Wreck
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Posts posted by Wreck
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Tom_w:
If you read what I proposed carefully, you can see that the issue of cheating in the force selection is minimal. There is a way to find out exactly what forces the opponent was supposed to choose, although neither player will be able to do so until after the battle is reported. My solution still leaves the problem of a player buying units which he then uses and exits... but that is going to be pretty hard to gain serious advantage of, assuming there is a point limit on the buying and it is mostly filled with things that a player cannot credibly exit.
Regarding CAL or other rulesets, it would be almost trivial to extend what I proposed above to make them pick CAL-compliance forces. However, that does not seem like the most fun way to use the thing. To me the whole point of any random picking scheme is to bring into play a wide variety of units.
The problem with any human picking scheme is simple: that there will inevitably be bargains. They may be universal bargains, that is to say, price problems. An example of this is the use of VGs at TH. The price for what you get is unbeatable, so you should always take VGs if you can -- thus narrowing your effective choices if you are playing to win. Or take short-75. The M8 (for 58 points) can beat all the permitted German tanks, frontally, and costs 1/2 or 2/3 what they do. I predict the winning CAL players will be using fleets of these guys; I see little benefit in a Sherman over two M8s.
(A side note on M8s: somehow I have started to think of them as cockroaches, scuttling about blowing away my poor infantry... if you expose them to bright light, say, a hetzer, they scuttle back... and even if you do squash one, there are two more where it came from and killing them all seems endless.)
But let's assume that somehow, some way, we managed to come up with the perfect cost for every unit, in every situation. This still would not lead to a wide variety of units in battles, I suspect, since part of the utility of a unit is the player's ability to use it well. So you would find people that concentrate on one set of units, and rarely play anything else. They might see a lot of variety in half the units they see -- the other guys' -- but not their own.
Back to CAL, though. The entire reason for CAL (as I understand it anyway) was to make a more balanced playfield for CM games. If the computer picks algorithm is good, it should do this itself (at least over the long run) without needing any limits on possible units at all. You will, from time to time, play King Tigers. But mostly it will be Stg, PzIV and Shermans, which is how it should be.
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I usually buy few vehicles, or none. Sometimes a halftrack to move guns, or if playing with 57mm guns one of those nifty scout cars the Americans have. And the occasional wasp or three if I am British and feeling evil.
I don't like the German halftracks much, because they are vulnerable to .50 cal fire. And the amount you pay for what you get is not so wonderful.
Guns and armor are a much better bargains. Infantry is better, but not hugely so. But I can guarantee you that guns, armor, and infantry will more than eat up your point allotment.
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As for a proposed algorithm to replace that currently in use, try this one:
When buying units, if the unit Type is infantry and there is a larger unit (platoon < company < battalion) which is still affordable, buy the larger unit instead. We could also add in tank platoons for this, for larger battles.
[ 05-04-2001: Message edited by: Wreck ]
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Wow, I had practically the same idea the other day. Here was what I wrote up about it.
It is a given that the CM computer-picking algorithm can (and often does) produce bad results. Another problem with CM is the lack of a rarity concept. Combined with the practical difficulty of getting all unit costs exactly right, this leads to only a handful of unit types being favored for any human-bought forces.
It has occured to me that these problems can be addressed, right now. We don't have to wait for CM2. Here's how.
First, we create a database of units. Each unit would have a price, a rarity, and a type (inf/gun/vehicle/armor/artillery). To start we might use the prices from the game, but we are not required to do that. We can raise or lower prices in this DB as we see fit. (As it turns out it will be a good idea to only lower prices, I suspect.) Similarly we might initially use ASL-type rarity factors, but we can also adjust those. Changing the type might be a problem so we should just copy that from the game.
We then make a front end to this DB, which will be used by actual players. This front end basically does one thing: given a seed integer, a force-type for both sides and an input level of points, it generates two lists of units: a list of German units and a list of Allied units. These lists are generated deterministically with the input information. This algorithm would then be used to replace the computer-picks algorithm built into CM more or less.
There would be two ways of using the front end. One would be to check the units after a game is played. You put in the seed for the game and the points, and then you can see what units the opponent was supposed to have bought.
