Wish List

[Golf33]

Originally posted by Uedel:

Estab List sortet out:
I.E. HQ´s From Army down to Company
Then Large Formations down to Sections
and Finaly all the Support Formations

In the patch the units in the estab list are sorted. Not quite in this order but when you look at it you will see it makes more sense than the fairly random order it is currently in. I have added a wishlist item for a future game to sort the weapons and vehicles in the estab list as well.

Originally posted by various people:

Mouse wheel zoom

From the list of new features in the patch:

Originally posted by Panther Paul:

UI - Mouse wheel Zoom (due to time constraints only for Windows NT4, 2000, XP).

Regards
33

[Bertram]

One of the things I don't like is the trouble you have to "hunt down" the last men of a unit. This is especially irritating if it was an AT unit, which lost all its guns, or an tank unit whose tanks are destroyed, but has 30 men left that keep popping up and attacking or blocking roads.

In general I think it might be a good idea to get rid of the men manning the larger weapon systems-that is, they wold be implied in the estab. If I meet a Bn of Tigers I am not really interested in the number of men inside, the number of tanks is all that matters. And if those tanks are all kocked out the unit is for all purposes "hors de combat". Those 15 men that got out should not matter much in the scope of things. And historically those men would head for the rear, to be appointed new weapons (if available). Only if things were really desperate would they stay in the battle, but then almost always added to an other friendly unit.

I don't know the way losses are computed (the manual both states that major systems like tanks and AT guns are resolved individually, and that equipment is lost at a random base according to the number of men lost). So getting rid of the men might screw up the system. Maybe an easy solution could be that an heavy weapon unit (like a tank Bn, or an AT Bn), that looses all its heavy weapons is automatically merged with the nearest friendly.


Another factor thing that i would like to see addressed is the willingnes of units to attack against overwhelming odds. If use an assault order, an unit of 100 men will cheerfully storm an complete regiment. And even using probe they will only break off after a certain number of casualties, even if they "know" that the odds are a 100-1.


A bit rambling, and I run out of time. I'll try to clarify later, or when there are responses.


Bertram

[Arjuna]

Bertram,

I'll add a task to our wish list to review the current Disbandment code. At the moment a unit has to be below a certain percentage of its personnel before it will be disbanded and merged with some other unit. But I agree that for Tanks and gun units it probably should be based on the number of tanks and/or guns remaining.

Re attacking against all odds: You may be surprised about what the enemy actually knows. It may be obvious to you that he is attacking into a whole Regiment, but according to his intel the only current or recent sightings may be one or two companies. In general units ordered to attack/probe will at least attempt to do so. Whether they call it off soon enough is another matter. I have tweaked the casualty thresholds for attacks in the patch that is about to come out. So let me know if you think it has improved and hopefully not gone too far the other way. It's often a fine line. [:)]

[Bertram]

The speed of reacton on this forum never ceases to amaze me .

Great about the tanks, I think it will help. If you have room on that list I have an other suggestion (no, it never stops [:D]) At the moment the rout algorith uses (among others, and as far as I can see) the number of casualties, the time in which they are caused, and the percentage of the original strenght that is lost. For tank units this (very?) often translates in a rout when one tank is lost. Quite logical, because in a split second as much as a sixth of the force can be lost. But translated to the effects on the game it means that one lucky shot from a single at gun can rout a bn of Tigers (quite apart from the fact that I can't really imaging a tank unit routing. Retreating yes, but routing? Racing full throttle direction home???). So I think that for units like these the rout code might be needed to be reviewed. (Here to, I think, is a perceived threath more usefull to predict if a unit will retreat. The fact that a comrade was lost must be taken in account, but it should also matter if a single AT gun is firing, or 20 enemy tanks are shelling the unit).

Regarding the attacking code (and the same goes for defending), I think the problem (my problem) lies in the fact that the calling off of the attack, or the dropping back of the defender, is based on the casualty threshold. That works ok when the forces are reasonably balanced. But when the odds are more uneven, it seems to me that the deciding factor is more a percieved threath, and that any commander would break of the attack, or pull back, BEFORE any casualty threshold was reached..... (maybe unless he had "hold at all cost"orders, but even then... ).

This ties in with an other commend that I have regarding attacking troops. As far as I can see the troops attack until the casualty threshold is reached. Then they retreat (icon gets brown). In my opinion the troops should break of the attack earlier, but then not necesairly retreat, just not advance anymore. Especialy when attacking from several direction you now get often a "dance" of units advancing, retreating, advancing, around a target.

