CM Red Thunder page is up

[Michael Dorosh]

For me, reading a good AAR

Do you know of many? I keep stumbling on these strange things called "DARs" which almost seem engineered to highlight pretty screenshots and poor play.

Those that remember the 'classic" wargame magazines from the golden age may recall a time when "Series Replays" were hand-picked. They found two people who were - as noted above - veterans of a game system, found a neutral commentator (usually a developer), and then reported on a move-by-move game which had several key facets. It had points of high drama or tension; the end result was usually in doubt (unlike yesterday's Super Bowl); and the reader could learn about the game system via the informed commentary, either by the players (who were expert strategists) or the commentator (who could point out how the "expert strategists" failed to properly execute game mechanics, applied the rules poorly, or flat-out botched things. If such a trio of experts didn't finish a game, it didn't get published. If it resulted in a lacklustre product, they likewise had the option of not providing it for public consumption, and by all accounts, this is what happened.

Not every one was a gem, and some of the Series Replays in The General were rushed into print to highlight a new game, but even some of these were more entertaining than the worst of the online AAR/DAR one may find now. Everyone and his blog seem to be producing them - I've done it too. Some are produced purely for entertainment purposes - I would never dream of telling someone else how to enjoy this hobby. But I would suggest that trying to learn about the game by reading AARs, and thinking it preferable to playing the game (particularly when demos are available), is a unique take on things.

[Elvis]

I'm interested in the AAR's, in how people play the game, because I enjoy reading about the tactics used by other wargamers. I might not be inclined to purchase the game the AAR is for, but that doesn't mean I have no reason to read the AAR's. If they're well-written, they can be both educational and entertaining.

For me, reading a good AAR is like what walking into a store or to a booth at a convention and seeing people play a boardgame is for tabletop wargamers.

You may like, dislike or feel indifferent as you see fit. (I don't like strawberries and bananas and many people do) What occurred to me reading this thread, and particularly the highlighted part of the above quote, was that a free demo is available for both CMBN and CMFI. Certainly a lot can be learned from the public AARs (that' why we do them) but nothing can show you if you enjoy it or what you can do with the engine better than taking it for a spin. A poster above suggested that you buy it to try it. You don't even have to do that. Off the top of my head I think there are at least 6 scenarios on both demos combined. Heck, I'd imagine it takes even less time than reading the AARs. You might still think that it isn't your thing after that but I bet you'd have a better feel for what you like or don't like afterwards.

My 2 cents......and I know 2 cents ain't worth much these days.

[Staggerwing]

Elvis...? Is that really you!?! OMG :o All these years they lied to us! The fans needed you, man, we really needed you...

[Sir Slash]

I have your Blue Suede Shoes in a safe place man. And welcome to Grogs by the way. ;)

[Bletchley_Geek]

It's one of those typical wargame things: weapons are frequently modelled in detail, but logistics, recon and C&C are often significantly simplified. I'm still waiting for a game with truly realistic FoW, logistics and order delays combined with a realistic movement and combat system.

Well, one can try to deliver  :)

Regarding CMx2 I see that we don't agree. Stationary tanks will most frequently spot (and fire) first, and that was true even with the bugs in the spotting model of CMx2 recently uncovered. The biggest problem is that scenario designers tended to make maps way too small - due to hardware limitations concerns I think - so engaging armour below 500 meters was way too common. Psychological - morale - and physiological - fatigue - models are very well done, in my opinion. Defensive works are subject to FOW, but of course, there can be so many places it makes sense to setup an anti-tank gun or machine gun position as the terrain allows.

Of course, what BFC has now on the table is very different between from what it put on the table on May 2011.

There's a difference between an engine which has people actively working on it, and an engine which hasn't. PCO had the potential, but there wasn't the horsepower to get it across the touch down line. CMx2 had the potential, and with an, at times, erratic progression is truly getting to places. And before anybody mentions Graviteam Tactics engine: recently I had a discussion with the Ukranian counterpart to Steve, and I was appalled to learn that he thought that programming an AI which was aware of tactics, doctrine and limitations in training and command & control as 'useless' or 'fanciful'. Graviteam Tactics got through that line a long time ago w.r.t. to physics and graphics, but fails quite miserably elsewhere.

