DavidFields

That is sort of my point, ASL Veteran. My guess is that you are highly skilled--decades of tactics. Fighting against someone of equal high skill, doing something great with the smaller force is indeed an accomplishment. Attackers of your skill know combined arms, attack pace, and the most effective range for engagement for the units. (no running an unsupported tank into a town) But, if a couple of guys wander into the game at 16 years of age, to be fair, and to make it interesting and more likely to be fun, I would give the smarter person the attacker side.

This has been brought up multiple times and, yes, I find it the kind of thing that makes one want to quit the game entirely. Modest proposal: Above a platoon HQ, selecting a HQ lights up all the units, but you would be unable to move them all as a unit. I am going to be of the opinion that it is rare that one would move an entire company on the same straight line. (Anytime I tried to move whole companies with one click in C and F it was a mess) So rare, in fact, that routinely moving 3 or 4 platoons individually, instead of the whole company at once, would be preferable to having to endure the occasional company/battalion catastophe of accidently canceling dozens of way-points. If one goofs up at the platoon level, it is just less painful than at the higher levels of HQ. There are just all kinds of reasons to click on a Company HQ--noting the general distribution of the company, or finding Company arty or assets--which do not involve wanting the Company to move. And for the lack of a right-click, many minutes of calculation and work are gone? By such small changes, a game can become much more user friendly, without sacrificing realism.

"write down", of course. Sheesh, and I wrote my post before my usual evening beverage(s). I only play against the AI. But, in general, I am not too keen on whining about sides being unfair--unless one is willing to make a stand on how unfair the sides are, supposedly. Another version of equalizing goes like this: after looking at the scenario/Quick Battle, one person (could be decided by a coin flip) decides on the bonuses, then the other person gets to decide who will play what side. The two methods (bidding, or the method in the paragraph above) can even work when the forces are not known: such as "The Germans always win" some type of Quick Battle.

I think the OP gives Battlefront a good and useful data point, which should be continually evaluated over time. Oddly, I am going to give a similar answer to one I wrote on the Strategic Command WW2 Board. On that board people were complaining that the Axis was always winning. Of course, these were experienced players making that comment. My observation: when novices first play a war game, it is initially harder for the attacker. The attacker has to "do" more, and if inexperienced can really botch it up quickly. As players learn, I think the balance shifts, with the person "doing" becoming more proficient at cracking defensive positions, and having the initiative and mobility (generally) becoming more of a decisive asset. So it makes sense, ClarkWGriswold, that you and your veteran friend would want to add a 20% defense bonus. (Indeed, this could be tailored in an even more clever, almost fiendish way: set up a battle, then each of you write down the defense bonus you would need to play the defense. Lowest number gets to play the defense, with the bonus he proposed.) Market-based play balancing! (One could also possibly do a reverse auction, bidding down) [C and F is a separate issue: meticulously designed defenses for the AI. Much different than a PBEM random generated Quick Battle.]

The issue for me is not exactly "game balance", but weapon balance--that in moving a simulated WW2 infantry company and its attached units, does it have the firepower feel of that time. The sad reality is that we are quickly coming to the day that we could not do this test, even in theory: Take 20 WW2 veteran infantry officers. Have the play/see a variety of CM1 scenarios, then have them play/watch CM2, and ask them which better simulates what their experiences were. Of course, they would likely first say, "neither", but I would love to question them more closely. I don't know, maybe BFC has WW2 vets, or an advisory board of them? Of course there are books. But I think it can be easy to see what wants to see, or expects to see, from them. Verisimilitude, exactly, Erwin. Often with the pace speeded up, so as to be more intresting, or slowed down (pause or WEGO) to be more manageable. With the Adjust Fire command, this is just, for me, an adaptation, probably both realistic and good game play, to be much more patient in CM2 than in CM1. I find I am trying, in CMBN, to do things about twice as fast as I should, even though there seem to be getting about twice as much time as CM1. First, get excellent LOS, so that one can see those spotting rounds, wait for the fire to be dialed in, moved, to the target location by waiting for the FO to communicate to the fire asset.......then, if need be, Adjust Fire.

Right, see my previous post. Adjust fire, perhaps counter-intuitively, is not supposedly to be used to adjust inaccurate fire.

