What to do about a particular gamey tactic...

[aka_tom_w]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Formerly Babra:

It's not the deception that's gamey -- it's getting 22 shots of 14 inch out of a 6 shot battery.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK

this is a very interesting thread...

I think it suggests to us that if spotting rounds fired by arty are not counted against the total rounds fired expended or available then this is game design issue in my opinion, using spotting rounds as a deception is not in my opinion a "gamey" tactic if they are recorded and subtracted from the available rounds.

How sure are we that these spotting rounds are not being subtracted?

It is not the tactic that is gamey it is the failure of the game to allow spotting rounds to rain down with infinite availability, in this unaccounted for way.

-tom w

[Rattus]

Even if CM make spotting rounds use up ammo, I sonehow think that if the cmmdr of a divisional arty btty got an FAO who was constantly changing the coordinates just before the FFE, that not only would the spotter be out of a job but next time the FAO called in correction the response would be "hard luck - we are busy firing for someone who does know where they want the rounds to land!"

[Henri]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rattus:

Even if CM make spotting rounds use up ammo, I sonehow think that if the cmmdr of a divisional arty btty got an FAO who was constantly changing the coordinates just before the FFE, that not only would the spotter be out of a job but next time the FAO called in correction the response would be "hard luck - we are busy firing for someone who does know where they want the rounds to land!"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If the game designers, didn't want the players to be able to change the artillery target once chosen, they would have programmed it in the game; but if the game doesn't count the spotting rounds, then it should be changed, cause spotting rounds are rounds, period.

And are you sure that in WW2, FOs NEVER radioed in a change of coordinates before the rounds started to fall? I doubt it.

Henri

[Ben Galanti]

Well, I'm sure changes were radiod in, but how often?i know there wre some good threads on how arty works a while back, I'm going to have to try to dig them up. Unless the arty is for your command only, after a while I would think you would be told to wait 'til you have a target. Perhaps for the higher calibre guns, after every 3 or 4 target swithc you loose an ammo point? For the smaller guns which are tasked to you exclusively, I would think you could get away with shifting all ober the place. It'd just piss off your gun crew, but oh well. Also, since the spotting rounds of the smaller guns are as damaging it would help with the game aspect of doing this.

Now what would be more interesting would be if the FOs are designated as being tasked to you soley or not. Now, this is abstracted in via the fact that the larger guns take longer for FFE, but it might add something to the game if done a in a bit more detail. On the other hand, it may just add too much micromanaging to the game...

[Rattus]

Henri,

I was not suggesting that changes were never called in - clearly in fact they were - but how often you could get away with it to non-dedicated arty resources is another issue! Your poor old bttn mortar battery however would probably just have to comply .

Nor was I suggesting that you should not be allowed to make some changes to your initial arty target - I fully support that you should and I am happy CM allows it - but again it is the number of times this can be done before a fire mission lands that I am (relatively ) unhappy with.

Whilst I would prefer to see a limit to the amount of retargeting possible with arty I would settle for the consumption of ammo by spotting rounds.

[Geier]

In reality, was the spotting round fully loaded HE, ie was it the same ammo that was used in FFE? If this should become a playability problem, BTS could change the spotting round to a smoke round or whatever.

Or, as was previosly suggested, make the spotting round part of the first package.

Pen(g)ultimively, the two thin ones balance out the fat one in the middle and don´t you like the kangaroo? I'll put in a hamster instead.

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Johan

"The succesful execution of a well devised plan often looks like luck to saps."

Dashiell Hammett

[aka_tom_w]

Hi

Has there been any "official" comment on this issue?

I was away for the weekend and was wondering if anyone as seen this "gamey" issue addressed or replied to?

thanks

-tom w

[Formerly Babra]

BTS seldom replies to these sorts of issues until they have reached a consensus on how to deal with it. They do address them though.

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It takes three years to build a battleship. It takes three hundred to build a tradition.

Admiral Cunningham, Aegean, May 1941.

[aka_tom_w]

I understand...

I just wondered if I missed anything over the weekend?

-tom w

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Formerly Babra:

BTS seldom replies to these sorts of issues until they have reached a consensus on how to deal with it. They do address them though.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Henri]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ben Galanti:

Well, For the smaller guns which are tasked to you exclusively, I would think you could get away with shifting all ober the place. It'd just piss off your gun crew, but oh well. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, gun crews are not there to have fun . I think (I could be wrong) that the limited availability of guns is already modeled in the game by the waiting time and by the usually very limited number of rounds for heavy artillery. I mean, did 105 mm artillery batteries really only have 15 rounds to fire?

