Death to the Meeting Engagement!

[Iconoclast]

OK, so I'm being somewhat facetious, but I find myself and my opponents playing a known "meeting engagement" a bit differently --and less realistically-- than the other scenario types. Both of us tend to lunge for the objective(s) near the map center, consistent with staying out of lines of sight to the opponent's map side, knowing that the way ahead is clear and that forging ahead with undue haste is advantageous since it is better to defend the objective than to have to attack it. The success of thi tactic is magnified when playing against the AI, since it is loathe to try a gambit like this and therefore ends up attacking into my guns on the objective.

I have to question how often WWII commanders had the luxury of knowing with virtual certainty that they had a "free ride" to their immediate objective, if they only moved fast enough. But calling a scenario a "meeting engagement" has this as an assumption, and it is hard to ignore it even if you decide not to advance rapidly because it is "gamey".

Meeting engagements are seldom designated as such at the time they occur, and I think the op orders a commander would receive under those circumstances are more likely "probe" or "advance to contact" than something called "prepare for a meeting engagement."

In wargames they are typically used to model fluid situations where both sides are mobile and the forward edge of the battle area is unknown or in flux. The meeting engagement is largely an accidental by-product of both sides having advance/attack orders.

Like those in the thread below on random quick battles, I'd like to see greater randomness to simulate the fact that frequently you don't know much about your opposition and have little control over the circumstances of your battlefield (terrain, weather, time of day, etc.) I'd like to combine this with the ability to make meeting engagements something that just happen, rather than are deliberately entered into.

I'm still grappling with how this could be implemented--much less how much code impact it would have. <g> The first idea that occurs to me is revamping the scenario setup options for each side to the major categories of "attack, probe, defend", possibly with sub-variants like "assault" under the "attack" selection and "delay" or "hold at all costs" under the "defend" choice. These would tell the player how ferociously he is to attack or defend, with probe being a weak attack. The Quick Battle generator could be set so that if the first side generated produced attack orders, then the other side would be defending, and vice versa (although it might be interesting to allow "probe" as an alternative for the opposing setup to simulate spoiling attacks?). If the first side produced "probe orders" the other side would either generate some variant of defend or probe- and probe vs. probe would produce our meeting engagement. Unlike the current situation, though, neither side would know it in advance.

Am I the only one to see a problem with the meeting engagement scenario type, and how would you solve it?

[M Hofbauer]

Am I the only one to see a problem with the meeting engagement scenario type

no, the fact that a ME will result in such a tactic is obvious, and there were already several threads about this, where someone thought that in this (non-)discovery he had found the "ultimate gamey tactic"

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/009366.html

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/009147.html

[This message has been edited by an alien abductor (edited 08-27-2000).]

[This message has been edited by M Hofbauer (edited 08-27-2000).]

[chrisl]

I think "Move it, or lose it" is a great meeting engagement.

Potential Spoiler

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The setup zones are intermingled and the units are setup the way you would tend to arrive in a town: on the roads, organized by unit, mostly still mounted up, and about to run headlong into the enemy, totally unprepared. Great fun. I could play that one over and over, even after the FOW is lost.

[Spacewrangler]

I would tend to agree, the meeting engagement is a little gamey, the way it stands.

I often feel like I'm re-enacting a scene from "Braveheart" with both sides sprinting at each other, screaming, and guns blazing.

Not too much tactics there. Not to mention the germans will always have the slight edge because they can afford to take more chances with their durable armor out in the open, or leading an attack.

[chrisl]

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

Not to mention the germans will always have the slight edge because they can afford to take more chances with their durable armor out in the open, or leading an attack.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not so sure about that. If you have the more typical German vehicles (esp. in a low point value engagement) they are hardly Uebertanks. The German light armor is for the most part *very* allergic to the US M2, which is mounted on everything, almost down to bicycles, in the allied armies. Even some of the good stuff (Panther) has to be used carefully-- park one on a hill and start firing and you'll soon discover a Stuart on the far side of the map, with a nice LOS into its side.

