Joachim

When there is now data, you have to resort to "felt" data. If the phenomenom of "better German training resulting in less paralysis when the commander is no longer availbale" is accepted based on felt data, my proposal is a possible solution to the resulting problem. It does not state that the phenomenon is true (cf. Andreas post). The only evidence I have is that Germans were trained "one rank up", based on the old Reichswehr training. They had only 100.000 men - so they made sure they could turn them into 100.000 leaders in a short time. And you never change a running system, so the idea of the training was kept. And the resulting spirit in the field to trust the 2nd in command to fill the gap if his superior was not there. Hard data: one of my grandpas was a Corporal - and plt HQ after most of his plt followed the HQ when it rushed down one side of a bridge. My grandpa rushed down the other. He never saw those men again. But he stayed Plt HQ till he the end of the war. I guess this incident does qualify for "immediate reorganization of a plt". As a result, I'd state some other differences: A lone squad of survivors in - a well-trained army - with educated soldiers, - no class systems, - based on the individual rather than the mass, - where taking over responsibility is awarded - more than failure is punished should have a lower command delay than an "out-of-contact squad" still having a plt HQ. Command delay should resemble a team out of command. Suppression effect of losing the HQ should last "forever" (ie broken) when near site of destruction or only a few turns (when farther away or fanatic) Maybe "ad-hoc-leadership" should be a parameter like fanatic. Gruß Joachim

Yes. A 2nd wave is coming. Just like your immediate assault - if you were successful, widen the gap. If you lost, next try. Have to admit I usually ignored that modifier. When coding this into an auto-parameters sheet, I added every little modifer (or re-wrote the rules ) My words. Ignore any modifier you don't understand or use the worst meaning you can get out of the description. We're not at law school here. Hey, I have a PzIIIj(late) with 150+pts. 70mm frontal keeps you alive... Crack is good enough. Though I twice faced elite T34s... and an elite KV1. You usually don't have a choice what is delivered... TRPs and trenches should receive a bonus. I suggest you use what I read in the players guide (Don't have it here for quotes, but IIRC it is in there): Don't count minor support troops like small mortars, LMGs etc. You get one, you get many. My interpretation: Do the same for fortifications: AI buys one TRP, buy as many as you like (within the points limit). Same with mines and trenches. Try to reduce the bean counting. This is not valid for bunkers. They are expensive enough too keep track individually. Already changed that parameter in '42v1.3 (beta). No modifier from last battle, lower chances in the die roll, an option to ignore x5 and a modifer for Allied attacks and Allied infantry or mech force. Plus the Minimum 200/300/500 rule is replaced by a minimum die roll of 4 or 5. Lower point totals with that. Based on experience with huge AI attacks (6000+ troops). From the intro to '42 v1.3: Weather & Temperature: You’ll face less Thick fog, Blizzard or Extreme Cold. Even on rainy days, there are some hours where it is just overcast. Temperature is spread across 2 seasons, while the weather parameter uses a pre-roll. I changed extreme cold cause it usually resulted in EC+Blizzard. Maybe I have a look at it and use EC but with less blizzards... Probability of EC in Jan '42 is 40%. Frozen is another 40%. Dawn/Dusk add 10% to EC, Night 20%. Very generous. If the AI stops the attack cause of low ammo, imagine some other shortages or problems that caused the attack to stop. It happened. Ammo level now starts at 20% (1-2 is Full ammo). You can spend 10 favor for additional 20% of ammo - so you start at least with 40% if you want to. Well, if the human wave is big enough, they will overrun you once your MG ammo for the tanks is gone. I'm in a good mood today. Maybe I'll decrease infantry a bit more than I did (note it only affects '42 or later...). The bulk is still German, and a German KG would expect to fight along Germans. 10% for each minor nation is enough. Keeping track of who you fought in the last battles is a major programming or bookkeeping issue, so I won't change the rules here. Thanks for your comments. Are you still in '41 or already in '42? If in '42, I'll send you the new rules for testing... Gruß Joachim