The second way to use the front end, is to generate the units for a game. The key thing here is that you do not want either player to know the seed (else he could find out what the opponent's units were). To handle this, both players would need to connect to the server and authenticate somehow. Both would be able to declare the intent to start a game, filling in fields for (a) which side (axis/allies) (
point level © proposed opponent. Once the server got matching information from two players, it would generate a (secret) seed and generate the lists of units, showing each player only the picks for his side. The players would then play their game, using Human picks for the quick battle but only selecting the units on their list. Only when one of the players declares a loss (or draw) to the server, would it hand out the seed for the game to both players.After each game, it would be possible automatically tweak unit prices based on which side won and which lost. Combined with a database like the TH database for ranking players, and a lot of games, it would be possible in theory to find out what units "really" are worth (on average) automatically. Of course this would only be true of the exact parameters used in the QB generation.
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I certainly understand and agree with the push for simple rules -- in fact the simpler the better, ceteris paribus.
The specific case here is the CAL rules limiting guns. Without question, removing the 3-gun-limit rule makes a simpler ruleset. It is also good from the POV of eliminating gamey behavior like mine two days ago. The downside is that the must-buy-transport rule may not be enough to prevent guns from being an unbeatable bargain, as they are in normal TH play. And so if we remove 3-gun-limit, we might still end up with wall of guns type games. Perhaps even worse, actually, since there will be somewhat less of the infantry and tanks due to all the halftracks. It is hard to know if this is the case or not.
I suppose the only thing to do is experiment with the various rules and see what seems to work. My gut feeling is that must-buy-transport will have about the right effect. The german 75mm inf may be the biggest bargain in CM right now. 33 points for it is one thing; 58 points for it and a mostly useless truck... that's a lot more in line with other units.
Another thing we have to keep in mind, is the relevance of guns for attack/defense, especially defense. I have the feeling the 3 gun limit is going to make defense even harder than it is, and doubly so once the last gun is wiped out.
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The transport class of guns and vehicles is shown on the buy screen in the QB generator; mouse over the unit in question. So it is not really that complex to match them up.
From memory, most transports (trucks and 'tracks) have class 8, meaning they can move everything except the monster AA guns. The jeepish things have class 4, meaning they can move inf guns and recoilless rifles.
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A week ago I posted criticisms of the proposed CAL rules. One which I had a bad feeling about at the time was the 3 gun limit.
I played a game two nights ago which showed a big problem with this rule. It was not CAL, since my opponent has not joined, but it used the CAL rules more or less. I was American versus his Heer. The short-75 rules were in effect.
He bought a standard force with two PzIVs for his tanks. I bought 5 M8s. The terrain was a long valley on my left, with a woods and reverse slope on his side. His infantry could hide there easily enough from most everything on my side. In the center was the villiage; both sides could see it pretty well from setup. The major objective was there, though somewhat to the left. On the right was a large hill with a minor objective. It was clear that this entire side of the map was of peripheral importance.
The game opened fairly slowly. Both sides rushed small forces into the villiage and had them spanked by the other side's HE. However, from the center hill I could observe his side of the valley, and used mortar and MG fire to take out his first gun. My 105 was firing obliquely and was rather hard to get LOS to, so he just backed out of the villiage and avoided it.
I ordered two M8s onto the hill on the right, where they helped drop a building or two, but then could not see much. I ran one M8 forward to the edge of the villiage. After a few more turns, I ordered the last two down into the valley, where they could see part of his main infantry line, where it was set up on the wooded crest of a small slope. His tanks had been hanging back, so I figured to push back infantry, hiding from his tanks behind a small hill on the extreme left.
His two remaining guns could see the M8 at the edge of the villiage, and one (IIRC) could also see the M8s moving down into the valley. I guess this tempted him enough. He opened up with both guns. Both missed a few shots, then the M8 at the villiage set on fire the woods one was in for an instant KO. The next turn my mortars fired at the third gun (though IIRC the M8 also took out it as well, on the first shot, before backing away).
Now I had 5 M8s to his two PzIVs. He knew where one gun of mine was. So he very cautiously worked forward to try to take on some of my infantry.
But I knew he had no guns left. I ran my two M8s from the hill on the right all the way around to his rear, where his guns had been. His tanks were encircled. They died. He gave up.
I would not have tried to pull that sort of maneuver, except that I knew there were no guns in his rear. That's gamey. (As it turned out, I could have killed his tanks from the front, since I won the first duel there before my encircling maneuver was complete; but that was by no means guaranteed.)