[Guest Michael emrys]

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

The first idea that occurs to me is revamping the scenario setup options for each side to the major categories of "attack, probe, defend", possibly with sub-variants like "assault" under the "attack" selection and "delay" or "hold at all costs" under the "defend" choice. These would tell the player how ferociously he is to attack or defend, with probe being a weak attack. The Quick Battle generator could be set so that if the first side generated produced attack orders, then the other side would be defending, and vice versa (although it might be interesting to allow "probe" as an alternative for the opposing setup to simulate spoiling attacks?). If the first side produced "probe orders" the other side would either generate some variant of defend or probe- and probe vs. probe would produce our meeting engagement. Unlike the current situation, though, neither side would know it in advance.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This interests me and I would like to see further discussion of it. Moreover, it would be nice to hear what BTS thinks about it.

BTW, another possibly interim modification I would like to see to the probe engagement that would reflect its function in the real world a little bit better is to give the attacker points for each defending unit that gets revealed (with maybe a weighting system so that finding that 88 is worth more than locating another squad of Volksturms). Correspondingly, the defender receives points for each of his units that gets through the battle without being revealed to the other side. Otherwise, points are awarded as they already are.

Michael

[Guest Captitalistdoginchina]

I think a good solution would be to allow each player to place a very limited force in and around the town (Based on maybe 10% of the available purchased unit points)close to one of the victory flags. For Example one or 2 squads and a sniper unit could be placed close to victory flags so if any player tries a rush he will take heavy casualties. The opposing player would not know which flag the units are placed and therefore he would have to approach causiously.

What do you all think?

CDIC

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"Death solves all problems - no man no problem"

J.V.Stalin, 1918

[guachi]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The German light armor is for the most part *very* allergic to the US M2, which is mounted on everything, almost down to bicycles, in the allied armies.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Did I mention I have a gen-u-ine M1A1 Schwinn mounting dual .50cals.

I can tell it is an A1 model 'cuz mine has cantilever brakes and the regular M1 model only had coaster brakes.

I'm still looking for a basket to mount on the back (and make mine a M1A1E4 model) as that was used to hold an extra 2 ammo cans containing a total of 500 rounds of ammo.

Jason

Meeting engagements are gamey as they tend to start out with a rush to the middle.

[Guest Michael emrys]

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

I think a good solution would be to allow each player to place a very limited force in and around the town (Based on maybe 10% of the available purchased unit points)close to one of the victory flags. For Example one or 2 squads and a sniper unit could be placed close to victory flags so if any player tries a rush he will take heavy casualties. The opposing player would not know which flag the units are placed and therefore he would have to approach causiously.

What do you all think?

CDIC

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't know, *that* seems like a pretty gamey solution to me. It wouldn't be a meeting engagement any more, would it, with your forces already in contact? I mean I can see it happening, but I'd call it something else, like The Rush to Reinforce.

Michael

[Chupacabra]

I don't see MEs as particularly gamey, actually. Unless for some reason the map is just completely devoid of any sort of cover outside of the town, I often find it better to hang back a bit and see what the other guy does before comitting my troops. It's been pointed out (possibly in the manual) that MEs were the rarest type of engagements to take place in the war, so to be perfectly historical, you probably shouldn't be playing MEs anyway. I like 'em because they're the only type of fight where neither side starts with an advantage.

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

[Highlander]

The biggest problem I have with the ME's is the knowledge that no opposing units start on your side of the map.

If the terrain is rather open, this facilitates the rush, especially if you feel your opponent has better (more protected) approaches to the key areas than you do.

I like the idea of varied edge setups, so you can never be exactly sure from which direction your opponent is approaching.

Scott

[SF]

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Did I mention I have a gen-u-ine M1A1 Schwinn mounting dual .50cals.

I can tell it is an A1 model 'cuz mine has cantilever brakes and the regular M1 model only had coaster brakes.

I'm still looking for a basket to mount on the back (and make mine a M1A1E4 model) as that was used to hold an extra 2 ammo cans containing a total of 500 rounds of ammo.

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I have the M1A1(W) model with the water bottle holder taped to the frame