Thinking about larger battles.........

[Marc Bellizzi]

er, wait a minute, wasn't Barnes the bad one?

[TheBigRedOne]

Like you never cut a subordinate with a boot knife, Marc....

[Marc Bellizzi]

Like you never cut a subordinate with a boot knife, Marc....

No way. I was an offisir. I left the dirty work for the enlisted swine.

[Jeff Conner]

Outlaw

You're obviously not interested in my offer. I'll try and pitch it to someone else. Your name is familiar, were you ever involved in a gaming company?

Jeff

[TheBigRedOne]

er, wait a minute, wasn't Barnes the bad one?

Perhaps, but in a firefight I'd imagine you'd want him around, well, unless he didn't like you.

Go on, boy. Get me a medic.

[Marc Bellizzi]

I was giving some of these ideas a bit more thought - probably more than I should - and one of the things I've decidedly come down against is the idea of units in multi-level locations.

I believe that ASL had it wrong; from experience I can tell you that a squad occupying a multi-level building does not stay all on one floor, as is required in ASL. Instead, the proper weapon is sent to the proper location. Team integrity was not even necessarily adhered to; for example, AT weapons went to the upper floors (though not too far up, due to the potential of the round 'disengaging' from the firing mechanism due to gravity while aiming) while the majority of the men stayed down on the ground floor. MG's went to where they could see the most area. The Squad Leader hung around the stairwell, so he could shout instructions and receive reports from the various levels, and it was also normal to shift guys around as needed, window to window and up and down the levels. Ironically multiple squads in the same building resulted in squads taking distinct sides to defend, versus floors. The various weapons still went where they were best employed, not to specific floors.

I think the best solution is that units in an urban terrain hex simply get a line of sight advantage from a generic benefit of height in such a hex. Isn't that how it is right now in SB?

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Outlaw

You're obviously not interested in my offer. I'll try and pitch it to someone else. Your name is familiar, were you ever involved in a gaming company?

Jeff

Never been involved with a game company. I just play, not smart enough to make them, just provide some thoughts.

---

I was giving some of these ideas a bit more thought - probably more than I should - and one of the things I've decidedly come down against is the idea of units in multi-level locations.

I believe that ASL had it wrong; from experience I can tell you that a squad occupying a multi-level building does not stay all on one floor, as is required in ASL. Instead, the proper weapon is sent to the proper location. Team integrity was not even necessarily adhered to; for example, AT weapons went to the upper floors (though not too far up, due to the potential of the round 'disengaging' from the firing mechanism due to gravity while aiming) while the majority of the men stayed down on the ground floor. MG's went to where they could see the most area. The Squad Leader hung around the stairwell, so he could shout instructions and receive reports from the various levels, and it was also normal to shift guys around as needed, window to window and up and down the levels. Ironically multiple squads in the same building resulted in squads taking distinct sides to defend, versus floors. The various weapons still went where they were best employed, not to specific floors.

I think the best solution is that units in an urban terrain hex simply get a line of sight advantage from a generic benefit of height in such a hex. Isn't that how it is right now in SB?

Good point. I guess the best I can hope for in this area is to hopefully see a new series on the scale of individual men with scenarios up to battalion strength with support. Larger if somebody makes them, but Bn seems a good fit for a large battle on that scale. Something along the lines of the old Xcom game where you even go room to room clearing a town with graphics that look good like Sudden Strike series, somewhere between the SS and xcom for size. Will it ever happen, don't know, but sure would be nearly endless for scenarios, especially if all aspects and countries of ww2 are covered and of course branch out to other areas like SBs has.

[Marc Bellizzi]

[quote='Jeff Conner' pid='365571' dateline='1345085434']

Good point. I guess the best I can hope for in this area is to hopefully see a new series on the scale of individual men with scenarios up to battalion strength with support. Larger if somebody makes them, but Bn seems a good fit for a large battle on that scale. Something along the lines of the old Xcom game where you even go room to room clearing a town with graphics that look good like Sudden Strike series, somewhere between the SS and xcom for size. Will it ever happen, don't know, but sure would be nearly endless for scenarios, especially if all aspects and countries of ww2 are covered and of course branch out to other areas like SBs has.

Actually, didn't Close Combat kind of fit that niche; you could control individuals, but also the unit as a whole. I liked the graphics and all, it even had a reasonably good campaign system, but it was too small of scale for me. Squad on squad mostly. I think anything larger just becomes too difficult to control.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I used to play those, but not really good enough, IMO. Limited to small amount of troops and usually control of one man was the result of the rest of his group being killed and he was rarely controllable. Plus, you still didn't get the room to room clearing type of stuff, multi level, etc etc. I'm hoping someday for an individual man type of scale where you have to use small unit tactics where you have to set a man or two to cover down the road while the rest move across to the next building. Stuff like that. Never have seen a good game like that. The closest would be the old Xcom game.

Then again, I am still holding out hope for a SBs that would be similar to Campaign Series or Steep Panthers where you have all the countries available and forces for each year and be able to have some large, medium and small maps for random battles with force sizes of Company, Battalion, Regiment/Brigade and KG/TF/Division sized forces. Two opps take a div each to fight their battle. You can have unlimited points to start or limited to start. They choose what units they want to enter within the points alloted that turn. Every turn there would be a reinforcment phase with x amount of points to select units to enter and may take several turns to save those points up to get the unit you want or leave it open to where you decide what, if any units to bring in. You have a whole div to choose from, but may only use one bde for the whole fight. It would be entirely up to them what forces to use or not. But would rather see specific units, not generic ones like in CS. You want an SS div, you get to choose which one you want, not an average generic oob and it also depends on the year of the battle. You want 12ss, you would have to have a battle in 1944, not 1941. Part of the beauty of it is that you use as much or less as you think , but not more than the unit you choose to start the scenario with. Scenarios would basically have no time limit instead fighting til one side concedes to the other. It would also have to have the changing dawn/day/dusk/night turns. I wouldn't expect this to be an extra patch for an existing title, I would expect a whole new title for it. It could even be split into several titles with one covering the EF, WF, Med/NAfrica/Balkans and one or more covering all or different areas of the Pacific and then more again maybe covering post ww2 to modern day. I'd sure find a way to eventually buy them.

I'm a dreamer, what can I say?

[Marc Bellizzi]

Ironically, that kind of system was/is used in Steel Panthers. That game seemed to have a lot of extras and elements to it that really added to gameplay; things like buildings collapsing & trees knocked down from heavy arty fire, hexes catching fire from Napalm, laying mines, digging in, and a campaign system where units are transferred to the next battle with the damage suffered previously (you could get reinforcements to cover some losses, but never enough); a whole list of things that you don't find in SB. Once the code went public, people like Don Goodbrand and Andy Gailey went and tweaked it into an even better game.
The graphics needed work, and I think that was going on about the time I started playing SB.
I remember xcom; the only thing I would say about that style of game is that it's not very realistic in that you don't have that much control over other people in real life.