Wow, what a very interesting tactic, which makes a pretzel out of some the arty issues in CMBN. If I understand what you are doing with the tactic, I think I will understand the system better. So, is it correct that the key issues are: 1. Since you are plotting it preplanned, you can pick anywhere on the map. 2. So you are getting the FO in line of site to....here is where I am not clear....make the fire come in acurately, to see if there is actually something there, or both? Does the perfect accuracy of pre-planned still exist if a delay is plotted? 3. The advantages of LIGHT and LONG. I was moving toward that myself, particularly as a WEGO player. The power of any arty 81mm or more means that one usually only needs a few well placed shells to cripple most guns and soft targets. So the important thing is the accuracy. If one is on target, you want to save ammo by cutting off the barrage relatively quickly. As I read the manual, the conceptual issue for the Adjust Fire command is that it is not to be used when we often want to use it--when the asset's fire is inaccurate. Supposedly, as I read it, the FO is supposed to automatically adjust inaccurate fire, over time, if he has LOS. The Adjust Fire is only to change targets--or if the target has moved. But, of course, viscerally that can seem counterintuitive. When I haved called in a Fire Mission, and it is coming in inaccurately, my first inclination is to use the Adjust Fire command to direct it back onto the target. Adjusting the fire of inaccurate arty is, unless someone corrects me, an incorrect use of the Adjust Fire command. I don't know if it is a CM1 holdover that makes that feel odd, or just intrinsically confusing to some of us. How we used Adjust Fire in CM1 now seems, in my opinion, to have been co-opted by the Linear Fire mission. Frankly, as I have said before, the Linear Fire mission feels to powerful in CM2..... in gaming terms. Others will have to comment on the 1940s reality. But back to your tactic, Erwin. I am trying to turn it into a plausible real-life story: "Ok, guys, we are going to start hitting that farmhouse on the map that you already meticulously calculated to barrage. Give us 15 minutes, and we will go see if something is actually there worth expending shells." ?

Wow, an interesting list. A nice window into the realities of WW2 warfare. Almost all of the aces were in either StuG or a Tiger. This validates a lot of what I/we saw in CM1 with regard to the unsexy StuG (let's not get into the armor simulation issue)--it was quite an important weapon for the germans. I am actually surprised by all the Tiger aces. Since so few, relatively, were made, I thought their terror was over represented in our scenarios--with Allied accounts of "everything is a Tiger" something like the "every gun is an 88" mentality of soldier's stories. The list gives credence to the idea of Tiger platoons being stuck like a boulder in a stream of attacking Allied tanks. And so few Panther aces. I know the MkIV was really an infantry support tank (superb, I think), but I would have thought Panthers would have been more anti-armor. Or is the tank listed in the list just the last tank the ace used, and some of those Tiger listings were former Panther commanders? Is that possible? And anyone want to speculate on how high the numbers would be for 88 AT gun aces? I have no idea, but it is just when I looked at the list, that weapon just seemed to be the obvious companion for those type of numbers.

This would in essence be a penalty for AFVs using the road, imposed on those who are less detail oriented. That is not exactly, in my opinion, what this game needs. If the data in this thread is correct...perhaps the idea is to dissuade people from using the fast command all the time on roads? But, is this really a critical, and interesting, detail decision that a player should be pre-ocuppied with? Even if IRL one bogs more by having one wheel/track on the road and one off, IRL one has a dedicated driver maneuvering the machine, and I am not sure we should be taking the time to be every driver in the simulation. IRL the driver is going to slow down at turns, and generally drive responsibly. To require extremely detailed way-points to simply move a vehicle seems unfun. If I had 5 Panthers in a scenario--a very exciting thought, as I have yet to play with much german armor, almost delaying it out of anticipation of how much fun it will be--, and 4 of them bogged at 4, 12, 12, 24 meters because I happen to set them up with a track off the road, with a fast order because I was moving them into attack position (particularly with a Panther, with its supposed maneuverability), I would be unhappy. If is was, like, turn 30, and I had received the 5 as a reinforcement, I would be particularly unhappy--particularly if I did not know exactly what mistake I had made--that I should have just put them in the grass. Not that we need to be happy all the time, but it does not seem reasonable to make players pointlessly unhappy, without explanation.

My bugaboo: CMSF logic filtering into CMBN (though I expect it to filter out as more modules appeared). My guess, grogs can correct, is that it would have been standard to load AP when firing at an armored target in WW2, if they had it, regardless of the sometimes cleverness of loading HE instead in certain circumstances. No?

My guess is that the industrial strength of Germany, and the relative weakness of the US, was a design choice aimed at novice players. Generally, two novices playing a simulation like this, the harder time is going to be had by the attacker. Coming at it with little knowledge, it would be easy for the player running Germany to flail around and be very inefficient. The pressure is less intense for the Allies early in the game. But as the expertise of the players rises, the advantage tilts back toward the attacker--as the best strategies become clearer. Invasion dates become earlier. The tempo of the attacks and conquests becomes faster--which then accentuates further advances with the increasingly earlier acquisition of resources. One solution to this is to have something like Avalon Hill had for some of its games: a Basic Version, a Tournament Version, and I think there may have even been sometimes something like an Expert Version--with Order of Battle (and even some rules changes). For game-play sake, and not for realism, the objective was to achieve, with players of equal levels, essentially a 50/50 chance of winning either side, with both novice and expert players.

