Points System

[Guest Rhet Schmidt]

The discussion on a points system under "he's an officer sir" is a good one but it really deserves its own topic so that BTS can readily refer to it if needed (especially since they have not developed this system yet).

I think the points system for buying units should be modeled just as it was during the war. Unit prices should be based on resorce expenditure that is required to produce that particular unit. Naturally a Kubelwagon takes less materials and manpower to produce than a Tiger. This should also be adjusted based on the supplying country's economy and resource availability. The resources invested in an American medium tank were far less than a German medium tank. A British medium tank would be a different cost than an American one as well.

Also on this point, the shopping list of the units should be limited by a month and year that the players can select. I really would hate to see a Pershing tank pushing me out of Caen on 18 July 1944.

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Rhet

[Guest Big Time Software]

In general, this is how we are going to do it. However, it doesn't work out as cleanly as you might expect. For example, it didn't cost the British government THAT much extra to make a Crocodile (falmethrower) out of a Churchill tank. So if we used a strict resources=price system the Croc would be FAR too cheap to buy. In other words, the rareness of some vehicles is greater than their production cost. The reverse is true too.

There will be a filter system to keep units from coming into the game when they shouldn't. I don't want to see Pershings at Caen any more than I would like to see a platoon of Jagdtigers opposite them

Steve

[CRourke]

The production cost is somewhat important, but there are alot of other factor that would influence the cost of getting a piece of equipment to the battlefield.

Reliability is a good example: if half an armies tanks are out of service, getting one tank to the battlefield would in effect involve "purchasing" two tanks. For the german players, you'd also have to consider the supply issue. Having a tank at your disposal entails having the fuel to run it and the ammo to fire. This was often more signifigant than the actual numbers of tanks themselves later in the war. Then there's the price of crewman. All in all, I think its hard to arrive at a "point value" for a piece of equipment by starting with production costs.

Even if you did come up with a "cost", its not really that your "buying" the equipment. Your just "renting" it for a battle. In theory, most of the equipment you buy will survive. This gets into what I was talking about in the last thread, there should be a cost to use, and a cost to lose. The cost to use if a function of the expenses of getting the equipment to the battle field that day, while the cost to lose is that of replacing a the equipment and possibly its crew.

What I meant with my earlier "trucks should be cheap" post wasn't that all my grunts should be allowed to ride around in comfort.. heck, I doubt many of them would want to, that close to the lines. I just mean that "buying" a truck to say, move a towed piece should be pretty inexpensive as long as I don't use the truck (or horses in the case of the germans). After all, thats what the truck is for, and unlike "using" a tank, the use of the truck costs minimal maintanence, gasoline, and ammo.

The differance of cost to use and cost to lose can also help encourage realistic use of units. Recon vehicles are a good example. Most players use them as light tanks. My impression was that in reality, they generally drove until they drew fire, than reversed and got the heck out of dodge with guns blazing. By making recon units extra expensive to lose, you can discourage those attempts at flankshots on the Tiger.

In a slightly related vein, how you guys (bigtime) planning on handling on board arty ammo loadouts. I'm not sure whats realistic here, but it sure would be nice to have some control over how much and what kind. I hate having buy multiple batteries when all I wanted was a smokescreen. Also, will the loss of towed guns truck affect its ammo supply?

Chris Rourke

[Battlefront.com]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>...its not really that your "buying" the equipment. Your just "renting" it for a battle.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wouldn't we all like to see real places like this instead of a local Blockbuster? I know I would!

Chris, the costs of units will be (when all factors are considdered) a number pulled out of our, er, hats To come up with this number we will use many factors. However, the end result will be something that comes close to simulating the chance that a unit (infantry types count too!) could be in a battle at a date.

On board guns (no heavy stuff remember) will have their TO&E loadouts of ammo, but this can be adjusted up or down by the scenario designer. Off board stuff will be in battery format. If you want a smoke screen only, you will have to buy a battery. This is realistic as a single gun wouldn't be used for a smoke screen as it would be totally ineffective.

Steve

[This message has been edited by Webmaster (edited 05-02-99).]

[Guest Rhet Schmidt]

Steve, I see your point on the adjusting of the unit cost with regards to rareity (the croc was a good example). This "uncommon factor" definitly needs to be factored in. If it is not, the system will end up being manipulated.

Chris, in re-reading my first post I realize I did not fully elaborate on what I was trying to get across. When I said "resource expenditure" I was really thinking of the cost of construction plus the cost to equip and outfit that unit as well (sorry I did not get that across better). For AFVs this would include specifics such as crew, ammo, petrol, etc. These values change as time marches on as well. This applies to all units not just vehicles. An example being, the cost of assembling, equiping and fielding a platoon of fallshirmjaeger in June 1944 vs May 1945 would be night and day.

