Mike D

This will be one of the shorter posts in recent Mikester history here on the board I like it. I can live with the way reinforcements are being handled in the individual battles. Only thing I would still like to see here (and I can very well live without it) is to have the capability as the scenario designer to set varying probabilites for entry of a reinforcement slot allocation from turn to turn vs. the current same probability for every turn. I like the fact that for the campaigns what you are proposing does have a certain degree of what I was looking for in that it captures much of the essence of what I thought should be in the game without giving the player direct control over such matters (yes you guys convinced me that battalion commanders didn't have much control over their reinforcemnt/reserve situation). Was quite surprised to actually have you put in all three reserve pools and even consider regimental and divisional type of reserves, but all the better. Will the scenario design guidelines give some general feel for us as to what the rough chances are of regimental and divisional reserves appearing in the game as determined by the AI so that we, as scenario designers, can make good decisions as to what units and how many we should put into these pools?? Overall, sounds like a very good way to handle things for the campaign reinforcements. I look forward to getting to try it out first hand. Thanks for putting something like this into the game. I think what you guys have come up with will make the game a lot more interesting. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 09-02-99).]

Steve, Ahhh, it was a long "sec", but now I see what you meant. As for the other thread being locked down I did actually manage to put a post in after your message saying it was going to be locked down. I'm not sure if this was because I had an open Netscape window sitting here on my computer for much of the night ready to paste my latest in from MS word which I later used to submit my reply about an hour after your close down message, or what. But I don't think it is locked down right now (i.e. I don't see the lock symbol on it.) Mike aka Mikester

Sorry Steve, I slipped in after you closed her down. I'm puzzled though about your comment of the thread not being on topic anymore and seeing something in a sec. What are we supposed to see???? ______________ WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, believe it or not I'll try to keep this very short. Well, OK, let's just say short . Errrr, well, maybe you'd better get yourself at least 1 beer. I'd probably say a whole lot more but my "bloody stumps" are still healing from the last couple of posts, so I'll try to exercise some of that "Brevity" stuff (just kidding LOS and Doug) :; Thanks for all the great discussion. I will have to freely admit that I didn't fully understand how much control a battalion commander had over his reinforcements, so this has been a good learning experience. And, while I still don't totally agree with the reinforcement system (i.e. the battlion commander had to have some influence on such matters IMHO), I can accept that the game in its own abstract way does do a fairly good job of handling reinforcements. __________________________ Doug, YES, I'M TERRIBLY MAD AT YOU!!!! Actually, no, I am in no way miffed. This is an open forum and I was expecting to get quite a variety of responses both pro and con. You also brought up some good points that needed to be made. As did Pixman, LOS, Martin, Fionn, and pretty much everyone else too. _________________________ Ben, I like this a lot. I hope Steve and Charles will consider adding some more variability to the game along these lines. I was going to ask them for the abililty to vary the percentage chance of the units showing up for each of the turns that they were designated to possbily come into play, but you beat me to the punch as it were. __________________________ LOS, Some good thoughts. The idea of allowing a moderator to determine reinforcements between two opponents based on what he sees happening is an interesting idea. But I could see that this might give him way too much "God like" power. So while I kind of like the sound of it, I actually think I'd rather play the game with the current system. As far as there being some AI that the scenario could tie in to to help control the reinforcements during the game that was kind of pretty much my original idea. And it's an idea that I still like quite a bit because it achieves one of the main things that I think the current system is lacking in that it ties the control of reinforcements to what is going on in the game instead of just having them pop up out of nowhere. __________________________________ Everyone that brought up the subject regarding players should have some better knowledge of where and when reinforcements should show up, I'd say I have to agree with this to a point. Take the current Martin/Fionn game. Sure it was highly dramatic that Martins reinforcements suddenly popped up on the west edge of the map behind Fionn and helped deal the death blow to the Germans hold on the town. But in my view it was totally and utterly unrealistic. I say this because I think I read that the premise behind this was that they had fought their way through from the other side of the town to come on map. Well, I'd have to think that doing so would have created one heck of a lot of noise, etc., so the Germans pretty much would have had to know that they were very near to coming on map, or at least that there was a threat in their rear that might get far enogh to do so. But that's not what we saw. We saw Fionn in total surprise and dismay suddenly surrounded from the fourth side and doomed. This might make for great game play and drama, but is totally unrealistic in my view. _________________________________ Steve, First of all thanks for all the feedback. Especially for your last post as I think it helps all of us to understand the whys and wherefores of your design intent for CM. I think your one comment/explanation regarding the scale of the game and what you think should and shouldn't be in the game based on that scale is very enlightening. It goes a long way to answering a lot of my questions. While I'd still like to see some form of system like what I proposed where the player also play the part of higher level commander and would have some control over the reinforcements to a certain degree I can perfectly understand now why you guys don't want such a thing in the game. Next, "Scenario - you have been allocated forces to do one of two things; attack or defend a given location and/or enemy force. You have already been allocated any and all forces to do this with. Time of battle is measured in minutes, not hours (and certainly not days). There is NO time in a scenario for calling in help. It is either already there or on the way (predetermined). So what you have is what you have, and it shouldn't ever be any different." One the thing that orignally bothered me about this and still does is the abstraction of the scenario designer predetermining where, when and how many reinforcements would show up, or if any should show up at all. I realize that the percentage chance of entry feaure helps reduce this do some degree, but it still bothers me (I know, I know, I should just get over it already). But I guess to get over this hump it would be very helpful if you, or someone out there, could answer a question. Namely, what do the reinforcements that are being modeled in CM really represent? Are they some type of local reserves, simply other units that were nearby, or what? For an attacker I can see that they might very likely be forces that just didn't make it to their jump-off positions in time for the start of the battle. Or maybe the regimental commander above the battalion commander decided to send some more forces, or something. For the defender maybe they are units that are not too far off the map that were ordered to move in to help stop the attack, or maybe they were ordered in by regimental command. In a meeting engagement situation I can't see that there would necessarily be any reinforcements. Guess there could be a few nearby units just off map that would move over and join into the fight once the two sides clashed. But for the most part I'd think you would possibly see fewer reinforcements in this kind of a battle. Also, in the case of a defender and your statement of "it is either already there or on the way" something doesn't quite seem right (I'm probably missing something here, but not sure what). How could a defender know to already have forces "on the way" when in many (most?) cases they probably didn't even know that the attack was going to occur in the first place. By the time the defenders command structure learned of the attack, assessed the situation, and then reacted the game/battle would probably already be nearly over since we are only talking 60-90 minutes of fighting, right? I guess I could see that maybe a few of those nearby units might hear of the fight and move in, but in terms of any real reinforcements being ordered in by someone I'd have to think they would show up pretty late in the game, if at all, in a true attack/defend situation. As far as the attacker goes I'd think that most of the forces that were going to be there at the start of the attack would be there. So, once again, except for the reasons I gave above, I can't see much reason for the attacker to get much in the way of reinforcements either. In terms of the meeting engagement, again, doesn't really seem to be that it makes much sense for either side to get any reinforcements if everything I've been hearing here is more or less true. That being the case I'd expect the scenario designer not to put much in in the way of reinforcements in a game modeling such an engagement. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I don't know, given this, and after hearing everyones comments and all, I'm almost left wondering if reinforcements belong in a game at CM's level of simulation at all…………… :; _________________________________ Martin, One thing that bothers me for some reason is one of your comments (don't take this the wrong way, I'm just puzzled is all). In remarking on the system that I'd proposed you said that if you had forces only 10 minutes away from the battlefield that you would have had them called up and ready for the start of the game in real life. Martin, if that is the case then what do the reinforcements that are showing up 5, 10, and 15 minutes after the start of a CM game showing up for under the current reinforcement system doing there???? I don't see the difference here between what the game already does and what I had proposed in this regard????? If you were the attacker I can see where this might be true, but if you were the defender, how would you have known ahead of time to have these units up there ready to go at the start of the fight? Otherwise, some very good comments. Your experience with the game lends a lot of credance to BTS's approach to how reinforcements are being handled in the game. _________________________________ Fionn, Good comments. Again, it helps immensely to hear more from those that have played the game. "5. Also, a lot of you are talking about things which would only really occur at higher level HQs. I don't think I've made a secret of my desire to use CM's tactical engine to model the battalion-sized clashes which go to make up a large-scale (divisional+ ) battle... What you are talking about can be done in THAT context under the "out of game" administration of GMs but it really doesn't belong inside the code of Combat Mission." I and I'd imagine many others will be very interested in looking into how the meta-campaign thing would work. I think taking CM to this next level might offer some great fun and excitement so I look forward to seeing how it would work, etc. Will there be more info on this at www.thegamers.net, or elsewhere once the game comes out? ________________________ Thanks again everyone. This has been a very interesting discussion up to this point. And finally thanks to you Steve and Charles. I know that you probably don't necessarily appreciate having your game design "torn into" for lack of better words by the less knowledgeable like myself, but I do enjoy discussing such things in this forum and the fact that you guys do listen to what we think, etc. if very much noted as a plus for BTS vs. many of the other game companies out there. Trust me when I say that doing this has gone a long way toward increasing my, and probably many others, interest in the game. And I imagine a lot of my questions, fears, etc. will be answered once I get to experience the game for myself. So until then I'll just have to wait…………. Regards, Mike D Aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 09-02-99).]