Finns. I don't care if there were any actually in Normandy. Finns are good in any setting. With reindeer.

1. Every once in awhile, a graphic where a soldier in the woods takes a leak on a tree. 2. Alcohol/hung-over indicator and modifier at the individual level. (Hey, if the computer can track individual bullets, it should be able to track individual drinks!) 3. On muddy/dusty roads, the trucks/jeeps have dirty windshields, with various effects. 4. Have the ability to have it snow, even in Normandy in June--really, don't you want your scenario builders to have fun? 5. Abandoned intact tanks--where the crew bailed out due to fear-- be able to be manned by the opposing forces, with appropiate negative modifiers--think of the new tactics that would engender! 6. On a scenario where the Allies liberate a town, a little parade graphic is triggered. 7. Please: the Patton or Montgomery HQ unit is available-just passing by. Again, semi-seriously, no one thought about this, as a "fun" issue? 8. German horse carts as transport! 9. Stationary units who think they are in a safe area as far as "awareness" randomly have soldiers start smoking--increasing their ability to be spotted. 10. Random discoverable stashes in houses--with benefits/malluses for the troops. 6.

I can see both sides of this issue, but I understand where you are coming from, Erwin. A player likes to feel his decisions affect something. That is why a scenario where you just sat under a massive artillery barrage the entire time, where nothing you did could help you, would not be fun. In CMBN, particularly since many of the scenarios are so much longer than CM1 scenarios, high AFV bogging, even when you are trying to keep your AFVs on dry ground, blunts the fun. Yes, things happen in war. But if the result is to make events essentially random, then why even play? If the bog rate is realistic, then so be it. It is yet another "CMBN has elements different than every other simulation in its genre". But if realism is not fun, that is a problem--most simulators would provide some assumptions to blunt that--even if one needed to explicitly note that in the manuals.

This has happened to me numerous times, from the platoon level to the company level. I want to see what units the company controls, so I double-click it. Once I know where the subordinate units are, I move my HQ toward them......aaarrrrgh. The problem, in my opinion, is that once I do this, all the previous movement waypoints are erased. If it just added a movement line to each unit, the whole thing could, I think, then be reversed with a "backspace" command. This is the kind of "no fun" issue which could be a problem for CM2. CM1 had the same mechanism, but since platoon commanders were the basic HQ unit, to be substituted for by company and battalion commanders at times (which was an "interesting decision" to make), I don't think it was as noticeable, or as potentially disruptive.

+1 this. For soldiers in the open, it would be good to have a prone which was not "face in the dirt".

Let me see [flipping through the manual], is "administer" buddy-aid"?

I think the original post has some merit. I am going to say this is not about being critical of CMBN, but making this work. This is a UI issue, and a case could be made that the long-term success of this series is likely to be because of UI--BF has the armor penetration and projectile path simulation fairly well solved. But the difference between CM2 being a tool for military academies, and a successful commercial product, will be in the interface. Do I have anyone disagreeing with that?

But, in real life, did those HT that need extra soldiers in CMBN actually come with someone to man the gun? Or is the answer: obviously no, and that is why CMBN units are the way they are.

I was going to come over here and perhaps start a thread with the exact same title. Glad someone beat me to it. I do like some of the graphical improvements with CMAK, but it is hard....and maybe will never be done again.....to recreate the breadth of CMBB. 1941 weapons are so different from 1945, and all the different nations and units. I agree with the poster who wrote that a Polish Campaign module, and German invasion of France module, would extend the franchise for a long time. And I think there is a specific time, from the mid 1930s to the mid 1950s, which has specific characteristics to be modeled. It is after the horse (though always missed in CM having the horse-drawn transport of PanzerBlitz), but before most non-steel armament. It is still more gunpowder than electronics, and it is just before: if I see you, you are dead.

Hmmm....I do not tend to do this, in general. Do you use Wego, or real-time? I use Wego, and would be generally concerned about using up too much ammo in a turn. There are exceptions...but I would think the advantages are not so overwhelming to do this, and the possible disadvantages are significant, that trying to have the AI do it would be lowish priority. Just giving us and the AI armor covered arcs, and then programming the AI to use them correctly, would be huge, and I think much higher up the list.

Look, I have played, and enjoyed WITP:AE, and play EU3. Complexity; I like. But there is the subtle game design decision about what complexity adds the "interesting decisions", instead of drudgery decisions. And it also sets the scope of the simulation. If moving a company is very complex, then, for a given amount of time, it means one is going to be able to move fewer companies, or be able to mess with sub-squad tactics. As it is, I seem to need to add "hide" commands to all my infantry movement commands, so that units go prone at the end, instead of kneeling, like sitting ducks. I tend to move by platoon, for most longish moves with a low chance of being under fire--I will double click on a platoon leader and move all those units. Usually I have the squads sort of in a resonable relative position which would make sense if they came under fire. Then I move the company commander and support units. I find double clicking on the company commander makes too much of a mess. But, in any case, I somehow find that keeping all the ammo-bearers and XOs in the right place, and alive, in addition to splitting off scout units, makes moving a company somewhere a bit of a chore. That is not good. It was clearly a major decsion to add units in CM2 which are seldom seen in other WW2 tactical simulations, as far as I know. I am conflicted on this issue. It will be interesting to see how this evolves as further modules are added.

