Please up the budget for quick battles

[QuiGon]

~13,000 points for huge quick battles is nowhere enough for the big maps (especially if air and arty support is involved). I would love to see if the budget points for quick battles could be increased, as even a single US mech bataillon without additional support costs more than 20,000 points.

[Combatintman]

QB points are being looked at according to another thread I saw the other day.

[domfluff]

Huge does fit a Soviet Motor Rifle battalion, but typically not the artillery support that comes with it - the dream is still to have control over the actual points available, but I'm not sure that's too far off.

[JoMac]

I still remember when CMBN first came out, and players complained that Tiny QB's had only a Platoon or two of Infantry and a Vehicle...Then, BF increased it across the board and Tiny Battles had a Reinforced Company more worth of Troops and couple Vehicles. 

I still prefered the Former :-/

Edited May 23, 2021 by JoMac

[Amedeo]

6 hours ago, QuiGon said:

~13,000 points for huge quick battles is nowhere enough for the big maps (especially if air and arty support is involved). I would love to see if the budget points for quick battles could be increased, as even a single US mech bataillon without additional support costs more than 20,000 points.

Seconded! More flexibility with the QB system would be a welcome addition.

[ng cavscout]

An option to pick a point total instead of a size sounds reasonable to me (admittedly, not a programmer)

That would allow players to pick battles by size, as now, and have as an alternative, the player could pick a point total, up to whatever, 50,000, 100,000, whatever they're willing to subject their processor to. And then the program gives each side their fraction of the points 

[Bulletpoint]

On 5/23/2021 at 2:31 PM, JoMac said:

I still remember when CMBN first came out, and players complained that Tiny QB's had only a Platoon or two of Infantry and a Vehicle...Then, BF increased it across the board and Tiny Battles had a Reinforced Company more worth of Troops and couple Vehicles. 

I still prefered the Former

Why would anyone ever complain that a "tiny" battle was tiny? They could just choose a bigger battle size if hey wanted more points?

[Combatintman]

3 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Why would anyone ever complain that a "tiny" battle was tiny? They could just choose a bigger battle size if hey wanted more points?

Pack it in with that logical thinking 

[Bufo]

On 5/23/2021 at 7:43 PM, ng cavscout said:

An option to pick a point total instead of a size sounds reasonable to me (admittedly, not a programmer)

That would allow players to pick battles by size, as now, and have as an alternative, the player could pick a point total, up to whatever, 50,000, 100,000, whatever they're willing to subject their processor to. And then the program gives each side their fraction of the points 

Exactly. Just type in how much points you want and that's it. So simple really yet so much more flexible.

[Megalon Jones]

Typically. I'll pick a battle size that's one higher than the battle size I actually want and manually choose the map and unit purchases for both sides if I'm playing AI QMB and I want to see expensive toys.  You don't have to spend all those points if it's just going to swamp the map.

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Combatintman said:

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Why would anyone ever complain that a "tiny" battle was tiny? They could just choose a bigger battle size if hey wanted more points?

Pack it in with that logical thinking 

Maybe you could help me by pointing out where you see anything not logical?

[domfluff]

That was a joke - he was pointing out that your "Why complain about how small a Tiny battle is when you could just play a larger battle" comment is completely sensible. 

"Why not have it go to ten, and make ten louder? This one goes to eleven", etc.

Points are arbitrary, and what classifies as a Tiny battle is also arbitrary - Tiny seems to suggest a platoon-level scenario in CM terms, so that's a reasonable yardstick, but not all platoons are made equal, and what makes for a sufficiently interesting Tiny battle may not be consistent across the titles.

[SgtHatred]

Being able to set point values for both sides would be the holy grail of Combat Mission quick battles. Modding the point value for some units would be a nice second. I find it surprising that at the lowest levels of exp/motivation, the M113 is only 10pts less than a BMP-1. The M113 is a battle taxi with a tac-ai that seems to want to avoid battle, which makes sense. Makes it difficult to do a US attack with mech forces.

[Combatintman]

@Bulletpoint

5 hours ago, domfluff said:

That was a joke - he was pointing out that your "Why complain about how small a Tiny battle is when you could just play a larger battle" comment is completely sensible. 

domfluff has nailed it - however Mrs Combatintman keeps telling me I'm not funny ... maybe she has a point.

[domfluff]

30 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

Being able to set point values for both sides would be the holy grail of Combat Mission quick battles. Modding the point value for some units would be a nice second. I find it surprising that at the lowest levels of exp/motivation, the M113 is only 10pts less than a BMP-1. The M113 is a battle taxi with a tac-ai that seems to want to avoid battle, which makes sense. Makes it difficult to do a US attack with mech forces.