[Dolan50]

And before anybody mentions Graviteam Tactics engine: recently I had a discussion with the Ukranian counterpart to Steve, and I was appalled to learn that he thought that programming an AI which was aware of tactics, doctrine and limitations in training and command & control as 'useless' or 'fanciful'. Graviteam Tactics got through that line a long time ago w.r.t. to physics and graphics, but fails quite miserably elsewhere.

You misunderstood what he said or failed to understand for the same obvious reasons.

He(Andrey) stated countless times that Graviteam or any other company for that matter neither has the resources to produce an AI that acts like a human brain and most people do not have a PC capable of acting in this manner and capacity either.

When BFC cracks that nut I'll be more than happy to take another look at Combat Mission.

The AI in CM is no better than APOS/GTOS and the same last decade graphics doesn't help that game much either.
CM is a no buy for me.
It offers nothing either in quality and gaming enjoyment I couldn't get from Graviteam at a much cheaper price.

You obviously don't play the game (APO/GTOS)and if you do it's not the fully patched and updated version and comparing CM East front to a Graviteam product is pretty much ridiculous since you have no understanding of the game you are trying to compare.

When you have put some time and effort into really understanding the game you profess to know so much about maybe one day you could persuade me.
Until then don't count on it.

[Michael Dorosh]

There's a difference between an engine which has people actively working on it, and an engine which hasn't. PCO had the potential, but there wasn't the horsepower to get it across the touch down line. CMx2 had the potential, and with an, at times, erratic progression is truly getting to places.

This is an accurate summation. PC:O has a development team still working on it, namely fellows like Steve Overton and Steven Lorenz, the latter being the fellow who wrote Panzer War, the miniatures rules on which Panzer Command is based. For some reason I seem to think that Panzer Command had to switch coders midstream? And may even now not even have anyone in the development stream who is capable of doing the actual computer coding? I stand to be corrected. I admit to not following the situation too closely.

The link below seems to suggest that David Heath, the CEO, had something to do with the decision to go forward with the Panzer Command series - or not:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3307940

Steven says:

"To get another (game in the series) they will have to bring back David Heath. Like they did Steve Jobs. "

Not sure if that means he was an active coder also, or if the decision was based on other factors.

[Bletchley_Geek]

Indeed, by "horsepower" I referred to "coders". My understanding is that PC:O was/is very strong at the design level - i.e. the "drivers" - but the development was hamstrung for unknown reasons. Some weird kind of outsourcing, perhaps.

The link below seems to suggest that David Heath, the CEO, had something to do with the decision to go forward with the Panzer Command series - or not:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3307940

Steven says:

"To get another (game in the series) they will have to bring back David Heath. Like they did Steve Jobs. "

Which means it ain't going happen any time soon.

On a more serious note, I'd like to share some thoughts that some of the readers here might find interesting.

I've been thinking for quite some time about the following problem: how to take Command Ops engine to the tactical level. From a technical standpoint, the engine is built in such a way that going either way - down to the tactical level or up to the regiment/division level - is feasible, yet would require a significant amount of development, but nothing beyond extending rather than re-writing, as the architecture of Command Ops gives an amazing degree of extensibility. In particular, going to the tactical level would specifically and most importantly require to replace the combat engine, so to handle individuals individually - sorry I can't find a better way to put this in English - rather than as aggregates, as well as replacing completely 'the looks' of the thing, using a stable cross-platform engine such as Unity Pro. That would allow to use the CmdOps engine as the back end and making it available on any platform we can find a compiler able to handle the code.

While this is totally feasible from a technical standpoint, and I'd totally like it to happen, there are a few things that detract me from considering seriously this project.