Superb. I will look at it more. But I note that the Forward Aid station sends people forward to pick up the wounded, generally, and it is not the front-line soldiers that take the wounded back.

While playing a company level simulation, one would, of course, in paradise, also want the simulation to stretch from hand-to-hand combat, to battalion (Regiment!) level actions. But the "devil" is in managing the complexity. If one is messing with one detail, you can't be working on something else. As one adds modules, and more quirky details--flamethrowers, flail tanks, bridge demolition, NKVD, the art becomes in deciding what realism is useful, and what is burdensome. There are at least 4 details in CMBN which I have not (generally) seen in other WW2 simulations. The question is, do they add more than they complicate? [As a counter-example, I think the "resupply" from jeeps/trucks is a great idea--reasonably realistic, and allowing longer scenarios and interesting decisions to make.] 1. XO squads: Where have you been my entire life? Where they rolled into the HQ unit, and it thought best not to put them in the same action spot in this case? I sort of thought the XO was with the upper level command HQs, coordinating, and making sure supplies come in. As a practical matter, the way I move units, I tend to accidently leave them behind. Yes, they can be used as buddy aid--is that historical, though? I am not against them, it is just that they are another odd unit to move [abstracting, one could just have any HQ personel take the dead leader's place]. 2. Ammo bearers: Ditto to the above. I sort of always knew they were there. But moving them, keeping them alive, keeping with their unit (I have not tried to sort out if any ammo bearer could supply any MG), is tedious. Technically, they could stay back from the front line, somewhere relatively safe, and only come to the front line when necessary. As a practical matter, that is too much micromanagement--and I am not sure what the general doctrine of the time was, anyway. The problem here, perhaps, is that units which did not have to be exposed would find someplace to be incredibly non-exposed, and that is not quite yet modeled here. 3. Deploy, for MGs: I can see the rationale. One should not be able to immediately fire an MG as soon as one reaches a position. On the other hand, to set up an attack, have everyone in position, and find out...drat...I did not deploy that MG...(or not find out, until late in the firefight)..is annoying. Yes, I should have remembered to "deploy". But this is not a tactical issue, it is pure detail. Presumably, my MG unit would have had an idea that deploying was a good idea. One can give the "stuff happens in combat" argument, but I buy that better when it involves jamming. Is giving a "deploy" order a major tactical issue in WW2? Is there no way to abstract this? 4. Buddy aid: If it is largely atmospheric, fine--though can we do it prone--even if not entirely realistic, to obtain realistic results? If it actually has major results, is the complexity worth it? This is a question--I am unsure of the answer. This is all meant to be constructive. I continue to look forward to CM2 getting to ampoulets, nebelwerfers, and Hungarian cavalry attacks.

This is one of my technical concerns--I think buddy aid is done kneeling, which I find is an incredibly more vulnerable stance than being prone. And to LukeFF: The issue I have, and I am uncertain about this--maybe buddy aid will grow on me--, is about complexity and implementation. Indeed, I like to think of buddy aid as actually "medic", and would prefer to see this: If a unit with an injury has not fired its weapons for a certain number of turns, and if the unit were away from the enemy for a certain distance, an injured soldier in the unit would have a certain probability of being healed (a level). That gives the buddy aid/medic role, but abstracted. You would have to worry less about the Tac-AI, or yourself, doing something unrealistically dangerous. It still gives the "interesting decision" (and that is what one wants in a game), to pull units with injured soldiers off the line. As to the quote about losing two soldiers (effectively) for every injured soldier, I am also conflicted about this. There may be some truth to that. But its implementation would be radical for these types of simulations--for every wounded soldier in a squad, one or two other soldiers would disappear, representing them taking the wounded soldier to the aid station. (Which reminds me of the ancient tactic of cutting the achiles tendon of the defeated soldiers, rather than killing them--a crippled soldier being more of a drain on the enemy than a dead soldier.) One can get around this issue by presuming there are people on the battlefield who we do not see--medics, support people--who are performing this role. There is also the issue of the time frame--left behind, but not forgotten, the wounded would be tended to afterwards, and the soldiers helping may simply not be available for the next immediate battle. This is getting to the issue, which CMBN bumps up into, where more "realism" might, in some circumstances, cause less realism, because of unmodeled issues. Which, alas, is prompting me to start another thread. [Edit: nice link, RonckinHarry. I see you and LukeFF have been working on this for awhile.]