Besides, there are battles where the situation changes radically from minute to minute, and I am almost sure that artillery commanders did not go about second-guessing forward observers who requested a change of targets.

Here is something that happened over the weekend. There was an enemy tank that had just killed one of mine, plus some identified enemy symbols behind some woodsoff to the side, so I called in 105 mm area fire -delay 3 minutes, to force the tank to button up and to hopefully kill some enemy reserve infantry. By the time the first rounds started to fall four minutes later, I had killed the tank, and no enemy units had shown up in the area, which made me suspect that the presumed enemy units were not there any more; however in another are, the battle had heated up and I was taking a beating from enemy infantry bunched up in woods and buildings.

Now I understand that some on this forum claim that to shift my fire from its original target where is is not required any more to where 1) I can get much more direct fire and 2) the fire should be much more germane to the situation which has changed considerably in 4 minutes - is a gamey tactic.

As I said before, spotting rounds should be subtracted from the total rounds, but a player should be free to put his artillery where it is needed.

Henri

[Hunter]

One possible solution for the problem (?) described would be for BTS to change the cancelling of barrages to give them a delay similar to the 'calling delay' when plotting a barrage. That way, you would possibly be penalised with the rounds going in even if you don't want them.

Just a suggestion.

Bruce

[aka_tom_w]

That sounds like a good idea but,....

right now it is INSTANT arty off when you say stop

perhaps it should take as long to turn the barrage "OFF" as it does to wait for it to come "on"

But, then you could still call in the free spotting round (and wait three minutes for it) and in the Very next turn cancel it and then maybe only one free spotting round would fall as the cancel order would take three minutes to get there and would cancel the main barrage after the free spotting round in the first minute? (after the three minute wait)

SIMPLE...

ALL spotting rounds should count against available HE arty, AND/OR spotting rounds should only ever be smoke rounds..

AND it is a good idea to program in a command delay to cancel or change the fire mission or arty barrage. It is still a good idea to have the command delay, it will just be the same problem if the first spotting round is HE and is still unaccounted for.

now I know next to Nothing about the way Arty really worked in WWII and I'm not a grognard, but I am keen to see this game evolve to the perfect FUN wargame that does NOT have any gamey cheats or loopholes that can be exploited.

And I would say this is the most obvious exploitable loophole found so far.

-tom w

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hunter:

One possible solution for the problem (?) described would be for BTS to change the cancelling of barrages to give them a delay similar to the 'calling delay' when plotting a barrage. That way, you would possibly be penalised with the rounds going in even if you don't want them.

Just a suggestion.

Bruce<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Fred]

The spotting round should be just this; it should not do any damage whatsoever.

If it does damage, it sholud count as a fraction of the barrage.

But what we do not need is a unrealistic delay for cancelling a barrage.

Fred

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"I got signals, I got readings, in front and behind of us!" - PFC Hudson on LV-426 mission

[Olle Petersson]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Geier:

In reality, was the spotting round fully loaded HE... ? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

AFAIK, No it wasn't.

More like a round with flash and smoke effect in order to make it easy to, surprise, be spotted!

Also, you don't want rounds that fall short to knock out your own troops...

An instant small puff of smoke on impact would be much better to represent these rounds. No appreciable blast effect unless it falls directly on top of unprotected troops.

Spotting rounds should, IMO, not be accounted for as used ammo.

Cheers

Olle

[Stuka]

A very interesting and worrying thread...

Up until now I had thought CM to be free(ish) of the "gamey" tactic..Edge huggers I could live with, I mean, if a map edge has cover you should be able to exploit it, if theres no cover you'd be mad to use it and as an opponent you are expected to at least attempt to cover all possible avenues of enemy advance anyway. Racing zooks in jeeps up to enemy tanks sounds pretty gamey to me but armour should be screened by infantry in the first place so I won't crucify someone who tries it on me (as long as I nail his bastard zooky team first)

