The "Uber" Command: Modern Air/Naval Ops Thread

[RyanE]

Yeah, but I thought there was a deal of the week that went longer.

[bostonmyk]

Hi guys

Another review of our Game of the Year Edition

Command: Modern Air Naval Operations Wargame of the Year Edition - Anmeldelse

Mike

[Coiler]

The comparative relevance is to show how other games do the same things more effectively and efficiently.  One can only hope that MNO will make the game even more like Harpoon. 

Harpoon didn't interest me very much. I saw the Harpoondatabase site, saw the vast wealth of platforms, saw a few examples of play, and went-"ehh, kinda interesting but-eh.." Then I saw Command (why do you call it MNO by the way?), saw Baloogan's video with the scenario editor where he made 21st Century Guadalcanal, and then went "THISGAMELOOKSSOAWESOMEIHAVETOGETIT."

And I did. Took me a few hours to learn basic commands, and I was off. Happier with the $80 I spent on it than much smaller amounts I've spent on other games. That's another thing about both the reviews-they don't have any sense of perspective other than "This is a naval sim, and its _____ isn't as good as [the game I've been playing for years and years]."

Talk of the very adaptable, very easy to use, and very expansive scenario editor that is the most beautiful part of Command in the review is dismissed in one sentence as "This makes scenarios and theoretically has DB-editing capability-but it doesn't." Not "The scenario editor lets you make a simple yet fun and effective scenario in less than an hour, and can do some extremely advanced things if one puts more effort into it."

[Herman Hum]

Talk of the very adaptable, very easy to use, and very expansive scenario editor that is the most beautiful part of Command in the review is dismissed in one sentence as "This makes scenarios and theoretically has DB-editing capability-but it doesn't." Not "The scenario editor lets you make a simple yet fun and effective scenario in less than an hour, and can do some extremely advanced things if one puts more effort into it."

Every scenario editor from Battles from the Bulge to Operational Art of War to Harpoon to War in the Pacific and Flashpoint Campaigns already does the same: makes effective scenarios in less than an hour.  It's pointless to mention what everyone else already does.

However, since MNO boasts that their ScenEditor somehow has a database editing capability (that others may not have), then it is certainly something that should be examined more closely, especially since it is not true.  Of course, if you wish to believe that the "database shuffling or re-combination" function somehow qualifies as database editing, that is your prerogative.  I discuss what it does or, more importantly, does not do.  If someone needs to label something as good or bad, that is their choice.

[mirth]

Herman, I fail to see the need for you to do yet another review of CMANO (oh yes I know you were "asked" to do it). You've previously reviewed the game and we are all well aware of your issues with it. You've made them abundantly clear, here and elsewhere, over the past year.

Most of us know your long history and feud with the folks who have created CMANO.  I don't think I'm alone in saying, it's time to give it a rest. You have the Players DB and continue to turn out scenarios for Harpoon. The Command guys have created their own game and been successful with it.

You clearly have an axe to grind and grind it at every opportunity you can find. You undermine the positive things you bring to the community by insisting on continuing to stir the pot over old grievances that most of us don't give a rat's ass about and are tired of seeing played out across multiple forums.

[RyanE]

The funny thing is some mods here told him to cool it also..he want away for quite a while...he must have gotten tired of beating up on other games.

[GDS_Starfury]

once upon a time I played the everlovingshit out of Harpoon.  my first summer in Chicago for school I had the time off and all I did was bartend, smoke pot and sink ships.  it was wargaming nirvana.  that was over 20 frikin years ago.  new games do things different.  sometimes better and sometimes worse.  from what Ive seen out of CMANO it gets a lot more right then wrong.  if I spent as much time playing CMANO as I did Harpoon then its worth the money.
it might surprise you Herman but, there are other positions besides missionary.

[Bletchley_Geek]

Not all airplanes in MNO travel at the same speed.  I was quite specific and talked about the fighters when they were on afterburner at high altitude.  Most of the modern fighters found in MNO with an afterburner capability are capped at 950knots at high altitude.  There are exceptions, but most of them are artificially restricted in this manner.  I listed fighters such as Tomcat, Falcon, Fulcrum, Flanker, Eagle, Eurofighter, Tornado, and few others as examples.  You could go ahead and list them all.