Basing leadership bonus on the pistol toting guy(s) in the HQs, not on the complete team (ie runners with the carbines). For Germans, the plt sergeant with the MP should have a bonus, too. But not for the other nations. For CMx2 replacing HQs with lower HQs, including squad leaders acting as Plt HQs for Germans. EG by just allowing 1st squad to take over from HQ if HQ is disabled or too far away. Gruß Joachim

I bet on several occasions crews did fight as infantry. If they did not fight it was there value which kept commanders from pressing them into infantry service. And BFC did it exactly right: Losing crew members is very expensive in the AAR. This penalty is enough. If some gamey players don't realize that - great. PS: Additional LMGs for ATGs are modelled in GE ATG plts as extra teams. Gruß Joachim

I have no positive evidence, as the casualties only showed up after the battle: I had an urban defense in a foggy night with viz at 30m. I had a vet/crack mot PzGren plt in a forward position secured by burning woods, wire and mines. Ammo at 40%. Each squad caused 100+ casualties. The Soviets lay in a dense heap on the street, just where the wire touched the burning woods. I doubt any of my units had LOS to that heap - those units were unspotted (and I guess I should have seen at least some of them if they were in LOS!). I counted them as damage from the hand grenades my men threw at those units crossing the wire a bit to the right. And of course I witnessed several occasions where hand grenades threwn at pinned enemies caused casualties to nearby freindly units :mad: Gruß Joachim

Von Mellenthin states that in early '43 the Soviet armored spearheads were no longer always followed by human waves, pointing out a shortage of manpower (from which he deducts an elastic defense could have won the war - but this is not the point here). Gruß Joachim

Playing the same map and keeping the bunkers in the same place? I'd be interested in how you did that! The big problem in the Kiev pack of BCR '41 was that the bunkers were setup by the AI and units did not stay where they were on the imported map. Replacements in the ETO? From what I read at "www.battlefield.ru" the Soviets had a chaotic replacement system - they took what was at hand. The Germans did the usual bookkeeping and tracked every wounded so he could later re-join his unit. Raising regiments or divisions in the same region eased that. Replacements during an operation came from the "Feld-Ersatzbattalion" (FEB/forward replacement btn). Most division had a replacement btn at their home base, where basic training was conducted (or not) and one that stayed with the division. Replacements where drawn from the FEB, which was replenished from the home btn. Most units were never at full strngth, so returning casualties could always join their old unit. As CM models not just dead and heavily wounded, many casualties are shell-shock or panic or something that could more or less easily be healed in a few hours. Guess this is what the operations do in CM - you get many "casualties" back, while decimated squads or teams leave battle to have a cadre left around which to form the new squad. When it comes to the quality of replacements - the higher the losses on all fronts, the worse the quality. Sometimes casualties return - then you may get vets. Sometimes they had good training at home and in the FEB (regular) sometimes they come directly from home. I never bothered to get an exact representation of the replcaement quality beyond that. Guess Biltong did the same. Rule 1: The quality decreases during the war Rule 2: In periods of heavy fighting (Stalingrad) or deadly weather (winter...), there is an additional penalty. Hope that helps. Gruß Joachim

Sometimes you need a quickie, sometimes you're in the mood for something long. I playtested a campaign with a btn of tanks and 3 btn of infantry (one of them armored). It was fun. The mpa was CM max size (Operation Fridericus IIRC) I played a battle with 17000 points assaulting me - 60 tanks plus 6000 men. Not much action as I only had 20% ammo, but it was fun. 20hours of processing time alone. Then there are times when I like a small battle: a reinforced Coy or less. The small ones for fun action. The long ones for well thought manoeuvres at a bigger scale, yet more forgiving. And I remember some huge scenarios from you, WB - some of the biggest ones for SP. Wasn't there even one "The biggest of them all"? Then Saipan, Supercharge, some Prokhorovka scen, Steel Shield... Maybe when you were younger you were less impatient Gruß Joachim

