise what's the point of making something that is pretty much the same or worse than the existing product?
3. I understand what you say but I disagree. I need to have an ability to change the unit facing, targeting and order a withdrawl in the reaction phase. Otherwise what's the point of reaction phase? Actually I found myself givving mostly moving orders at some point because the command structure is so awkward.
4. See #3 for Mobius.
5. #4 and #5 for Mobius. There is a link there. Check it out. I saw the soviet small arms giving casualties for the squad in HT from 200 plus meters. Sometimes they would even kill it. Crazy, ah?
6. I think HE area fire has to produce more suppression/pinned/routed effect than casualties.
7. Well, let's do what I like the most. Add numbers. Say for simplicity the target tank consists of three distict parts visible to my tank - turrect, upper hall, lower hall. Say the turret is 50mm, upper hull 100mm, lower hull 70mm. Say the target is at 600m and my gun can penetrate 80mm at that range on average. Let's also say that if the target hit the chance for the turret to be hit is 50%, upper hall 30% and lower hull 20%. Let's calculate the chance to penetrate if the target hit.
50%*(if 80 > 50 than 1 else 0) + 30%*(if 80 > than 100 than 1 else 0) + 20%*(if 80 > 70 than 1 else 0) =
50% + 0 + 20% = 70%. So if the target is hit the chance to penetrate is 70%. Say the chance to hit is 50%. So you for a veteran unit you can list something like - to hit fair, to kill OK. Does it make sense?
8. I don't know any table games and I don't plan to learn any. Their time is gone like in away. It's time to kiss them a goodby. I guess they were fun but there were do many thing that were fun and now extinct that it's hard to count all of them in a week. Why should I think of 10 face dice roll when looking at chances to hit or firepoer? What if tomorrow you decide to make improvement to the agme and now you use 12 face dice. I have to radjust? A gold rule of software design is never use hardcoded constants in the code. That will come back and bite you at some point. (But of course we all do. After all who are they to tell us, right?). Why not to just give me a number of 100m - 90% to hit instead of 100m -1. Does not thatmake more sense?
CM firepower is quite abstract but it gives a pretty good feeling of what can happen because it scales with distance. There firepower produces mostly suppressing and pinning effect rather than cause casualties. Does that make sense?
9. From teh GUI development perspective graphical representation is the way to go. Just look at the difference between Civilization III and Civilization IV. What a great change to city interface and how much easier to to the city management now compared to CivIII!!! I should tell you that I was a great fun of UNIX and command line. I loved ti. I was not exceptionally good at it but I was discent. I hated Windows and all the graphical stuff. But at some point I started feeling like Fidel Castro - all the countries are marching out sync and only Cuba is in sync (and maybe North Korea). That's scary isn't that?

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Larsen

To Prince of Eckmuhl
CM is a multiplayer game. CM AI can't compete with human. It's there only for testing purposes. As a multiplayer game CM is a lot of fun. But it is at least 3 years old (CMAK that is, CMBB is 5 years older I think and CMBO is 8 years old). PzC has to do better to justify the investment of human effort and money into the project. Otherwise wht's the point of making a game that alrady exists?

The overwhelming majority of people who own CM don't do multiplayer. Of those that do, 80% play PBEM rather than IP. They do so because CM/IP takes FOREVER in all but smallest and shortest scenarios and folks with jobs and families simply don't have that much time to invest in internet play. If your impressions of play mode preference (SP v MP) don't coincide with my own, I'd suggest that the discrepancy is a product of your interaction with others at the BF forums, a rather raucous group, the regular voices of which I suspect constitute somewhat less than 1% of the people who bought and occassionally play CM. So, I have to disagree with you. The AI really does matter, and in this respect I believe the older game is remarkable only in its deficiency.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)