Difficulty combining teams

[John1966]

3 minutes ago, mjkerner said:

You may want to keep the flexibility of having 3 separate teams for maneuver purposes.

Yes, I know. I do it all the time. 

8 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

Here's some images that might help. Pay attention to the columns.

I get all this. I know about the squads AS positioning. Although I confess I'd never noticed the significance of the columns - that's useful, thanks. I never knew I could tell how the weapons would be distributed when I split squads.

[John1966]

6 minutes ago, mjkerner said:

John, when they recombine automatically, they will do so in their original elements. As Khalerick points out, he has recombined those three elements into two...permanently. If he just moved them all into the same square, and they recombined automatically, they would still be in their 3 separate elements.

Why would you want to do that? Doesn't that just make your squad less flexible?

[John1966]

So if I've got this straight, the purpose of Combine Squad is to turn your three-team squad into a two-team squad (of the same number of men)?

 

[FlemFire]

13 minutes ago, John1966 said:

So if I've got this straight, the purpose of Combine Squad is to turn your three-team squad into a two-team squad (of the same number of men)?

 

Gotta think of them as fireteams, but yes. Edit: I see what you mean now, I originally read that as "three man/two man squads"; I'm not that pedantic I promise.

A four man fireteam has less firepower and fewer eyeballs, but also fewer targets to hit.

A six man fireteam has more firepower and more eyeballs, but has more targets to hit.

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Khalerick

[John1966]

Interesting.

Seems a bit zen though. I've never really thought about it but having a full squad over three (not necessarily adjacent) action squares seems a good balance.

9 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

but has more targets to hit.

That'll be why. 

[chuckdyke]

38 minutes ago, John1966 said:

Why would you want to do that? Doesn't that just make your squad less flexible?

After you have suffered casualties it doesn't makes sense to leave the surviving scout for example by himself. In that case I combine a squad.  

[Warts 'n' all]

The "Combine Squad" feature was introduced after a lot of players requested it after finding that when playing a campaign their Squads had been whittled down to just a few men.

[Erwin]

13 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

it doesn't makes sense to leave the surviving scout for example by himself.

My sense is that a single man is less likely to get noticed or fired at by the AI.  I LOVE having single men.  A single man with a MG42 is very useful.  In "The Scottish Corridor" the designer has created many 1 and 2 man teams mostly with MG42's and they are horribly effective.

 

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, Erwin said:

My sense is that a single man is less likely to get noticed or fired at by the AI.  I LOVE having single men.  A single man with a MG42 is very useful.  In "The Scottish Corridor" the designer has created many 1 and 2 man teams mostly with MG42's and they are horribly effective.

 

Sometimes you need to have a look at combat stress. The fire team with the casualty has combat stress the other 2 fireteams don't. Splitting and combining seems to have some counseling effect lol. 

[John1966]

4 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Splitting and combining seems to have some counseling effect lol. 

This can be a bit strange. Last night I had a squad who were "tiring" and when I split them they were both "ready".

 

 

[John1966]

8 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

The "Combine Squad" feature was introduced after a lot of players requested it after finding that when playing a campaign their Squads had been whittled down to just a few men.

Now you're confusing me again. You can't combine teams from different squads, can you? Good if you could for precisely that reason. If they were in the same squad then you can combine them by sticking them in the same place.

[mjkerner]

No, you can only combine teams from the same squad. It’s really straightforward, John. As Khalerick showed graphically and I tried in writing, each infantry squad in the game either has 2 or 3 teams. When those get shot up and lose men, you may want to combine them, making them stronger but at the cost of losing flexibility (can no longer split that combined squad). By the way, in a three team squad, you can combine two teams without having the third one in the same square, thereby turning a 3 team squad into a two team one. 

[Erwin]

No, you cannot combine teams from different squads.  Some people want to consolidate their whittled down squads and that is what the command is for.  Personally, I think having three teams even if there is only one or men in each provides much more flexibility.

[Warts 'n' all]

Thank you MJK.

[John1966]

3 minutes ago, mjkerner said:

No, you can only combine teams from the same squad. It’s really straightforward, John.

