Cold War Holiday Tournament!!!

[Lethaface]

On 2/13/2023 at 9:46 PM, rocketman said:

I thought about that too, depends on the scoring system, but someone who completes the game may score zero points or very low. Beaten to a pulp

Although I agree that it is more fun to play against a somewhat matched player I think it's a bit unfair to punish people who try and get in the game ;-). 

[Lethaface]

We haven't seen much footage so I'll post some.

One of @jheinrichks Bradleys showing off it's natural behavior of deforestation with 25mm HE-I, is caught in the act and stopped cold by my RPG-7 forest ranger. This is the wind-down phase of the battle. 
Most of my FSE has been turned into smoldering wrecks, but with 4 out of 5 Abramses destroyed my troops can ascend to the eternal pixel hunting grounds feeling satisfactory.

 

[rocketman]

46 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Although I agree that it is more fun to play against a somewhat matched player I think it's a bit unfair to punish people who try and get in the game ;-). 

I guess so. My impression is that Matrix/Slitherine use tournaments for their games as a marketing tool as well as catering to existing players enjoyment. I just fear that if tournaments are not done well and you run the risk of getting to play a "no show", people will tire. I know I will. Imagine having a chance to win the tournament and get one of those for your final battles - no chance to win. That would suck big time. Maybe have some kind of "withdraw" function so players who know they can't finish games will be removed before next round.

[Probus]

I wonder how hard it would be to match up active players after a time, if their opponents are no shows. 

[Lethaface]

30 minutes ago, rocketman said:

I guess so. My impression is that Matrix/Slitherine use tournaments for their games as a marketing tool as well as catering to existing players enjoyment. I just fear that if tournaments are not done well and you run the risk of getting to play a "no show", people will tire. I know I will. Imagine having a chance to win the tournament and get one of those for your final battles - no chance to win. That would suck big time. Maybe have some kind of "withdraw" function so players who know they can't finish games will be removed before next round.

There is always the chance of people rage quitting / abandoning a game, or RL issues coming up. That's part of CM and unless someone would be actively intervening in all the games I guess it can be '**** happens'. (there are such tournaments on FGM though). Unfortunately , there's no way to force someone to continue playing the game. 

It seems for round 2 people were matched to the one directly above/under in the ranking. That sort of balances opponents but not perfect indeed. It will probably never be 'approaching perfect competitive scene' given that the tournaments are retrofitted to the game. So unless a games is finished or ceasefired/surrendered, the score of a match (running score) will not be in the same dimension as the score of completed games.
Still a nice way to try out different battles against varied opponents imo, while having some competitive spirit included is always nice :D. Perhaps just don't take it too serious and need have a bit of luck with oppo. 

 

 

[jheinrichk]

1 hour ago, Lethaface said:

We haven't seen much footage so I'll post some.

One of @jheinrichks Bradleys showing off it's natural behavior of deforestation with 25mm HE-I, is caught in the act and stopped cold by my RPG-7 forest ranger. This is the wind-down phase of the battle. 
Most of my FSE has been turned into smoldering wrecks, but with 4 out of 5 Abramses destroyed my troops can ascend to the eternal pixel hunting grounds feeling satisfactory.

 

LOLOL this is a war against trees which are very dangerous and must be felled, blasted or otherwise eliminated. 

[Lethaface]

2 minutes ago, jheinrichk said:

LOLOL this is a war against trees which are very dangerous and must be felled, blasted or otherwise eliminated. 

The Treeman won't forget about this horrific estnical cleansing 

[Probus]

I had 4 TOWs in a row get defeated. 2 by trees and 2 just bounced off their frontal armor.

[jheinrichk]

54 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

The Treeman won't forget about this horrific estnical cleansing 

shoving in all armor at one location enforce made sense to me.  i was surprised that a break thru did not succeed despite not a single unit appeared to back up when everything started exploding.  wish i could get CMCW on my faster pc to open the saved game files to publish a video of these turns (i had to do these turns on a laptop on the road).  here are some pics tho

[MeatEtr]

Yeah I often refer to my tank gunners as lumberjacks!

[Lethaface]

10 hours ago, jheinrichk said:

shoving in all armor at one location enforce made sense to me.  i was surprised that a break thru did not succeed despite not a single unit appeared to back up when everything started exploding.  wish i could get CMCW on my faster pc to open the saved game files to publish a video of these turns (i had to do these turns on a laptop on the road).  here are some pics tho

Yeah, all was going well until the final shove lol. That didn't went well at all :D.
It was a mistake to try to shove my 'main effort' through that funnel. Perhaps a bit unlucky as well as the first T-80 was K-killed with 1 shot and threw its turret in a massive fireball leading to traffic jams. None of them could see a damn thing. Smoke and dust limiting my options to order fires.
The few tanks which got through in piecemeal fashion then got greeted by your Bradleys.

