ASL Veteran

When actually playing the game it doesn't feel 'off' to me and you can't really compare total theater casualties to game casualties. I know some people do that, but it isn't a valid comparison. There are a very few battles that are described accurately enough that you can get a sense of how many casualties would be appropriate for a CM sized battle, and in those few instances that a direct comparison can be made the game isn't actually off by a dramatic amount. Maybe the in game casualties might be a little bit higher but it isn't higher or off by a ridiculous amount in terms of total casualties. The thing to keep in mind is that everything in a CM battle is accelerated as compared to a real battle and that's simply a function of the game environment itself. A player will do in one hour what a real commander could accomplish in three or four hours. You can almost consider two hours of CM combat as being comparable to eight hours of real combat. Everything in the game moves more quickly because there is no command confusion. You want A company to attack? You instantaneously move them to attack. You want A company to stop attacking? You instantly have them stop advancing. Players don't even need to have a coherent attack plan at the beginning of a battle since every unit reacts instantly to the player's commands. A real commander doesn't have that luxury. Real soldiers also won't go places or do things that are excessively risky and yet the player can command his truppen to do whatever he wants them to do and they will obey orders. Some might want a situation where their soldiers don't follow their commands, but the howls of protest at truppen not doing what the player wants them to do would drown out those one or two voices in the wilderness who wants to play a game with soldiers that don't do what the player wants them to do. My suspicion is that none of this is really the reason why this complaint comes up. There may be one or two guys who complain about the casualties simply from a purist perspective because they don't seem historically 'accurate' to them. Like I mentioned though, in cases where a specific battle can be examined well enough to determine if the casualties are accurate the CM casualties come out a little bit higher but it isn't like crazy high. No, I find it hard to believe that someone plays a scenario through to completion, wins the battle, and then goes to the victory screen and says 'wow, this game stinks because the victory screen shows a casualty number that doesn't correspond with my understanding of historical accuracy.' Very few would operate from a level of purity and selflessness to register a complaint of that nature simply on historical grounds alone. No, my guess is that most of those who complain about in game casualties as compared to theater wide casualty statistics are doing so because of how they fare when playing the game.

Incidentally the threshold for the AI surrendering and for an automatic player surrender is the same. When your side takes enough of a beating the end screen will simply appear after you hit the go button and you get to see how badly you were mauled.

If players choose to ignore the VP consequences of what they attempt during a game then there is nothing the designer can do other than to force an adverse outcome through victory conditions. Granted, the setting of the victory conditions will not necessarily alter the player's behavior but the scenario end result can give the player a loss for not behaving in the way the designer wants the player to behave in. However, the problem with what you seem to be arguing now is that you are ignoring the fact that the majority of players do not have the stomach to fight for as long or as hard as the AI does. The AI doesn't care one bit how many pixeltruppen have been burnt, shot, or ripped apart by explosions or how many tanks have been destroyed. The AI will carry on regardless and contrary to your earlier assertions the AI will fight to the death. Most players have their own personal 'morale' and when that morale has been reached in a PBEM game the typical result is that you don't hear from that player again for three months or the turn around time on each turn gets slower and slower. So no, most players would not be inclined to 'fight to the death' precisely because most players don't enjoy getting punched in the face repeatedly with no positive result. In situations where the game is close and both players feel that they have a chance to win then the battle may continue regardless of casualties until one player or the other feels they no longer can win. However, that's because players playing a game still feel that they have a chance to win. Once a player feels that they can't win anymore then the player will cease fire or forfeit. After playing this game as long as I have I have only once encountered a player who wanted to force me to hunt down every last scattered enemy remnant rather than cease fire or forfeit. The only factor that matters in a calculation of whether one side or the other in a game of CM gets fought 'to the death' is how much punishment each player wants to take and whether or not both sides think they can win. If both sides still think they can win there will never be anything you can do to force the player to stop playing which seems like what you are on about now. Why would anyone think that forcing a player to stop playing when they still think they can win is a good idea? Can you imagine the howls of protest on how broken the game is? That is, unless you want to redefine what you mean by 'fight to the death' which is what I suspect you will do next.

