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gambler

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  1. Hi all, I've begun to get interested in this series again after having played the original Combat Mission Eastern Front game, and then Afrika Korps. I have the Italian game, but that theater just never interested me as much as the East Front or North Africa. I enjoy creating scenarios and the one I liked best was one I did in Afrika Korps to sort of provide more uncertainty to both sides not only as to what the enemy has but what YOU have. Basically, each side starts on the map with a reconnaissance unit. And then each side gets random reinforcements from that point on, with some more likely than others. I always had a blast playing the scenario, because I never knew what I would be facing, and even worse, never knew what resources I would get, and when. Maybe not the most realistic scenario ever, but it was a lot of fun. So I guess my question before I spring some dough on Red Thunder, would be whether this kind of scenario is possible. Basically all I really need is a way to set up a percentage chance each turn of a given reinforcement arriving, but also need the ability to have a large number of reinforcements for each side.
  2. jbertles: Agreed. I like the flexibility of the system right now but a few more items would make it even better. For instance I was thinking about recreating a battle along the Dnepr where the Russians used a paradrop behind enemy lines (rather poorly I might add). Currently, you can give the chance of the squad coming down a low percentage to give uncertainty that they'll come in, but eventually a human opponent would know where the drop would occur and leave a reserve to at the very least, observe the spot. You could also drop the percentage even lower and make two forces, or three, etc, that could drop, to add more uncertainty. What would be the most flexible would be the current system with a 'reinforcement zone' that could allow the reinforcements to come in anywhere within it. The current system probably allows most events to be replicated, but sometimes with work that could be eliminated by making this area just a tad more flexible. Back to the scenario I was creating... I finally created a map I liked (flipped through random maps until one grabbed my attention and then modified it), added four dynamic flags with a fairly low value (150 points) to encourage each side to try to destroy the enemy force as a major objective, fiddled with the reinforcements, and tried it out. The game's been a blast and I'm about halfway through at the moment. Started nice and slow, the first contacts were small skirmishes, and every couple of turns new reinforcements showed up (perhaps a bit more quickly than they should, I'll tweak it some more) and by Turn 10 the action was hot, heavy and deadly.
  3. You might even check out Avalanche Press's Boardgame dealing with the Kanev bridge crossing and the paradrops, called "Red Parachutes". I'll check it when I get home to see if there's anything resembling a bibliography in it, but it's one of the best kept secrets in war boardgames (ie, it's an excellent system). Of course it's more operational in scale than tactical...
  4. Ironically, I agree with JasonC (as I think my original post implied) even though the first scenario I created gives the player (if played from the German side as intended against the AI) pretty much no chance to 'destroy the enemy'. In fact, the goal is merely to escape a trapped platoon off the map. Nevertheless, the scenario still uses the concept to some extent. The terrain is still key, and the goal is to eliminate the enemy in a critical area for a short time to achieve your overall goal. Nevertheless, I absolutely adore (is it permissible for a wargamer to use the word adore?) the victory conditions of a boardgame called Summer Storm, which recreates Gettysburg. Basically victory conditions come from wrecking enemy units (and maybe moving units off the map as the Confederates). Little Round Top won't be fought over because it's worth victory points. Little Round Top will be fought over because controlling the hill will give a better view of the enemy and allow you to destroy him better. Utterly brilliant in its simplicity. I got it immediately. Other wargamers seemed befuddled how to proceed without a clear cut map goal.
