by Martin Turewicz

I started Big Time Software in 1993 with the burning desire to write a strategy-oriented jet combat game which I titled Flight Commander. After signing a deal with Avalon Hill, more flight combat games followed: Flight Commander 2, Over the Reich, and Achtung Spitfire. Up until that point Big Time was effectively a one-man company. I did virtually everything involved in creating the games. More recently with our new game Combat Mission, Steve Grammont has come on board as well. Originally an independent developer, Steve also worked at Sierra OnLine's Impressions division before joining up with Big Time. While there he headed up their QA department and later was the Producer for Civil War Generals 2.

The Wargamer: What is Combat Mission?

The first game in the series, which will be called Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord (Combat Mission for short) is a 3-D tactical wargame set in World War Two on the Western front, from June 6, 1944 (D-Day) to the end of the war. Units are squads, teams, and individual vehicles or guns. Players usually command anywhere from a company to a battalion-sized force. In the future we plan to take Combat Mission to many other theaters of conflict, especially the Eastern Front.

The Wargamer: Which units / vehicles / AT guns etc. do you include? Will there be additional nationalities besides Germans and US troops?

Pretty much any common, or semi-common, weapon you can think of for Combat Mission's time period is available to the user, plus a few oddballs like the German Puppchen antitank launcher. Same goes for units, so expect to see everything from British Red Devil paratroops to German Volkssturm. Vehicles are a bit more tricky to do because of the technical demands. Nonetheless, we have a huge number of vehicles planned. The current list can be found at www.battlefront.com/products/worldwar/cm in the "Resources" section.

American, German, British, Canadian, Polish, and Free French forces are represented in Combat Mission.

A heavily-armed, and mixed German force takes a bit of punishment from
artillery. Seen here are Wehrmacht, SS, and Luftwaffe troops on
the move, backed up by vehicles that need no introduction!

The Wargamer: Wasn't Combat Mission supposed to be the computer version of Advanced Squad Leader at some point? What caused the breakup with AH and how did you carry on?

Two years ago that was the original plan, but it didn't get very far. Avalon Hill was in negotiations with Hasbro and was subsequently bought by them, which made us suddenly independent. We renamed the game Combat Mission, and since it never used the guts of Squad Leader anyway, very few changes were necessary to make it a fully independent product.

The Wargamer: The core of Combat Mission’s game engine are its unique orders phase/action phase game turns. Could you explain the principle of how it works?

Its very simple. You issue orders to all your troops while time is "paused". This allows you all the time you need to evaluate your positions, tactics, troop condition, enemy activity, etc. There are optional "timers" for multiplayer in case you want to make sure "all the time you need" is not long enough to slip the other person into a coma. :-)

Once you feel that you have done all you can do, you end your turn. Combat Mission's game engine then crunches the data and figures out what happens for that turn. Once the calculations are complete, the action begins! For the next 60 seconds you watch as your troops engage the enemy in real-time combat. During this time you have no control of your units. Their actions have already been determined by your orders, the enemy's orders, and the Combat Mission game engine, so this is a "playback" of the results.

When you are finished reviewing the action, you begin the next Orders Phase.

The Wargamer: The Combat Mission combat system seems to rely a lot on a strong AI because the computer independently calculates the 60 sec. action turns. Does not the 60 sec. action turn the player more into a spectator?

Not at all. In fact, you have even more command decisions to make because you have to anticipate what is going to happen MUCH more than in either normal IGOUGO wargames (like Steel Panthers) or RTS games (like Close Combat). In either of these games you can stop and reevaluate your entire plan at any given moment. This allows you to think ahead less. In Combat Mission you have to anticipate the next 60 seconds and plan accordingly. Get sloppy with your orders and you will pay the price!

When the Action Phase is being played out, you are a spectator in only the sense that you cant change anything that a unit is doing. However, you are allowed a very high degree of interaction with Combat Mission while playback is underway. You can move freely around the battlefield and do things like click on units to see who is shooting at them, check out some stats, replay a particular sequence, change environmental elements (i.e. reduce tree graphics, turn off smoke graphics, etc.), and generally see what the heck is going on from any angle as many times as you want.

