Dr. Rosenrosen

Just out of curiosity, how did you do a test like that? Dr. Rosenrosen

My PBEM buddy and I just played a "tanks only" scenario that I designed with nice hilly steppe and a city in the middle. In order to faciliate an even match, both of us had Panthers and T34/85s since these tanks are available to the Germans and the Soviets. It worked out great! I'm interested in coming up with another scenario along those lines but with more variety in tank types. I was hoping that I could get some of the heavier tanks on the battlefield, Tigers, IS3s and the like. Any suggestions on tanks for the Germans and the Soviets that would be well-matched against each other in terms of armor and penetration? I would also be interested in having more types of tanks: tank destroyers, assault guns, etc for each side and still try to keep the balance. Since the terrain probably makes a difference, once again I'm envisioning a largely treeless steppe with lots of hills and valleys for good hulldown hunting, possibly at some distance. Thanks for your suggestions! Dr. Rosenrosen [ August 13, 2003, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: Dr. Rosenrosen ]

Well, now that the technical and historical aspects of your argument have been dealt with thoroughly, I want to comment on the psychology of the whole thing. Your analysis sounds really quite paranoid. As Madmatt observed, your conclusions are based on anecdotal evidence, but your logic reveals that you feel the programmers have gone to extra effort to introduce a flawed probability system. Don't know if you've ever done any computer programming, especially AI stuff, but.... The "dynamic probability" that you describe and that you are justifiable opposed to would be much more difficult to program than just standard probability. Here's an example, in a situation where two tanks are facing off, the simple probability requires that the angle, armor penetration, distance, etc. be taken into account. As long as the above conditions are the same, the probability is the same. In order to implement some sort of "dynamic probability" into the mix, additional factors like tank price, success of previous attacks/defenses by both units in possibly very different circumstances, whether the units in question bear a Hollywood-style grudge against each other, etc. So why would BFC go to such extra efforts to make the game behave in a less realistic fashion? Just to piss you off? Seems a little paranoid to me.... Dr. Rosenrosen

Some of the halftrack pics show the vehicle driving just on the tracks with the front wheels up in the air. This begs the question: What are those front wheels for? They seem unnecessary. Dr. Rosenrosen

Nice Pics!! [Edited because I answered my own question by looking at the source site.] [ August 05, 2003, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: Dr. Rosenrosen ]

Nope. Obviously lots of ammo has been used, but there are still squads with decent ammo on both sides. That's what prompted me to write. I thought that the only things that could lead to autoceasefire was 1) low morale or 2) low ammo. Since neither of these seemed to apply, I was wondering whether there was something else that I was missing, or whether the game is behaving in an unexpected way. Any other tips? Dr. Rosenrosen

I would love to see defending infantry get more ammo than attacking infantry! This seems realistic and would prevent attackers from simply milking most of the ammo out of a defensive position and then moving in. In reality, the attacker would have no idea how much ammo reserve is there. Dr. Rosenrosen

Thanks for your response, but that doesn't seem likely. His casualties were not overwhelming and he still had some offensive momentum going on. I would think that the morale would be lower if his casualties were really severe enough to cause an auto cease fire. Dr. Rosenrosen

A friend and I were playing an infantry only meeting engagement on a map that I designed. I grabbed two of the three flags but suffered serious casualties which pretty much left me in a defensive position. I declared a cease fire, but my opponent didn't and the game went on. Several turns later, the game "was fought to its conclusion" even though he didn't declare a cease fire. We were 20 turns away from the variable turn ending that we set. Both of our moral was in the 60% range. He seemed to have a decent amount of ammo left, several units with half ammo and a handful with almost all of their ammo left. I find it very puzzling (and he found it very frustrating since he had designs on my remaining flags) that the game ended this way. I'll be glad to offer the PBEM turn to anyone who wants to look at it in detail. Any suggestions about why this game might have ended itself? Thanks, Dr. Rosenrosen

If they were German soldiers, I would think they were the Siegfried squad, fearlessly walking through the magic fire and all. Dr. Rosenrosen

Alrighty, it makes sense that Germans have to pay more to drive a captured T34 than the Russians need to pay to drive the same tank. But I'm completely baffled why it is cheaper for the Soviets to drive a captured Panther (Pz VA early) than for the Germans to use their own tank! A veteran Panther (Pz VA early) costs 233 points at a rarity of +30% for the Germans. For the Soviets, the captured version of that same tank costs only 210 points at a rarity of +150%! (All prices are for June 1944.) With Allied purchase power like this, it's no wonder my poor German tanks are always outnumbered. Anybody know of an explanation (or care to venture a guess?) Dr. Rosenrosen

