TRPs are now really cheap - intentional?

[Bulletpoint]

In CMFB and CMBN, I just noticed that Target Reference Points now cost 30 points apiece. As far as I remember, they used to cost 150 points each.

Am I remembering things wrong, or have they been made cheaper in the latest patch. If so, is this intentional?

 

[Freyberg]

The WWII titles haven't changed - 150 points for 5 TRPs.

[Bulletpoint]

26 minutes ago, Freyberg said:

The WWII titles haven't changed - 150 points for 5 TRPs.

Has it always been that price? I could swear they used to be 150 points each. So they were a costly investment.

[umlaut]

Perhaps they are on sale - now CM is on Steam?

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, umlaut said:

Perhaps they are on sale - now CM is on Steam?

Yes But do you think I am remembering things wrong?

[Freyberg]

44 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Has it always been that price? I could swear they used to be 150 points each. So they were a costly investment.

Well, they don't really belong on small maps, but on a larger map, 30 points with a 50m targeting radius is about right

[Bufo]

375 points for 5 TRPs in Black Sea.

[Kevin2k]

150 points for 5 TRPs in CMFB v1.02

150 points for 5 TRPs in CMBN v3.12

[Bulletpoint]

11 minutes ago, Kevin2k said:

150 points for 5 TRPs in CMFB v1.02

150 points for 5 TRPs in CMBN v3.12

Thanks for clearing this up. It seems I remembered things wrong. I always definitely believed they were 150 points each, and for that reason I never really used them... Thought they were an expensive luxury.

[Kevin2k]

No problem. It is easy for me to check the older versions. Although I never purchased TRPs before, I managed to find them under Fortifications.

[Wicky]

It'd be clearer if it said:

Target Reference Point (x5) 

[umlaut]

8 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yes But do you think I am remembering things wrong?

I have no idea. I very rarely play quick battles. So just a joke

[Bulletpoint]

I also spent most of my CM years playing scenarios, where TRPs are rare and prized assets, so it's only now I realise they are so cheap in quick battles. This changes a lot for me, because I prefer playing infantry based defence. I think cheap TRPs change the dynamics of the game and basically make it a game of artillery and tanks.

I used to think there was this cool dynamic where you had to choose how to use your arty. Preplanned strikes are instant, surprising, can hit any place on the map, and can do airburst. The downside being that you have to be clever enough to guess where your opponent might be.

Calling in arty later, you need LOS, it takes time and spotting rounds, and it can't be airburst unless you have access to specialised artillery. With the preplanned, you could delay it so it would be mind game between you and your opponent if any arty would be incoming and where and when. To me, these kinds of choices equals good fun.

But with cheap TRPs, it seems nearly all good defensive positions can be covered by quick airburst artillery, and it means infantry defence becomes a lot less feasible. Of course, it also goes the other way - the defender can also use TRPs. Which turns any objective zone into a big meat grinder. A lot less focus on good infantry work, fire and movement, suppression, etc. Each infantry team is basically just a scout and bait for the other's artillery.

Maybe most players don't really run into this, as many play meeting engagements without TRPs. I just think maybe there are some gameplay balance dynamics that could be adjusted a bit here.

But as I only discovered this now, these are just some initial thoughts, not a criticism as such. I will play some more games to see how it works out.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Freyberg]

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

... I just think maybe there are some gameplay balance dynamics that could be adjusted a bit here. ...

Giving the AI some TRPs on the defence is a great way to beef it up.

I don't use TRPs much on the attack against the AI - it makes it a bit too easy.

[rocketman]

2 hours ago, Freyberg said:

Giving the AI some TRPs on the defence is a great way to beef it up.

[snip]

That is indeed a very useful tool to make the AI react to the player's attack.

[Bulletpoint]

Talking about quick battles against human opponents of course

 

[Freyberg]

Well - on a medium-sized map, TRPs give rapid artillery fire without spotting round to obvious parts of the map, but their targeting range is a little limited. 5 TRPs will probably not cover every good siting point for AT guns, for example.

If you're playing with around 2000 points, imagine you have 2 mortar units, worth around 150 points each. For 150 points, you can afford another mortar unit, or two crack Forward Observers, or even a cheap HE-thrower tank or similar, more or less...

I think in the WWII setting, 30 points per TRP is about right - although on a very small map it spoils the game.

[chi-chi]

15 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

But with cheap TRPs, it seems nearly all good defensive positions can be covered by quick airburst artillery, and it means infantry defence becomes a lot less feasible.

