Immobilizations In CM And Why I Want Them Reduced

[flamingknives]

Perhaps the problem, for some people, is that the games victory conditions don't account for dealing with mishaps. Thus as soon as a player loses a tank, that's their game over, where in reality you'd have to deal with it and your performance would be judged on that new objective rather than the original.

QBs are savagely unrealistic as it is, with the objective the only consideration. I'd prefer to see force preservation be more important.

[dieseltaylor]

Flamingknives - I have actually played games on the basis of writing down the enemy force rather than grab all the objectives - or even the majority.

If you can get the other guy to lose 300+ points to gain a flag that is excellent. It only takes two expensive tanks to go and there you have it, But of course I play big point games 2000+ which is I think the natural home for CM games as luck can average out, skill can come through as you utilise more , and , different forces and flanks actually exist to be used.

[JasonC]

"It´s rather obvious that he doesn´t take other immob´ reasons"

Wrong. It not only isn't obvious, it it false. You are still attempting to put words in his mouth to save the applicability of an argument that occurred to you, against a straw man. He never said immobilizations simulate track problems and his objection to open ground immobilizations is not that they are unrealistic because track problems shouldn't happen in the open.

His argument is that players cannot avoid moving in open ground in practice, while they can avoid moving in other, higher risk of bog, situations. And he objects - or more properly, simply acknowledges that other people before him reasonably object - to game determining events that neither player has any impact on with their rival decisions. He wants a *strategy* game to be determined by the *decisions* of the players. What players can affect by deciding this way rather than that, can be as random as you please. But what they cannot affect, should not be game determining and random.

This is not an argument about realism so you fail to address it by stuffing words into his mouth. He is not making any assumptions whatsoever about what bogging represents, in open or not. The difference he sees between them, is whether the players can in practice make decisions that prevent or risk them - not what they supposedly must or must not represent. If they can avoid a risk but choose not to, then the game turning on the chance outcome of that risk is fine, good even. If they can't avoid something but it does not typically determine game outcomes, that is also fine.

But the man does not want to sit down at a chess table, and at move 13 have a kid come by and yell "tornado!" and knock over the board, and claim it means he lost. His objection to this has nothing to do with thinking tornados did not occur in medieval political struggles, nor that knights in armor are resistent to direct hits by massive funnel clouds. The objection is that he *and his opponent* are trying to have a contest of wits and skill, with *each other* (not with the game!) as men with minds, for which the game in front of them is merely a medium.

Which leads to certain design "don'ts". Do not take away command of their forces. Do not write a movie script of the outcome, that they cannot change, and force them to watch it. Stop simulating at some point, and get the heck out of their way. It is -their- contest, not the designer's. This is address to game designers, to scenario designers, and to kibbitzers advising either. They don't want to see your movie script of what you think happened, they want to pit their own wits against each other, with the designer gone, out of the room, no longer butting in.

This is a perfectly reasonable desire. On this particular subject, it can readily be accomodated by allowing the players, by *mutual agreement*, to turn bogging in open ground *off*. Which takes no skin from the end of your nose. So it is silly to oppose the request. When you oppose it without even understanding it, misrepresent it, argue against a straw man and put words in people's mouths, you go beyond not getting his point and start acting rudely. You should stop doing so, and acknowledge the point, and admit that your own pet idea of other causes of boggings does not address it at all.

[GS_Guderian]

Originally posted by JasonC:

... But what they cannot affect, should not be game determining and random...

1. I don´t feel it is game determing

2. This brings back the whole issue of other "random" things. Hitchances, Inf attacking a tank or not, Jamming, and so on.

You ask why I object it?

Because this is a disccussion asking for pros and cons, no? Do you think I would stop playing the game if it "features" a "never get tracked on dry ground button"?

I just think it doesn´t make sense to rule some things out, that did, and noone is actually arguing against that, happen. Tanks broke down in all kinds of place, therefore I don´t see any need for artificial 100% safe places. Easy as that.

Asides I don´t know what straw dude you are reffering to, but if you simply read the lines, you will see, that he asked for ZERO immob chances on roads and alike. Thus he IS neglecting the chance of mechanical breakdowns other than tracking in mud and alike. Thus it stays a vital argument. Because if the chance for immobilisations on roads and dry ground hits ZERO (for what ever game reason at all), you killed mechanical failures and human incompetency as an effect on vehicles.

