Yesterday I had a long conversation with Rick Martinez, the lead producer for Mindscapes' coming WWII armor simulation, Panzer Commander. The most memorable bits of that conversation for me revolve around two subjects: AI, and the "feel" of the simulation.

It was obvious to me that not only does Rick have a passion for accuracy in modelling the WWII armor, physics, object detail etc., but a thorough understanding that these nuts and bolts are nowhere without solid AI and the ability of the simulation to draw the player into the world of WWII armor battle. Panzer Commander is likely to be a winner!

Csim: Thanks for taking time aside from your schedule to talk to us, Rick! Maybe you can tell us who you are working with on this project?

Rick: We're working with Ultimation and we meet with them weekly to discuss details of the project. They came to us some time back and worked with us on a port of Allied General for the PSC machine. They had been developing a 3d engine that looked very good and we signed them up to work with us on this armor simulation.

Csim: Does that mean that you make the design decisions and Ultimation carries them out?

Rick: Really its more fluid than that, there is a high level of trust because we've worked together for a while. We talk over features, though I have more of the background historical knowledge for the modelling of features.

Csim: Why a WWII armor simulation instead of a modern tank sim?

Rick: The modern tank market is really glutted. And how many hit armor games have there really been? M1 Tank Platoon was really a good one, Spectrum Holobyte had a good one. And I have a strong historical interest in this area so I was happy to be on board with the project.

Csim: Do you have other experienced armor people involved in the production of Panzer Commander?

Rick: As you may know, finding experienced people is a challenge since a lot of veterans have passed away. But we have found a couple to consult with, and I found a fellow living in California who at 17 years of age drove a Panzer in the Battle of the Bulge!

But the major source is first person accounts of armor commanders. This gives you a solid basis for the feel of the game and how the systems really work.

Csim: How do you simulate the technology and experience of fifty years ago?

Rick: What you are really going for is the feel. Consulting historical accounts begins to get you in that direction. Ballistics, physics, all that is really pretty simple. We have excellent books dealing with on and off road performance, speed, velocity of weapons, engine power, systems and frequency of breakdown, design flaws etc. You have to get this stuff from primary sources. But the feel and fit, the higher level tactical analysis... this is really important. We want to put you in a position as a platoon commander and have the feeling of fighting with this historic formation.

In the campaign, German side, the 2nd Panzer, the 21st Panzer and Gross Deutschland. Now the Gross Deutschland was not really a tank formation but they had attached to them a tank battalions and a tank regiment. They served as fire brigade units and went all over the place. So we have one formation that fought in the desert and the 2nd went all over, like the Gross Deutschland. This gives a very exciting campaign path.

Csim: Tell us more about the campaign in Panzer Commander.

Rick: The Fifth Guard tank core, the Eighth Guard tank core and the Twelfth Guard which was a heavy brigade. Now the Russians used their standard guard tank core a lot differently than they used their heavy regiments so the Twelfth Guard will feel very different in the campaign than the other two. Now everything is based on an Area of Operations throughout the whole war. If you enlist in Gross Deutschland for instance, you'll hear the narrator speak about the history of the unit and you'll go through a story about Poland, for example. Each AO will have from two to six scenarios attached to it, then you'll transfer to where they fought next. Lets say the Gross Deutschland fought in Poland then transferred to get ready for the French battle. The Narrator would tell the story starting in 1939 and describe the scenario. The scenarios will be progressive and linked and they are based on actual battles.

The maximum for scenarios in any one campaign would be 24 giving you 144 scenarios minimum in the German-Russian campaign, not counting any multi-player scenarios we might make or scenarios you can build with the editor.

Csim: That sounds like a lot of game play! How will you make Panzer Commander accessible to the novice but also a challenge for the hard core crowd?

Rick: Any of the scenarios or campaigns can be played at low or high difficulty. The goal here is really to get the player involved, not to just go around in a shoot em up. We want you to be interested in the battle, interested in your crew, interested in your other tanks. As they progress in the war they'll get better so you have that reason alone to care about whats happening around you.

