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Nomada_Firefox

Rep: 32.9
votes: 9


PostPosted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 8:55 pm Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Manoi wrote (View Post):
Nomada_Firefox wrote (View Post):
Manoi wrote (View Post):
Nomada_Firefox wrote (View Post):


Now perhaps you can delete the multiplayer problem from the equation but you should value the IA problem with big maps.


I will limit the size. Maybe no small maps as CC4 but more medium maps that allow flanking moves.

Just two points, first this is a close combat and second the IA will not flank you, never.


the problem is to find a compromise between single and multiplayer.

Can be but even at multiplayer, I do not like big maps because you need a lot of games in the same map.

How many maps do you go to add? how have you avoided the limits from GTC? because clearly some rows are set forever for some settings and if you move them, it will give you errors. In fact, I´m not sure if more maps, arrows and connections than the original can be added. Less, probably yes but more........who knows.....because I do not know at this moment.

Other question. Do you use the Bloody First map editor for your maps? Steve told how it can export a image from the terrain and other from the objets for improve manually the maps. But I suppose how it can be used for other CC maps.
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Stwa

Rep: 308.9
votes: 16


PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 10:56 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

So, maybe it is worthwhile to discuss single player vs multi player and how these modes affect map size, if at all. It was always thought that CC games in general were multi player centric, and I would agree with that assumption.

In the discussion of map sizes, I discussed the possibility of removing single map - single battles as a possible solution to the map size issue because there were just a single set of VLs that could be assigned to any map, no matter how that map was used, either as a single battle, or for multiple battles in an operation or campaign.

But, Atomic never did that, did they? Why? Atomic wanted to retain single-map single-battle for multi player games. Sure, single player could use the single maps for single battles, but there could be a number of flaws in that arrangement. These flaws, like large maps and poor AI performance, could be mainly mitigated in a multi player environment.

So, now days, pretty much no matter what game you select, there are constant player requests for a better AI. There is a lot of social phenomena behind these requests. Without going into each one, perhaps scheduling time is chief in circumstance. The same phenomena is occurring in network television, where viewers do not want to alter their personal schedules, but would rather request and view this same content upon demand.

Single players want to use the game's content now, upon demand; not later by appointment. But now days even dedicated multi player sites that provide a dedicated multi player environment cannot always guarantee that your appointment to play will be scheduled today, upon request or demand.

So, as single players replaced multi players in the single map single battle space, the flaws associated with using campaign maps for single battle purposes became exacerbated.
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Stwa

Rep: 308.9
votes: 16


PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 12:38 pm Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

To be sure, there is nothing about single or multi player that diminishes game play apart from the requirement that the AI must be a component in the single player environment.

There is no doubt in my mind that all developers at all stages of the CC franchise have understood this. The solution, has always been to restore multi player gaming in the CC titles, and lately by directly furnishing the multi player environment.

The options for the producers were as follows: Use smaller maps, re-code the AI, or attract multi players back to the CC franchise. Using smaller maps is not an option because in so doing you break the campaign game. But if you use large maps, that breaks the AI. So, the only solution left is more multi players.

Without multi players, the situation is irreconcilable. The campaign game format, in vogue since CC4, is simply hosed for single players, and this fact will never be corrected by the producers.

Single players should choose CC2, CC3, CC4, COI, and perhaps CCMT and avoid CC5, WAR, TLD, LSA, PitF, and GTC.

CC4 Classic which comes with WAR is recommended, because it has the same small maps as CC4.


Last edited by Stwa on Mon Feb 09, 2015 12:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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johnsilver

Rep: 61.3
votes: 4


PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 4:17 pm Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Quote:
Single players should choose CC2, CC3, COI, or CCMT and avoid CC4, CC5, WAR, TLD, LSA, PitF, and GTC.


There is a theme at play there and it goes beyond small/large maps.   Smile
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dj

Rep: 157.1
votes: 9


PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 5:57 pm Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Listen, we ran numerous surveys in the past and the majority of people prefer Single Player vs AI.  Not because they don't like Muliti-player / H2H, it is because they have issues with networks, security, slow internet connection, they are not allowed to use employer's PC to dial-in to game networks, etc.   Or people are just too busy and only have time to play quick 15 minute battle.

