The ideal subsim campaign

[rodan54]

With the development of the RSRD and now "Operation monsun", I been giving some thought on
what exactly do we as individuals want in a subsim campaign?

I mean almost four years ago the whole community banded together in protest at the announcement that SHIII would have a
scripted branching campaign, and as we all know Ubisoft heeded the protest and we now have a functioning dynamic career system.
However, my interest has been piuqed at the reception the RSRD and now Operation monsun mods have gotten,
especially when you consider that a significant amount of the 'happenings' in these campaigns are scripted. Now I realize there
is a rather large difference between SHIII's original campaign concept and the one found in Lurkers campaigns, but it's still
perplexing to me that campaigns that rely so heavily on scripted elements manage to fair so well in a community that I thought
was so adamantly oposed to script heavy campaigns.

Disclaimer: I'm not attempting a knock against Lurkers work in any way what-so-ever.

Now with that little introduction out of the way I'd like to offer some key ideas
and examples on how the ideal campaign system would play out in my eyes, though I'm sure we all share some common ground here.
Just hope all this isn't too confusing. :doh:

1) No alternate realities.
In essence this mean no fictitous scenarios in which the Germans or Japanese manage to get the upper hand on the allies, and alter the course of history.
I am firmly of the belief that the very moment Axis troops set foot on foreign soil they where doomed to annihilation, and no amount of super submarines,
rocket power, or brilliatn military strategists would've changed that.

2) Model a true living world.
This is something that I think many of us would like to see realized, and I don't mean in the current form.
I mean a living world in the truest sense, ergo everything from the standard convoys, taskforces, naval battles, and carrier operations
to full on invasion fleets (hundreds of ships), strategic and tactical bombing raids, ground operations where applicable (Iwo Jima, et al),
even Kamikaze strikes for a pacific based sim. And all of this would be rendered in the 3d world for the player to experience.
Now I know this seems similar to what we have currently ala RSRD, and Op. Monsun, but this is where the next two, important, points come into play.

3) While the overall begining and end to a campaign remains the same (point 1), everthing that happens in between is up in the air.
Meaning a campaign in the Pacific would always begin on or around December 7th and end somewhere between august 1945-1946/7,
however the way in which a perticular campaign unfolds between these two intervals is random (mostly anyways). For example, the game may,
based on some percentage decide that the IJN are victorious at the Batte of Midway and thus would result in many alterations to events further down the road.

4) A world where the player can influence events even if only slightly.
I don't mean one sub altering the course of history, but perhaps altering the course of battle. The Palawan Passage ambush is a decent example.
A further example would be where refering to the above the Japanese are victorious at midway, and occupy the island. However they desperately want to consolidate
their hold on the atoll so the game scripts a supply and troop convoy to set sail from somewhere in Japan to Midway. Along the way the player intercepts said convoy
and proceeds to sink 2 ships out of 12. The player then sends a contact report and is ordered to shadow the convoy and provide information for an airstrike.
The airstrike launches and sinks 6 more transports. The result: a 12 ship reinforcement convoy to midway has no been reduced to 4 ships and thus the occupation on midway is
not as strong as it could have been. The incentive is now there for the US to launch a counter-invasion to take back the atoll.

Actually now that I think about it I guess the campaign in many ways would be similar to the one found in CFS3.

So what are everyone elses thoughts on subsim campaigns. What would you like to see in your ideal campaign?

[Torplexed]

Some neat ideas. I'm glad someone agrees with me that the Axis wasn't gonna win no matter how many super subs they got off the drawing board.

It is difficult to calculate how much your one sub influences the course or length of a war. After all, there are about on average 50 other US subs doing the same thing all over the Pacific. Plus, a myraid of air squadrons, destroyer flotillas, minefields, etc. Then there is whatever the enemy is up to in reaction. The Pacific War was just so big and complicated. I guess that's why I've also always had a fondness for some of the strategic-level games. You get to play with alternate ideas like the US using the Kuriles islands as a stepping stone forward from the Aleutians or maybe Japan setting up a proper convoy system from the get-go.

[peabody]

I don't disagree with your ideas but for my 2cents, if you are going to have a "truely dynamic' campaign, it MUST include the possiblity of losing. The way the campaign is now may be better than 'scripted' but is no more than 'random scripted'. Now I am NOT a programmer and can't even imagine how difficult it may be, but to be dynamic the things you do and the decisions you make must make a difference. Right now you can sink Merchant ships until your fingers fall off OR you can slip by and do nothing and the outcome is exactly the same except for your renown points which at a certain point they become useless because there is nothing left to buy.