It is really hard to describe the excitement of the Action Phase to someone who hasn't played it. We find that during a really tough 60 seconds of combat that we might spend several minutes just reviewing the turn. Usually you will want to replay a portion of a turn to analyze why a particular event happened the way it did. Say, watching one of your platoons storm a patch of woods and get totally blasted. You'll probably want to watch it a couple of times to figure out what the heck went wrong so you can plan better in subsequent turns. Maybe you let up the covering fire too soon, or perhaps there was a hidden enemy unit that you missed. Sometimes, however, you will want to do something like park the "camera" on the back of a King Tiger so you can watch it shoot up a convoy from its perspective. Sure, it has no bearing on your strategies, but it is really cool to do and we never tire of it. :-)

The Wargamer: Can you replay/save the action phase movies?

You can replay each Action Phase as much as you like prior to entering into the next Orders Phase. We are planning on a feature that will save all your Action Phases to disk so you can watch your entire game as one long movie playable through Combat Mission.

The Wargamer: How do you issue orders? Which orders can you issue (moving/firing)? How can you coordinate actions of your units? Can you change your orders in later turns? Will units follow ALL your orders or is there a possibility that they will override them and do something else instead?

You click on a unit and then use a pop-up menu or hotkey to issue an order. You can order your units to move in a variety of ways depending on their type. Targets are either selected by the player or left up to the unit's own judgment (each unit type has its own ideas of what is good to shoot at and when). There are benefits and drawbacks to both, but generally there are clear reasons to use one or the other method. Units that no longer have a target will always try to acquire a new target if there is one worth shooting at. In general unit actions are coordinated by you, the player. The one exception is Ambushing, where you can have units open up when a certain condition is met (including some trigger happy unit shooting too soon!).

Units move via plotted waypoint paths. These paths are to some degree flexible in subsequent turns, but a total overhaul will incur movement delays. (see next question) Experienced units have more flexibility than poor ones. Some of your units will be out of your control if they are beat up too much, but in general you can tell them what to do. However, they may not do what you want them to. For example, if you run a rifle squad out into a big open field, and an MG starts chattering away at it, the unit might decide that turning tail and getting back to the woods is the better thing to do. Generally a unit will not override a player's orders unless it feels that carrying out such orders will get it killed. Obviously the greater the threat and the poorer the unit, the more likely it will disobey your direct orders. If the unit is not too shaken up you will be able to give it new orders the next turn, but this is not by any means guaranteed. Units will panic and break if they get hit harder than they are comfortable with. Sometimes you will regain control of them, other times you won't.

Gamers say they want to know exactly what their forces are up to, so
Combat Mission allows you to do just that! You can toggle on/off all
friendly unit movement paths, each "leg" of which is color-coded to
represent the different move orders. Notice the hedgerows in the
background and the minefield sign in the foreground.

The Wargamer: Leaders and HQs seem to play an important role in the game. How do you model morale and what happens to units out of command? Will there be green and veteran units?

Yes, leaders and Command & Control are VERY important elements in Combat Mission. Units that are not in touch with their commanders react to your orders with more hesitation. Also, a good leader will be able to improve combat performance of his troops, make them stealthy when advancing, and steady shaky units better, or at least rally them faster if he can give them a good pep talk. This all has to do with morale, which is probably the single most important aspect of Combat Mission.

Each unit has a variable morale level. The simplest way to think about it is the better the morale the better the unit performs, and the less likely it is to fold up under pressure. Each shot taken at a unit causes it to reevaluate how "happy" it is. The more aimed/powerful the firepower, the more casualties, the farther away its leader is, the poorer its quality, the closer it is to exhaustion, etc. all factor into its state of mind. Other factors, like how well the unit's side is doing in the battle, come into play as well. The state of the unit might change many times during the course of a single turn.

There are 6 grades of unit experience; Conscript, Green, Regular, Veteran, Crack, and Elite. Unit experience has a profound impact on everything listed above. A Conscript unit might flee the moment a bullet comes near it, while an Elite unit might suffer 70% casualties while still maintaining basic functionality.

The Wargamer: You are claiming that Combat Mission is going to be "insanely realistic." Similar claims have been made previously by many wargames - why do you think you can actually achieve what you state?

The simplest answer is to look at the Combat Mission information on our website. If that doesn't convince you, just wait for the demo. :-)

http://www.battlefront.com/products/worldwar/cm/

The Wargamer: Talking about your website, it features an impressive discussion forum about Combat Mission and a lot of the ideas from there seem to actually make it into the game. Was this the idea behind creating this forum?

