Lead, not micromanage?

[Ghost Dog]

thats a direct quote from the matrix store page. But is it really true?

for $90+ I really want to be sure of what i'm getting into. I've watched about 5 long 'lets play' type videos of this title and i'm seeing substantial micromanagement.

I played Harpoon in early 90s, but fell out of love and was attracted to the sub command/fleet commmand/dangerous waters family. Now, im not trying to troll but lets be honest: Command *is* Harpoon.

What i'm looking to have answered is related to the title of the thread. Will these dots on the map fight on their own if given basic orders? (auto-engage etc). Ive seen things like ROE on some videos.

other things i'd like to know: Is there such thing as crew experience or veterancy? If I were to advocate against simulations such as this, i'd use terms like "spreadsheet war".

allow me a small example: During the Battle of Midway one of the most marked differences between Japanese and American Naval forces turned out being the superior damage control and fire-fighting abilities of the USN. Japanese ship design and lack of damage control discipline contributed to the loss of 4 carriers and 1 cruiser.

another question I have is are any manner of land forces in this game? even just for purposes of victory conditions, can say marines be landed somewhere to 'take' an objective? Or am I simply making my blue dots eliminate the red dots on google earth?

[Herman]

Originally Posted by Black_Dingo

thats a direct quote from the matrix store page. But is it really true?

for $90+ I really want to be sure of what i'm getting into. I've watched about 5 long 'lets play' type videos of this title and i'm seeing substantial micromanagement.

No, you have the correct impression. If you want any chance of actual success, you need to micro-manage it (just like Harpoon). To set up and let the AI handle all the warfare usually ends in failure when the AI does something stupid.

Also, to get around many of the problems, the answer is always: Go Manual.

For example, if you hit the refueling problems and your tankers crash when they give away too much gas so that they cannot return to base, the answer is: Go Manual; when the AI fires off all your SAMs at low PoK targets, the answer is: Go Manual; and so on.

Originally Posted by Black_Dingo

What i'm looking to have answered is related to the title of the thread. Will these dots on the map fight on their own if given basic orders? (auto-engage etc). Ive seen things like ROE on some videos.

Like in Harpoon, the dots/units will act on their own volition. The RoE settings allow you a modicum of control over their behaviour. For example, you can set the RoE so that targets that are imperfectly detected might be engaged. Personally, I always minimize the RoE and maintain total control over my units. Otherwise, I feel that they are destined to do dumb things and just get themselves into trouble. However, players can grant the AI total control over all their units by assigning them to the basic missions/orders.

Originally Posted by Black_Dingo

other things i'd like to know: Is there such thing as crew experience or veterancy? If I were to advocate against simulations such as this, i'd use terms like "spreadsheet war".

allow me a small example: During the Battle of Midway one of the most marked differences between Japanese and American Naval forces turned out being the superior damage control and fire-fighting abilities of the USN. Japanese ship design and lack of damage control discipline contributed to the loss of 4 carriers and 1 cruiser.

Crew experience is not a factor nor controllable. A new feature that is not yet officially published is the ability to set the pilot qualities for an entire side (but not individual units). Therefore, you can supposedly set all pilots on the NATO side to Veterans or Aces, but not separate units or planes.

Damage reports can be observed and monitored, but there is no player control over DControl operations. You can see which systems are damaged, fires, and the level of flooding, but have no influence over DC efforts. Scenario designers are unable to set the DC competency of any sides.

Originally Posted by Black_Dingo

another question I have is are any manner of land forces in this game? even just for purposes of victory conditions, can say marines be landed somewhere to 'take' an objective? Or am I simply making my blue dots eliminate the red dots on google earth?

Mobile land forces are present in this game. However, the manner in which you deliver them is a bit odd. You do not 'deploy' them from aircraft or ships. Instead, when your transport aircraft or landing ship arrives at the destination, the land unit is magically "teleported" (developer's exact description) to that location. The unit can then move around and engage enemy units. The land units can be used for the purposes of Victory Conditions either by eliminating enemy units or simply by their arrival within a pre-determined location.

[Baloogan]

Originally Posted by Black_Dingo

thats a direct quote from the matrix store page. But is it really true?

I think its true. There are two big reasons why I think its true, the success I've had in making a turn based multiplayer plugin which requires periods of no micromanagement and the success I've had at making scenarios much too big to micromanage!

First I've written a multiplayer plugin for Command where your units are not in your direct control for half of the time (if playing against 1 player) or two thirds of the time (if playing against 2 players). Command still shines when you are not in direct control of your units.

At the bottom of this post is the current status of the multiplayer server, we have played about 160 turns so far across 19 games and 3 games have finished so far! (Not counting people who are using my software to play singleplayer, one of my tools called Geostream allows you to see your game log and the position of all your units at any point during the scenario. I wrote it so people could go back and see what happened during earlier turns.)

Simply it might be that Herman has not yet figured out the Mission system, I'd recommend that he try watching some of my tutorial videos before trying and failing to sound like an expert. I'll be making a mission system tutorial at some point in the future.

