BFTB (Mini-Guide): Tutorial, AAR, and tips! (more or less)

[MarkShot]

Okay, I need pack it in for the day here.

For those of you who are following this, what do you think? Is this approach of my treating the game as you will soon be in new/returning customer mode worth your time or should I just get up to speed on my own and jump into an AAR?

Thanks.

[GoodGuy]

In case there are more UI "must-see" details, or functions/capabilities that can be demonstrated by posting screenshots, I'd say bring 'em.
Otherwise I, for one, would say you could go and hop right into an AAR, as that's what people love to see right now.

In case you should "stumble" over one or another new/neat feature or improvement (during the course of your AAR) that might be new to COTA players, you could then explain / document it with a concrete example how this influences the decision process of the current commanding officer in the field (you), or how the new features may influence game flow/progress. [:D]

[MarkShot]

Since I am working on other stuff at the moment, we'll see what other feedback I get and, of course, there are the wishes of The Boss which must be respected. Like if I don't make him happy, there goes my Q4 bonus and I am back to eating canned SPAM for Thanksgiving instead of turkey.

[Sybma]

Great warming up this Mini Guide!! Seeing forward to the release, and i hope the HTTR conversions / add on will follow soon.
 
Keep it coming Markshot!!

[MarkShot]

Well, myself I am happy to hit the new features that make this the most approachable game of the series yet for noobs and non-grogs.

I think one of the wonderful things about this release is that it is definitely more friendly than prior releases, but that has in no way been achieved at the expense of dumbing down the game like what often happens when a developer is trying to grow their market. As you will see, the amount of detail and AI sophistication has only increased. Simply superb that a product could evolve in two different directions at once and not be forced to compromise.

Going forward as we look at friendliness. I would like to look at time estimates and setting kickoff times/synchronizing orders. Let's face it. One of the most challenging parts of this series has been handling the dimension of time. Now, of course, for professional officers ... you should know how long various things will take. However, many of us are weekend warriors and having a staff officer whispering in your ear how long it takes to fuel and arm your tanks for an assault might come in quite handy!

[Rebel Yell]

This is wonderful. Definitely worth it.

[Txema]

Well, myself I am happy to hit the new features that make this the most approachable game of the series yet for noobs and non-grogs.

 
MarkShot,
 
I like very much your current approach. I would like to see first the new features included in BFTB. You can do an AAR later, when you are fully aware of the new features.
 
Thank you very much for all of this stuff. I really enjoy it !! [:)]
 
 
Txema
 
 

[Renato]

MarkShot,

do as you like. Anyway is fine to see you here again.

[Ron]

No, keep it up as you learn the game; I like your clear, concise approach regards the UI and new features. Thanks.
 

[dogancan]

I would like to see the new features first, but it is no big deal if you go for an AAR now. Just write more and faster, it is really a pleasure to read about the coming beauty. [:)]

[MarkShot]

My apologies, but today will probably not see any updates. I'll be tied up most of the day. {maybe I should get Dave to write me a note; like when you were a kid and didn't want to have to go to school!}

[Bil H]

Mark!  Good to see you back in action.
 
Bil

[MarkShot]

Gee, you must have missed me! Not even a single jab this time about using icons instead of NATO symbols. Great seeing you again as well!

[Bil H]

Hehe, I'm just so happy to see you posting and playing again that I don't even mind your gamey idiosyncrasies.  [;)]
 
 

[TMO]

In the example of the E&S (Equipment and Supply) tab given, Sherman 76 mm and Sherman 105 mm are displayed. A quick glance at Wikipedea (I know not the most reliable source!) mentions these variants not being introduced until January and February 1944 respectively. Given that the Bulge lasted from 16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945, is this a mistake?

Regards

Tim

[TMO]

Oops MY mistake!!!!

[MarkShot]

Well, as you play the game as there are always issues that arise (dare I say bugs) or spellings of place names ... or if you spot Estab errors. Just post and it will eventually get cleaned up.