I'd like to see an AAR feature in the game as well. But then there are alot of things all of us would like to see. I know that I definitely would not want to see the game release delayed by weeks and months (gag!) due to a bunch of these kinds of things. So if it can't get into CM1, maybe think about putting into CM2. Mike D aka Mikester

***** Per Ken Talley's suggestion that he e-mailed me earlier today I've cleansed this post of all references to the current battle between Moon and Fionn which might have given Fionn any data. Sorry about that guys, I wasn't thinking too clearly as the loss of blood due to typing my fingers to bloody stumps combined w/ the couple of beers I'd had clouded my judgement. I hope there was little/no harm done. Anyway, it should be "clean" now for Fionn's eyes. The areas of text that have been removed are donated by ****** This text has been removed ********* Guess I should have warned everybody that these suckers were looooooooooonnnng. From now on at the top of such posts I'll put the following warning: **** Danger ******* This is another extremely long and verbose post from Mikester. Please be sure to have beer in hand (and a couple more nearby in reserve ) before attempting to read in one sitting! ******************* Thanks to everybody so far for your thoughts and comments. I think it is very interesting to know what all of you think on this subject. Kwazydog: I certainly do hope this gets disucussed during the beta test, and for that matter, by everyone else as well after the game comes out and they get a chance to play it. I for one think that CM could be a better game with such a system, but that' just my opinion. CM being the ground breaking game that it is I thought these guys might be willing to consider such a thing vs. the "just doing it the way most every other wargame out there has done before" type of mentality. And in one of Steve's posts it sounds like they've already been thinking about this question of whether the players should have some degree of control over their reinforcements so it sounds like BTS is already giving some consideration to this. I'm just trying to push the issue along is all. __________________________ Moon: As far as losing the "thrill" 'of not knowing when the reinforcements would arrive I guess I can't disagree w/ you there. As I imagine it does have a certain exhilaration to it when the calvary comes charging to save your butt and you didn't know when they would get there exactly. I only see one problem here and its that once I've played the scenario ONE TIME I now pretty much know exactly when and where my reinforcements (whichever side I played) are going to show up. Furthermore, I even have a very good idea of when the opposing sides reinforcements are going to show up as well. So even if I play the scenario a second time and play the other side to try and get that, unique thrill, much of it is now gone. Now the fact that BTS has allowed the scenario designer to choose to only have a certain percentage chance of a given group of reinforcing units show up over a given number of turns during the battle, starting on turn X, does help compensate for this, but only to an extent. Again, even with this feature once you've played the scenario a couple of times most of the thrill will still be gone. Next a question for you. ********** I've removed this entire paragraph at Ken Tally's suggestion so that Fionn won't see any of the info that might have been divulge here. While I think they are far enough into the game that it wouldn't have mattered, just to be safe it is now gone *********** I guess Idon't see that this is really that much less thrilling than what you were told by the scenario designer in the pre-game briefing in the game. For example you and Fionn both saw somehting like: "Reinforcements (En route, ETA xx-yy minutes) Some infantry units Etc. Etc. So, you already pretty much knew what was coming and approximately what turns they might show up anyway. Since it is such a long span of time it sounds like Steve set it up where there is only something like a 5-10% chance from turns xx thru yy that any of these guys will show up. I imagine he has broken them up into 2 or 3 of the 5 available reinforcement time slots just to make things more interesting. **** AGain, had to remove this info ******** Again, I think it becomes a question of giving control to the battlefield commander (i.e. the player) which in my view is the more realitic approach vs. letting the scenario designer "play God" and predetermine for me when, where, and how many of my reinforcements will show up. "I am not sure if the system you describe is that much more realistic. My feeling is that you are overrating the control that the battlefield commander had on calling up reinforcements, even over the course of a day or more of fighting. It's not that there are reserves waiting out the just off the map that you can draw on as you see fit. For such a "small" battle as will be represented in CM, it might take a week before your call for reinforcements is answered." In my view the current reinforcement model in CM is unrealistic. I won't belabor this point any further other than to say, at best, the current system is pretty much an abstraction of what I feel the true reality is on the actual battlefield in terms of how and when reinforcements would be deployed. As far as overating the battlefield commanders control over the reinforcement/reserves situation I can only partially agree with you here. I'll grant you that in some instances reinforcements showed up on the battlefield that the commander on the scene didn't know were coming and probably certainly not when they would come. However, reinforcements for the most part didn't just show up for the hell of it without being given some direction to do so by somebody, right? Especially between battle segments of what CM calls a campaign I wouldn't think that this is the case. Somebody had to make a decision to bring in the reinforcements between the battles. And if it isn't the local battlefield commander deciding to do this then who is it? It's got to be some higher level command above him, so just let the we the players play this role as well. I still think this is better than letting the scenario designer make all of the decisions for the players and it isn't any more unrealistic than the omiscient nature of his command over the battlefield and control of each and every unit on it that's already in the game. In my view the player is already playing all the roles of individual squad leader up through battalion commander on the battlefield, so why not let him also play the roles that the battalion and higher level command in deciding when and where reinforcements should be deployed? If one wishes to argue (and I'm not saying that you are) that battlefield commanders didn't have any control whatsoever over what reinforcements would show up during a given battle then I'd challenge them to prove to me that this was the case in most battles during WWII. Again, somebody, somewhere, decided to send those guys into the fight. They didn't just come a marching along into the battle without someone ordering them to do so for no good reason. I'm certain that regimental and divisional commanders didn't just sit around all day deciding willy-nilly to just throw units in here or there to go in and start fighting. They commited them for very good reasons like to help stop a major offensive thrust in an area where the local situation (the battle we are playing) was becoming critical for whatever reason, etc. The bottom line is in my view we play wargames in order to put ourselves into the shoes of the battlefield commander and have the opportunity to make the same decsisons that they had to face and make in real life. And right now how CM handles reinforcements in a predetermined manner with the scenario desinger making these choices for us is "robbing" me from what I feel would be a great gaming experience. ____________________________________ "I want that system, if you cant make it in CM please make it in CM2" Finally, at least one supporter of thinking about doing things a little differently. Thanks Bamse. "BUT YOU MUST BE ABLE TOO TURN IT OF SO IT DONT END UPP BEING CC3. = Defender is compensated with huge amounts of pionts so he rout the attcker out from the entire operation." Bamse, This is another of the many downfalls of the CC game system. They've unfortunately programmed the campaigns in this game so that this occurs. I don't think this would happen in the system I'm proposing. For one thing, it is still the scenario designers responsibility to set up the starting forces and reserve pools so that some degree of play balance is maintained. And for the most part the forces that I'm saying he should put into the beginning local reserve pool are exactly the same forces that he would normally bring into the game under the current system of reinforcements. It's just that the player can decide if and when to commit them vs. the scenario designer making these decisiosn for him. Also, there are some pretty significant penalties to calling in higher level reserves from the other two pools. Not to mention the fact that you can only call up a certain amount of them at any given time and even then you only have a chance of higher level command giving them to you. Also, the scenario designer has to use some descretion on what he makes available in these other two reserve pools to help maintain game balance. Given all of this I don't think that any player is going to be able to call up huge reinforcements and then blow the other player out of the game. The player only has immediate control over the local reserve pool and even that is limited in terms of how many reinforcements he can call up at any given time. Furthermore he has even less control over whether, or not, he will get any units moved down from the higher level pools into the local reserve pool where they can be called up and even if he does manage to do this is does so paying a VP penalty. So even if he tries to call in large forces from the higher level reserves chances are they are not going to show up in his local reserve pool until at least one to two battles later and he will also pay a proportionally large VP penalty to his opponenet, so he would most likely lose the game anyway. _____________________________________ One final note. After I got to thinking about this some more this morning I thought it might be a good idea to also reward those players that play skillfully and don't need to call up any of their local reserves. So I've ammended my proposal above to actually give the playeres, say a 5-10% VP point bonus, for all of those units orginally given to them in their local reserve pools that they didn't need to use. This would help keep people from just calling in all of their reinforcements just for the hell of it and reward the player that does well in the game and doesn't need to even call his reinforcements into play. Regards, Mike D Aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 09-01-99).] [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 09-01-99).] [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 09-01-99).]