  5. To take the old "You got peanut butter in my chocolate!" commercials and shamelessly pervert for purposes of a Topic Header... While there are a lot of articles on 'tactics' there are very few on the broader brushstrokes required to formulate an effective overall plan. As such, I thought I would throw out the way I'm beginning to approach each new scenario I see. So what follows is a list of items I do to create a plan: 1. Read the briefing: No wait! Come back! It gets better, I promise. Well, I hope... Seriously, I've been guilty many times of just skimming the briefing and missing important points. 2. Focus on the Victory Conditions: Ok, most battles will be straightforward. He who captures the most Flags wins. The next common denominator in all games is casualties. If you capture most of the flags by the end of the game, but have taken horrendous losses, you probably won't have as good a victory level as you expect. Perhaps victory points are gained for exiting troops. Pay careful attention to those troops if they're yours, especially in how you plan to use them in the battle. If you know that the enemy gets points for escaping his troops, prepare a plan around preventing easy escapes off the map. Maybe you'll even run into a devious designer which requires the destruction of the enemy army rather than just taking the victory flags (after all, the destruction of the enemy as a coherent fighting force is the primary goal of most operations, with things like objectives following from this goal). 3. Focus on what forces you have available: Spend some time looking at your forces. Check for things like experience level, morale and ammunition levels. Don't get surprised because you didn't notice that your tanks have half the ammunition they usually do. This information should be at least alluded to in the briefing, but it's still important to check and know which units have the best morale, or might be the most likely to run out of ammo or simply run away. Start thinking about how to use any units that you might not normally utilize. Maybe the scenario gives you a flamethrower. Ok, so you would have rather had an ATG. You've got a flamethrower. Plan how best to use him. 4. Keep in mind what the enemy has: Or at least, keep in mind what the briefing says the enemy has. Combined with #3 this should give you an idea which areas you're stronger than the opposing force, and what areas you might have weaknesses in. Maybe you have a ton of infantry, a few machine guns and almost no armor, while the enemy has armor but little in the way of infantry. Yeah, maybe you'd rather have a few tanks or anti-tank guns, but maybe one of your victory flags is located in terrain the tanks can't reach. Focus on getting some infantry there, and covering the location with your machine guns. Do lots of hiding. Trust your edge in infantry to be able to hold onto the flag. 5. Ask yourself what the goal is: This isn't exactly the same thing as knowing the victory conditions. Maybe the victory conditions are to escape some units off the map. Reword this as "Those units have to get to this covered area across an open field with woods on both sides in order to get off the map." 6. Using your goal, ask yourself what needs to happen to achieve this goal: In the above case, a player without a plan might simply start the units a-sneaking or a-running across the field, only to be opened up on by a stronger enemy force in the cover. The answer to the question posed might be, "To get to the covered area, any forces in the woods on either side must be eliminated as a threat, and the cover itself must be checked for threats." 7. Assign goals to "task forces" based on the answers to your questions: If the goal is to clear the forests that could turn that open plain into a killing zone, then you might assign your quicker units as a recon element to check out those areas. Once threats have been identified, your remaining force can be split as necessary into task forces to take care of the threats. Try to stick with the plan. For one thing, changing plans leads to order delays, and for another it can lead to confusion for the most important person in the battle... you. 8. Don't get distracted: If your goal is to get units off the map, don't worry about chasing running units down if they're taking themselves out of an area where they could catch vulnerable units in the crossfire. Move on to the next 'strong' group. 9. Identify Key Terrain: Oftentimes victory flags will be placed on key terrain. Other times key terrain might be a ridge that lets you see well across the map, or a forest line that has a good vantage point on a victory location, or buildings that provide great ambush spots for that flamethrower of yours. Those are the places you should make priorities for controlling if you have the time and resources to do so. 10. Ask yourself what the worst thing for your plan would be: Be a bit realistic here. Answering with "10 Tigers and a flight of Stukas" is of no use (unless for some reason this is mentioned as a possibility in the briefing). Instead, focus on more likely scenarios like "There could be a panzerfaust loaded platoon in those woods right before the key road junction that I absolutely have to have control of so my tanks can have free access to the town." Don't ask this question for every little aspect of your plan, but just the critical elements. 11. Ask yourself if there's anything you can do about the 'worst thing': There usually is. You might be able to set up a machine gun to cover the woods while a unit moves up to try to get some intelligence. If your worst fear comes true, you can send a force that can handle the threat (or drop mortars on it). You might be able to route around the threat if you aren't pressed for time. If however there's nothing you can do about it other than being careful, well, then don't worry about it. 12. When a plan is going badly, regroup and come up with a new plan: Sometimes you won't have time for this. But let's say you've got plenty of time and plan a beautiful attack on a village with your tanks, and infantry following up in support. Suddenly, while you're halfway to the village, BOOM! Two of your lead tanks go up in smoke from a previously hidden pair of antitank guns up on a ridge. Then the machine guns up there open up on the infantry. You could just press on and hope enough gets through to have a successful assault. But you have time.. so you fall back to a hidden spot, and then use cover to get the infantry into positions to suppress the enemy while the tanks get close to take them out. Then your assault on the village can continue. Anyhow.. Those are some basics... It's easy to get bogged down in the details of a Combat Mission scenario, especially the larger ones, but if you continually ask yourself if you're furthering the goals you set for yourself and focus on what needs to be done to achieve the goals, you'll be well ahead of those who don't.
