noob

Ok, but you do understand that buddy aid would still be as effective without the 25% WIA recovery you allow to be deducted manually.

So even if I decided not to use buddy aid at all in a CM battle, I would still be able to recover 25% of the WIA losses ?

You definitely dodged a bullet there, if not a few hundred, as it looks extremely risky advancing across the open in that sector without armour support, or fire suppression on the hedgerows. Two more MG42's in the mix and it could get really nasty.

Who said that !?!?!

That's my point This is where our difference is, as without taking these factors into account, I personally think it is better to not use CM to affect PzC morale at all, whereas, you are saying that you will use casualties for now, and maybe incorporate other factors later. That's fine, and as I have always stated that tend to I err on the side of simplicity, and am always looking for ways of reducing admin, so, for now, I will be just using CM battles as the headcount modifier for PzC units. However, I do think that creating a more sophisticated way for CM to determine PzC morale than just casualties would be a worthy venture.

@Fizou - Thanks for describing in detail how buddy aid works. Now I need to ask some questions to see if I have got your rules conceived correctly, as I think that the root of our disagreement lies in a misunderstanding of those rules, therefore I need you to confirm something. When you get to the AAR screen, do you regard all the men that are Ok, "and" all the men that are WIA, as being available to be eligible to be in the PzC OOB ? For example, if I fight a CM battle with one company of 150 men, and, at the end of the battle, the AAR screen shows 100 men OK, 25 men KIA, 20 men WIA, 5 men MIA, am I right in thinking that according to your rules, I would "add" the number of men that are OK, to the number of men that are WIA, to determine the new headcount to be applied to the PzC equivalent of the CM company ?

To conclude this debate, I will clarify my views regarding buddy aid and morale. If you want buddy aid to have more effect on a CM battle regarding KIA / WIA, then the amount of times buddy aid is applied has to be factored into any equation regarding how many men it has saved. If you want to use a CM battle to determine a PzC units morale level, then factors such as the task the force had to complete, the resources they had to do it with, the quality of the force, and the size of the enemy force should be some of the main considerations. Then, once the new morale value, based on those factors, was determined, that value could then be modified by headcount losses. That way, if the CM unit fought off a larger enemy force, while defending a defensively difficult position, with good quality troops, the same headcount losses would, and should, have less effect on that unit than if their quality was less, and they had failed in their mission, while sustaining the same headcount losses.

In PzC, morale only changes when a units fatigue level gets to a certain point, or when a unit becomes disrupted or isolated. Therefore, because fatigue cannot be edited in the PzC OOB, it can only be affected by PzC combat alone. Therefore, IMO, so should morale, because in PzC, morale is a function of fatigue. Also, in PzC, fatigue can be increased, even if there are no kills inflicted. Therefore, in PzC, fatigue, and therefore morale, does not get affected by kills alone. Added to that is the "fuzzy" nature of the psychological state of because during, and after combat. All of which makes me happy to let PzC determine the "morale" level, and PzC "and" CM determine the headcount level. Headcount Yes, it will only have half its headcount, which will make it less combat worthy. But that example is situation specific, your morale rules kick in when 20% losses are incurred, irrespective of any other factors. So, a unit that wins a stunning victory, is not about to be entirely wiped out, and is being reinforced, will, according to your morale rule, also suffer the same morale drop as the unit in your example, if it has lost 20% casualties.

I'm going to find out exactly what the relationship between buddy aid and WIA and KIA is, then I can speak with more authority. Ok, same difference. I know. I said I would want to know "how many" men benefited from it, then you would know if it is worth the risk of hanging around giving buddy aid in regard to recovering men. However, if the amount of men you would recover is trivial, only use it for equipment. Creating artificial rules to try and make it more effective won't work unless you know how much buddy aid was given in a battle, then that adds another thing to track, and that just to reduce the headcount losses of a battle. If buddy aid stops some WIA becoming KIA, why not just use that, why artificially inflate the figure by a set figure. Just reducing KIA by 25% is pointless unless you can track how "often" buddy aid is used. For example, if using buddy aid once saves two men from being KIA every time it is used, and I only use it once in a CM game, I will save two men. If my opponent uses it 5 times, they will save 10 men. Therefore, allowing us both to save another 25% of the KIA after a game means my opponent still only gets an 8 man advantage over me. Therefore, unless you artificially reward a player based on how many times he uses buddy aid, there's really no point in using it other than to get equipment, unless of course using it gives a significant KIA reduction, and then you don't need to add a 25% bonus. Sorry, my mistake, what I meant to say was by reducing the casualties artificially, you make the battles less costly, which slows down the process of getting to a result before the turns run out. So one could say it does have a major effect on the operation, because it will take longer to inflict decisive damage to an enemy unit.

