Peter Svensson

Hey Greg, I just sent you an e-mail. Peter

Yes, but it's been a while since I contributed. Of course, I had to check out the reaction to the review!

Thanks for your interest - I think I have enough responses now.

I used to play Combat Mission quite a bit, but haven't had time the last six months or so, in part of because of a greater load at work. I'm a business reporter for the Associated Press, and now I need some help with a trend story on older gamers. If you're born between 1946 and 1964, play computer games regularly, and are willing to talk about it, could you send me an e-mail? I'd like to talk about why you play, how your friends and family view it, etc.

Me, me, me, me! (Waving, jumping)

I played Dompaire as defensively as I could. I basically hid all my armor behind hills and depressions, and let the infantry act as spotters. Of particular use was the sunken area on the French right flank, in the middle of the board. I snuck a whole platoon of Shermans and an M10 in there without, I think, being spotted. From there they could dominate the right flank from hull down positions. My opponent party played into my strategy by being fairly aggressive. He advanced the Panthers pretty far up, so close that I could button them with my infantry and then nail them with M10s popping up from cover. Rather than orchestrating a massive outflanking like Holien describes, I picked the Panthers off one by one, by concentrating several M10s on each one. Final tally was eight Panthers destroyed and a ninth gun damaged, to four Shermans and two M10s lost. Luck was a major factor as well. I was very lucky to stop a particularly bold move on my left early in the game. I had two Shermans moving up to reinforce a Greyhound guarding the flank when a Puma snuck up and nailed my car. At the same time, a Panther came racing down the road along the left board edge, heading towards my rear. In a matter of seconds, the Panther, Puma and one of my Shermans was knocked out. The next turn, the engineer platoon in halftracks appeared right where the Panther would have been if it hadn't been stopped. I also had an exceptionally daring and lucky Sherman that played hide-and-seek with two Panthers in the center. It pretty much forced both Panthers to withdraw back to the village by constantly threatening to outflank them. This was after it took a Panther shell through its side armor with no ill effects. Only when I had about won the tank battle did I really advance. This was too late to dominate the VLs on the German side of the map, but at least I interdicted both of them.

Well, it's mostly text, so I don't think it'll be too big. And part of the fun of reading AARs is comparing them to see what different people did in each scenario. As we've seen from the results posted, there has been a wide range of outcomes. Also, it's fun to post opposing AARs side by side on the same page, so you get a feel for what each player is thinking. That said, posting every AAR may be a bit much. I'm perfectly game for posting five of each scenario or so. I agree that we should have a heroes list! I've already nominated quite a few worthies in my AARs. It'll be hard to chose between the Panther that held off the whole American attacking force for half the game while immobilized, or the 75 Sherman that took a hit through the side, shrugged it off, then chased off two Panthers.

I've volunteered to format the AARs for posting online. Maybe it's time to get that started, seeing as we have some completed scenarios and people want to read the AARs. I could provide the web space myself, but I think some of the established web sites would probably want them. Wild Bill, would you want them on the Boots & Tracks site? Otherwise I'll get in touch with some other webmaster.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Scipio: The axis forces are indeed in slightly higher terrain - but the SPW is out of the 80m zone - so this would mean, ONE single crew man 79m away and a few meters above can beat a Sherman??? If so, then I would already call it a bug! This is absolutly unrealistic and unlogic.<hr></blockquote> Aha! There's the elevation again. It really makes a huge difference, but only in some cases. In most cases, it makes no difference at all. I haven't figured out when it's important and when it isn't. And yes, I too think this is a bug.

Regarding those extra tanks - units more than 80 m away from a VL have no effect on control. I've tested this quite a bit.

I experienced a similar VL surprise in a tournament game, and tried to get to the bottom of it. My conclusion was that LOS was immaterial, but that in some cases, elevation was critical. If both sides have units within 80 m of the VL, the units that are higher in elevation than opposing forces sometimes count at about five times their value in determining control of the VL. See Previous thread on subject I'm not entirely sure that elevation is the hidden factor, because sometimes it clearly doesn't influence VL control, but it sure does explain the weird results I've seen. I'd also love to hear from BTS on this.

I'm Swedish, and I'd like to take part, but I'm not sure I have the time. What's the deadline for applications? How about making it the Vodka Belt Championship, the stronger cousin of the Winecape tournaments?

I just got a cable modem, so I'll be phasing out my dial-up ISP. Those of you who have been mailing me at petersve@speakeasy.org, please use psvensson@nyc.rr.com instead. Thank you!

Aw, man, Stixx! I'm sorry to see you go, especially since our battle was going so well

If you have abandoned the idea of having the game's computation of victory scores determine who is the winner, you may as well introduce some new victory conditions. For instance, it's quite common in CM scenarios to have a victory flag on some important road, which then becomes the focus of fighting. But dominating the road surface itself is quite useless if enemy units have LOS on the road and can interdict movement on it. So you can construct victory conditions like: "the German player gains ten points if he has unbroken units that can fire on any stretch of the road." This would simulate striving to comply with the Clear order above. You could even have recce-type scenarios, where one player gains points depending on the accuracy of his estimate of opposing strength, submitted just before the game ends. Or you could get points for assassinations of key units etc., etc. Many possibilities. Would be refreshing to fight over something other than VLs and casualty ratios for once.