eltorrente
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Posts posted by eltorrente
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I played a PBEM of The Hills Have Eyes, and it needs a lot of work.
There's no breaks in the grape vines, so you can't advance through them. You have to run along the outside of them in the open, and it creates a situtation where the attacker is funneled into the corners of the town, clearly visible and vulnerable to troops in multi-story, stone buildings.
The reinforcements are visbile to the enemy the instant they appear on screen from the defender setup zone (?!?!).
The 60mm mortars are worthless against the houses, and they contain no smoke rounds so the kill-zone approaches into the city can't be covered.
My opponent and I both agreed that it was an interesting idea for a scenario, and seemed like it could have been fun, but it was implemented poorly.
Put some breaks in the grape vines, give smoke to the mortars, and change the LOS/terrain so the reinforcements don't get shot at the instant they arrive. This map is just way too easy for the defender, unless he's completely inept.
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I recommend you get dropbox! PBEM really sucks to have to attach files and download them and crap. Dropbox makes it really easy - especially when the files start getting big. H2H helper is another major improvement, and also recommended.
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Ace? It goes - veteran/crack/elite - not veteran/ace/crack
Interesting results, and it's about what I figured from many past games.
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They don't carry extra ammo in quick battles. Instead, the ammo that they would have been carrying in a scenario is now actually all with the MG, mortar, or gun unit. You don't have to worry - you aren't losing any ammo from them not carrying any, so you can use them as scouts and guards.
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If I take a QB ME map, alter the setup zones and/or victory locations, and save it in my QB maps folder - will my opponent see the map, or does he need to download it from me?
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No, the map preview doesn't tell you anything about the conditions of the game. It doesn't tell you your oppo force makeup constraints (can they bring combined arms or only armour?). It doesn't tell you the weather. It doesn't tell you the time of day.
The second player doesn't find these things out till _after_ force selection!
GaJ
You must be confusing CMFI with a CMx1 game or something..
You can see the weather during the map preview. If it's raining, it'll be raining in the preview. If it's dark, it'll be dark. You can also press the "conditions" button and verify: Weather, Temperature, Ground Condition, and Wind - all during the preview before you select your forces. Also, when you first select the saved game, it shows the time of day, battle size, and battle type.
The only thing you don't know, until after force selection, is what force type the opponent has selected - as in Mix, Mech Infantry, or whatever. That's not a big deal though, since that should be decided on beforehand anyway. Most people have it set on Mix unless someone specifically requests a certain force makeup.
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Yes.
IE its broken and the workarounds are painful.
(And this isn't just about the map - also the second guy, who receives the first turn,
doesn't even know what the conditions are that he's purchasing for! Day? Night? Oppo force makeup?)
GaJ
No, the opponent knows because he can preview the map before he chooses his forces - as long as Map Preview is set to ON.
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I think that one of the difficulties with all of this, is in choosing random maps, and the way the setup process works. It can take a day or two just to see the map that the computer chose.
So, what happens is that the guy who sets up the battle simply saves the file and sends it off to the opponent. At this point the person who set it up has no idea what the map is, and can't look at it beforehand, and his fingers are crossed when he sends the file. Next he/she waits for his opponent to look at it and pick his forces, and his opponent is usually in a different time zone - often a different continent altogether. It takes a day or two just to get the file back and realize that the map is wacky.
In my last few PBEM's, my opponents have been in Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, Missouri, etc - all over the map. Juste86 is somewhere in a time zone 6 hours from me. I often wait a couple days to see what map we ended up with based on schedules.
I guess the best thing to do right now is to manually pick a map and let the opponent know before the setup is done, and let him look it over and approve it. Choosing random is normally the best and most fun way to play QB's IMO, but with these maps it's a crap-shoot. Another big reason for choosing random is to show your opponent that you aren't choosing your favorite map, or the map that you've figured out all the sneaky LOS areas and what-not.
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Here is the previous map I played against the same opponent. Most of my save games have been deleted, but I found this in my recycle bin.
This is in-line with many of the maps I've fought on with PBEM's. One side ends up with an advantage that could have been easily avoided by adjusting VL points and/or simply deleting the most unfair one.
Neither one of us opened it in the editor before the battle, so we didn't know what the VL points were until the battle ended. He surrendered before the points mattered, but it's clear which side gets the advantage right off the bat.
