joeski Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 Or does everyone rush platoons of (hidden)men towards the Vic Loc at turn 23 of 25 in a pbem? ------------------ "If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them." - Jack Handey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Bates Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 Well, that can happen. I would tend to say that rushing at turn 23 out of 25 is very gamey. I don't give a stuff about gamey tactics generally, but rushing towards the end is unsporting and ungentlemanly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schugger Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 Well, if it is gamey or not is a matter of taste, I think. However, an opponent may anticipate your move and setup a nice little ambush peppered with a nice artillery barrage. Perhaps it is better if you try to seek a decision not in the last turns of a battle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russellmz Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 BANZAI!! ------------------ "They had their chance- they have not lead!" - GW Bush "They had mechanical pencils- they have not...lead?" - Jon Stewart on The Daily Show Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeski Posted October 22, 2000 Author Share Posted October 22, 2000 Well it was my opponents tactic. And I was wondering in everyone's pbem experience. Does that happen alot? ------------------ "If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them." - Jack Handey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFCElvis Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 Joe, It happens and depending on the situation I have done it. The idea is to try to not let yourself get caught in a situation where that can happen. For someone to do that to you they had to be in position to do it. If all had been quite for the turns before that you may have used that time to set up a good defense of the VL or gone looking for him. Lately I have been VERY patient in games and really made an effort to be methodical. What happens sometimes when you do that is that you don't get to the VL till the end. Is that gamey? ------------------ "To conquer death you only have to die" JC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeski Posted October 22, 2000 Author Share Posted October 22, 2000 I'm not sure if gamey matters. It is a game, and people want to win. Of course no one would actually run into automatic fire but there just polygons. I was just wondering if it's a widely used tactic, but I think I got my answer. How about having your zook run across the map after a tank? Also another tactic of my opponent. ------------------ "If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them." - Jack Handey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wanderer Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 It doesn't really matter when your opponent tries to get the victory flags. Thats the idea, to get the flags, why else would they be there. You should be prepared to defend them at all times. If you took heavy casualties taking the flags and you no longer have sufficient forces to defend them - tough. This is a common tactic, and why not? People want to win, it doesn't matter how they do it. Just my opinion Wanderer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col Deadmarsh Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 I'm glad you brought this up. In fact, I'm surprised this hasn't been debated yet on the forum. As I can understand where you're coming from, I am against these self-imposed restrictions on when I can attack a vl. I don't think it's gamey if somebody has troops in the area of a vl and is in the position to charge the vl to take it, even if it's in the last turns of a game. I think it's the opponents job to make sure he has secured the vl so that final rush won't give the rusher a neutral decision on who wins the flag at the end of the game. If someone can rush the vl and obtain a tie for the flag, then that vl was never secure in the first place. It's obvious the vl was being held from the rear and was not emcompassed by the defense. So, in light of this, why shouldn't there be a neutral decision when there is a final attack? If you as the defense want to prevent a split decision on a flag, you should set up your field of fire so that it can contain a last minute rush and will result in a lot of dead bodies on your opponent's side. If your opponent though can easily rush in and run to the flag without their squads being seriously torn up, then it's my guess you never had full control of the flag in the first place. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest *Captain Foobar* Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 Be ready to defend yourself against all tactics, gamey or otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peterk Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 > Well it was my opponents tactic. And I was > wondering in everyone's pbem experience. > Does that happen alot? Yes, it happens. And his poor boys usually get ground to bits and the opponent ends up losing worse than he would have if he had realized just how futile such an ill-conceived attack was and just stayed put. p. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeski Posted October 22, 2000 Author Share Posted October 22, 2000 True Col. and True Cap. I'm not crying cause of the outcome. (not anymore ) I should have been better prepared. Lesson well learned. ------------------ "If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them." - Jack Handey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OGSF Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by joeski: How about having your zook run across the map after a tank? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This tactic only works against commanders who do not protect their tanks with infantry. Late flag rushes, roaming zooks - usually fail against "real world" tactics. Not always, :^), just usually. Cheers, OGSF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest barrold713 Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 I am going to agree with the Col. on this one with an added consideration that may or may not have specific relevance to your recent situation. Depending on reinforcements, the distance necessary to traverse troops across a map, or delays to one's best laid plans, circumstances might not have allowed the attack to unfold until very late in the game. Given the somewhat abstract nature that a VL represents, you may wish to think of it as the last minute snatching victory from the jaws of defeat climax. Like the ending of a James Bond movie where the timer for the bomb is deactivated with 1 second left on the clock. BDH ------------------ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb discussing what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" - Ben Franklin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbaro Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 My opinion falls on the side of leanancy in such rushes. The gameousness of the situation comes out of the inherent gameousness of having an unrealistic time limit in the first place. In reality it was a rare attack order that limited the attacking commander only 30 or 60 or some other arbitrary, relatively short time span for completing his mission, after which he faces relief or courtmarshal. It is in the game itself that the gameousness lies. Furthering this aspect are the points allocated to victory locations. CM goes a long way toward curing this problem by its manner of evaluating the control of the site over other games in which one must place a unit within a particular hex unocupied by the opponent. But it appears to me that still there may be some need in tweaking this CM feature further. I can't say now from what I understand about it. Running a single unit or two onto a victory REIGON defended by a large margin over any arriving attacking unit or units should not even neutralize the victory point evaluation. If the designer of the scenario has selected a time limit which has the nice effect of pushing the player into his agressive design plan, then he has undertaken a most difficult tack in scenario design. To do such pushing without imposing unrealistic time limits on the player is a dificult thing to achieve. Testing does not always reveal all the possibilities of player strategy of a reasonable sort. Therefore, one may set a limit that preempts the player's ingenouity. And the game itself imposes such variablility in developing circumstance that a player may execute an excellent plan well and still find himself behind the designer's arbitrarily imposed schedule. With CM I think the best solution is for a designer to add a generous additional time allocation to that which testing finds necessary to complete the scenario. I find it ridiculous to carefully bring my troops into position to take objectives, then find that their 30 minutes have run out. Steel Panthers has a nice feature to its finish time to sweeten their pot. If such a feature allocating additional time to a scenario is dependent on the attacker's progress, reading it for proximity to objectives and for relative remaining strength to the opponent, then a game could continue. Of course CM does something that appears to approach this in ending a game early when it evaluates a game as finished. But it is most distressing when forces on both sides are sufficent to continue the battle and the game ends. If the opponent has not a force to prevent the possession or occupation of an objective location for even one minute, then the player successfully placing a last minute rushing unit has demonstrated that weakness and deserves the credit for establishing that fact for his commander. The information of enemy weakness or unprepairdness or misspositioning is worth at least neutralizing the value of the place to the enemy. At anyrate that is how I see the situation. It is not an absolutely clear one, but one that in my opinion precludes getting uptight against an opponent for grabbing the arbitary moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbaro Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 Bimp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Bates Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 Turn limits are annoying but necessary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 Why not give a player points for controling the victory flag each turn? You can even go further than that. You can give more points for certain turns. Thus you can focus where and *when* a player puts thier effort. If you want to allow leeway, spread out points over many turns to allow manouver. Allowing players to rush at the last moment and profiting from it leads to and encourages the tactic. Worse of, players start feeling cheated and the gamey tactics logic starts to rear its head again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 Another aspect is what is considered control? Does having a bazooka team in a VL be considered control? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest barrold713 Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 I kind of like the idea of the variable scenario length depending on the current state of the battle. I am going to do a search to see what might have been discussed in the past. As an option built into a scenario, the flexibility and increase in the tension level this might bring to certain battles would be an added value. Certain other scenarios could still retain the traditional time limit to reflect a tactical necessity to capture objectives on a strategic timetable. This may have already been discussed to death so I am going to check it out. BDH ------------------ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb discussing what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" - Ben Franklin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-tink- Posted October 22, 2000 Share Posted October 22, 2000 It would require a patch but other games I have played had a variable ending turn and the game would end somewhere in the area of the last turn. In other words it might end automatically 3 turns before or 3 turns after the stated game end, or 1 turn or 2. You get the idea. It definately prevents the last minute hail mary play, which is EXTRMELY gamey IMHO. Just my 2 sheckels worth. ------------------ "Reality is created by the participation of the participants."