Kingfish

Guys, I have an AAR for "the Beast" that has no name attached to it, and due to it being in Word perfect I cannot open it to see who the author is. Here is the list of players whom I have received AARs from: Spanish Bombs Nolloff Frunze Heavy Drop Texas Toast Shock Trooper Sgt Kelly Holien Lt Bull Cpl Carrot If you have sent me an AAR in Wordperfect, and do not see your name on the list, please resend it in either MS Word, Notepad or PDF format.

A few off the top of my head: Global morale unit's experience unit's state level of fanaticism in command amount and direction of incoming fire route of retreat blocked

Rugged Defense CMBB tourney

All crew served weapons will benefit from an HQ's comabt bonus as long as they are in command. Not only does their accuracy improve but so does their rate of fire.

ROW IV!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! You have got to be kidding me!!!!

John, I received your message on 3/18 and sent a reply last night.

Guys, I need to know who is trying to enter the private BBS under the nickname "O2pilot". Please e-mail me and let me know who you are. Thanks, Sergio

Yes they can. In fact, it is easier for an Engineer unit to remove a DC mine then a regular minefield, since they don't require a satchel charge to clear the tile.

Not posted yet, but will be soon. I will keep everything in the general discussion area.

Gents, For those who are interested the new BBS is up and running. This will allow you a private place to tear the designers a new...uh, share your thoughts and suggestions on the scenarios, as well as the tourney in general. In addition, I will post the latest game scores to show everyone how bad you suck! Here's how it works: In order to access the BBS you first need to register with ezboard. This is a free and very simple step, but one that is necessary. After signing up you need to find the ROW III BBS using the search function (try keyword: Rumblings of War BBS). It will then ask you if you want to join this BBS. Click yes, and a message will be sent advising me of this. If you have finished all of your games I will then accept and you are in. This extra step is necessary to ensure we maintain FOW in the two tourneys. Please check with the latest game results post to verify that I have all of your games recorded. Important note: When you register with ezboard please try and use the same handle that you use in the tourney. If it's not possible (it wasn't for me) then send me an e-mail telling me which nick you have chosen. Thats it for now. Please stop by and tell us what you thought of the scenario, tourney in general, and basically praise the tourney manager for all his hard work and dedication

Time to lock this one up guys. The new thread is here

One more thing... I am currently working on setting up a private BBS for the ROW tourneys. It will be restricted to only those players who have finished all of their games (and the Boots and Tracks team), and will feature individual discussion threads for each scenario, an idea exchange thread as well as the latest scores. I'll let you know when it is ready Sergio

And finally the lastest AARs received... King of Debrecen Spanish Bombs Nolloff Seahawk Cpl Carrot Vadr Shock Trooper Heavy Drop The Beast Nolloff Shock Trooper Sgt Kelly Holien Lt Bull Cpl Carrot Frunze Heavy Drop Texas Toast Hosszupalyi Nolloff Spanish Bombs Vadr Holien The Christmas Battle Shock Trooper Texas Toast Rearguard action Nolloff Shock Trooper Vadr Holien Lt Bull Frunze Texas Toast Regarding AARs, please keep in mind that I can only accept them if they are in either MS Word, Notepad or PDF format.