I would suggest that given the "must buy gun transports" rule, we do not need the gun-limits rule. And in fact that rule is at least sometimes gameable.
I also don't see the rationale for the rule forbidding jeeps or kubels as the transport. Big guns require more, little guns less. That's fine with me.
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Great job! Who's up for a game?
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I don't think that TH:CAL can be about banning specific single units for gamey tactics. That is a can of worms that 20 or more players cannot agree on.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
They may not agree ... yet. However, if people insist on keeping highly cost effective units around, I shall have to show them the error of their ways.
When I play Allies, I will insist on limits on my opponent. No VGs and no Sd7/2. When I play Germans, if I ask my opponent about limits on Germans and he rejects them, he is gonna find himself facing VGs and 37mm death, until everyone has a chance to feel violated and press for a rule change.
In that sense it is no different than current CM. I never see VGs in any of my games.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
It is an entirely different issue to limit all units like in the Fionn rules or to shape the forces so that all forces are more equal from start...
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Um... it is not entirely different. In fact I would say it is the same thing. In both cases we are monkeying with the units people are allowed to use, in order to get a fairer game.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
For the SdKfz 7/2 see the thread I recently started, it answers all the questions. And yes, you can kill it, just don't approach it like you would approach a tank.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
It is not whether or not you can kill it. It is about, is it a great bargain, highly effective for the price you pay for it?
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My experience with Americans (I rarely play British), is that they have one real asset: scads of HE. To use it, they generally need to win the tank battle and/or the gun battle. Winning the tank battle requires much more finesse with Americans than Germans. You get more tanks, but they cannot duel.
I normally buy a Jackson, a Priest, and as many M8s as there are points left. I never bother with Shermans. I prefer 2 M8s to one Sherman. Given that you cannot afford to expose yourself to just about any German gun anyway, you might as well be hiding eggshells rather than thick eggshells. I also tend to get one or two 76mm AT, and then 105 howitzers. In larger places get a truck to move these.
The Jackson generally gets assigned to some hill where it can potentially see a lot. It, and the 76mms, are your hammers. If a fully-identified enemy tank appears that they can defeat from the front, I will try it. Most of the time it is wiser to wait for a side view, to be created by maneuvering M8s.
Maneuvering, by its nature, is dangerous as anything. You will lose at least one M8 per enemy tank which you try to flank. So be prepared with mortar fire and/or artillery, or even direct HE, to remove enemy guns as they appear. If you have the points, a Jumbo can be very helpful in this role.
If you do win the tank battle, then you have a good chance to win. German infantry is still dangerous to tanks, so you have to show respect. And the enemy probably has more of it, as well (for an ME). But it is usually pretty easy to manuever your HE projectors so to eliminate the enemy. Infantry cannot take even 75mm HE for long, much less 105. And this goes triple in a villiage, with its cluster of deathtraps masquerading as buildings. Americans love villiages.
If you lose the tank battle though, you are almost certainly going to lose.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
I'm all for fair forces and all but christ, it seems like half the units in CM are "off the list" for CAL due to their gameyness. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Half? We are talking about:
Sd7/2 (1 unit)
Wasp (1 unit)
VGs (~3-4 units, don't recall exactly)
If you also throw in the short-75 rules, then yes it is a lot of units. However short-75 is optional in CAL. You can always play the Heavy Armor rules which are hardly limiting at all.
BTW the Sd7/2 is the unarmored flak truck with 37mm cannon. Not the Ostwind. It is gamey because it turns out to be impossible to shoot at soft vehicles, per se. Rather you shoot at their area. This gives them much better survivability than the equivalent armored 37mm flak halftracks, which cost more.