The only tank which performed was the Co HQ which I send around the right flank and took out an Abrams and a Bradley. But there was no point in trying to push through anymore so he went on another adventure to get some more kills with the rest of the surviving AFVs.

I should have probably send more tanks along with the Co HQ, or even most as you were focusing on the spot pictured above. But for the flank my tanks had to drive quite a bit over open terrain and I wasn't sure what you had covering it. My artillery on the town didn't came through as you managed to hit one of my FOs with artillery.

And I didn't have TRPs near our flank engagement so I had no option to order artillery to support my push. 
I wasn't happy with pushing through there but the other options didn't seem better nor was staying in place. I felt that I already took too long / my push was too predictable.

But I had some good fun :D. And new respect for the T-80B, they can really take a pounding especially if your opponent is fielding them :D.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lethaface

[Lethaface]

6 hours ago, MeatEtr said:

Yeah I often refer to my tank gunners as lumberjacks!

hehe I'm not afraid of a lil area firing myself but @jheinrichk was really putting effort into the goal of having most of his Bradleys be out of ammo at the end of the battle. A lot of it fell on innocent trees / grass without any of my troops nearby, but he did force me to advance through a hail of 25mm fire which was an effective tactic I guess.
 

[jheinrichk]

6 hours ago, Lethaface said:

hehe I'm not afraid of a lil area firing myself but @jheinrichk was really putting effort into the goal of having most of his Bradleys be out of ammo at the end of the battle. A lot of it fell on innocent trees / grass without any of my troops nearby, but he did force me to advance through a hail of 25mm fire which was an effective tactic I guess.
 

isn't that a fireteam's style? "we just got shot at, what do we do??" *confusion* "fire everywhere!"

 

i guess i was trying to skip Bradley rounds off the terrain so they'd blow up further back where i had no LOS

 

this scenario is very difficult as red, i really could have used some atgm team dismounts.  the tracked vehicles that have atgm are spotted before they can let off a missile

[Lethaface]

10 minutes ago, jheinrichk said:

i guess i was trying to skip Bradley rounds off the terrain so they'd blow up further back where i had no LOS

I think you actually succeeded in that with 1 round against a BMP-2, I was like how he got hit. But being 25mm HE-I it just degraded the radio a bit.

12 minutes ago, jheinrichk said:

this scenario is very difficult as red, i really could have used some atgm team dismounts.  the tracked vehicles that have atgm are spotted before they can let off a missile

Agreed it's quite a challenge.
I was thinking that if Red could get the heavy artillery a bit more early, so that it is falling while the FSE arrives, could be helpful to keep momentum and prevent BLUE being able to react to much to the REDs deployment of the FSE.

Some ATGMs could indeed help with making sure BLUE doesn't get wild idea's, like you with the flank. If I hadn't chosen to move there as well, you might have been able to flank my CRP and ambush the bridge / ford which the FSE needs to cross.

 

[jheinrichk]

red team in round two sucks.  i can count the number of round two red players who won any of the game 1 & 2 battles on one hand.  round two should be called camper's delight or pipin' hot poppin' off Popov

[MeatEtr]

8 hours ago, jheinrichk said:

red team in round two sucks.  i can count the number of round two red players who won any of the game 1 & 2 battles on one hand.  round two should be called camper's delight or pipin' hot poppin' off Popov

Ive nearly wiped out the US forces with the Soviets. Only one M1 and one Bradley survived, everything else destroyed. Though it helped that my opponent didn’t move much allowing me to position and attack spots with high numbers. But I did take heavy losses too. So it’s possible just not easy.
 

Will toss up some pics soon…

[Lethaface]

10 hours ago, jheinrichk said:

red team in round two sucks.  i can count the number of round two red players who won any of the game 1 & 2 battles on one hand.  round two should be called camper's delight or pipin' hot poppin' off Popov

Round one I was doing great with USSR :). Round 2 you put a stop to that, although my USSR troops are doing quite some work. But indeed RED is more challenging in the 2nd battle. Still it's not impossible as  @MeatEtr got a win, job well done  and looking forward to pics!.
I have a video of our game when you moved a platoon of T-80B forward against my Abrams Tentcamps with their bbq smokers ;-), while artillery was falling everywhere. I'll upload it on YT in a bit. While I picked a different area to stage my main effort I don't think yours was necessarily bad, but you spread out your attack in waves and didn't continue moving. That helped me arranging my forces against your attacks.

Video done (HD will probably take some time). Full spectrum engagement!:

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by Lethaface

[rocketman]

15 hours ago, MeatEtr said:

Ive nearly wiped out the US forces with the Soviets. Only one M1 and one Bradley survived, everything else destroyed. Though it helped that my opponent didn’t move much allowing me to position and attack spots with high numbers. But I did take heavy losses too. So it’s possible just not easy.
 

