CMx2v4 WWII: Basic Movement Stats

[MikeyD]

I doubt many people would want moving soldier to just stop. You'd never be able to get soldiers to move from A to B in that case.

[Freyberg]

4 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

It really makes no sense to me that Move's state turns into "Quick" if the troops on it start taking fire. I'd MUCH prefer they did the same thing in hunt and just defaulted to prone/cover.  

The trick is to include short Hunt commands between Moves or Quicks

[markshot]

Aside from whether our current command set is optimal, did anyone try to reproduce my results?

I did think about that movement should be broken down into different parameters that could be stacked similar to way point actions.  But then, I think from CMBO -> CMBB/CMAK -> CMBN/CMFI/CMRT/CMFB that the game has moved to ever increasing micro-management (which may have well increased realism), but at times has become tedious and reduces some of the fun of the game.

For all, the improvements of relative spotting, it mainly has its biggest impact within the 1 minute, because planning each turn I take the global non-selected view of the battlefield to issue my orders.  So, follow on tanks don't run blindly into ATGs, covered arcs are set based on spotted armor, platoons are moved based on what scouts have seen without communication ...  In other words, the "Borg" is not the game, the "Borg" is >>> me <<<.  I still remember CMBB/CMAK as great games (CMBO was not well balanced, I think the attacker had an easier time despite various heavy weapons).

In summation, I would favor more parameterized movement commands a la Panther Games or Graviteam, IF THERE WAS GREATER DEGREE OF SENSIBLE AI BEHAVIOR RATHER THAN HAVING TO GIVE PRECISE ORDERS TO EVERY TEAM ON THE FIELD.  CMx3 may be the most realistic game yet, but if it means giving orders to each individual soldier, I think I will be opting out.

[Bulletpoint]

10 hours ago, markshot said:

For all, the improvements of relative spotting, it mainly has its biggest impact within the 1 minute, because planning each turn I take the global non-selected view of the battlefield to issue my orders.  So, follow on tanks don't run blindly into ATGs, covered arcs are set based on spotted armor, platoons are moved based on what scouts have seen without communication ...  In other words, the "Borg" is not the game, the "Borg" is >>> me <<<. 

Yes, this is why some players have requested that the iron difficulty mode could be updated to place more restrictions on "player borging".

Some of that would be easy (prevent HE area fire on locations without an enemy contact marker), other things would be difficult (longer turn times with better AI to manage units in between orders phases)...

[Sgt.Squarehead]

On 1/4/2020 at 12:20 PM, Bulletpoint said:

prevent HE area fire on locations without an enemy contact marker

Not sure that would be appropriate.....It would prevent a player using HE to suppress likely enemy positions.

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Not sure that would be appropriate.....It would prevent a player using HE to suppress likely enemy positions.

As I see it, contact markers identify just that: Likely enemy positions.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

What about when assaulting a village, or a fortified position?

Are you saying that tanks should not be allowed to fire on positions without a contact marker in those situations.....They have to wait for the enemy to start killing their friends before they can open fire? 

Looked at from that perspective this rule would be unworkable IMHO.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

What about when assaulting a village, or a fortified position?

Are you saying that tanks should not be allowed to fire on positions without a contact marker in those situations.....They have to wait for the enemy to start killing their friends before they can open fire? 

Loked at from that perspective this rule would be unworkable IMHO.

In general, yes, I think even when assaulting a village, you don't know exactly where the enemy will be deployed. Could be in the houses, it could be in woods, trenches and foxholes, etc. Sending scouts forward to probe would be part of the assault, so you don't end up wasting valuable HE ammo on empty positions.

But I still think the player should be allowed to use MG area fire on any position on the map, without a contact marker.

As an aside, I started using this as a personal house rule when playing singleplayer, and I find it works quite well and increases immersion.

There is one case where it creates a problem though. In my current game, there's a church tower which is an obvious artillery spotter location. I don't have any contact marker there, but from seeing which locations get shelled, I can conclude the spotter is very likely in the tower. I'd be ok with not being able to target the tower though, as I think the general rule is interesting to play with.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

5 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I think even when assaulting a village, you don't know exactly where the enemy will be deployed. Could be in the houses, it could be in woods, trenches and foxholes, etc. Sending scouts forward to probe would be part of the assault, so you don't end up wasting valuable HE ammo on empty positions.

