[Dundradal]

I love the re-releases. I've been playing tons of COI and WAR with Dampsquib. Gravy and I have been doing LSA.

I also play CC5 every now and then as well (love those mods).

I fully support the new games. While they may not be perfect, I'd rather have something than complain about having nothing and then just disappear.

[vonB]

Well, if playing H2H makes you feel 'grown up', then I am happy for you.  Personally, I see nothing wrong with Single Player.  Just remember that if it wasn't for Single Player, you wouldn't have CC.

Were you around before Club SSI when Ryan's was the place to be for CC2 because CC3 hadn't even been released?  If so, you are still around and following the Game.  That says something.  This was my moniker back then.

What makes CC special IS the Single Player because there is nothing like it.  Just my opinion.  Of course it's good H2H, but there's any number of games that can give you good H2H.  It's a pity CCMT and MMCC3 wasn't around during the time of the MS Game Zone during the hey day of the CC Clans.  Would have been a stonker!    I agree that Single Player is somewhat stilted, but the drive to try and keep on improving the Single Player Game is one of the remarkable things about CC, and I hope that it continues to do so.

I gave up playing H2H after the MS Game Zone.  Mostly because I fit CC around my life, not my life around CC, though it didn't seem to feel like that sometimes when running CSO... sorry, co-running CSO.  During my H2H gaming I have met true gentlemen and complete arse holes, and I may yet take up H2H gaming again.  However, for the time being, I am very pre-occupied with trying to add more to the Game, for both Single Player and H2H, and will be for quite some time to come.

So I have no quarrel with those that hate CC.  Naturally I tend to disagree with many of their opinions, but they are entitled to them, even if they are wrong   I do wonder why they bother to air their negativity.  Why not just occupy themselves with something they do enjoy?

Oh, and my own illusions of being superior were shattered when my son first beat me at chess... when he was 11...  

[Hoogley]

[Stwa]

Also, I would like to mention ...

That many of us have done wargames with a variety of sysetms (automated or otherwise) down through the years. Over time I came to the conclusion; Troops left to themselves would basically do nothing. So systems that supported this notion were generally the ones I enjoyed the most.

While I imagine modern infantry combat with modern weapons, I can certainly imagine cowering teams, and an overwhelming urge to seek cover. Repeated orders to advance, seem very realsitic to me, since in most situations, chaos reigns.

Human wave tactics for assaults seem easy enough to model. In the case of many, the fear of being shot in the back by your superiors would compel you forward. This physiclogical factor did not make its initial appearance in WW2, but dates back to earlier times.

But for platoon level action with 21st century combat ala CCMT, it does not seem necessary.

That being said, I long for a day, when you can have new teams spawn in for the AI based on an event (like a KIA team). ZULU or Chinese style human waves providing plenty of laughs until the ammo runs out.

[mooxe]

The rereleases have all been dissapointing and frustrating for me.

For over the past decade we debated over and over on how the games should advance.

Now they advance, and we get the same four theatres again, plus CCMT.

New features scattered throughout each game illustrating S3T's learning curve.

No game combined all the must haves from the decade old debates, or all the best features of CCMT and the rereleases.

Instead, time is turned back ten years and we are starting over.

People set their standards so low to say atleast they are still releasing versions, its drawing attention to the game which cant be bad. You sound like beggars.

Since mostly everyone on the S3T has been playing this game for over 10 years or close to it, should I expect my machine gun to take up a spot by the window? Yes. Should my tank be able to drive straight on a road for 20m? Yes. Should my firewall prevent me from playing online? No. Should the AI deploy an ATG behind a house, or tanks behind massive hedgerows? No.

[Stwa]

Yes, if we are shift the conversation away from the tactical game, I agree with you.

If we are not going to have another CC. Then indeed, we have been basically punted back to the same situation that existed in 2000.

CC has been a disappointing adventure in how may ways can you FRONT END the basic tactical game.

CC development projects since CC4 have never been about pride, but rather money, instead.

[schrecken]

CC:WaR's first and major goal was bug eradication... I believe that was successfully achieved throughout 2009.

Following on from that was the expansion of the number of maps to 64... thus giving greater operational options.

[vonB]

[BerndN]

I don't believe that it's only for money. There's not much money in it or do anyone believe that the re-releases have sold massively?

What I see and wonder about is the graphics engine could be recoded with less problems. This would give a modern 2D engine which can load all 2D maps currently available.

What's still outstanding is that the game engine is able to group a couple of small AIs and let them act and react to the terrain file. This is not easy to program.
And this is the main reason we have a path finding problem. No idea how much of the original source code is available but path finding has a long history in CC. So I assume that the movement and AI is a problem.

I only hope that with the re-releases some small money has been received which makes it possible to pay for some improvements in the core of the engine.

Compared to the original CC55 engine LSA has made some good progress in my opinion. Not so much that I personally had hoped for but I see a lot of feedback from the devs which seems to indicate that they try to do the best to iron out what is possible.