The problem is that CMx2 already exists, and it's already quite good. And it's definitely going to get better. This project - a tactical venturing of Command Ops - would have a head start in respect to AI and other details, but would have to start from scratch when it comes to have a good model of physics, adequate for the tactical level. And I can't help but observe that it took nine years to Charles Moylan - whom I consider a brilliant programmer - to go from the CMx1 models - PC:O models aren't so different from those of CMx1 - to the refined models one can enjoy - or suffer - in CMx2. And I also think that in ten years Charles - or his team if they manage to be able to support such a thing - can well improve CMx2 AI to bring it to the level of Command Ops.

The other thing that bothers me is how to differentiate such a project from Combat Mission. Making a 'modern-day' graphics CMBB is very unappealing to me. As a tech guy I feel one needs to push the envelope of the state-of-the-art. A business guy would probably laugh at me and just hire some artists to rework CMBB models and textures and replace the in-house OpenGL engine for UDK. If you're reading this, hypothetical business guy, I wonder what's holding your hand, really.

My guts tell me that one should go all the way in the direction that Adam Bryant wanted to take Take Command back in the day: to capture faithfully the complexity and interdependence of an army in the field, with a dash of what Stendahl's "Red & Black" captured so well regarding the fog of war. My interpretation of Bryant's vision - ambitious as it was - about "every time you fire up the thing you're confronted with a different situation" comes naturally from integrating the operational simulation already offered by Command Ops with this hypothetical layer. The trick would be to have the ability to serialize the execution of the simulation at the tactical level, and processing it so to translate those tactical outcomes into operational events (units retreat, take casualties, etc.) Now that would put something genuinely new on the table for real.

One could even go much further than anybody else has gone taking advantage of technologies such as Oculus Rift regarding to immersion. I tried yesterday Half-Life 2 with the Rift and even if the display was blurry and I got a bit sick, it was truly like stepping through a wormhole and arriving at the 23rd century or something. This may open the possibility to resolve in a more satisfying way the tension between gameplay and realistic limitations in command and control and 'terrain'-based fog of war. This would mean to avoid what Michael once called 'stepping into the uncanny valley', but while Michael was of the opinion it was an unsolvable conundrum I reckon there's hope. I'd personally also avoid entirely to skirt into the "simulation" thing that ArmA sells, which doesn't interest me at all, and would over-complicate things.

Last but not least important. Does it make sense to do this as a 'CMx2'-killer thing? No, that's ridiculous and doing so isn't a very positive attitude. It will result in alienation more often than not. To me it makes more sense to try to bring together some minds to look into the problem, rather than just one. As an engineer by training I am very averse to re-invent wheels, which I find has been a big problem in the game industry until the advent of engines such as the Unreal Engine and Unity, for instance.

Maybe this might warrant a thread on the Help Wanted section of these forums, but I wanted to illustrate how much of an achievement CMx2 already is, and how high it sets the bar (and not only that, the bar keeps moving higher and higher).

EDIT: Grammar, spelling and clarifying a few sentences. Being ESL sucks  :)

[Zonso]

It's becoming somewhat annoying that you can't accept that I have an opinion that is different from yours, and that you continue to imply that it is somehow all due to my perception of wargames, as if I'm some rookie with strong opinions without having played wargames. You feel the (potential) flaws I see don't exist, or are not all that important. That's fine, but you should accept that I don't rate CMx2 as highly as you and probably never will in its current form. It might all come down to a matter of preference.

Hey ComradeP, at the risk of continuing the back and forth, just let me say the opinion branch extends both ways. I simply think you are mistaken regarding the sophistication of CM and the armour modeling, and have pointed it out as have others.

Actually, this is one of the points where I feel some wargame designers didn't take advantage of what computers have to offer: instead of using the computer's calculating power for a more realistic and complex combat system, traditional CRT's are still in use as well as boardgame style die roll or percentage based systems. Something like a more detailed logistics system is also perfectly within the capabilities of a computer. However, as wargame development teams tend to be small teams with limited funds, unless the programmer's very skilled and has a lot of spare time/is working full time as a programmer it won't happen.

I agree, and this is what games like Combat Mission and Command Ops have been doing for years.