Csim: How many levels of skill will we see?

Rick: Its more sophisticated than that. Think of it as a percentage system related to experience, battles that are successful and even ones that are not. This reminds me of another point.

Instead of the programmer just making the AI we sat down and talked through each battle. We tried to find ways to trip each other up. He would print out a combat routine and I would play it. I would sit there with him and say, "What if this happens? What if I go here? What if I do that?" We didn't have conferences about this, we would make it, then try to break it. There is no perfect AI, but we are hoping for a high level of realism in response.

Tankers died at an alarming rate in WWII. Our standard setting for realism will not be an actual WWII battle rating, it will be like 50%. If you want to try to progress through the campaign at 100% realism, you are going to die. Thats just the way it was. The standard setting will reduce the accurary, or maybe allow you to take shots a little better.

Csim: Given this level of challenge, will there be opportunity for a player who is killed early on to jump into another tank?

Rick: Definitely. You are a platoon commander. Tentatively, we've planned to tie realism settings to how much control you have over all your tanks. In other words if you want to be a real platoon commander you would not jump from station to station. So if you set very high realism and jump around, we'll let you do it, but it will no longer count at that level of realism. I think that players will appreciate this ability and if they value the realism so highly, they can play it that way.

We really value giving the players maximum choice, so you can jump into Plutonium mode and run around and shoot everything and not get hurt, thats all there. But we want to give the user control.

Csim: What are some of the key differences between Panzer COmmander and iPanzer?

Rick: For one thing, we are modelling twenty-four fully drivable vehicles. I mean fully modelled, with physics. We have visited four different sites to take pictures of all the internal and external features of all the tanks of WWII. We have guys who went to the Patton museum and others who visited Jock Littlefield and allowed us into his personal collection of fifty plus tanks and we photographed them exhaustively. There will be another twenty-five to thirty non drivable support and enemy vehicles. When you build your own scenario you can have these vehicles supporting your attack.

Csim: What about infantry, are they modelled as well?

Rick: We're using sprites to model infantry, same as in most shooters. We considered doing them in full 3d but this makes it too demanding for low end machines. These guys will fight in squadrons with anti-tank weapons, heavy machine guns etc.

By the way, among the drivable vehicles will not only be German and Russian but also American and British. So the guy who says, "Hey, I have no American or British campaign" can build his own scenario using American and British armor and include all the classics: the Firefly, the Pershing, the Easy Eight, the Sherman etc. We will likely do an add on campaign with American and British armor.

Click for a larger image..

Csim: What other armor will we see modelled?

Rick: We include every major tank design from every power. For the Russians, the T34, both versions, and the variants for 41, 42, 43. We even have the KD85, the hybrid. We have the IS2. In the non drivable support weapons we've included the series of assault guns, the SU85, the 100 etc. For the British, Churchill, Cromwell, Valentine, Firefly and one or two tank destroyers (non drivable). For the Americans all the different long barrel versions, the Easy Eight, the Jumbos with short and long barrel. For the Germans all the different Mk 3s but only starting with the 50s, the Mk4 series except for the short barrels, Panthers, Tiger 1s and 2s. The early war tank we'll put the Germans in is the 38T they took from the Cheks. And these are only the drivables!

Csim: Wow, quite a list! I have a feeling this is going to be followed pretty closely by the WWII buffs! Tell us about the control interface. How do we run these machines, issue orders etc.?

Rick: Theres a lot still in the grey area, but we have been studying history about how they communicated. For instance early in the war communications weren't very effective and we will try to make the interface painless, pop up stuff. We're planning to handle the interior of the tanks in the classic way, active stuff, you hit something it works, and it will also be hot-keyed and there will be joystick support.

For the features not in the tank itself it will likely be a text bar that will pop on screen. But this is all very early.

Csim: How will you account for the limitations of historical armor? The Sherman had a real reputation as a fire trap.