[Tzar007]

Hello MarkShot,

You probably remember me, that French-Quebecer from up north in Montreal...[;)]

Haven't been posting for a very long time, but I've always sneaked around the BFTB forum to see how the game was going. Finally, 2 or 3 weeks ago, sensing that BFTB is definetely not very far from being released, I fired up COTA and I am playing over again all the scenarios in chronological order. It's been 2 or 3 years since I played most of those and I have as much fun as I did at first. Isn't this engine a wonderful thing ? [:D]

Now, your BFTB mini-guide makes me drool all over my keyboard [X(]

I would have been already quite excited about having the reinforcements displayed in the OOB before their arrival, but having your current structure highlighted as well is even better. And, shame to myself, I never played around enough with the ScenMaker application so I didn't know all the units specs were actually detailed in there. I guess like a lot of other guys I was just googling the weapons info and look it up on the web...Having this info directly accessible in the game is great.

Keep the info coming and you could do some AAR after, I don't mind.

I am now craving for BFTB, you can be sure I am going to buy this the VERY first day it's out !!! Can't wait anymore [&o]

[MarkShot]

Ugo, Mon Ami,

Bienvenue!

(You know I am actually Business Advisor/member of AGEOD, a French game studio. But alas, my French is as poor as ever! Some things never change.)

I could never forget you. Your painstaking work to recover the HTTR Mini-Guides after the Great Forum Hacking Fiasco. Your dedication was truly without equal in the field fan support. Thank you so much!

Glad to see you again. I'll hopefully get back to work on this tomorrow.

Ou est la reste de les francophones?

[MarkShot]

I am afraid I got heavily tied up today.

Now here is a little tip that I got from PG's Head of Engineering, Paul Scobell.

These days practically every machine you buy will have more than a single processor. I have a system with 4 processors from 2007. Normally (I tend to play very old games), I restrict my games to just P4 (as I have load balanced my system by hand). However, Paul says that BFTB will perform noticeably better if you allocate at least two processors to it, but beyond that there won't be too much of a difference. (I have to run some tests sometime to see this for myself. It should not be hard to do.)

It has always been pretty easy to see that this engine is multi-threaded. For you non-systems types, that means that the engine is almost like two separate programs (like running Word and Excel at the same time). So, imagine that the engine has almost like separate programs running in the EXE, but from time to time the two synchronize and become one briefly before they split off again and run independently. Now, RDOA was out around 2000/1. At that time, such a design didn't buy you much in terms of improved performance (only smoothness). But finally, most are going to benefit from it in terms of performance.

I said you can easily see this. Where? How? Well, the best place to look for this is during a replan. During a replan, the AI gets busy calculating a new plan (strategy and implicit orders) to achieve some objectives/tasks. With many units on the map, this can be very compute intensive. How do you know that this is happening? Well, usually the game clock just comes to a halt.

But because the engine is multi-threaded, even though the game clock has halted due to the replan, the map continues to move and scroll smoothly. That's because the UI is a different thread from the AI. In a less sophisticated design, the map rendering would be refreshed by the same thread as the AI. At periodic intervals, the main single thread would call a routine to render (update) the map display for the user. Thus, in such an outdated design, a big replan would result in the game appearing to lock up. Furthermore, when the game is computationally very intensive, the map would get very jerky and mouse movement too. Well, that's what makes Paul a skilled engineer, since he long ago (before duo core/quad core machines) anticipated these type of issues and built a forward looking design.

---

So, if you have been paying attention, then you may see a sneaky little game clue in this discussion. If you are playing and the clock seems to pause, but none of your forces appear to be propagating new orders, then it is likely that the OPFOR AI just did a replan in a big way. I suppose playing MP, you might take this that your opponent just radically altered his plan. (However, I would have to test this to be sure, but it should certainly hold for SP.)

See you thought there wouldn't really be a useful point in this post, but I got to it eventually!