Admittedly I haven't played QBs in 3-4 years but I did play with people who used them pretty consistently and the end result was that I would try to avoid placing my men in obvious positions. Ideally this means that my opponent has wasted points on a TRP and still needs to call in via-LOS with the additional penalty of missing some points.

Its sort of the "Church tower question". Do you place your FO in this very obvious position with a great field of view but risk him getting killed almost instantly?

[Bulletpoint]

10 hours ago, chi-chi said:

Admittedly I haven't played QBs in 3-4 years but I did play with people who used them pretty consistently and the end result was that I would try to avoid placing my men in obvious positions. Ideally this means that my opponent has wasted points on a TRP and still needs to call in via-LOS with the additional penalty of missing some points.

Its sort of the "Church tower question". Do you place your FO in this very obvious position with a great field of view but risk him getting killed almost instantly?

This is true, but then again, it means you can't really use any viable defensive positions.

Unless the map is really big, I'm thinking you end up having to deploy all your infantry out in the middle of fields, which is pretty useless and not what happened in the real war.

And if the map is indeed really big, both players will have way more points, so more TRPs.

 

[Drifter Man]

Let me bump this thread - I'm the one who placed 20 TRPs on Bulletpoint's map, which helped me break his infantry defence. I spent over 10% of my points just on TRPs and about half of rarity points, and still had plenty for everything else. He had nowhere to hide.

I haven't played a lot of QB's so this was an experiment to see what I can do with TRPs, and the answer is that I can do a lot. With enough TRPs I can reach nearly any place of importance with fast and accurate artillery - without a warning provided by the spotting rounds. I can plot line and area missions using any two TRPs. I also spoke with another player with much more experience, who said that putting an inescapable network of TRPs on the map is an important part of his game.

Yes, they are too cheap for how powerful they are and I'll be using house rules to restrict them from now on if I want a good game.

[SgtHatred]

TRPs are just a small issue. You can't play quickbattles competitively. The prices of things simply are not balanced well enough for that. Otherwise every defense would be 1 forward observer targeting 95% of the defender's points worth of rocket artillery at the attacking player's start zone.

 

Not that it's all that much of a problem. It wasn't designed to be competitive. I wish we had the ability to mod the values or to manually set point counts for both sides though.

 

 

Edited January 12, 2021 by SgtHatred

[Drifter Man]

I play QBs competitively in the sense that I do all I can, and want to use every tool at my disposal, in order to win. This includes force selection. Naturally, there need to be rules in place to ensure a fun game for both sides. "Thou shalt not shell" the attacker's setup zone is the first one. If we need too many rules, it is a sign that we are making up for where the game is lacking. TRPs are just one small issue and yes, there are many others.

About modding QB prices: I thought about that. Developing a tool that would let you handle the purchase according to the rules we specify would be a relatively minor task. The big task is developing a comprehensive pricing system for everything that does not introduce other problems. As we can see, that's not easy even for the authors of the game, who have complete information about its inner workings.

[Lethaface]

7 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

I play QBs competitively in the sense that I do all I can, and want to use every tool at my disposal, in order to win. This includes force selection. Naturally, there need to be rules in place to ensure a fun game for both sides. "Thou shalt not shell" the attacker's setup zone is the first one. If we need too many rules, it is a sign that we are making up for where the game is lacking. TRPs are just one small issue and yes, there are many others.

About modding QB prices: I thought about that. Developing a tool that would let you handle the purchase according to the rules we specify would be a relatively minor task. The big task is developing a comprehensive pricing system for everything that does not introduce other problems. As we can see, that's not easy even for the authors of the game, who have complete information about its inner workings.

Interesting subject.
One thing I'd like to mention is the defender has also access to TRPs for the same price. So, he can return the favor in a similar way. Also, mortars/artillery to use with TRPs aren't cheap. So I look at it as more of a choice. Rough exapmle: You can invest a lot in arty + TRPs, but if the other player decides to invest a lot in Tanks all that artillery will be less helpful and you might have issues dealing with his tanks, as you don't have as much due to the focus on TRP/arty.

And yes TRPs are very good. One reason why in Real Life nobody would want to defend to hold an open plain (in general). The attacking side could just casually observe defenses, register artillery on it and start a setpiece battle hammering everything with artillery while moving overwhelming forces to assault positions. 

War isn't meant to be fair and both sides will usually look for any advantages they can abuse to the maximum. Apart from gameyness, I'd say that's all good in CMx2 too. Perhaps TRPs could be a bit more expensive per pop for both sides (let's say 50pp), but I think the cost of all QB assets is somewhat arbitrary.