To be followed by the latest game results... King of Debrecen SlicerW - Mr Byte Nolloff - Seahawk SGT CDAT - Wellsonian Jaws - Joakim_Ruud Heavy Drop - Mick_OZ Scheer - Wadepm Flammenwerfer - Sripe Juha Ahoniemi - Enoch a1 steaks - Michael Boyd Nidan1 - JPS Bimmer - Spanish Bombs Anthony Hudson - Major Victory Endit - Mr Spkr tabpub - Combined arms James Crowley - Sgt Gold mPisi - Fate jjelinek - Ted Mark Gallear - Shock Trooper Jon_L - Frunze Frenchy - Joe_Cz MikeyDz - Matt Green Bryce Baker – Texas Toast The Beast Mr Byte - Stoneage Wellsonian - Nolloff Holien - Bertram Juha Ahoniemi - Combined Arms Jon_L - Jeb Enoch - Bimmer Sripe - Jaws Wapepm - Nidan1 U8led - Texas Toast Michael Dorosh - Cpl Carrot Scheer - Sgt Gold Shock Trooper - Flammenwerfer Mick_OZ - Pixelmaster John Stycharz - Lt Bull Frenchy - Deadly 88 JPS - James Crowley Seahawk - Cyrano Spanish Bombs - Tabpub Lord Dragon - endit Heavy drop – Fate A1steaks – Matt Green MrSpkr – MikeyDz Dirty Mark – Joakim_Ruud Hosszupalyi Michael Dorosh - Holien Combined arms - Enoch Matt Green - Lord Dragon Flammenwerfer - Jaws Vadr - Cpt T SGT CDAT - Seahawk Dirty Mark - Sripe Stone age - Lt Bull a1 steaks - Mr Spkr Nolloff - Cyrano Nidan1 - James Crowely Fate - Mick_OZ Sgt Gold - Wadepm Scheer - JPS Juha Ahoniemi - Spanish Bombs Legend42 - Mr Byte Ratman - Cuzn Joakim_Ruud - Shock Trooper Jeb Callan - Frunze Frenchy - Superslug Bimmer - tabpub Cpl Carrot - Kanonier Reichmann Ron A - Wellsonian Heavy drop - The Capt endit - MikeyDz Deadly 88 - Joe_Cz Ted – Gunnersmann Frontovik – Texas Toast The Christmas Battle Joakim_Ruud - Flammenwerfer James Crowley - Scheer Seahawk - Wellsonian Major Victory - Mr Byte Cyrano - SGT CDAT Combined arms - Bimmer Mr Spkr - Lord Dragon Texas Toast - Cpt T Seahawk - Wellsonian Matt Green - Endit Jukka_Pekka - Wadepm Sgt Gold - Nidan1 tabpub - Juha Ahoniemi sripe - Shock Trooper Jaws - Dirty Mark mPisi - Heavy Drop Spanish Bombs – Enoch Ryddle - Frenchy Rearguard action Nolloff - SGT CDAT Flammenwerfer - Dirty Mark Texas Toast - Vadr Nidan1 - Scheer Lt Bull - Mr Byte Bimmer - Juha Ahoniemi tabpub - Enoch Mr Spkr - Matt Green Spanish bombs - Combined arms Jaws - Shock Trooper Holien - Cpl carrot JPS - Sgt Gold Thumpre – Ted Tero – Jon_L MikeyDz – Lord Dragon The Capt - Fate

