Frequently Asked Questions for
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* C L O S E C O M B A T *
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by Atomic Games and Microsoft.
Version 1.0
June 30, 1996
1 Game Philosophy (why we don't make you micromanage)
2 Why there is no editor, DYO
3 Game Scale
4 Monitor Information
5 The Orders
6 Keyboard shortcuts
7 LOS line
8 How/why the game ends
9 Why there's no pause
10 Second stories and Elevations
11 Command Radius/Troops not obeying
12 Heroes, Bravery, and Cowardice
13 Effectiveness of MGs
14 Soldier Deployment
15 Soldier Visibility
16 Bazookas and Schrecks vs Infantry
17 AI Cheating
18 Enemy Knowledge
19 Moving a Vehicle in Reverse
20 Mortar Indirect Fire
21 What's different in the retail version
1 Game Philosophy (why we don't make you micromanage)
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We wanted this game to be more of a simulation than a board game. As such, we
did not want to burden the player with having to command each and every soldier
and tell that soldier what ammo to use, what to shoot at, and where to take
cover. Playing the game that way would take hours and completely ruin the
experience of the game. While that may be exactly what some players want in a
game, it is not the game that we wanted to create.
2 Why there is no editor, DYO
_______________________________
A map editor would be impracticle. We have to preprocess the map for LOS and
even running on a 9500, this takes special code and 40 or more minutes.
And then
we have to see how the map data turned out and tweak it for the correct
behavior.
DYO is a definite possibility for CC2. Being able to select teams to put
in play,
victory locations and values, setup areas, etc is certainly do-able and
adds a lot
to the life of the game (posting your favorite battles). We could not do it
easily in CC due to precalculated setup locations. If we can make the setup
locations dynamic in CC2, we can handle DYO.
3 Game Scale
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Scale is dependant on screen resolution, thus, it is about 15 meters per
inch at
800 x 600 assuming 13 horizontal inches of viewing area. The official scale is
8 meters per 40 pixels.
Soldiers are represented at 2x scale and vehicles are at 1.5x scale so that
these are more visible.
4 Monitor Information
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Team Monitor:
Scroll list on the far left bottom. Sorted by the team type with the
exception that the Company/Platoon Commander Teams are always at
the top.
Left side: Contains Team Icon (pict of soldiers/vehicle), and Team
Quality (a set of bars ranging from none (Conscript) to 4 (Elite).
Top Center: Contains the Team Type Name (general description).
Background color represents the team's cohesion, or ability to
fight. As
the color drops from Green to Red or Black, it represents that the
team is
taking losses.
Bottom Center: Contains the Team's Strategic Order. If this order is
Green, it is an order you gave. If it is white, the team is doing it's
own thing. If it is Red, the team is disobeying you.
Right side: Enemy Threat Compass. It represents the direction that
team sees the enemy. If the center dot is red, then that team is alse
being shot at.
Soldier Monitor:
Top Left: Same as the Team Monitor Left Side.
Top Center: Team Name (more detailed than the Team Type Name) and the
Team Orders. Both of these are similar to the Top Center and Bottom
Center of the Team Monitor respectively.
Top Far Right: Smoke Availability. If not crossed out, this team can
place smoke.
Top Right: Firepower Graphs. These are graphed at 10s of meters at
the number listed, thus the column with an 8 represents firepower at 80
meters. Green, good firepower, grey line, no firepower. This
color will
also show up on the Fire Line as you drag it across the screen.
Vehicle Info:
For vehicles, a status panel showing the vehicle condition is displayed.
Green indicates functioning; Red, destroyed; and blank, that vehicle
does not have that weapon or is immoble.
Soldier List:
This has the soldier name, action, status and weapon info. Most
of this is pretty obvious, the key here is to see if the soldier action
is Green, Red, or White (see Team Strategic Order above).
Ammo Type consists of the following:
AP - Armor Piercing, includes all solid shots such as bullets.
