Anyone missing CMx1-style campaigns?

[H1nd]

Honestly, I think you are frustrated and can not see my points clearly. Why do you even bother with this (or I?) because clearly you have your own set vision and there is nothing to change it. We have seen it in other discussions as well. Somehow the cmx2 is always flawed and not to your liking and if someone expresses different oppinion then he must be a bfc fanboy wihtout ability for criticism. I can criticise BFC for many many things, but I also know that game developing (btw it is a game not a simulation) is about compromised between what can be done and what can be not. There is a point after wich clamouring for something is a moot point. I dont buy it that bfc very readily always pull up the "engine limitations card" but since no one else has a access to that code, we can't but agree with them. It is their product after all. And if you dont like it you can always vote with your feet. Sorry for this straw man but I just can't express my own frustration in any other way.

What you are picturing here is that you want a 100% (or nearly) realistic battlefield simulation. Well sorry but there is no such thing in the world and there probably wont be for quite some time if ever. Like I said before: most of these things that you require can be done to some extent with the current engine. It is not perfect, I would love to have the cmx1 features but it can be done if enough effort is put in to it. Is it worth it for stock campaigns? I think not, because regular gamer joe does not have the attention span to spend 60 turns or even proper 3 hours to carefully perform nightime scouting of enemy positions while dodging minefields and patrols. Partially why we play these games is that it is easier and safer than in real life. I know, because I have done combat engineer scouting in full rain storm after 15 minutes of sleep (and three days of combat training with equally short nights) for several hours during a night time excercice and I can tell that it was not something I would like to casually do for fun.

And lastly CMx1 was also far from perfect. The TERRAIN for example, THE MOST IMPORTANT TACTICAL FACTOR, was even more abstracted. I will never ever go back to it even if I miss the cmx1 campaign features to some degree. Both engines have their limitations but we will have to live with them and get the most out of them.

[Steiner14]

The other one is frustrated and can't see your points clearly.
Funny, that I haven't called you a fanboy yet, although you seem to identify with one.
What else is a fanboy, than a person defending aspects with personal attacks and strawmans? You're acting like the prototype of a fanboy.
Please, go back to the Battlefront forum and spread your fanboyism there.

[H1nd]

The other one is frustrated and can't see your points clearly.
And what else is a fanboy, than a person defending aspects with personal attacks and strawmans? You're acting like the prototype of a fanboy.
Please, go back to the Battlefront forum and spread your stupidity there.

Aye, there might have been a straw man there as well as quite some frustration. I have gut's to say it and also say sorry. But seriously consider that I also have a point there as well. You might be biased just like the rest of us. The thruth (if there is even such thing) is some where in between.

[Steiner14]

I presented my arguments but it's obvious that you don't want to discuss them but you want to defend the game.

[H1nd]

Point of argumentation is the possibility of changing the opinion or adding to the view of the the opponent. Besides if someone attacks a game or person is it then illegal to defend it or he/she? It takes two to tango. You however seem to me to think that it is some how counter argumentative or against logic to defend the game in any way. Why I am frustrated is that you seem to attack the cmx2 at every possibility without much of a real goal other than to vent your frustration. Once again that is only the picture that I have gotten from you threads this so far as well as some basic instinct of human personalities so naturally I reserve the right to be wrong. Similarly i'm pretty sure I am giving you a somewhat twisted picture of myself.

Now note this:
I can agree with your arguments to a certain point: There are some serious limitation with cmx2. They are probably some what more serious than how I first saw them. How ever I dont agree with your complete disregard of the current cmx2 campaign system.

I Try to to sum it up point by point:

"how can telling a story be more important than being able to simulate the different phases of battles?" - I see these to some extent as one and the same but naturally there are some nuances and very clear differences.
-most of the campaigns are semi dynamic company level stories of certain unit's path trough a one particular operation. The units get worn down, campaign path might get affected by success or failure, losses accumulate untill you either get refitted or if damage is too much too early you might get stonewalled and be unable to continue. In any case the historical/semi historical settings do limit the possiblities quite a lot since in most cases the company or two that you are playing through in these campaigns are just small gears in the larger war machine. You get precice order from higher ups to do this and there and then. Larger Cmx1 campaigns allowed you to more handily place the player at the boots of a battalion or even regimental commader who has a lot more options to call his shots. The player then creates the story (to larger extent) as he plays trough the dynamic static campaign of cmx1.