Time to start a new one. As with all other ROW threads this one begins with Treeburst's tourney manual... THE TOURNAMENT MANUAL Once I have 72 players signed up, I will divide them in a random manner (out of a hat) into three separate tourneys of 24 players each. I will then divide each tourney into 4 sections of 6 players each. This will also be done in a random manner. Your section is where the "regular season" action is. You will play one game against each of the people in your section. You will also play each scenario one time. This means you will play five games in the "regular season". The sides you play, and your attack/defend duties could very well come out lopsided. You may play the Germans four times, or you may find yourself defending four times. The only guarantee regarding your matches is that you will play each scenario once, and each member of your section once. The scenarios will be provided by the "Boots & Tracks" design team headed up by Scott Boston. They will be historical/semi-historical scenarios for the most part, and never before seen by the community. The scenarios may or may not be balanced. Don't count on a fair fight! The scoring system will determine balance. It is possible to "lose" the battle, and still win if you perform better than the standard deviation from the median established for that side of the scenario. I will explain how this works later. You do not need to understand the nitty-gritty of the scoring system. You need only be aware of the following: 1) Points for contested VL's will be split down the middle. This means final game scores will always total to 100. There is a very good reason for this I'll not get into now. If you think "gamey" you can probably figure it out. 2) Voluntary surrender is ALWAYS bad. Your opponent gets too many points for all the people he captures. You should always withdraw your people from a hopeless situation. This way you deprive your opponent of capture points. The game will auto-surrender you once your global morale drops to a certain point. Every unit that you successfully withdraw off the map will lower this global morale. Try to have all your people step off the map together once you are near the auto-surrender point. This prevents capture of units who would have made it off, but didn't, due to the auto-surrender. If you score very poorly in relation to the standard deviation from the median for a scenario you will suffer a penalty (your score will be made even worse). This is to discourage surrender and careless play just to get the game over with. If your score is that low compared to others', we assume you surrendered or got purposely stupid. WITHDRAW YOUR TROOPS IF POSSIBLE when faced with a bad situation!! I'm telling you all this because it is quite possible you will find yourself in a very bad situation due to deliberate scenario imbalance. Do not give up!! Withdraw!! The median score for your side of that scenario may only be 20 points. IOW you can "lose" and still win if you get your people to safety so they can fight again another day. 3) Your goal with each scenario is not so much to beat your opponent (could be impossible), but to get the highest score of the 36 people (three tourneys) who play that side of the particular scenario. Again, winning the game (in CM terms) may be virtually impossible due to imbalance. You never know what hand you may be dealt. LAUNCHING THE TOURNEY Each player will receive the schedule for his section only. Where your name is on the LEFT you will play the Allied side for that scenario. Along with the schedule of games you will receive a contact list with all the email addresses of your five opponents. When you receive these, the tourney is officially underway. After this, over the course of the next several days, you will receive an email for each of the five scenarios. For games where you are the Allies you will find two briefing files attached, a general briefing and your Allied briefing. This email will also contain your password for that scenario. Your German opponent will start the game. To open the first file from him you will need to use the password I provide you. This will put you in the Allied setup phase. If you are playing the German side you will also receive a secured saved game file in addition to the two briefings and password. By 'secured' I mean that the briefings have been stripped out, the game begun, and the passwords entered. This is the file you will use to start the PBEM game. It will be a .cme file, not a .txt file. Start the game just as you would any other new PBEM game. The only difference is that you will have to enter the password I provide you. You will find yourself in the Axis setup phase. DEADLINES AND GAME RESULTS REPORTING You will have 100 days to complete your games, starting on the day I send out the last file. This deadline will be strictly enforced! The LOSER reports game results. If you end up being on the weak side of a few unbalanced scenarios you will find yourself having to report most of your games. This is, as they say, tough luck. Game Report email needs to have the subject, "Game Report". The body of the email must contain the following information: Tourney Number (1-3), Scenario Title, Your username on this forum, the side you played, your score, your opponent's username and his score. The body of the email should then look like this if you are Fred: Tourney 1, The Ambush, Fred (Axis) 37, Joe 43 Reporting games in this manner will save me a great deal of time. With 72 people I NEED to have games reported this way. Do not send me final game files. Keep these in a safe place in case of disputes. FOG OF WAR No discussion of scenarios is allowed on the forum until ALL players in all three tourneys have completed a scenario. I will let you know when it is alright to talk about a scenario. It won't happen until near the end of the tourney. No game results are to be revealed on the forum. You won't know who beat who until all is revealed at the end. Think before you post, and remember, no game scores, no blow by blow descriptions of the last movie, no general discussion about the scenarios, etc.. THE NABLA SCORING SYSTEM Your game scores will be recorded on an input file for the Nabla Scoring Program, created by Jarmo Hurri (Nabla). The Nabla program will crunch the scores and spit out your Nabla Score, also called your "Tourney Score", for each scenario. Below is what the program does: 1) It first looks for scores that do not add up to 100 due to contested/unoccupied VLs, and splits the difference between the players equally. For example, a final score of 70-20 would be converted to 75-25. Scores will always add up to 100 after this adjustment. There is a VERY good reason for doing this involving agreements between players designed to maximize their scores. Perhaps you can figure it out? 2) The median score for each side of all the scenarios is determined. 3) The difference between a player's score and the median score for the side he played will be determined for all scenarios. 4) The standard deviations from the median scores are determined for all scenarios. This value will always be the same for both sides of a given scenario due to #1 above. 5) The difference from the median will then be divided by the standard deviation resulting in the "normalized difference from the median". 