Indeed, a missed opportunity, fortunately for us.

It's nice of your opponent not to use those nasty MG 42's while you are crossing that open terrain

I already said the very same thing a few posts back.

You are right, I will just go back to my original plan to have the headcount be the only combat effect to be applied to PzC units as a result of a CM battle. I'm happy with setting up a bare bones system, then people can hang anything they want from it, like you are doing

I'm quite happy with sacrificing some intrigue for simplicity, and I have confidence that the CM battles will be intriguing enough without defender reinforcement. In fact, if you allowed the defender reinforcements, it would make it easier for the defender to hold the hex, and given that it is easier defending in CM than attacking, I feel the defender has enough of an advantage just defending.

Don't be greedy, isn't it enough that there is now a way of playing a H2H umpireless CM operation Sorry, but the defender must be punished for not maxing out a hex. I'm also against the idea of defender reinforcements on principle, as it allows the defender a PzC move that they should not have.

I've decided the easiest, and most accurate way, is to let CM decide. So, after the battle, the player activates the review map function, then makes a note of the headcount, morale and fatigue levels of all their sides units, then, after averaging the combat effects across the company, or platoon for vehicles, the new information is applied to the relevant PzC units using the PzC OOB editor. There is no umpire in this operation, just me fighting a PzC scenario against another PzC player, and then farming out the CM battles to other players, thus allowing me to blame someone else if I lose

The defender cannot have reinforcements, they have to defend with what they have on the hex, when the assault is declared. Therefore, you can be confident there will be no enemy armour making an appearance, until possibly the next CM battle. Basically, at the end of the battle, if the turns run out, and some Axis forces still occupy the CM battlefield, the Axis CO will have the option of leaving the PzC representatives of those defending axis forces on the hex they were occupying, and assaulting the contested hex with PzC reinforcements (if they have the points). Then, after the Axis PzC turn has been completed, an assault can be declared against the Allied units contesting the CM map. Then, the map will be recreated, with all the remaining units placed where they finished, and modified to reflect the combat effects they sustained previously, and all damage to terrain applied. The axis reinforcement units will be able to arrive on the map on turn 5 at the earliest. This is why it's essential that the axis forces are eliminated, or forced to exit all their troops.

I would say that the most accurate way to determine the state of CM units at the end of a CM battle, and one that definitely takes into consideration the points made by Bil and Rocky, is to look at, and note down, each CM units morale and fatigue levels after the CM battle using the "review map" function. Then, once noted, the morale and fatigue levels of individual squads and sections of a company, could be averaged out across the company, given that companies are the smallest level of foot unit organisation in PzC. There would of course have to be some sort of rule to determine how long it takes units to recover their morale and fatigue, based on the attributes Bil and Rocky suggested. I think I will adopt this method in my current operation, as it utilises CM more, and is accurate down to squad level.

I made a mistake with the casualty figures, it should of read 20% not 50%, as that is the threshold that Fizou is using to apply the first morale drop for his operational CM units. However, it does bring up a good point, that of the difference between a units psychological state minutes after a battle, compared to that state two hours after the battle. For example, take Pickett's charge. Did the Union troops defending know how important it was to resist it, and if so, would that have tempered any feelings of losing their comrades once the fighting had stopped, and the soldiers had time to reflect on, or be told how well they had done. However, I will put the question in a better context. In the CMPzC operations Fizou and I are playing, I do not reduce a units morale based on losses they sustain on the CM battlefield, whereas Fizou drops the units morale level by one if the unit loses 20% of its men. I do not penalise a units morale based on casualties, as I regard morale to be affected by other factors, whereas Fizou believes that casualties are always a factor effecting morale in a negative way.