This is what I object to.

I hated tracked tanks and frozen Engines since CC. But I never asked to get rid of it, just because I lost a ladder game with a Tiger Ie stuck in the back of the map. And compared ton the size of CM games, CC maps very really, really small and the impact of loosing a tank to immobilisation could be devastating, too.

Again if you want to play chess, play chess.

This game is trying to simulate war. It fails in many parts and does well in others, but a very good thing it does is giving chance a chance.

That was important in Risk where one silly army could hold of my whole force and it was important in Empire, where Battleship King George V. sank 3 of mine, plus several Cruisers, DDs and a submarine. Not to count the lost planes. I hated the ship, I even hated my brother who was my opponent, but I never questioned the game mechanics because of that random effect.

[JasonC]

Read for comprehension, please. The objection is not to chance, or to risk. I explicitly addressed that, as did the previous poster. You are being so dense on the point you look positively silly.

If I take a risk, and the game turns on whether the risk comes out my way or not, that is great, that is a strategy game, no problem. But I have to take some risk, somehow. The chance determination has to be triggered by some decision, of mine or my opponent. Otherwise -

please pay attention to this

There is a third player playing the game and both of us are just watching. That player is the game designer, who has refused to get his butt off of *our* board. He's the kid who won't stop running by knocking over everyone's game boards and thinks he's making it so much more lively and exciting and realistic, when he is just being an ass.

Moving in open ground is not taking a risk. It is not a decision. Breathing isn't a willful choice, and a tank entering a movement order is not taking a risk. A tank entering trees can be a risk, a tank climbing a steep slope in mud can be a risk, a tank going over a wall can be a risk. But a tank crossing an open field to get LOS to the enemy is not "taking a risk".

And whether tanks ever broke down in open fields has nothing to do with this objection. The objection is to being treated as a *spectator* at a *movie* that the designer is directing and subjecting us to, instead of *players* *commanding* our units, and deciding which risks to run.

Anything whose impact on the game turns on a player decision is OK, because it *involves* the players, it makes the outcome a meaningful resultant of their mutual headgames. Anything with game changing impact that does *not* involve the players, that does not reflect anything they did or did not do, is anthema to strategy gamers.

We aren't action movie fans, we are strategy gamers. We aren't a documentary audience, we are strategy gamers. And the designers of strategy games are not physicists modeling the world or movie directors telling stories about it or historians lecturing us on their pedantic theories about what may or may not have actually happened. They are *game designers* whom we support making *games* that *we play*, who need to stop interfering at some point and turn the *outcome* over to us. (Of course, after we pay them for their program lol).

There is nothing more annoying on earth than a designer who won't let go, who tries to sit in the player's seat and make him do things or see things exactly as the designer scripts it. The scenario designer who divides all the set up zones as he would deploy the men and thinks he is helping when he is just interfering with the commander making his own plan, the fastidious engineer who can't be bothered with playability and just wants every bean simulated and every wet sock exhaustively modeled, the wannabee movie director who isn't satisfied providing a scenario and instead wants to provide the outcome, who starts a company of tanks in LOS of the 88s and thinks it is "dramatic", the frustrated artist who puts in eye candy in place of depth of play - these are the banes of strategy gaming. And they must be stopped (lol).

[JasonC]

Note - this all became a problem when strategy games moved to computers, giving rise to all the above controlling tendencies on the part of the makers who aren't there when the game is actually played.

When strategy games were board games, if the players didn't like a rule they simply threw it out, clap clap, no fuss no muss. The designers couldn't make the players put up with anything. Every rule system was a suggestion. If you didn't like it, you just ignored that case.

You had to positively agree with it to apply it. Gamers developed a very fine sense for these things, and the interaction between them and the designer crowd was very fruitful.

Things have not been remotely so stellar since the move to computers, which have brought out all the control freak tendencies in the designers. It doesn't help that half of them don't know beans about game design in the first place, and try to substitute their movie director skills or knowledge of physics or artistic panache.

Occasionally, designers who grok give strategy gamers things that they need, like powerful editors and lots of optional controls, and their games mysteriously develop big followings and are said to possess "great depth of play".