For example, If the Allies are trying to make a push forward on New Guineea and you stop the supplies and troops reinforcing the Japanese the outcome is exactly the same as if you did nothing.

So if you want an historically correct campaign then your failures can not influence the outcome. And you can not allow Japan to win certain battles that they really lost because other things would not happen the way they did because we would not be in a position to do them. Example is not capturing certain airfields then we would not be close enough to attack by air, or defend using planes. And therefore not be able to defeat the Japanese and they would continue unless you won other battles, so now you get into fantasy where your planes need to fly distances they are not capable of, in order to attack.

I am not saying this is the way the game should be, just that is the way it must be if you want your actions to alter the outcome.

I know a lot in here are familiar with Falcon, in those Campaigns you can lose! If you send in some planes to bomb an airfield without first sending in planes to attack the air defences they the flight will probably get shot down by sams and the now you are down some planes until you get resupplied. This doen't happen in the SH4 Career. You get no screen recognizing your tonnage or medals or how many times you were sunk. So you play the career then you play another career. In SH4 your success is in a successful attack or a DD evade, not in wining or losing. A different consept than the way Falcon plays. Which is better, that is up to the Devs to make a choice and they up to us to decide if we want to buy it or not.

Basically you can have historically correct or you can have dynamic where the outcome is decided by the way you play. The problem I have is that if the game is going to be historically correct then the 'major' battle should happen when they really did and you should be able to be part of the "Battle Of Midway" or "The Battle of Coral Sea", this game doesn't work that way, so it isn't either dynamic or historical, it is just a fun game and a challange. That is neither right or wrong, it is just he 'way it is'.

Peabody

[CaptainHaplo]

In war the only certainty is uncertainty. No Battle Plan survives first contact.

These two often proved maxims of warfare are examples of why I disagree with you, Torplexed. But perhaps another thread could be used to debate the "what ifs". Either way, we are each entitled to our opinions, so its all good.

With that said, I am also drawn to strategic games, from SoSE to EAW to Pacific Storm. I enjoy the what ifs - and would love to see a less historical (but still realistic) campaign that allowed for more suprises. Remember - we have the wonderful ability of hindsight.

As for one submarine not changing the course of the war or history, or for that matter, not being able to - I would disagree wholeheartedly. Any action can have a ripple effect. Or would some here argue that the shooting down of Isoroku Yamamoto did not have an impact on the outcome of the war? How about the tragic accidental plane crash that killed Rear Admiral Robert English, paving the way for Charles Lockwood to become "ComSubPac"? Would anyone here say that was an insignificant event? The saving of the Yorktown at Coral Sea helped enable a Midway victory. How about Squalus, who after being raised and refitted, went on to sink a japanese carrier? Or Finback, without her this country would have had a different 41st adnd 43rd presidents. (Not saying that would be good or bad - just historical fact). What if Harder had been sunk half a patrol earlier, with Adm. Christie aboard? So many ripples......

The problem for a game is that there is no way for it to recreate these ripples - because its future based. Only after looking at something in hindsight do we see events and how they inter-relate.

I for one would love to see something amounting to more "ripples" - what if a sub northwest of Pearl would have spotted the japanese before the attack? What if one had run across the TF after the attack and as they retreated? Wouldn't it be great to have a game that followed history where it could, but could also take detours based on new results and outcomes? I think so, but I also expect it will take a good 10 years before its reasonably possible.

The closest thing to it today - would be NGC.

[Penta]

NGC?

[Rockin Robbins]

Well, you're on the horns of a dilemma. What is "scripted?" What is "historical?" The answers to these two questions haven't even been asked here. So we can talk till the cows come home and because no agreement of terms has taken place we're just talking at cross purposes, not able to agree because our subjects are different.

Does "not scripted" mean "dynamic?" Does dynamic imply that all enemy traffic must be randomly generated in such a way that the composition of convoys and their locations are unpredictable? Does dynamic mean that reproducing the actual convoys and schedules is forbidden because that would be "scripting?" Does it mean that the Battle of Midway can't exist because that would be scripting too? At some point "dynamic" can be defined to become absurdity.

By the same token we can struggle with the term "historical." Does historical mean that all traffic down to the ship level must go by the historical record of time, place and movement? Then how about you? You are traffic! Now the world does not respond to you. You are a demi-ghost, invisible to the world, but able to inflict your will upon it. When you do, it will not respond because it is restricted to historical action.