Yes I think only the original CC2, CC3 and maybe CC4 are the only games suitable as is for AI gameplay.  Ever since CC5 it has fallen off a cliff and AI has only gotten worse with the re-writes.   Some mods are barely playable against AI but not many.
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Stwa

Rep: 308.9
votes: 16


PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 6:19 pm Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

johnsilver wrote (View Post):
Quote:
Single players should choose CC2, CC3, COI, or CCMT and avoid CC4, CC5, WAR, TLD, LSA, PitF, and GTC.


There is a theme at play there and it goes beyond small/large maps.   Smile


Perhaps, I just don't have the energy to get that determined, one way or another.

With not too much work, a single player could put CC5 in play by cutting down a few maps and re-locating the corresponding victory locations.

And who knows about BF. I did do a little reading on what it takes to add 3d models to it, and was somewhat discouraged. So, I am no longer going to expect/anticipate much.
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johnsilver

Rep: 61.3
votes: 4


PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 7:01 pm Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Quote:
Perhaps, I just don't have the energy to get that determined, one way or another.

With not too much work, a single player could put CC5 in play by cutting down a few maps and re-locating the corresponding victory locations.


It doesn't help with some mods having extremely limited areas of attack for units (the AI) to deploy initially from either. Some mods being developed for H2H play etc..

One can always the tools available and "stiffen up" what is already there. This isn't all that difficult when working with CC3-5. It's not a perfect cure and as long as the AI isn't hemmed in with only a small handful of deploy zones.. It works somewhat to improve the situation a tad. Historical accuracy out the window.
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Nomada_Firefox

Rep: 32.9
votes: 9


PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 8:25 pm Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

dj wrote (View Post):
Listen, we ran numerous surveys in the past and the majority of people prefer Single Player vs AI.  Not because they don't like Muliti-player / H2H, it is because they have issues with networks, security, slow internet connection, they are not allowed to use employer's PC to dial-in to game networks, etc.   Or people are just too busy and only have time to play quick 15 minute battle.

Yes I think only the original CC2, CC3 and maybe CC4 are the only games suitable as is for AI gameplay.  Ever since CC5 it has fallen off a cliff and AI has only gotten worse with the re-writes.   Some mods are barely playable against AI but not many.

I have a good point about because today people like more the singleplayer. 15 years ago, there was not a single RTS with good IA and multiplayer games was more popular, there were more and better game zones than now. At the end, 15 years ago we accepted how we could live without a good IA.

Today, people have seen many RTS with good IA and they have started to see the singleplayer option as a very good option. There are few or no one good game zones, MMO games were a disaster  Rolling Eyes. Now people can not see a game without a good IA.

About CC games, only the CC2 was fun against the IA. Mostly by the maps and by the good grand campaign. Of course there is one thing which we have not seen more after CC3, the selection of units by amount of points, I liked it.
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Tejszd

Rep: 133.6
votes: 19


PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 8:47 pm Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

WAR/TLD displayed points for single H2H games but did not enforce their use.

LSA used the point system and enforced it. Single battles could be setup with assigned BG's and points per BG.

What LSA lacked was the ability of CC3/COI to add single maps for single battles.  It was suggested to Matrix to have a 2nd maps directory for them but was never done.
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Stwa

Rep: 308.9
votes: 16


PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 2:06 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

While there are plenty of people here at this site, that are qualified to speak about this phenomena. So these people will place all this in the context of their own experiences. I have done the same.

The Developers have roughly produced a CC title every year for over 8 years. In all that time, they ignored the trend to single player single battle, and DJ has helped us to fill in the blanks.

In that time period, I purchased two titles for a total of 46$. CCMT and CC4 Classic (WAR). I got CC4 Classic because it supported small soldiers. And I ditched CC4 and CC5 because both titles did not support small soldiers.

There was never a time during this 8 year period, that I thought that I was missing out on the CC experience, no matter how many platforms were made to support GJS.

So, any mod, that uses a game title that appeared on my "avoid" list above is bound to disappoint single players, and there really is NO WAY a modder (like Manoi) can solve that. On, the other hand Multi Players should be elated. These games are for you!

CC producers, developers, and modders, have simply ignored the modern trends to single player game play.


Last edited by Stwa on Mon Feb 09, 2015 12:42 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Nomada_Firefox

Rep: 32.9
votes: 9


PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 9:59 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Quote:

CC producers, developers, and modders, have simply ignored the modern trends to single player game play.

You do not know the true and you are being too hard. You should read more.....