Bertram

[Arjuna]

Bertram,

This behaviour has been adjusted in the patch. It's coming out soon.

[Willard]

I am not sure if this is historical or not, but when I order an assault by a battalion, its kinda weird how it is planned out.

For example, sometimes I have ordered an attack and the BN hq leads the attack and the much stronger companies are very slow to respond and usually trail. The result is that the BN hq takes a number of losses (losing 5-10 men in a unit of 25 causes major problems) and the larger companies eventually show up afterwards. Additionally, the mortor unit will also advance way ahead of the companies...instead of staying behind and providing support fire.

[Arjuna]

We also adjusted the attack code in the patch and this should be greatly reduced. In part it depends on the distance to the FUP. If this is short then each unit makes its own way there and then forms up in line ( or whatever ) and assaults. If the distance to the FUP ( not the objective ) is long then they will Move there in formation.

[d95err]

ORIGINAL: Bertram
(quite apart from the fact that I can't really imaging a tank unit routing. Retreating yes, but routing? Racing full throttle direction home???)

I suppose that in a desperate situation where a tank crew were panicking completely, they would bail out and run for home, even though the vehicle might be still intact.

I don't know if the game has "degrees" in routing, but I suppose that somewhere between "unorgainzed retreat", and "surrender", there could be a "bail out and run" situation, where the tank unit would loose all their vehices but keep some of their men.

[Tzar007]

ORIGINAL: d95err

I suppose that in a desperate situation where a tank crew were panicking completely, they would bail out and run for home, even though the vehicle might be still intact.

I don't know if the game has "degrees" in routing, but I suppose that somewhere between "unorgainzed retreat", and "surrender", there could be a "bail out and run" situation, where the tank unit would loose all their vehices but keep some of their men.

In reality, tank crews who escaped sure death out of their wrecked vehicles are completely useless as soldiers. Moreover, I would believe that at the scale of a game such as HTTR, tank crews out of their tanks are tactically irrelevant. So as far as I am concerned, when all tanks have been put out of action, the unit is, for all intents and purposes, eliminated even if there are some remnants (these guys usually fled for the rear areas to be reassigned).

[Bertram]

Another one for the long term wish list:

If you zoom in, the size of the units remain the same, cluttering the map till it gets useless. Removing the "not commanding" units helps, but you tend to loose sight of the dispersion of the troops.

A nice feature would be the ability to have only "higher level" organisations displayed, with an indication of how that organisation was deployed. Like the outline you get for a single unit now hen you click on it, but then for the whole formation. Next step would obviously be the ability to give commands this way.....


An other thing with the map zoom (and rather minor): I dislike the way the houses scale, or rather do not scale. The filling of the build up area suffers from the zoom. I think we might need different textures for the different zoom levels for the build up area. And if that is not possible, I would rather have different shades of red for the different kind of build-up area's (like standard on maps).


Bertram

[Bil H]

ORIGINAL: Bertram

Another one for the long term wish list:

If you zoom in, the size of the units remain the same, cluttering the map till it gets useless. Removing the "not commanding" units helps, but you tend to loose sight of the dispersion of the troops.

Try using the small counter toggle ( ~ key).. the small counters (which I use 75% of the time in game now) will help with the clutter you see with the large counters.

A nice feature would be the ability to have only "higher level" organisations displayed, with an indication of how that organisation was deployed. Like the outline you get for a single unit now hen you click on it, but then for the whole formation. Next step would obviously be the ability to give commands this way.....

Good idea.. but maybe when the OOB screen gets implemented in BFTB (next game) this will become a reality.

An other thing with the map zoom (and rather minor): I dislike the way the houses scale, or rather do not scale. The filling of the build up area suffers from the zoom. I think we might need different textures for the different zoom levels for the build up area. And if that is not possible, I would rather have different shades of red for the different kind of build-up area's (like standard on maps).

Yep. Try my modded textures here: http://www.highwaytothereich.com/downloads.asp ... I have addressed this issue. You have your choice of either the original green textures, or my favorite brown textures (for elevations). Let me know what you think of this solution. With these textures, you gain detail as you zoom in.

Here is an example of the zoomed out levels (brown version):



Bil

[Bertram]

Bil,

Yes, I now remeber, I have tried to download those maps before.....

For some reason the first link gives a file damaged error, the second does show me a file, but I can not do anything with it (shows me a file in a map, but file-size is 0kb, and right-clicking gives a "program does not react" freeze). The last one again gives a file damaged error.