The mystery is that the rest of the industry hasn't figured it out. You can get the users to do half or more of the work for you, if you just stop being a control freak and let them switch things on or off.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by JasonC:

If I take a risk, and the game turns on whether the risk comes out my way or not, that is great, that is a strategy game, no problem. But I have to take some risk, somehow.

IATM that the fundamental disagreement here hinges on whether only risk that you take should be simulated, with other inherent risk that is present in reality in war being ignored.

It is a control question. If you can not control it and it is independent of your opponent as well, you want it gone. Right?

The problem here to me is the boundary limit of the simulation. Your analogy with chess may help. If you want to simulate chess (tight boundary), you take the board and the pieces and the rules. If you want to simulate chess being played in a family home (think 'The Sims Play Chess' - wide boundary), you have to add a random risk factor introducing the cat and the kid running over the board and ruining your game, or the phone ringing and distracting you with a pre-recorded message by Tom De Lay. To my mind, CM is the latter. To your mind, as I understand your argument, it is the former. Both views have merit. Your frustration comes from not having your game at the moment. My satisfaction comes from having my game.

Is that a correct summation?

ISTR BFC mentioning a bunch of officers testing CM. From memory, half of them hated it because things out of their control happened. Half of them loved it because things out of their control happened.

[dieseltaylor]

Jason

"His argument is that players cannot avoid moving in open ground in practice, while they can avoid moving in other, higher risk of bog, situations. And he objects - or more properly, simply acknowledges that other people before him reasonably object - to game determining events that neither player has any impact on with their rival decisions. He wants a *strategy* game to be determined by the *decisions* of the players. What players can affect by deciding this way rather than that, can be as random as you please. But what they cannot affect, should not be game determining and random."

I see then that your arguement moves risk and decision making to in game when actually your decisions start in your choice of weapons. I decide not to buy Tigers because the chance of them breaking down is higher than I wish to chance. I use my skill and judgement of enemy likely force , terrain etc. and my armoury of weapons to get a balanced force. There is no arbitrary actions here.

Once I get onto the battlefield then lucky planes, jammed guns, and bogging is the world I play in. In your world where the bogging is optionally off or on "dry" ground then your are devaluing the choice I make in force selection. The desire to negotiate every time I play - or do not play someone - on the parameters, I regard as a major drawback.

But I am sure you will no doubt argue that the game of chess are well loved because of all the different variants played throughout the world and how easy it is to find someone who plays your variant.

Incidentally the game never says dry ground does it? The weather may be clear etc but does that mean that the ground is rock hard. It may have been raining until the start of the battle.

[GS_Guderian]

Originally posted by JasonC:

...Moving in open ground is not taking a risk...

Well, I think it is. Even buying a tank is a risk. Much money for a weapon system that can break down in times I really don´t want it to break down. And moving it can enhence mechanical failures, thus moving at all, no matter where is a risk.

A tank entering trees can be a risk, a tank climbing a steep slope in mud can be a risk, a tank going over a wall can be a risk.

Yep, and I am perfectly fine with this. I do think that these risks are much higher, since they sum up trackingproblems and mechanical/human failures. Like the F1 car, it has some break downs in Monte Carlo, but it would never get far in country side France.

If the game treats chances for immobilisations the same on dry roads and in mud, it is flawed. But my experince shows, that chances are much higher in bad terrain. Thus avoiding it, expecially avoiding to cross it helps to lower the chance of immobilisations. HOW? Well it does only lower the chance of getting tracked, not the chance of all other mechanical breakdowns and driver mistakes. It can´t got under the minimum of some breakdowns. The minimum you wish to be ruled out, like a houserule for board games. A houserule I would not submit to, since I like it the way it is right now.

[JasonC]

"Well, I think it is"

You are now just being a stubborn fool. Something does not become a risk because it can go badly. It also requires that it can be -avoided- by something the player can practically do. You can't practically avoid moving a tank in a scenario in which you are given tanks. Ergo, it is not a risk to move a tank through some terrain. What you think about it, can't change this one iota, because you are just wrong. And you don't have to "submit" to anything - what is being proposed is a switch set by the players, not a code change out of their control.

[flamingknives]

If we're talking about scenarios, shouldn't it be a switch set by the scenario designer, if at all?

There's a great deal of nonsense going on about risk. Being as you can guarantee virtually nothing in the CM environment, why should bogging be different? Everytime my pixeltruppen fire a weapon or get shot at, their fate is down to, well, fate. Why should the tanks I send roaring off all over the place be less subject to the capricious whims of chance?