Lurker takes a middle path, as must we all. In Lurker's world, every convoy of the war years is mapped. composition, time of departure and time of arrival and course and speed are strictly historical. You will find that convoy at the historical time and place you would expect. However, once you encounter the convoy the situation goes dynamic. What they do is in direct reaction to you, not a script. You could conceivably drag that convoy off from its scripted course in a prolonged battle.

If a plane on a scripted path finds you, it attacks, repeatedly! It calls in its buddies and you are now in a dynamic battle very similar to what you would find in real life, where macro-activity is beyond your control and effectively "scripted" while your actions can create "dynamic" behavior around and directed at you.

If we want to have answers to the question "what if I were there" I don't quite see how we could do better. SH4 is about the decisions and actions of one person: you, not strategic decisions or high level machinations of an admiral. If you want a global strategy spaghetti tangle, this isn't your game. Just as in the example if Finback, if you do influence the course of history it will be largely unintentional.

[Quillan]

I like the campaign as it is, with the work by the modders. What I would like to see modeled is limits, for lack of a better term. I'd like the game to model the size of the Imperial Japanese Navy fully, so there are only the correct number of each type of ships at the beginning of the war. I'd like those ships to cease to exist when sunk. I'd like the game to model new construction, even hypothetical construction (not hypothetical models though) to replace ships that have been sunk.

Since this is a game of you in the great big war, assume that without your intervention, the IJN will maintain it's historical status throughout the war years. Perhaps if you encountered and sank the Yamato and Musashi, however, the conversion of the Shinano to a carrier might never have happened, or perhaps 3 years after you sink the first another might be completed. Perhaps if you always let the cruisers get away in task force encounters then late in the war the IJN might have more of some models than historical. This would require a tremendous amount of computer power to model, though, and I don't think they'd make a game that could do all this right now.

[Raptor1]

I agree with most of your ideas, rodan, but I believe all those what-if scenarios and alternate realities are what would make a great campaign, If the campaign's AI is restricted to history nothing really interesting can happen in the game, and you can't rule anything out just because it's impossible...

[Mush Martin]

I'm glad someone agrees with me that the Axis wasn't gonna win no matter how many super subs they got off the drawing board.


Me Too:up:

[Torplexed]

I think you would almost have to have a massive subroutine working in the background, running the Pacific War in incredible detail to achieve the desired effect. Let's assume the Japanese are victorious at Midway. That probably means the United States Navy is out two or three carriers. That means Operation Watchtower, the counter invasion of Guadalcanal is also out for the foreseeable future. Does it mean the Japanese continue their drive southeast to cut-off Australia? Or do they turn west towards British possessions in India and the Mideast? Does that divert resources from Operation Torch? How do you calculate the winner in such complex hypothetical scenarios? I think it's just difficult from a single-player game perspective to calculate how much your one sub in a big war advances victory a few days with a simple flow chart.

Captain Haplo is correct. The deaths of Isoroku Yamamoto and Robert English did have a big impact on the war. The problem is.....neither of them really exist in our simulation of that war. Very little except simple computer routines exist outside of the human player's sub. So no single event like sinking a certain ship in a certain spot with a certain important person on it has that ripple effect on the war's outcome.

[AVGWarhawk]

Rodan:

I mean almost four years ago the whole community banded together in protest at the announcement that SHIII would have a
scripted branching campaign, and as we all know Ubisoft heeded the protest and we now have a functioning dynamic career system.
However, my interest has been piuqed at the reception the RSRD and now Operation monsun mods have gotten,
especially when you consider that a significant amount of the 'happenings' in these campaigns are scripted. Now I realize there
is a rather large difference between SHIII's original campaign concept and the one found in Lurkers campaigns, but it's still
perplexing to me that campaigns that rely so heavily on scripted elements manage to fair so well in a community that I thought
was so adamantly oposed to script heavy campaigns.