Will toss up some pics soon…

Did you get help from your Hinds? I have had them buzzing around for most of the battle and not yet once have they fired, nor been fired upon (though I don't know if the oppo Anti-Air gun is alive or not).

[jheinrichk]

some after action pics. note the good shot between the hull and superstructure of the M1A1's. well done

 

https://imgur.com/a/Mdf7If5

[jackal263]

On 2/14/2023 at 4:13 PM, IdontknowhowtodoX said:

Ok, I'll try saving the file, although I don't know if that will work. QB game is good. I really didn't do well in the Round 1. I hope I can do better if I come to another QB. 

Sorry for late response...

I will try to recover my (not AMD) Pc (the one that caused so many problems)... i'm actually playing on a better pc, but with an AMD graphic card... with many problems (not the best experience) ... just to go ahead... but for a new battle i would like to return to my old pc... Considering the high lethality of combat in open spaces (like battle 1 and 2 of the tournament) i think that probably the best type of battle is a city fight, maybe a meeting engagement, with lesser air and tank support, eventually.. What do you think ? I will need at least two weeks to restore my old pc, anyway.  

[Probus]

3 hours ago, jackal263 said:

I will need at least two weeks to restore my old pc, anyway.  

Jackal, you sound like Scotty from Star Trek.

Scotty: "Two weeks! It can'na be done!"

6 hours later...

Scotty: "Warp drive restored!"

Kirk: "Well done Scotty!  You're the best engineer in the fleet!"  

Spock: "Fascinating..." 

Edited February 19, 2023 by Probus

[BFCElvis]

On 12/21/2022 at 11:54 AM, rocketman said:

Will the scenarios be released to the community after the tournament?

@The_Capt and I had an email exchange this morning and he was cool with me putting this out there. He designed the first round's scenario. We didn't mention it at the time but there was an Easter Egg in that scenario. We wanted to see if anyone noticed. No one did. Which surprised us a little because you guys never miss a thing. Welp, here it is:

https://battlefront.sharefile.com/d-s4ec9cae2481448d2a85e5b17454b1fd3

Remember....This battle is for H2H ONLY. There are no AI plans for either side.

[Lethaface]

2 hours ago, BFCElvis said:

@The_Capt and I had an email exchange this morning and he was cool with me putting this out there. He designed the first round's scenario. We didn't mention it at the time but there was an Easter Egg in that scenario. We wanted to see if anyone noticed. No one did. Which surprised us a little because you guys never miss a thing. Welp, here it is:

https://battlefront.sharefile.com/d-s4ec9cae2481448d2a85e5b17454b1fd3

Remember....This battle is for H2H ONLY. There are no AI plans for either side.

Might as well spoil the beans if none of us found it. We can blame it on that we couldn't finish our battles  and limited post battle AAR options. 

Thanks for the scenario, I had fun with it.
First impression was a bit off because both side start in potential LOS/LOF, but imo RED just needs to grow a pair and push forward while using their support in a smart way for it to develop in an interesting battle.

[IdontknowhowtodoX]

On 2/19/2023 at 11:55 PM, jackal263 said:

Sorry for late response...

I will try to recover my (not AMD) Pc (the one that caused so many problems)... i'm actually playing on a better pc, but with an AMD graphic card... with many problems (not the best experience) ... just to go ahead... but for a new battle i would like to return to my old pc... Considering the high lethality of combat in open spaces (like battle 1 and 2 of the tournament) i think that probably the best type of battle is a city fight, maybe a meeting engagement, with lesser air and tank support, eventually.. What do you think ? I will need at least two weeks to restore my old pc, anyway.  

For the Cold War, high lethality may be the norm. I used to be uncomfortable with it, but I'm starting to accept it. Let's just say that the commander needs to strike a balance between being merciful and getting the job done. It's cruel but unavoidable.

Of course, I'm not defending the fact that I let my CPR explode quickly. I'm still learning the Domfluff's way to playing soviet. Still very unskilled at it. Glad we're practicing this with pixels and not live people XD

As for waiting two weeks, that's fine. I've already made you wait two weeks before so much so that you missed the end of the Round 1. Now it's my turn to wait two weeks for you, fair enough

[rocketman]

On 2/20/2023 at 6:23 PM, BFCElvis said:

@The_Capt and I had an email exchange this morning and he was cool with me putting this out there. He designed the first round's scenario. We didn't mention it at the time but there was an Easter Egg in that scenario. We wanted to see if anyone noticed. No one did. Which surprised us a little because you guys never miss a thing. Welp, here it is:

https://battlefront.sharefile.com/d-s4ec9cae2481448d2a85e5b17454b1fd3

Remember....This battle is for H2H ONLY. There are no AI plans for either side.

Is the easter egg the faint spelling of "PETE" using crop 4 among crop 2 tiles (best seen in the editor) at the northern end of the map?