Steve, Now to what I'm going to propose. Not too many people seem to want to have conditional reinforcements or think they are a good idea. After hearing some of the reasons why I guess I'd have to partially agree with them. But this still deosn't solve the "problem" of realistic deployment of reserves as reinforcements during a battle and especially in between battles during a campaign. As a result of all of this I have thought about this "problem" at some length. While I was orginally going to push for the computer to determine when these reinforcements should arrive (if at all) based on the discussion in (2) above, the more I thought about it the more I didn't like the idea. Worst of all it would cause poor old Steve and Charles to do a lot of programming to determine all the logic behind the computer making these decisions. Time that I'm sure could be put to better use elsewhere in the game. But then I got to thinking about letting the players control their reinforcements as others have also mentioned in the above posts and the more I think about this idea the more I like it! I know there are dozens of you saying we don't want that including Steve from the sounds of it, but just here me out, OK? Unfortunately this is going to require some programming resources as well, but if enough people think it is a good idea maybe it is worth it. I think it is, but then of course I'm biased and probably havn't thought about all of the ramifications of doing such a thing. Anyway, here goes………. Suppose the scenario designer has 3 reserve pools that can be setup as he sees fit. He can place units in all of them, some of them, or none of them as he chooses to simulate the situation at hand. The first of these pools would be a local reserve pool (hereafter referred to as local, or battalion, reserves) under the direct command of the area commander (i.e. the game player). The second one would represent reserves that were in or relativelely near to the local battle area but not under the local commander/players direct operational control (hereafter referred to as regimental reserves). The last one would represent higher level reserves (brigade/divisional reserves) a moderate distance away from the battlefield, but still able to reach it in ½ a day to one day (hereafter referred to as divisional reserves). These would also not be under the local commanders/players control. More on what I mean by local area commanders control in a minute. This next part wouldn't necessarily need to be in the game, but it would add some variety so I'm throwing it in to see what people think. In addition to putting the basic reserve units into the above pools the scenario designer can stipulate that certain units will later appear in the regimental or divisional pools after such and such battle of the campaign (possibly stipulating only a percentage chance of this occuring as well) He can also stipulate that certain units in the regimental/divisional pools might disappear after a given battle of the campaign is completed to simulate units that were taken away to other areas unexpectedly (again, this might be on some percentage basis). For example he might give the German player a platoon of Tiger I tanks in the regimental or divisional pools, but they will not show up in the pool until between the second and third battles of the campaign and even then there might only be a 50% chance of their arriving at all. Or he might put a dive bomber mission into the original divisional reserve allocations, but stipulate that there is a 33% chance that after battle 2 and on that it will be removed from the pool. Note that the players local reserve pool that is under his command cannot be touched in this manner, only the reginmental and divisional pools that are out of his control can benefit/suffer from these actions. So the scenario designer doesn't determine when any reinforcements would arrive, where, how many, etc. He only sets up the reserve pools to simulate the forces that are potentially available to the 2 commanders. Note that by doing this he is no longer playing God, he simply builds a map, sets objectives, and then determines starting and reserve forces for both sides. Also note that the realism of how and when reserves/reinforcements will be employed is attained because it is, you, the battlefield commander, that is determining when they should be requested and employed based on whether they are needed or not given the current situation. Next, the game begins. (1) During the first battle (or any subsequent battle for that matter) either player can, if they choose to do so and believe it is necessary, call upon up to 1/4 of their local reserves (as measured in unit point values) any time starting on turn 5 of the battle or later. Once called upon there will be a minimum 10 minute/turn delay before they arrive. Starting 10 minutes after they are summoned there is a 33% chance on that turn and each of the remaining turns in the battle that they will show up during that particular turn. If they don't show up at all before the end of the current battle they simply return to the players local reserve pool. Note that the player can only call upon and deploy infantry uints in platoon groups w/ their HQ unit. Next issue is where do they show up. There are quite a number of issues here that I don't want to get bogged down in so for now let's just say they can only show up along map edge behind the player that called them up and leave it at that. In terms of battalion and regimental reserves the players can never call these units into play during a battle itself, but rather only in between battles of the campaign game as described below. Battle 1 of the 6 battles ends. In between battles the players can do the following with their reserve forces in the 3 pools. Note that these steps must be done in order to preserve the chain of command and time limitations of requesting and deploying the various reserves. (2) Battalion / Local Reserves: Up to half of the players local reserves (again as measured in unit point values) can be deployed for the upcoming battle by the commander from his local reserve pool if he so chooses. If this is the last battle of the campaign he can call upon upto 2/3 of his remaining local reserve force at this point in time. These units can be deployed anywhere in friendly controlled territory (I think I'm remembering correctly here that there will be a "no-mans-land" zone between the two opposing forces between each of the battles that neither one of them can set units up in so this should be OK). Note that the player can only call upon and deploy infantry units in platoon groups w/ their HQ unit. (3) Regimental Reserves: In between battles the player/commander can appeal to regimental command for additional reinforcements. He can only do this between battles and after he has chosen his local reserves to be committed to the battle as noted in (2) above. Up to 1/3 (measured in unit point values once again) of the available regimental reserves can be called upon between any two given battles of the campaign if the player chooses to do so. Once these units have been requested the computer determines on an individual "unit" by "unit" basis (in case of infantry units he can only call upon them in full platoon increments w/ HQ "unit" groups so the entire platoon either comes in, or it doesn't) which units will be granted to the player. Each "unit" has a 50% chance of becoming availble to represent higher commands agreement with your need for the reserve unit vs. needing to keep them in reserve. All units that are granted to the player by regimental command are then placed in his local reserve pool. All units requested that are not granted remain in the regimental reserve pool. Also, units just placed into the local reserve pool from regimental reserves cannot be deployed per (2) above until after the next battle. They can, however, be called up during next the battle as previously described in (1) above. The final kicker and one that will hopefully keep players from abusing the use of regimental reserves is that the player will pay a victory point (VP) penalty equal to say 15% (or other suitable percentage) of each units point value for each and every unit moved into his local reserve pool from the battalion reserve pool which will added to the opposing players score! So if a player requests say 250 points worth of units from the battalion reserve and the computer determines that 200 points worth will be granted and moved to the players local reserve pool he would pay a .15*(200) = 30 VP penalty for doing so. To keep the players reserve movements information away from the opposing player these VP's wouldn't show up in the opposing players VP total until the end of the game along w/ a notation in the VP summary of how many VP's the other player gave up due to calling regimental and or divisional reserves up. (4) Divisional Reserves: In between battles the player/commander can appeal to divisional command for additional reinforcements. Note that this really is meant to portray regimental command appealing for more forces from the higher level command structure and not necessarily units requested by the player the affect of which we will see below. He can only do this between battles. Up to 1/4 (measured in unit point values once again) of the available divisional reserves can be called upon between any two given battles of the campaign if the player choose to do so. Note that these reserves, if granted, will only be moved to the regimental reserve pool and will not appear there until after the next battle has ended. Once these units have been requested the computer determines on an individual "unit" by "unit" basis (in case of infantry units he can only call upon them in full platoon w/ HQ "unit" groups so the entire platoon either comes in, or it doesn't) which units will be moved to the regimental reserve pool. Each "unit" requested has a 33% chance of becoming availble to represent higher commands agreement with your need for the reserve unit to be moved to the regimental reserve pool vs. needing to keep them in divisional reserve. All units that are granted to the player by divisional command are then placed in the regimental reserve pool and will be available there to be requested per (3) above after the next battle. All units requested that are not granted remain in the divisional reserve pool. Again the kicker here and thing that will hopefully keep players from abusing the use of these divisional reserves is that the player will pay a victory point (VP) penalty equal to say 20% (or other suitable percentage) of each units value for each and every unit moved into his regimental reserve pool from the divisional reserve pool which again will added to the opposing players score! As in 3 above the opposing player would not be made aware of this until the end of the game to help preserve FOW. Also, keep in mind that if a divisional reserve a unit is subsequently called into the local reserve pool from the regimental reserve another 15% penalty is imposed as noted in (3) above. So to get a unit from from the divisional reserves all the way down to the local reserve pool would take a couple of battles of elapsed time at a minimum (assusming you got lucky and the unit actually did get moved the first time it was requested to move from one pool to the next) and would also end up costing the player 35% of the value of the unit in VP penalty. This will 1) prevent players from abusing the system and 2) provide for play balance to be maintained. I.e. a player attempts to call in all sorts of reserves, gets lucky and has most/all of them granted over the course of the game, and proceeds to wipe out the other player potentially (or at least try to do so), will most likely lose the game due to the fact that he had to pay a considerable VP penalty to get those units and that penalty (if the percentages are set right above relative to the actual VP location values, values for losses inflicted, etc.) did not "buy" him enough in terms of gaining other VP's on the board, etc., to offset the penalty of getting the units in the first place. This also takes care of the cases noted above where people are worried about "losing their victory" etc. due to incompetency of one of the players. If a player is incompetent and screws up and then has to call in reserves he can only call in his local reserves (which in my mind should be set to be approximely the same forces that the scenarios designer would have called in under the current reinforcement rules) without incurring penalties. So he doesn't get off without paying for his mistakes! Lastly, the scenario designer doesn't have to play "God" in determining when, where, how many, and if reinforcements should be deployed. He simply sets up the map, objectives, starting forces and the reserve pools and let's the players have at it which in my mind is all that he should do. The reinforcement and reserve commitment decsions are left up to the commanders which is where these decisions quite frankly belong since in a real life battle that is exactly where they would be made and not by the "god like" scenario designer attempting to predetermine these things for them. This is just an idea. But it is an idea that I thnk has some merit to at least be considered vs. the current reinforcement system in the game. I welcome any and all feedback that you guys have on this idea. I think it is a great idea. I fully understand that it is more complicated than the current systems and will take some doing to get such a thing coded. But I think the potential benefits that it offers to the game and to us as players are worth it. However, I can hear Steve and Charles groaning now since it will require some coding and interface screens to accomplish. However, I don't think it would be too terribly difficult to do and quite frankly I believe it would add a great deal of depth and realism to the game. God didn't decide what happened with reserves and reinforcements on the battlefield in real life, right? The commanders on the scene did. That being the case, why should the scenario designer be making decisions in regards to these matters that should rightfully be made by, us, the players of the game??? Regards, Mike D Aka Mikester