  6. Something else just came to mind when I was thinking about another use for flags that change value over time, specifically setting values to 0 or a VP level to funnel reinforcements in a certain direction. Make it possible for flags to be invisible for the sole purpose of being 'beacons' for the AI to move towards. Combined with being able to turn them off at a certain point, this could be a valuable aid for the scenario designer in controlling the AI.
  7. I've recently gotten back into CMBB (And have CMAK on the way). It really is a wonderful game, and I've found myself focusing on the scenario editor. With a bit of creativity, interesting situations can be created, especially with the interplay of dynamic flags, points for casualties, and exit points. However, CMBB is on the verge of being great in this area. Here are my suggestions for a later game: 1. Able to mix static and dynamic flags in the same battle. 2. Able to have multiple dynamic flags (for instance, you have 4 possible flags, 2 of which are 'real' objectives). 3. Able to have both sides choose separate dynamic flags. 4. Allow victory points for controlling a flag to change dependent on reinforcement groups. If you get a company of Tigers, OKH expects you to do better, so the furthest flag increases by 200 points while all others drop by 50. 5. Have some scenarios with _no_ victory flags. There's a board game called Summer Storm, covering the Battle of Gettysburg. If I remember, the victory conditions are the routing of the enemy army. The idea is, rather than making Little Round Top (or a hill in Combat Mission) a victory point location, it becomes valuable as a means to the overall end of destroying the enemy force. Forces will fight over it, not because it gives victory points, but because they can spot the enemy well from it. Obviously this probably works best in relatively equal meeting engagements. Those are just a few of my thoughts and are designed to create more flexible scenarios with more variability.
  8. GJK: Thanks for the pointer to the site. Created a login there so will load up the scenario for testing tonight or tomorrow.
  9. Hans, since I don't have CMBO I wouldn't be able to playtest your scenario. If you mean mine, then I'll pass it along once it's more polished. Joachim: I wasn't pleased with the rate of reinforcements (too quick) in my first game so I didn't pay too much attention to the tactics. Combining "Extreme FOW" with this certainly led to the recon group having an important role, as well as securing high ground. I did notice that the enemy was having me for lunch but that may have been because they got Tigers and both groups of Stugs within the first few turns. I'm thinking both sides should get one full company of Infantry with decent odds of arriving (20-25%) to provide support weapons and a higher level HQ that can be moved where needed, a few platoons of different infantry types, a couple pioneer platoons all at about 10%. Armor companies (including anti-tank) will range from 3-8% dependant on rarity in the area, and the rest (air support, artillery spotters, flamethrowers, sharpshooters, mortars, MGs, AA, ATG, etc) at 2-4%. This way the battle will most likely be infantry heavy, with a small amount of armor and a couple of goodies to play with.