I think that the explanation or design rationale for this is quite clear

http://www.warfaresims.com/?page_id=2920#624

Why won't my fighter jets fly faster than 950kt (Mach 1.6)?

Warplanes never fly at their theoretic maximum speeds operationally. Over a fighter aircraft's 6000-8000hrs life span, less than 10% is spent at supersonic speeds. Most airframes will never even go beyond Mach 2, and certainly not while flying a combat sortie. Aircraft use a lot of fuel accelerating and maintaining those speeds, and going beyond 950kt is operationally impractical if not impossible simply due to the time and fuel needed to get there. Furthermore, in many cases getting to those speeds will be physically impossible due to weapon and drop tank drag, weapon release envelope limitations, and the possibility of damaging or even detonating external stores.

Command takes aim at simulating a modern battlefield and therefore uses practical operational aircraft speeds. Theoretical specs are left out. That means most modern combat aircraft will not fly faster than Mach 1.6 in the simulator. The fuel burn rates are adjusted accordingly, and for example the F-14D Tomcat can fly 230nm Deck Launched Intercept (DLI) missions at Mach 1.6 dash. There are of course numerous exceptions and fighters like F-22A Raptor, MiG-25 Foxbat and MiG-31 Foxhound can easily fly faster.

If you still think these speed limitations are unreasonable please grab a flight simulator like Falcon 4.0 and attempt to fly combat sorties at 1400kt, 1200kt or even just 1000kt. Make sense now?

at least to me. Indeed, in a simulator, one would be able to exploit tactically the boundaries of aircraft performance. And as the example implies, you certainly can't achieve those speeds in a sustained way with a combat load, let alone have the fuel to fly to the target area and back to the base.  In a war game like Command, where you're controlling tens of aircraft over vast spaces on real-time, I don't think that it is reasonable to expect the devs to provide with an AI that exploits these possibilities in an effective way - for instance, to evade incoming fires. The reasonable thing is to "abstract" these capabilities into some sort of agility rating which is used to determine the chances of success of an "abstract" evasive maneuver the AI can invoke under certain conditions (i.e. the AI is aware of the incoming threat, for instance). I will concede that some extreme micro-management on behalf of the player would be able to make some use of these maximum speeds for tactical purposes. But when I say "extreme" would be to run the game for one second, pause, and adjust the aircraft speed, heading and altitude - that would be pretty much like playing the game in WEGO-like fashion with 1 second turns!

You'll find abstractions like this at some point in any war game or simulator out there. Recently on the Pike & Shot thread on these forums I observed that the ranges of the firearms being simulated was way way shorter than the screenshots suggested. The designer came forward, confirmed my observation and offered a quite cogent rationale for having unrealistic ranges. I might find some points of that rationale dubious, but first, that's my personal, external assessment and second, I must conceded that given the scope and level of abstraction on other departments, the design decision was sound.

Every scenario editor from Battles from the Bulge to Operational Art of War to Harpoon to War in the Pacific and Flashpoint Campaigns already does the same: makes effective scenarios in less than an hour.  It's pointless to mention what everyone else already does.

I wonder what's your definition of "effective". If you mean "playable", yes, every one of those titles allow to make playable custom scenarios in less than an hour. But to be honest, pretty much anything can be "playable" or "enjoyable" (at least by the scenario designer), so I don't find it particularly meaningful. Let's look a bit more in detail in the tasks required to make an scenario:

• Making the Map - In Command, you have at your disposal a very high fidelity GIS database ready to use. This database covers the whole globe in an amazing level of detail, which is tactically and operationally relevant. The detail and fidelity just blows any Harpoon title out of the water. In WITP you are presented with a ready-made map, at a very, very coarse scale. In TOAW you can either reuse one of the maps in the many scenarios available (some of them are just plainly horribly researched though) or you can do your own, requiring you 1) obtain an original source map at an adequate scale, 2) process the map so you overlay a hex grid and 3) classify each hex with a particular terrain type. In Command Ops you have to trace the map manually using geometric primitives (lines, Bezier curves) allowing to use a source map as an underlay. In Flashpoint you can readily import HD5 GIS data and obtain auto-magically a hex-based map. So of the five examples you give, my ranking  w.r.t. useability would go as 1) Command & WITP, 2) Flashpoint, 3) Command Ops and 4) TOAW. A ranking according to flexibility would go as 1) Flashpoint & Command Ops, 2) TOAW, 3) Command and 4) WITP.
• Working out the Order of Battle & Tables of Organization and Equipment - All of the games you mention offer a ready to use database of units that can be used to put together your combat forces. All of them but Command offer the capability of creating new databases from scratch. All of the games - including Command - allow to customize existing databases. In Command, the customize database is embedded in the scenario, in the other games, becomes an additional resource that needs to be managed appropiately (i.e. installed) by the user. Leaving aside "ideological" motives for having the ability to create databases, the truth is that probably less than 33% of war game players ever touch the content creation tools, and arcane - as in requiring a lot of research work - stuff like platform or weapon modeling is probably ever approached by less than a 10%. So, other considerations notwithstanding, Command caters for the 90% of their potential player base in this respect.
• Working out the scenario itself - Leaving aside the obvious differences in subject matter, all of the games you discuss (including Command) offer the same capabilities regarding establishing objectives, programming/orienting the AI, etc. Yet in terms of flexibility, both Command and TOAW feature an freeform Event Editor (free-form as in catering for more than rather mundane reinforcement arrivals, force withdrawals or frustrating "frozen" status). This is a brilliant feature to have, as it empowers the scenario designer to account for stuff that the game engine cannot account for out of the box (like the consequences of political decision making). Indeed, TOAW allows - via Theater Options - to exert some influence on the likelihood of certain events, and Command doesn't, other than by achieving some tactical or operational result (i.e. sinking the wrong ship). In TOAW scenarios, theater options make more sense when the player is commanding a Theater rather than when commanding a Corps. There are not many "theater" level scenarios in Command, though. One could argue that if the "highest" role to be role-played is that of Task Force or strategic scope commands (like SAC/NORAD), "political" or "administrative" options make precious little sense to be available. If you're war gaming Nuclear War, the use of strategic weapons is a premise of the scenario.

You're making blanket statements that do not stand well under close scrutiny.

[Herman Hum]

Herman, I fail to see the need for you to do yet another review of CMANO (oh yes I know you were "asked" to do it). You've previously reviewed the game and we are all well aware of your issues with it. You've made them abundantly clear, here and elsewhere, over the past year.

I'm not the one digging up past grievances.  I'm talking about how a game does or does not work.  I am answering someone's request for assistance, which I would do for anyone.  The motto has always been, "Help all who ask."

The updated review was necessary since a new game version came out on Steam and some might think that many changes and improvements had been made, when they had not.  Others are writing reviews for v1.05 yet they are not subjected to the same questions and abuse only my review is critical and points out serious game deficiencies.

[GDS_Starfury]

Im really not trying to be a dick about this but other people dont have your history with the game designers.
it is what it is man and it will always color your take on things to the rest of us.

[Herman Hum]

Not all airplanes in MNO travel at the same speed.  I was quite specific and talked about the fighters when they were on afterburner at high altitude.  Most of the modern fighters found in MNO with an afterburner capability are capped at 950knots at high altitude.  There are exceptions, but most of them are artificially restricted in this manner.  I listed fighters such as Tomcat, Falcon, Fulcrum, Flanker, Eagle, Eurofighter, Tornado, and few others as examples.  You could go ahead and list them all.

I think that the explanation or design rationale for this is quite clear

http://www.warfaresims.com/?page_id=2920#624

And totally irrelevant.

The aircraft in MNO are capped at 950 knots on afterburner.  It matters not a whit whether anyone agrees or believes in the excuses.  It cannot be changed by the player.  Either accept this artificial and arbitrary limit or else do not purchase the game.  It's as simple as that.

Every scenario editor from Battles from the Bulge to Operational Art of War to Harpoon to War in the Pacific and Flashpoint Campaigns already does the same: makes effective scenarios in less than an hour.  It's pointless to mention what everyone else already does.