Steve, I hope you don't mind but I'm going to pull this out of the "Questions for Steve" thread to a separate one because I'm interested in what Martin and Fionn think about this matter since they've had the benefit of actually playing the game just as you and Charles have. In doing so I've quoted most of your and others comments in regards to my original post so that they can see what is going on. Furthermore, since my orginal post was soooooooooooo loooooooog (this one is probably even worse by the way ) I'm not going to repeat any of it here. So to very briefly summerize the question of my original post for Fionn's and Martin's sake let me just say that it boils down to whether, or not, CM's current reinforcement system allows for a realistic deployment of the battlefield commanders local, and perhaps higher level, reserves. And, whether, or not, it would make sense to add some capability to have reinforcements appear in between the individual battles of a campaign game representing the commitment of these reserves based on actaul events taking place (instead of the scenario designer just simply determining when they should/might come into play) in the game which may, or may not, appear based on these conditions. Note that all comments below in quotes are Steve's unless otherwise indicated. BTW, Steve, please don't get mad at me here. I'll grant you that I can be a harsh critic at times, but I'm really just trying to have a friendly debate w/ you here so don't take anything the wrong way even though I might sound like I'm bashing your concept of reinforcements/reserves. Also, as you'll see in my next post I'm leading up to why I think players should have control of their reserves and reinforcements in the game vs. the scenario designer and how I think that might be possible to do in the game. But for now, on with the debate……………………………. _________________________ "You don't even know that it is going to be 6 battles, for example, nor do you know what terrain the battle is going to be fought on. So the "problem" is bigger than you realize." Steve, actually I realize all of this. I was trying only to look at one aspect of what is a very large "issue". ______________________ "Say I am on the attack and beat the snot out of you in battle one (could happen CM then decides to move the map back to a spot where you havean excellent defensive position. ……….You still hold that defensive line, but this time you get reinforcements. Now you are stronger. I get some reinforcements, but was punished too much, so I basically sit out a battle and nothing much happens. Next battle I get something and you get something, I attack with my brains fully engaged and kick you out of your positions..." A couple of comments and then some questions and thoughts. First, let me say thanks for this example because it gives me and I would imagine many others here that have not had the benefit of playing the game a lot better idea of how CM campaigns work (i.e. the moving up and down the map over the various battles based on the results of the battle, etc.). Second, this ebb and flow to a battle sounds good to me since this is more or less how I'd expect a battle to unfold in real life. Now for the questions which of course have to do w/ the nagging issue of the reinforcements. How does the scenario designer determine in a given situation when, where, how many, and perhaps most importantly IF reinforcements should be given to either side and do so in a realistic manner? Well, let'see. If I were designing a scenario based on a purely historical battle situation and I had accurate data of what forces both sides would receive, where, and when; then there would be no question has to how they should be handled in the game. Have them come in on the map where they did in real life at the time they came in. Throw in a little random variation by giving say only a 70-80% chance that they will appear on the first historical turn that they did in the battle and let this go on for 3-4 turns just in case they don't make it in on the first try just to add a little variety to the game and you're done. Clean, simple, easy and CM's reinforcement system already handles this quite well, so no problems. And there is no issue w/ the realisim of how the reinforcements are handled since their arrival time, numbers, etc., are based on what happened in real life. Next case. Let's say we don't have accurate data on the type of reinforcements or when they arrived etc., or that we are creating a fictional scenario (something which I plan on doing a lot of by the way since I don't necessarily have the time to go all over researching battles). Now I think we have some additional things to think about if we are going to realistically deploy reinforcements. First there is no historical context in which to determine the arrival of the reinforcements so we are in a bit of a pickle already as the scenario designer. So what are our options. Well, we can do what you did in creating the scenario that Fionn and Martin are playing right now. We can makeup a scenario, put in starting forces, objectives, etc. and even make a guess at what reinforcements we might want to throw in and then go and play test it. After we play it we might adjust the starting forces, add/take away some of the reinforcements, put a hill in the middle of the map to make it easier for the defender, or maybe just tweak the percentage chance or number of turns that certain reinforcement groups might appear. We then go back play the game again (at least to a certain point like you did) and see what happens. We keep doing this until we come up with a "fun" and "balanced" scenario. Great! No problem. Everyone wants to play a fun and relatively balanced game. That's a large part of why we play wargames in the first place. However,………………….. Is the fact that I basically played "God" as the scenario designer in terms of where, when, how many, and even if, reinforcements should appear really realistic??? Well in terms of coming up w/ a good well balanced scenario to play it really doesn't matter, right? But the question still remains is it realistic? As you might have gathered my feelings are that it is not. Why do I think this? Well, where can you give me one example of an actual real live WWII battle where God himself predetermined how events were going to unfold; especially in terms of where, when, how many and most importantly IF reinforcements would appear. Did they appear on minute 10 (turn 10) of the battle marching up along the road next to the farm house just because God willed them to do so and/or maybe that was when he thought they should appear just to make things interesting?? I don't think so. They appeared for a reason, or reasons, not just because God decided for them to come out of nowhere and start fighting. So in trying to determine what reinforcements should realistically appear in this situation I believe we've first got to answer another question and that is what are the reasons that reinforcements showed up in real life in a given battle, or in between battles, in the first place????????? Hmmm, not necessarily an easy question to answer is it? Well, I think I can boil it down to a few simple cases for the sake of discussion (in reality I know it is not this simple). However, I most definitely welcome any and all thoughts of others here too since I'm trying to learn the real whys and wherefores of when and how reserves would be committed as reinforcements in real life by bringing this up as much as I'm trying to argue my point: 1) Reinforcements during individual battles: They were ordered to the battle area by the commander at some point before the battle, but for whatever reason didn't show up by the start of the battle so they enter the current battle after it has already started. Alternatively maybe they were nearby and moved the short distance to the area to check out what was going on and take part in the fight. Either way, CM's reinforcement model and capabilities as they stand today would seem to handle these guys quite well. In my mind this pretty much takes care of many / most cases for reinforcements that would appear during a given 60-120 min. battle during a campaign. Like you've stated before to have any reinforcements show up from higher level reserves (and probably even local one's too) as a result of the commanders decsion to call them in during such a short span of time as modeled in a typical CM battle is not really very realistic. So onwards to campaigns. 2) Reinforcements during campaign games: In terms of any reinforcements showing up during a given battle of a campaign we've got that covered in (1) above so let's concentrate on the reinforcements showing up between the battles of the campaign. In my view the main reason reinforcements might show up in between battles in what CM treats as a "campaign" is that the local commander and/or his superior, has assessed the situation in the area after the end of the previous battle(s) and determined that it is the appropriate or needed time to commit local and perhaps even higher level reserves based on factors such as how is the battle going in general, how many casualties have been taken (i.e. can the defense in this area be maintained, or can the attack be further sustained without committing more units at this time), what are the tactical and strategic ramifications of advancing/being pushed back in this area, availability of both local and higher level reserve units, etc., etc., etc. This of course assumes that they (reserves) are close enough to the battlefield to get there in time before the next battle starts. Local reserves are just that so getting them to the battlefield within an hour or two between battles of a campaign should be absolutely no problem. Higher level reserves (say regiment/division reserve units) may or may not make it in such cases and probably could only appear overnight and/or after several battles after being called up to the area. I.e. maybe higher level reserves are deemed to be necessary after battle 1, but they can't get there till battle 4 because it will take them that long just to travel to the battlefield. Note, however, that there is absolutely no way CM's current reinforcement system can even begin to do this since all reinforcements must be completely predetermined (except for those units given only a percentage chance of entry) by the scenario designer which in my view is totally unrealistic. The point here is that in real life reinforcements between "battles" appeared for a reason. They did not appear because "God" told them to any more so than an omiscient scenario designer can or should predetermine where and how reserves should be deployed. Just because we are used to having the scenario designer do this in just about every wargame we've ever played that had reinforcements does not mean that it is a realistic treatment of how they should be handled, nor does it necessarily make