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Silvarius -> (1/16/2001 8:03:00 PM)
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Paul,
First, you did really well in posting these 2 topics about CL in this SPWAW forum. Please keep on with that, as I just don't have the time to go to every Matrix forums (it took me more than one hour and a half to read every messages of these two threads, and I just can't spend the whole day on it [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]).
Then, it is also much easier to discuss on real stuff. When you ask "what would you like to have in CL ?", it's hard to reply. When you ask what we like in SPWAW, it's much easier. And eventually, when you ask what we think of a precise feature (backed with an example)as you've done in explaining a few features of the CL combat system, then it becomes easy to give you our feedback.
Now a few feedback/suggestions :
1) The CL combat system you describe is really very close of the one I was dreaming of. It seems to me that it takes what I love in a turn based system (having time to think and to plan)and it comes close to solve the problem of simultaneous actions which was one of the big flaw in the SP system. For example, when you want to assault a target with multiple units in SPWAW, you have to make it one unit at a time. That leads to "strange" situations where one unit can fight several other ones at the same time. To illustrate that point, there is a good example in one topic of this forum today. The situation is one tank fighting with another one just in front of it while spotting and fighting an infantry sqad in its rear.
A second advantage of this system is the ability to fluidify unit movements. Once again, it is a big flaw in the SP system. Right now, we are condemn to a stop and go system. Let's take a vehicule moving. You initiate the move on your turn. At the end of your turn, the vehicule is still supposed to be moving, so it won't be able to spot or fire accurately in your opponent phase. And when you get the hand once again, your vehicule is stopped by definition even if it is really in the middle of a planned move that takes several turns.
2) A suggestion : I would like to be able to have one soldier, belonging to a recon team hidden behind a wall, peering out discreatly on the other side. In SPWAW, it is not allowed. You have to move in plain LOS of your opponents to have a chance to spot them. For vehicules, you can imagine a member of the crew of a hidden "Kubelwagen" getting out of the vehicule to "have a look behind that building" before moving the vehicule out of shelter.
3) I'm a bit worried by your decision to abandon the hexes grid. Not that I find it particularly lovely, but it is a good mean to evaluate distance precisely and to locate a unit on the map. If so, you have to implement tools so that we know precisely what is the distance between 2 points/units. You could imagine an option, when you select a unit, that enables you to see concentrical circles around it (one circle every X meters). Same system between 2 points. You click on one location and get the cicles. You then know if , from the top of that hill you plan to move to, you can fire at that bunker down there.
I can imagine a second problem when you try to hide a unit. For example, you order a recon team to hide behind a tree. As you don't have any grid, you click on what seems to be the right place. But what if the game considers you clicked (by 1/10th of a millimeter) slighly to the right of the tree. Then your team, that you think is well hidden, comes plainly in LOS of your opponent. Perhaps a way to control that point would be to be able to check the LOS of any location you click on the MAP.
Well, thinking of that, that would definitively be a good option, as the "2D from above" map often doesn't enable to judge accuratly if "that small depression I can spot over there is safe from that bloody Tiger LOS".
4) You said it will be possbible, during the "action phase", to try to get control over a unit "on the fly" in order to change its plotting. If so, does the clock stops then ? It must, or you fall in what I hate in RTS : the time stress.
4) I read recently in a topic that PBEM campaigns was not to be considered, as they would be too long to complete. I absolutly disagree with that. I really would love to be able to play for years with a friend, planning my upgrades carefully for the long term, biting my teeth in difficult periods or trying to take advantage of a new equipment before my opponent is allowed the equivalent. And for the players whose time horizon doesn't exceed a couple of weeks, they could be able to create a campaign with only 2 or 3 scenarios.
That's all for the moment folks ...
PS : I want to thank you, Paul, and the whole Matrix team, for your fantastic work, your commitment and the hundreds of hours of pleasure you have made possible with SPWAW. I realy hote CL will be the success everyone is hoping.
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