6) The normalized difference from the median is then assigned a Nabla score for the scenario. This is done with a formula created by Nabla that is at work inside the scoring program. 7) The average of all a player's Nabla scores (one for each scenario) is then determined, resulting in the player's final tourney score. The high score in each section is the winner of the section. Nabla is currently working on an excellent manual for his scoring system (in pdf format) that gets into the principles behind the system and the math involved. It will also contain a section for tourney managers explaining how to organize and run competitions with the system. The work is about 80% complete at this time. AARs Bonus points will be added to your final Tourney Score if you submit AARs. Each full credit AAR will be worth 4% of the highest player's tourney score (before adding his AARs). If you write five full credit AARs you will receive additional tourney points equal to 20% of the highest player's tourney score. AARs will receive either full credit or half credit. You must write more than just a few short paragraphs for full credit. I will let you know if an AAR is too short soon after you send it to me. You don't have to write a book either. Just give us a fairly good description of how the game played out. You could choose to write a piece on a scenario that is more of a scenario review than an AAR if you want. The main thing we're looking for is constructive feedback. You are not required to write AARs. You just get a few extra points if you do. This could put you ahead if you're in a tight race in your section. The primary purpose of the AARs is to provide the scenario designers with feedback on their work. If you've ever designed a scenario for the community, you know how rare it is to get this feedback. Writing AARs is one way to express your thanks to the designers. Even negative feedback is welcome as long as it's constructive and not mean spirited. Another thing AARs do is help people learn to improve their tactics. Every scenario is played 36 times in a tourney such as this. There are 36 other people who had to deal with the same tactical situations you did. It can be very instructive to learn how others handled things, especially if you did worse than most. (BTW, all the AARs will be sent to you upon request once you have completed your games.) Lastly, by writing an AAR (or review) you are doing the community a small favor. This is because the designer can tweak the scenario based on feedback before releasing it to the community. Having a scenario played 36 times by 72 different people is a great test of a scenario. I think it's safe to say that very few, if any, scenarios get that degree of testing before they are put out to the public. Those of us who enjoy these tournaments need new scenarios (security). In return for these scenarios the designers should get the feedback they like. IMPORTANT! Submitting AARs 1)AARs should never be sent in with game results. Send them in a separate email. 2)AARs can be .txt, .doc, or .pdf files. Do not write them in the body of an email. 3)AARs should not be more than 4 MB UNcompressed. Screenshots can cause you to go over this limit easily. I would recommend the .pdf format if you want to include several screenshots. 4)In the subject line of emails containing attached AARs, write your username and the scenario name. For example: Madmatt, The Ambush THE PLAYOFFS Everybody makes it to the playoffs if they want! However, only the four section winners from each tourney of 24 will be eligible for the prizes. The section winners of each tourney will do battle among themselves in a 3 game round robin using new Boots & Tracks scenarios. This means that, in the end, there will be one winner for each of the 24-player tourneys. All non-section winners who want to play the Finals scenarios will be separated into groups of 4 for the same 3 game round robin. The sections will be determined at random. These non-prize eligible sections are still important to the tourney. Their scores will be used to give us an accurate median with which to score the prize eligible players. Players in these sections can consider the Finals to be a mini-tourney. Their scores will be crunched and the section winners announced. Bonus points will be awarded to the prize eligible finalists for AARs as described above. THE PRIZES Charl Theron (WineCape), of South Africa, will send each of the three tourney champs six different bottles of fine South African wine, shipping paid by him. NOTE: Since the 9/11 nightmare, laws concerning the importing of wine have been tightened, especially in the US. For example, in Arkansas, you cannot receive wine from abroad unless you are an official importer. So far, only one prize has been undeliverable. That involved a shipment to Brazil that occurred BEFORE 9/11. Still, it is quite possible that your state (or country) will not let you receive the wines. If this is the case, your prize can be shipped to a friend or relative somewhere else where the laws are not so strict. WineCape is familiar with the import laws and can help you find a place if there is a problem. That is the best we can do. DROPOUTS, WITHDRAWALS,and MIAs Incomplete games are the one thing the Nabla Scoring System does not tolerate well. However, considering the new improvements to the scoring system (Standard Deviation), and the sheer size of the tourney, this problem is alleviated some with regard to the tourney as a whole. Below is how MIAs and withdrawals will be handled: For the first 30 days of the tournament, replacements will be recruited who will take over the games in progress, just as we've done in the past. After 30 days, no replacements. This will result in unfinished games at the end. These games will be scored by me, based on correspondence with the players involved, and possibly game files. If you have an incomplete game at the tourney deadline for ANY reason, you can count on one of three outcomes: 1) You win at the level of the standard deviation from the median 2) You are assigned the median score 3) You lose at the level of the standard deviation from the median If your opponent withdraws from the tourney, or is determined to be the cause of the game not getting finished on time, you get #1 above for that game. If I cannot determine who caused a game to go unfinished (both players?), the game will be scored at the median (#2). If you withdraw, or have caused a game to go unfinished (slow turnaround) you will get #3 above. If #2 or #3 is applied to even ONE of your games for ANY reason, you are ineligible to win your section! If you're getting a slow turn rate from an opponent, you need to keep me informed (weekly notes on progress). This way, if the game goes unfinished, I have a history to go by which will likely keep me from assigning the #2 outcome above in questionable situations. I will also email you at the end requesting "your side of the story". The 100 day deadline for game completion will be strictly enforced!! This is because the tourney is big enough that I can get accurate medians even if 1/3 of the games go incomplete. Do your section a favor. Finish your games. If you are losing badly, keep in mind that your opponent is winning and probably enjoying himself immensely. Let him have his fun, and do your best anyway. Dropping out of sight when you are losing is desertion under fire!