Yes. You don't need to assign a setup command for the passengers when you create their AI plan though. Just begin by marking out the location of 'Order 1' from somewhere near the dismount location and go from there. As long as they are still mounted they will go wherever the vehicles go, but once they dismount they will move to the location of 'Order 1' wherever that location might be.

I'm sorry that you didn't understand the most important part of what I wrote Jason because that's really the most important part about victory conditions in CMx2. The most important part is that each side's victory conditions are unknown to the other. Each side's terrain objectives can be different and unknown to the other side. Each side's casualty objectives, both parameter and destroy, can be different and unknown to the other side. Therefore if the defending side doesn't know about the casualty victory condition for the attacking force, then the defending force doesn't know to pursue that as an objective. The only objective that the defending force has is to occupy the victory locations - that's the only objective that the defender knows in my example. The parameter victory condition for the attacking force is unknown to the defender. If the defender doesn't know to pursue an objective the player generally won't pursue it. Why? Because that player doesn't know it exists. Therefore the amount of casualties produced in this example will be dictated by how aggressive the attacker is in pressing his attack. You are also making some assumptions about the relative strengths and make up of the two forces. What if the defending force is a reinforced company in size and the attacking force is a battalion in size? 5% of 400 men might be a heavy lift if the defending force is only 50 men. What if the defending force has a high percentage of its forces as static equipment like bunkers, AA, and Field guns? It could be impractical for a defending force to actively pursue a casualty strategy against the attacker if the attacker doesn't press the attack both from mobility concerns and from a firepower concern. I'm not going to get into a huge circular argument with you about this though. If you choose not to understand or to cling to your misconceptions then that's your business after all. The game can achieve what a designer wants it to achieve for the most part. The only victory condition that is relatively difficult to work with is the exit condition because of its lack of flexibility. Other than that you can pretty much accomplish what you want to get accomplished.

The fact is that the current set of choices for a scenario designer with regards to victory conditions gives the designer the option to make casualties the primary means of determining victory or defeat. Anyone who thinks otherwise either doesn't understand the victory choice options available or hasn't fully thought out how to implement them. For example, let's say you have a battalion sized attacking force and you want to allocate them 1000 possible victory points. I can set a casualty parameter of say 5% and assign that parameter 800 out of the 1000 possible points. I can then set a terrain objective - say a bridge or something - and assign that bridge 200 points. Okay, so if side A captures the bridge with less than 5% casualties 1000 points are possible. If side A doesn't capture the bridge and takes less than 5% casualties then side A gains 800 points. If side A captures the bridge but takes more than 5% casualties then side A gets a maximum of 200 points. How about side B? Let's say I assign side B, the defender, 1000 total possible points and I give them four terrain occupy objectives valued at 250 points each with no other victory conditions and none of the terrain objectives are the same as for side A (or rather the bridge is not an objective for side B)? Side B must sit on the occupy objectives in order to gain points for them so even though side B could theoretically fight to the death without penalty there is no incentive to because they must occupy the four terrain objectives to win and they are defending. Side A could theoretically fight to the death in order to capture the bridge objective, but unless side A dislodges side B from side B's occupy objectives side A can't win. Here is the interesting part - I can make side B's objectives unknown to side A and side A's objectives unknown to side B so side A may not even know what is important for side B to occupy and thus side A may not even be aware that side B needs to be pushed off of those objectives. So you see, in order for side A to fight to the death and secure a victory, it is actually more important for side A to push side B off of side B's objectives when those objectives aren't even known to side A. I could even place one of side B's objectives such that side A could capture that location without taking heavy casualties which would then allow side A to gain 1000 points for the casualty parameter and the bridge while side B would gain 750 for the other three terrain objectives. Granted, it probably wouldn't be a very interesting scenario because of the heavy incentives for side A to play cautiously but it could be done. Having said all that I get what Jason is saying because if both sides have friendly casualty parameters to keep casualties low and both sides ignore those parameters then neither parameter is having the desired effect, but that only assumes a situation where the victory conditions are symmetrical or nearly symmetrical. The beauty of CMx2s victory conditions are that they can be as asymmetrical as the designer wants to make them. I can even award one side or another bonus points that have no objective or condition assigned to them if I want to.

