2vs2 - an intermediate report

[poesel]

Maybe you remember that I posted a while ago about interest in a 2vs2 game. The game has materialized and is progressing slow and steady. We are about halfway through an 45min battle.

I wanted to give some feedback and how we did it and what to avoid.

The technical side of the game works quite smoothly. Some confusion in the first few turns on who does what when cleared out very soon and we had very few hickups after that.

It is interesting to only command half your troops which poses some new problems to solve. I made some not-so-good decisions in the beginning which dampen the fun a bit. Still I would like to do that again.

So what were the problems?

- map

I chose a medium map and put each party in a corner. The map is split in half by a river. Every party has his 'home' objective plus one in the middle. The idea was that the main fight would be there. This setup leads to a more 2x 1vs1 than a 2vs2 (although this recently changed a bit). Its probably better to use a normal objective pattern and no do anything special. Thus the player have to cooperate more and things are not so pre-determined

- battle size

I chose a large force so that the forces could be better split in half. Everyone has roughly a battalion (conscript/green rules) of forces which are pretty self-contained. Again this leads to lesser dependencies between the players and to lesser cooperation. The map is also very crowded.

- shopping

You cannot save in the OOB screen so one guy has to do the shopping alone. That we did on our side but I didn't make screenshots of what I wanted. This is necessary to avoid confusion.

- H2HH

When you are the one who moves first and saves the game, H2HH never sees you create an outgoing file. So it will remind you forever that it's your turn. Copying of the file into incoming still works.

Here's a description of the process. Sending mail notices to your team mate and the other team is very important.

Setup) Team A&B with players 1&2.

There is a common dropbox folder for both teams (the common folder). This will only hold the finished turns (.ema - no .bts).

Each team also has a separate folder which is not shared with the other team (.bts - no .ema)(the team folder).

1) Team A finishes its moves and creates:

"2vs2 ME 010.ema"

in the common folder.

2) Player 1 from Team B sees the file first and copies it into his incoming

3) Player 1 renames the file in the dropbox to:

2vs2 ME 010 Player 1.ema

Thus player 2 knows now that player 1 has the file and is doing his move.

Optional: send a mail to your teammate. That may be advisable especially in the beginning until you get used to the procedure.

4) Player 1 makes his move and saves the file. The file created would be:

"2vs2 ME 011.bts"

Because we copied in step 2) before we renamed it in 3) the original filename is still in place. But CM automatically ups the file number. Append your name or 'save'.

"2vs2ME 011 Player 1.bts"

This file will be copied to the team folder. Player 1 then sends an email to Player 2 that the turn is finished.

5) Player 2 copies the .bts into his save game folder. He makes his move and presses the red button. Now he has just to remove the name of the other player or whatever he had put behind the number. The file:

"2vs2 ME 011.ema"

will be created (after adjusting the name). This file is copied into the common folder.

Optional: send an email to the other team (same reason as above).

Goto 1)

[Broadsword56]

Thanks for the update -- very interesting.

Curious...wouldn't it be simpler to just save the one game file (.bts) and share that in Dropbox so the successive players pick it up and add their moves to it?

[The Steppenwulf]

Great post this - highly informative read on the possibilities for coop play. In my view this should be stickied by the moderator!!

[Boche]

Imagine!! Wehrmacht & SS vs US and Brits.

[The Steppenwulf]

Imagine!! Wehrmacht & SS vs US and Brits.

Sounds more like Company of Heroes than Combat Mission. Horses for courses though...

[poesel]

Curious...wouldn't it be simpler to just save the one game file (.bts) and share that in Dropbox so the successive players pick it up and add their moves to it?

Yes, that's exactly what we do. See step 4 & 5. In theory you could add any number of players to each side although this would get nasty to coordinate very soon.

One thing I forgot to add: to speed up play it would make sense to have all team memebers in the same time zone. So each team could complete a move per day and the other team their move later in their time zone. Thus you would get the usual one move per day.

In our game everyone is in the same zone but it was clear from before the beginning that we wouldn't do one move per day anyway.

[SlowMotion]

In the first post your wrote "This setup leads to a more 2x 1vs1 than a 2vs2 ".

Have you been able to do all turns each person on his own or has there been need to make a common plans during the battle? Have you planned any co-operation where both players have some common goal in mind?

[poesel]

In the first post your wrote "This setup leads to a more 2x 1vs1 than a 2vs2 ".

Have you been able to do all turns each person on his own or has there been need to make a common plans during the battle? Have you planned any co-operation where both players have some common goal in mind?

I can obviously only speak about our side: in the beginning we tried to simulate the lack of radios on the Italian side and so didn't talk much.