Word has it that some of the lend-lease jeeps were equipped with Chobham radiators.

I know the early Mark IVs have it. Perhaps the early StuGs as well.

I second that.

Sometimes opening up from a distance has it's advantages, in that it will disrupt and delay your opponent's advance and force him to deploy prematurely.

I'd like to retain some measure of control over my prisoners, so as to at least plot a safe exit route. If left to AI control they will make a beeline for the mapedge, regardless of who or what is in the way.

Has anyone tested this to see if the prisoner cancels a fire mission already in progress (either in countdown or actually firing)?

"...it's a small world after all...it's a small world after all...it's a small...small...world..."

Ubershreck POTD from one of Fionn's game against the AI back in the days of CMBO. Obviously the shreck didn't bag all of them, but IIRC he did account for a good share of whats in the pic.

Guys, I need two or more testers to play a CMBO scenario that will be featured in an upcoming release from Boots and Tracks. 40 turn / 2000+ points per side / ME / August '44. I need this tested via pbem or TCP, and more importantly I need alot of feedback. I will go into greater detail when you contact me. Thank you

I just went back and checked Treeburst's rules re: AARs and didn't see anything pertaining to deadlines. Therefore, I will impose my own and make it one week after the tourney deadline. This means you will have until May 18th to turn in your AARs. Speaking of which, here are the the AARs that I've received so far: King of Debrecen Spanish Bombs Nolloff Seahawk Cpl Carrot Vadr Shock Trooper The Beast Nolloff Shock Trooper Sgt Kelly Holien Lt Bull Cpl Carrot Hosszupalyi Nolloff Spanish Bombs Vadr Holien The Christmas Battle Shock Trooper Rearguard action Nolloff Shock Trooper Vadr Holien Lt Bull If you don't see your name up here, and have sent in an AAR, you'll need to resend it again. Make sure it is in either Word, Notepad or PDF format. Edit: Regarding AARs in one / seperate documents, I would much rather have them in a seperate doc, as it makes things a lot easier for me. [ March 11, 2003, 07:13 AM: Message edited by: Kingfish ]