Documenting TOE Problems?

[Vanir Ausf B]

The Marder IIM is still missing from the Luftwaffe Airborne Infantry in the QB editor.

[Battlefront.com]

Deliberately not there. Instead it is found in the Armored Infantry section (or Armored? Er.. one of the two!). Quick Battle categories are deliberately kept as apples to apples between nations as possible. Units of Tigers and Marders isn't what most people think of when they think of airborne infantry. Nor should it be because those units were not airborne except in name only.

Airborne Infantry in QBs should be without significant vehicles of any sort. Because the Germans basically used their Airborne Infantry as ground pounders they blurred a line that is otherwise pretty straight forward for other nations. Unfortunately CM was not programmed with such exceptions in mind and therefore for QBs it's a bit clumsy in a few instances.

Steve

[Vanir Ausf B]

Deliberately not there. Instead it is found in the Armored Infantry section (or Armored? Er.. one of the two!). Quick Battle categories are deliberately kept as apples to apples between nations as possible.

Interesting. Makes sense, in a way.

[Battlefront.com]

It only makes sense in QBs, which is why it's more "historically correct" in the Editor. When you're in the Editor you're choosing forces deliberately. In QBs the computer might be picking forces. If you, the player, want to have an all infantry brawl I'm sure you'd not be too happy to find yourself playing against halftrack borne infantry backed up by tanks (as would happen in Italy). I know I wouldn't

Steve

[ChrisND]

Interesting. Makes sense, in a way.

Think of it this way:

If you wanted to play against an opponent in a QB with US Paras versus German Paras (not exactly a crazy combination) and thus set the parameters to Airborne Infantry versus Airborne Infantry, it'd be pretty unfair if one player had access to armored vehicles and the other didn't.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Think of it this way:

If you wanted to play against an opponent in a QB with US Paras versus German Paras (not exactly a crazy combination) and thus set the parameters to Airborne Infantry versus Airborne Infantry, it'd be pretty unfair if one player had access to armored vehicles and the other didn't.

That was "the way" I was thinking. I probably should have mentioned that My first reaction was "so the QBs are based on player expectation rather than historical reality? BS!" I even started to write out a reply along those lines when I realized the practical force-picking implications.

[Battlefront.com]

Yup, and let me tell you that it's a tough thing to structure on the backend. As with most complex systems, there's an exception to every rule. The problem is those exceptions are rarely uniform from nation to nation, force type to force type.

For example, the Americans have vehicles EVERYWHERE. Even for their straight up leg infantry. Commonwealth has a fair share as well. It's one of the reasons the Allies won the war. But the Germans pretty much don't. And even putting that aside, in QBs who wants to be forced to spend points on a bunch of Jeeps when one is on the defensive? So we have to strip out the vehicles for all Branch Infantry. Sometimes this is easy, sometimes it's not.

Likewise, Armored Infantry sometimes has some pretty heavy stuff in it. Modern US Army even has Abrams mixed in there! Holy crow Sometimes it's easy to strip them out because they also exist in Armor Branch. Which means if you want Abrams you know to look in Branch Armor. But in other cases, like this FJ issue they normally don't have anything in the Armor Branch so players aren't thinking that way.

I think we've got an excellent system that by and large does what people expect when they expect it. But there's always going to be problem areas for a system this complex.

Steve