I wonder what's your definition of "effective". If you mean "playable", yes, every one of those titles allow to make playable custom scenarios in less than an hour. But to be honest, pretty much anything can be "playable" or "enjoyable" (at least by the scenario designer), so I don't find it particularly meaningful. Let's look a bit more in detail in the tasks required to make an scenario:

• Making the Map - In Command, you have at your disposal a very high fidelity GIS database ready to use. This database covers the whole globe in an amazing level of detail, which is tactically and operationally relevant. The detail and fidelity just blows any Harpoon title out of the water. In WITP you are presented with a ready-made map, at a very, very coarse scale. In TOAW you can either reuse one of the maps in the many scenarios available (some of them are just plainly horribly researched though) or you can do your own, requiring you 1) obtain an original source map at an adequate scale, 2) process the map so you overlay a hex grid and 3) classify each hex with a particular terrain type. In Command Ops you have to trace the map manually using geometric primitives (lines, Bezier curves) allowing to use a source map as an underlay. In Flashpoint you can readily import HD5 GIS data and obtain auto-magically a hex-based map. So of the five examples you give, my ranking  w.r.t. useability would go as 1) Command & WITP, 2) Flashpoint, 3) Command Ops and 4) TOAW. A ranking according to flexibility would go as 1) Flashpoint & Command Ops, 2) TOAW, 3) Command and 4) WITP.
• Working out the Order of Battle & Tables of Organization and Equipment - All of the games you mention offer a ready to use database of units that can be used to put together your combat forces. All of them but Command offer the capability of creating new databases from scratch. All of the games - including Command - allow to customize existing databases. In Command, the customize database is embedded in the scenario, in the other games, becomes an additional resource that needs to be managed appropiately (i.e. installed) by the user. Leaving aside "ideological" motives for having the ability to create databases, the truth is that probably less than 33% of war game players ever touch the content creation tools, and arcane - as in requiring a lot of research work - stuff like platform or weapon modeling is probably ever approached by less than a 10%. So, other considerations notwithstanding, Command caters for the 90% of their potential player base in this respect.
• Working out the scenario itself - Leaving aside the obvious differences in subject matter, all of the games you discuss (including Command) offer the same capabilities regarding establishing objectives, programming/orienting the AI, etc. Yet in terms of flexibility, both Command and TOAW feature an freeform Event Editor (free-form as in catering for more than rather mundane reinforcement arrivals, force withdrawals or frustrating "frozen" status). This is a brilliant feature to have, as it empowers the scenario designer to account for stuff that the game engine cannot account for out of the box (like the consequences of political decision making). Indeed, TOAW allows - via Theater Options - to exert some influence on the likelihood of certain events, and Command doesn't, other than by achieving some tactical or operational result (i.e. sinking the wrong ship). In TOAW scenarios, theater options make more sense when the player is commanding a Theater rather than when commanding a Corps. There are not many "theater" level scenarios in Command, though. One could argue that if the "highest" role to be role-played is that of Task Force or strategic scope commands (like SAC/NORAD), little "political" or "administrative" options make sense to be available. If you're war gaming Nuclear War, the use of strategic weapons is a premise of the scenario.

You're making blanket statements that do not stand well under close scrutiny.

Every scenario editor can make wonderful detailed scenarios if given sufficient time.  The MNO scenario editor is no better nor different.  Of course, other editors such as War in the Pacific, Harpoon, and FPC (to name just a few) actually allow for real database editing capability; that means that they can actually change the performance of the units instead of just mixing up the various systems in new combinations (a.k.a. shuffling).

[mirth]

Herman, I fail to see the need for you to do yet another review of CMANO (oh yes I know you were "asked" to do it). You've previously reviewed the game and we are all well aware of your issues with it. You've made them abundantly clear, here and elsewhere, over the past year.

I'm not the one digging up past grievances.  I'm talking about how a game does or does not work.  I am answering someone's request for assistance, which I would do for anyone.  The motto has always been, "Help all who ask."

The updated review was necessary since a new game version came out on Steam and some might think that many changes and improvements had been made, when they had not.  Others are writing reviews for v1.05 yet they are not subjected to the same questions and abuse only my review is critical and points out serious game deficiencies.

IMHO, you don't do things for the community. You do them to promote yourself. That's based on years of observation of your behavior within the gaming community.

[Baloogan]

You guys realize this guy is nuts, yes? You can't change his opinion or his idiot's crusade.

[Baloogan]

Though, what we can do is refute the things he says for people who don't read naval warfare forums.

[Reckall]

Herman, I fail to see the need for you to do yet another review of CMANO (oh yes I know you were "asked" to do it). You've previously reviewed the game and we are all well aware of your issues with it.

Which begs the question: Why Matrix asked to post on SimHQ a review of version 1.01 "pronto!" (made by an obvious fanatic) and thus sinking the original 1.00 review by Herman? Inquiring minds already know the answer.