HE - High Explosive
HT - High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT)
SM - Smoke
SP - Special. This can be anything from Canister (check the M5
at close range) to HVAP used in the M4A3 76.
Ammo Count is the number of rounds available of that ammo for that
weapon. Note that the rounds are still divided into clips or belts
internally, and that the time to reload a clip or belt is taken into
account. Watch a soldier with a Garand fire and you will see him fire
off 8 rounds, then sit a reload for a while.
Physical State: Dead and Incap means this soldier will no longer obey
orders and will just lay there. Hurt means the soldier was hit but
can keep on going.
Mental State: The soldier can go Berserk, Fanatic, Heroic, Panicked
or Routed. This is adjusted as stress builds in relation to the
soldier's morale and experience.
Fatigue: As fatigue increases, the soldier can become winded or later,
fatigued. The soldiers desire to follow orders drops with the
increase in fatigue, as does the speed at which he moves.
Message Monitor:
You can click on a message and it will center on the team that issued the
message. You can also restrict which priority of message will appear
by deselecting the color associated with that message priority.
5 The Orders
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You can issue up to 6 orders: Move, Move Fast, Fire, Smoke, Defend, and Hide.
Teams that cannot perform the order (e.g. has no smoke grenades) has that
affected order dimmed.
Move tells the team to move to that location taking the safest route. The team
will scatter to cover if fired at and will use overwatch.
Move Fast has the team take as fast a route as possible and to do so running.
This will tire out a team quickly (Fatigue in the Soldier Monitor) as well as
make them vulnerable to enemy fire.
Fire (See LOS Line below)
Smoke is the same as Fire, but you are placing a Smoke grenade or shell
that will
produce hindrance causing smoke that will decay in a minute or two.
Defend order tells the team to seek cover from enemy fire based on the angle of
the defend arc you select. Selecting a narrow arc ensures that all the soldiers
will take the best cover vs enemy fire from that direction but be vulnerable to
fire from other directions. A wider arc will lessen the amount of cover that a
team can get vs any one direction. Think of it as hiding behind a tree, and
which side of the tree do you want the soldier to be behind. This is the
default
order for the Americans and Germans, only the Germans interpret Defend as an
Ambush command in that they will not fire unless they see an exposed target,
are being fired at, or the enemy is very close.
Hide command will keep your guys from firing unless the enemy is within 30
meters. It works best if your team has not been seen.
6 Keyboard shortcuts
______________________
The keys z, x, c, v, b, and n can be used in conjuction with a selected to team
to issue Move, Move Fast, Fire, Smoke, Defend, and Hide orders respectively
without having to click and hold the mouse on the team. This is very useful for
placing mortar fire. Select the area on the overview where you want to fire,
select a mortar team in the Team Monitor, hit c, then click on the map where to
bring in the fire. No scrolling required.
7 LOS line
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The LOS line drawn when issuing a Fire order represents whether or not the team
has LOS to the target, and the firepower the team can put on that target.
If the LOS line is Red, you have Line of Sight to the target, if it turns Dark
Red, you can still shoot there, but you cannot see that location due to visual
hindrances along the Line of Sight. If it turns Black, then you cannot shoot
there, nor see there.
Note that LOS is traced from each soldier in a team to each soldier in the
enemy
team you have the fire line cursor over. Thus if one soldier in the
looking team
is standing, he can shoot over the wall while the rest of his prone team members
cannot. This can also cause a successfully placed fire marker to not
cause anyone
to fire as everyone that can fire is no longer in LOS. Click and drag on the
fire marker to recheck your team's LOS.
If you are not pointed over an enemy team, but over open ground, LOS is
traced to
the highest terrain object within the vicinity. Thus, you can trace over a wall
to a building, but cannot trace over a wall to open ground.
The color of the dot at the end of the fire line represents the amount of
firepower this team can deliver at that range. If the fire cursor is over open
ground or an enemy soldier, it uses the Vs Infantry rating. If it is over a
vehicle, it will use the Vs Armor rating to determine what color to display.