By recon vehicles I assume you are talking about armored cars here. I say this because light tanks were actually used for recon duties (eg. PzKw II & M3A2). The problem is that these vehicles were commonly used for harrasing attacks as well as for recon duties. The Limeys used Mk VIBs' (best described as a sardine can on tracks) at Tobruk to effectively dupe the Germans that the garrison was stronger than it actually was. The point here is, if we put artificial constraints on units to force a player to use them in the "normal" way then we are doing a disservice to the game in my opinion.

On the trucks issue I was referring to the "commonality" not really the cost. I don't want to see some one use them as "flak bait" or "truck recon" any more than you do.

Unfortunatly, I don't really know how to deal with the "truck recon" and "armored cars metamorphising into light tanks" problem. I imagine that good commanders will use there units to their best effectiveness and bad ones will be left with smoldering wrecks (atleast that is what usually happens in Squad Leader).

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Rhet

[BDW]

"truck recon" is when you are playing a war game and you send a cheap and fast truck careening behind enemy lines to try to see what is up, right?

Well, if that is the case, then it sounds like a guaranteed suicide mission. In real life, if I was a truck driver in combat, and I was told to do that kind of suicidal recon by my superiors, I'd say, "Now way, man! Are you nuts?"

I wonder how close CM will come to simulating this response. Surely the truck drivers in CM aren't mindless automatons who will do anything you tell them no matter how suicidal or absurd! Right? Steve?

I guess it is one thing to be driving down the road and unexpectedly bump into the enemy. but it is quite another to be told to drive at full speed through known enemy territory! I wonder how CM will make that distiction?

[Guest Big Time Software]

Forgetting about the +/- of losing a truck for a sec, Truck Recon will be next to impossible to do in CM. The drivers WON'T drive very far after even getting aimed small arms fire. They will likely alter course for the nearest cover. So a run into the enemy lines is going to be turned back long before it gets to the enemy's MLR.

Unfortunately, it takes time to turn a truck around on a road, so it will likely die during its escape attempt. The point here is that you shouldn't be ordering a truck into the line of fire in the first place, so if they start to do a suicide run (sorry, no way to know ahead of time if the user knows it is a suicide run), and then turn around, you loose with no real gain. Anything that opened up on that truck would likely have already been known to you.

Gone is the ability to drive a truck at 55mph into the heart of the enemy's defenses. In CM this just won't happen. Plus, losing a truck is going to cost you more in VPs than any possible recon value would net you.

Steve

[BDW]

Hmmmmm... Ok, I think I can reconcile that with reality.

That is like the truck driver saying, "OK, out of respect for your superiority and wisdom, sir, I will drive this truck 55mph directy towards enemy positions, but if it starts to look like a suicide run and people start shooting at us I am turning around and getting the hell out of there!"

So...let's see... what HAVEN'T you guys thought of and addressed in a perfectly reasonable way? There must be SOMETHING....!

(something that doesn't require absurd amounts of coding, and is within CM's scope, of course!)

[Fionn]

Well BDW, I've almost stopped trying to find new issues. Every time I raise something I hear, "we'll we thought about that AND came up with this better way of doing it ".

Hehe quite an unusual situation for grognards to be in.. Finding a company where the guys KNOW what they're talking about is very unusual AND welcome ..

[Boris Balaban]

I am an old time board gam player, playing games like Panzer Blitz (PB) from Avalon Hill (AH) who did help start CM with Big Time Software that is how I found out about CM.

Getting back to trucks in PB playing a scenario you were give a limited amount of trucks to carry infantry and guns. They would move the fastest on roads (2 times the movement factor) but loose the speed of the roads and were not allowed to cross water without a bridge (1/2 times the movement factor). A truck shot by the enemy had a defensive factor of 1 (very easily picked off) half-tracks were the better choice.

If you choose to use trucks as scouts then the infantry was left behind out of the battle or they would ride on tanks (very slow) with a defense of 1 no modifiers.

[CRourke]

I think what alot of this comes down to is how much "prodding" should the player get by the game to act in a realistic manner. I know the folks at bt believe in a hands off approach in which if they design the game right, such "encouragement" shouldn't be necessary. But, because of the limited time frame of the game, and the difficulty in getting the player immersed in the total reality of war, some outside factors have to be added with artificial rules.