We started up the Combat Mission forum to bounce ideas off of gamers and to field questions about how we plan to treat various aspects of warfare in Combat Mission. The feedback, questions, and debates we have had are a significant reason for Combat Mission being as good as it is right now. It's like having a large beta pool and design team all rolled up into one. The best thing is that we are addressing issues in Combat Mission now that would certainly have come up later in testing. Several suggestions have gone in as-is, others have simply sparked our creativity. Overall it has been a lot of fun kicking around ideas with so many knowledgeable and caring gamers.

The Wargamer: Combat Mission is supposed to be in a 3D environment. What are the differences between the Combat Mission 3D engine and the "normal" 3D hex-gameboards, e.g. in West Front?

West Front, and games like it, are not true 3-D. Their graphics show a hexgrid in an appealing way, but its still a hexgrid. Combat Mission dispenses with all of that. When you see a house or a road in Combat Mission, its precisely that and it occupies the space that such a feature would in real life. Its a building, not a building hex, for example. This means that movement and lines-of-sight are far more precise and realistic in Combat Mission than in other games.

One of the coolest (and unique) feature is Combat Mission's accurate high-velocity "rounds tracking". In every wargame we have ever played shots that miss their targets simply vanish. In Combat Mission you can actually see a round leave the muzzle, follow it in flight, and watch it impact. It looks like a real firefight! As in real life, shots often hit something other than the target, like an intervening building or a tree. Shots can also whiz over a target and smash into something hundreds of meters behind it, or plow into the ground right in front of it. The important thing here is that a missed shot is still a shot, so it is tracked and simulated until impact. Keep this in mind because in Combat Mission such misses can often lead to unintended casualties (enemy or otherwise!).

The Wargamer: How does the line-of-sight (LOS) work on Combat Mission's 3D maps?

Think of the most accurate, real life system possible. In Combat Mission if a unit can see something, it can shoot it (when in range of course). If you are moving a tank down a street, and there is an alleyway, beware! Combat Mission tracks every contour of the earth, every building wall, every hedge, and every smoke column in the game to determine if it is blocking a unit's ability to shoot. Whether it is a building, tree, or burning vehicle Combat Mission's LOS model takes it into account. And the 3-D nature of the game makes it immediately clear whether a line of sight is open or not. You can see it for yourself.

A US Forward Observer tries to find just the right spot to call down
the heavy artillery. Part of a rifle platoon and a 57mm AT gun
stand ready for action.

Not only are horizontal coordinates used, but the vertical is calculated as well. Height, as you will find out, becomes much more important with the addition of vertical tracking. This is just one of the great features which Combat Mission's true 3-D environment allows you to experience. No other wargame can offer you this level of detail.

The Wargamer: How big will maps be? Is everything scaled 1:1 (soldiers to vehicles to terrain)? Can you alter the scale? How does this affect LOS?

Theoretically maps can be of unlimited size. However, to keep the game running crisply, 3000 x 3000 meters is a reasonable upper limit. But usually you'll want maps to be smaller than that unless you're playing an extraordinarily tank-heavy scenario.

Scale is 1:1 as far as the computers internal calculations are concerned. Graphically, the player can choose to magnify his units so they're easier to see. Several levels of magnification are available. This magnification is for graphical purposes only and has no effect on how LOS is calculated. All game calculations are based on the real unit size.

The Wargamer: Do you simulate the Fog of War? Will units be able to hide and ambush enemy troops?

An enemy unit is hidden from view until a friendly unit "spots" it. Spotting is determined by a unit's cover, movement, proximity to enemy units, weapons fire, size, noise and weather conditions. Unlike other games, spotting isn't automatic or necessarily 100% accurate. Your units might spot a tank at a great distance away, but misidentify it as a bigger, or smaller, tank than it really is. If your units get a better look at it the error may be corrected, or perhaps not. For example, inexperienced American troops are prone to yelling "TIGER!" even when its just a halftrack. :-)

Enemy units remain visible as long as a friendly unit can "see" it. If the enemy unit moves out of visual range, hides, or becomes obscured (by something like smoke), it will cease to be "spotted". The game will show "ghost" units to tell you that there might still be an enemy unit where you last spotted it. But as time goes by even these will disappear without further spotting.

