On The History Channel's Decisive Battles, Gamed

Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with the creators of the 'Decisive Battles' TV show, as they discuss the "new History Channel series [that] re-creates some of the most pivotal battles of the ancient world, including Cannae, Thermopylae, and Marathon.. [using the engine from] upcoming real-time strategy game Rome: Total War." We've previously discussed this endeavor, but the interview explains specifics ("We'd... build the battles in the same way as we do for all the 'historical battles' in the game - but then use a few cheat codes when we play them out in order to be able to choreograph the exact movements of the troops for that particular battle"), as well as plans ("Future episodes will include the battles of Thermopylae, Adrianople, Chalon, Carrhae, Pharsalus, Spartacus and the Slave Revolt of 73 BC, Cynoscephalae, Kadesh, Teutoberg Forest, and Watling Street.")

Comments

More Useful Engines

[Satertek]

Looking forward to seeing a game engine used for something other than a game. Hey, some day soon I bet Hollywood will be using game engines for their special effects, as it'll all be rendered in real time, which will save time.

FOX should do this too..

[madstork2000]

I think it would be cool if you could download (or even watch live NFL games over the internet) that are rendered using Madden...I know on the pre-game shows they have used game footage, but imagine a live stream for when your game is blacked out (DAMN NFL), or you are out-of-town.

Technically the games would not be being "rebroadcast" since the data used would be silly be facts describing the action as compiled by a person/computer on the scene. The video and audio track would be created on the fly. . . It would be neat to pause replay and view from multiple angles. Obviously though it would not be totally accurate, but it with some work could be close enough to be entertaining. It would beat the little game boxes on most websites thats for sure.

In time it could augment "real" radio play-by-play nicely. What I am thinking hear is the "audio" track comes from the live broadcasters, and the data stream broadcast digitally, this would probably only be available with the satellite radio broadcasts.

There could be a "fantasy" mode (in addition to the normal "broadcast") where you could watch your fantasy team play against your weekly opponent (or at least highlights of all your fantasy players) on demand. The system could also be used to compile and view player stats and possibly give you "predicted" hilights, based on existing stats.

Anyway, it seems like the real-time rendering for games has yet to tap it full potential of uses outside the traditional games world.

I saw some of these shows

[Anonymous Coward]

And they kind of sucked. The animation itself wasn't that great, and the battlefield overview didn't really give a good idea of why one side won or lost.

I think what a lot of military historians don't want to admitt is that no one really knows why one side or the other won or lost. Generals didn't know what was happening when they gave the orders to move here or there, and the soldiers receiving the orders didn't know where here and there were and received the orders hours later. Most of the "brilliant flanking movements" and shit like that is just someone getting lost and then stumbling into the enemy, and they spin it afterwards for the political advance of the winning side.

Heck, in most modern wars it's not til long after the fact that they even manage to pick out the beggining and end of a descernable battle (modern being Civil War and afterwards). They often don't know who "won" the battle until much later either. All these strategy stuff is mostly written back into the story with the benefit of hindsite.

There are exceptions, of course; I think you can find some in N. Africa and in Naval engagements. But these games should be more realistic -- the general should make up a plan, no one should follow it, and while the general was still refining some alignment of troops somewhere a trooper comes over and either arrests him or informs him he won, depending.

Re:I saw some of these shows

[Zibblsnrt]

Sigh, and I was going to moderate on this story..

I think what a lot of military historians don't want to admitt is that no one really knows why one side or the other won or lost. Generals didn't know what was happening when they gave the orders to move here or there, and the soldiers receiving the orders didn't know where here and there were and received the orders hours later. Most of the "brilliant flanking movements" and shit like that is just someone getting lost and then stumbling into the enemy, and they spin it afterwards for the political advance of the winning side.

Meh. I think that depends on the battle as much as anything else. Some of what you're saying - soldiers tending to get lost, or recieving orders hours later - doesn't pass muster for a lot of historical battles. It does moreso for modern ones where there's immense distances and numbers of troops involved with a zillion things to go wrong, but most pre-gunpowder battles were small (or cramped) enough that one could manage his whole army on the field if he could signal well enough.

This isn't to say that not all battles have the WTF factor. The Battle of Actium has that; Antony's right wing wheels out, comes into contact with Agrippa's ships, and the whole thing just.. falls.. apart. Some of the sources have Octavian coming up the night after the battle and wondering when it was going to start - things imploded that quickly. However, even this had some reasons running far earlier than the battle; one of the morals of the story is Pay Your Troops, Dipshit, And While You're At It Don't Send Them Into Battle While They're Starving And Ill, but...

On the other hand, to say something like Cannae was a stroke of luck (other than "wow, the enemy general is that bad") is pure ignorance. Things are documented clearly and in detail - from the side that lost. They sync well with what's known of the remainder of the campaign and the fighting styles of both empires' armies. The whole of the evidence points to an almost literally perfect battle, one that needed either absolute coordination or a series of flukes so ridiculous as to dull Occam's Razor to a nice, safe edge.

I could go on at quite some length about ancient battles going one way or another. Flukes do exist in them - Alexander had no business surviving the Granicus, and if he hadn't, Things Would Be Different - but battles were far, far removed from the typical crap you'll see on movies where two disorganized rabbles charge head-on into a series of well-spread-out duels. I won't say it's easy to coordinate groups of these sizes, but I will say that it's eminently possible, especially to people who spent their entire lives training for this sort of thing.

You're also showing a tendency to look at ancient battles in terms of modern ones; comparing Cannae or Qadesh to something like Medina Ridge or Stalingrad is silly, because you're comparing apples to oranges. Or Volkswagens, for that matter. Except in the broadest strokes, like the WWII double-envelopments against the Soviets, things are different enough that comparisons of how they were actually commanded aren't really fair to either era.

-PS

Big Whoop

[Anonymous Coward]

People playing Combat Mission have been doing this for years, probably more accurately than the Total War engine could ever hope to achive.