Well your description is still not really matching the screen shot because you said ' I was kinda desperate so I decided to run around a house, away from the tank's front, to lob a few granades on it.' Yet the HQ unit you have highlighted appears to be very close to the front of the tank. What house did they run around? Is that a house just off the screen to the right? If they ran out of that house and that was the house that was in front of the tank then the unit that you have highlighted doesn't appear to have improved its position much by leaving that house and moving to the open there because they are almost in the same position as the house is. The tank appears to be within grenade range of the house that the HQ unit is sitting outside of. Just so I understand - you are saying that this HQ unit that we see in the screen shot sat there for a full minute and never spotted the tank sitting virtually adjacent to them on the pavement? Do you have a save game that someone can take a look at?

Something looks odd with your screen shots because it looks like you have the HQ unit highlighted (the bases are there) yet the highlighted unit appears to be located at the outer edge of the armored covered arc with there being no obvious unit in the shot that would be the center of the arc (unless there is a cowering guy at the back - I don't know what that is near the building?). I thought you said that the HQ unit had spotted the vehicle, yet in your screen shot with the HQ unit apparently highlighted you only show a spot icon so something isn't adding up between the screen shots and what you are explaining. Do you have anymore screen shots that can show the situation a little more clearly because it appears that the ones you are showing us are perhaps combined in some way?

You can't make any assumptions about the reason for results on the Blitz because there are many players with a varied skill set. Sometimes scenario results will skew one way for several games and then they will skew the other way for several games. The only way you can determine relative player skill is to click on the players recording the results and see what each player's overall record is. If you do that though there has to be an obvious difference such as the player playing as the Russian has thirty wins and zero losses or something and the player playing the Americans has zero wins and thirty losses. Some games are mirrored as well so you can get two players playing against each other in the same scenario simultaneously as opposite sides. In that instance if the same side wins in both games you can make an observation that the scenario may be unbalanced since the same side won in both instances regardless of the player, but by the same token if the same player wins as both sides then it could mean the skill level is the deciding factor. In any event, if the overall results grade out as largely even then you can assume that the game situations grade out as largely even. The larger the sample size the better of course.

Steve clarified my earlier remarks.

That would be true if the game or the player was smart enough to know when to shoot and when not to shoot. The problem before the max range was implemented was that the Tac AI would fire at the max range regardless as to how effective it was. Therefore, having a weapon that has no hard coded max range with a rapidly declining accuracy just means a lot of wasted ammo as the unit fires off all its ammo before the ideal time to use it comes up since the game only knows 'enemy there. I shoot there'. Then when the enemy is close your guns are all dry. So you see, it is a game problem not a reality problem. That's what the max range is supposed to ensure. A max range is in the game to ensure that the game only tells the unit to fire at an enemy when the enemy is at a range where firing at them can achieve an effect. However, having a rapidly declining effectiveness would serve to decrease calls for eliminating the hard coded max range because if the weapon wasn't effective at the hard coded max range then the player shouldn't see any value in eliminating it..

So you feel that even the 200m range hardcode is too generous and that the hardcode should be even shorter. I am actually in this camp, although I have to admit that I find the Soviet manuals indicating that SMGs can be effective against aircraft to be a very compelling counterargument (not).

Oooh Oooh Ooooh! I'm going to have to look into this. I can't get enough of that game and I've probably played through it about fifteen times or more.

Fortunately there is currently a command in the game called 'Target Armor' where you can set a covered arc so a unit will only engage armored vehicles.

My typical forested area will start out with solid light forest tiles in the area that the forest covers. Once that's done I'll fill it with a dominant tree type - typically either a pine or one of the two taller 'normal' trees depending upon what region the map is in (I think they are A and C). I will then place at least one and usually two or three other tree types all over the forested area such that the newly placed trees replace the dominant tree type. All tiles with a tree is a single tree. After that I'll place two and three bush per tile bushes using one or possibly two types of bush. These replace the underlying tree tiles of course. Following that I'll place heavy forest tiles and then at least two and sometimes three types of grass tiles replacing the earlier tile types. It is a bit of a random process as I'll simply click in various spots in the forested area until I get the right 'look' or density. I'll then go in and delete all trees that are located on a grass tile to lighten up the forest. Sometimes I'll delete all bushes on grass tiles too, although sometimes I'll leave bushes on grass. This gives the player a variable distance in which to spot the enemy because the terrain is so varied and it helps prevent SMGs from being overly dominant although the fights will still be close range. It just won't typically be point blank range. It also means that there is a lot of intervening 'stuff' between the firing unit and the target. It takes a long time to do a forest like this but I think it is a better result visually and also in terms of LOS. Cover and concealment seems adequate to me. Solid blocks of heavy or light forest tiles covered in double and triple trees always looks claustrophobic and much too dense relative to the photos I've seen of the forests in western Europe in the 1940s.

