Demo

[ERutins]

DEMO TUTORIAL SPOILER ALERT

The instant death and/or disruption from Soviet mortar fire at the beginning of the tutorial in "normal" mode is a real downer for someone, especially someone who is not a hard core and experience tactical wargamer, who is trying to learn the basics of the game and not be frustrated right out of the gate.

Yes, we didn't realize that due to being too familiar with the game and the tutorial, but we're going to change that for the release.

[ERutins]

Is what I am seeing WeGo? Or turn based? And if it is WeGo I'm not real clear on what the reaction phase is about. I understand the orders that are available, just not clear on what it represents in the space/time continuum?

It's also worth mentioning that in Ostfront, you can play without the reaction phase. If you turn on 60 second turns in the Options screen, it will play just like CM with full orders every 60 second and no reaction phase. It is a WeGo game, the goal of the reaction phase was to help model command limitations. So you could change full orders every 80 seconds, but the turn was divided into two 40 second "phases" with a chance in the middle to make limited reactions without wholesale orders changes.

Regards,

- Erik

[thewood]

The split phased turn system is really an artificial result of there being very little tacAI in PCK. There is now some TacAI that responds to events around a unit in PCO, so I see little use of the split system. I use 40s and 60s turns.

I really think its a artifact of the turn-based minatures game Pazer Wars that PCO came from. I still see no reason why in one 40s stretch you can issue these orders, but in the next 40s stretch you can't. It is all very forced and artificial to me.

[ERutins]

I understand that point of view. The feedback about the orders system over time is one reason why we want to overhaul it for the next release. The current one works and can give realistic results, but it's not intuitive for new players and can feel forced until you really get used to it. The goal is to have an orders system for the next release that lets us model command and control better without the forced feeling and while also allowing an intuitive simple orders mode.

With that said, I hope gamers will be willing to climb that learning curve (it's not that steep) as there is IMHO a great game there and the extra work of learning the orders system shouldn't stop you from enjoying it.

Regards,

- Erik

[mOBIUS]

Is what I am seeing WeGo? Or turn based? And if it is WeGo I'm not real clear on what the reaction phase is about. I understand the orders that are available, just not clear on what it represents in the space/time continuum?

What it represents is an opportunity for a short emergency order. The Order in the reaction phase would be akin to "Halt!", "Back Up!" or "Target 10-o'clock 400 meters AP".

The regular Orders phase represents the input of a long winded detail orders. Would these really happen every 60 or 80 seconds? Probabaly not but this is a game. Somewhere after that a tank may run down a road and get in a situation where it needs to abort that original order or take advantage of its new position. In a RT game you could pause and redo your orders. The reaction phase just is an opportunity to do that. The longer 80 second turns makes you think ahead and plan more but the reaction phase allows you to recover from un-expected events faster.

[Edit]Oh, yeah. One additional difference. To reinforce the above difference the Reaction phase order is a one unit order. It only applies to one individual not the entire platoon like the regular Orders phase order. So if you order withdraw it only applies to the tank(s) that you give it to not the entire platoon.

[Elvis]

Thanks guys. I'm picking up what you're laying down.

[Geordie]

However, I switched to the alternative option of just having a minutes worth of turns. This works fine for me in most circumstances. I never was a big fan of the double phases, especially in PBEM games.

[junk2drive]

It's been said before but I'll repeat it. MR was the biggest pain in the asp about adding 60 second turns to PCO. When we finally got them, MR was so use to having the ability to intervene at 40 seconds that he never uses it.

[BlitzCanuck]

Against a human opponent i would definitely want to make adjustments as often as possible but against the AI i think 60 second turns is more than frequent enough.

[Scott Tortorice]

Thanks guys. I'm picking up what you're laying down.

So am I. I needed to replay the tutorial before I got a handle on the orders system. Now I am more comfortable with how it all works.

Thanks!