I once mentioned the ability to use random reinforcements in the scen editor: Low probabilities for AI reinforcements per turn but an early start turn. E.g. for AT defense scens, you would buy most of the AI force while the "surprise" reserve element is packed into those reinforcements that may never appear. 2% over 30 turns mean the unit will appear with only 45% probability, 1% over 30 turns is just 26%. Now factor in the length of the battle and the start turn, add a deep map where the reinforcements have to move up to contribute to the battle - and you have your surprise game. Including that you don't even know the enemy force size. What I never tried is using a (static) advance operation to achieve this. Little enemy forces in the first scen, and you don't move forward. Battle 2 sees random reinforcements (availabe in turn 0, and you start your attack.) Might work as AI attack if you put a lone enemy unit on a hidden artificial island during battle 1. Another untried idea is too only choose the random reinforcements and the map in the scen editor, then import the map and the units in the QB generator and select an all infantry force. Don't know if reinforcements are imported into qbs. Next idea is to choose the inf + arty in the scen, import them and fire up a QB with "pure armor" for the AI. To offset force imbalance, you can use a force size bonus or buy yurself a few units in the editor, too. Gruß Joachim

LOL! Can you imagine the grenadiers at the front being given a tin of chocolate and then trading Knights Cross winner cards with their kamerades...It would have given the Third Reich a whole new twist. No pun intended. </font>

Glad to see you'll still be around. I had the pleasure to play many of your scens in various games, and I hope you'll do some more. Thanks for doing them. Among my all time favourites is your "Black Beret" campaign in the Sinai (SP) where my Israeli troops advanced as fast as their ammo trucks could keep up... Guess my drink on the Raiders will see me sitting on my old computer re-playing that. The Raider Flag will still be hoisted on many computers for years to come. Gruß Joachim [ September 26, 2003, 05:28 AM: Message edited by: Scarhead ]

A good opponent will always try to protect his flanks. He will try to do many things. But has only a given amount of troops. The threat of the ATR forces him to use his infantry as flank support, thus a) restricts his tank moves forces his inf to move and c) leaves him out of resources for some other important task he knows he should do. Or he decides that some other task has higher priority... pop goes the ATR. Boom! goes the tank. Gruß Joachim

And not surprising that the Americans captured the town of Jena (50 miles in the Soviet sector, yes - that Jena for the Napoleonics here)) while the Soviets were busy heading for Berlin, took the specialists of the Carl Zeiss works in Jena and re-located many of them to their sector. Just imagine a T34/75L70 with Carl Zeiss optics and a Rheinmetall gun. My what-if post-WW2 favourite. Gruß Joachim

Short answer: It ain't that bad. It uses the numbers of BFC. It is even based on an obvious way of looking at it. (BTW: For any Southern German like me, "not bad" is not worse than "good". Not at all!) The rule is entirely based on numbers, not on personal preferences whether someone prefers to fight with vets or greens. This way it is disputeable, but in the end you can alyways say it is based on the numbers of BFC and those should be blamed for setting them as they are. Yet I would not play it vs some gamey bastard who sets the force types after the rule is negotiated. But I bet that's not what it is designed for. I had even considered to put something like that into BCR for the large battles - I'd rather fight 17000 points regular than 17000 points conscript. This is a hardware restriction, not because I prefer fighting regulars :mad: On the "experience gathering" All my research in maths was based on global optimization over time. Single results in one period were less important than the whole. My guess is that keeping my force in good shape now will pay off in future battles. Strange habit. But it creeps into my thinking so often. Yet it is not a necessity for any campaign to factor that in, as this is just a personal preference. But somebody asked for personal preferences, so I said them. And as these are very subjective views and you want an objective view, I added the explanation for my prefs. Gruß Joachim

[Deleted after I read the full thread ] [ September 24, 2003, 04:18 AM: Message edited by: Scarhead ]

In a non-ladder play I don't care what I face. I'm not playing to win, I'm playing to fare as good as possible. So the enemy size does not matter As my tank numbers above suggest, tanks increase less for the first two exp. levels. In a pure armor battle, it would be harder to play 2000 pts conscripts than 1500 regulars (if BFC knew what they did when doing the pricing). Now for a Infantry or CA game, if I have a crack force, I'd prefer to fight the regulars, as I fear my crack units run out of ammo before killing all conscripts. If I have greens or conscripts, I'd prefer to fight the conscripts. If I'm solely looking for a given number of kills for one of my units to increase experience of that unit (as BCR does) - it is easier to score kills on conscripts, so I'd tend to fight lower experience. Gruß Joachim