Any points-buy system is inherently flawed, no matter the game, especially any with fixed points that don't take account of any kind of context.

As a silly, extreme example: you could spend all of your points on artillery you can't use, because you didn't buy an FO - clearly the artillery in that context is not worth the points you spent on it.

Having said that, it's even less meaningful to compare between different sides - it's not terribly useful to compare a BMP-1 to an M113, because the Soviets can't take an M113, and the US can't take a BMP-1 - if you want a transport, then you've got one option as the US, and it's really a question of whether it's worth it relative to the rest of the US TO&E. Obviously it can still be overpriced, but that's relative to itself.

[ChrisND]

New QB points for the patch:

Huge: 22,500

Large: 14,100

Medium: 8,850

Small: 5,568

Tiny: 3517

EDIT: I posted the numbers for an Attack scenario. For Meeting Engagement, Huge is 18,020.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

[QuiGon]

On 5/25/2021 at 10:26 PM, ChrisND said:

New QB points for the patch:

Huge: 22,500

Large: 14,100

Medium: 8,850

Small: 5,568

Tiny: 3517

EDIT: I posted the numbers for an Attack scenario. For Meeting Engagement, Huge is 18,020.

Thanks, that's quite an improvement, although a maximum of 18,020 points for a meeting engagement is still not enough IMHO. I'm currently playing a ~30,000 point PBEM meeting engagement on a 4 x 4.5 km map, using the Scenario Editor to put the troops together, which is rather cumbersome as it doesn't show a budget. A flexible solution, where we can define our own budget would be really helpful

Edited May 27, 2021 by QuiGon

[Redwolf]

I second the notion that a text field to enter a number would be the way to go.

I mean just the formation selection screen shows several premade (realistic) formations costing close to 30,000 points. And that's not even high quality troops.

(also, I would really like to have the points values displayed in the editor. If you take formation variations into account it is nearly impossible to "translate" from a QB selection display to the editor)

[domfluff]

Honestly, there's a number of things that would make Quick Battles more of a thing, but they're presumably not the main focus of the game.

- Custom points
- Having the Quick Battle Forces match the Scenario Editor TO&E, and include all of the vehicles and teams that faction can access (Uncons in CMSF get the short end here, where their "single vehicle" choice can only ever be a Taxi).

Those are the "easy" ones.

(None of the following are stuff I think are actually plausible for implementation, but just some thoughts)

For the QBs to be a more competitive system would require a more extensive rework, I suspect. I think there's actually something to be said for a *more* restrictive system, where you can select plausible formations and their supports, but can't fully customise them. Possibly not as the default, but as an option.

Then you start getting into the more extensive system - formal support for mirrored battles, perhaps, or a bidding system for selecting sides.

Points-buy as a concept is inherently flawed (and always has been), but there aren't many attempts to get away from it. DBA goes down the "more restrictions" route, and replaces points with the concept of representing each army with exactly 12 units, in historical proportions. Bidding is an easy way to push the problems of balance and scale onto the players, but it's not all that common in approach - Combat Commander has a blind bidding system which generates a battle and attacker/defender pair based on your selection of force size - in that instance, platoon/detachment/company.

[Armorgunner]

A "Balanced Battalion (task force)" Is 34909p In a defencive battle on a huge map in 1982. And that is with M60 tanks, not M1´s. I don´t think 22,500 is enough!

[db_zero]

I would love to see a mode where you can just pick anything-no points, all you can eat buffet. 

[Redwolf]

11 minutes ago, db_zero said:

I would love to see a mode where you can just pick anything-no points, all you can eat buffet. 

Just have an "unlimited" option in the pulldown menu. The opponents can use a honor system on limits they have chosen.

[landser]

Customizable points and the return of Combined Arms preset would go far to get me to play QBs again.

 

[BFCElvis]

On 5/23/2021 at 6:46 AM, QuiGon said:

~13,000 points for huge quick battles is nowhere enough for the big maps (especially if air and arty support is involved). I would love to see if the budget points for quick battles could be increased, as even a single US mech bataillon without additional support costs more than 20,000 points.

Here's what the points are in the  patch:

 

Attack: Attacker 22,500 Defender 13,540

Probe : Attacker 21,604 Defender 14,436

Assault: Attacker 23,396 Defender 12,644

Meeting Engagement : Both sides 18,020