I'll write both of you guys a little tutorial on missions in Command.

First of here are the mission classes: I'm going to describe their use in a situation where you are unable to micromanage, for example you might be playing my multiplayer plugin in the future.

Strike allows you to designate targets or have no targets designated.
This is a 'scramble' mission. If you give this to aircraft parked at an airbase with no targets designated they will take off when a bogie is found to be 'unknown', 'unfriendly', or 'hostile'.

This is the #1 mission I rely on in multiplayer matches to make my aircraft scramble from their airfields and fight all without player intervention!


Here are the different types of the 'strike' mission. They are pretty self explanitory, but a special mention must be given to ASW Strike. I like giving this to my landed Marine Patrol Aircraft or to my landed ASW helicopters so when a sub is detected I launch a pile of A/C automatically. Seconds count! Especially when you know your multiplayer opponent has nuclear torpedoes and nuclear use authorization!

You can assign escorts to your strike groups, which is very useful too. Your escorts will fly in front of your strike groups on ingress and behind and in front of your strike groups on egress. I usually like clearing an air corridor and using feints to protect my strike aircraft.

Moving on to Patrol

This is a 'bread and butter' mission! I use this mission all the time!
Here are the different types of Patrol:

I use AAW for BARCAP, and CAPs of all sorts! I use it to achieve air superiority over a large region.
Also one thing I've been mentioning is aircraft, these missions are useful for all platforms! Imagine a Tico on AAW Patrol, a sub on a ASW Patrol or a ASuW Patrol or a Sea Control Patrol. A sub that is going after other subs will behave very differently than subs going after surface contacts.
SEAD patrol goes after radars and sam/aaa sites.

I could write a whole pile on how to use the patrol mission. : )



Next is Support missions, these are very simple missions. For example a tanker pattern in the sky where tankers will always maintain a presence for refueling aircraft.
Also very useful for Airborne Early Warning, place a Hawkeye in one of these
Also used for convoys of trucks, convoys of tanks, civilian cars moving down a road. Anything where you don't want your units to deviate from a path, unless they have targets. I sometimes use these missions in multiplayer matches if I want to launch an aircraft and my turn is going to be over in a minute and it will take the A/C about 10 minutes to take off. I quickly assign them to a support mission in the direction that I want them to fly when they take off. Basically a very simple mission.


Ferry, Mining and mine-clearing I've rarely used. I haven't really touched on mines in Command yet.

for $90+ I really want to be sure of what i'm getting into. I've watched about 5 long 'lets play' type videos of this title and i'm seeing substantial micromanagement.

During my videos I've micromanage more than usual because otherwise it would be a pretty boring stream lol!

I played Harpoon in early 90s, but fell out of love and was attracted to the sub command/fleet commmand/dangerous waters family. Now, im not trying to troll but lets be honest: Command *is* Harpoon.

What i'm looking to have answered is related to the title of the thread. Will these dots on the map fight on their own if given basic orders? (auto-engage etc). Ive seen things like ROE on some videos.

other things i'd like to know: Is there such thing as crew experience or veterancy? If I were to advocate against simulations such as this, i'd use terms like "spreadsheet war".

another question I have is are any manner of land forces in this game? even just for purposes of victory conditions, can say marines be landed somewhere to 'take' an objective? Or am I simply making my blue dots eliminate the red dots on google earth?

Things like paratroopers dropping out of aircraft, or marines landing off of hovercraft is currently performed by the event editor, where an event might be crafted:
If C-130 #21 reaches this region place 3 units of Marine Platoon here and send this message and activate its mission.
Another mission might be
If LCAC #2 reaches this beach place a platoon of Abrams here and activate its mission.

Currently LCAC (hovercraft) and other small boats can be docked inside of other large boats.

Current status of my multiplayer plugin please consider this an open invitation to play with us at some point in the future!


One thing I've really enjoyed about Command is how easy it is to modify, we are 2 months after release and I've released a mutliplayer plugin, Sluggy has released a plugin for reading your log to you. "VAMPIRE VAMPIRE" is now something that wakes you up!

Also here is an LCS modification I made about a month ago for some shore bombardment!




Please note that I did infact add a M1A1 unit to the LCS, and in fact now the M1A1 is a component on the LCS and can be specifically damaged! If the M1A1 had a radar its radar could be targeted by a HARM missile!

[kondor999]

Outstanding info, Baloogan. You're a HUGE asset to the Command community and I appreciate your willingness and ability to De-FUD a thread.

If there's one aspect of Command that absolutely blows away Harpoon, it's the general competence of Friendly AI.

In particular, watch a dogfight involving your guys on a basic CAP mission. You can see where your planes are taking proper evasive action, using the "notch" to disappear from Doppler radar, deploying effective countermeasures, maintaining proper standoff when appropriate and going in for the knife-fight when it's not - all with ZERO micromanagement.