Both are a way of telling a story but in the other you are bound more by outside factors (wich is actually pretty damn realistic) and in the other you are the one telling the story. It is true that cmx1 excel in the operational freedom but it also lacks the ability to tell a longer story wich I personally appreciate more. I would love for example to be able to play a single german infantry company or even a battalion through June 1941 to 1945 in a one huge mega giga campaign. I really would. Technically Cmx2 has a potential to get closer (closer but still far far away) to this but cmx1 would only limit you to this one big battle (as good as it might be tactically). This is why I appreciate more the cmx2 than cmx1. But you have every right to like cmx1 more as long as you dont completely disregard the possibilites of the cmx2. Now to combine the two.. like I said before it would be the best possiblity. But here you seem to be oblivious to what is possible and what is not. There is no point crying for something that cannot be done. Not now anyways. Another example is the hull down bug. They know it, they should fix it quick, but we can't hurry the process in any way no matter how frustrated we are. We can either vote with our feet or just suck it up. It is that simple.

Let us continue:

"It can not simulate the impact of continued attacking/defending the same area."
This is mostly accurate argument. Without the dynamic carry over of battle damage there is only a very limited possibility to accurately present the impact on the area. It can be done but not well. This is why many of the campaign makers avoid using same maps over multiple scenarios but it does happen. Several campaigns have prolonged multiple phased battles using the same map with increasing battle damage but obviously the player has to accept that it might not be accurate and definately not dynamic. I can live with this and so can many others. You dont have to but I reccomend you give it a chance because it aint that bad really. Just a bit silly. But I can understand that this is a total turn off because it was a big issue for me as well when I first learned about it.

"It can not simulate the preservation of forces."
"It can not simulate the wear and tear."
"It can not simulate reinforcements and supply."

These arguments I really dont understand and it makes me wonder if you have actually tried these campaigns at all? In most of them you will have to carry on through many missions without ammo resupply or refitt. Tanks that get destroyed or men that get killed in the first mission (or first phase) are destroyed and dead in the next one as well unless your units receives a replacement. It is entirely up to the campaign designer and his vision of the difficulty/realism but to say that it is not simulated at all is a huge exaggeration. I have envisioned of some day getting around to do a campaign in wich a german infantry battalion must survive in the aftermath of the bagration with what ever it can get it's hands on: abbandoned munition depots, salvage from enemy etc etc but with no actual "behind the scenes" refitt or resupply. Likewise they would not receive any reinforcements unless happening across a larger group of fellow survivors. (this is also why i like the cmx2 campaigns) In the contexts of the current campaings the resupply is usually well presented in realistic way. Of the wear and tear I know only that to my knowledge (IIRC) the damage on vehicles (destroyed optics, guns etc) do carry over but I dont know if it is possbile to simulate the battle fatigue on men. (making them lose -1 fittness between missions for example) Ohh and IIRC think the AI can also have core units in campaigns but of this im also not entirely sure.

"It can not simulate the impact of losing time and a digging in enemy."

This is one of the things that is not perfect but could be possibly represented in a campaign if the designer so wishes. With the branching missions if player does not advance (either by choice or because he can't) then the campaign could branch to a mission where the enemy is much more dug in than had the player taken the pervious missions objectives in time. I would like to see such situations but that is not up to me i'm afraid unless i actually get around some day to do such campaign. The campaigns are after all clossal efforts and I do appreciate them as they are simply because someone has had all that effort to do them for us.

"It can not simulate the importance of the cover of the night for preparing positions or re-positioning."
Why? Why it can't? I can imagine a mission where you must sneak that straggling group of german landser survivors through a net of soviet patrols at night. Or attack that hill during the night instead of afternoon. It can be made. The question is why it is not utilized by much. I think like I said in the previous posts that the designers do consider that the average joe does not have the patience to go through 90 or 180 or even 270 turns of low intensity actions in pitch black darkness where everything is tricky and hard and those average joes (in wargame standards, not in general) are after all the majority consumer of these games. But it could be a possibility if the campaigns setting allows the player to have control ove such matters. How ever the company commander usually get told when to do his actions so in this sense it is understandable as well why such choices are not given to players in these campaigns. Now that straggling gourp of survivors on the other hand...