No - only joking. But we really didn't do much planning. This was actually unintentional. The reason was maybe because there was not much need. Both sides are more or less self-sufficient arms wise. But since the fighting has gotten more intense in the last few turns we discuss more.

All turns have been done by their respective commander but I don't understand why this should preclude common plans? The common goal is of course winning. Coordination is no big problem. You can see all your sides troops (unfortunately).

[agusto]

The reason was maybe because there was not much need. Both sides are more or less self-sufficient arms wise.

Wouldnt it be interesting to give one player all the tanks and one player all the infantry so they have to work togather?

[_Itchy]

Hello,

I am commanding half of the US troops in this game. First off, a big thank you to poesel71 for sorting out the map and initiating the game in the first place. It is proving to be fun.

I would second the view that the mechanics of playing in this way is actually pretty straightforward after things settle down in the first few turns.

As to communicating, my teammate and I did discuss a rough plan of action ahead of deploying our troops and we do have conversations about how we are going to respond to the developing battle - though by no means every turn. In fact those conversations are the most enjoyable feature of this style of play and often happen over a pint or two of beer!

I would say that not checking the orders that my team mate has given to his units, rather basing my expectations on our conversations, adds to the flavour of the game as you aren't sure exactly how far up the hill his guys will get and whether they will be covering your moves etc.

[SlowMotion]

All turns have been done by their respective commander but I don't understand why this should preclude common plans? The common goal is of course winning. Coordination is no big problem. You can see all your sides troops (unfortunately).

I would think that during setup some kind of initial planning would be needed.

And then more during the battle.

I did not mean goal of the whole battle, but for example on big map

- if there are several bridges, which ones to use?

- when using arty in the beginning, to which areas etc.

Plus all these coordination things like where some units are protecting advance of others etc.

[poesel]

@SlowMotion:

Yes, initial planning is useful. What just happened here is that the map didn't require it. Maybe a fault from our side not to do it? I just wanted to point out the mistakes I made.

A bigger, more restrictive map (like the one from the 20k DAR) may need more planning. But we actually play in Sicily so the map is rather open.

Splitting it between infantry and armour is a nice idea. That will cause lots of discussions.

@_Itchy:

Which side do you play? The one who just got the Brixa love or the others who just woke up to peek over the hill?

I see you have a beer advantage. Too bad it's a bit too far for jby and me.

[SlowMotion]

I don't know if you're playing a QB or some scenario, but if it's a scenario one question is: who controls reinforcements? If you get reinforcements let's say 3 times, do you decide depending on where they arrive, what kind of units are added or one person controls some and other player the rest?

[_Itchy]

Which side do you play? The one who just got the Brixa love or the others who just woke up to peek over the hill?

I see you have a beer advantage. Too bad it's a bit too far for jby and me.

Charlie has done most of the fighting so far. Is it you or jby who he has locked horns with?

[poesel]

@SlowMotion:

This is a modified standard QB map (added objectives). So there are no reinforcements. For a scenario - which would of course have more options - you would need a third party to handle it.

@_Itchy:

So far I'm the one who dies for Italy

[SlowMotion]

Once you finish the game one day it would be interesting to hear if you got any new thoughts about this playing mode.

[bigshout]

Hi,

I'm the other half of the US side in this battle.

_Itchy is my battle partner and poesel71 is my foe.

I've played a lot of CMBB and some CMAK but this is my very first battle with CMFI so it has been a very steep learning curve with the both the interface (what happened to the lines showing you who's shooting at you?) and the shared method of play.

The first task was agreeing terms of play.

Having designed scenarios in CMBB I know how hard it is to make the scenario fair so that each team has an even chance of winning so I had no expectations that this game would be either winnable or evenly matched. It made sense to have a QB meeting engagement with an even points score and gentlemen's agreement on unit experience.

This worked fine.

Set up was a challenge for me. My hands are so used to the CMBB keyboard shortcuts that I spent a lot of time cursing the new command interface of CMFI.

I had a few discussions with _Itchy in preparation of this and once we had agreed force structure (_Itchy would do the shopping) and objectives we would have a free hand with our own setup. Apart from the "Deploy weapon" order this went smoothly.

We did have some teething problems with communication, file-naming and use of the Dropbox but these were sorted very quickly and the game is proceeding at a reasonable pace.

The rate of play is varied. Sometimes we do one or two turns a week, other times (e.g. yesterday) we do one or two turns a day. _Itchy and I set an expectation of gameplay rate at the start. We both have busy jobs and he has a young family as well.

I wont go into details of the game at this stage but we do plan to do a full AAR when the battle is over and hopefully evolve this method of play with further testing.

So far it has been excellent and I wouldn't change anything. Many thanks to my brother-in-arms and also to my opponents for all this fun.