This is a gigantic advance over what we had to put up with in Harpoon, where the AI of your planes was nearly nonexistent (and whose behavior was nearly impossible to modify). Not to mention the ridiculous "shooting a missile out your tailpipe at pursuing aircraft" nonsense that Harpoon never got around to fixing, and which, to this day, makes most Harpoon dogfights nothing more than a poor approximation of real-world results.

The times where I've had to get in there and manage things personally are usually very specific, small actions such as guiding a strike package along a specific course for, say, terrain masking. Needless to say, this is something you'd have to do IRL anyway, and I think it would deprive the game of a lot of the Fun Factor if your AI did *everything*.

My favorite "The Mission was smarter than Me" example: On the scenario "Raven 21 is down", I kept trying (manually) to get my CAP to engage a target that *I* thought was important. My guys steadfastly ignored me. I refused to tinker with things by Unassigning them from the Mission, and then I saw why they were disobeying my orders.

There was an enemy fighter going full afterburner straight at my AWACS and my guys had quite intelligently insisted that *this* was their priority target. It taught me to think twice before I blithely overruled the Mission AI. These guys know how to BARCAP, that's for sure.

I've also seen Support missions scooting away appropriately when menaced by enemy fast-movers, and Refuel missions (surprisingly) seem to work without any intervention at all. Strike missions sometimes need some care and feeding, but nothing huge. I love how I can get a strike formed up easily and then take it over whenever I feel necessary. Basically, I restrict my involvement to the fun/important aspects and let the AI handle all the boring forming up, transit, etc. You do have to *learn* how the Mission system works, but once you do, it's very powerful.

One day maybe you'll just be able to tell your guys to hit a target and they'll automatically plot a course around known air defenses, using terrain as appropriate. We're not there yet, but I'd argue that this is the most fun and interesting part of the game anyway. The idea is to relieve you of the boring stuff, so you can focus on the fun aspects.

Command does a great job of this currently, and it gets better with every update.

[Herman]

In direct response to a request for assistance from:

Originally Posted by Black_Dingo

thats a direct quote from the matrix store page. But is it really true?

A new video for North Pacific Shootout [under Artificial Intelligence] has been added the YouTube Harpoon for Dummies channel to help Harpoon players navigate the complexities of the game and to deliver the best possible playing experience.

You can watch



Use of the AI is at your own peril.

North Pacific Shootout [under Human Intelligence]


Compare it to:
Guardian [under Artificial Intelligence]


Guardian [under Human Intelligence]


"Harpoon for Dummies" channel * FAQ * Facebook * HarPlonkHQ

Harpoon3.6.3 users can get the Complete PlayersDB Harpoon 3.6.3 Library
Harpoon ANW users can get the Complete PlayersDB Harpoon ANW Library
Harpoon HUE users can get the Complete PlayersDB Harpoon HUE Library

[Baloogan]

In my fifth episode I thought the AI did particularly well.

[Baloogan]

Also its very easy to set up the AI when making sandbox scenarios. I made a Guadalcanal 2020 scenario in roughly a half hour live on the stream, and I lost air superiority to the Chinese. I made only a couple of missions for the AI, I was hoping to show off the F-35B's stealth but instead I got jumped by China's finest!

[Ghost Dog]

great and informative responses. While I admit that im a tad put-off with Command's seemingly complex UI, i'm also really intrigued and would love to test out some of the scenarios that I had made for Fleet Command (NWP).

[Herman]

Originally Posted by Black_Dingo

I admit that im a tad put-off with Command's seemingly complex UI

The crudeness and unpolished nature of the UI was reported at length:



For good or bad, just realize that you are stuck with it and the micro-management nature of the game. There's no point in trying to fool yourself into believing otherwise. Only you can know if they are acceptable.

The important thing is that you approach the game with your eyes wide open and aware of its shortcomings before paying the price. After all, you are the only one who must bear the $90+ price tag.

[Reckall]

SURPASSING Herman! You should have played James Hunt in "Rush" by Ron Howard!

[Baloogan]

One thing about naval warfare is that it is fundamentally very complicated. Check out this (short!) video and webpage I made about electronic warfare in Command. I examined what electronic jamming looks like from both sides, the SAM site and the aircraft jamming the SAM site.

[Jimbuna]

Just a point of note to everyone:

I appreciate players follow the game of their choice and long may it continue but what is not appreciated is opinions being posted that can be interpreted as attempts to undervalue the worth of developers work.

If you have a point to make, simply make it but try to ensure it is fair and balanced.

[Reckall]

Attepts to undervalue developer's work by usung personal or "ad hoc" attack are an execrable habit, I agree - as are the same thing of attempts to undervalue critics.

But no game is perfect, and to criticize is a fundamental right of the buyer - exp. when supported by open facts, videos and description of problems that anyone with a copy of the game can reproduce.

To me this is both giving correct info to a potential buyer (who wonders if the $80 price plus shipping is a correct measure of the game's potential) and a lead to developers about how to better their product. In my book, this simple but to-the-point behaviour will always beat "Beano Almanac" posts spilling both scattershot of images and mutual fanboism.

Just my 2 cents.

[Ghost Dog]

you mean ad-hominem.