Just my 2 cents

[vonB]

Pathing is not seperate from the Tactical AI, it is part of it.  That is one reason why it is not a simplistic process of 'tweaking' the pathing.  To do so also impacts on the Tactical AI.  Change the pathing alogrithms and you change the tactical AI.

Believe me, if any of these things were simple, they would have been done long long ago!

[mooxe]

[schrecken]

There are calls in othereads for more funtionality to be coded into the strat layer.

It is always a consideration to balance community requests.

[Hoogley]

[7A_Woulf]

Can't we get Bill Gates interested in  CC  
-He has a fist full of dollars and a interest in charitywork and helping they less fortunate (us, in the CC community...)  

[Hoogley]

Yeah, but Microsoft dumped CC after iteration number one, didn't they?    

Imagine what could have been...

[vonB]

Microsoft pulled out of CC after CCIII.  I think there is as much chance of Microsoft taking on CC again as gnats farts replacing oil for energy.

I do not think CC on its own will ever command the kind of revenues needed to overhaul it, well, not just overhaul, it needs to be rebuilt.  It is possible some other development may succeed and become the successor, but so far I have not seen anything that is capable of doing that.  All the focus developmentally is on presentation, and that's not what makes CC what it is, though I would dearly love to see it get a face lift.

To me, the best prospect CC has is to benefit from a spin off, or piggy back on, the results of another development.  That's still a big ask in a commercial world.  Is there any prospect of an Open Source approach?  My jury is out on that, but I am far from convinced it could work.  The kind of focused effort it requires would make an Open Source approach very problematical, and that includes the mind sets of those who would be interested in doing it.  The game industry is full of ego's and air heads, and I suspect there would just be a fight between those who want different things, or just want to be in control.

On the other hand, who knows what technologies are going to become available, and therefore what potential there may be.  Then again, there may yet be a dedicated team of people who are determined to make something work, just because they want to.  I admire spinlocks efforts with his 'Screen Saver'.  It shows what can be done with the tools, the expertise, and the determination.  It certainly looks attractive enough.  Can that be turned into a game/sim on the level of CC or better?  I am sceptical, but will keep an open mind.  I think the challange is far greater than most would realise.  Even Firefight is a capable production, but with respect, hardly of the same class as CC yet, even though in some particulars, it is arguably better.

So keep pushing.  Keep chipping away.  Persistence over time can produce remarkable results.  Banging your head against a brick wall will only make it bleed, and the wall doesn't give a damn...

[7A_Woulf]

Wasn't really serious, don't think MS would even glance at CC again...

But my idea about a filthy rich troll that would like to pay for a total new CC is probably the only way we can see what we talking about; -Don't thing there's enough $$$ in the CC market for a company to invest money in it.  

[BerndN]

What would be needed is, what level of source code is available for the current re-releases and what can be done with it. Interesting stuff can be found here: http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/gameprog.html#paths

Some interesting reads on some basics and especially how many people have done work on the main theme: path finding and 'strategy'. Also some good information about 2D and elevations as this is critical to path finding too.

I remember that there was indeed an open source try of a program but can't find any links. But I have found it: http://sourceforge.net/projects/adv-warfare/
Why has it been abandond? There are so much talented guys here which could help boost such a project.

This is not meant to sound like I don't like current re-releases.

But I would love to have some better AI on a map level as well as on strategic level. And to somehow give more info about the 2D terrain. Another thing is to keep stats in the game so that I can see my heroes.
Another one like laying smoke, deploying mines. Some small stuff

[Spinlock]

Tactical pathfinding in an rts is not rocket science, but it is very expensive computationally. The size of CC maps are at and beyond the upper limit of sane performance.
I don't know why the S3t devs can't improve the pathfinding. I don't doubt they have the skills to do it.  Rather I imagine the way the game was designed/written creates an intractable situation.

In CCSS I have no problem pathfinding 800+ soldiers in realtime. Vehicle pathfinding is a non issue as well. A tank can travel back and forth across a map of any complexity all day long. [See my blog for an example].
I have the blessing/curse of starting from scratch, something the s3t guys don't (appear to) have.  They're dealing with a codebase that was written back when 133mz processor was state of the art and most computers only had 32 megs of ram.

The only way CC will enter the 21st century is with a project like CCSS or similar effort.  (I never did like the design of 'Open Combat' )

In regards to MS or other major publisher: When has a bigtime publisher like activision or thq ever recently released a great tactical combat game?
They're more likely to turn it into something like 'First to fight'  The guys at Matrix are the ones that try to publish wargames with a bit of purity.

S3t/ Matrix should create a patch to all the new versions of CC that implements and external programming interface (dll, or scripting) giving the users the option of using a secondary pathfinder. In that case I would consider porting some of my code to it.

[vonB]

Well spoken spinlock.  There is much sense in what you say.