Yes I know. You seem to be misunderstanding what I'm puzzled by. You can combine teams into squads without the order.

So the command seems to be for reorganising the squad rather than just recombining it (as you don't need the command for that).

[mjkerner]

Reorganizing is maybe a better word, but you are reorganizing your teams, and therefore, the squad. It will maybe be clearer if you think of your squad as two or three elements that are reorganizing by combining. That work?  The combining of a squad is automatic, the reorganizing is done with the combine command.

[John1966]

1 minute ago, mjkerner said:

Reorganizing is maybe a better word, but you are reorganizing your teams, and therefore, the squad.

Exactly. Which is why I never realised what it was for.

Having said that, combining different squads that have been whittled down to a few men would be useful. Especially in campaigns. 

[Warts 'n' all]

3 hours ago, John1966 said:

Exactly. Which is why I never realised what it was for.

That is why you should always read the Engine Manuals. They explain the new features as they are introduced. You then practice using those before embarking on a new campaign or single battle. "Simples" as an English meerkat with a dodgy Russian accent said far too often for my liking.

So just to hammer it home. Use "Combine Squad" as often as you like during the Set-up Phase to get your broken squads into new formations that suit you. It cuts out trying to run them all into the same action square mid battle.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

What the 'Parlimentarian Traitor'** said. 

** He's a bloody vandal too! 

[FlemFire]

4 hours ago, John1966 said:

This can be a bit strange. Last night I had a squad who were "tiring" and when I split them they were both "ready".

 

 

Perhaps you solved a problem of Office Politics.

[John1966]

5 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:

That is why you should always read the Engine Manuals.

Read them 20 years ago. And the strategy guide (anyone remember that?). Then the new manual when CMx2 came out.

(Unless an "Engine Manual" is a different thing.)

Doesn't mean I remember them though.  You find your own way of doing things and, like I say, never used Combine Squad as I'd not felt the need (because I had somewhere along the line thought it had meant a different thing).

[John1966]

Just now, Khalerick said:

Perhaps you solved a problem of Office Politics.

Basic staff management. 

[Warts 'n' all]

John it is good manners to thank people who try to help you. You didn't read the Engine 4 manual 20 years ago because it didn't exist. Both the Engine Manual and the Game Manual are provided to all of us when we buy the game. If you can't be arsed reading the Engine Manual that is your fault, no one else's.

[chuckdyke]

5 hours ago, Erwin said:

No, you cannot combine teams from different squads.  Some people want to consolidate their whittled down squads and that is what the command is for.  Personally, I think having three teams even if there is only one or men in each provides much more flexibility.

It depends again which mode you prefer to play. On Iron you lose sights of your squads quickly if you're not careful. I saw a two men scouting team separated by fifty meters in a forest. BY plotting some way points to 'combine' them again. I see the different modes of play as different games in their own right, not different skill levels. On Iron even members of the same firing team can lose sight of each other. By not selecting anything you become aware of it or in the command phase of a new turn.  You can't split up fire teams as an order, but they do so at times involuntarily. 

[John1966]

1 hour ago, Warts 'n' all said:

You didn't read the Engine 4 manual 20 years ago because it didn't exist.

Sorry, I wasn't after an argument. 

Thank you. But not sure what the Engine 4 manual is. I've got a manual with each of the games and the modules but I assume that's the Game Manual you're referring to.

I read the manual for CMBN (v1.0) when that came out and after a change in PC and various other things, I actually purchased it again recently (v4.0) rather than do all the upgrades. I must confess that I haven't read the manual again (that I assume to be the Game Manual) as it didn't occur to me that it would be dramatically different. The UI looked the same after all, so I thought I knew how to play it. Perhaps it is the same/similar on this one because I may have forgotten things from when I read it originally.

TBH, I only ever go to the manual these days if there's something I want to know how to do and that isn't very often. Hadn't ever felt the need to use the Combine Squad command so I hadn't looked it up. I only asked here because it was being discussed and I was curious.

I thought that would be OK. 

I wasn't blaming anyone for anything.

Edited January 15, 2021 by John1966