Could it be that the objection is less to do with bogging than it is poor scenario design?

[GS_Guderian]

Originally posted by JasonC:

...You are now just being a stubborn fool...

No need to exchange insults with arguments.

It is my opionion, that buying a tank is a risk.

Because in most cases you could get other material and men for the money, that spread the risk to loss of a big chunk of points on several shoulders.

Of course buying a tank includings the willingness to move it around, otherwise I might buy a bunker, but that doesn´t mean that you ought to have 100% control over the tanks performance. (100% on roads and dry ground that is). To put it into a rather hair-splitting way:

You can either place the tank in a well choosen position and never need to move it, or you "risk" to loose it in a rather unuseful place while cruising on the map.

Maybe I am to deep into realism. Maybe deep enough to actually gamble with playability (at least of the low budget scens) but I like it that way. Thus I am advocating the present system. When my company deploys to the nearby maneuver grounds via road, we suffer from all kinds of breakdowns on a short trip of 20km. All neat asphalt roads in good shape. Things like that happen. Surely I hate to be the platoon leader that looses one tank because of silly engine overcooking, oil loss and alike, but I can´t help it. Luckily this is all without enemy fire, therefore most problems can be solved in 10 - 30 minutes, but some things do even take longer and cannot be cleared on the road.

This is reality, at least how I experience it in everyday life. Maybe our vehicles and drivers suck, maybe WW II tanks were much more realiable. But I feel the present system is going in the right direction.

[dieseltaylor]

JC

I see we are now shifting the argument to scenarios - do I take it you accept that choice of forces is the first decision you make in the game?

As flamingknives points out if it is scenarios we are talking about - then I accept your choice comes down to whether you play it or not. Presumably you either avoid games where there are very few vehicles or you accept the risks and play the game warts and all.

Anything whose impact on the game turns on a player decision is OK, because it *involves* the players, it makes the outcome a meaningful resultant of their mutual headgames. Anything with game changing impact that does *not* involve the players, that does not reflect anything they did or did not do, is anthema to strategy gamers.

I could not have agreed more : )

[Folbec]

The main danger with the many toggles approach is that each new significant toggle tend to fracture the player base for 2 player games.

Some people will want to play only with "fragile tank on", others only will "fragile tank off" and so on for each toggle.

And each optionnal feature will have an impact on game balance, favouring one side more than the other. We may end up spending more time arguing on the options to play with than actually playing.

A good example of this is the option screen of the Panzer Campaign series : confusing and you wonder if you still play the same game.

A CM exemple is the "random losses" QB option, I almost always play with this set to random or 30%+, a fair number of people dislike this, and do not play with me. Or the parent unit / unrestricted options.

[dieseltaylor]

I must admit that I think a loss percentage is probably a good idea but rarely seen. I would never not play someone for that reason.

I think one of the biggest benefits is that where you know precisely how much your opponent can spend under combined arms etc. this means you cannot guarantee that the force has become heavier in one area as your opponent may chance his arm on better tanks or heavier artillery that was unavailable to him pointwise before

[Abbott]

I have personally thrown a track off an M60A1 in dry open ground, hell at the motor pool! Turn to sharp with too much power, uh oh, rookie! I have seen several thrown tracks and broken tracks on dirt roads. The tracks being designed better and more robust then track designs from WWII.

I watched a Marine driving a self-propelled 175mm on a route march to a firing range, the route (dirt road) being so dusty the drivers had their T-shirts soaked in water and wrapped around their heads, with silted folds for viewing. The column stopped. A driver towards the rear did not see the halt in time and had to make a quick decision. He turned right going up a hill, spun a 360 turn knocking down or bending down every tree in about a 60 foot radius. Got his bearings and returned to the road, in column. It was so dusty no one (in authority) noticed the entire incident! When we finally quit holding our breath, we laughed hysterically and teased the guy about the event for many years. We still laugh about it occasionally when we speak.

So many things can happen, at any time! No one can see all eventualities especially so when someone is shooting at you. Personally I have never been bothered by the breakdowns in CMBO, CMBB or the little time I have had to play CMAK. I file it under crap happens.

Good post Folbec and great conversation Jason and Guderian I am enjoying the read.

