DaffyDuck

I was playing early 1942, so it could have been a Pz II. Did they really rapid-fire with their main gun? I wasn't aware that was even a thing tanks did. I think I learn some new detail of WW II armament every time I play this game. I remember when I first got the game a decade and a half ago, being completely overwhelmed by all the equipment choices. I had no background in wargaming, so I knew nothing about all those different units. I went into a lot of battles with a lot of the wrong stuff for a while.

I've been replaying CMBB lately and there's a sound effect that always confused me. When some light tanks fire (I can't name a specific vehicle right now) you hear about half a dozen thunks in a row. These are light tanks with smaller guns. It is the main gun that's being fired, not the MGs, but it sounds like rapidly firing 5 or 6 shots. It only looks like one actual shot, both visually and the effect of fire. But you hear multiple discreet sounds. So what's going on there? Is that a bad sound effect, or if that's a realistic gun sound, why does it sound like that?

I was waiting for this. I was beginning to wonder if by the time we got to see a demo, 2007 would be a historical scenario.

I've seen a tank get bogged before and then watched the next tank come along and get all hung up trying to drive around him (first coming to a dead halt bumper to bumper of course). So I was really surprised the other day when I watched a tank bog, and then the next tank just pushed him out of the way. He just drove into the first tank and it slid over to the side and then they guy drove on. The pushing operation did slow him down a bit, but not nearly as bad as trying to drive around him. Has anyone else seen this? Or was I just having bad luck with tank traffic before? It was new to me.

I know some battles are decided quickly and others just take a long time. But do you guys have any rules of thumb about how many turns to set up a quick battle for, based on the point size of the game? I ask because I've recently started playing some email games and the length is more of an issue there. If you're just playing the AI you can always guess a little long and when the battle looks over it's easy to just click go a lot to finish it up. With an email opponent extra time means lots of emails back and forth when you both already know what the outcome is, really. On the other hand, you don't want to go too short and not let the battle play out to a natural conclusion. How do you guys set the number of turns for various point sizes?

I like this, carefully selecting troops for their ammo and weapons loadout in order to match your style of play or to fill a certain roll you have in mind. But I'm curious to know if this is considered gamey (unrealistic, ahistorical, etc.), or just a matter of selecting the right men for a specific job.

Thanks for the help. I never really understood what Recon troops were. So from a strictly game playing standpoint you distinguish recon troops from regular infantry strictly by equipment and number of men. They're just infantry with a different loadout. You might pick a recon company if you wanted to stretch your points by getting more men with lighter weapons, for instance. From a more historical perspective, you would use them to scout out an area, but your main infantry force would probably be a regular rifle company/battalion. Does this sound right?

I understand pioneers, they are mostly for demolitions, mine clearing, but can act as regular infantry if they need to. But what are Recon troops for? I'd like to know both historically what their purpose was, and in the game how they are best used. I was selecting troops in a game recently (as Soviets) and noticed that a recon company came with more men, was cheaper, and didn't come with ATRs which I never seem to get much use out of (any hints on how to use them would be appreciated, too). I was shopping for infantry and they looked like a better deal all around. Why were they cheaper? was it because they didn't have the ATRs? Is it appropriate to use them as my main infantry force? Is it historically accurate or gamey? Also, did I miss something, is there some inherent disadvantage to Recon troops that is the reason they're cheaper? Are they usually cheaper, or did I just happen to be in a time/place where they were? Sorry for the flurry of questions, I'd just like to understand them next time I'm looking at a force selection screen. Thanks in advance.

Let us know when it's posted. I don't really have time to try it out now, but I'd like to see it when you have it in a more finished form.

Yeah, I like simplicity. But I do like thinking I'm seeing realistic scenes as I progress. I was toying with the idea of using Biltong's rolls for some of those parameters, but if the random setting gives you accurate weather then that's just another step I don't have to take manually.