Rick: There isn't much we can do about this. We've modelled it accurately, and if you want to drive the Sherman on a high realism setting you're at high risk.

Csim: Tell us about the graphics modelling. I assume there will be support for 3d hardware?

Rick: 3dfx will be fully supported. Others are unsure at this point and the decisions arent all made.

Terrain effects will be what you would expect under 3d hardware. Csim: Will artillery be modelled?

Rick: Its modelled but not seen. It will still be an objective to capture.

Csim: You mention that you hope to include the mission builder in the initial release. Can you tell us more about it?

Rick: We're doing something we haven't seen before in a true 3d scenario builder. What I mean is not just objects that you place on the surface but we give you the ability to push the ground down or pull it up. Literally model your own rolling terrain. You can make the alps and huge depressions with simple point and click commands. You can design true reverse slope positions.

Csim: Will you model forests?

Rick: We hope to have forests. What do forests look like when you get close? They are a bunch of trees you can drive between. If you want forests you can't drive between put the trees closer together and force the armor to take the road.

Csim: What level of realism can we expect in physics and ballistics models?

Rick: Its being done now and we are taking everything into account. Damage resolution is the same: type of armor, slope of armor, velocity and explosive power of the projectile, and you can target a particular location for maximum damage.

Csim: Will we see smoke launchers. land mines, tank barriers?

Rick: This isn't decided yet. Because of the modern use of smoke people tend to read our use of smoke into WWII, but it wasn't used all that much then. Land mines and tank barriers, yes. But we'll try to limit mine use in the scenarios.

Csim: What about aircraft, will we see an integrated air war?

Rick: Yes, we have full modelling of the aircraft. They will bomb you and rocket you.

Csim: How much tactical knowledge will the player need at high levels of difficulty?

Rick: At high levels, a lot of knowledge! But you don't have to play at the highest levels unless you want to. Also we plan to give you a very detailed manual with a ton of historical information from direct sources, first person accounts, and a good strategy section.

Csim: Tell us more about the AI routines. How much detail is going into the modelling for enemy AI?

Rick: We've developed what we call the "thermometer of morale." If you have troops who are green they are going to have a higher chance of morale problems in a difficult situation. But this gets pretty sophisticated. We have a system that actively assesses threats given the present tactical situation. This varies widely given a whole number of factors. For instance, say you've just been flanked and you don't know it, but you are beginning to take fire from the right flank. If you are unbuttoned you will hear the fire from the right, but if you're buttoned this isn't going to affect your assessment as quickly because you think the fire is still coming from the front.

Now what about the attrition and loss issue? If you have superb troops and send them into a situation where they are hopelessly outgunned, you may lose them all because their thermometer of morale has a different scale. The top veteran tankers are more prepared to die in battle than the green ones if they receive a high commmitment order. We have levels of orders that go from probe to recon to attack to decisive attack level. These levels include in them a willingness to take casualties to take the objective.

This also affects other interactions. If green troops are getting slaughtered they may panic. Experienced troops will retreat in a more orderly fashion.

Csim: Fascinating.... what will we see in terms of multiplayer support?

Rick: Internet and network play and we will build in parameters for the user to tell them about latency issues. If you want to just jump in a tank with a couple of friends in other tanks no problem, but when you start to have different sides we'll find a way to tell you that you have too much loaded for this battle. But loading two four player platoons should be fine, with one player as commander of each platoon.

For Internet play, you will just give the other players the IP number and away you go. LAN play, just sign up and go.

Csim: What about support for other hardware like headsets and force feedback?

Rick: We're looking at force feedback but we don't know yet. Headsets same thing, we just don't know yet.

Csim: What are you looking at for a minimum system configuration?

Rick: When we started this we built an 8 bit non 3d engine, but the market is changing so fast... Minimum machine was a P90 but it may be up to a 133 or even higher by the time we ship.

Csim: Thanks, Rick, you've covered a lot of territory. Best wishes on your ongoing development and for the success of Panzer Commander!