[Merkin Muffley]

Lots and lots going on here.

It seems that the crux of the main discussion is about the propensity to bog - some saying it is too high, others that it is OK. For those that perceive it to be a problem there is the secondary discussion about how to deal with it - user-controlled parameters, etc.

I must admit I start in the so-what camp and don't perceive it to be a problem based on my own experience. So, driving fast across any terrain falls into the same things-to-avoid category as buying aircraft and hoping they won't kill your own men, likewise rocket artillery, etc. But I do admit to being surprised at the apparent degree to which they do appear to bog (shown by Walapurgis's tests and my own more limited ones), even when driven moderately. But then, I have no idea of what the "true" or realistic figure should be, so I just lump it in the same way as I lump the other easily-checked vagaries of CM - like ammo mix on tanks and the varied leadership skillset that platoon commanders get.

I can see bogging being an issue in small battles where there may only be one or two tanks per side, but presumably that can only be resolved if bogging is removed completely? But I wonder for these types of game why other issues aren't raised too - such as the leadership skills already referred to. Surely these impact even more on small games? My very quick checks on buying Briitish infantry companies showed that a favoured company had 18 extra leadership attributes across the 4 officers, whereas the runt company had 6 extra attributes. Surely that would impact greatly, even if the player was oblivious of the attributes? Of course this could be easily resolved, even without user parameters. I propose each company would have two 2nd Lt Bishops, 1 Lt Knight and a Capt King. Lt Knight would be recognisable by his funny gait.

Back to bogging - is the issue to reduce it from whatever current% to current%/2 or eliminate it altogether, or perhaps eliminate it altogether when on flat surfaces travelling in straight lines at medium speed for tanks with no known tendency to have dodgy running gear? Are all these different factors going to be user selectable, so the no-boggers might play the 1%-boggers on non-road terrain, but wouldn't dream of playing the 2.5%-boggers on any-terrain, especially tanks with > 13psi?

I have a particularly good way of preventing bogging being an issue which players might want to try and which invariably works for me. I get my tanks shot up before they move very far.

[Folbec]

Originally posted by Merkin Muffley:

I can see bogging being an issue in small battles where there may only be one or two tanks per side, but presumably that can only be resolved if bogging is removed completely? But I wonder for these types of game why other issues aren't raised too - such as the leadership skills already referred to. Surely these impact even more on small games?

Very true, I almost only play above 2000pts and I can see my attitude and that of my opponents is very different from what I can see of smaller games.

Many things go under the "so what?" heading when you handle full battalions. The law of averages takes over.

[Abbott]

I also noticed somewhere earlier someone stated that he could not fathom how anyone could throw a track on railroad tracks. That is a misconception. Train tracks can pop (throw) a track very quickly if a driver is distracted.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Merkin Muffley:

I have a particularly good way of preventing bogging being an issue which players might want to try and which invariably works for me. I get my tanks shot up before they move very far.

That is my solution as well.

[tar]

Hmmm. So should machine gun jamming be on an optional switch as well? It isn't something that can be practically avoided by the players. There isn't anything a player can do to influence the chance of jamming. It sounds an awful lot like the bogging issue, only it happens to more common, less valuable units. But is seems to be in the same general category.

[Traincook]

Somehow I think it should stay in though - CM-series is not primarily a game - it's a historical game. If it was just game to maximize fun and fairness alot of things would be different.... IMO.

I totally agree with this opinion.

Also I spent a while cleaning up train wrecks with a pipelaying D8 dozer. This monsters weigh as much as a Tiger and believe me rail plays hell on them. They also played hell on rails also but that is not the matter of this discussion. They almost always crossed rail without a problem but we usually had to add wood blocks next to the rail to give them support to cross. Plus the fact that these were 1970's engineering with 2000 modern steel tracks. Nothing that was pushed thru war time production.

Traincook

[Corvidae]

First of all, Common sense says DONT DRIVE A TRACKED VEHICLE ACROSS RAILWAY TRACKS,

I may have flunked physics twice, but even I know that much,

Second of all, WW2 combat vehicles were VERY unreliable by modern standards, and tanks were especialy prone to technical problems,

These DO translate in CM as BOGGED and IMMOBILE.

[Random Generic]

I may have flunked physics twice, but even I know that much

LOL! I wish that MORE posters would include their credentials like you did!

Random Generic