Prince of Eckmühl
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Joined: 6/25/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SAF_Biffa
Each to his own tastes but I do think PoE does have a point though maybe implying that PzC had been build with little innovation and to a formula to appeal to 'Barbarians' is stepping over the mark and quite unfair.
Thirty-something years ago, a cover-story in the Avalon Hill General ran with the title "What's in a Tank?" The gist of the article was that games which focused on tracked-AFV outsold those that didn't. The author went on to muse about the possibilities as to why, but the numbers seemed pretty indisputable. PanzerBlitz was their biggest seller at the time, BTW. My reference to barbarians was made with the rhetorical license that I frequently extend to myself. No harm was intended. It seemed so obtusely ironic, (as I'm a card-carrying member) that I felt no emoticon was needed.
quote:
Maybe it's the way I'm playing the game but it has certainly shaped the way I tackle the games challenges, infantry for me are disposable scouts for armour, especially, as I mentioned above with the vanilla map designs.
Armour is so strong relative to infantry in a data-driven game that a designer has to BEGIN his work by engineering the game in such a way as to make the older arm of combat relevant. For instance, he can employ a smaller map scale which will serve to dilute the superiority that armour frequently enjoys in speed, range and sheer lethality. If infantry can maneuver and engage at close-range, relatively quickly, the strengths of armour are far less pronounced. This is the route that Close Combat takes, BTW, one which allows for tremendously detailed little firefights, even if there's a heavy-gunned tank or two about. Take that same game and push the TOE up to fifty-percent AFV, and the grunts are barely more survivable than what you'd find in a game that uses a larger map scale like CM or PzC. But, let's look at what BF/Steve had to say about it, QFT:
quote:
posted January 30, 2005 08:48 PM
The 3D environment of CM does offer us some challenges in terms of where to draw the line between a simulation of the individual soldier and larger groups of soldiers (i.e. units). It's something we've all be struggling with since the early days of CMBO's design.
Back in the old days of wargaming you'd have a cardboard chit with some numbers and a shape on it. Nobody called for more than that simply because the system was so abstract probably nobody thought of it (at least not thinking it possibly practical).
The first couple of generations of computerized wargames fell into the same category. As time went on and technology improved wargamers wanted better looking maps, more attractive looking units, and of course more under the hood. But again, for anything but the smallest scale wargames nobody thought about simulating the individual soldier to any significant degree. Until, that is, Close Combat came out.
CC was the first commercial wargame to model the individual soldier in detail and in substantial numbers. And for all its flaws, the game worked very well and people saw the value in having the 1:1 soldier simulation. Then CMBO came around...
Our problem, from the beginning, is our chosen scale. MUCH larger than CC's, yet not so much that individuals ceased to matter. But due to technical limiations we never once thought about doing 1:1 because it simply wasn't possible. However, the desire has always been there, at least to some extent. Now comes CMx2...
What we are doing now is giving the individual soldier a place on a larger scale battlefield (larger than FPS, CC, etc). That is the right thing to do. However, there are limits. We must make sure to not lose sight of the fact that this is a larger scale wargame and not a FPS of even Close Combat scale game. Therefore, when push comes to shove, decisions are made which favor the larger scale wargaming environment. Clutter, unnecessary development distractions, big hits to the CPU for little simulation gain, etc. are all bad things for CMx2.
In short... we know what CMx2 is supposed to be and what it isn't. We have this vision very clearly laid out and will not waiver from it. There will be no mission creep.
Steve"
Honestly, it really sounds as though he's suggesting that infantry combat in CC is more detailed than that found in CMx1, and much of this is owed to the former's smaller scale, as opposed to the scale employed in his game, one that was obviously adopted to showcase the mobility, range and lethality of AFV. I've tried to explain this before, hereabouts. Most folks seem to get it. 
PoE (aka ivanmoe)
< Message edited by Prince of Eckmühl -- 8/13/2008 7:02:28 PM >
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