this all too common methodology "right". ___________________ "See, who knows what will happen. The point here is that we don't want either side to get reinforcements based on losses simply to balance the game." Doug Beman: "Way back when sometime, BTS said "we will not have campaigns that the player's incompetence, or even sheer bad luck, with additional forces." I don't remember offhand all the reasons they gave, but I agreed with their decision, because it forces players to make good decisions (and good decisions can often form a bulwark against bad luck) I'm fully aware that I am constantly going to curse this decision as I play campaigns, since I'm not the best commander in the virtual army, but knowing that I gotta do it right the first time will, hopefully, make me better". "Mike, I understand the two big reasons you want a system of condition-triggered reinforcements: (1) improves game balance, and (2) potentially reflects real world reinforcement decisions. Such a system would be nice to use once in a while, but I don't think should be the norm. First, it punishes success. If you kick my tail in battle 1 and battle 2, why should you be robbed of your victory because of my incompetence (which is the net effect of giving me big reinforcements to offset my losses)? Second, you posit that this is a sector gone bad for the army with the unexpectedly large losses. When I play these squad level games, I generally posit that the results in my sector are emblematic of the entire engagement. (It's not much fun to kick the snot out of your opponent, only to find out that your army was creamed on the rest of the battlefield, and therefore ordered to withdraw; your accomplishments therefore counting for naught.) Thus, if you put it to me in the first two battles, I globalize that to your army putting it to my army in the overall battle. Thus, my HQ is strapped across all sectors and has no additional reserves to give to me. The fact of the matter is that your army's mission changes with critical battlefield successes or losses. In your example, if the Yanks put it to the attackers in battles 1 and 2, then the German mission in battles 3-6 likely changes from capturing the key cross-roads/town, to defend against the Yank counter-attack. I would write a little more, but I have an incomplete view of how victory are earned, so I'll just leave it at that. In conclusion, I understand what you are trying to accomplish with a system of conditional reinforcements and I think it would be fun to play the game that way occasionally, but I would oppose using that system as the norm (or at all in tournament play). Zackary" "Zackary, thanks! Yes, we think that things should be more interesting this. Martin and Fionn both have commented LOTS on the fact that their battle has gone back and forth many times. Each one has thought for sure that all was lost at least twice now. Yet they both think they can win still. And this is with "fixed" reinforcements." Guys, first let me say that I think I probably confused everyone in how I brought this up in my original post. In fact I debated whether I should bring it up at all since I knew it was going to add controversy to what I was proposing, but I knew if I didn't at least mention it that I would be guaranteed that someone else would. So just let me say that I don't want either side to receive reinforcements based soley on losses either! Now the game balancing affect of this is a very nasty question. And I certainly wouldn't want conditional reinforcements to cause such a problem. But they don't necessarily have to depending on how they are handled. In any event I was just trying to give one example of why reinforements would be committed by the area commander in a realistic manner. There are at least several, if not many, others that could be considered as well and it should probably be a mixture of these factors that determine what reinforcements are committed to the campaign in between battles, not just one factor like losses. ____________________ "If you screw up and can't make good on your mistake, you will lose. Therefore our reinforcement system makes sense." Steve and Doug, I could just as easily argue here that it does make sense to put in conditional reinforcements based on losses. In my view it doesn't matter that I'm playing a CM campaign against you and as the defender say I bungle a few things up so bad during the first battle that the game determines that some of my reserves that I otherwise would have gotten should be given to me before the next battle as reinforcements. Why? Well, suppose that I was a bungling commander in real life and screwed up just as badly what do you think my superiors would do? Well for starters if I had screwed up a lot before they might can me and get a new commander. But whether they did this, or not, they would give serious consideration to whether reinforcements were needed in the area and if they were available and could be deployed in time would probably very likely commit some reserves to do just that before the next battle to help contain your advance. ____________________ "Either your higher ups allocate reinforcements or they don't." Yes Steve you are exactly right here, but you left out the part that their decision to do so, or not, would be based on what was really going on at the time during the actual battles in the area and the availability of such reserves. _____________________ "In real war the importance of the battle has little to do with reserves some times. Poor saps defending Remagan Bridge found this out "the Americans are coming over the bridge!! What should we do?!?" "Hold them of course" "With what, we need reinforcements" "Der Fuhrer is confident you can make do with what you have" Reinforcements did come, but only after the bridge was firmly in US hands and significant forces were on the other side. Germans lost, plain and simple." I'll grant you that this is true, but the operative word here is "sometimes". In my view "most of the time" reinforcements / reserves were committed if the situation was deemed to require them and they were available. If we were building a scenario to model the battle that you have described above reserves / reinforcements are not even an issue (at least of the German side) because they didn't exist. _____________________ "The Campaign designer should simply keep an eye on the total number of points being racked up by the units being purchased. If he thinks it is going to be a tough defensive battle, then give the attacker a higher percentage over the defender. Is this a good indication of fairness? Considdering the attacker could loose ALL its armor on the first turn of the first battle, or hold onto the same armor for 4 or 5 battles, it is as good as can be expected." This is great in terms of designing a well balanced and fun campaign game for all to enjoy. However, it speaks nothing as to whether God/Scenario Designer predetermining the quantity, type, number, location, and arrival time of reinforcements represents a realistic deployment of local and higher level reserves as the campaign progresses through its various battles. ______________________ "BTW, a CM Campaign will likely not go for more than about a day and a half's worth of fighting. I doubt you will ever see a game that goes through two night turns. So multiple day issues aren't." Are you saying that CM won't allow a campaign to go on for any longer than a day to day and a half? Is there going to be some hard limit built into the campaign editor to prevent us from doing so??? Trust me, if there isn't, there are going to be all kinds of people building up campaigns that stretch over days, if not weeks. I mean just look at some of the postings you see here on the board. You've got folks that want to fight out the entire Market Garden operation in 60min increments! (god only knows why though, cause I sure wouldn't want to do this, but to each his own). However I can easily see how I might want to simulate a campaign battle up to 3-5 days I length w/ two to three 60-90 minutes battles per day. In that case I think the tools available in CM are somewhat lacking in allocating reinforcements over such a period of time in a realistic manner. "Still, nobody has beta tested a campaign yet, so the Jury is still out on our design. Right now we see no need to change it as the same system is in the single scenarios right now (i.e. each side gets stuff or doesn't, with no regard to progress or status) and works very well" Yes, I would agree that it works fine in terms of being able to create fun well-balanced games. However, with all due respect to say that it "works very well" doesn't necessarily mean that it is realistic, or for that matter that it is "correct". It is your guy's game though so you are free to do what you want and will undoubtedly do what you believe is best for the game and I certainly cannot argue with that. However, is it realistic? Well I don't think so, but then I'm just one person here on the board so I certainly hope others will voice their opinions. In the meantime I've got an idea for you and everyone else to consider that I'll post below separately. ___________________________ Oops, Here are some other posts on the subject that I missed above There have been a couple of other posts between Doug Beman and Steve also discussing the matter of reinforcements that I've decided to leave out because they contain some info that Martin and Fionn shouldn't see. Here is one of the later exchanges between Steve and Kwazydog though…… -____________________ "We don't want people to exercise control over their reinfrocements." - Steve Maybe an idea Steve is to make the chance that it was to arrive the first time reduced for the next turn after you reject it. For example, a Sherman has a 70% chance on turn 5, if you reject it 60% on turn 6 and so on. This would probably reflect the possability of reinforcements being reassigned to other areas if not accepted by the CO, and would make the player think twice about doing it Just a thought... "But your point about the reserves coming in JUST at the right point is a good one to make in this debate. " - Steve Ive noticed that everything had pretty much arrived as necessary. I think you did really well in predicting the outcome Hopefully for Moon, the air support and some armour will come through though, as of turn 12, those Gerry Panzers are looking rather a ominous site Kwazydog ____________________ And here's another post form Henri: "A problem with conditional reinforcements is that a player who knows about it could purposely slow down his advance in order to get more reinforcements to improve his chances later. One would end up playing the system instead of the battle. A better idea might be conditional reinforcements with probabilities low enough so that it wouldn't pay to do the above." That's it for all of the other posts as far as I know. Regards, Mike D Aka Mikester