I just want to touch on this part of your post Rodan. I understand what our saying about scripting the campaign, but for RSRD/OM, this was a call to reduce the ridiculas vessel traffic offered with the stock game. At first it was just reducing traffic here and there. Then along came Tater who started digging deep into the campaign layers only to find it was very lame and basically created to keep you entertained every nm you sailed. As Tater worked on it and made some sense out of it, Lurker picked up the ball and ran with Tater on it. Much study between the two of them created what on the surface looks like scripted game. By definition, it is scripted at this point. Task forces spawn at the appropriate time, major battles take place at the appropriate time. But, as you play, you are not always directed to head that direction with the knowledge that something big is coming up. You could be 1200 nm off dropping supplies when the Coral Sea Battle begins. You could be headed in that general direction for a major battle, get the Ultra alert and completely miss it by days if you are navigating the long way to it, side tracked by a convoy or singleton, a plane drops a DC down your hatch. In short, evertime I play with the exception of the same first patrol area depending on the boat you select, my patrols are never the same. To me, scripted is the same thing over and over. The same ships spawn in the same spot over and over. RSRD/OM was devised in a way were once it has happened, you will never see it again. I remember Tater stating his convoys will pull into a port and will not leave the port for a few days. So, do you hang out and wait for them to come out again or do you carry on looking for other opportunities. So, yes, in a sense, RSRD is scripted but scripted far and beyond what I would hope for in a Pacific submarine game.

To me scripted are game such as COD single player. I played the game three times. By the third time I knew exactly what was going to happen and what I should do. With this type of scripting in both SH3/4, you can have a different script evey time you patrol. Sometimes I blow off a patrol area because the 16 screws I hear sound like much more fun. It is a script that allows the player to write as he plays. This is why I always have said that the SH series requires a lot of imagination from the player. You are the writer of the script once it is layed out on the table. You make the choice of how you want the story to end on any particular patrol. It is this sole part of the game that keeps players like us coming back for more....and I mean countless hours of making my finished script of the rough draft created by Lurker.

Currently games like COD collect dust on the shelve. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. The story never changes. That is all I wanted to say about scripted play in SH3/4. Besides....if we asked the devs to script it who knows what we would get:o

Carry on!

[CaptainHaplo]

@ Penta - NGC is Naval Gunnery Campaigns - formerly Raider Operations. Ofter also called Strategic Naval Gunnery. Check here: http://members.tripod.com/hsr_historicalgames/index.html
In the interest of full disclosure, my name is on the credits (in a minor role) of the game so no one call it shameless but hidden gratuitus plug. And no - you still can;t change the outcome of the wars simulated.

Back to the topic - yes there is no way to currently model the full impact that events have, be they the rise or death of talented leaders, the long term loss of ships, etc. Like I said, give it 10 years. Remember Silent Service 2? My version was the 2 3 & 1/2" floppy version. Look where we are today.... Games get "bigger" and better (most of the time at least!!). PC horsepower doubles every year (though lately Moore's law hasn't really applied). Still - it increases measurably. But just as games like the Total War series give you talented leaders that can affect outcomes, so will such simulations, or they will find even better ways to do it.

Until then - the great work that things like RSRDC do to create historical accuracy are wonderful. Remember what I posted earlier about hindsight? Well, think for a moment - you know midway is going to occur. Do you think COMSUBPAC is gonna order you to be in the area when it happens? Highly doubtful. So you being involved in Midway would be a pretty slim chance. But with the knowledge of hindsight, you take your boat off on its own, stumble on the fleet and get in a few useful hits. Maybe you even save Yorktown due to your actions. Your own actions stopped that historical flow. So you can have history now - yes with a scripted outcome - within some reasonable limits. Give it time and the true what ifs will get here.

[cavvie]

I was thinking about this the other day. I, for one, am always looking for a dynamic campaign; dynamic in the sense that a war is going on around me, and I can have at least /some/ effect on the war effort (e.g. sinking the Yamato and not seeing it again).

Of course, we always have to worry about balance. A more "realistic" or dynamic campaign might mean more shipless patrols. This is one place where modding is great, though. People can tailor the game to their prefereces, etc.

Now, don't get me wrong. I rarely enjoy the arcade-style game and when I want such a fix, games like SH4 are not where I turn. I wanted to bring something up that I think plays into a campaign. For the sake of the simulation, I personally wouldn't mind having a few empty-handed patrols. I just want something else there so it's not always, "ok, let me sit in front of my computer w/ TC on for the next hour."

First off, I'm shocked that UBI never really adds statistical trackers with these games. At the very least I'd like to be able to see ships sunk by type, # of patrols and average days, etc. You get the drift.

This is one of the things that was so wonderful about SH3 Commader to me. It wasn't just the modding aspects of it, but the ability to "be in port," and check in with my crew (in addition to the realism enforcement I could employ). These things are fun to me because I enjoy history and playing a game like this is a great way to learn, relax, and pay hommage to the past.