[Edited 'cause this post is much better] Ok, now I know what you mean. The question I was answering is: What is the point value of a given force if it has a +1 exp modifier. The answer to that is difficult. Consider the following prices (no rarity, conscript to elite) ) of a PzIIIj__________________85____92___100___116___133 ___150 214mm Rocket spotter___502___539___574___659___748 ___840 As you can see, there is no exact rate at which the prices are increasing. The tank goes up 50% from regular to elite. 574*150% = 861 <> 840! As a guestimate for the factors I'd say 8% from conscript to green, 8% from green to reguler 15% from regular to vet 14% from vet to crack and 13% from crack to elite. If you pay 1000 pts for an all regular force, you'd have to spend 1150 pts for the same as veteran. But a +1 exp bonus for a 1000 pts green force is worth a mere 80 points! The question you are asking is: Does a 10000 pts regular force with a +1 exp bonus (which is - according to my calcs a 1150 pts vet force) fight as if it is worth 11500 points or is there some additional effect. Consider a force of 100 regular PzIIIj tanks at a cost of 100pts each. With a +1 exp bonus, the same force would cost 11600 points (ignore the 10 pts rounding error...) if bought as vet without a bonus. Do those 100 veteran PzIIIj figth as well as a force of 116 regulars, which you would get with a 16% pts bonus (lets assume for simplicity a 16% bonus is in the game). Or do the rather fight like 125 regulars, IE a 25% points bonus. If they fight like 125 regulars, they should cost as much as 125 regulars! IE the price increase from reg to vet should be 25% instead of 16% With this example, you can see that your question (as I understand it) is the same as "is the price increase of a unit worth what you get for". My guess is that BFC carefully selected the price increases, so roughly it should be ok. ...and this discussion leads directly to the quality vs quantity thread. Albeit with a small twist: The question is not if you prefer to fight with quality or quantity, but if you prefer to have a quantity AI or a quality AI. And I say I'd need to know terrain, mission and my own quality and force type to answer that.. Gruß Joachim [ September 23, 2003, 12:03 PM: Message edited by: Scarhead ]

If the crew bails and the AFV is just abandoned, not destroyed, it may not show up on the kill list. It is rather common to see some kills go uncredited. Gruß Joachim

No. Gruß Hans Joachim (couldn't resist)

Hi Robert, IMHO all unit prices increase about the same percentage when going up from reg to vet - but rounding makes up for a huge error when calculating that factor. So you need to look up the price of a very expensive unit (KT? Huge arty? Turn rarity off to get rid off another potential error source) - the rounding error is smallest there. Notice the cost as conscript, green, reg, vet, crack and elite. Look at the percentage increase (or the factors green/conscript, reg/conscript, vet/reg etc.). If the factor is the same regardless of experience, you have got your rule of thumb - that factor gives away the percentage for going up one exp level. Gut says the factor is not the same for every exp level, but it does not differ very much - at least until veteran to crack. Even if it does differ very much, you could still get your rule of thumb but it has to include the "base" exp of the AI force. Hope tht helps (Don't have the game available right now...) Gruß Joachim

Thanks for volunteering! Exactly what I planned for! When will you be able to deliver the first 100 maps? Gruß Joachim