8 How/why the game ends
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The game ends when an internal timer set for between 30 and 120 seconds
goes off.
This timer is started when either both side's Force Morale is in the
Yellow, or one side's Force Morale is in the Red. Once started, the Force
Morale bars begin to flash. This represents that one or both sides will to
fight has been lost and the troops will start to pull back. In the case of one
side going into the Red, that side will then start to rout.
The winner is determined as follows:
If one side's Force Morale is Red, the other side won, regardless of
score. This represents routing the enemy from field of battle. If the
other side is still in the Green, it will be a Major Victory or better,
else it will be a Minor Victory or better for the other side.
If both side's Force Morale is Yellow or both are Red, then points are
used to determine the victor. Victory location points vary from location to
location. The bigger the font used in the victory location name, the more it
is worth.
This method allows a player to develop a strategy of either defending
/ taking victory locations or killing the enemy. We do not force you to
do both.
There is also a game end due to inaction. If no shot has been fired or no order
issued by the player for the past 2 minutes of game time, the battle will be
declared ended due to inaction. If you are playing as the Germans and are
attempting to set up an ambush in the rear, and the Americans are advancing very
slowly, you can just re-issue a Defend or Hide order every minute to keep the
game from ending. But believe me, in the campaign game, you want the game
to end
as soon as possible if playing the Germans.
9 Why there's no pause
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Pausing the game and issuing orders would ruin it. We actually did
useability tests on live subjects, with a pause feature in the game. We
saw the players issue a lot of orders, let the game run for maybe 10
seconds, pause, issue more orders, etc. This destroyed the whole feel of
the game. Its also totally unworkable for 2-player network games. If you
feel the game is moving too quickly, try slowing it down from the options
menu.
10 Second stories and Elevations
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Elevations / Hills were things we would have liked to put in the game but the
extra graphics needed to represent them were not possible for us to put in.
They will be in for CC2. Multi-story buildings will possibly never be put in
due to the problems with the interface (Move Upstairs, Move Downstairs) and
viewing multiple levels (View First Floor, View Basement, View Roof, etc)
causes.
Also, imagine trying to tell where enemy fire came from, directing fire vs
different levels, determining which buildings have how many levels, etc.
11 Command Radius/Troops not obeying
_____________________________________
There is no command radius but the distance from a leader will affect how well
the team obeys its orders. Given everything else is the same, a poor quality
team moving with your company commander's team is more likely to carry out it's
order than it would if the only leader was on the other side of the map.
If that team you ordered to move got shot at, its possible that they decided
against moving. Or they started to move, got shot at, and decided to run back
to cover. A lot depends on their experience level and their surrounding
terrain.
In either case, the team will constantly re-evaluate their ability to make that
move. If they decide its safe, or they decide to obey the order, they'll try
again.
12 Heroes, Bravery, and Cowardice
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Heroic soldiers don't become Audie Murphy, and they are likely to "recover"
from it. Unlike ASL, when a soldier goes heroic, he does not gain special
abilities. He's just more likely to stay functional in the heat of battle.
Bravery points are awarded for when a soldier goes heroic, fanatic, or
berserk. The soldier also gets bravery points for taking a victory
location.
Cowardice points are awarded when a soldier routs or becomes panicked.
Leaders get bravery and cowardice points for winning or losing the battle
(the bigger the win/loss, the more the points) as they are responsible for
the outcome. Note that you are represented on the battlefield as the 2nd
Lt. that commands the first team listed in the Team Monitor. In the
campaign game, you get to name that soldier.
13 Effectiveness of MGs
________________________
An M4 cannot be killed by an MG but can be killed by the Panzerfaust
that the loader in the MG team carries. Rule #1 of survival with American
armor: Never move closer than 60 meters to a potential german location.
Even 120 meters is too close if there is a Panzerscreck team near.
