Civilians?

[artjunky]

Are Civilians being modeled?

I made this request years ago and I was wondering if it's being implemented, in any way, in BOB. The game always felt some somewhat devoid of life. Except for soldiers running for cover (nice touch), there were really just buildings and machines.

I always thought it would be interesting to position civilians in the game. For example I thought it would be interesting to position people at railroads, markets...cars. I also thought it would be good to code the buildings as civilian vs military targets. For example: trains stations are legitimate targets whereas houses are not so much.

So, as a pilot trying not to kill civilians, as a general rule, your skills at doing this and still hitting the "target" could be evaluated at the end of the mission. If you failed and destroyed a marketplace and, say, 50 people, your score would not be as good as some pilot who hit the target and only killed one person.

For the sim, I think it would be a good way to increase ranking and skill if there is a consequence to failing to precisely bomb your targets. It would also be a disincentive to the "violence" associated with having civilians in a war game.

Also, perhaps people could be used as "cameras." So, wherever there are people or groups of people, their positions can be used as camera positions.

On the same note, I also think animals could be included for the same reasons. Animals on farms, animals in cities, animals pulling carts (cats, dogs, horses, cows, chickens).

In previous versions, the decision was made to keep civilians out of the game because they didn't want it given a violence ranking in Europe. I'd be interested to see if this idea has moved ahead since the game originally came out.