Bit of a Ramble on How CM Works on the Mind

[Jayzthegamer]

Now just to start this off obviously this is just my experience with the CM games

Whenever I play CM games whether it's the brutally bloody modern games or the slightly more lax slow paced (in my opinion) WW2 games I seemed to find myself getting extremely stressed out, even when things are going smoothly, for example when I'm making a plan I find myself plotting out every possible keyhole, murder hole, possible ambush spots etc. This leads to me spending somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour before even starting the mission. Maybe this is just me but I recently sourced all the stress and anxiety of these games to simply the hud, now if I were a soldier in a platoon or squad all I would want to know is where are my friends and what am I suppose to do, however, in these games your expected to know where your entire battlegroup is, whether its a platoon, company, battalion, whatever it may be, I'm supposed to know where all 100+ guys are whilst having very minimal info on the enemy. Additionally, I find less stress regardless of winning or losing, but always towards the last 10-20 minutes of a mission. I chalk this up not to if I have less or more guys but simply that by that point in the battle I've been able to paint a picture of enemy, strength, composition, and capabilities. To round this whole rant off, I guess I'm more of a soldier than an officer.

Cheers boys

[Warts 'n' all]

When it comes to rambling, you really can't beat "Oh, didn't he ramble" by Jelly Roll Morton and Sidney Bechet from 1939.

[The_MonkeyKing]

Only 30min to plan a scenario? I take more than 2h at best, more often than not longer...

[Erwin]

3 hours ago, Jayzthegamer said:

 

...find myself getting extremely stressed out, even when things are going smoothly, for example when I'm making a plan I find myself plotting out every possible keyhole, murder hole, possible ambush spots etc. This leads to me spending somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour before even starting the mission. Maybe this is just me but I recently sourced all the stress and anxiety of these games...

This would be perfectly normal in my experience.  As MonkeyKing said, in a large scenario one can spend many more than 2 hours setting up.  This is a very detailed simulation "game" and one error in CM2 can be catastrophic.  When I was recovering from injuries, surgeries, rehab etc. I had the opportunity to play for dozens of hours (am embarrassed to say how many) every week for many months, (years actually).  I handled my pixeltruppen as if they were my buddies and regularly suffered from burn-out due to the stress and anxiety of knowing that one bad move could mean disaster.

So, what you are experiencing is quite normal.  Just need to learn to live with it.  It gets easier with experience.

[MarkEzra]

It's only a problem if you continually review your moves with the Art of War or Von Clausewitz. And then Only if you rely on it for every move... So your OK and I'm OK...OK?

[Michael Emrys]

5 hours ago, Erwin said:

I handled my pixeltruppen as if they were my buddies and regularly suffered from burn-out due to the stress and anxiety of knowing that one bad move could mean disaster.

This is perhaps the worst aspect of playing CM, at least for me. It is why I generally prefer games set on the operational or strategic level. In that level of simulation, I can maintain a certain emotional distance. I still want my units to perform well and not get destroyed or hindered, but it's not so immediate as actually hearing my troops crying out that they are wounded or hearing them scream with their last breath. I endure to play CM only because it is superb.

Michael

[Erwin]

Exactly so Michael.  We all love the detail.  But, playing a game like CM2 takes so much mental energy it literally can cause a headache after a few hours (and eventual regular burn-out) - knowing that every move has to be perfect or you could suffer catastrophic loss. 

I play Grigsby's massive WITPAE for R&R cos as you say, one can distance oneself and have so many resources and assets that you can afford to lose an aircraft carrier or a few divisions and it hardly matters.

 

[Ultradave]

In real life, plotting every possible ambush spot, etc is what each squad leader is going to try to do before each "move", and tell his guys to cover that door, or be careful of the stone wall, etc. You are him in the game, and every other squad leader, as well as the platoon commanders and company/bn/team commander plotting the overall course, and also you are the fire support officer, whether that's the FO or a higher level fire support officer, planning fire support - pre planned or likely targets.  So you have all the roles to consider, higher level and man level. I'd say you are perfectly normal.

[MOS:96B2P]

12 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

actually hearing my troops crying out that they are wounded or hearing them scream with their last breath.

 

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

knowing that every move has to be perfect or you could suffer catastrophic loss. 

Yes, the team leaders all have names.  Makes it a little more personal.  Especially in a campaign, when Sgt. Wright has been leading A team for the last two scenarios and now in scenario three his Humvee hits an IED............ I can picture @Erwin in the fetal position under his computer desk sobbing .............   

[Erwin]

15 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

I can picture @Erwin in the fetal position under his computer desk sobbing .............   

That's actually my normal work position...

[Kinophile]

 

[Ales Dvorak]

                          ^^^

..... and a new one is much better ...

Really?

Edited November 14, 2018 by Ales Dvorak

[domfluff]

CM is a hard, unforgiving game, which demands high concentration over long periods, and is more than happy to slap you when you do something stupid.

That means that it's a perfect recipe for burnout. I know I personally tend to go in fits and starts - I'll have long periods of a ton of Combat Mission, and periods where I poke very little of it.

