Gog Combat Mission

[Mariela Coxon]

CombatMission is the name of a series of computer wargames simulating tactical battles. The series has progressed through two distinct game engines. The original game engine, referred to as 'CMx1' by the developer, Battlefront.com, powered a trio of games set in the Second World War. Combat Mission: Shock Force was released in July 2007 as the debut of the 'CMx2' game engine. The Combat Mission games are a mixture of turn-based gameplay and simultaneous real-time execution. The game environment is fully three-dimensional, with a "Wego" style of play wherein each player enters their orders into the computer simultaneously during pauses in the action, and then are powerless to intervene during the action phase. More familiar turn-based games use an "I-go/You-go" system of play.

In the beginning of 1998 Avalon Hill was in turmoil and unstable to work for, and Moylan decided to go his own way, as Big Time Software, shortly before Avalon Hill was purchased by Hasbro. The move from Avalon Hill also meant severing ties to ASL; the unfinished project had no references to Advanced Squad Leader or Avalon Hill. Moylan briefly offered the Alpha build (tentatively called Squad Leader) to publishers before teaming up with Steve Grammont, forming what eventually became Battlefront.com and re-christening the new game Combat Mission.

Battlefront produced the first game in the Combat Mission series, Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord, in 2000. The game was successful and spawned two additional titles, as well as a second generation game engine with plans for many new titles and modules bearing the Combat Mission name. Big Time Software eventually became known as Battlefront.com, with additional members being hired, including Martin van Balkom, Dan Olding, and Fernando Julio Carrera Buil and Matt Faller, who handle the company website, graphics and sound design, and organizing beta testing of new products. Combat Mission remains the flagship series of the Battlefront.com line. In July 2010, a second programmer was hired by BFC to assist with the production of Combat Mission games.

These three games are commonly said to belong to the 'CMx1' engine. An operational layer was also planned for Barbarossa to Berlin with the announcement of Combat Mission: Campaign, which was to allow players to order maneuver elements from platoon to battalion size on an operational grid and generate realistic battles to be fought out in Barbarossa to Berlin. It was expected to be released in 2006; Battlefront.com had announced this title would be released before Shock Force. This game languished in development hell and was officially cancelled on February 26, 2009 due to lack of funding and irresolvable bugs.

In the meantime, production shifted to a new game engine, described as the 'CMx2' engine. New games, to consist officially of Titles, outlining a particular era, with Modules providing extra nationalities, weapons, and equipment types for each Title, were planned. The initial release was set as a near-future game.

This title depicts combat in a fictional US invasion of Syria, focusing on US Stryker brigades and Syrian regular and irregular forces and was released on July 27, 2007. Three modules have also since appeared:

All three games share the same concept; turns are divided into a planning and an executing phase. While the planning phase can, in single player mode, last as long as the player needs to give orders to all their units, the executing phase always lasts 60 seconds of real-time. Both sides, either computer or another human, enter their orders before the execution phase takes place. This is known as the Wego system. During the execution phase, units carry out their orders, but the player cannot influence the result and is limited to watch, replay and move the camera. All games offer to play individual battles (ranging from 15 to 60 turns, or 120 turns in Barbarossa to Berlin and Afrika Korps) or operations, linking a series of battles. See Scenarios below for more information.

The games offer an editor to create maps and battles. The editor is a simple, top-down, tile-based affair that allows mappers to place any of the game's terrain tiles anywhere on a square grid representing the map and change the elevation of each tile individually. Buildings, roads, forests, fields, rocks, and water can be placed, in addition to the forces that will be disposed to each side, if the map is designed as a scenario with fixed forces. Also, in creating custom scenarios, players can write their own text introductions to the scenario; one text file for both sides, and two other side-specific text files that set up the battle and the order of battle for each side. Players can also write their own victory/loss texts.