"It can not simulate the impact of drastic weather changes on a given situation."
Unfortunately the weather does not seem to be able to change during a mission but it certainly can in between. I can't see why a rain storm or thick fog could not turn a otherwise easily defendable possition undefendable agains on rushing russian tanks and infantry during a campaign. It is a possibility.

Maybe this helps you to see that there is some green grass over this side of the fence after all. But I do agree with you on the part that human factor cannot always answer for the time compression entirely. But you seem to by pass it entirely wich is well.. not very productive. I do agree on your point that often there is really too little time to do the missions properly. I cannot deny that. But wich came first: the time compression by human factors or short mission timers is pretty much impossible to tell and there is probably some unconsidered factors here that neither we or the designers take in to account.

Cheers!
-H1nd

[ChappyCanuck]

OK I'm going to jump in here and say, IMO, the omission of CMx1 style campaigns is the biggest flaw of CMx2. I miss those CMx1 campaigns where terrain battle damage carried on from mission to mission, where the burnt out hulks of tanks littered the battlefield, where saving every soldier was key for the next mission, and where seizing terrain features was extremely important for deciding the placement on your forces for the next mission. Sigh, those were the days. It seems strange that CMx2, in this fashion, has literally stepped back in time by not providing us with such a campaign system. When I first purchased CMBN, I was quite shocked that this had been omitted in CMx2.

To me, the real flavour of this game were the campaigns....keeping your force alive for the next battle really mattered!

So I am hoping that in the future this can be corrected. Again, IMO :)

[Cogust]

Hi,

I'll try to give my input into this discussion, I will try to put my input after each quote to make it more structured. I hope that it won't be too hard to read through.

Whenever I play a campaign, I always miss real tactical considerations that go beyond the next two hours.
I'm wondering if others are missing the CMx1 style campaigns, where several battles were fought on the same map with evolving building destruction? 15 years later, an enhanced version of that system should not be impossible - it would offer tremendous possibilities.

A few thoughts, that compare the IMO tactically way superior static CMx1 campaign system to the current CMx2 system. Compared to the CMx1 system the current system is nothing more but a simple story-telling mechanism without tactical depth while a static campaign system potentially offers the highest tactical uncertainty, freedom and difficulty for the player:

Right now every campaign is more or less the same: the individual battles need to be balanced, because they are disconnected, while the core force is more or less for keeping the storyline together and adding to the balance in the one or the other way.

I want to start out by defining what we are actually discussing, is it 1) CMx1 static operations with 10+ years of additional tweaking vs the current CMx2 campaigns or 2) CMx1 static operations, but with the CMx2 engine, vs the current CMx2 campaigns?

Number 1 is pointless as CMx2 camapigns is what happened after Battlefront tweaked CMx1 10+ years and it is hopeless to discuss what should have been done in those 10 years as that is pure fantasies.

I am thus assuming that we are discussing number 2, the only thing that makes sense to discuss IMO.

Story telling and long term tactical considerations are two things that are present in both CMx1 and CMx2, that's what campaigns/operations are all about.

It is true that some CMx2 campaigns lack long term considerations as the author valued balanced battles higher than them, by doing that they ensured that most battles are reasonably fun to play but the player isn't punished/rewarded by earlier decisions in the same way. One major drawback with CMx1 operations were the other side of the coin, the snowballing effects that you got where an initial advantage just got bigger after each battle and before long one side were deploying in a very narrow zone along the friendly map edge with little hope of getting anywhere.

Contrary to this, the CMx1 system allows:

The player more or less receives a certain area (= the map) assigned and is responsible for holding or advancing on it and being responsible for all his forces.

The knowledge about the enemy could be absolutely zero, since there are several battles on the same map to find out what is going on. It could be up to the player to get a clear picture. Not in two hours but over one or even several "days" (battles):
Is enemy present at all? Are tanks present? Are ATGs present? Could I reach that hill or that position immediately?
If enemy is present, how strong is he? (this becomes even more interesting with the later discussed feature of reinforcements) Is he dug in? Can the goal be reached by a smashing quick advance or would it be suicide?
Instead of dreaming about an attack, will I be happy to hold the position for a few days until reinforcements arrive?

