Larsen

OK, let's look at Shermans (any Sherman) versus the Stug:
both can penetrate each others' front armor in a direct confrontation at long range the StuG's gun will score quicker, however at those same ranges the StuG shell starts bouncing off the Sherman's hull the HE from the Sherman is substantially more powerful, useful for anti-infantry work the StuG only has a single MG crippled by low ammo. Sherman has two regular MGs with lots of ammo, and a .50 cal on top Sherman has a 5-person crew versus the StuG 4 obviously the turret is a difference. The Sherman doesn't only have a turret, it has a fast turning one the Sherman has self-defense smoke launchers, the StuG does not And that applies to all US Shermans, starting from the 190 points costing one. And the StuG is 299 points. How can that look right to anyone?

Cheers, this is actually a good time to get bumped.
I have been working on the spotting problem, but I got a bit too ambitious and it is going to take some time before I have a complete piece of work to show.
I have set up a test scenario with one vehicle in the middle and 49 enemy Panzer IVs placed around it at 12 to 6 o'clock positions, 200 to 1400 meters (in 200m intervals). The game runs for up to 7 seconds for me to see what contacts does the vehicle at the center see on the first spotting event, as a solid contact. Repeat 10,000 times and calculate the probability of seeing each of the enemy Panzer IVs.
I can replace the vehicle in the middle and measure the spotting ability of different vehicles. I keep all the data but only take those at 12 and 1 o'clock positions and convert them to a single number, which is easier to interpret. I call this number "spotting rating" and make it relative to Panzer IVH.
So, a Regular Panzer IVH with hatches open has a spotting rating of 100. And a tank that has spotting rating 105 can see, roughly, 5% better than a Panzer IVH. Note that it depends on distance quite a bit, but that would make things too complicated for a quick comparison.
Results so far (opened up / buttoned up):
Pz IVH (late): 100 / 27 Pz VD (late): 104 / 29 Pz VA (mid): 109 / 39 Sherman, no cupola: 109 / 35 Sherman, with cupola: 110 / 39 Sherman VC Firefly: 105 / 28 M10: 220 / 217 T-70M: 89 / 17 T-34-76 (M1942 early): 97 / 21 T-34-76 (M1942 late): 95 / 25 T-34-85: 106 / 36 IS-1, IS-2: 101 / 26 Valentine: 100 / 24 SU-76M: 212 / 211 SU-85, SU-122: 95 / 16 SU-85M, SU-100: 95 / 18 ISU-122, SU-152, ISU-152: 104 / 29 SU-57: 252 / 248 You can see there are two categories: fully enclosed vehicles and open-topped vehicles. The open-topped ones (M10, SU-57, SU-76M) spot more than 2x better than fully enclosed ones and do not suffer their ~3x spotting penalty when buttoned up.
A quick takeaway - if you are trying to get an spotting advantage by forcing the enemy M10 commander to duck inside, don't. It is not much help. The same will probably apply to Marders, Archers and the like.
Even at 10,000 trials there still are statistics involved, for instance I don't think the T-34 M1942 late should have a lower spotting ability than M1942 early when opened up.
Everything is automated, of course, with minimum time and effort required on my part. I just collect the results and set up a new test. Computer time is my bottleneck.

I think scenarios, campaign... they help new players to get an idea how to play CM. The game is too complex to have even a semi descent AI. In order to balance that the designers boost the defending AI with tons of points. Most scenarios that I saw basically give the defender and the attacker about equal points. If instead of AI you put any human player as a defender there would be no game. Of course there are scenarios designed for H2H games in those AI just can't compete.
I strongly believe that CM was designed with the idea of humans playing vs humans. You want to have a good, fun game - find a human opponent. 

Not as much as the cost of a Stug mind ....

I don't see why QB can not be ahistorical. It also can be unbalanced - there is a choice to give one side extra points. Basically CM gives us an engine that allows us to play a tactical game the way we see fit.
There is a lot of different equipment in the game and it would be great if all of it would get used. For that different units, vehicles should be priced in a way to let people chose different force compositions.

I don't see why QB can not be ahistorical. It also can be unbalanced - there is a choice to give one side extra points. Basically CM gives us an engine that allows us to play a tactical game the way we see fit.
There is a lot of different equipment in the game and it would be great if all of it would get used. For that different units, vehicles should be priced in a way to let people chose different force compositions.

As far as I am concerned StuG, Pz IV and Sherman can as well have the same price.
(which I think was roughly the case in CMx1's points calculation formula)

It seems BFC are confused about their own pricing system.
How else do we explain that a Panzer II with a 20mm cannon and 1 MG and no cupola costs 155 points, while a Stuart with a 37mm gun that can also fire canister rounds, 2 MGs, a .50 cal and a cupola costs 114 points?
 
