It’s as different as puppies and jam (made of puppies).
Combat Mission: The RTS
Definite For The Lose. Unless, of course, the WeGo system isn’t wierded out or unbalanced or otherwise broken.
And it will be much easier to draw comparisons to Company of Heroes. Wouldn’t real time make PBEM unpossible?
Real time is an option. The game was designed in real time (which isn’t that crazy; Civ 4 was designed in MP) but WEGO is still there for people who insist on it or who think PBEM is a better option than typical MP.
Troy
I’ve been thinking about real time. Given that you can do both WeGo and real time, I think real time is going to be awesome. As someone who really appreciates the strength of Battlefront’s attention to detail when it comes to armor modeling, penetration, morale, artillery, and so forth, I think real time is going to be exciting.
The problem with a lot of RTS game is that they abstract damage modelling, formations, squad and mixed unit tactics, and the like. The take the rock paper scissors approach or the abstract “health bar” approach. Take the detailed CM engine and add pausable real time, and I think it’s going to be utterly fantastic.
Civilian and Unconventional Threat Vehicles
Pickup (Technical, variously armed)
Pickup (Transport)
Taxi
Sedan (with and without Improvised Explosive Devices)
Whoah. Also, noticed the best tank the syrians have is the T-72. I hope they’ll be cheap.
There was a thread on their forums three or four months ago where one of the regular posters was detailing the the Syrian forces. What their doctrine calls for, team size, makeup, weaponry and ammunition. It was fun to read for the geek factor but I got the impression that unless your a member of their very limited elite force you don’t get much.
T-72 that haven’t been upgraded in a decade or more. Ak-47s, RPG-7s, Mortars, and Heavy Machine Guns. No modern anti-tank weaponry.
While we’re on the topic of Middle Eastern military equipment, has any game ever depicted the fearsome-looking helmet of the Iraqi Fedayeen? I know there’s more than enough modders out there who, like Saddam, get a kick out of gold-plating rifles and pistols.
Has anyone ever done one of these split playable games where one mode wasn’t more or less broken? XCom Apoc’s turnbased mode was crap and Fallout:Tactics’ realtime was more or less unplayable.
Now, neither of those were bad games if played in their correct mode, but I’d bet pretty strongly that this game will have at least one poorly implemented mode.
You can do this right. Baldur’s Gate, for instance. Pause time-y a riffic!
Lucas is furious.
Fantasy medieval combat is not the same as modern squad-based tactics. In a fantasy game the party stays together and can be kept on the screen all at once. Modern squad-based tactics often requires the squad to split up with one fireteam maintaining a base of fire, while the other fireteam encircles the enemy. If half the squad moves off the screen, that’s a problem. Pausable real-time is most satisfying to me when I can see and keep track of all my elements at the same time. Once half my units are off screen and I can’t see them all, the game becomes less satisfying.
If the units can act intelligently when not babysat, it can work okay (Close Combat, for example). It also works when the units are completely nameless, faceless, and easily rebuilt – e.g., standard RTS like Warcraft2 or AoE where losing one orc is not a big deal. Otherwise, I am unhappy with pausable realtime. If there’s a chance I might be dealing with something in one corner of the map and move back to discover that my one and only M1A2 Abrams Tank died while I wasn’t watching, I am going to be unhappy. Similarly if in XCom I’m babysitting one squad and move back to find that my XCom captain who I have nurtured through 15 missions somehow died while I wasn’t watching, then I am not going to be happy.
These aren’t an issue in BG2 due to the nature of Fantasy RPG party combat. So what works for BG isn’t necessarily going to translate well to another genre.
What it boils down to me is the (sigh) wargaming factor. In RTS games, you typically lasso units and dump them on enemy territory. Although newer RTS games like CoH are starting to whittle away at this by favoring a “lite” version of actual tactics, there’s still too much going on at once to follow in grognard-like detail.
It’s nice to be able to follow all of your units and know what’s going on with them without having to resort to action point fiddling in a pure turn-based system.
For me. the Combat Mission chaps have got enough credit in the bank to do whatever the hell they like and me have a little faith in 'em to at least be interesing. They’ve always had that progressive streak that wants to try stuff, and chomping down on that would have destroyed what made 'em interesting in the first place.
KG
the tanks and the troops look amazing. Looking forward to this one.
Quite an improvement from Combat Mission:BO.
Looks better than I expected.
Thank god those guys finally hired some artists. It looks fantastic. So, what system does the game use now? Pausable realtime? I heard they dropped the we-go system for this iteration.
It has both realtime and we-go modes available. No switching between modes – mode must be selected at start of game. I haven’t seen anything one way or the other on whether or not orders can be given while paused.