Looking at a map before buying vehicles

[coralsaw]

I am sure it has been discussed before, but I was clueless in providing clues to the omnipotent search function, so pls bear...

In QB, I would very much like to see the map before buying my equipment. Doesn't it make more sense? Wouldn't a commander know the terrain upfront before committing resources?

Pls bombard me with arguments to the contrary.

CoralSaw

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The best things in life are sniped at...

[jpinard]

For a QB you input the specs, so that would be your intelligence, right?

As in: Hilly farmland area with modest trees.

[coralsaw]

True, but two same type maps may need completely different tactics. E.g. A big hill in the middle renders your spotters far less effective, limiting their LOS, OTOH a big hill in a corner with long LOS is perfect for a spotter.

Even if this is not true, didn't commanders have quite accurate terrain intelligence in post-Overlord time. Sources were recon aircraft, partisans, maps etc.

Thanks for answering anyway.

CoralSaw

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The best things in life are sniped at...

[Seanachai]

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

I am sure it has been discussed before, but I was clueless in providing clues to the omnipotent search function, so pls bear...

In QB, I would very much like to see the map before buying my equipment. Doesn't it make more sense? Wouldn't a commander know the terrain upfront before committing resources?

Pls bombard me with arguments to the contrary.

CoralSaw

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There is something in what you say. I know that I would have bought very differently if I'd seen some of the maps I was going to play before hand. But JPinard is also correct, you do have some idea of what you're getting in to, and that that should affect your buying to some extant. Again, you're right in that a commander about to fight over the terrain would have more of an idea as to exactly what he was facing. But that doesn't necessarily mean he could then choose the perfect troop/artillery/vehicle mix to deal with it. You use what's present, not what might be ideal. Commanders about to attack steep tree covered hills didn't have the luxury of saying, heck, this armour is almost useless, let's send it up to Holland and see if they'll send us more infantry. In the game, you have at least some idea what terrain you'll be facing, even if it's only a rough idea. Neither your opponent in a PBEM, nor the AI, will have any more idea than you do. So both of you are forced to use what you've got.

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After witnessing exceptional bravery from his Celtic mercenaries, Alexander the Great called them to him and asked if there was anything they feared. They told him nothing, except that the sky might fall on their heads.

[coralsaw]

Thanks for replying Seanachai

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> You use what's present, not what might be ideal.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good point, but that's a different problem solved. I believe rarity of units was dismissed as a factor during unit purchases.

I also agree that both PBEM opponents have symmetric information.

IMO, if we are trying to emulate real WW2 post-Overlord era, intel should be more powerful and the map should be known beforehand. Germans knew the terrain they occupied, and Allies had immense observation capabilities.

Regards

CoralSaw

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The best things in life are sniped at...

[Seanachai]

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

Thanks for replying Seanachai

Good point, but that's a different problem solved. I believe rarity of units was dismissed as a factor during unit purchases.

I also agree that both PBEM opponents have symmetric information.

IMO, if we are trying to emulate real WW2 post-Overlord era, intel should be more powerful and the map should be known beforehand. Germans knew the terrain they occupied, and Allies had immense observation capabilities.

Regards

CoralSaw

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm sorry, but I still don't see the problem here. You do have astonishing intel at your disposal when placing your units, and before you ever move them. What you do not have is the luxury of saying: in this part of the theatre we will not bother with armour, or longer range mortars with minimum ranges, because we might not be able to meet those ranges. And not everyone dismissed the rarity of units when buying them. The point on rarity is the same I'm making here: it doesn't matter if there were only 100 whatevers actually produced: if you have one here now, you're going to have to figure out how to best use it. Unit commanders in the Vosges sometimes had Shermans attached to support infantry units that were fighting in terrain wholely unsuitable to tanks. They still had the tanks. They still had the problem of how to use them. At CMs scale, the commander is not in a position to say: this terrain is not suitable for tanks, or 3 inch mortars, or whatever. Those are the units available to them (and you do have some info on what the map will be like, and are able to make some choices as to what troops you want to use to take it on). But no real life commander had the option of saying: we don't have good mortar sites here. Leave those behind and buy a couple more medium MGs.

I do understand your point, it would be a huge help when choosing units to know exactly what the terrain would be like. I think the answer to this, though, is not to see the terrain before you choose units. I would vastly prefer the option of importing a map created in the scenario creator into a QB. Otherwise, I'd say create a map yourself in the scenario engine (or have it create a random one for you, same as the QB generator does), choose units for it, and go ahead. Of course, you won't be able to use any of the QB generator's randomizing factors, unless, of course, you run the QB, make a note of what you're handed in terms of weather, time, etc, and then apply those choices to the scenario you're creating. More work, sure. It will get you to the same point, though.

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After witnessing exceptional bravery from his Celtic mercenaries, Alexander the Great called them to him and asked if there was anything they feared. They told him nothing, except that the sky might fall on their heads.