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Hey yo: it would be really helpful if the CAL rules were prominently linked off of the CAL page. People are going to want to refer to them.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
But no the little British wasp, was designed to be fast and nimble and to set things on fire. and it does that. This is not a gamey unit so much a comment on tactics which are suggested to be "gamey" or ahistorical. I'm not a Proffessional Grog that way some here are, BUT the tactic of set Everything and anything on fire with a few wasps has a "real " name I think and it goes somthing like "opportunity denial to the enemy"
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Unless I am quite mistaken, the real wasps did not have the capability to flood entire 20x20m squares with petrol, enough to make such areas permanently uninhabitable. The real units were to be used for reducing strongpoints -- inhabited ones. Indeed, given that there was no such thing as little flags stuck in the earth to tell the leaders what to fight over, the very idea that an area of 75m around a point could be as important as it is in CM, would almost never occur to a commander in WWII. If it had, and if they could guarantee that fires would burn indefinitely, they might well have set fires to try to prevent enemy access to those points. However, in the real world fires burn out, there are no time limits, and 75m circles are rarely of high importance.
Using flamethrowers for area denial is gamey. It is not a particularly strong nor egregious exploit, but that does not mean we have to accept it.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
I am confused about this because I did not think it was in the spirit of CAL to ban certian supposedly objectional TACTICS, but instead to ban cherry picking and the play of power gamers who optimized the unit selection phase to take advantage of the game where possible, the use of the Britsh wasp does not really do that.
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Cherry picking and tactics are interlocked. You need to know the tactic for the unit to be a cherry. With some units, it is fairly obvious how to use them to get advantage. I.e. our favorite German tank, the PzIV/70. Use: keep front armor pointed at enemy, fire gun at enemy. Other units are a bit harder to use optimally, like say VGs, but it is still pretty easy. Wasps are down at the low end of the cherry spectrum. I really doubt people would buy them much if they could not fire up areas.
That said, it is not, and should not be the place of CAL to ban tactics. The idea is to ban certain actions on the setup screens, then let the players do whatever they can in the game itself. That's why I think the wasp, SD7/2s, and VGs should simply be banned.
In any case, after the league gets some games played, I think it will become clearer whether or not various units (and the tactics to go with them) are gamey, overused, bad for the league, etc. And then we can adjust the rules.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
For those of you that question the 6x75mm infantry guns I used in the first game, let me say that I didn't know infantry guns were used by system players or "technicians". My understanding was that SMG squads and king tiger tanks were.
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For 33 points -- a bit more than the cost of a single squad -- you get a unit with great anti-infantry firepower anywhere it can see and some places it can't. It can kill light allied armor from the front and most allied armor from the side. What's not to like? Well, its one weakness -- brittle against enemy HE fire. So give it a good morale leader, and support it with a supertank or two, and you are golden. All assuming, of course, that you have a map where you can see important terrain from your setup zone, and where there is enough cover in your own setup so that your positions are not obvious.
The allies get the 75mm pack howitzer, with slightly better hollow charge rounds IIRC, but basically they pay 20% more for the same gun. And their non-airborne don't get it IIRC.
The "system" is:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Lots of (underpriced) guns
<LI>Lots of infantry with small squads and as many (underpriced) SMGs as possible
<LI>(Underpriced) Tanks with great armor and antitank capability, mainly PzIV/70.
It is usually helpful to have few on-board mortars to deal with the occasional hard-to-get-at enemy gun, as well.
BTW "technician" is a term of pride for those that play the game as a game. It is only a indictment when leveled by one grog at another.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
Maybe we need a list to define what a "system" or "technician" player uses?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Well, in the next few days you will probably see them finalize the new Combined Arms League rules at TH. These rules are a sort of photographic negative of what you are asking for. Technicians admire technical ability, but after a while we get tired of optimizing the same old things.
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BTW, these screenshots from the first game (and the unit choices in the AAT posted by Catnip earlier) are a great example of "the system" at work, for those that are still wondering what it is. The less cover on the map, the better guns are.
Hey Cat, I checked TH. You exist there but it says you have not played any games. Where'd you learned to play? Nice win BTW.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
I fail to see why people keep insisting on using rules to supposedly level the odds.
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Why? Because we want fair battles. I realize you are arguing for a higher level of fairness, but you are talking about hours of time invested per game. That alone makes computer picking questionable. Do you really want to play out a forgone conclusion for the next two hours while your opponent probes to discover that you have no infantry?
Talking about using the computer picked forces: I don't know if you have much experience with it, but at least at the lower point levels (800, 1000 pts), I have enough to know that you rarely get a balanced force. I have had forces crippled in many ways. In one I got a fleet of halftracks armed with mortars and 20mm flak. In one I got pioneers. In all my games but one, one side or the other got only a single platoon of infantry. Yesterday I got almost no armor, but my opponent got two FOs -- for an 800 point force -- plus additional mortars on map.