As for the MG killing halftracks, this is why the M3 HT series was
known as "Purple Heart Boxes". With only 6mm at a 20o slope of frontal
chasis armor (10mm effective) and 12mm at 20o slope frontal upper
structure (17mm effective), the German MG42 could easily penetrate it at
close range (less than 200m or so). While the MG won't necessarily
destroy the M3 HT at this range, it can injure or kill the occupants
resulting in a soft kill.
Also watch out for the MG42 when you are in a wooden building at very
close range (50 meters or so). That gun (as well as the US 50cal) can rip
right through the walls making it much safer to be outside the building in
some nice big shellhole or foxhole.
One of the strategies a tester came up with is to deploy a couple of MG42
teams in the interior of a large stone building so they could not be shot
at by the Americans until they entered the building, at which time the
MG42s opened up, shredding the interior wooden walls between them and the
Americans as well as the Americans themselves.
14 Soldier Deployment
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The amount the team bunches up depends on their experience and the amount of
cover in the area they are trying to deploy in. Inexperienced teams will tend
to bunch up more and even experienced teams will bunch up if the cover within
their "deploy zone" is limited to a small location. The deploy zone consists
of a rectangle about 8 meters wide and 24 meters long, perpendicular to the axis
of advance.
15 Soldier Visibility
______________________
If you are having trouble seeing your soldiers, try using the Team Monitor to
select the team. Double clicking on a team in the Team Monitor will center the
map on that team and highlight it.
Enemy soldiers may be hard to see just because they are shadowed. If a team has
just been spotted but no one got a good look at the team, they will initially
be displayed as shadows to let you know something is there even if you
don't know
what it is. As more information comes available, they will change into visible
soldiers.
16 Bazookas and Schrecks vs Infantry
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Bazookas and Panzerschrecks were used quite often vs infantry in buildings /
behind walls. The Germans even referred to the Bazooka as a shoulder 75. The
game will limit usage of these weapons in this fashion if there are tank assets
that have yet to be dealt with.
17 AI Cheating
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The AI does not cheat. We put a lot of effort into making sure that the AI is
playing with the same rules as the player. Move Out does NOT equate to AI
control. The AI performs many other actions to try to coordinate attacks,
provide suppression fire, etc. Move Out causes your troops to move forward to
engage the enemy, and then they will keep on trying to advance.
18 Enemy Knowledge
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Selecting an Enemy Team will display varios information about that enemy team.
The amount is dependant on how well spotted the enemy team is. Knowledge
accumulates about an enemy team as time progresses and the enemy is doing
things
in LOS of a friendly team. It is also affected by proximity to the enemy and
the cover the enemy is in. Thus, a just spotted enemy team in a building will
only give you what type of team it is and number of soldiers. Only if you get
close, or spend a long time in LOS of this team will this knowledge increase.
If this is not the case for you, make sure the enemy intelligence option is off
in the Custom preferences.
19 Moving a Vehicle in Reverse
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Vehicles will use reverse, but only if they are given a Move command, not
a Move
Fast command. The move also has to be of a short range. Using Move Fast will
cause the tank to get there as fast as possible, not a safe as possible.
20 Mortar Indirect Fire
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The indirect fire model for mortars was simplified so the player would not have
to be concerned with spotting rounds, etc. They are handled abstractly. The
rate of fire of a mortar is about 1 round / 6 seconds, but note that the delay
could be much greater if the mortar team repositioned themselves due to
incoming fire, the mortar firer was suppressed by enemy fire, or the mortar
jammed (fired a dud round).
21 What's different in the retail version
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The sounds file used in the demo is a subset of the sounds in the game. Two
sounds, the Berserk scream, and the out of armor sounds were left out due to
their size.
Also, the Save Replay, Campaign Game, and all the other Maneuvers are enabled in
the retail version as well as the Help system which is really immense.
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John Anderson
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It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, it is by the elixer of Atlanta that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning, it is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
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