Well, guess Biltong is the one to get the thanks. I just continue from 6/42 onwards. Yes, there is a problem with the sheer randomness. You have to use a very sophisticated model to get a good prediction of reality. Simple models usually perform better than those that are complex, but not as complex as reality. And simple models are easier to grasp and to build. Thus it is a necessity to use them for things like BCR - even with Biltaid. This is not a problem for a player using Biltaid, but a problem for the designer creating the rules. An occasional flaw must be accepted. I strongly disagree with that. I've seen to many objectives given that can't be reached. S Some example from the firm where I work: To fulfill all the objectives given by my CO, my plt commander would need some people doing some 4000 hours work next year. Budget says there is only one person and no paid overtime. Other projects suffer similarly. Better known examples are the notorious "hold at all costs" orders from some idiot in Berlin. How many attacks faltered in RL? How often an order "Take that hill over there" was given. Somebody else got the command "Hold that hill". One objective would not be met. Somewhere I read a post on the standard attack patterns. For the US in WW2 it was to send in a maneuver btn with another btn in overwatch. If the first attack failed, the roles were changed. This does imply that the maneuver btn sometimes got an objective that it could not fulfill. I think it is an important part of BCR that you will not win every battle vs the AI. You have to learn to stop at the right moment, to evaluate if you can win or not. Your first objective is to keep your men alive to live to fight another day. The next objective is to win that battle. To quote King Pyrrhus "Another of those victories and I will have lost the war". The response is a bit lengthy cause this is a key problem within BCR. I guess many others have the same problem. It is important to discuss these problems, as feedback from the players is important for the future releases of BCR. Even if I say "this won't/can't be fixed" it does not mean I do not want it discussed. Feel fre to mail or post your points, I'll receive them both ways. Gruß Joachim

IIRC I already increased the range of the time limits in South 42 v1.3. "infantry only" does not increase the time limit, only force and map size matters. Maybe I'll have another look at that. OTOH you'll run out of ammo anyway, so a turn limit will help you secure your gains in other battles. Remember that it is not BCR's goal to roll battles you can win. BCR doesn't know the meaning of "fair". It is BCR's goal to give you some challenge, and try to keep them somewhat historic. Your assault run into heavy oppositon and will bog down. Tough luck, but that's life. There are other situations you can't win, like defending with 20% ammo against a 100% bonus. Your goal is to achieve the best result you can get. If this ain't a major victory, nobody complains. Even if you loose, you can earn favor. Try to minimize your losses, kill some mortars and guns, take some prisoners. It is very seldom that I plan for a major victory. I usually go for one flag - this is my breakthru. Currently I am probing against about 1500 Soviets on a huge open map with gentle slopes. Wet ground slows my tanks. Glad the Soviets are low on ammo (20%). My infantry can move into blocking positions and spot where my tanks cleared the way, but I can not attack the enemy-held village in the centre of its positions. All I do is take one flag, clear the area around it and my PzIVf's level the village with the aid of an 7,6cm pAK and a 15cm InfGun. It is turn 32 out of 42, most of my tanks are out of MG ammo and I guestimate at least 1200 Soviets are still alive. There is absolutely no chance for me to capture another flag without loosing half of my forces. Not in 100 turns. So be it. The map packs are a good add-on, but it is hard to put them into the rules or Biltaid. From the hip I'd say that the "deep" or "wide" ones should get some extra time. Many of them have a special turn limit, some don't. Trouble is it often depends on weather and force type how much turns are needed. Guestimating all parameters needed to make a map fair is a major task. A good scenario is playtested often - with fixed weather and fixed forces. If we had to playtest all maps for all parameters, we'd need lots of playtesters. We don't have them. If you'd like to write some comments on available maps (including forces involved, weather, your initial plan and a short AAR), I'll look at them and decide whether it is necessary to increase the turn limits for given maps. Yes, I plan to include map packs in the future. I am so desperate for good maps, I even intend on rating existing scenarios based on their maps (e.g. Action at xyz, (author name), huge, medium woods, gentle slopes, Axis attack or assualt, 45 turns).

If you look at those maps, you will find that theike did quite many of them. And the BCR folks would need much more maps.... @Franko: I'd like to include those maps in a BCR map pack. Credit will be given. If you need help with the naming scheme, I'll do that for you. The maps remain your property, we just get the permission to publish them. @All I'd like to include any map of you. Please contact me if you like @Theike For my holiday next week, I made a note to contact you re:maps. It would be great if you could do something like the Kiev map pack for BCR '42. Balancing is not a problem for BCR maps, the AI gets a bonus up to 160% anyway. Gruß Joachim [ September 04, 2003, 02:53 AM: Message edited by: Scarhead ]