Ambushing is one of Combat Missions most interesting features. Leaders can mark the spot where they wish an ambush to take place. Units that wish to take part in the ambush then target this marker, and will then hold their fire until an enemy stumbles into the killing zone. Then blam! All hell breaks loose.

The Wargamer: Will you simulate night battles, fog, rain?

Yes to all three.

The Wargamer: Do you model artillery, naval artillery and/or airstrikes in the game?

Yes to all. Artillery is a big part of the game. In addition to having small- to medium-caliber guns directly available on the game map, players will often have Forward Observer units under their command which can radio in for artillery strikes ranging from small 81mm mortars up to 300mm nebelwerfer barrages. Delays and accuracy issues are dependent on nationality, unit quality, line of sight to the intended target and suppression status of the observer. Naval artillery is a bit of a lark, though, because battleship shells are absolutely massive. The destruction is awesome - really too large for a company/battalion level game like Combat Mission. But it's fun to watch! So we've included it.

Air strikes are more appropriate to the games scale and are impressive as well. You hear the whir of the propeller in the distance and suddenly all ground antiaircraft guns swivel and start firing. A shadow streaks across the map at 300 miles per hour! The whistle of bombs falling or rockets launching... then BOOM, some poor unit takes a major hit. And sometimes its friendly fire so you have to be careful. Vehicles are advised to stay under the cover of trees to avoid being spotted from the air.

The Wargamer: How is damage to squads and vehicles handled in the game? Do you simulate details like front/side/rear armor, sloped armor etc.? Do you simulate damage/actions of single men?

Squads are simulated to individual men, both in casualties taken and in weapons fired. You won’t be happy when your BAR or MG42 man goes down (though sometimes another soldier will pick up such important weapons).

Armor penetration is one of Combat Mission’s most intricately-simulated processes. We take into account front/side/rear as well as top/turret/upper hull/lower hull armor thickness, Brinnell armor hardness, armor slope, side angle (i.e obliquity), visibility of side profile relative to front or rear, shot-to-plate diameter ratio, armor quality (i.e. metallurgical flaws), face hardened vs. homogeneous plate, striking velocity (i.e. air resistance to the shell as it travels), shell 'cap' (if applicable) and strength, tungsten rounds, discarding sabot rounds, shot shatter, shot traps, and armor skirts. We’re not exaggerating when we say that Combat Mission gives armor penetration the most realistic and mathematically accurate treatment in any wargame ever made.

In some games, such a detailed stats panel would be window
dressing. But in Combat Mission, every single one of these
stats is used in the game, plus many more under the hood. The
armor information is thickness in millimeters and slope in degrees.
Notice the driver in the half-track on the lower right and the
incoming projectile in the middle of the picture.

The Wargamer: What kind of scenarios can we expect for Combat Mission? How do campaigns work in Combat Mission? How long will a typical scenario/campaign be (turns, playing time)?

Combat Mission has two main types of scenarios: Battles and Campaigns. Several different types of battle scenarios are available, which in general will last from 15 to 60 minutes of simulated time. Although not finalized, we would like to include the following types:

Meeting Engagements - Both sides advance to the same point or to two opposite ones. This is the ultimate in improvised combat since neither side will be fighting from prepared positions.

Assaults - The attacker employs massive force against a prepared defender. The attacker wields considerable strength, but there will be tough victory conditions to achieve.

Attacks - Initially one side has more concentrated force, but it is by no means overwhelming. These will be some of the more interesting and difficult scenarios for both sides.

Probes - Basically each side is equal, but one has to go on the offensive. These scenarios will have more limited objectives, forcing both sides to go easy on their forces.

Breakthroughs - One side is "cut off" and has to fight through enemy lines. Sometimes there will be a relief force, other times the hapless units are on their own.

About Campaigns: the structure is still being worked on so bear in mind that the following comments are subject to change. Think of a typical campaign as being a long, rectangular map, of which you only play on a portion at a time. The area played on depends on how the campaign goes. Each time the front line shifts significantly, the playing area is moved (should be towards the attacker's objective, but it could go the other way). A small campaign map, like a city center, could be the entire playing area for the entire campaign.

Troops will generally start out where they last left off. We are probably going to allow a small percentage to be repositioned "in between" the battles. And yes, reinforcements can be assigned to both sides.

Defenders can start out in prepared positions for certain types of campaigns. This includes foxholes, mines, roadblocks, wire, various pillboxes, etc. Some campaigns will feature major counterattacks where the attacker and defender switch roles.