This arty thing needs looking at, free spotting without loss of ammo points? No way! There's got to be a sizeable time delay for each change of target point or some kind of ammo loss for each spotting round. Maybe the time delay could be extended according to the distance the target point is moved from its original point. I understand that artillery could be 'walked' to preceed an advance but I beleive that ammo points have to be lost in the process otherwise Combat Mission should change its name to "Artillery Mission".Arty is a valuable and scarce resource which relies on player skill,timing,anticipation and a little luck to be most effective. Having unlimited, big artillery hovering within a minute of any point on the battlefield while spotting rounds more or less randomly fall is up till now the ultimate (not penultimate ) flaw in an otherwise flawless game. Rest assured fellow PBEMers I for one would not lower myself to such a tactic and I'll condemn to smilie hell all those you'd use this loophole to their advantage! I take it we now have another request on the wishlist for the next patch?

[Big Sarge]

As an artillery FO I will say this...... It is a very acceptable tactic to use artillery as a tool of deception. Have included several such measures in my fire planning and will continue to do so.

Remember, if the artillery is short then you are probably forward of your reported position.

[Kingfish]

I must be missing something here, because, apart from the really big guns, I don't see how a person can profit from this, therefore I don't see how this should be considered a "gamey" tactic.

Granted one might get lucky with a spotting round falling falling right on target, but what are the chances? If my opponent decides that dropping one round and then shifting to another target is a winning strategy, then please send me a set-up.

Also, regarding subtracting rounds from the total ammo load for spotting rounds: It is my understanding that each ammo point represents a full battery fire mission, so one spotting round would be 1/4 point. How would BTS code that? And wouldn't a battery have extra rounds set aside just for spotting purposes?

[aka_tom_w]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kingfish:

How would BTS code that? And wouldn't a battery have extra rounds set aside just for spotting purposes?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But

they are FREE and they are infinite these now unaccounted for spotting rounds that are HE and they are destructive.

This is IMHO a significant issue that should be addressed.

Because it can really be exploited to used destructive fire power that at present is free and unaccounted for. Especially for the 14 inchers as in the opening example.

-tom w

[Fred]

It should be adressed, but I'm not very concerned about it.

I will not use this tactic and I will not play someone who uses this ad infinitum.

Fred

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"I got signals, I got readings, in front and behind of us!" - PFC Hudson on LV-426 mission

[Guest Germanboy]

Have to agree with kingfish here. IMO it is no huge problem. As he rightly pointed out, you are not getting 22 rounds out of a six round allocation, but 22 out of 24.

Furthermore, the monster guns are only available in June (July?) 44, so if you are that concerned in a PBEM QB, play from August.

For some of the smaller ones (mortars etc.) the ammo allocation is so huge (US 81mm FOO, 50 salvoes, equalling 200 rounds) that it does not matter. If you know the enemy is where you are shooting at, the effect of a four gun barrage, going on for 60 secs continuously is probably much better than that of repeated one-round shots falling every 60 secs.

Finally, nobody has used it against me, it is easy to call if somebody does, so I would not get my knickers in a twist here. I am sure there are other important things that need work more than this one. YMMV.

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Andreas

[jgdpzr]

Andreas,

Even though I started the thread, I have to agree with you. This trick would only cause problems with the really big stuff. And in such cases, it should be easy to spot (no pun intended) and/or avoid.

I also would not like to see major changes in the way the spotting system works. Perhaps changing the spotting rounds to either smoke or greatly reducing their blast effect (if possible) would take care of the problem, even with the huge guns. But I also don't think this is a high priority area, because it's effect is quite limited, IMO.

The biggest thing I wanted to bring out is the question of using spotting rounds for deception. Seems like most think that is OK, as long as you aren't doing it with the really big stuff and aren't merely trying to radically extend your firepower.

[Guest Germanboy]

Jgdpzr., I think it was a good idea to bring this out in the open. Now everybody reading the board can know about it. A bit like the old 'vehicles do not block LOS'. I don't think it warrants major changes to arty procedures, since the way arty currently works, many real-life arty guys seem to think hits it quite well. So why try to twist a good system for what is, IMO a minor problem that can easily be avoided if you know what to look for. Making the spotting round a normal smoke round carries the problem that it might obstruct LOS, because of the way LOS and smoke are modelled. Don't know what you could do about it.

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Andreas

[Chupacabra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stuka:

Maybe the time delay could be extended according to the distance the target point is moved from its original point. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not sure if you're taking this into account or not, if you are, my apologies, but CM does model just this.

