Yet Another Scenario Question

[BOSTON]

[Jim]

hoistingman4 wrote:

Would it be possible to play SP in the MP mode against the MP AI and get the results like you stated using saves? IN MP would a player have the whole OOP (everything) for a given side available against the whole OOP (everything) of the MP AI? Are MP scenarios preprogramed to start the same way as SP scenarios? Is it manditory to have more than one (live) player in a MP game? Correct me if I am wrong, In MP You can have a freindly AI commander(s) (optional), as well as yourself (and others) against the MP AI. Also, if your the only live player in MP would you be able to use pause? I know Jim said before there would be no pause in MP use, due to problems with other live players, (something like that). Just kicking around a few thoughts on how Mp might be ultillized.

Hoistingman4[/quote]

The size of the battle is something that can be set for either SP or MP from brigade through a corps (CS) or 2 (US). That size range covers the size of the interesting historical actions at GB.

The options for MP scenarios are still somewhat open. We currently expect that MP commanders *should* be able to play 'embedded' within a scenario largely run by the AI. An example of this would be two players taking command of Kemper and Stannard respectively during the PPT charge. The AI would run the rest of the action, but each player would control their respective brigade. This whole area is largely unexplored at this moment, so significant changes are very possible.

Another possibility is that the scenario would place each player in top command with all units in their correct historical positions at that time/day. There would be no scripting at all with this option, all actions would be at the orders of each player. These are very simple to set up, and are more likely to be included for MP fun.

Ideas for how results from one MP battle might carry over are still open for discussion. Are there useful models from other MP games that we might 'borrow' useful concepts from?

-Jim

[Hancock the Superb]

There is no army command?

That is a shame!!!

I believe the rest of my head is still lost on that flurry of posts that I just skimmed over.:laugh:

[Jim]

It is perhaps better to say that there is no army command that meets our standards of playability at this time. The system load of having all ~150,000 troops on one of the highly detailed GB maps is quite high. Several team members are working on improvements that we hope/expect will raise the performance level to a playable FPS number with the full 30 June OOB on the map.

The full OOB is IMO the least interesting set up since there is really no room to maneuver your units. It is a game that only members of the JB Hood School of straight ahead attack would really like.

-Jim

[BOSTON]

JIM

With football season over and Spring training for baseball is down south, I got nothing better to to than play the grandest game of them all. You might say I am a student of the JB HOOD SCHOOL of not pulling any punches, damn the torpedos, go all out. In SP of TC2M I loved using the fullest OOP possible of the stock scenarios, there were headaches managing the game, but it was worth it.

Yes, I am very interested in Historical play, hindsight is always 20/20, and make the best of it. I'm sure you are going to have great scenario selections.

What I am taking notice of is your mention of June 30thOOP. Does that mean there will be a scenario on that day? Or a reference in time for the sake of the OOB?:dry:

Don't know what you mean by "playable FPS number"?

Is the GB map comparable in size to the TC2M map? To play the larger scenarios on that map I would have to sacrifice detail for better playablity (My 2 giga xp), which was just fine with me. I am looking into getting a newer and faster computer just to play your game, custom if the price is right.

Hoistingman4

[Hancock the Superb]

Well, then, I guess that no Army command is a GOOD idea, if there would only be straight ahead attack in SB.

[Jim]

The June 30 OOB is our stress test file. It has every unit present at any time during the 3 days. The unit strengths are taken from Busey & Martin using the 'Strength Engaged' value. Those are adjusted from the 30 June muster reports, hence the name of the file. This produces an OOB that is not strictly historical but sets a plausible benchmark for the maximum capability we might reasonably need.

The GB maps are slightly larger than the TC2M maps, however we are also including non-historical maps that are larger, but with much less detail. These take a lot less overhead and should give even lower end systems a couple of maps where they should get good game performance.

FPS is Frames Per Second, which is how many animation frames are written in one second of real time. A minimally acceptable number is a matter of opinion because different people have different parts of the game that they consider important. One person might love the fine details and be willing to accept stutters and hesitation to keep that graphical appearance. A different person might value smoothness and be more than willing to reduce graphics to keep the action butter smooth. We will be supplying a lot of options to allow people to tune performance to keep what they view as important.

If you have a system that you bought within the past 3 years and you have 2 GB of system memory, you should be able to play the game well enough.

Jim

[7th Wisconsin]

If you have a system that you bought within the past 3 years and you have 2 GB of system memory, you should be able to play the game well enough.

Ouch, that was a virtual kick in the crotch. Time to cash those birthday checks from Grandma. What's Dell's phone # again? (Any thought 'bout releasing this as a board game instead???)

[Chamberlain]

Jim wrote:

If you have a system that you bought within the past 3 years and you have 2 GB of system memory, you should be able to play the game well enough.

Jim

::silly::silly:

Great News Jim !!!!!!!!!!!!

:woohoo: :woohoo:

Chamberlain

[Jim]

Until we get farther along in performance tuning, we will not know where the true lower end for this game lies. It also depends on how willing you are to play with reduced graphics. If you are perfectly happy to play with low res uniforms for the troops and all of the trees/crops turned off, then an older system may be just fine. Finding that performance threshold is one of the objectives when we get to larger scale beta testing.

-Jim