The opponent starts in the opposite corner at the bottom of the hill and has to fight uphill the whole time. It may not be evident from this pic, but the hill is quite steep. Starting from this side, all you gotta do is take a stroll to the big VL, and contest the one(s) in the middle and it's an easy win. The map was a fun map, and we didn't know what the points were (at least I didn't) - but if it had gone all the way to the end, I would have gotten a big victory just based on holding that hill with one split squad that was nice and safe.
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Personnally, if I played QB's
I would reveiw the map that I want to play and find ones that are fair.
Plus I really think players should see the map they are playing on before selecting forces anyway.
Playing the other way seems so silly to me. But just my opinion.
At least my way helps to create pretty fair battles and helps both sides get the equipment best suited for the situation.
But for many, that is not the logic to how they want to play anyway. so to each his own.
I think most people, like me, prefer playing with map preview ON so we can look at the map before placing forces.
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Or perhaps the game has forgotten that there's a difference between ME and A/D maps.
I don't think that's the case, at least as far as the setup zones are concerned. This one was the first I've seen that used A/D setup zones for an M/E. It seems that the VL's are what are mainly the issue with M/E maps.
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Complain, complain, complain. The great thing about Cmxx is that you can make your own QB maps and post them for the user base if you think the delivered ones aren't 'fair'.
Yes, we are all aware of that, but that isn't the point of this thread.
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The whole concept of QBs has been completely changed.
"We" (someone) have lost sight of what it is that made them work in the old system.
Right now QBs are "an interesting map with self-selected forces". Everyone knows ... or thinks that they know that ... a balanced scenario takes hours of playtesting with carefully picked forces, so what makes us think that doing a scenario by making an interseting map and whacking forces on it is going to work?
The reason QBs worked in CMx1 is because the maps were _highly predictable_.
This is what was _good_ about them. If you wanted to play an ME, you knew what you were up for - you knew roughly what size the setup zones would be, within reason what flags there would be, and "silly outlier" maps were rare.
The complaint about the generated QB maps wasn't that they were not "varied enough".
It in fact was that they did not look realistic enough. Unconnected segments of fence and road, uphill lakes etc.
However, the CMx2 response has been "lets fill the QB selection up with realistic looking maps of all varieties".
As a result, you completely and utterly can't trust that you will get a sensible map to plonk some forces on and play a "standard" kind of game (attack, ME, whatever) over uncontroversial terrain.
I think that right now we're in a "testing time". People are trying this new way of getting a QB set up, and finding ways to make it work - like each player looking at the map beforehand. This, while being more laborious, might have to be the longterm answer. What we will have lost is the fun of trying to select a force for an unknown terrain, because the unknowns are too much....
GaJ
Great points - I agree.
I still think that there shouldn't be much of a problem using these maps, though - it's just the VL's and setup zones that should be looked at, as far as ME's go.
The screenshot I showed is obviously a bug, because normally ME's have setup zones that are exactly opposite from each other. The VL's though, are so often just not fair in relation to those setup zones.
I play a lot of PBEM's - usually have 2 or more going at once, so I've been seeing trends in CMFI maps. First of all, every map I've seen so far, has been a great map and well designed. When playing an ME though, I almost always feel like they should have simply deleted one of the VL's, or made a new one(s) in a spot closer to the center, and/or adjusted points based on an ME.
All the maps have locations on them that would be logical to place a new VL(s) that is specific to an ME - like a crossroad, a building, or whatever - so the maps could all work better if they just had a little VL lovin'.
I much prefer these maps to the random maps from CMx1, though. They just need adjustments for ME's.
PBEM ME's on random maps is the most fun IMO, since you never know what is going to happen and every battle is different. I guess a possibility is to go with the painstaking task of opening them all in the scenario editor and simply changing them myself. That's a real pain though, and I feel like it should have been done already..
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The guys who design them can respond about taking a look, I can't speak to that process or effort at all. But as to playtesting them - I spent a huge amount of time just testing scenarios and that was largely looking for buggy stuff while giving some feedback on the design. Playtesting all the QBs is utterly unrealistic if you want to see more than one game/module a year.
