CM Red Thunder page is up

[Bletchley_Geek]

the player is still a supreme overlord who can send ahistorical numbers of units towards one objective or concentrate all his artillery on one objective.

The Command & Control aspect of artillery needs to be addressed in CmdOps, yesterday I was working precisely on that. Regarding the 'ahistoricity' of troop concentrations: one does that at his own risk. Against the AI isn't very dangerous - yet - but a human player would more than likely inflict a sharp punishment. There's no such a thing as 'stacking points', there's road congestion and the threat of enemy artillery and air support.

Historical accuracy shouldn't be mistaken for railroading you into behaving exactly like your historical counterparts. Rather, in my opinion it should give you the historical tools (equipment, training and command effectiveness ratings, things like that), strengths and weaknesses of a certain nation's army to work with.

Now that Korsun has been mentioned: it was a very "un-Soviet" operation for the time. It had received weeks instead of months of prior planning and instead of a deep strike well into the German rear (which would've meant advancing towards the Bug or at the least Uman) it featured a limited encirclement. The Soviet staff study doesn't really mention any future operations in detail, the limited encirclement was the plan and not part of a greater plan. Compare that to Bagration, which had plenty of preparation time and featured a two pincer encirclement operation as well as the usual bloody frontal attack against the center of the German line to keep the Germans from withdrawing.

There's a temporal and causal context to that ComradeP, that you seem to be missing with that remark about "un-sovietness". The Soviets kept evolving and changing their thinking as the war progressed, proving an adaptability that I can't see on the Germans (who never got around formalizing into their doctrine the notion of 'delaying operation' or 'breakout battle') or the Western Allies. You need to understand Korsun in the light of the deep operations conducted by the Soviets in 1943 which ended up with the destruction or severe mauling of the Soviet spearheads. Korsun, and the later Hube's Pocket, were the fore-runners of future Soviet operations in 1944 and 1945. We usually read that the Soviets were 'rigid' or 'unimaginative' or whatever. But just think about Market Garden for a second, and compare it with failed Soviet deep operations in 1943 and 1944, and you'll see why the Soviets preferred a 'broad' front approach, as the only way to avoid the Germans from using maneuver. The US Airborne and the XXX Corps were lucky that the commander in Holland was Model, and not Raus or Hube. Otherwise, I'm afraid that rather than one division, it would have been six the number of destroyed Allied divisions.

[ComradeP]

What I meant is that an operation like Korsun was the exception, not the rule. Doctrinally, it shouldn't have happened in terms of deep battle. I find it peculiar that Nash describes it as a fine example of a deep battle operation, whilst it wasn't. Also note that Rotmistrov's decision to keep moving forward was at the time also the exception not the rule. One of the reasons the spearheads kept getting isolated and destroyed was their inflexibility. The inflexibility wasn't the reason they got into that situation, that was related to the doctrine.

The Soviet spearheads getting mauled from time to time was a reality the Soviets seemed to accept. I'm not really sure they changed their doctrine after Korsun in the way you imply.

After all: the spearheads being cut off and destroyed kept happening right up to the final stages of the war. In 1944-1945 we have first Iasy-Kishinev, Tali-Ihantala, the first Riga offensive (strategically successful, not operationally on the short term), Debrecen, the first attempt to capture Warsaw (and earlier on the fighting near the 1941 German-Soviet border), the first attempt to capture East Prussia, the overextended Soviet forces in western Hungary that nearly resulted in a successful operation Konrad. It's the same pattern over and over, and in most cases those were more traditional deep battle operations. It was just a risk associated with the doctrine: high risk, high reward. If it went well, a large amount of territory could be liberated in a limited amount of time. If it went wrong, the spearheading formations were sent back to the drawing board for a few weeks.

I'm not seeing a significant change in caution around Korsun. The planning kept getting better, logistics build-up time shortened and air support improved, but the doctrinal flaws inherent to sending a mix of regular and veteran formations far forwards with shaky logistics support were not fixed in Europe. The fighting in Manchuria showed further improvement, but the Japanese didn't have the means to effectively resist the Soviets in any case.

[Zonso]

Historical accuracy shouldn't be mistaken for railroading you into behaving exactly like your historical counterparts. Rather, in my opinion it should give you the historical tools (equipment, training and command effectiveness ratings, things like that), strengths and weaknesses of a certain nation's army to work with.