Steve, I'll forwarn you this is a loooooooonnnng post (that's what happens when I have a whole Sat. and Sun. without any battle reports to read so you only have yourself to blame ). I'm picking this up from a while back on one of the earlier "Questions for Steve (General PBEM) threads where I asked about the possibility of including conditional reinforcements in CM. Your answer to this question was: "Mike, the reinforcement conditions are quite simplistic (on purpose). There are 5 slots for each side, along with a corresponding marker for the map. Any number of units can be put into each slot. The slot has a turn to come into play and a percentage chance of that happening. That is about it. We didn't want to make it more involved because that would be unrealistic at CM's scale. If you had support it would either show up or not. Unlike TOAW (more strategic level) there is no time at CM's level to have variable forces come in due to variable situations." I understand your point here. CM's time scale is so short that it wouldn't make much sense to have reinforcements arrive due to varying conditions on the battlefield since an average game only lasts, say 60 min. OK, that sounds reasonable to me. So my next question becomes what about campaign games??? Let's say a campaign is to cover 3 days w/ 2 battles per day, 6 battles total. Let's also assume that between the two battles each day there is a 2 to 3 hour break before the start of the next battle where both sides can rest, regroup, redeploy and most inportantly receive reinforcements. Also, after battles 2 and 4 there is a full night of rest prior to starting the subsequent battle the next day. This campaign is meant to model an attack by a German Panzer division on mixed US forces of infantry supported by some armor, AT and other elements in the Ardennes in late 1944. Since we know for the most part that CM is really designed to only handle battalion sized, or slightly larger engagements, I the scenario designer, give the Germans an SS PzGd Inf. Battalion w/ a supporting medium tank co. and a heavy tank platoon + other units to start the game. They also get standard reinforcements along the way. The Americans start out with only a std. Inf. Co., an Eng. Platoon., a Hv. Weap. Platoon, 2 57mm AT guns and 2 tank destroyers + other misc. support units including a few bazooka teams. They also receive standard predetermined reinforcements along the way. The Germans objective over the 3 days is to drive down a main road leading toward Bastogne, first securing a key road junction (battle 3 map 3) and further down the road taking a strategic hamlet overlooking the next valley (battle 6 map 6) which will be needed as a base of operations for further strikes on Bastogne itself. The first of the six battles starts on day 1 and lasts 60 min's/turns. Like the current game being played out here on the board things don't go well for the Americans. In fact it goes about as bad as anyone can possibly imagine. Due to a combination of horrendous bad luck and a couple of bungled decisions on the US players part all of the US forces are nearly obliterated and the Germans advance virtually unscathed. As part of the 2nd battle reinforcements I as the scenario designer have given the Americans a much needed medium tank company and another full inf. company along w/ 2 additional tank destroyers to bolster their depleted forces. Of course this was a pure guess on my part as far as what they should get, or might even need for that matter. The Germans only receive some minimal reinforcements (again, pure guess work here). The 2nd battle of day 1 begins and the gods of war once again don't shine on the Americans. They are once more virtually wiped out and the Germans advance virtually unpunished (lose 2 squads and 1 med. tank). The road lies open to the first of the two major objectives which sits in the middle of map 3 for battle 3, namely the key cross-roads junction. Now I as the scenario designer figured that the Americans shouldn't have needed much in the way of reinforcements between battles 2 and 3 since the terrain they were defending in the second battle on map 2 was fairly defensible and they should have been able to at least defend it for most of the 60 min's/turns of this battle before withdrawing and inflict some significant losses on the Germans in the process. In fact, if they were lucky they might have even held the Germans right here. But alas, I guessed wrong. So for turn 3 I had only given the US player a minimal amount of additional reinforcements and having assumed that the Germans probably took some fairly heavy losses gave them another platoon of medium tanks and a reduced strength infantry company to aid in their assault to take the road junction. Once again, pure guess work on my part as the scenario designer. Battle 3 now starts and the American are annihilated by the overwhelming German force that has survived Battles 1 and 2 and also just received significant reinforcements prior to the third battle in the campaign. And here I'll stop my little example and get to my first point. Is this realistic??? Well, that depends. For one thing such an outcome is certainly possible in real life so we can't say that it is totally unrealistic now can we? On the other hand, however, I would strongly argue that if the US higher level command (regiment/division) knew about the situation in this sector after the 2nd battle and that the key road junction was now in serious jeopardy (the loss of which would cut-off nearly a regiment of US infantry fighting the Germans to the S.E. by the way) then they bloody well would have sent some strong reserves there to try and stop the Germans, right? So you say well Mr. Scenario Designer, just edit the scenario and give the US some adequate reinforcements between battles 2 and 3. Problem solved. OK, let' say I do just that and edit the scenario as follows. The US gets an entire medium tank co., a TD platoon, and a reinforced co. of inf. prior to the beginning of the 3rd battle to defend the road junction. Whew, now they can defend the key road junction and have a fighting chance, no? Sounds great, right?? No more problems, right??? Well, maybe so, and maybe not……… It certainly would have worked for the battle as described above. But,…………….. Now we replay the scenario and just for the hell of it let's say the US commander now is an expert wargamer and the German player is a novice just to make things interesting (not that the exact same thing couldn't occur if both players were of equal skill of course). Battle 1 starts and the heavily outnumbered US forces fight a brilliant withdrawing action. They take virtually no losses and inflict some serious casualties on the Germans including knocking out 3 med. and 2 heavy tanks for the loss of only 1 of their own. Now the 2nd battle starts. But this time it's the Germans that are in trouble. They've already taken more losses than they should have in the first battle and received virtually zero reinforcements for battle 2 (whoops, looks like Mikester the scenario designer guessed wrong once again). The Americans on the other hand have preserved almost their entire starting force from battle 1, and have also received some significant reinforcements as noted above. The battle starts and the Germans advance a short distance and are then butchered taking heavy losses. They take 3:1 losses vs. what they inflict on the US force and their advance is totally stalled. As a result the next battle, battle 3, starts on battle 2's map instead of battle 3's map (I think this is how the campaign works, right?). The Germans get some much needed reinforcements before battle 3 (looks like I guessed right here, but then I really had no idea what would happen so it was just pure luck that I guessed "correctly") and the US player only receives minimal reinforcements as previously described. Battle 3 starts on map 2 and the Germans have a little better luck, but once again are stopped cold, this time in the middle of the map. Onwards to battle 4 of 6 where the Germans are still stuck on map 2 (The orginal Kampgruppe commander has already been shot by the Gestapo for incompetence by the way ). For battle 4 I'd only given both sides some marginal reinforcements so the US side remains strong facing a weakened German force having to advance through tough terrain. Again here I'll stop. Question, in real life the German divisional/regiment higher command would have probably committed some additional reserve reinforcements to the battle prior to battle 3 starting on the 2nd map, right? They certainly couldn't afford to let their drive down a main road to a major objective like Bastogne get stalled. No, they couldn't. And after further getting bogged down after battle 3 and still being stuck in only the middle of map 2, when they should be starting map 4 (where the 4th battle would nominally begin) I would highly suspect they would send in even stronger reserve reinforcements vs. what I the scenario designer had guessed might be needed which in this case was virtually no reinforcements for both sides prior to battle 4. So my question is this: How can I as the scenario designer possibly guess in advance what reinforcements should be allocated to such a sector for each side in between each of the 6 battle segments of the campaign when I have absolutely no idea what to expect as to the outcome of each of these segments. It seems to me that reinforcements between such actions/battles covering a number of days would largely be based on what was going on in that sector for each of the respective sides. For example, if I were the American regimental commander in the first example I gave I think that I might very well have sent more reinforcements from my reserves to this sector after seeing what transpired at the end of battle 2 and knowing that holding the road junction for battle 3 on map 3 would be extremely important as previously noted. Since there is a full night of rest between the end of battle 2 on day 1 and the start of battle 3 on day 2 it seems logical that the US commander would have had plenty of time during the night to send strong reinforcements to this area as opposed to the weak one's that I as the scenario designer had guessed would be adequate. My next point is this: Should I as the scenario designer in a campaign game spanning a couple of days worth of action played out over several individual CM battles even be trying to guess at all as to the reinforcements / local reserves that higher level German and US command might deploy in between such a battles?????????? My answer is that I think not. There is absolutely no way for me as the scenario designer to accurately guess what reinforcements should realistically be allocated to either side in between the various battles because I have no way of knowing what is going to happen. No matter how hard one tries there are just too many variables involved in such an equation to even begin to try and guess. Granted, after playing the game over and over again and making adjustments to the scenario reinforcements over and over again some sort of an "average" quasi play balance equilibrium might at least be reached; but is this really realistic in and of itself??? Well we could discuss that one for a long time and never come up with a satisfactory answer I would imagine. I'll just leave it at, no, since my intention as the scenario designer was to simulate a German attack. So even if I had managed to tweak the scenario reinforcements on each side so that all things equal out most of the time (something that I think would be impossible to do in the first place I might add) then I've more than likely turned what was intended to be an attack scenario into what for all intents and purposes would be a meeting engagement of relatively equal forces. Worse still, I can easily see that it is likely that no matter how I guess, if things do go badly for on side or the other due to luck, poor decisions, etc. that the campaign game might quickly become unbalanced and probably much less fun for both parties involved. So back to my belief that there is some necessity for conditional reinforcements. In my view this would be a much more realistic way for me as a scenario designer to simulate the allocation of reinforcements from higher level command reserves based on the unfolding of events as the forces fight through the individual battles. What I'm thinking here is say that the Germans get stuck on map two after battle 2. Then a condition could be set that would recognize they are now fighting battle 3 on map 2 instead of map 3 and allocate additional reserve forces 2 them to get them going again. If they continued to stay stuck on map 2 after the 3rd battle then they would get even heavier reinforcements prior to battle 4 (now being fought on map 2 instead of map 4 like it should be) to simulate German high command throwing strong reserves in to help break loose the situation. On the flip side the conditional reinforcements for the US player after the 2nd battle might actually end up being less (2nd ex. above) than what I had originally given them to reflect the regimental commander saying, "hey, those boys are doing all right up there on map 2 and due to the total uncertainty of what is going on in our divisional sector division command has told me to not commit any of my reserves until it is absolutely necessary." Other conditions based on % total losses, key objectives taken/not taken by the end of a given battle, and other factors might also be used to determine what, if any, reinforcements might be allocated to either side vs. me trying to guess what should be given to both sides; which again, in my view, isn't a very realistic way to simulate the deployement of higher level reserves as reinforcements to a given sector based on what is actually going on in that sector. Would such a system be perfect??? Most likely not. Would conditional reinforcements bring us a step closer to the reality of how I believe reserves were actually committed in real life as reinforcements in a given given sector over time? I believe the answer to the question is yes. In addition I think that such a system would also provide some form of what I'll call "dynamic play balance" in that each side would receive reserves/reinforcements between the battles of a campaign to help even out the situation which again I think is more along the lines of realism assuming that such reserves were available in the first place. As a higher level regimental/divisional commander I think you would rarely allow a situation in a given sector (simulated here by a CM campaign) to deteriorate to such a point over several battles that a major stall of your offensive was starting to happen (like the German 2nd ex. above), or a major breakout was imminent (like the US 1st ex. above) in a given area. The end result of having conditional reinforcements to simulate the deployment of reservese between battles would therefore accomplish 3 things in my view: 1) My job as a scenario designer is made much easier in that I can more accurately and realistically deploy reserves to either side between battles based on how the series of campaign battles are actually going vs. pure guess work. 2) The liklihood of having a given scenario turn into a rout is greatly diminished since the game will automatically adjust both sides forces (via how many and what type of reinforcements they receive from reserve pools in between the battles) to some extent based on actual events unfolding during the campaign. This allows for a more realistic commitment of higher level reserves to the campaign and also keeps both sides in the game which in my opinion makes for a funner, more interesting game too. 3) Together with the non-conditional reinforcement capabilities already included in the game (which I assume includes the ability to deploy reinforcements based on a percentage chance both during a given battle, as well as in between games/battles of a campaign) I think the the addition of conditional reinforcements will help "round out" the set of tools available to the scenario designer to allocate reinforcements/reserves to both sides in a more realitic manner. Sorry this post is so bloody long, but then you probably know who wrote it without even having to read the name. Regards, Mike D Aka Mikester