I'm also thinking about the tactical challenge how to realistically approach defenses, for example in front of important bridges, bridges that must be taken intact. Or parts of cities, that over the span of several battles could turn into dust.

All the questions in the above paragraph are equally important in CMx2 as they are in CMx1, the only thing that is lacking is the carrying over of rubbled houses and similar between battles.

CMx2 campaigns are more flexible than CMx1 operations, but the latter are stronger in certain aspects due to their more narrow focus, destructible terrain is one such aspect.

One drawback with CMx1 is that if you faced a Tiger tank in the first battle you know that you will keep facing it until it is destroyed while it can be withdrawn between battles in CMx2.

The blowing of bridges during tactical combat (as in CMx1) is something that is VERY rare, but blowing the bridge between battles (as is possible in CMx2 if one makes a campaign where the battle after a failed bridge assault will have a blown bridge) is much more common.

Reinforcement model with the static CMx1 system:
Because there is time to fight a battle over several scenarios, there is no need for predetermined reinforcements arriving at certain times, at highly unrealistic timespans.
Reinforcements could be handled similar to artillery or air support - but arrival times would be realistic: a day, up to several days.

Additionally the ordering of reinforcements by the player could be combined with a price (the costs could be displayed to the player in equivalents of infantry platoons or tanks). It's then up to the player if he wants to "spend" these additional costs, of if he saves them.

The cost of these points could be made dependent on how quickly he needs the reinforcements (emergency/quick/when available).

It appeares that you are discussing a hypothetical reinforcement model here, something that is neither in CMx2 nor in CMx1, it certainly has merits but I see it as pretty pointless for me to argue around as it does not exist at the moment.

Reduced design work:
One map per campaign would reduce the amount of work for the designers. Result: More campaigns, more tactically realistic content, with less efforts for the designers. Less time being spent on artificially balancing single battles.

I imagine instead of two campaigns that come with a game, there are five or ten campaigns! Varying from big attacks, to small platoon sized probes against a village, recon of a huge map, potential attacks, totally unexpected developments, things falling apart,...

If there are only two campaigns, and one capaign would be a totally unbalanced "things falling apart"-campaign, this would be not understood. But with a big variety of campaigns that would change totally.

The crown of the development would be the combination of both systems. A static battle that could switch, depending on several factors to a different location. But so far we don't even have static campaigns...

More campaigns are always welcome, but that is not dependent on the CMx2 campaign system per se. One can make more, but smaller campaigns with several battles on the same map to reduce map work, but I do not think that will lead to more campaign shipped with the game as most work is consumed with play balance (the whole campaign, not necessarily each and every battle in the campaign) and AI plans (CMx1 didn't have them which often made it very dull to play the AI).

The one thing lacking in CMx2 campaigns is dedicated H2H campaigns that are shipped with the game, that would be frickin' awesome. I also want the ability of several possible scenarios branching out from each battle to give more flexibility to the campaign authors, as it is now you can only have two different branches.

I envisage a campaign where both players are fighting battles along a frontline, divided into 2-3 sectors, where success in one sector will open up the possibility to drive deeper there and perhaps force the other player to fall back in other sectors to avoid being cut off. Players could then decide if they wanted to deepen their penetration or if they wanted to widen the breach first. This is doable with the current campaign system, but all the choices are pretty clunky if both sides are making decisions between battles.

/Conny

[Steiner14]

ChappyCanuck,

your description brought back some sweet memories of burning tanks on the field. If my memories do not play a joke on me, I remember playing CMx1 trying to hold positions in front of immobilized tanks: Didn't the CMx1 system even had the ability of damaged tanks returning after some time, once they were repaired?

[H1nd]

I also want the ability of several possible scenarios branching out from each battle to give more flexibility to the campaign authors, as it is now you can only have two different branches.

Ahh. this is something I have missunderstood since I was under an impression that there could be more branches.

[Cogust]

There could be infinite branches in total, but only two from each battle fought (one victory branch and one loss branch). I want more branches, why not make it possible to have one branch for each victory level if you want to be that crazy?