Well I never use double or triple trees in a tile. I always use single trees ... almost exclusively. I may put a double tree down in a relatively open area on occasion, but double trees increase the processor hit on computers too much and my maps are normally pretty big. Double trees also look odd to me when placed on the map because it really makes tiles look more dense than what a normal area with trees in it looks like. I don't know what others do so maybe double and triple tree tiles are common, but I never use them. With orchards I'll typically put a space tile between single trees so it is pretty sparse tree cover.

The short answer to your question is: No, there is no operational style battles in the way CMx1 did them available in CMx2 nor is there any plan to include them at any future date. BTW, how does one gain ten reputation points when you have only one post and that post hasn't been upvoted? Can you get reputation points that aren't associated with a post somehow? Curious.

Well barns, in particular, seem to be made out of cardboard and I'll never put a pixeltruppen in a barn if I can help it. Modular buildings generally protect better than other types of buildings.

I sincerely doubt it. I've made a lot of orchards in my time and they are almost always nearly worthless as cover where no forest tile is present. Different trees also affect LOS differently because it seems as though you can see for miles through Pine trees on light forest.

I believe that it is a combination of tree and forest tile that gives the most cover. I doubt if you get much, if any, cover benefit from a tree sitting in a grass tile. similarly a light forest tile without any tree on it doesn't give as much cover as one with a tree on it. I'm curious if a bush gives any cover benefit when combined with a forest tile. The type of tree does seem to make a difference too - the pine especially seems to give less cover than other tree types.

Maybe so, but the effect on cover could be as simple as 'if bullet intersects wall then bullet's path is stopped' and 'if bullet doesn't intersect wall then bullet passes over it and if a soldier's head happens to be above that particular section of the wall when the bullet passes over it then a casualty is created'. So how is someone going to put that into table format? You can't. At least not in the format of the chart above. The game just doesn't function that way.

Many Old School Wargamers like to play games mathematically. Back in the day it was always 'what are the odds for a successful attack' and then you roll the dice. A chart like the one above acts in a similar capacity because it boils the game down to mathematical probabilities so some gamers are more comfortable with that rather than to simply try to play the game tactically. The problem is that CMx2 doesn't function like that and so you can't really play it mathematically. Each soldier just fires at a target and so part of the equation is the experience level of the firing troops as well as how some weapons penetrate different types of cover. The game gives a 'casualty' result when a bullet intersects a pixeltruppen and you can't boil that down into a chart like the one above. The only way that I can see someone recreating a chart like the one above for CMx2 would be to set up some sort of a test scenario and then just have various units firing at troops who occupy a certain type of cover. It may be possible to come up with a sort of 'expected casualties per minute of play' for the various terrain types. With all the different infantry weapons and the different combinations in various squads as well as various distances to the target I suspect that it would be quite the undertaking though since there would be so many variables involved in what was doing the firing. You would also have to come up with a way for the target unit to refrain from firing back. As far as creating a simple chart like the one above though - that isn't possible in CMx2. At least not in the way that is being presented.

Round avatar pics fits my avatar perfectly.

Create the scenario any way you want to create it. The only 'norm' is the norm that you create. Analysis Paralysis? My recommendation would be to just make something the way you want to make it. There is no magic bullet of 'guaranteed scenario design success.' Sure, there are various things that can stack the deck in favor of making something people will like, but there is no guarantee no matter how skilled and experienced a designer may be.

It doesn't matter because the player doesn't know that the objective is shared. If the player doesn't know that the objective is shared then the player can't include that knowledge in his calculation for victory.