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A Quick Battle AAR: Shermans vs Pz IVs, Not Your Fathers Combat Mission


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The purpose of the battle is to compare the Sherman and the Panzer IV.

You are only half right Pvt. Ryan. The battle didn't start out as a comparison but became so after we got into it and began to see some unexpected results.

Chops, rarity can also be set when starting a QB. In this case it was set to Standard, but it could have been loose or none also. I'm not too keen on the rarity point magic and how the points are applied to every unit.. but if you look at the following image, then you can see two columns of numbers next to each tank... the first is the point cost of the unit, the second is the rarity value. These change depending on the unit, time of the year, and rarity setting for the QB.

006qbrarity.jpg

Did you both start with 2560 points available?

Were both of you allowed to pick anything available within the June 44' time frame?

Why did you decide on all tanks with no infantry support?

Yes as this was a meeting engagement.

Yes.

I chose all tanks because the map was open, and I thought infantry would have limited mobility.. and also because I thought that's what Warren was going to do. ;)

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Thanks Bill,

I am still not clear on the points however. Are the regular points + rarity points added up to equal a total of 2560 points?

No these are separate point pools. The purchase points will differ depending on the size of the battle, and if you are attacker/defender. Rarity points will differ on both of those as well as the rarity settings.

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A question...Are you forced to buy a truck/HT with AT paks when in meeting engagment? I remember this was a rule when playing CMx1 QBs to avoid gamey overuse of cheap guns in situations where normally you should not have prepared positions. Or are guns just more expensive in MEs selections?

The only thing you are forced to buy when you use a formation is the HQ of that formation. Everything else can be deleted and attached at will.

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While most of the attention goes to mechanics, I'm mostly wondering why you threw a few PzIVH (early) in the mix there.

Also, why are the unit cost all over the place? Is that because it is not just crew experience level but also motivation etc factoring in?

The short answer to your question is yes. Costs are based on a variation of Quality, Fitness, Motivation and Leadership. You can actually fine tune your purchase by playing with these.

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No these are separate point pools. The purchase points will differ depending on the size of the battle, and if you are attacker/defender. Rarity points will differ on both of those as well as the rarity settings.

To further answer what I think Chops is asking...

As ND says, they are separate point allocations. Each unit is given a point value and a rarity value (dependent on date and location). When using this system you may be able to have enough regular points available to purchase what you want but not enough rarity points to purchase the unit(s).

It is probably important to add that you can turn of the rarity feature and go with a straight up point purchase system with which the rarity numbers do not come into play. It is a very flexible system that can be set to anything from very very strict to wide open. It will all come down to your preference.

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The short answer to your question is yes. Costs are based on a variation of Quality, Fitness, Motivation and Leadership. You can actually fine tune your purchase by playing with these.

Cool!

Though it kinda spoils the artform of fiddling with your chosen force until it is exactly the point cap. Oh man, the time I wasted dropping the XP on one unit just to raise it on another so I could hit the cap exactly, all the while still maximizing the combat power of my force. :P

PS

I predict a lot of out of shape and poorly motivated yet mysteriously well trained tank crews. :)

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While most of the attention goes to mechanics, I'm mostly wondering why you threw a few PzIVH (early) in the mix there.

I think Bil began to wonder that same thing at some point during the game ;)

Also, why are the unit cost all over the place? Is that because it is not just crew experience level but also motivation etc factoring in?

Correct. The "soft factors" of a unit adjust the Point cost, but not Rarity cost.

The system works very, very well. For example, I just purchased a US Tank Company less one Tank Platoon. I had just enough Purchase Points for this purchase, however I was very short on Rarity points for what the Auto Picker (semi-randomly) chose for me. Obviously I could not proceed to enter the game with this sort of imbalance.

What were the types of tanks crushing my Rarity budget? Mostly older M4 and just barely introduced M4A1 (76) W Shermans. One very rare 105mm Sherman was also in the mix. REMEMBER... this is date specific, which means the Rarity points reflected very early June 1944. Late August things would have been very different!

Back in CMx1 to get things in balance I would have most likely had to delete tanks from my force completely. But not in CMx2, though that's always an option. What I did instead was change a bunch of the crappy, but rarer, M4s into better M4A3s. Yes, that's right folks.... I IMPROVED my force and my budget at the same time. Neat, eh? Next, I converted the rare 76mm and 105mm Shermans to more common 75mm tanks. Bingo, now I have a force that comes in under budget.

But wait... there's more :D

For the sake of this demonstration I decided to have second thoughts. Instead of having some slightly better, and more uncommon, 75mm variants, I instead changed the whole force to be M4A3 (75) W Early, which is "Standard" Rarity (i.e. 0 Rarity Points). I then "upgraded" my Company's Assault Tank from the Substitute Standard 75mm Sherman to be a M4A3 (105) Early, then made the HQ tanks in each of my Platoons M4A3 (76) W Early Shermans. Finding myself still a little under budget, I bought a third 76mm Sherman and put it into 1st Platoon.

With the extra Purchase Points I upgraded some of the unit stats and called it good.

Note that with these two different manipulations I wound up with exactly the same number of Shermans, but different capabilities within the two batches. The choice was totally mine as to whether I wanted an overall better quality Sherman force or one with a few tanks that had different capabilities.

An important thing to notice here is that I did not have the option to reduce the number of tanks and increase the rarity of the remaining tanks. That is a CMx1 concept that doesn't apply here. Which is good, because that was one of the biggest shortcomings of the CMx1 Rarity system.