So then there is no immediate psychological benefit to winning a stunning victory ? Doesn't sound right to me.

A company of 150 men are tasked with maintaining the occupation of a hex on a hex map. They are being attacked by four times their number. To maintain their occupation of the hex, they have to fight a defensive CM battle on a map that represents the hex. The attackers have to force them to exit the CM map before the turns run out. There is an exit zone for the company to use if things start going south, however, their task is to hold at all costs. At the end of the battle, the company has sustained 20% casualties, but still occupies one third of CM map, thus allowing it to stay on the hex for another operational turn. Should the company take a morale drop for losing half its men, or a morale increase for successfully completing it's mission against overwhelming odds ?

How do you know it has no purpose to begin with ? If buddy aid, as I have been led to believe, changes some men from KIA to WIA, you would need to know exactly how many men benefited from it, to determine how effective it is. Artificially increasing the number of men going from KIA to WIA by 25% just prolongs operations, which take long enough without reducing the amount of losses units sustain.

I looked at it briefly myself, and from what I can remember is that the time frame the study covers is a lot longer than a 48 hour period. I don't see how a reduction in combat effectiveness has to "always" equate to low morale. A unit could have its effectiveness reduced due to fatigue, but it's morale could still be high. It seems that your whole argument is based on your belief that there is "always" a link between casualties and morale, and I contend there isn't. I was thinking the same thing

Are you saying that if you do not use buddy aid in a CM battle, you are not allowed to deduct 25% from the WIA value at the end of the CM battle ? Yes, but how significant and long lasting is it ?. In documentaries, you always hear about how soldiers accepted losses after a battle, and got on with it, especially the Russians. If a soldiers morale dropped for a significant amount of time simply because they saw their comrades die, then any sustained operation would be impossible, unless they could recover in a short period of time, i.e, hours, not days. The factors that were more likely to effect morale were bad leadership, bad conditions, or bad battle plans, however, they take effect over time periods much longer than the time period of most PzC scenarios. It might make you more determined to fight, or it might make you curl up into a ball and cry, it's all down to the individual, that's why you cannot track it, because there is no set way a human reacts to seeing comrades die, or if there is, it will be more likely to stiffen their resolve than weaken it. Losses get replaced, and the morale of the survivors from previous battles will more likely be determined by the quality of their leaders, their conditions, and the tasks they are asked to perform. In fact, if the unit has sustained losses over time winning glorious victories, the original members morale could be really high, despite the negative morale factors I have just mentioned. In conclusion, given that casualties alone are not enough, IMO, to effect morale in any significant way, I think that the CM combat should only be used to effect the headcount levels of PzC units, and PzC combat should be used to effect the headcount, fatigue and cohesion (disruption) of the PzC units. Morale, or motivation should be a fixed value for the duration of the operation. In fact, I now think that Tiller made an error having a morale indicator, as all it really does is indicate the modifier level that will be applied to any combat calculations. Having it linked to fatigue and headcount levels confuses things, as those values can be observed in the unit info box already. So a player doesn't need to look at the morale level to see how combat worthy the unit is. If I could redesign PzC, I would remove the word morale from the units info box, and replace it with Motivation, or Quality. The motivation, or quality value would then be useful only as an instant indicator of the motivation or quality of the unit, which would consequently be a fixed value.

Ok, but that just underlines my point. As soon as companies differ from each other in some way, which will be more likely as the operation progresses, they have to be tracked individually, which means using the "review map" function. As soon as you start using the review map function to calculate the losses for some companies, you might as well use it for all companies, then, at least you get the exact new head counts for all the fought companies, and you don't have to distribute the losses across similar units. I see, so you class 25% of the WIA in any CM battle as combat ready, why do you do that ? Ok, so if a 150 man company successfully fought off four or five times their number, and were still occupying the CM map at the end of the battle, but suffered 50% casualties in the process, would they take a morale drop ?