Getting back to Combat Mission - that quote above pretty much says what CM is and does.

Interestingly, someone like John Tiller feels that the squad level is more or less the only level that allows for a more or less faithful recreation of tactical fighting. A game on CM's or PC:O's scale is 2-3 levels above that.

That is incorrect, CM's level is the team/squad. Whether the game allows you to field a battalion or more doesn't change that.

Another problem is that many developers have been developing games, often including boardgames, for decades and are quite conservative in their game designs. To them, the computer is a glorified calculator. I don't find it particularly surprising that revolutionary games are developed by new studios and not by people like Tiller or Grigsby.

I'm still very curious what will happen when the boardgame wargamers who moved to PC gaming will become a minority compared to the newer generations of wargamers (myself included) who grew up with PC wargaming. I expect that many developers will have to radically alter some of their game systems to keep up with the new demands for innovation.

Hmm, not sure I see that. It seems to me there is a generation of gamers who 'missed' out on the boardgaming era and have an avid interest and desire in returning to the roots of the hobby, which has resulted in a resurgence in boardgaming, including conversions to the PC. Personally, having grown with the hobby, games such as CM and Command Ops are the truly revolutionary ones. I am curious what you consider to be revolutionary games by new developers today?

[Zonso]

  It seems like a scenario design problem.  For example, an attack starts with only tanks and no artillery and infantry -- those arrive later.  Or vis-versa -- or with lots of artillery and not much else -- lots of stuff arriving as reinforcements might simulate some kind of coordination problem -- but such things would tend to happen more (in 1944 at least) when the Germans were not well-entrenched -- the punch into the first line was something the Russians had worked out (usually) by late 1942 or early 1943 (operation Spark for example).

Yes I would agree, the emphasis does rest with scenario design. QBs as outlined in the public beta AARs are another beast, the nature of min/maxing, force selection whether kit, TOE or experience etc is for competitive and/or sandbox play first, historical aspects may not even play a role.

I'm looking forward to the new scenarios and campaigns in Red Thunder that will be developed with the AI trigger feature. Perhaps my expectations are too high, but I am thinking they will facilitate a Red Army style of attack and simulate some of the rigidity discussed here. It shouldn't be too much longer...

[ComradeP]

Getting back to Combat Mission - that quote above pretty much says what CM is and does.

No, it doesn't, as like in many other wargames you are not forced to play with the historical handicaps and don't have to use historical tactics. You get historical unit types, but how you use them is up to you. That's a major weakness of CM and most other wargames (including the titles I mentioned earlier, obviously).

There will be a large number of threads when, say, a Panther has better gun stats than a Sherman, but hardly anyone posts about abstracted logistics or too much information not making much historical sense.

That is incorrect, CM's level is the team/squad. Whether the game allows you to field a battalion or more doesn't change that.

How many forces you have has a significant influence on gameplay. Though still tactical, it matters a lot if you're fielding a battalion or just a platoon. The greater the scale and the larger the number of units, the greater the dangers of "min/maxing" by the player and the use of ahistorical strategies.

[Zonso]

ComradeP - Your generalizing appear confused and contradicting to me, and you are overlooking or missing what has been stated earlier, or in CM's case just wrong. I would still like to hear what developers/games today you consider revolutionary by your standards?

[Con]

Getting back to Combat Mission - that quote above pretty much says what CM is and does.

No, it doesn't, as like in many other wargames you are not forced to play with the historical handicaps and don't have to use historical tactics. You get historical unit types, but how you use them is up to you. That's a major weakness of CM and most other wargames (including the titles I mentioned earlier, obviously).

There will be a large number of threads when, say, a Panther has better gun stats than a Sherman, but hardly anyone posts about abstracted logistics or too much information not making much historical sense.

That is incorrect, CM's level is the team/squad. Whether the game allows you to field a battalion or more doesn't change that.

How many forces you have has a significant influence on gameplay. Though still tactical, it matters a lot if you're fielding a battalion or just a platoon. The greater the scale and the larger the number of units, the greater the dangers of "min/maxing" by the player and the use of ahistorical strategies.

That is why they are games

If you want to force it to simulate exactly as the battles played out then you would more or less get the same results

History was all about taking your strength and smashing your opponent mercilessly with it.  Not much fun facing overwhelming odds or complete air superiority.  For that I would rather read a book.  For enjoyment I would rather have a game that is challenging and fun.  If that means there is some ahistorical abstraction taking place so that I can fit it into an evening of gaming even better.