[Zonso]

Interesting insights Bletchley_Geek. My feelings on Command Ops is it needs more dedicated people involved to get it over the hump and start rolling, as it seems to just putter along. I would love to see the game hit the Russian Front in a big way, same scale as currently as there is a lot of material available , both reference and game. One critique I have always had is that the game's presentation at this level is rather dull in both the visual and audio departments.

As I said earlier, I think there is a niche to be filled with a more command type tactical game. Whether there is a large enough market or would end up competing directly with CM and self destruct, I don't know. I think a safer bet would be going up in scale to division/corps level which would be something very new to the gaming world. A Victory Lost is a huge success in the boardgame world, so I don't see why the Command Ops engine couldn't be the same.

[JudgeDredd]

I have one thing to say.....

"meh - more WWII"  ;D

[MengJiao]

I have one thing to say.....

"meh - more WWII"  ;D

  I have more than one thing to say.  I will pick just one (or two or three): an interesting game with an intense focus on an interesting period on the Eastern Front.  And yes it is WWII, but nearly any time and place can have an improved game with a stronger focus and be worth looking into.  If I had to randomly pick from a wish list, I would prefer something from around the Trojan War with a lot of micromanagement of shipping, but I take what I can get.

[undercovergeek]

I have one thing to say.....

"meh - more WWII"  ;D

Cmsf 2 for you

[JudgeDredd]

yes...I'll be buying again when they make Vietnam or Six Day War or Yom Kippur or Korea or Cold War or Gulf War...I'm just not interested in WWII in this engine.

[Bletchley_Geek]

Interesting insights Bletchley_Geek. My feelings on Command Ops is it needs more dedicated people involved to get it over the hump and start rolling, as it seems to just putter along. I would love to see the game hit the Russian Front in a big way, same scale as currently as there is a lot of material available , both reference and game.

I'm trying - take a look at the post I made on the Help Wanted section.

One critique I have always had is that the game's presentation at this level is rather dull in both the visual and audio departments.

Noted. But I won't comment further on this as this is a thread about Combat Mission and tactical wargames by extension.

As I said earlier, I think there is a niche to be filled with a more command type tactical game. Whether there is a large enough market or would end up competing directly with CM and self destruct, I don't know. I think a safer bet would be going up in scale to division/corps level which would be something very new to the gaming world. A Victory Lost is a huge success in the boardgame world, so I don't see why the Command Ops engine couldn't be the same.

There is a niche to be filled, indeed. The problem is that - to draw an analogy - getting into this niche it's not too different from opening a second front on Europe. You don't get that with a brigade of Canadians, who are going to be butchered no matter how tough and good they're, you need to send in the first wave several divisions (including a couple of Canadian divisions) :-)

Indeed, the problem is not one of feasibility, is of the whole thing being worth the effort.

yes...I'll be buying again when they make Vietnam or Six Day War or Yom Kippur or Korea or Cold War or Gulf War...I'm just not interested in WWII in this engine.

To be honest, seeing how badly Combat Mission: Afghanistan did or the very lackluster performance of TOW 3 (which featured helicopters, HELICOPTERS!), getting into the Cold War would be extremely... risky. The case for the - let's say, lack of success - of the Afghanistan game is quite a foreboding example of the kind of problems such games can have attracting Western audiences. I can't help but think that a majority of peeps coming from US/Canada/Western Europe/OZ/NZ would have trouble connecting with the precursors of the Taliban and the Soviets in a barefaced invasion of an independent country.

I've also thought a lot about making a computer war game - mostly strategical with a tactical side - covering stuff such as the Cuban Revolution, which I find to be a very clear example of what Robert S. Leonhard called the "mechanics of defeat". But to be honest, to invest time in a project that will probably have a market size in the hundreds is totally uneconomical and crazy. Projects like that only become worth the effort in a "Print it Yourself" board-based wargame, at best. Or maybe getting completely divested from any historical trappings - something more serious halfway between Tropico and Jagged Alliance 2.