Grumblers musing

[Jim von Krieg]

Ed,

Please, relevant facts that are connected to what we are doing, not injecting events unrelated to the development of CSME which we did not observe or participate in.  Advanced Squad Leader and Coke?  Neither of these has anything to do with what we are doing with our CS game development.  Any thing along this line of reasoning is just plain speculation on your part.

I'll say it bluntly and look you in the eye while doing it, we want more realism in the game and considering your response its clear you don't understand what we are talking about.  As a result, I'll discuss what we mean and not what you think we mean.  You may like some of it or you may like none of it.

Slitherine has little impact on the day to day work of the team.  They want a product they can sell.  They've given us some very broad guidelines and a few specific to liability issues, but for the most part we work this to our specifications.  Its hardly a group of yes men sitting around the table considering that all of us are experienced wargamers.  We are a team and we work towards goals and expect results.  Some times not the results we intended which is why we didn't release over the summer as originally planned. What we are attempting is not easy and takes time.

To support that effort, I've done professional wargaming for military OPLANs on Cray computers, intelligence plans to support combat operations, and personal wargaming for decades.  I think I have some expertise in this area and am well aware of team dynamics in an organization.  Will I get everything I want, not hardly.  Its a team effort and we work on consensus about what we want to address and how we will work it. 

There is going to be a more realistic element added because we are addressing actual military capabilities in our approach to the game. 

First by realism, I mean some of the following items: Offer realistic military capabilities to the maximum extent possible through new units, accurate orders of battle, maps that are geographically accurate, battles that capture the flow of the fight, day/night transitions, and several other game processes like helicopters, SAMs, and ATGMs.  We've also established a methodology to reflect the Modified Table of Organization and Equipment (MTO&Es) for units.  We've developed new methodologies for LOS, combat operations, and air operations.

We are bringing realism to the game by adding military capabilities not covered by a game series centered on World War Two.  Some nations will have this capability, some won't based on what their military was fielding at the time.  For example, a wargame at this level in the time period we cover should be able to lay mines and do it in a fairly rapid fashion.  If you want to talk military capabilities, a Russian minelaying system mounted on a truck can spread mine fields the size of football fields in a very short period of time (minutes, not hours).  An AVLB laying a 30 or 50 ton scissors bridge does it in minutes.  We are not even talking air and artillery delivered scatterable mines, but if we push past 1985 we will in all likelihood address it. That is part of what I mean by realism.

Another element to our realism is to gather up historical writings/books/documents to produce accurate portrayal of battles with some flexibility for the players to play the game historically or non-historically.  This is hard because there is contradictory information all over the place concerning various wars and battles.  So, we will attempt to add accurate order of battle and military equipment to our battles that reflect a historic nature.  However, we are also throwing in some what if scenarios that while not historically accurate will demonstrate historical battlefield possibilities.  Additionally, our scenarios while reflecting history will allow flexibility to deviate from history.  You will not be locked into to any one course of action in most of the fights.  There is to the maximum extent possible multiple paths to victory and defeat.  Its a game and we realize its a game, and we are not here to create a bland battle simulation in which you really have little impact on the course of the game.  

Another element to consider is the fact that Jason is a cartographer and has put a lot of effort into producing historically accurate base maps for scenario designers.  We've also introduced additional map levels to better capture mountainous terrain.  I'm currently working on updating our Golan base map to more accurately reflect the elevations of the area with an eventual eye to pushing it out to enable the portrayal of some of the late 1973 battles that occurred as Israel entered into Syria.  

If you want to create a scenario in 1956 Sinai, the map is already there.  You just have to trim it down to meet your needs as a scenario designer.  We are also adding base order of battles for the countries in the game.  It reduces the need for a scenario designer to start their OB from scratch.  As part of the order of battle, we will have MTO&Es which reflect organizational laydowns that are extensively researched though some are better than others just due to the availability of information from certain countries.

If the scenario designer doesn't care for that, they can build their own map and units from scratch.  Also, just because the capability is added, its up to a scenario designer to incorporate it into the game.  If few designers do, then some things in the game you may never realize are there because you will never actually see it.
 
This is a war game.  We want you have to think about your flanks, your reconnaissance forces, the speed of your advance, the fundamentals of war, combined arms, and whole array of factors that impact modern battles.  As CSME reflects some very modern capabilities, you are going to have to adjust some of your thinking because while the basic ideals are similar, the capabilities are so much more.  Your failure to recon properly could mean your tank battalion has impaled themselves on a line of ATGMs because you hit it on the march without suppressive fire and proper reconnaissance.  CS is unique in many respects because it is so flexible, but it needs added and improved processes to better reflect some modern military capabilities which it glosses over or doesn't have due to its World War Two roots.  Of course, most of what I'm saying addresses 1973 and beyond.  Prior to 1973, the game is very much something you would recognize.  

As to customer service, I'm pretty sure we're doing just fine.  I'm the one that will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.

Regards,

Jim