It's not that artillery/mortars are useless without TRPs. Spotting rounds give away something, but that doesn't always matter. Direct fire mortars work great too and with good FO's the time to call can be quite decent even without TRPs, depending on what you want to achieve with the bombardment.

Regarding 'competitive' QBs I think that the houserule for defenders to not be allowed preplanned fires outside the attacker setup zone is more of an issue combined with TRPs. In 'surprise' battle I would think not allowing preplanned fires is ok, but in a surprise battle the attacker wouldn't have registered his artillery either or he'd give up the surprise effect. While the defenses will usually preregister artillery on favorable avenues of approach at the moment they are digging in. So a meeting engagement without preplanned fires or TRPs for any side, but for attacks I'd say it's different. Probes could be somewhere in between, but as probes are often used as more balanced attack scenario's I don't see why a defender can't use preplanned artillery to deny terrain if the attacker has had the time to register his artillery (and is allowed TRPs).

So with preplanned barrages and TRPs for both sides I don't think there is a big advantage to one side or the other. 

Just my 2ct.

[Drifter Man]

21 hours ago, Lethaface said:

Interesting subject.
One thing I'd like to mention is the defender has also access to TRPs for the same price. So, he can return the favor in a similar way. Also, mortars/artillery to use with TRPs aren't cheap. So I look at it as more of a choice. Rough exapmle: You can invest a lot in arty + TRPs, but if the other player decides to invest a lot in Tanks all that artillery will be less helpful and you might have issues dealing with his tanks, as you don't have as much due to the focus on TRP/arty.

And yes TRPs are very good. One reason why in Real Life nobody would want to defend to hold an open plain (in general). The attacking side could just casually observe defenses, register artillery on it and start a setpiece battle hammering everything with artillery while moving overwhelming forces to assault positions. 

War isn't meant to be fair and both sides will usually look for any advantages they can abuse to the maximum. Apart from gameyness, I'd say that's all good in CMx2 too. Perhaps TRPs could be a bit more expensive per pop for both sides (let's say 50pp), but I think the cost of all QB assets is somewhat arbitrary.

It's not that artillery/mortars are useless without TRPs. Spotting rounds give away something, but that doesn't always matter. Direct fire mortars work great too and with good FO's the time to call can be quite decent even without TRPs, depending on what you want to achieve with the bombardment.

Regarding 'competitive' QBs I think that the houserule for defenders to not be allowed preplanned fires outside the attacker setup zone is more of an issue combined with TRPs. In 'surprise' battle I would think not allowing preplanned fires is ok, but in a surprise battle the attacker wouldn't have registered his artillery either or he'd give up the surprise effect. While the defenses will usually preregister artillery on favorable avenues of approach at the moment they are digging in. So a meeting engagement without preplanned fires or TRPs for any side, but for attacks I'd say it's different. Probes could be somewhere in between, but as probes are often used as more balanced attack scenario's I don't see why a defender can't use preplanned artillery to deny terrain if the attacker has had the time to register his artillery (and is allowed TRPs).

So with preplanned barrages and TRPs for both sides I don't think there is a big advantage to one side or the other. 

Just my 2ct.

It is not so much a matter of fairness - more a matter of having a good game where all elements of your force can come into play. It takes a good degree of skill to manage an infantry defence in the way Bulletpoint did in our game. It does not take that much skill to identify the key positions and cover them with lots of TRPs. So I think our game would have been more interesting - perhaps less successful for me, but more interesting - had I given up most of my TRPs in favor something else.

Anyway, I'll be fixing this with house rules from now on - and the suggestions you wrote in your post make a good starting point.

[Lethaface]

19 minutes ago, Drifter Man said:

It is not so much a matter of fairness - more a matter of having a good game where all elements of your force can come into play. It takes a good degree of skill to manage an infantry defence in the way Bulletpoint did in our game. It does not take that much skill to identify the key positions and cover them with lots of TRPs. So I think our game would have been more interesting - perhaps less successful for me, but more interesting - had I given up most of my TRPs in favor something else.

Anyway, I'll be fixing this with house rules from now on - and the suggestions you wrote in your post make a good starting point.

Yeah I understand what you mean about fairness. Personally I try to establish what kind of game we intend playing before starting it. It's less fun when one side picks a sort of (semi) 'authentic' OOB, when the other player goes for a tank/rocket arty spam build (exaggeration to make the point extra clear).

House rules seem the best way to establish what both parties think is a fun and fair game. 

And of course opinions will differ among players.