Sorry fella, that's just not how it worked.....Ask the villages in Normandy! 

That is not the product of strict ROE.....HE we had aplenty, men we did not. 

And then there's the Soviets.....

 

Edited January 7, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Bulletpoint]

9 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Sorry fella, that's just not how it worked.....Ask the villages in Normandy! 

I believe this photo shows the results of artillery/aerial bombardment, which is a different discussion. I wouldn't prevent either of those from targeting areas without contact markers.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Nevertheless, the fact remains that policy tended to be to send HE before sending men.....Nobody gave a whit about 'wasting valuable HE', that's a gamer speaking.  What soldiers really, really did care about was not getting killed. 

[Bulletpoint]

The problem here is that we, as players, know that we're now going to play an assault mission, and the map is limited. We know on this small map, there will be enough enemies to challenge us. In that case, it makes sense to blast the most likely buildings with HE.

But in the real war, the area of operations is not neatly fenced in, and you don't know if there are even enemies in that area.

If you know there are enemies, then that is represented in the game by giving pre-battle intel. If you don't get this intel, it's basically an order to "Take village X", regardless of whether it's enemy held or not. In that case, you send in a couple of guys to see if they can find out something.

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Nevertheless, the fact remains that policy tended to be to send HE before sending men.....Nobody gave a whit about 'wasting valuable HE', that's a gamer speaking.  What soldiers really, really did care about was not getting killed. 

You might have to pass through several small villages that day. How long are you going to spend blasting every window of every house? How fast can you get resupplied with shells? What if you waste them all on the first two hamlets, and then you run into a roadblock in the third? Soldiers care about not getting killed; their officers care about advancing on time.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

3 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

The problem here is that we, as players, know that we're now going to play an assault mission, and the map is limited. We know on this small map, there will be enough enemies to challenge us. In that case, it makes sense to blast the most likely buildings with HE.

But in the real war, the area of operations is not neatly fenced in, and you don't know if there are even enemies in that area.

If you know there are enemies, then that is represented in the game by giving pre-battle intel. If you don't get this intel, it's basically an order to "Take village X", regardless of whether it's enemy held or not. In that case, you send in a couple of guys to see if they can find out something.

Now this comes down to scenario design and in particular the briefing IMHO.....Frankly I hate writing them, because I know both how important they are and how difficult it can be to get the nuances of the scenario across (without turning them into a step by step manual).

Just now, Bulletpoint said:

You might have to pass through several small villages that day. How long are you going to spend blasting every window of every house? How fast can you get resupplied with shells? What if you waste them all on the first two hamlets, and then you run into a roadblock in the third? Soldiers care about not getting killed; their officers care about advancing on time.

That's not the scenario I described.....I was talking about an assault on a known enemy position, but one of sufficient complexity that his exact positions are unknown.

Any rule hardcoded into the game would have to handle both situations.

[Bulletpoint]

3 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

6 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

You might have to pass through several small villages that day. How long are you going to spend blasting every window of every house? How fast can you get resupplied with shells? What if you waste them all on the first two hamlets, and then you run into a roadblock in the third? Soldiers care about not getting killed; their officers care about advancing on time.

That's not the scenario I described.....I was talking about an assault on a known enemy position, but one of sufficient complexity that his exact positions are unknown.

I admit that in some occasions, a force might go in blasting away at everything. But I'd say it only happened occasionally during the war, whereas in the game, it happens in every battle. The player knows it's a target rich environment, where you start with full supply in all vehicles and won't have to care about resupply.

 

13 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Any rule hardcoded into the game would have to handle both situations.

You're right, and that's why I always suggest it could be an optional thing. The important thing for me would to place more emphasis on scouting, spotting and information sharing between units.

[MOS:96B2P]

From HARD CAT RULES v2. 