Con

[Zulu1966]

Getting back to Combat Mission - that quote above pretty much says what CM is and does.

No, it doesn't, as like in many other wargames you are not forced to play with the historical handicaps and don't have to use historical tactics. You get historical unit types, but how you use them is up to you. That's a major weakness of CM and most other wargames (including the titles I mentioned earlier, obviously).

There will be a large number of threads when, say, a Panther has better gun stats than a Sherman, but hardly anyone posts about abstracted logistics or too much information not making much historical sense.

That is incorrect, CM's level is the team/squad. Whether the game allows you to field a battalion or more doesn't change that.

How many forces you have has a significant influence on gameplay. Though still tactical, it matters a lot if you're fielding a battalion or just a platoon. The greater the scale and the larger the number of units, the greater the dangers of "min/maxing" by the player and the use of ahistorical strategies.

Well - CM does its best and simulates this in the ways it can. for example - the italian squads in CMFI are large and you cannot divide them. thats within the confines of the engine.

If you take russian tactics as another example - and this is the question you would have to answer if you are going to critisize CM - how exactly would you see that game forcing you to use human wave assaults for example ?  I cant see a mechanism that would work. the fact is if the scenario designer gives the russians enough men - human wave attacks would likely work in certain circumstances and fail in others - much like real life.

Most wargames fail the historical test because of things they cannot possibly simulate. Most wars / battles in history revolved around intangibles such as dumb decisions or blinkered tactics or limited intelligence. Things a wargame - by its nature can only simulate with varying degrees of success or not at all.

[ComradeP]

ComradeP - Your generalizing appear confused and contradicting to me, and you are overlooking or missing what has been stated earlier, or in CM's case just wrong. I would still like to hear what developers/games today you consider revolutionary by your standards?

My comment regarding the scale was indeed confusing, I can see that. However, the point I was trying to make was that the games I mentioned differed in terms of how many units you controlled and thus in how they play out.

For tactical level wargames, I don't think there are many revolutionary developments towards more realism after the move to element vs. element interaction where something like a squad is composed of individual soldiers. CMx2 and other titles that have been mentioned here do that fairly well, but they still have issues with what they allow the player to do and how much information the player has. The innovation I'm talking about at the moment is mostly on the operational scale. I'm not saying there isn't innovation on the tactical scale, just that it isn't the kind that solves the issues I see (which might very well be personal).

If you take russian tactics as another example - and this is the question you would have to answer if you are going to critisize CM - how exactly would you see that game forcing you to use human wave assaults for example ?  I cant see a mechanism that would work. the fact is if the scenario designer gives the russians enough men - human wave attacks would likely work in certain circumstances and fail in others - much like real life.

Not being as incompetent as historical commanders doesn't necessarily have to be modelled, but we have so many advantages over historical commanders that ahistorical outcomes are the rule rather than the exception. That's fine if you just want to game a bit, but at this point I find myself hoping that some further innovation will soon come to the genre.

[Michael Dorosh]

Getting back to Combat Mission - that quote above pretty much says what CM is and does.

No, it doesn't, as like in many other wargames you are not forced to play with the historical handicaps and don't have to use historical tactics. You get historical unit types, but how you use them is up to you. That's a major weakness of CM and most other wargames (including the titles I mentioned earlier, obviously).

There will be a large number of threads when, say, a Panther has better gun stats than a Sherman, but hardly anyone posts about abstracted logistics or too much information not making much historical sense.

That is incorrect, CM's level is the team/squad. Whether the game allows you to field a battalion or more doesn't change that.

How many forces you have has a significant influence on gameplay. Though still tactical, it matters a lot if you're fielding a battalion or just a platoon. The greater the scale and the larger the number of units, the greater the dangers of "min/maxing" by the player and the use of ahistorical strategies.

Agree with ComradeP here. The scale of an individual engagement will also have an effect on how supporting arms are used, and in that case, goes back to nationality distinctions. The western Allies integrated supporting arms differently than the Germans. Machine guns went into specialist battalions in the Commonwealth - how do these command/control restrictions work out in CM? In a boardgame like ASL we see that MGs are simply high-powered units added to death-star killer "stacks" and augment squad firepower. Okay, so you have them "realistically" modelled in CM. Is this really so? I don't see indirect fire/interdiction modelled. I do see plenty of threads on their forums arguing about rates of fire and accuracy and no real consensus on what they should be doing in a given game. The Germans employed their MGs very differently - are they rewarded in the game for this historical usage? Should they be?