For example, to my knowledge, no major combatant of WW2 used a "point buying system" to allocate forces. Its an artificial system we use to simulate the strategic doings far above the scope of an engagement and to provide a nifty form of play balancing. Likewise, troops rarely were restricted in their initial positioning to large color coded "deployment zones". This just a nice way of simulating the stuff that happened prior to the game beginning that kept you from placing men where you pleased. A final example would be the handling of prisoners. Most people, in real life, would be made sick to their stomach by the idea of executing a surrendered enemy. But, since the game can't simulate such morale concerns, artificial rules are used to govern the handling of prisoners. Which is probably a good thing as I seem to remember some very strong "let me kill them all" voices in a debate on the board a while back.

Anyway, my point of all this is that occasionally, even in a game as cool as cm is shaping up to be, there is a need to introduce constraints and devices to keep the players honest. Rhet, you were saying that you thought that good commanders would use there units appropriately regardless of the rules. I think this might be true of the alot of the folks on this board, but we hardly represent the general gaming public which will (hopefully) be buying CM (so that they have enough funding for both an EF sequel and to hire me as vp of the company with a hefty salary.. but i digress). In any case, I think its worthwhile to include rules that will keep us honest, be it in preveneting the creation of truck generated smoke screens, or that "hug the map edge" flanking attack.

Ok, I'm done ranting for now.

-Chris Rourke

[Moon]

I am with Chris here in general. I'd also like to add that even in reality not EVERYTHING is possible and there ARE restraints even in the real world.

Although of course there are no "color coded deployment zones" , there ARE pre-selected assembly and jump-off points in real life. A company hardly really can set up where it likes - it is assigned a predefined sector from its parental HQ and has to make sure it stays in there. These assignments go sometimes as low as the platoon level!

Same with the game map edges - task forces ARE assigned attack sectors with boundaries and better make damn' sure they stay within... because if they don't, they might run straight into their own people, most probably causing ugly friendly fire casualties...

So the map edges in the game are not 100% unrealistic. The only problem I see with them is that they limit the defending player in an assault scenario as to where and how to set up his defenses, thereby allowing for slightly less firepower at the edges than in the center. But as the attacker, also the defender has certain assigned sectors (usually twice as big as the attacker's sectors - see the historical section at my website www.online.de/home/gamesofwar for more details) and cannot just freely place forces at his flanks. Except for static fronline battles, there ARE therefore relatively safe boundaries on most real battlefields...

Finally, let's not forget CM's scope. We're talking battalion here at most. At this level, the classic flanking maneuver is more or less a theoretical issue. Once regimental HQ decided "you guys attack here" - well, that's exactly what you do. On battlefields were tanks can engage most targets across large portions of the map, it's the terrain that defines "flanks" (by defining dead spaces) rather than map edges...

[Guest Big Time Software]

The short version of our "restriction" policy is that if the player can unreasonably create an advantage for himself using a unit (any unit) in a totally unrealistic manner, then we take a hard look to see what we can do to minimize or eliminate the "ceap move".

Trucks are a perfect example. They aren't going to be cheap, and if lost will cost you. They have a job to do, and charging the enemy for recon reasons isn't one of them. So do this and you lose the ability to do whatever the trucks were supposed to do. Further, the drivers, like all units, want to stay alive. They will try to get themselves out of a certain death situation BEFORE becoming dead.

These reasons generally fix most stupid unit tricks. Especially the unit self-presevation thing.

Steve

[Doug Beman]

In an attempt to to preserve historical OoB (especially for German commanders) would it be a good system to make units (esp tanks) more expensive as more are purchased? This might be able to prevent players from building groups that are composed of all Panther tanks, with elite SS infantry units.

I know I would like to see such a system in a game I am currently playing (no names, but its initials are CC3)

From my readings, even SS armored units that had Panthers were usually made up of 3 Pkwgn IVs for every Panther, and any heavy-duty concentration of Tigers and Panthers was above the battalion level (I'm thinking of a late-war Eastern Front battle that witnessed the deployment of 50 Tigers and 80 Panthers together--that sort of a battle was above the force level depicted in CM. ie not often was a lowly company able to have all Panthers)

Of course, since it's been a LONG time since I read that book, and I don't have it with me, I could be wrong.

DjB

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A lot of my schoolmates called me "warmonger."

[Guest Big Time Software]

Doug,

A specific points-penalty for a guy who wants to buy all Panthers isn't really necessary because anyone who buys a lopsided force like that (too much armor, nowhere near enough infantry or artillery support) is going to get beaten pretty badly. After all, Panthers are "expensive" point-wise, so you'll only get a modest number of them. And it only takes a few well-placed bazookamen to knock them out... especially because the Panther player has no infantry with which to screen out those bazookamen...

A humiliating defeat will be penalty enough for the excessively armor-happy player.

Charles