3. AREA FIRE
   a. No Area Fire (AF) allowed on turn 1
   b. AF-Type 1 – Area Fire Against Empty Terrain
        i. Players can order area fire on an Action Spot (AS) that DOES NOT have ANY positive or tentative contacts known by any unit
        ii. The Platoon Leader (PL) must have LOS to the AS to direct fire from its squads and any squad to be given an area target order            must be in (Command & Control) C2 with the PL
   c. AF-Type 2 – Area Fire Controlled by Squad/Team Leader
        i. Players can order a unit to area fire on an AS that has a tentative contact that is known only to said unit
        ii. The unit leader is directing fire
        iii. This rule is intended to give independent units freedom of action
   d. AF-Type 3 – Area Fire Controlled by Platoon Leader
        i. Players can order a unit to area fire on an AS that the immediate superior of the team has a positive or tentative contact in, as long as the unit is in C2 with said superior.
        ii. The PL is directing fire
   e. EXCEPTION: independent squads (even split)/teams/vehicles performing a scouting mission are exempt from rules 3.b through 3.d
Formations (i.e. Recon Platoon/Company) performing a scouting mission AS A formation must still abide by these rules

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I play Iron mode as a matter of course, however sometimes I do step outside of the rules.....The 'tank driving blindly into the field of fire of an AT gun' example would be a good one.  If the tank in front explodes, I will stop the vehicles behind.....Regardless of C2 state, because that's what tanks tend to do when one of their comrades explodes right in front of them. 

Now a Hunt Order might do this for me (depending on the proximity of the blast), but should I really have to rely on the foibles of the game engine when making common sense, life or death decisions for the men on the spot?

[Sgt.Squarehead]

15 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I admit that in some occasions, a force might go in blasting away at everything.

Some nations were more fond of that technique than others:

"Comrade, that village is a known fascist, execute it immediately!"

Edited January 7, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[markshot]

I believe the official term for this is "recon by fire".

[domfluff]

The house rules that I find somewhat practical are:

- No area fire without a contact marker or TRP

...and that's it, really. It's simple enough to follow, uses the existing mechanics, doesn't require book-keeping, etc.

It's not perfect, but I think that goes a long way to making that work. In the case of an obvious-position for an observer, you could spend the funds to get a TRP at the start of the mission, and mark it up.

Speaking of obvious positions though, anecdotally I was playing a PBEM game of Normandy, and had an FO in the top of an obvious church tower. There was no other good position, and he raised merry hell with mortar fire from there. For whatever reason, my opponent never directed fire towards that spot. Perhaps he thought it was too obvious?

[Sgt.Squarehead]

9 minutes ago, domfluff said:

No area fire without a <SNIP> TRP

This could make sense.....The TRPs could be taken to mean free fire within an agreed radius. 

However it also zeros every artillery piece in the battle onto that position.....As a defender I think I would actually prefer to take the random direct HE fire! 

PS - Anyone who believes Soviet Heavy Assault Gun Regiments ever waited to be fired on first is in cloud cuckoo land!  Being fired at is not what Heavy Assault Gun Regiments are about at all, TBH there's a clue in the name. 

Edited January 7, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[MOS:96B2P]

3 minutes ago, domfluff said:

I was playing a PBEM game of Normandy, and had an FO in the top of an obvious church tower. There was no other good position, and he raised merry hell with mortar fire from there. For whatever reason, my opponent never directed fire towards that spot. Perhaps he thought it was too obvious?

Maybe he has been playing a lot of CMSF lately and assumed it must be against some ROE to target a religious building. 

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Sorry fella, that's just not how it worked.....Ask the villages in Normandy! 

That is not the product of strict ROE.....HE we had aplenty, men we did not. 

And then there's the Soviets.....

 

But the church tower is intact … not sure that was the best picture to make your point. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Oh do come on, we are still Christians after all. 

PS - But TBH I prefer playing the 'Godless Communists'.....I suspect the sort of tactics I use might rather upset some of the more genteel players hereabouts.  Let's just say that I'm not at all kind to the scenery.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

PS - Anyone who believes Soviet Heavy Assault Gun Regiments ever waited to be fired on first is in cloud cuckoo land!  Being fired at is not what Heavy Assault Gun Regiments are about at all, TBH there's a clue in the name. 

It's a long way from Moscow to Berlin if you have to fire heavy artillery at any little Dacha, comrade

Besides, the Soviet doctrine called for rolling waves of infantry to make the enemy reveal himself before destroying those positions with artillery and heavy guns. At least if I remember that post by JasonC right.

 

Edited January 7, 2020 by Bulletpoint