Adjusting fire within a certain distance does impose a small penalty. This accounts for "walking" fire. If you try to adjust your fire more than a few (50? something like that?) meters, it's treated as a new fire mission, and takes the full amount of time to call it in.

So, a small adjustment takes a little bit of time, whereas a big adjustment takes a lot of time.

About this being a big problem, I agree with Kingfish. Unless people are shooting the big monster rounds at me, I'd rather deal with a bunch of spotting rounds scattered all over the place than a full-on barrage.

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Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[GI Tom]

Well, if I may, I would like to weigh in on this. Not that I condone the use of "trying" to get free arty from the guns, but I as well do not see any problems with people doing what is now considered as the "arty cheat". Let me explain.

If someone wants to wait 3 minutes for some spotting rounds to fall, (and typically from what I've seen they are not more than 1 or 2), and then adjust and wait for some more to fall, fine by me. Either way, I will be moving some troops around away from that area or they will be breaking and running from the arty. Therefore, by default, they will have to adjust fire at some point. Which, brings me to my next point.

When you adjust fire, it is typically less than a minute's wait for the next rounds to start falling, unless you go to the extreme edge of the allotted distance to adjust fire. Then it could take closer to a minute. However, in most cases the rounds fall much quicker than a minute and by default, will start to use up some ammo. Granted, by continually changing the target area, you can "milk" out extra rounds from the spotting rounds, but, sooner or later you will use your ammo. Even the big stuff.

Furthermore, most of the PBEM's that I play there is not a lot of artillery to begin with. I have played a total of 4 so far and I have not seen an occasion where even if someone did do that, that it would affect my play or how I did things. Even 2000 or 2500 PBEM games, who's going to spend that much on tons of arty. Hey, as someone else said, if someone wants to try that, send me a setup, I'll eat em up. Even with 14". Can't have that arty all over the place at once. Besides, you'll have to constantly adjust, which means you better be balls on dead accurate in planning where your enemy is coming from and is going to be to make it work. This isn't the AI your playing with dedicated lanes of attack, this is a real thinking human.

I myself have changed targets after the spotting rounds have fallen and have yet to control it so they would last indefinetely. Not that I tried, but simply because I needed the target changed. The enemy had moved. Additionally, I call in my rounds early even before the FO is in position. So, by the time he has an LOS to his target area, there is a very short wait. Is that considered gamey?? If so, I wouldn't want to play a PBEM with you for fear of being called a gamey player for something that shouldn't be.

In closing, I don't think it's gamey for the several reasons as I stated above. How can you really control it by continually adjusting?? Secondly, you will have to adjust it to where your enemy is, therefore, unless the enemy isn't moving at all, it will be very difficult. Thirdly, the time it takes for the spotting rounds to fall will never guarantee your arty will run out. Sure, you may make it last an extra few turns because you keep adjusting minimally in a small area, but sooner or later, it's going to run out.

Just my two hamsters worth.

GI Tom

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To a New Yorker like you, a hero is some type of wierd sandwich.

[Juardis]

And how would you define "big stuff". Is that the penultimate munitions, or just the ultimate munitions?

Seriously, I define big stuff as anything that can knock out armor. In that regards, an 81mm mortar can knock out my Stug IV. On board mortars are fine because every round is one shell, there is no spotting round. However, 105mm, 120mm, 155mm, etc. Those can destroy a small building or armored vehicle or immobilize an armored vehicle with one shell. Also, there is limited number of that caliber. 15 or so for 105's, 6-10 for 155's, etc. If you're spread out all over the map, then a spotting round is less likely to hit anything. However, for close in city fighting (for example, a Second Job by WBW), a spotting round is likely to hit something important, if only a building that you were counting on.

I hear what you guys are saying, one shell per round is meaningless, but if you have a 40 turn game and only 6 ammo points, that one shell per turn translates into 40 shells per game vs. the normal 24 shells or so (6 ammo points time 4 shells per ammo point). It is also effective when used as deception. But if used in this manner, something has to give. Either count each shell as an ammo point and deduct for each spotting round or change the spotting round to be smoke or something.

For example, say the 14inch FO has 3 ammo points and each ammo point counts as 3 shells, that's a total of 9 shells. Change the ammo points to 9. That way, a spotting round counts as one and each shell fired as part of the barrage counts as one.

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Jeff Abbott