 

On 11/9/2018 at 6:00 PM, Jayzthegamer said:

if I were a soldier in a platoon or squad all I would want to know is where are my friends and what am I suppose to do, however, in these games your expected to know where your entire battlegroup is, whether its a platoon, company, battalion, whatever it may be, I'm supposed to know where all 100+ guys are whilst having very minimal info on the enemy.

This is a fundamental issue with CM's design choices. It gives you a ton of control, but also asks you to do an awful lot. 
I do find it's better to try to stop and refocus, going over the same situation a few times from different levels.

e.g., one of the lead squads in a platoon on an approach march comes under fire.

First - I'll consider the situation from the squad's position. Just focusing on the squad and the fireteams within. Get them to cover, return fire, see what assets you have available and take stock of the situation. Consider that for the full minute of playback, then make the orders.

Second, rewind time and consider the same from the perspective of the platoon. Thinking especially about how the platoon HQ can establish C2 and get any or all of the spotting contacts that the squad may have made, and also make sure the platoon HQ is in C2 with the squad in contact to bolster their morale. At the same time, consider getting the immediate platoon assets (e.g., platoon MGs) online.

Usually that's enough for the immediate contact. After this crucial minute, you'll start considering whether the squad can handle this by themselves, whether you need to use the other squads in the platoon to help, or whether it's too much for your platoon to deal with, and what to do about that - breaking contact or thinking about things from the company commander position.


I definitely think it's worth thinking about things tactically from a platoon level, as above, considering the battle as a series of separate platoon actions (which will be mutually supporting, directly or otherwise). These platoons might well have attached assets, either formally through the Quick Battle/Scenario designer or informally through "This squad of engineers will go with this platoon".

The initial plan of manoeuvre is what sets these mutually supporting platoons up, which means your company or battalion level (whatever the top level is) thinking should mostly be up-front, or during the early stages of the battle.

[Homo_Ferricus]

Years ago while playing the CMSF campaign, I managed to get most of a platoon slaughtered trying to clear a complex in the last minutes of a mission. Shortly afterward I recounted the event to a non-CM friend of mine in distressed fashion. He was surprised by how much this affected me, and described a vision he had of me sitting at a dim-lit desk, drunk and in my underwear, wretchedly writing letters to the wives of the many virtual men I’d gotten maimed and killed.

It was a foretelling vision.

[McMortison]

Pre deployment, I take screenshots of the map, save them to my tablet and use to study them on my way to work befor setting up. 

I hate when I lose any of my pixeltruppen and sometimes yell at my screen when I see them die. More then once I lost a game because i withdraw assets from one point to redeploy them somewhere to 'save some man in distress. And it can happen that I level a building with tanks, arti and bombs  to avange fallen man

[JulianJ]

LOL!  Call me callous, (or perhaps Tony Bliar....accidental but brill mistype) but I don't care.  They are there to die for me,  and quite frankly all you sensitive snowflakes should harden up. . Apparently there are 13,000 homeless British Army veterans...OK, we can't win wars any more but we are still putting down markers on how to mistreat our cannon-fodder.  It's a military tradition around here (read The Recollections of Rifleman Harris). So I am being realistic,in the CM tradition. Do you notice any medics, casevac or field aid centres.  No, they are only for wimps. CM rightly disdains them.

Perhaps you should stop playing CM and try Solitaire if it is too stressful.

 

[mjkerner]

Hey JulianJ, have you met C3K/Ken yet?

[Michael Emrys]

Good one, mj.

Michael

[SimpleSimon]

One of the issues I started having with CM scenarios myself is to become painstakingly overcautious. It was so easy for a relatively minor movement to turn into a major bloodbath a lot that I started save scumming damn near every turn just to survive. 

On the hand I blame myself for taking a while to learn the basics of proper screening and the value of recon. On the other hand? I realized afterward that a number of scenarios are rather malicious or deceptive in their design, and no longer push myself to accomplish unreasonable objectives or expectations. Real life commanders would not really march their men into known bloodbaths, regardless of what all the anecdotal stuff said all the time. Two Pak40s covering a single T-junction with another pair of them covering the next road? Nope. Cease fire. Go to editor, load Allied player with more 25pdrs. That's more like it. 

[nik mond]

3 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

snip.............. I realized afterward that a number of scenarios are rather malicious or deceptive in their design, and no longer push myself to accomplish unreasonable objectives or expectations. Real life commanders would not really march their men into known bloodbaths, regardless of what all the anecdotal stuff said all the time. Two Pak40s covering a single T-junction with another pair of them covering the next road? Nope. Cease fire. Go to editor, load Allied player with more 25pdrs. That's more like it. 

In WW2 unfortunately that might have been the reality too often from the Russian front to the Hurtgen forest, realistic commanders following orders from their unrealistic commanders, or commanders with a bigger picture of timelines,  or just other lives depending on your ill fated attack. But as far as the game goes, have fun, find the angle to crack the nut and watch the clock. No scenario should be impossible, that would be wrong, and if that's the case yes it should be corrected. I see what you mean by add 25pdrs, in some cases add 25 minutes... I've flat out asked people how the hell they beat that too.  