[IntelWeenie]

I must agree with Seanachai here. Intel is not the all-seeing, all-knowing eye in the sky that many people think it is (I know, note my handle!). Most current NATO maps are at a 1:50,000 scale and lack significant details. At this scale, a typical CM map (say 2km by 2km) would be just under a 2" square. Now imagine seeing all the clumps of trees, individual buildings, etc. in that little square. I can imagine WWII era maps were slightly less detailed.

TOE is a factor, too. You fight with what you have, not what would be perfect for the situation. Remember, were talking about 1/2 hour engagements, not week-long battles where asking for and receiving attachments might be more likely.

I like the current system since it forces you to develop a balanced force structure, develop a plan, then apply it to the terrain you are forced to fight in. More like Real Life™ that way.

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Canada: Where men were men, unless they were horses.

-Dudley Do-right

[Kingfish]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In QB, I would very much like to see the map before buying my equipment. Doesn't it make more sense? Wouldn't a commander know the terrain upfront before committing resources<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Granted, he might know the terrain but

It's not like the commanders had a wharehouse of men and machines to choose from. They made do with what they had at the time.

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Charlie don't surf!

[Wilhammer]

The way it is done now is the best.

You know the general nature of the terrain, you do get to pick your own force, and you generally know how big the enemy is.

General: "Go over to this spot and take this unit, grab some extra stuff from HQ, and btw, we know th enemy is about this size, and the maps are not too good."

Frontline action.

The only real improvements I could want;

1. The ability to generate "deep" maps.

2. The dialog boxes for map size and terrain type/weather/tree coverage/hilliness be on one screen.

Thanks BTS and fellow CMers.

[coralsaw]

Thanks for your comments guys. Your views come across clearly.

I just feel that I would have a more enjoyable battle if I chose my forces after looking at the map first.

Happy about CM though, it rocks.

CoralSaw

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The best things in life are sniped at...

[Mark IV]

One interesting perspective on this is to look through OOBs of the historical scenarios.

Most of these are meticulously researched... and I suggest that a commander who had the opportunity to look at these maps first, and purchase (or assign) units accordingly, would not have chosen the units which actually ended up fighting the real battles.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Hi CoralSaw and others,

As one might expect, the reason we did in fact omit the ability to look at a map before had was primarily for realism's sake. Having just purchased some forces for a QuickBattle someone else set up, I was forced to select a reasonably realistic combined arms force instead of figuring out exactly what I should buy for that particular map.

Personally, I think this adds a whole lot to the fun of the game. If you buy reasonable force mixes you are likely to handle whatever the QuickBattle editor tosses at you. Not without difficulty and frustration, perhaps, but that means challenge which (in my book) means fun

There is another reason too. If the human can look at a map and pick the exact, best fit force the AI (if that is who it is played against) will be at a HUGE disadvantage. The reason why is that it is utterly incapable of making similarly informed purchase decisions.

In a perfect world we would allow the user to make the choice about seeing a map before purchasing or not. And who knows, we might eventually block out some time to code it up this way. But we would like to add support for loading in hand created maps first. That, to me, is a higher value feature as I am sure all of you will agree. Hopefully we can get map loading functionality into CM2.

Steve

[Dr Dan]

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

I just feel that I would have a more enjoyable battle if I chose my forces after looking at the map first.

CoralSaw

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, this is something I think would be fun too. Besides, if you truly believe in only using "what is at hand," then shouldn't you always allow the QB generator to pick your troops -- if you make selections based on what you DO know, then isn't that defeating the whole concept of being forced to use only what "command" allocated to you?

Since you are going to select your force anyway, based on what you think you know (i.e. area type, amount of vegetation, weather, etc.), what does it hurt to view the actual map first, allowing some changes to the force structure?

Dan

CM is fun!

[This message has been edited by Dr Dan (edited 09-19-2000).]

[Olduvai]

This is something that I have thought about as well, especially after finding a map generated that is less than ideal for the force mix selected. I am powerfully ambivalent about the subject, as I agree with both the realism arguments and under some circumstances Coral's belief that it would be funner.

There is in my mind no question that both sides were often faced with using forces that were less than ideal for the terrain and enemy forces arrayed against them. However, it seems equally likely that there were many circumstances in which the force selection was made based on intelligence gathered from things such as spotter planes (did they have cameras attached to those in wwii?), recon/scout patrols, and the locals.

Another consideration is cheating. There is a pretty decent range of maps generated by the qb regardless of size and other parameters, and I have definitely seen maps generated under the same parameters that are HUGELY more favorable to defense or offense. It seems to me that if the map were visible while selecting units, the player who generates the "first" pbem file could generate a new game over and over again until a map more suited for his defence or offence is generated, and then select his units accordingly. While this would be offset by his opponent's ability to see the map (and presumably the hell he is about to face), it seems to me that in the balance the game would be unfair.

[Now I suspect that as a rule we are all a pretty honest group (I certainly haven't been aware of any less-than-honest behavior in my limited pbem experience)as I think we would all rather defeat our opponent because of skill not circumstance.]

I like BTS' proposal that this view-before-selection might be included as an option in the future (and as it is a solution that satisfies all parties, i am really going out on a limb throwing my support in that direction, heh heh).