Could be a problem with my connection, being behind a router and firewall, but that should be not the case.

(WinXP and IE6)


Bertram

[Bil H]

Worked fine for me. Are you saving it to your HD or attempting to open it directly?

Bil

[Fred98]

Campaign mode. A lack of a campaign mode could kill the series. I for one will have little interest in games 3 or 4 of the series without a campaign mode. In which case there may not be a game 5. Once every 2 or 3 nights I might play a game. There is no driving desire to continue because there is no campaign.

Improvements to the map graphics and improvements to the sounds. Both feel obsolete by modern wargaming standards.

Make the sounds stereo. In some wargames if a shot comes from the north-east it sounds like its coming from the north east and I can quickly find where the shot came from

The ability to click on a message and be taken to the action.

The icons to shrink as I zoom out. Currently the icons clutter the map so the zoom feature is useless.

I prefer to use the small icons but the information square disappears.

When units are moving, a number of rectangles are produced to show the formation. I find the rectangles very annoying – the option to turn off those rectangles.

As somebody said: the ability to plan one attack at 12:00 and another at 12:15

Fog Of War (“FOW”) I need to test game features as a way to improve my play. FOW comes in 4 variants – I would love to see all 4 available.

Side A FOW “on” Side B FOW “on”
Side A FOW “on” Side B FOW “off”
Side A FOW “off” Side B FOW “on”
Side A FOW “off” Side B FOW “off”

[d95err]

Another wish: Play-by Email (PBEM)

It should be fairly easy to implement a WEGO-system by simply making the game auto-pause and save at some (configurable) interval, e.g. every hour. Orders could be issued by the player at any time, but the order delays should be manipulated such that a new order can be processed at the earliest at the beginning of the next "turn". Even better if team-based PBEM was be possible.

Looks like something like this is planned for the Close Assault game, and it would be great to have it in Airborne Assault. Having a 5 month old daughter, I don't have much time for long multiplayer sessions. Playing using PBEM at a more leasurely pace would suit me a lot better.

[Fred98]

Korsun Pocket is turn based. And I play by PBEM

At one time there was talk of adding a "continous time" option so it could be played over the internet. And your wish is to make HTTR turn based.

My view is that they are 2 separate markets. There is a place for PBEM and there is a place for continous time.

[d95err]

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

Korsun Pocket is turn based. And I play by PBEM

At one time there was talk of adding a "continous time" option so it could be played over the internet. And your wish is to make HTTR turn based.

My view is that they are 2 separate markets. There is a place for PBEM and there is a place for continous time.

Squad Assault is just as much realtime as HTTR, and it will have a PBEM-mode. I'm not suggesting a turn based game. The only difference to actual gameplay would be that the minimum order delay would be 1 hour (or whatever the "turn" length would be). Therefore, it should not be too difficult to implement in the current game engine.

I'm sure that a lot of people who, like me, cannot spend hours at a time in front of the computer, would love this option.

EDIT: Oups, I meant of course "Close Assault", not "Squad Assault". Hard to keep all those "Assault" games appart...

[Tzar007]

I also support the idea of a PBEM option. I find PBEM much more convenient than online play.

As for the scale of the turns in a PBEM game, I don't know what would work best. One one hand, one hour means that for large scenarios (10 days +), games will drag on and on for hundreds of turns. On the other hand, so much things can happen in one hour that you would not want to wait more than one hour before giving new orders...

[general billy]

I personaly feel future games on the HTTR should remain real time. If they have the time to add PBEM then why not, but I for one wont be playing it in that fasion. Its the real time action that gives me the buzz in this game, I dont think I would get that out of it if it was PBEM. Its the same with Combat Mission, its turn base play thats puts me off, and 60 secs is way to short, wish they had real time. I know its a great game, but its one for the shelves for me.

[SeaMonkey]

I've been thinking about this map clutter using the zoom feature and the units. Since we have parental organizations and each unit has a deployment area, instead of using the actual unit icons we use a bordering colored line defining the deployments of the units in the color designated by the user for the higher echelon Hqs. Using a florescent orange (for example) allocated to the 82nd airborne, all unit deployments would be shown as various shaded lines (? each btn.) of that color. When the bracket or circle is selected or the mouse pointer runs across it the unit info screen indicates the specific information for that unit deployment. This will reduce the clutter and the lines of deployment will be readily identified indicating the dispersal of the sub-units of the parent (div. corps) Hq. Refining ideas?