Steve

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Thanks Elvis, yeah I am still not really understanding how this rarity stuff works. Not sure how rarity and regular points combine to get your overall point total.

Guess I will have to wait and read the manual, or maybe you guys can give another example of a unit with the regular points, rarity points, and then what the total cost would be for the unit?

Did Tube Guy really die in your battle with JonS?

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Thanks Elvis, yeah I am still not really understanding how this rarity stuff works. Not sure how rarity and regular points combine to get your overall point total.

They don't combine. You have separate points and rarity. Rarity is optional.

Most of the time you will only be looking at the actual unit cost, and only occasionally need to think about rarity if you have picked a lot of uncommon units. Spending all your rarity budget gives you no benefits, it just means that your force is not very typical for Normandy. You could just as well buy only Standard units, in which case no rarity is spent. In contrast, spending all your points is desirable, because the points reflect the total combat worth of your units.

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Do you get any information on what your opponent is choosing?

That question depends on how much detail you're looking for.

If you decide to play an all armor battle then you of course know he's got armor, If you play a meeting engagement or he's assaulting the chance of him filling the map with barbed wire is low. Play an early June battle and you know his M10 TDs won't have HVAP ammo. So there's hints. If you really need to know you always could ask him "Hey, what did you pick for forces?" ;)

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Guess I will have to wait and read the manual, or maybe you guys can give another example of a unit with the regular points, rarity points, and then what the total cost would be for the unit?

I think you're trying to make it more complicated than it is.

Unless I'm totally misunderstanding, rarity and regular points don't "combine". They are two separate pools of points -- Rarity Points, and Regular Points. Depending on the QB settings, you have a certain number of each. All units cost Regular Points. Some units also cost Rarity Points. You need enough points of both types to purchase a given unit.

So if you run out of Rarity Points, you can still purchase more units, as much as your Regular Point total will allow, but you will only be able to purchase common units (i.e., units that cost zero Rarity Points).

But once you've used up your Regular Points, you're done. Rarity Points, by themselves, can't purchase anything. They only enable you to purchase less common stuff with your Regular Points.

Wakaru?

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Thanks Elvis, yeah I am still not really understanding how this rarity stuff works. Not sure how rarity and regular points combine to get your overall point total.

[Edit - hehe... others chime in before I finished my post]

That's just it... THEY DO NOT COMBINE. Ever. Not even for a wild trist that they don't tell their significant others about :D They are always separate, from the start until the end.

Look at the example I just wrote up. I had plenty of Purchase Points for 13 tanks, but I did not have enough Rarity Points for the initial mix. So instead of having to delete tanks (as was the old CMx1 way) I just had to change the rarity level for some. Once I was in budget for Rarity Points I was good to go. Never once did I delete a tank after my initial removal of the 3rd Platoon and the rest of the Battalion.

Elmar,

Note that you still can play around with making this or that to free up points to reinvest somewhere else. To continue on with my previous example, I changed all 13 Shermans to have Veteran Experience. I was still under both my Purchase and Rarity Point budgets. I changed all to Crack (next Experience higher) and found I was over budget in both types of Points. I changed 2nd Platoon to be Regular Experience and was under budget for Rarity but only SLIGHTLY over budget for Purchase Points.

I played around with various Leadership and Motivation settings and didn't quite free up enough points. I could have deleted a tank, but I didn't want to do that. So I went to the three Company HQ tanks and changed them all to Regular. That did it. Now I was juuuuuust barely under budget for Purchase Points as well.

In the end this gave me 1x Platoon at Crack Experience, 1x Platoon at Regular Experience, and a Company HQ group at Regular Experience. Alternatively I found I could lower 1x Platoon to Veteran from Crack and have enough Purchase Points to get another Sherman M4A3 (75) W Early.

Yup, there's still plenty of things to fiddle around with :D

Steve

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[Ooop, ninja'd by Steve] Yep, Sergei is right. They keep track of two separate scales to keep the problems with rarity influencing the game like it did with CMx1. Provided you are playing with rarity "ON", you can pick and choose how to use it as you put together your fighting force. Once you have used up these points the rest of your force must be "standard" or zero rarity cost. Otherwise you would need to go back and rethink like Steve did and divvy up the rarity in another manner. Extremely flexible yet it gets the job done without being "gamey".

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I think you're trying to make it more complicated than it is.

Unless I'm totally misunderstanding, rarity and regular points don't "combine". They are two separate pools of points -- Rarity Points, and Regular Points. Depending on the QB settings, you have a certain number of each. All units cost Regular Points. Some units also cost Rarity Points. You need enough points of both types to purchase a given unit.

So if you run out of Rarity Points, you can still purchase more units, as much as your Regular Point total will allow, but you will only be able to purchase common units (i.e., units that cost zero Rarity Points).

But once you've used up your Regular Points, you're done. Rarity Points, by themselves, can't purchase anything. They only enable you to purchase less common stuff with your Regular Points.

Wakaru?

Correct. You completely understand it and have stated it better than me.

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I do have to chickle because 'rarity points' confused the testers a bit too, initially. All you have to remember is they don't 'represent' anything, they're just numbers. Their purpose is to make sure you don't stray too far off the reservation on the 'historical accuracy' front. Panther D (late)s are even more pricey than Tigers I when it comes to rarity!

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