WHOOPS, POSTED THIS IN THE WRONG PLACE, SO I'VE DELETED IT HERE AND MOVED IT OVER TO: "Questions for Steve (General PBEM)#4". [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 08-29-99).]

I would think and hope that the liklihood of crews panicking and bailing out of their tanks for little good reason (i.e. tank not actually hit by a penetrating shot or immobilized) would greatly diminish as crew experience level rises. I.e. I can see this happening to green and sometimes regular crews, but not very often to experienced / crack crews. Mike D aka Mikester

Steve, After I made my last post I was thinking more about this and kinda figured that you would just slip the disk inside the manual and wrap it up all nice and tighty. As long as the manual is thick enough (I don't think that will be a problem here) and you are putting the whole thing into a heavy envelope (one w/ a layer of that bubble wrap stuff on the inside???) then there shouldn't be any problems. If this helps keep costs down I have no problem w/ it as I can always get a jewel case to put it in if I really want. But like I said above, it will probably spend most of its time in the well protected confines of my CD rom drive, so I probably won't be needing a case at all. Dave, I might have known one of you guys would be here to see my antics! Well, FWIW, I had to take a package over to the PO the other day that I had to return to the sender. But I'd forgot to put the return authorization form in it before I went over there. I also had to use a special registered mail thing they sent me that I wasn't 100% sure how to fill out. The guy at the PO however was most helpful since he told me how to fill the forms out correctly and even cut the nasty reinforced tape on the box open for me so I could get the form in there and then taped it back up. So in my book you guys are all right. Now as far as those over night guys are concerned............DOHHHHH!, better stop there since there is probably a UPS, Fedex, or the such type of guy lurking around here somewhere Mike D aka Mikester