The CC producers have not ignored nothing. First 15 years ago, probably nobody knew how make a decent IA for a RTS like this. Specially with a engine made more of 15 years ago. Now, they have made the re-makes, PTIF, GTC with this old engine and if you had read the interview, the unique interview about Bloody First. You had read this.
Quote:
“There’s more problems with the old engine than Close Combat fans realise, probably,” McNeil says. “The UI, for example, is completely impenetrable. Place a first-time player in front of Close Combat 3 today. It will probably be 10 minutes before they get a rifle team to move.”


Clearly modders could not fix it and creators could not fix it. It gave thousands of troubles just for a small change. By this reason, with Bloody First we should see some very different and a lot better. Because probably they have coded the best from the original game in unity3d but they have not added the old problems.

If you are thinking how BF is a return to the past because there are not a strategic map by example. I do not considerer it as a return to the past. It is more a restart and if we are logic, the work is very good for a first attempt at Slitherine. Specially if we compared it with previous attempts from Freedom games. At least the two Slitherine proyect screenshots look as a CC game.
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Manoi

Rep: 89.5
votes: 7


PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 11:30 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Nomada_Firefox wrote (View Post):


How many maps do you go to add? how have you avoided the limits from GTC? because clearly some rows are set forever for some settings and if you move them, it will give you errors. In fact, I´m not sure if more maps, arrows and connections than the original can be added. Less, probably yes but more........who knows.....because I do not know at this moment.

Other question. Do you use the Bloody First map editor for your maps? Steve told how it can export a image from the terrain and other from the objets for improve manually the maps. But I suppose how it can be used for other CC maps.


The number of maps is not fixed yet but more than the original yes.

I don't use the TBF editor for some reasons, I think it's not the best tool to make 2D maps even if it is possible. I' working with blender and photoshop.
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Stwa

Rep: 308.9
votes: 16


PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 12:28 pm Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Nomada_Firefox wrote (View Post):
You do not know the true and you are being too hard. You should read more.....


Perhaps, but I purchased my first CC game in 1999. And for the most part I have been "at it" since then.

And, I think it was said before: It is all history now, in the record books, over, done, etc!

Nothing personal to all involved, it is business, that is all, no one is really that unhappy, or upset, or anything. I am just a consumer, and unfortunately, the CC games only made me part with 46 bucks. Very simple, actually.

I only picked up 2 titles, because I never saw what I wanted, and also because I found a really good title (for moi), and that was CCMT, which turned out to be very good for single players and multi players that wanted to do the single battle thing.

And I think you can give a task to different programmers, and you will get variable results. For instance, in the time our CC teams(s) were producing me thinks 7 titles over an eight year period: Pocus over at Ageod, basically wrote their engine from scratch basically by himself, and with Thibeau they published a dozen titles.

I am not sure, but didn't Creative Assembly get started after the publication of CC5? I cant remember.

As for Matrix, they have produced around 250 titles, of which 7 are Close Combat related; about 2.8 percent of the total. But I would imagine the CC titles do not produce 2.8 percent of the revenue.

Matrix as a business is very successful and they will not be made or broken based on the performance of the various CC titles.
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Stwa

Rep: 308.9
votes: 16


PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 1:57 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Stwa wrote (View Post):
Matrix as a business is very successful and they will not be made or broken based on the performance of the various CC titles.


But Philippe Malacher (Pocus) and Philippe Thibaut of Ageod could have been made or broken with their work. And I think these 2 guys had to make many sacrifices that maybe you and I would not have made, just to attain Agoed's level of success. Maybe that is the difference.
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Stwa

Rep: 308.9
votes: 16


PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 2:36 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Nomada_Firefox wrote (View Post):
...if you had read the interview, the unique interview about Bloody First. You had read this.
Quote:
“There’s more problems with the old engine than Close Combat fans realise, probably,” McNeil says. “The UI, for example, is completely impenetrable. Place a first-time player in front of Close Combat 3 today. It will probably be 10 minutes before they get a rifle team to move.”



There hasn't been a programmer made that hasn't found themselves in this situation at some point in time. I think this statement is very harsh, in the sense it implies that Matrix programmers, are incapable of rising above this all to common phenomena.

At the same time, this statement implies that titles produced by Matrix before The Bloody First, are sub-standard (and perhaps not worth having) because of the situation enumerated.