The series also offers a "quick battle" option. Player(s) can only edit some general parameters (mission type, year, region) and then the computer creates a random map. Units can be selected by the computer or can be bought using points. Each unit has a value in points depending on type, for example a tank costs more than a squad of riflemen. Optionally, for added realism, when buying units the rarity of the unit can be taken into account. This keeps the battles true to the time period, as players trying to use rarer units are penalized. Additionally, scenario designers often carefully research a battle to create accurate historical battles.

Game is at the squad/team level with individual vehicles and guns represented. Depending on the scenario, the players can command forces ranging from a platoon up to a reinforced battalion. Ideally, the game operates at the company level with the player taking on the role of a company commander. Given the large size of the maps in Barbarossa to Berlin and Afrika Korps, with enough computer processing power a player could deploy a brigade/regiment on a single map.

Continuing the theme first presented in the Close Combat series of tactical computer wargames, Combat Mission models the morale state of soldiers in the game, with different levels ranging from OK to Routed. Fatigue levels are also modelled, and beginning in Barbarossa to Berlin soldiers are modelled with varying base levels of fitness; Fit, Weakened or Unfit. A final consideration is experience and training, which Combat Mission assigns to units ranging from Conscript to Elite.

While every unit will try to follow commands, units under fire will react to that fire by taking cover, breaking or even fleeing in panic. Units will recover from lowered morale states, though some may be permanently affected for the duration of the game. Leadership is also modelled in the game, with headquarters units influencing the morale, firepower, and stealth of units under their command.

A hit on an enemy unit does not always mean destruction. Infantry units in the game represent from 1 to 15 soldiers, and wounded/killed men disappear from the simulation. When a unit has lost all available manpower, it will show up on the map as a dead soldier icon.

Armour penetration in Combat Mission is given realistic treatment. Partial penetrations, spalling, and non-fatal penetrating hits are all modelled in the game, with realistic ballistic stats for both armour and armour-piercing weapons. Catastrophic damage to vehicles is modelled, with real life tank models prone to fires being equally prone to "brewing up" in the game.

There are two types of scenarios in the first Combat Mission series; Battles and Operations. Battles are standalone scenarios, either randomly generated Quick Battles or pre-made by scenario designers. Operations are a series of two or more battles played over the same terrain, linking these fights into a greater overall context. Forces are carried over from one battle to the next in an operation, but often units will have ammunition replenishment and new units will be added to the player's army. Operations have different objectives than scenarios; sometimes winning depends on advancing to the end of the map, for example.

The second Combat Mission series will have two types of scenarios; Battles as in 'CMx1', and Campaigns, which will be story driven. Like the Operations in 'CMx1', the 'CMx2' campaigns will carry over forces from one battle to the next, but individual promotions will be possible and repair/retention of weapons is expected to be more realistically handled.

Victory is assessed by four factors; inflicting casualties, holding key terrain (when indicated by the scenario by flags), exiting units from the map (when indicated by the scenario), and capturing enemy soldiers. A computation of points is done after each scenario.

The player can zoom out and watch the battlefield from a bird's eye perspective as well as zoom in and attach the camera to a single unit. However, due to the games' fog of war features, the player will only see the enemy units their own units have spotted. Each unit has its own line of sight that is blocked by obstacles like hills, houses and trees. Night, dust, weather, smoke or sandstorms all reduce the line of sight.

Sometimes units can hear the enemy. That is represented with a grey symbol featuring a red question mark and the text "sound". Sound contact information tends to be less precise than visual information. Also previously spotted units may disappear again, if they hide or move out of line of sight. Long-range visual contact is not always sufficient to correctly identify an enemy unit.

Every unit under the player's control can be clicked and forced to display a graphical line of sight representation. The line of sight is sometimes the only way to decide if a unit can see a specific spot or not.

..."relative spotting"...is...(when) each unit knows what it has/hasn't spotted. Right now CM uses what we call "absolute spotting", which means once a unit spots something it is spotted. There is absolutely no sense of if anybody has spotted the unit before or after on a unit by unit basis.

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