Btw, how exactly does one go about producing those smiley thingies? I think I understand that Mr. Peng is the considered expert on the subject. . .

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"Many the paths, and no gates, ever." -- Sheri S. Tepper

[Guest Big Time Software]

Hi Dan,

To a degree you are correct. However, for many planned operations each side would (to some degree) choose its forces based on the terrain. For example, if you are doing an assault in dense forest you most likely wouldn't take along many vehicles even if you had them assigned to you. That doesn't mean you would get extra infantry instead (but often it would), but at least you wouldn't expose rather valuable assets to an unfavorable situation.

Anybody that is interested in seeing how forces were drawn up and deployed for a variety of situations, I can not suggest a better book than "Closing with the Enemy" by Doubler. It is one of the best reads out there on topics like this.

I also often play games with the AI picking forces for me. I find that fun and challenging too

Steve

[Guest Big Time Software]

Welcome Olduvai,

Thanks for the bit on cheating potential. I totally forgot about that one That was one of Charles' major reasons for not including the option (from a design perspective) way back when. There is a way around this, but it involves having two people set up the PBEM game and an extra file swap. Basically, one person sets the parameters, then send the file over to the other person to view the map and select his forces. Then he sends it back to the original player to do the same. Unfortunately, this fixed involved coding along with the coding for the option itself. Not impossible to do, I assure you, but it wasn't a high priority for CM1.

Steve

[Thorn]

How about introducing a new option before purchase of units, in which player would have an opportunity to spend his/her points buying a map. It would reflect introduction of a new assets (reconnaissance pales,recon teams) for which points would have to be spend. The accuracy of such a map could depent on the involved assets that is on number of points spent. - just a suggestion.

Sorry for any mistakes.

[Kingfish]

But what's to stop a player, after seeing the map, from picking a force that is totally unrealistic and out of proportions?

You see a map with wide open fields and very little cover you are going to go heavy on the KT/Jumbos. Likewise, thick forests or cities will produce a boatload of SMG squads.

The system we have right now rewards the player who chooses the well-rounded force. You are covering all the bases. And it has the potential to severly penalize the player that goes for the fantasy force. You certainly have the option to buy 5 KTs, but you might find yourself playing in heavily forested terrain in mud.

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Charlie don't surf!

[kunzler]

"1. The ability to generate "deep" maps."

I for one would like to echo this suggestion. One area of disappointment with the larger battles, now that we are allowed more units, is that the maps when high units numbers are used, tend to be wide and shallow. Longer maps would be more campaign-like, IMO, and would allow a greater area for defense in depth, for instance. Allowing for square maps in larger points battles would be nice, at least.

Let me interject the standard disclaimer here, that CM is the best game I have ever played, and I am just making a suggestion that might possibley make a great game better.

That said, I am wondering if putting a map shape option in the QB setup generator would be desirable? For instance, allowing players to select longer maps, or deeper maps, or more square maps, together with the option to let the generator make the selection.

As with the solution to being able to see the map beforehand, one available solution is to just make the map with the generator, but doing so is time consuming, and I personally like having the surprise of what the map is going to look like. Also, using the map generator does not allow for somewhat "double blind" QBs.

[Fuerte]

I don't know if both players in PBEM have the equal information about the generated map. My mate generated it, and when I bought the units, I knew nothing about it. So I was a little surprised to find out that all of my units were in deep snow...

[Phoenix]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Hi Dan,

I also often play games with the AI picking forces for me. I find that fun and challenging too

Steve<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I did too...but then the AI bought me a FIVE

20mm AA guns. Um.....Why?

I now buy my own thanks.

[Vanir]

I love using the random weather. That really makes you nervous when picking 14psi KTs....

I would like to see an option for random terrain. Ooooh the fun....

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No, there will be no sequels. Charles and Steve have given up wargame design in disgust and have gone off to Jamaica to invest their new-found wealth in the drug trade. -Michael emrys

[KiwiJoe]

Perhaps just the defender should be able to see the map 1st. I mean if they have the time to set up trps and foxholes surely they have the time to request units more suited to the terrian.

[This message has been edited by KiwiJoe (edited 09-20-2000).]

[Olle Petersson]

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

IMO, if we are trying to emulate real WW2 post-Overlord era, intel should be more powerful and the map should be known beforehand. Germans knew the terrain they occupied, and Allies had immense observation capabilities.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not always true.

The defender always know the terrain quite well, those on home turf (i.e. France/Germany) also had a good idea and fine maps, but the Allied intelligence wasn't always brilliant. In the Rhuhr area for example the US army lacked any form of useful maps.

It would not be unrealistic to give the defender full knowledge of the map beforehand while the attacker start with randomised setup at the first order phase, only seing so much of the map as his units have LOS to...

I've actually played a tabletop game in this fashion, and then the Allied battalion commander (attacker) was sitting in another room (read: way back down the road) relying on reports from his coy commanders that were allowed to actually see parts of the gaming table...

You never know how deep the forest is, or what's on the other side of that hill/ridge...

Cheers

Olle