I did a little searching and couldn't find a very good answer to just how random the QB random settings are. Does anyone know for sure if the "random" settings for temperature, weather, etc. adjust to the month and year? I'm wondering if in a campaign you can just trust the random settings to give you a reasonable setting or if you will get hot, dry battles in January or snow in the summer.

I think these changes sound pretty good. Supply issues can be roughly simulated with just ammo level. That makes for a good deal less bookkeeping. JasonC provided a lot of good information in his post (he always does). Maybe it can be used to fine tune ammo and quality modifiers for different dates. I probably won't be able to playtest this campaign system any time soon, but I will try to crunch the numbers for a few battles and see how they look. That might help a little. I'll let you know what I think.

I downloaded your rules and read them over and they look good. I don't get to play CMBB all the time so if I only get a battle in every once in a while it will take me forever to complete BCR. Your rules look like a good way for a more infrequent player like myself to get a good overview of all the different conditions throughout the war. I might give this a try. I like the flexibility of selecting just what type of units to include in your core group. I may use a sort of mixture of ROQC and BCR, mixing the things I like from both. For instance, I like the way auxiliary units are selected for you by the computer in BCR. It forces you to use all sorts of things you might not ever pick yourself. I haven't actually crunched the numbers or played any ROQC battles out yet, but there is one thing that I didn't like in the rules: casualties. Your casualties rules combined with the random handicap will lead to some very lopsided battles. I know we're just playing the AI, but I'm just not all that good (see JasonC's comments on my games if you don't believe me). I'd prefer it if the casualties were just used to set the appropriate quick battle parameter (less housekeeping than with moving guys off the map). If you want an unbalanced game put that all in the handicap. Then you can easily put in a modifier for player skill to give us newbies a break. That's probably how I'll play it. Please don't take that as criticism. I'm just trying to get the ball rolling on discussing how we can make this a good, but quick, campaign.

I've posted JasonC's comments on my AARs on my website. I recommend them to anyone still learning. Many thanks to JasonC for his analysis. I look forward to his comments on any or all of my other AARs. [ April 01, 2003, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: DaffyDuck ]

Thanks again for all your comments JasonC. I'm learning a lot. I should note for the record that the lousy map is my own fault. I wanted to try out the editor and I threw this together to play on. It was the very first time I even opened up the editor so my map design was obviously far from masterful. Thanks for explaining the use of pioneers. I picked them mostly because I didn't know how to use them and I wanted to see what they could do. That's sort of the problem with CMBB for a beginner like me: there are so many different units to know about. They are all based on actually historical units and so one may assume that each was formed to serve some specific purpose, but I don't know enough period military history to know what all those purposes were. I can learn by trial and error but with this many units it would take forever. What I long for is a list of all the different units with a sentence or two explanation of what their role was historically and/or their usefulness in the game. I know that building such a list would take a lot of work. Maybe a breakdown of major types of units with slightly longer descriptions would be more reasonable. Does anything like this exist? If not, does anybody want to start putting one together? I'd be willing to host it on my website. Back to this game, though. I actually replayed this one and never wrote it up. I tried to think through all the things that had gone wrong and devise a better plan. I definitely think I had a better plan, but frankly anything would have been better. Instead of scattering my forces around I concentrated on one side. I chose the left, hoping the pines would screen my approach a bit and figuring that it offered a shorter path into the factory itself. I saturated the left with artillery as I advanced to keep the enemy's head down. I was also much more careful to rally my men before moving them when they did come under fire. The biggest problem I had was artillery. As soon as the enemy saw where I was coming from he dropped artillery all over the approach. Is smoke the best solution to this? A lone observer or mortar team can mess up a lot of guys with well placed shelling. Is the only answer to obscure their line of sight? Any tips on avoiding enemy artillery would be appreciated. JasonC, would you mind if I put your comments up on my website? I'd like to attach your analysis to my AARs and maybe have an "Advice from JasonC" page where I collect them all together.