Doesn't have to be playtested necessarily - just look at the thing.. If one side has a 200 point VL, on a hill, right next to his setup zone, and the other guy as 2 50 pointers at the bottom of the hill.. then it obviously isn't fair. Simple stuff to look out for for whoever makes the map(s), places setup zones, and/or labels them as good to go for a ME.
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I keep seeing strange map setups in PBEM QB ME's. I usually see one side getting an advantage in victory locations - often BIG advantages. For instance, one VL is worth 2-3 times as much as the others, and it's right next to one side's setup zone. Sometimes one side gets a huge advantage by setting up on a hill, and the opponent has to fight up hill the entire battle. Sometimes one side gets VL's close to his zone, the other guy has to go half way across the map.
Here is the latest crazy ME map, that is obviously bugged.
Obviously an attack/defend map that has no business being a ME map
All the CMFI maps really need to be looked at and play tested before they are considered good for a ME. I'm going to setup in the corner and not issue any orders for my first turn, plus not rush straight to the VLs for the first few turns to be fair to my opponent, and I'm going to ask him if he wants to start over with a different map - but what a pain in the butt.
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I've seen this happen many times in both CMFI and CMBN. Sometimes it shows the proper setup zone, and sometimes it shows the enemy setup zone. I've seen other people talk about this also, and it isn't specific to any particular map.
I see it on PBEM Quick Battle Meeting Engagements.
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So what's the verdict, gentlemen? Wait for the patch or 'keep moving, nothing (much) to see here'?
Well what else is there to do? You can just stop playing and wait for a patch, or keep playing like we have been for years and wait for the patch.
I'll keep playing like I always have been. If I'm setting up troops in view of a mortar, then I expect to get blasted - patch or not. There's some wackiness going on, making them even more effective, but it's been like that for a long time, so nothing new here.
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Several people have reported crashing problems in the unit selection screen, and it happens to me, too.
To minimize your chances of crashing, don't use the mouse wheel or the button that shows the next page on the right pane. Also, keep everything on the right pane minimized except for the units that you are actually working with. The more units you have expanded on the right pane, the more likely it is to crash. Knowing this, every now and then it'll still crash sometimes, but the chances of crashing is greatly reduced by simply keeping the right pane "clean".
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This is consistent; i don't post over one offs to be honest. I play about a dozen games of PBEM at a time, and my own single player QBs and the behaviour doesn't vary. MP40/MG42/Kar98 will get left by a man delivering buddy aid, but one comment i would make is that this seems to be a bigger issue with CMFI than CMBN.
MG42 certainly doesn't get left behind consistently. I play multiple PBEM games at a time, also, and I've seen many many times a small 3 man squad (who I use as medics) pick up several MG42's. Sometimes all 3 guys end up with MG42's.
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Post in here and you'll get plenty of opponents:
http://www.theblitz.org/message_boards/forumdisplay.php?fid=221&page=1
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Oh wow - you're right. Yup, same map. There are no longer randomly generated maps for CMx2.
Our visibility will be much lower of course, so we might bumble into each other unexpectedly somewhere. I normally play with nice clear skies, so I'm looking forward to dark and rainy conditions - should be interesting.
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When i grabbed the setup file from the our dropbox, and put it in my inbox folder, expecting to see it pop up in h2hhelper... it didn't.
I then realized it was probably because you didn't name the file with "001" at the end of it, the way the game does automatically when naming the file(s). When you renamed the file and left that part off, h2hhelper didn't see it as a normal game file.
After I finished my setup and saved it - now with a 001 at the end of the file name - h2hhelper saw it, and it works fine now.
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Oh, LMGs are almost always picked up by units that don't have any. I've had teams with 3 guys, all with MG42s. But I've never seen an SMG picked up by a team where everyone had a rifle.
That's been my experience, too. Having 2 or 3 MGs on one 3 man squad is pretty awesome..
I wish the guy who acts as medic was prioritized in some way. If someone is holding a pistol, I want him to be the medic and scrounge for a better weapon. ANY weapon.
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It's strange that there is no terrain information at all. Not in the manual and no reference to look at on Battlefront. No description no nothing.
Has this bug in CMBN been fixed in CMFI?
in Combat Mission Fortress Italy
Posted
I see this quite often in PBEM's - maybe once every couple games or so.