[Kinophile]

I particularly dislike the time frames aspect. I'd prefer to Lose points exponentially as I go over the target, but still have that ability - to go past the alotted timespan by whatever I need (not just the 15mins generally allowed). 

I find far too many scenarios are rushing me, and I'm not an overly cautious player by any stretch. 

I enjoy cracking the tactical problem, not the artificial rush to do so.Most scenarios seem to almost be timed training exercises.

By contrast I'm fighting a large scenario separately with 3 different players and I've deliberately given us 2.5 hours. It's a complex fight and adding a timed finish gate to it is irrelevant to the story. It might add more "tension" but it's a hell of a hard fight already. 

My personal preference, is all. 

Edited November 15, 2018 by kinophile

[SimpleSimon]

20 hours ago, nik mond said:

In WW2 unfortunately that might have been the reality too often from the Russian front to the Hurtgen forest, realistic commanders following orders from their unrealistic commanders, or commanders with a bigger picture of timelines,  or just other lives depending on your ill fated attack. But as far as the game goes, have fun, find the angle to crack the nut and watch the clock. No scenario should be impossible, that would be wrong, and if that's the case yes it should be corrected. I see what you mean by add 25pdrs, in some cases add 25 minutes... I've flat out asked people how the hell they beat that too.  

No doubt. I think however much of this came down to misunderstandings and usually if men actually engaged eachother with small arms they were on a relatively peripheral sector of the front or someone screwed up. This is part of the reason why field officers just falsified AARs so much. Many officers simply could not and would not send their men into situations knowing a full blood bath was inevitable. The reasons were varied, sometimes for politics like not wanting loss of a company to endanger that promotion or get you sent back to the states for "stress". Not wanting to piss off an angry and armed party representative of the Nazis/Arrow Cross/NKVD/Black Shirts/etc demanding more attacks. Other times and more frequently that anyone seems to admit, the reasons were more empathetic, like just not wanting to see people you know get massacred by a pair of MG42s overlooking the road they're supposed to advance up. Those MG42s are now a pair of Panzer IIIs and it was "obviously insane to press on against that" etc etc. You know this is where all those phantom "Tiger Tanks" kept coming from. 

Force preservation was on everyone's mind more than CM scenarios like to imply I think and yes even on the cataclysmic Eastern Front I think this was the case much more frequently than European authors believe. Certainly disasters happened, certainly forceful commanders or incompetent commanders or forceful AND incompetent commanders existed but I chalk these guys up to a minority overall, especially as the war went on and idiots were either re-assigned or...expended. 

So when we're playing CM this is the line I take now. I'm going to evaluate the situation and the tools at my disposal to solve it. If I conclude those tools are inadequate then i'm adjusting the scenario. The way I see things we're in a post S.L.A. Marshall world of military history now. CM and its scenarios oriented toward action and confrontation can still work, they just need adjustment sometimes. 

Edited November 16, 2018 by SimpleSimon

[Bulletpoint]

2 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

I'm going to evaluate the situation and the tools at my disposal to solve it. If I conclude those tools are inadequate then i'm adjusting the scenario.

I find that if I adjust a tough scenario in order to beat it, I don't really have fun with it, and it leaves me with an emtpy feeling.

[Erwin]

On 11/14/2018 at 11:28 AM, Homo_Ferricus said:

a vision he had of me sitting at a dim-lit desk, drunk and in my underwear, wretchedly writing letters to the wives of the many virtual men I’d gotten maimed and killed.

If you are doing this, you are probably playing it right.  

 

On 11/15/2018 at 5:08 AM, SimpleSimon said:

One of the issues I started having with CM scenarios myself is to become painstakingly overcautious. It was so easy for a relatively minor movement to turn into a major bloodbath a lot that I started save scumming damn near every turn just to survive. 

I think most of us experienced players went thru this.  I try to limit myself now to a save every 5 turns.  Sometimes the AI or game system does something unrealistic or ridiculous and my SOP is in those cases to redo the turn.  

 

22 hours ago, kinophile said:

I particularly dislike the time frames aspect. I'd prefer to Lose points exponentially as I go over the target, but still have that ability - to go past the alotted timespan by whatever I need (not just the 15mins generally allowed). 

Agreed.  A penalty for taking too much time would be welcome in terms of maintaining pleasure in playing the game vs suffering per the earlier comments.  After all, this is supposed to be a leisure activity for most of us.  For those trying to do some sort of serious training, they could simply keep to the existing strict parameters.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Erwin

[Michael Emrys]

On 11/9/2018 at 7:04 PM, Michael Emrys said:

This is perhaps the worst aspect of playing CM, at least for me. It is why I generally prefer games set on the operational or strategic level. In that level of simulation, I can maintain a certain emotional distance. I still want my units to perform well and not get destroyed or hindered, but it's not so immediate as actually hearing my troops crying out that they are wounded or hearing them scream with their last breath. I endure to play CM only because it is superb.

I was thinking about this thread earlier today and recalled a quote from Stalin, "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

Michael