As it happens, I have won all of my computer picked battles. And yes, it *was* a challenge to win the time I got a single platoon of pioneers. And I enjoyed it; it was a challenge to think of ways to bait my opponent into various mistakes, then rush the flags for a minor. But that's what it was -- mistakes, plus the fact that he did not really set up for a rush. In other words I was not really playing a straight-up tactical game, but probing and exploiting ignorance on his part, and gaming the endgame.
Other games, like the win yesterday, were not worth playing. As soon as the forces were chosen it was mine to win, and I did not make any serious mistakes. Whoo. Yes it is fair in the sense that our pre-generation chance to get the superior force was about the same. But it was not fair post-generation, and there was 2 hours of that before the inevitable. Something about that strikes me as wrong. Perhaps I could have just said, upon seeing the map and forces: I win, you lose, report the loss and let's roll again eh?
Give me a decent computer picking algorithm (which would not be hard to do), and I would be much happier with the idea of a computer-picks ladder. Right now, though, the thing is too broken to be that interesting.
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Olle you are being silly. Gamey means exploiting loopholes in the game system. Global knowledge is such a loophole.
In real life, the reason that recon was not done by trivial, unsupported forces was not that they would most likely be killed -- though that was probably a factor. It was that if the recon simply disappeared, you gained next to zero information about what lies ahead.
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Something I would like to see in the new ladder if it happens, is adding to the reporting who had which side/force. This would allow the collection of a convincing set of data regarding axis/allied balance.
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Here are my comments. Mostly changes to the defaults which I would like to see.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
If you are interested in this please vote here ... (only seems to work in IE)
We can handle complexity. This ain't Florida.
Weather settings are up to the player?s decision/agreement. Random Weather is the suggested setting.
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Or just use the idea I posted last time this came up, to wit:
Start the game TCP. If the opponent takes too long (more than a minute, maybe) to get back with the IP address, then refuse to play him.
The only big downside of this (from the POV of email players) is that your involvement with CM is controlled, a mere dalliance -- if wargaming was a drug, marijuana. Whereas TCP is the bomb, hardcore crack cocaine wargaming. Exposing yourself to it for even a turn is dangerous... you might play a turn or two... or three... or four...
Come here little boy. Everybody's trying "TCP". First one is free.
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Joe, come to TH and take on the top ranked players. If losing is what you crave, seek and ye shall find.
When I defeated you, I would not say it was all luck, but I certainly got some breaks. (Remember my jackson nailing your panther from the front? Mwahahaha!) That was my second game vs a human; I knew little of how the game worked. Now I know I lot more. I will beat you again, at least if I play Germans.
The top guys at TH still give me big problems. On any given game with them, if they get just a little luck they will probably win. There is no way you are gonna rack up a 50-3 record there unless you only play newbies.
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I like the proposed CM2 move commands as well. However, I still think that a pinning effect that is exposure-based rather than morale based is a good idea. For one thing, it is general: a unit should go to ground when fired on in the open with sufficient firepower no matter what the source, be it artillery, MG fire, or even a sufficient bulk of riflemen. The principle is the same: it is too dangerous right now to be vertical.
Another thing I like about the idea is that it will tend to break up lines of advancing infantry. This is something neither the current run command nor the proposed assault will do, generally, unless fire is heavy enough to almost completely break up the attack. With the current system a line of infantry tends to arrive as a line, giving them more coordination than they probably deserve.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
Once again, the problem is that squads walk through MG fire in the open. Not that the MGs
don't get to fire at them because they can't spread their fp over tons of targets - because the present firepower can't hurt one target let alone three. And not that they can't lay down fire patterns - because the squads would just walk right through those fire patterns, the same as they walk right through the direct fire now.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Substitute "run" for walk in the above, and I agree.
Jason, I took the time understand your thoughts in this thread, and generally I agree with your understanding of the problem. However, I do not agree 100% with your solution. Let me clarify the non-very-well-written criticism I threw out in my last post.
You are proposing two means to raise the firepower of MGs against running troops in the open. One is to raise the %exposed; I agree with this. The other is the somewhat complex notion of raising firepower for "acquired" targets. I have no real problem with this, but it seems rather unnecessary to me, since by and large it mirrors the effect of the first change.