And that's before we add the whopping 1240 rarity points for the Panzer II, and the ... 114 rarity points for the Stuart.
 
If a Stuart is still too expensive for you, there's also a Greyhound scout car which has most of what the Stuart has, but for 84 points and 0 rarity points.

Here we go again.
Those who want some historical content can play scenarios designed with special historical considerations in mind or set the rarity to whatever they feel comfortable with - strict, standard loose. We are already pushed toward using historical formations by the way purchasing for QBs is done and by the the way C2 works in CM2.
The point value of vehicle reflects just the vehicle value expressed in terms of points and in that way is related to the other units int eh game. consider points to be currency that you use in the game. Economical factors are well outside the scope of the game. Please, lets move on from that.
I agree with Redwolf - Shermans, Pz IVs and StuGs should be priced about the same. They offer similar values and each have their own advantages and disadvantages and work better relative to each other in different situations.

Just be aware that each formation costs 50 points.

Templates is an interesting idea. It takes some fun out of QBs though as force selection is fun and adds some balancing. I would be interested in trying how it works in real life.
I am arguing that StuGs are useless. They are not. It's just 5Pz IVs, 3 Panthers, 6 M4s are better than 4 StuGs. I don't think their HE ammo count goes over 20. 18-19 that is as much as you can get and the MG ammo load is super low.
 

I don't think Pz IV are cheap. I think they are priced about right. I think M4s are cheap and StuGs are not just expensive - they are prohibitively expensive to the point that if you take them out if the game nobody would notice that they are gone.
Regarding Pz IV and M4 they are essentially are very similar. I don't get why M4 is 25% cheaper. That does not make any sense.
I also don't understand why such a highly modifiable game as CM won't allow the players to adjust the QB points. What would happen that after a few swings the community would come to an agreement for the right prices for different units. Free market is best at price finding - use that mechanism in CM!

Hi Everyone,
I played quite a bit of CM1 games back in the days and recently eventually got to playing CM2. I am interested in WWII combat. I picked CMBN and CMFI with all the modules.
In my opinion CM is most enjoyable when playing QBs again other players. That to me is the essence of CM. 
Now, I can't get rid of the feeling that BFC didn't quite get right the cheap and most common armor pricing.
StuG in formation (regular, normal, 0) costs about 270 points. Pz IVJ about 220. Sherman M4 175.
The question that comes to mind is "really?". 5 Pz IVJ cost about the same as 4 StuGs. This just does not make any sense. It gets even more ridiculous when you compare StuGs to M4s. 3 M4s vs 2 StuGs. What would you rather have? Keep in mind that we are not comparing armor in fighting vs armor. All the three pieces are used in combination with infantry and artillery. Of course they go against each other and that is just one, small part of how they are used in the game.
The first question that I have is - does anyone purchase StuGs in QBs? If the answer is NO then their price is off. See, I am not a theoretician. I am a practicioner. I can put forward arguments on why the price is right or wrong. I won't go there. The game is the answer in itself. If people use the same units or formations and don't use others that means that the pricing is off.
I think, again that is just my opinion, that Pz IVJ is priced about right, M4 is the way too cheap and StuG is prohibitively expensive. 
I would love to hear what other players think.

Hi Everyone,
I played quite a bit of CM1 games back in the days and recently eventually got to playing CM2. I am interested in WWII combat. I picked CMBN and CMFI with all the modules.
In my opinion CM is most enjoyable when playing QBs again other players. That to me is the essence of CM. 
Now, I can't get rid of the feeling that BFC didn't quite get right the cheap and most common armor pricing.
StuG in formation (regular, normal, 0) costs about 270 points. Pz IVJ about 220. Sherman M4 175.
The question that comes to mind is "really?". 5 Pz IVJ cost about the same as 4 StuGs. This just does not make any sense. It gets even more ridiculous when you compare StuGs to M4s. 3 M4s vs 2 StuGs. What would you rather have? Keep in mind that we are not comparing armor in fighting vs armor. All the three pieces are used in combination with infantry and artillery. Of course they go against each other and that is just one, small part of how they are used in the game.
The first question that I have is - does anyone purchase StuGs in QBs? If the answer is NO then their price is off. See, I am not a theoretician. I am a practicioner. I can put forward arguments on why the price is right or wrong. I won't go there. The game is the answer in itself. If people use the same units or formations and don't use others that means that the pricing is off.
I think, again that is just my opinion, that Pz IVJ is priced about right, M4 is the way too cheap and StuG is prohibitively expensive. 
I would love to hear what other players think.