Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Golf33

As in real life, it takes a skilled commander to get the best out of those rather delicate British Armoured Divisions [:)]

Either that or a less than competent opponent[:D]

Well, by the end of the war most of the really good German commanders were either exhausted, dead, or 'retired' by Hitler [;)]

I think I'll be close to all three by the end of the round[:D]

Hi,

Mike and I finally managed to schedule in our game around two difficult schedules. This is Game 3 (Deadman vs. Phase). Phase playing Germans, Deadman as Allies. Results posted below, let me know if I need to mail anything in.

It was great fun and much closer than it seems - Mike almost broke two of my regiments at Deelensche on the morning of Day 3. If they had broken, the score would likely have been the other way around. Great game, looking forward to Round 2.

It was a tough match. I set up my forces for a co-ordinated overlaping attack at Deelensche during the first day. Almost had a breakthrough but I was repelled by the German forces. Once my forces were defeated, I had them withdraw to regroup and rest. Once rested, I came at him again in a multi-directonal semi-coordinated attack at Deelensche. Erik's lines held and he counterattacked. There were some other scirmishes at some of the other points but they were insignificant. The game was close up till the end. Great fight even though I lost.

That was my first online experience with HTTR. Great fun and I learned quite a bit. In hindsight, I should not have engaged the German forces head on. [:-] With the att. guns and the tanks, he had a bit of a turkey-shoot when I approached from open ground. The game is played much better human vs. human (no offense to the A.I. at all). I am looking forward to the rematch.

Mike

ORIGINAL: deadman

The game is played much better human vs. human (no offense to the A.I. at all). I am looking forward to the rematch.

Mike

Mike,

No offense taken mate. Glad you enjoyed it. I do hope more players take the plunge into online play. It is a real buzz. So what do you reckon if the game supported Team Play? [:)]

Mike,

So what do you reckon if the game supported Team Play? [:)]

I reckon that would improve on a already addictive option of the game, And only add to the game play

Sarge

I actually played Sudden Strike 1 & 2 online with team play and it was a blast as long as your teammate didn't quit during the game. His units would default to you and you would have a heck of a time controling all of those units (each unit was separate not like HTTR). I think it would be a great idea and much fun.

Dave,

ORIGINAL: Arjuna
No offense taken mate. Glad you enjoyed it. I do hope more players take the plunge into online play. It is a real buzz. So what do you reckon if the game supported Team Play? [:)]

Speaking strictly as a player... [:)] [&o]

Regards,

- Erik

Team play would be fantastic.

Would anyone else think it would be crazy to have a game where, say, one player is a divisional commander and he has some subordinate brigade commanders? The divisional commander would handle divisional resources and give general instructions to the brigade commanders, who would then handle their area.

ORIGINAL: Agema

Team play would be fantastic.

Would anyone else think it would be crazy to have a game where, say, one player is a divisional commander and he has some subordinate brigade commanders? The divisional commander would handle divisional resources and give general instructions to the brigade commanders, who would then handle their area.

I think that would be really cool. I've played in games like that (using boardgaming mechanisms) and they really bring out different play challenges then the normal head-to-head wargame. A couple of nit-picks though.

1. Probably a brigade is too small a command to make for an interesting game, but it would work with players at Division and Corps level.

2. The Comms would have to be a lot better than the in-game message interface is at the moment.

Mark,

Re Comms. What would you recommend? Voice? Planning Overlays?

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Mark,

Re Comms. What would you recommend? Voice? Planning Overlays?

Voice would obviously be very useful, but it would be mad to re-invent that wheel when things like Teamspeak already exist. However, if team-play were to become popular, it might be cool for Panther or Matrix to host a Teamspeak server.

Planning overlays (which came up in a different thread) would be a really powerful tool for a team game. And I wouldn't have thought they'd be an overwhelming burden to implement (based on my very limited knowledge).

Better chat would be vital too. Even in head-to-head I find myself wanting to type longer sentences than allowed by the chat interface! A team-chat window where you could be more verbose and easily scroll back through the conversation would be valuable. (You might argue that this is also reinventing the wheel; but I think alt-tabbing between the game and Messenger or ICQ would be a bit fraught.)

Mind, if you were really going to take this sort of hierarchical team game serously, then the higher HQ teams shouldn't be able to see what's going on on the map - their only source of info aught to be their subordinates. But now we're getting really complicated...

Mark

Mark,

Re: your suggestion about superior commanders only getting info from subordinates. To make Team pLay effective you must have separate friendly and enemy databases for each command ( ie human player ). This will probably blow out the size of a saved game by a factor of 4 ( assuming 4 players per side ). But it will be essential if we want to keep the situational awareness realistic. On that note though we should probably delay the arrival of everlays as with orders.[:)]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Mark,

Re: your suggestion about superior commanders only getting info from subordinates. To make Team pLay effective you must have separate friendly and enemy databases for each command ( ie human player ). This will probably blow out the size of a saved game by a factor of 4 ( assuming 4 players per side ). But it will be essential if we want to keep the situational awareness realistic. On that note though we should probably delay the arrival of everlays as with orders.[:)]

Or perhaps when the commander 1st Airbourne tries to use chat, he gets a system message back telling him it's unavailable because his radios are broken! In one of the games I mentioned earlier - this one was actually about Market Garden - the on-map location of the HQ I was playing in came under direct attack, and we had to displace in a hurry. The umpires simply took our team into a seperate room and kept us incommunicado for half an hour (twelve hours game time).

I'd seen an earlier mention of team-play as something coming in the future, but I'd sort of assumed you'd simply implement it with each player seeing the entire picture for their side but only controlling a subset of the units. If you were already planning something more sophisticated; a realistically limited view of their own side for each player, then I take my hat off to you! Intel and comms are a complex area, and there are an infinite number of factors you might try to simulate (sometimes to the detriment of the game, as far as playability goes).

Hmm. Wandering just a bit off-topic for this thread...

Mark

I hadn't really thought it would need any new programming; it could be done with the existing structure. Whilst it would be less realistic for all to see all their teammates' commands, we might assume that any commander could find out pretty much what another was doing and what state their forces were in.

I also imagine that a command might want to do things like order units to detach into another's command for some purpose, which might involve tricky programming were they all essentially independent. Also, accessing stuff like corps artillery resources by having to message the general would result in huge delays, when in all likelihood they could be rapidly accessed. If the corps commander didn't want them used for a specific purpose, he can simply tell everyone hands off.

Agema,

Well having multiple commands brings a whole new level of realism simulation. In RL different commands have their own area of operations, their own group of forces and their own fire support arrangements. The interaction between commands required a good deal of coordination.

Assuredly it did.

However, my initial thoughts were not so much to create a new level of realism, but about a different playing experience through interaction of players. I hadn't really put much thought into changing the game system as well to make it more realistic.

In theory, we could get realism to a point where you should even have to request - with appropriate delay - to see what condition any unit is in, and so on. Arguably, this would be injurious to playability. In many ways, I don't think much more need be done than replace certain levels of AI decision making with extra humans. It is something that could merit plenty of debate.

Perhaps we should move to a different thread? I'm a little conscious we're clogging up a non-related file.

ORIGINAL: Golf33

As in real life, it takes a skilled commander to get the best out of those rather delicate British Armoured Divisions [:)]

ORIGINAL: Golf33

As in real life, it takes a skilled commander to get the best out of those rather delicate British Armoured Divisions [:)]

Forgive the above post - happy fingers...
Those "delicate" Armoured Divisions do have more than twice the tanks of their Axis counterparts... Tanks that can go toe to toe with Mk IV's. However, I suppose to a Panther commander that would just make for a target rich environment.