Perhaps Slitherene has found some analyst somewhere than can walk things back to help identify issues with event driven code. Without even doing that you can devolve into tenants of the industry that seem silly and go from there. For instance,

One database good. Two databases bad.

One code-line good. Two code-lines bad.
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Ivan_Zaitzev

Rep: 56.1
votes: 3


PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 2:44 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Maybe you should take your discussion to another topic and leave this one for the Stalingrad mod.  Rolling Eyes


The real Close Combat starts when you are out of ammo.
Have you hugged your AT Gun today?
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Stwa

Rep: 308.9
votes: 16


PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 3:28 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Ivan_Zaitzev wrote (View Post):
Maybe you should take your discussion to another topic and leave this one for the Stalingrad mod.  Rolling Eyes


I feel the very same way in regards to your post.  Rolling Eyes

Besides, there may be no need for that.  Arrow

Manoi wrote (View Post):
I will begin a new thread about Angriff! in the GTC section.
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Stwa

Rep: 308.9
votes: 16


PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 4:40 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Stwa wrote (View Post):
The options for the producers were as follows: Use smaller maps, re-code the AI, or attract multi players back to the CC franchise. Using smaller maps is not an option because in so doing you break the campaign game. But if you use large maps, that breaks the AI. So, the only solution left is more multi players.


So, they ask for feedback. But when you give it, they don't like it.

All I have done is tell other single players that like single battles, what CC platforms may work best for that. And people don't dig it.

But TIK decided the first option; "Use smaller maps". was VIABLE. And me thinks he feels he can make smaller maps and still have a credible campaign game. There was lots of praise for TIK. And why not, he cut down the GTC maps to CC2 map sizes, which generally means small maps to moi.

Here is a link to one discussion regarding this effort.  Arrow  

http://www.closecombatseries.net/CCS/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=10639
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Stwa

Rep: 308.9
votes: 16


PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 7:05 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Stwa wrote (View Post):
The options for the producers were as follows: Use smaller maps, re-code the AI, or attract multi players back to the CC franchise. Using smaller maps is not an option because in so doing you break the campaign game. But if you use large maps, that breaks the AI. So, the only solution left is more multi players.


So, what about the second option: re-code the AI. Firefox weighed in on that by citing an interview regarding the re-release software.

In that interview, the responder made it seem like the programmers could not work with it. A very strange answer indeed. I have met many programmers during my lifetime, and I have never met one, that wouldn't JUMP at the opportunity to re-write significant amounts of any system.

In this interview, perhaps the responder was just trying to fool [or console] users and explain why they [Matrix] could not provide program modifications to the re-releases. But I have to wonder, maybe the responder was simply stating that the decision NOT to rewrite AI code was based on economics alone.

Here is a quote from an article from the Wargamer, where Steve McClaire is one of the responders. The article is from 2010. McClaire provides more detail about the programming issues, but he makes it apparent to me, HE DOES NOT FEAR THE CODE LINE. Here is a link to the interview in total:  Arrow

http://www.wargamer.com/article/2970/interview-close-combat-remakes


Quote:
Published on 1 DEC 2010 12:14pm by Scott Parrino

WG:  For Steve, were there any big hurdles to clear in programming when doing the remakes of the older Close Combat titles?

Steve: The biggest programming challenge is the size and age of the Close Combat code base. This is a game engine that is some 15 years old now, has been through roughly a dozen major releases, and has been worked on by a lot of different developers over the years. There is a fair bit of baggage, as the engine was originally designed for Mac and Windows cross-platform development, and there are some design compromises, as it needed to perform well, in real-time, on the hardware available 15 years ago. So fitting new features into the existing structure can be a challenge, and some of the existing components can be tricky to modify. As a result it’s sometimes preferable to just re-write a whole component from scratch, and of course this takes extra time.
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Nomada_Firefox

Rep: 32.9
votes: 9


PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:04 am Post subject: Re: Angriff Reply with quote

Quote:

I don't use the TBF editor for some reasons, I think it's not the best tool to make 2D maps even if it is possible. I' working with blender and photoshop.

Perhaps, is it the easiest way? many people do not know about photoshop and blender is a 3d tool, I suppose how you use it for objects. But personally I like more 3dmax, however 3dmax is not free.

At other point, Steve told how the BF editor lets you export a layer from the terrain and other layer from the objects for improve your maps at photoshop. This is the reason because I feel how this feature can be used not only for import the old CC maps, it can be used for new maps at previous CC games.
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