Should also point out that the higher up you go (battalion level), the more tools you are missing. No AVsRE, flamethrowers, roadblocks, not even the ability for infantry to dig shellscrapes, etc. (in a game that permits you to play a four hour scenario, this is kind of a significant omission). I understand it is a game engine in development and will look forward to seeing many of these (hopefully all) work their way in - I see flame weapons on the slate for the next upgrade  - but I would say it is premature to close the book on what CM is capable of doing. There are still too many missing parts.

[MengJiao]

I'm not a board wargamer, so unfortunately I haven't played them.

  I think boardgames these days are much better able to address the issues that interest you:  the rhythms of warfare at the grand tactical level, a level where apparently the Soviets are generally supposed to have had lots of problems -- though under enough stress, even the Germans could fumble at that level.

  Anyway, these days, (or since 1985 or so in the case of the system that has evolved into the Grand Tactical System), board games are much more innovative, possibly because they don't cost so much to develop.

[Grim.Reaper]

More videos of Red Thunder made available....

http://www.youtube.com/user/NormalDude1066/videos

[ComradeP]

  I think boardgames these days are much better able to address the issues that interest you:  the rhythms of warfare at the grand tactical level, a level where apparently the Soviets are generally supposed to have had lots of problems -- though under enough stress, even the Germans could fumble at that level.

  Anyway, these days, (or since 1985 or so in the case of the system that has evolved into the Grand Tactical System), board games are much more innovative, possibly because they don't cost so much to develop.

I've heard/read a lot of good things about tabletop wargaming, but unfortunately I wouldn't know of anyone to play them with as the hobby seems to be somewhat less popular here than in the US, based on how many of you play boardgames. I guess there might be plenty of middle aged people enjoying them over here to, but being 26 I don't meet many of them as we're moving around in different worlds.

[Ubercat]

  I think boardgames these days are much better able to address the issues that interest you:  the rhythms of warfare at the grand tactical level, a level where apparently the Soviets are generally supposed to have had lots of problems -- though under enough stress, even the Germans could fumble at that level.

  Anyway, these days, (or since 1985 or so in the case of the system that has evolved into the Grand Tactical System), board games are much more innovative, possibly because they don't cost so much to develop.

I've heard/read a lot of good things about tabletop wargaming, but unfortunately I wouldn't know of anyone to play them with as the hobby seems to be somewhat less popular here than in the US, based on how many of you play boardgames. I guess there might be plenty of middle aged people enjoying them over here to, but being 26 I don't meet many of them as we're moving around in different worlds.

cough *Vassal* cough!

[Zonso]

My comment regarding the scale was indeed confusing, I can see that. However, the point I was trying to make was that the games I mentioned differed in terms of how many units you controlled and thus in how they play out.

For tactical level wargames, I don't think there are many revolutionary developments towards more realism after the move to element vs. element interaction where something like a squad is composed of individual soldiers. CMx2 and other titles that have been mentioned here do that fairly well, but they still have issues with what they allow the player to do and how much information the player has. The innovation I'm talking about at the moment is mostly on the operational scale. I'm not saying there isn't innovation on the tactical scale, just that it isn't the kind that solves the issues I see (which might very well be personal).

My take the tactical scale revolution occurred with the move to a 3D environment, 1-1 representation, realistic polygonal physics (as present in CM) etc are a natural evolution of that. I think recognizing where we have come in the genre and as stated earlier, what BFC have accomplished with CM, is important. Not to belabor the point, but your issue of 'what they allow the player to do' is not a CM issue. The omniscience of the player is present in all games. I'm not sure removing or restricting that would actually be productive. Scourge of War has a command option where the game is restricted to you as the commander on the back of a horse. It is enlightening and frustrating in many ways (I will ignore the mediocre AI of the game); however I do not see a groundswell of players proclaiming this as the best thing since... for obvious reasons.

In CM the player wears all the hats from the 4-5 man Team to the Bn Co. It is up to the player to plan and implement his forces as he sees fit. BFC has never attempted to model any sort of command restrictions at the Company/Battalion level. Perhaps that is the next step for the series. However; again it may not be CM then and there is a reason why the game is so popular.

Tactical aside then, what games at the operational level are currently innovative in your eyes?