brycie35

How is the end of the battle determined with a variable turn game? Sorry yes I meant Dynamic flags. Ok thanks. Some of my players have been grumbling about fixed turn games resulting in a last turn attack, or sneak onto the flag tactic to try and win the battle. I thought these options may help to fix this problem.

We have always play fixed game turns and fixed flags in our games. Can anybody explain to me how Variable turns and static flags work? What are the differences, and all the pros and cons? Cheers

Thanks for all the tips JasonC. Thats the longest post I have ever seen! :eek: After reading this I feel that perhaps my problem with force ratio is caused by another factor previously overlooked by myself. We usually play on small to medium maps (say about 640m x 640m), however we only play 20 turns games.(to speed up the games as we PBEM) I find that in a 20 turn game on that map size the attacker must try to push towards the objectives or risk running out of time. Particularity if the objectives are at the far side of the map. You need to buy time wherever possible so you have enough time up your sleeve for when combat slows you down. By no means do you have to rush to capture the objectives in time, but I'm not sure if you have the luxury of time for good recon and taking your time to grind the defenders down in measured attacks. Also on a smaller map the defenders can more easy cover a larger percentage of the map, and can re-deploy their forces more easily if it appears they are needed on the other side of the map where the main thrust is.

I would say that I win 80-85%(maybe more?) of my battles as the attacker against the AI. However, how well I win as an attacker, compared to how well I win as a defender are not as good. I'm not sure if I made that clear in my last posts. Its not that I don't win as an attacker, its that I win better as a defender against the AI. Perhaps its because the AI is not as good at attacking as Aco4bn187inf suggest. However this does not explain why the same pattern is occurring in our PBEM games? Thanks for the feed back guys. Looks forward to a few tips. We generally used the auto buy option, which attempts to get around allowing players to purchasing unrealistic "cherry picking" forces. This has not solved the issue for us however. Could it also be possible that Veteran, crack and Elite units are overpriced?

The more i think about it the more I feel the force ratio is a little unbalanced in CMBB QB. Most of the time against the AI I find i do much better as the defender, than I do as the attacker. Even when replying the same scenario so I played both sides. I realize this could be because I am a better defensive player than an attacking player, or perhaps the AI is better at defense than it is attack... but now that we are playing CMBB by PBEM human v human I am seeing that the attacking players are also struggling, so the pattern seems to be continuing. To me it just seems that the attackers could use some more points to spend of their force. I have discussed this further with some of my mates and we agree with Kineas that 3 to 1 is too much. I have a looked at Steel Panthers to see what force ratio they use.... Assault 2.5 to 1 Delay 2 to 1 This seems a bit closer to the mark to me. I am going to use the following for our base QB forces ratio as a trial and see how it goes... Assault 2.5 to 1 Attack 2.2 to 1 Probe 2.0 to 1 That roughly works out to be about a 45% increase on the QB points for the attackers. [ June 03, 2008, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: brycie35 ]

I have been thinking about this some more, and I think you are right and the quality of troops is not the issue. I think that in the quick battle, the attacker do not get enough points to spend for the battles to be balanced. Finding a balanced point ratio is not only important if you want to play somebody on even terms, but it is also a helpful tool for know how far to tweak the points to reflect more the historical slant on the battle. In CMBB, the forces ratio for the attacker seems to be for the following missions... Probe 1.4 to 1.0 Attack 1.5 to 1.0 Assault 1.72 to 1.0 I have looked up a WW2 miniatures rule book I have and they suggest that the forces ratio for a tournament should be about 3 to 1 for an attack defend scenario. I am thinking that using a base ratio of... Probe 2.4 to 1.0 Attack 2.6 to 1.0 Assault 3 to 1.0 Would provide a more even playing field. Then those numbers could be tweaked to adjust a scenario towards a more historical slant if desired. To me anyway, after a quite a few quick battle against the AI and with human opponents, the quick battle points seem to be too much in favor of the defender? As most of my mates seem to all agree is is much easier to defend in a QB than to attack.....from our experience anyway.

Thanks dieseltaylor, I just read your post. This is exactly what I was looking for. I does sound strange, and I didn't understand after reading your post. However after trying it step by step it works! Thanks for your time

Thanks bitchen frizzy, I agree with you. I will go a step further and say that in the history of warfare most Armies do not attack when they feel the battle will be evenly matched, but rather when they feel they have an advantage. Hmmm....my question seems to be lost in the historical debate about Barbarossa. I will remove the historical and just talk a hypothetical CMBB battles to see if I can get the answer I am looking for. With the quick battle point system, does it stack up buying better quality units, rather than buying more Green or Regs units. To me it seems that when an attacking player buys Veteran or better units, and the defender buys regs or green units, the advantages seems to be with the defender. Even though the attacking player gets more points to spend, the defender can get more units in the battle by chosing the cheaper units. To me this seems like the better way to go, as what I am finding is the more guns/tanks you can get onto the battlefield, you will always haver a better chance of winning with your weight of number over a fewer number of better quality troops. I am thinking if you wish to create a battle where the attacker has the advantage, and better quality troops, they need more points to spend than the quick battle option gives you. Does anybody else feel this way, or am I on my own here?

I was wondering if player felt that the point system in CMBB is balanced when different quality troops are purchased in a attack / defend scenario? I have been creating a few early Barbarossa quick battle scenarios, and what I have found is the attacker does not seem to be getting enough points to spend on there forces. Especially if the Germans attack with better quality troops than the Russians defend with. For the Russians its seems to be much more beneficial to buy as many Green/Regs units as you can, and not matter how many Veteran or better units the German buy, Quantity for the Russian defender wins out over Quality for the German attacker. Particularity when it come to the number of AT guns and tanks you can buy. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Is there any way to put a railway track across a bridge?

Yeah I used to do the same thing with SP3. Its a real shame this option is not available for Combat Mission. You can set up huge battles, even bigger battles than I have time to play...and watch the AI battle it out!! in less than half the time!

Where can you select AI control for both sides? I don't see this option? I only see 1 player, email, LAN or hotseat? [ May 07, 2008, 09:09 PM: Message edited by: brycie35 ]

Is there anyway to run a game with 2 AI players, so that you can just sit back and watch the battle play out? I thought this could be a handy tool for quickly play testing newly created scenarios to before you play them against Human players.

Thats a shame. I have only gotten into Combat Mission this last year, and I rate it as my favorite WW2 Sim that i have played. (previously Close Combat was my favorite) Is there an ETA for CMx2 WWII? Is there any other information on this game on the net?

Thats not a bad way to do it! I will do that from no on. Thanks!