I'm playing a PBEM and my foolish opponent is starting of the game by walking his men across an open field right towards my hidden HMG. I'm wondering what is the best way to make the most of this situation. Ideally, I would like to have a command like a cover arc that sets a "trigger line". The unit stays hidden until an enemy crosses that line. This way, my enemy will expose many men (hopefully) and be out in the middle of the field before my HMG reveals himself. However, unlike a cover arc, the unit wouldn't be ordered to continue firing only at units that happen to be in the arc. Once he opens fire, my HMG could choose any target in view. So since there is no way to do this in CMBB AFAIK, I have a simple cover arc and will need to wait until the end of the turn that the HMG reveals himself to cancel the arc and target the entire area. Is this the best way to maximize my advantage? Any other suggestions? Thanks, Dr. Rosenrosen

I did that just now, loading a flagless map as the map for a QB. Two flags were created and randomly placed at the beginning of the game. Dr. Rosenrosen

Is it possible to play without flags? I haven't tested it recently, but I thought that if you loaded a QB map with no flags, flags would be randomly created and placed on the map. Dr. Rosenrosen

A friend and I were recently playing a combined arms allied attack game on one of BCR's maps (Ferrovia). Our QB allowed for 1000 pts (1500 for the attacker). The game turned out incredibly unfairly because the allies get so many extra armor points. Of the 1500 points 549 of them can be spent for armor, while the axis only get 200 to defend. Add this to the fact that axis tanks are generally more expensive and the tank ratio gets really unbalanced. (1 to 8 in our game, plus the allies had 3 halftracks to boot). I tried to see how this would work out if the allies were in the defensive position. In this case, the axis only get 300 armor points to attack while the allies have 366 to defend! Again this point difference is accentuated by the cheaper allied tanks. It seems really unfair to expect the axis to overcome such odds, unless the map and conditions are extremely favorable. (In this case, the defender's position was further weakened by the dynamic flag system. Even though the flag is chosen randomly in a QB unlike in a scenario, this system seems to provide an insurmountable advantage to the attacker, no?) Why is the combined arms point system weighted this way? Does anyone have any solutions for balancing attack/defend QBs more fairly? I'm tempted to just do unrestricted forces, but that seems like allowing even more luck into the balancing of a game. In general, what are your favorite conditions for providing as evenly matched game as possible between two human opponents? Thanks for your suggestions, Dr. Rosenrosen [ July 27, 2003, 12:21 AM: Message edited by: Dr. Rosenrosen ]

Pardon me for asking a basic question to such an expert forum. Does fitness (fit, weakened, unfit) affect a squad's ability to cope with incoming fire? My impression was that fitness simply affected how far he could run/advance before getting tired, and that the squad's rank (conscript, etc.) determined how much he freaks out when I shoot at him. Is there an interaction effect going on here? Thanks for any clarity you can offer. I need as much as I can get! Dr. Rosenrosen

I think it would be very cool to allow for the possibility of some of the enemy positions being known during setup, particularly for an assault. It could work like this: The defender sets up his troops before turn 1. Then, when the attacker is setting up his own troops, key positions or units (MGs, pillboxes, mines, etc.) would appear as "spotted" markers on the map. Just like spotted markers during the real game, there could be misidentified targets or misplaced markers and naturally not all of the defenders' troops would be spotted. What do you think? Dr. Rosenrosen

Gratuitous bump because I'm still interested in finding Fionn's AAR. Also, I wonder if people have any answers or opinions about my question on wounding vs. killing the enemy from page 1 of this thread. Dr. Rosenrosen

I did a search and all I found was other people talking about how great that AAR was. Does anyone have a link? Thanks, Dr. Rosenrosen

This is an interesting point from a strategy perspective. It seems like it would be advantageous to wound an enemy soldier instead of kill him. If he is wounded, the rest of the squad will be distracted attempting to help him. If he were killed outright, there would clearly be morale effects on the squad, but a disciplined team would be able to return immediately to their military objective. On the other hand, a wounded soldier could potentially return to fight another day. Did any of the strategists or weapons designers take this into account in WW2? I suspect that this philosophy was part of the booby-traps and other maiming devices in Vietnam. If the difference between a wounded or dead enemy does play a critical role strategically, then CM should calculate "kills vs. casualties" before the end of the game and allow the squad to react accordingly. I'm interested in the opinions from any of the more knowledgable readers of this forum. Thanks, Dr. Rosenrosen