- John Wheeler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbaro Posted October 23, 2000 Share Posted October 23, 2000 We might consider that the game already has a limitedly variable end point. That is the engine will stop the game before the turn limit when certain conditions prevail. Reiterating what I earlier opined, responsibility for a scenario ending in gamey play of this sort is at least partly due to the designer not providing enough turns. Actually if one sets up a scenario with more than enough turns, then virtually invariably the engine will end the game based on the factors it uses in such determinations. The same engine capabilities could be used to determine whether the players have resources and position to justify continuation. I do not particularly like the idea of a blindly random number of turns being added to the end of a scenario. Perhaps better than the arbitrary end. Nothing in reality that I can think of out of hand is being abstracted into the present way of ending. Yes, there is a necessity for some kind of a turn limit; but perhaps not. Maybe it is just a figment of habitual thinking about gaming like rectangles or hexes used to be. (winking smiley) Hummmmmm. We still have terrain tiles. I wonder when - - - - - In a force, position, objective, ammo, oriented ending turn system we might see such questions of gameness totally disappear. But, right now take any scenario and add a bunch of turns to it, then we may find this is already in place to a degree. We already see play ending prior to the turn limit. Just give this process enough time to take effect. It would certainly make better sense of the lack of resupply, fight until exhausted - that will define the end of the scenario -then time to resupply regroup etc. If an attacker of necessity having a stronger force than the defender is fought out and so it the defender with proportional casualties, then the attacker will be in worse shape point wise from loses, On the other hand he should also have more units left. Control of VLs would then have significance. If the defender and the attacker both have units in the area, then that still leaves the defender having the upperhand overall. So for an attacker to prevail in the definition of victory, he is forced to do better than exact proportional losses and neutralize VLs. Simply running a unit up to the objective would not do. If on the otherhand the attacker can run up a unit in the last move onto the VL, why should that not be worth something? The worse thing that could prevail is for the opponent to have the resources to counterattack a weak unit doing this and not not be allowed to do so, having the time. And a player could deliberately work to this end, hiding his winning point a dash away, then feint and otherwise draw the enemies strength elsewhere. Such a play plan would be rewarded, but would it be enough to win? I have played a number of games, taking all or a majority of the VLs and still come out no better than a draw. Perhaps in some instances. I suspect in most play, a single unit run up onto a VL is not decisive. They just don't carry the total moxie that they do in some games. It makes no sense to consider a player as a winner simply because he managed to move a depleted or single unit on to a VL. The opponents capability to throw him right back off regardless of simply being there should figure in. As far as I can see, that at least is partly the case now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiwiJoe Posted October 23, 2000 Share Posted October 23, 2000 Buy 81mm mortors. 2nd to last turn smoke the vl and surrounding area. Last turn run whateva u have close to the vl... mortors, snipers, crew etc towards the flag. Game ends witht the flag contested even if the other player had held it (and still does) for 29 turns with 2 full platoons. ULTRA GAMEY. Its gamey cause it explots a limitimation in the game. IE... if the game continued the 2 platoons would mow down the attackers as soon as the smoke cleared. Ask yourself: would I do this attack if there were 20 turns remaining? If no then dont do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbaro Posted October 23, 2000 Share Posted October 23, 2000 Kiwi, I gotta say you got a point, the 20 turn test is right. However, shouldn't the designer not be so tight on the turns allowed? Now, how about it when you have an very large force available? Say you have a platoon in halftracks some supporting armor and artillery and have pretty well cleared his support out of the way. I see no reason not to now push in quickly. The only real solution with the current game engine is to provide enough turns. This raises the question about what the designer intended with the x number of turns. Did he just throw out the number because it seemed about right, customary, or did testing reveal that one could win at least sometimes within that time frame. I suggest designers could find this latter number by testing and then add some just to make sure. The player can do so too with the editor or in the Quick Battle menu. It is not the worst solution to the delimma posed by the "end of time" as imposed here. It aint that way on the battlefield. I suppose that a mission could be tasked within a time frame in order to support action somewhere else on the battlefield and require it be done with in some given time. Generally when genarals plan such battles they have overcomplicated the plan. Something seems to happen so often to leave one or of the other task forces out on a limb as delays set in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col Deadmarsh Posted October 23, 2000 Share Posted October 23, 2000 Having the scenario designer add more turns to the scenario is not the answer. There will always be games in which one side knows that it will not be able to overtake a vl by fighting and that the only solution is to wait till the last turn and rush or crawl up a couple turns ahead of time. I actually tried the crawling tactic at the end of my last game with someone. I crawled up 3-4 squads towards a vl that was being held by an mg, 2 squads, and an AVRE. Well, the AI didn't give me the vl even though I had some men in the immediate area and I think this is a good thing. I didn't deserve it but wanted to see what would happen nevertheless. I haven't played enough games yet to know how the AI will respond in granting flags but I would hope it has the sense to realize that units crawling towards a vl while being shot at by multipile squads does not mean I have control of it. For some reason though, I have the feeling I will find out that gameyness is gonna come into play here. The thing is...I am against these self-imposed restrictions on what I can and cannot do and I will try every way to get that vl be it gamey or not. I don't think this is my problem to solve. I believe it should be handled by the people who made the game. Whether or not I think CM has a problem in this area is yet to be determined I think. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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