Command chain idea

Command Ops: Battles From The Bulge takes the highly acclaimed Airborne Assault engine back to the West Front for the crucial engagements during the Ardennes Offensive. Test your command skills in the fiery crucible of Airborne Assault’s “pausable continuous time” uber-realistic game engine. It's up to you to develop the strategy, issue the orders, set the pace, and try to win the laurels of victory in the cold, shadowy Ardennes.
Command Ops: Highway to the Reich brings us to the setting of one of the most epic and controversial battles of World War II: Operation Market-Garden, covering every major engagement along Hell’s Highway, from the surprise capture of Joe’s Bridge by the Irish Guards a week before the offensive to the final battles on “The Island” south of Arnhem.

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Banquet
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Command chain idea

Post by Banquet »

I realise the feature set for BFTB will now be locked, but for future versions of the game I wonder if it would be possible to implement a system similar to that in Take Commands 2nd Manasass, where we could opt to control a force lower down the command chain.

For example, in a divisional sized battle, command a single brigade, or even battalion. The friendly AI could take over the big picture as it does with the opposing AI, and when an order came through for the force being commanded (after the approprate delay) a target marker could be placed on the map, with instructions on whether it's a move, assault, defend, etc.

I think it could be really fun to feel like a small part of the big picture. I suppose you could choose to ignore your orders and do your own thing, but either way, it could lead to some interesting decision making. It would also be nice to have a big battle going on, but be able to concentrate on managing a smaller force.

Anyway, just an idea. I would have thought that the AI in Panther's games would be one of the few able to carry something like that off, with little modification to the code already in place.

Floyd
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RE: Command chain idea

Post by Floyd »

You can command every single unit on the field, just click it and give orders.
If you want the unit to rejoin later, click "reattach". What you can't do
in TC:2M is to hand over the most superior unit to the AI, but this is possible
in COTA (select the most superior unit, give an order and see the action unfolding).
Banquet
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RE: Command chain idea

Post by Banquet »

In TC:2M you can begin a battle with the AI controlling the superior HQ, and other equal ranked HQ's as well. It will then send orders to your command level.

You can emulate this in COTA by giving the highest HQ a general attack/move order, and then detaching a lower HQ, but it wouldn't work very well in that the top HQ would not be reacting to battlefield events unless you went back in to modify it's orders.. and then you're commanding the whole force again.

What I would like is for the friendly AI to work like the enemy AI, but when an order comes through to your command, it displays on the map and you are then left to process that order.

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Arjuna
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RE: Command chain idea

Post by Arjuna »

Banquet,
 
What you are asking for requires mods to support multiple commands. When we designed the original engine we put the hooks in to do just that. But we opted to keep things simple, and only have one command per side. It is on our wish list but I'm not sure when we will get to this. It is not a trivial undertaking as it would involve significant code changes. We'll be reviewing things once BFTB is out.
Dave "Arjuna" O'Connor
www.panthergames.com
Banquet
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RE: Command chain idea

Post by Banquet »

Dave,

Thanks for the reply. It's good to hear that it's something you'd considered, and may look at in the future.

I realise there must be a million things you'd like to add if you had the time.. I'm still trying to win the lottery so I can donate it to you for a big office full of programmers. You can order them around while having a nice cup of tea with your feet up :)
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Arjuna
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RE: Command chain idea

Post by Arjuna »

Sounds great, though my preference is for a nice mug of coffee! [;)]
Dave "Arjuna" O'Connor
www.panthergames.com
Banquet
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RE: Command chain idea

Post by Banquet »

Coffee it is, then. Actually I've already got enough to get you a coffee, so I'm half way there. It's just the programmers I need the lottery win for! [:D]
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Arjuna
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RE: Command chain idea

Post by Arjuna »

Yeh, me too! [;)]
Dave "Arjuna" O'Connor
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Llyranor
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RE: Command chain idea

Post by Llyranor »

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Banquet,

What you are asking for requires mods to support multiple commands. When we designed the original engine we put the hooks in to do just that. But we opted to keep things simple, and only have one command per side. It is on our wish list but I'm not sure when we will get to this. It is not a trivial undertaking as it would involve significant code changes. We'll be reviewing things once BFTB is out.
Hmm, if you ever get around to this on your wishlist (which I suppose isn't high up, but it's there somewhere at least!) and implement multiple commands per side, since you already have the netcode for online 1v1, would this mean 2p co-op against the AI would also be a remote possibility? (that'd be the coolest feature you could add to this series for me)
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Arjuna
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RE: Command chain idea

Post by Arjuna »

Yep, there could be multiple commands per side, hence you could support a team of human players versus a team of AI or human players. Ideally, we would want to support multiple sides at some point as well - especially if we do a modern version.
Dave "Arjuna" O'Connor
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Llyranor
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RE: Command chain idea

Post by Llyranor »

Heh, good news. Looking forward to this feature (could be a long wait, I suppose).
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