I have an explanation and a few suggestions: I agree that there are limitations to the AI, especially when it is supposed to attack. It is very difficult to program AI for strategy games. The games that have the most challenging AI are the ones with the most limiting number of strategic elements for the computer to consider. Take chess for example. Chess AI has made great advances because there are many restrictions on the player: the pieces are always the same and can move only in certain ways, there are only 64 squares to consider, each player alternates one move at a time, the setup is identical at the beginning. Since the main goal of CM is realistic recreation of historical conditions (units, weather, map types, etc.), the developers have created so many different variables that AI creation is made quite complex. The philosophy behind this approach is to give players maximum flexibility in scenario design and strategic possibilities. But unlike in chess or other simpler games, attempting to code an AI that can deal with these infinite possibilities is practically impossible. We take it for granted that our own brains can filter and deal with this much variable information and develop high level strategy around it. The science of AI needs to advance before it can be addressed better. Personally, I'm impressed with how well the AI does in many situations. "But some games have more challenging AI than CM!" you cry. In between these two extremes(chess and CM), there are many other strategy games that have decent AI. I submit that any game that has a more challenging AI is by its nature a simpler game in terms of variability of factors compared to CM. (I'm not saying that chess is a "simple" game to play and master, just that the parameters are much more limited than in CM.) CM's goal after all was to introduce as many variables that could be modelling historically. This is one of the reasons it makes such an entertaining game, especially between two humans. There have been some attempts to make CM more single-player friendly. As my PBEM buddy has gotten busier, I've started doing Biltong's Campaign Rules. It provides an entertaining framework for setting the variables in successive QBs. (There's always a BCR thread open if you want more info.) Another option is to play some scenarios that others have designed for play against the AI. Naturally many of these put the AI in the defensive position, but they still result in challenging games. When I'm in a defensive mood, I'll design a scenario with an interesting defensive position and then attempt to assault it myself, giving the AI my own defensive designs. I'm limited to more static defenses, but at least this gives me the opportunity to think both defensively and offensively and gain some variety over normal QBs. Dr. Rosenrosen [ April 07, 2003, 05:54 PM: Message edited by: Dr. Rosenrosen ]

I also have two IP addresses on my computer. I have a 192.168.x.x number for my internal network. I have an externally visible IP from my cable modem. (In Windows 2000, I have two LAN connections, one for each network.) When I load CM and host a TCP/IP game, the game tells me both my internal and external IP. Then I can just tell my opponent the correct one and he can connect. I've never had any problems connecting. Based on this, I would suggest that if CM is only giving you your internal IP when you host a game, there is probably a more global issue with your network config than CM. Have you tried ipconfig to get more info about your network setup? Dr. Rosenrosen

I also have two IP addresses on my computer. I have a 192.168.x.x number for my internal network. I have an externally visible IP from my cable modem. (In Windows 2000, I have two LAN connections, one for each network.) When I load CM and host a TCP/IP game, the game tells me both my internal and external IP. Then I can just tell my opponent the correct one and he can connect. I've never had any problems connecting. Based on this, I would suggest that if CM is only giving you your internal IP when you host a game, there is probably a more global issue with your network config than CM. Have you tried ipconfig to get more info about your network setup? Dr. Rosenrosen

Remember to divide the incoming unit's experience by 1.25. Then add to the group and divide by its number (in this case: 10). thus you have: 22/1.25 = 17.6 21 * 9 = 189 + 17.6 = 206.6 206.6 / 10 troops = 20.66, round up to 21. </font>

While I've got your attention.... I'm wondering if my overall experiences with BCR are in line with others'. I am on my 11th battle and it's July 17th, 1941. I find that most of my "battles" are just like shooting fish in a barrel. The Soviets are almost always unfit conscripts with very low ammo. While they often have a point advantage over me, I have been able to deal with most battles by parking a tank or MG near the enemy and watching them fall. The worst outcome I've had so far is a Major Victory and most are Total Victories. I've yet to deal with any Allied probes, attacks or assaults. In my last game (a meeting engagement), I put more effort into making sure that each of my squads got at least one kill than worrying about holding the objective. I see from the modifiers that my luck will change as time goes on and some of my advantageous modifiers go away. However, due to the number of total victories and my generally low casualties, I have rolled lots of immediate assaults. Therefore, the date hasn't progressed very quickly. Is this typical? How will my confrontations change as the date-specific modifiers change? Is there anything else that I should change in order to make things more challenging? (I've already been upgraded from Green to Regular as a player.) Thanks, Dr. Rosenrosen