The Wargamer: How do you set up your force on the map initially? Can players get reinforcements during a game?

Players can set up their units as they wish before the action begins, within the constraints set by the scenario designer. Some units may be free to position, but usually they're color-coded to match a particular setup zone on the map. Each side may have several zones in which it must set up its troops. For example, the red setup zone may be the village center where you place your troops who have been surrounded. You may also have a blue setup zone a distance away, where the relief force sets up. Combat Mission gives the scenario designer a lot of flexibility in creating these setup zones.

And yes, reinforcements are available too.

The Wargamer: The western front of ‘44-’45 was not really balanced, as the Allies had far more equipment/men than the Germans. How will you play balance the scenarios, campaigns?

The battles in Combat Mission are relatively small compared to the Western Front as a whole. With a battalion or less per side, it's is not unrealistic to have a local conflict in which the Axis might either outnumber the Allies or have better equipment (like heavy tanks).

Although the Allies had a seemingly endless supply of men, vehicles, and other materials, this was often not apparent in the front lines. Because most equipment, supplies, and reserves were shipped from the USA, shortages were common in front-line units. Losses and lengthy advances only aggravated these shortages. Air support too, although massive, couldn't be everywhere all the time. Therefore, there are plenty of battles where the Germans can stand up to the Allies, and even outnumber them. This reality of ETO combat makes it fairly easy for us to include battles which can be called balanced.

The Wargamer: Will there be different victory conditions / objectives in the scenarios/campaigns?

There will be multiple objectives and ways to win in most scenarios. Wargames that simply have the old "kill 'em all" or "take this hill or you lose" scenarios don't interest us much. Expect more from Combat Mission. No single victory condition will cause you to win or lose a battle. Instead you will be judged on the following categories (this list is currently provisional and we may add more):

Objectives - Physical areas in your possession at the end of the game.

Casualties - a ratio of friendly to enemy losses that must be maintained.

Time - a time range to accomplish a certain goal.

Maneuver - moving forces through a particular objective area or exiting a map edge, or preventing the enemy from doing the same.

Prisoners - capturing the enemy instead of killing them always benefits the captor, either by reducing friendly casualties or by providing useful intelligence, and you will be rewarded for showing mercy.

The Wargamer: Will there be a map/scenario editor?

Yes. Even in the alpha version its already extremely powerful and flexible.

The Wargamer: Being a passionate scenario designer myself, I would like to hear about some of the features available in the Combat Mission editor? Which terrain features will be included (hills, houses, cities, the bocage, forests with varying density, dirt paths, paved roads, airfields)?

Combat Mission will ship with the same scenario editing tools that we will use for the included scenarios and campaigns. Terrain features are too numerous to mention, but all the basic types necessary to make forests, bocage, farmland, towns, cities, etc. are there. In addition to the elements you mention (less the airfields since you can use roads to do the same thing) there are walls, hedges and hedgerows, three different types of woods, stone and wood houses, swamp, bridges, and lots of other stuff. You can create gentle rolling hills, steep cliffs, or deep ravines with ease. Pretty much everything you expect plus a little more. In the future there will be more terrain types, but we have to watch out for 3D texture memory limitations as terrain is a big memory hog! Oh, and you can choose the season and weather effects (like fog or rain) for your scenario too.

The Wargamer: Are you going to offer multi-player, Internet, PBEM, Hot-Seat options for the game?

Two player games can be played hotseat, PBEM, or Internet (TCP/IP).

The Wargamer: What will the minimum system requirements be for Combat Mission? Will a 3D accelerator card be necessary?

We haven't nailed down requirements yet, as this requires further testing on a wide variety of computers. A 3D card is not required, but is recommended. Tentatively, Combat Mission will require:

Windows 95/98: Pentium 133MHz w/3D card or Pentium 200MHz w/out 3D card

Macintosh: PowerPC 133MHz w/3D card, or PowerPC 180MHz w/out 3D card and 32MB of RAM

The Wargamer: Can you give us an estimate of the release date for Combat Mission? Do you have a publisher?

Battlefront.com will publish Combat Mission, which is currently scheduled for release in late summer.

No problem! You won't be disapointed.

Charles Moylan
www.bigtimesoftware.com

Read the Battlefront.com Interview.

Read the Combat Mission After Action Report.

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