These ideas are good, in the sense that they move towards higher "stopping" power for MGs against highly exposed troops running about.
What I don't think is good about these changes, is that the stopping power of the MG will then turn upon three sources:
(1) everyone dies: the firepower may be high enough to simply kill the squad. This is probably realistic in the sense that it sometimes happened historically. But it is not so in the sense that men, even if fanatics, will probably take cover rather than die pointlessly. After the first burst kills three of them, they should be on the ground, not still running forth.
(2) morale effects: after being shot up enough, the infantry will be "pinned" or whatnot and slow down. This is one fine and desirable. But unfortunately it will be somewhat avoidable by:
(3) micromanagement: the player can simply plot his run across open spaces with many waypoints, interspercing "run" commands for 20m or so with "crawl" commands, or even "walk" if it suffices to bring %exposed down sufficiently to negate the acquisition bonus.
None of these three things reflect what in my reading of history was the real reason men slowed down for MGs. They did not do it because they were all dead. Only sometimes was it because they lose the will to fight. And it certainly was not from detailed orders.
The reason was, that they knew that they would be killed if they kept on running about, and so they hit the earth -- took cover. This was perhaps sometimes in direct contravention of orders, but it was not necessarily a lack of will to fight, just to die. And in fact most of the time I regard taking cover under fire as the thing I want my troops to do.
The reasoning above is why I proposed that a possible effect of enough firepower on troops with high exposure, should be that they slow down. The position of their waypoints is not affected, but the type of movement is automatically downgraded to crawl (perhaps to walk, then crawl). Then the next turn the player can boost the rate if he wants. I realize that is MM of a sort itself; ideally the squad should "remember" that it wants to be running over there, and in time get up itself and go fast. But I don't think the system as it is would support that, whereas I know it will handle just changing a waypoint type.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software:
I think you are just woefully underestimating how difficult it is for a CPU to crunch these sorts of numbers.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Actually I was trying to point out, that contrary to what some were saying, doing a check for angular distance is not as bad as it seems. No trig function is needed. The operations needed turned out to be: 11 floating point multiplies, one floating point divide, six floating point adds, and one if-statement to deal with the case of negative dot-product. A total of less than twenty operations all implemented in hardware on any pentium-I class system or better; you should be able to do millions of angle checks per second.
As for the LOS check, I accepted your assertion that during a turn, LOS checks collectively are heavy. It seems like they should be to me, and in any case I have no way to check this. But for my proposed form of grazing, the angle check cuts off most LOS checks. The number will be further cut down by something I suspect is already in there, namely, cached LOS information for non-moving units. So the number of full LOS checks my solution would be adding is going to be small in the average case. Most likely not even one per MG, but it might go up to several per MG per burst, if they are all moving together across the MG's firelane.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
Because you are not a programmer (and neither am I, just an experienced developer) you are just going to have to trust me that there is absolutely no easy/slick way around the problem.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Actually, I am a programmer. I am trying to give you a slick way around much of the problem.
Whether or not it really is a slick solution depends on the costliness of a single LOS check. If there are already hundreds or thousands of these per turn resolution (which is what I guess is true), then adding another 2 every MG burst is going to be pretty small. If there are only say tens of LOS checks per turn (eating 20% of the time), then adding a few more is going to be much more costly.
point level © proposed opponent. Once the server got matching information from two players, it would generate a (secret) seed and generate the lists of units, showing each player only the picks for his side. The players would then play their game, using Human picks for the quick battle but only selecting the units on their list. Only when one of the players declares a loss (or draw) to the server, would it hand out the seed for the game to both players.
Platoon deployment
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
Reserves are a good idea. But it is worth noting that in CM you have a lot more flexibility about putting reserve platoons much more forward than they "should" be. ("Should" here meaning, how they should have been used in reality.)
In WWII, putting a reserve unit in the front would be asking for it to be pinned down and unable to move when you need it. In CM, infantry cannot really be pinned for more than a short while (though they can be broken and have that last for a long time). So in CM you can afford to put a lot more up front. The platoons that contact the enemy are fine. The ones that don't are your reserve.
Naturally, you should still keep an eye on terrain, crowding etc. If a reserve unit can only advance into poor cover, or it can advance but cannot move laterally from there, then don't move it up.