Lokesa, You are correct. In CC3 the tanks which have frozen engines start the game that way. The engines don't freeze during the game. The thing that has always befuddled me about this in CC3 is that I can remember at least one occasion (I hope I'm remembering correctly here) where I as the German player and attacker started out w/ at least one and maybe 2 of my tanks where the engines wouldn't start due to freezing. They sat there idle and for the most part totally useless for the entire game. The kicker for me is that one would think that if I was attacking then whatever tanks that I would move up to attack with would have their engines running, right? Or if they were so close to the attack point already and obviously know when the attack is to take place that they would have more than enough time to get their engines running in all of their tanks prior to starting the attack! Just one more example of some of the inaccuracies in the CC series of games. Mike D aka Mikester

Charles, As a potential future game programmer (mostly in my dreams) I'm curious how much effort has gone into CM so far??? I seem to recall that you are doing most of the programming and Steve and a graphic artist are also helping out with various aspects of making the actual game as well. I would imagine that all told you guys have several thousand hours in this project already. How many total programming/development hours (coding, research, etc.) do you estimate will have gone into this game by the time it goes gold???? Curious, Mike D aka Mikester

BTS, OK, if there isn't going to be a jewel case to help keep my precious baby from getting folded, bent, or otherwise mutilated in shipping it to me then how do you plan on packaging it to prevent potential damage???? Don't forget, those boys at the post office and over night delivery places take special classes in learning how to destroy packages. They have every move down pat. The old drop-a-rooski into the wood chipper (oops), the "I don't know how that package got under the delivery van and got ran over boss, really I don't" routine, the "let's take this here nice little package from BTS and use it as a frisbee during our lunch break" routine. The infamous, "let's take this here little package and put it at the bottom of the stack of boxes in my delivery van and then pile a couple hundred pounds of large boxes of lead fishing weights on top of it and see how it holds up." And one of my all time favorites, "this is your package, this is your package after it has been soaked in a bath of sulfuric acid for over an hour, any questions???." The list goes on and on. Trust me, I have no doubt that they take special joy in doing so as well Do not underestimate the caliber of people you are dealing with here when it comes to the delivery "services". They are highly trained professional package assasins Protect yourself and our precious copies of CM accordingly. Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 08-29-99).]

I found the following surfing the web to try and find out more on this subject. For the most part it sounds like what Mr. Cunningham has described is pretty much how a muzzle "brake" (sorry I couldn't resist a little razing here Ron ) works. http://www.hallowellco.com/muzzle_brake.htm It doesn't say much, but it does give a general idea of how it works. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester PS: FWIW Ron you are not the only one that misspelled brake, I saw at least one web page header for some gun dealer as I was out surfing that also spelled it muzzle "break".

Herr Major Kelly, It must be wonderful to be out of that bloody forest finally. I pretty much have the same question as someone else had above. Namely, now that you've doubled your armored fire power w/ the addition of the 2 Panzer IV's arriving and you've escaped the isolation of the forest do you plan to move harder towards the town w/ a combined armoured / infantry advance and perhaps overrun the US MLR in the middle of the map and reach the town more quickly? Or do you plan to keep up your diliberate grinding pace with infantry and HT's in front w/ tanks a little further back for support and get there later, rather than sooner??? While I can see that you will most likely continue a mostly diliberate pace, I'm also wondering if you fear that more US reinforcements may show up (perhaps even tanks, AT guns, or more bazooka teams) in the town which might make it extremely difficult for you to retake it. At least not without taking major losses in doing so which I imagine will be factored fairly heavily into who wins and who loses. Keeping up a slower, somewhat more constant, pace might also make it easier to drop an accurate artillery barrage on your infantry and HT's which could get quite ugly as you already well know. Although you do seem to be spreading these units out pretty well as they advance to minimize the losses from such and attack. BTW I've been confused about the state of your Stug, is it totally and permanently immobile, or not???? Regards, Mike D aka Mikester

Martin, In regards to rushing and taking that large apartment complex looking building where Fionn is making his last stand for the most part in the town. Does it help any to rush the complex simultaneously from say 3 sides??? In this case from the N, S, and E say w/ two squads assulting from each direction with support squads in the adjacent buildings set up to provide cover fire??? Also, is there an order available to give to a squad to rush up to the doorways and windows (at ground level) of a building, stop, and then let fly with some gernades into the building buidling prior to entering? Or do they do something like this automatically??? Seems like it might be good to have such an order for just this kind of situation. I imagine it could be done with a combo of orders to run forward and then throw gernades, I'm just not sure if throwing gernades is in the standard list of orders. Mike D aka Mikester

Bill, I was actually being a wise acre above (not like most of you out there probably couldn't tell). I actually agree w/ you here. There should at least be a case as it also helps to best protect the disk. The box, though, I think most of us can do without which is a good thing because BTS said there already isn't going to be one long ago. Mike

Pixman, I would tend to think that all of the above factors would be more depenedent upon training and experience of the squad, rather than where it comes from. However, I do think there is some difference between different nationalities in terms of these factors as well. But this is what I would call a secondary effect vs. the 2 primary ones noted above. And like Charles has said, I don't believe much of what I've read supports such a notion that nationality had much of a bearing on such factors. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester

Moon, Great little village you've posted just above. Is it "perfect"? Well, probably no, but it does look pretty darn good. Good enough for me anyways! If we can build maps that look like this it is going to be a lot of fun to do up our own scenarios. Thx for the post. BTW, the city shot doesn't look all that bad either. I would have to agree that it looks like it has too many right angles (i.e. streets, row houses, etc.), but hey, if that is all we can get for now, I'm fine w/ this too. BTW, Steve/Charles the church steeple is a nice touch! Regards, Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 08-28-99).]

We don't need no stinkin boxes. Let's see: I can get the CD disk out and put it in the drive and just leave it there cause it won't be coming out for a long, long, time. So I really don't need one of those fancy plastic cases either, we can just go w/ one of those cardboard sleeves and save a little more $$$ Next, box (if there were one) would go straight into the trash, or in a heap w/ all the other one's! Therefore, don't need box. Finally, the manual will become a permanent attachment to my person. Where I go, it will go. At night I'll sleep with it under my pillow to: 1) make sure it is safe and 2) hope that through some form of osmosis my little pea brain might absorb additional knowledge from it as I sleep. Of course most nights I will not be doing much sleeping anyways, as I can easily forsee that I'll be so engrossed in this game that I'll be up til the wee hours of the morning playing it. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 08-28-99).]

BTS, Fionn has lamented endlessly about not being able to push stalled/immobilized vehicles out of the way in the current game being played out since the code isn't in the game yet to do this. Unfortunately this has affected his advance to some degree which I'm certain has caused him to be overly cautious in his advance through the woods. But alas, that is the way things are for now. Anyway, my question concerns what will happen if a tank, HT, etc., is actually knocked out and starts burning where it stands. Especially in the case of a tank where large caliber ammo stored in the turret might start to go off and/or explode I'm wondering if it will actually be possible, or for that matter prudent, for another vehicle to try and push it out of the way. How does CM plan to handle this situation??? Will it allow burning immobilized vehicles to be pushed??? If so, will there be some delay to how fast it can be pushed out of the way vs. if it were not burning to simulate the pushing vehicle / crew being more careful due to the fact that the vehicle is burning??? Regards, Mike D Aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 08-27-99).]

BJK and anyone else looking at possibly upgrading their existing system, or getting a new one, I would seriously look at getting an entire new system if I were you and you have the money. Intel has already started slashing their prices just in the last 2 weeks or so as a result of the release of the AMD Athalon (K7) chips into the market place. PIII 450 and 500 chips have already fallen in price by $150 or more in just the last couple of weeks!!! PIII 450 and 500 chip systems from Gateway, Dell, and the like are starting to fall considerably in price in reaction to the fall in chip prices. I'm looking at buying a new one too since my current system is totally inadequate (Pentium 100 Mhz machine that is over 3.5 years old) for playing CM and the like. In any event now and in the very near future (next month or so) might be an excellent time to just replace your entire system since prices are continuing to fall due to some real competition coming into the market from AMD. If you want to get some excellent info comparing the new AMD and Intel chips and all matter of other things like what chip prices are doing on a weekly basis, recommended video cards, etc., go to: www.sharkyextreme.com Regards, Mike D aka Mikester

Steve, Glad to hear the latest Sherman immobilization was the result of a bug and that it is going to be fixed. Mike D aka Mikester

Charles, I seem to recall that somewhere you mentioned that the game is coded in C. I'm just now taking my first C course and one of the strengths of the language they mentioned is the portability of the code to different platforms and O/S's. Is this what allows the easy interchange between MAC and PC for CM??? Thx, Mike D aka Mikester