  10. One of the great things about CMBB in my opinion is the use of Dynamic Flags to either fool the defender, or provide a scenario with a different feel to it if the flag is chosen automatically. Maybe in the future there'll be a more flexible option here (Static + Dynamic flags in the same scenario, multiple 'real' dynamic flags, etc) but for now it's a nice start. In history, both sides didn't always know what the other's "victory conditions" were. That's why my first 'historical' scenario isn't a simple meeting engagement, or attack/defense scenario, but rather one where one side has a different set of victory conditions than the other. If you plan to play it 'as created', ie, as the Germans against the AI, feel free to keep reading. If you want to be surprised in a face to face playing of the scenario, don't read the part between the 'SPOILER' tags, and look for an upload to the Scenario Depot by me (and I'll announce it in another post here) within a week. If you want to playtest a version of this, check after the Spoiler section. ------------------------------------------------ SPOILER . . . . . . . . . . The scenario is designed to play as the Germans against the AI and occurs during Operation Bagration when a small village held by a German Platoon finds itself suddenly behind enemy lines after a fierce firefight. The Russians appear to have screened the village as no supplies have been able to make their way in, and the Germans are very low on ammo, exhausted at the start of the game, and 'unfit' (to represent their state of mind). The German player's main objective is simply to break this group out with a relief force, and exit them off the west map. Secondary orders include holding on to as much ground as possible due to the fact that OKH didn't believe this was a real offensive and would soon stall. The biggest problem is that a 'safe zone' must be cleared due to open terrain around the village that the cut off soldiers must run through before reaching sparse trees that they can utilize for cover. Using nonstandard victory flag placement designed both to give the Russians a reasonable goal and also to 'assist' their strategic AI, I believe I've created a reasonably interesting tactical situation for the Germans to solve. . . . . . . . END SPOILERS ------------------------------------------------- To be honest, I have no idea how the scenario will play out face to face as I've tried to make it a challenge to play against the AI, so if anyone wants to try a PBEM playtest of this, drop me a line and I'll send along the scenario. If you want to try it out as intended (German versus AI Russian) feel free to ask for a copy also.
  11. Greetings all. I'm sure this isn't a new idea, but it came to me while playing around with the CMBB scenario editor and remembering a campaign game in "Starfleet Battles" (board ship to ship game based loosely on Star Trek:TOS) where a large ship fought a series of individual battles. The interesting thing was that the opposing force was usually small to start with, but every few turns, a card was drawn from a standard deck and this determined what reinforcement was brought in by the enemy. This led to a different feel in each battle. So I had the thought. Why not do something similar for CM? Specifically, create a system of random reinforcements into an area. This is easy enough to do, just create numerous small reinforcement groups consistent with a larger organization (Regiment for instance) that all are available on Turn 2, but have a very low chance of appearing individually. As an example, I created a meeting engagement on a randomly determined map with four "dynamic" flags as a testbed for the concept. Initially, only a recon group was present on the map, with 15 or so reinforcement groups available for each side. I discovered I may have gone a bit overboard with armor and made the 'specials' (AA groups, spotters for heavy artillery, etc) too common, but it definitely had a potentially fun feel to it. I think I need to cut some of the groups back from the 10% arrival rate to maybe 5% since the number of reinforcements initially does end up rather quick for the concept I was going for (a slow buildup allowing for some coherence of plan even if you're never sure what you'll get next). In any event, I think this could be a fun PBEM game for those who want something a bit different and don't mind the fact that some games might have all the luck going one way where one side might get Tigers on the 2nd turn, while the other doesn't get armor for most of the game. I'm going to try to mix in most of the unique weapons, but at very low odds, so when they're received they should be fun to play with. It definitely had an almost spooky feel when I started the game, knowing that the area was almost empty but would be filling up... and I had no idea what I might be going against. Needs quite a bit of fine tuning, but thought I'd drop this out to folks in case they want to incorporate the idea in their own scenarios. I may have one to playtest by the weekend (alongside a more 'historical' one). Thoughts? Or better yet, has anyone else done this and created a 'classic' that I can just download?
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