Pascal DI FOLCO Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 I just finished "A breezeless day" in PBEM. ** SPOILER ALERT : below is the scen description ** Skip if you don't want to know S P O I L E R This converted ASL scen portrays an advance by mech and motorized SS elements (3 Coys approx), sporting 2 JTs and 5 StuG/Hs, against an US company supported by 1 Sherm75 plt and a TD plt. Germans must exit his forces at the opposite map end from starting positions, there are also 3 large VFs and 3 smalls US also has LOTS of vehicle mines, and ground is muddy (hello bog !). Game is 30 turns. Well, I played it as the Germans, and with some luck managed to destroy US tanks with only 1 loss, and mopped up the infantry after this. I however have numerous losses due to mines, and bogged vehicles (1 JT and 1 StuG mainly). At turn 22, US surrenders, before I was able to exit anyone... Score is approx : German : 100 losses, 20 vehicles (3 tanks, 5 HTs, rest are trucks). Remaining 250 men US : 200 losses, 50 captured, 5 tanks lost. ** END SPOILER** And the game gives 54/46 DRAW !! My troops were at say 80% of the way to the exit, everyone not bogged should have been able to exit.. I was quite upset and surprised, I really think I could not make much better and deserves a win... I still have to test what score would have been given if the US didn't surrender and I could have played to the end (I will take back the game at turn 21 and hide the US remnants...), but this uncovers some questions : - How are VPs given to each force when troops should exit ? - When a surrender occurs, do the attacker get Exit VPs or not ? This is tricky, because a surrender at last turn should not give the points, but a surrender at half game should... I tested a 1st turn surrender by the US : here the score is a clear 100/0 Has anyone some hindsight on this ? [This message has been edited by Pascal DI FOLCO (edited 02-28-2001).] [This message has been edited by Pascal DI FOLCO (edited 02-28-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Just a friendly bit of advice, you should put a spoiler warning at the top of your post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever Babra Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Well, you know you won, and your opponent knows you won. I wouldn't worry about it over-much. It would be nice if the exit VPs would be awarded though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by Pascal DI FOLCO: Has anyone some hindsight on this ? Kingfish is correct about the spoiler warning. Now for the question. The US destroyed about 50% of your forces it seems. Those are 50% of the force pool that won't exit. The aim was to exit 100% of your forces. You failed to do this. A draw is the appropriate result. I have seen this before, in another operation, and I have no problem with it. ------------------ Andreas Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tero Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 >The aim was to exit 100% of your forces. You failed to do this. A draw is the appropriate result. I think not. If this is the requirement the scenario is both unhistorical and unwinnable. Exiting 100% of your forces is not a very realistic victory condition. Furthermore the surrender means that the defences collapsed in that sector completelly leaving perhaps the entire front in jeopardy of being rolled up/overrun with follow up attacks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by tero: >The aim was to exit 100% of your forces. You failed to do this. A draw is the appropriate result. I think not. If this is the requirement the scenario is both unhistorical and unwinnable. Exiting 100% of your forces is not a very realistic victory condition. Furthermore the surrender means that the defences collapsed in that sector completelly leaving perhaps the entire front in jeopardy of being rolled up/overrun with follow up attacks. tero - that is something he has to take up with the scenario designer. AFAIK you can specify whether a unit will need to exit to get points. If you set all to exit (as this scenario seems to have done - ask me why I stopped playing ASL conversions), it is not a CMBO problem, but a scenario design problem. I have not looked at the scenario, but I bet that all units had to exit to get points. You are of course right in saying that that is highly unrealistic. Regarding follow-on attacks: with what? He lost 50% of his forces already ------------------ Andreas Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tero Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 >tero - that is something he has to take up with the scenario designer. I play PBEM QB's. Ready made scens are mostly a turn off for me. >(as this scenario seems to have done - ask me why I stopped playing ASL conversions), OK. Why did you stop playing ASL conversions ? >it is not a CMBO problem, but a scenario design problem. Mostly. >You are of course right in saying that that is highly unrealistic. Of course. Regarding follow-on attacks: with what? He lost 50% of his forces already Who cares ? The defenders on this sector lost 100% of his combat forces leaving the cooks and bakers hanging in the breeze. Any commander would exploit such stunning success to his advantage by sending reinforcements to keep the initiave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 >I play PBEM QB's. Ready made scens >are mostly a turn off for me. Email me privately for recommendations. >OK. Why did you stop playing ASL >conversions ? Because all of those I played (except for one by Berli and Cory Runyan) were so shoddily designed that you wonder whether there was any playtesting whatsoever. >Mostly. Totally. >Any commander would exploit such >stunning success to his advantage by >sending reinforcements to keep the >initiave. Any commander would react to this by shifting mobile reinforcements to this sector to prevent such a breakthrough. This is fantasy-land. IRL both would be possible, in CM (beyond taking losses into account when computing final points) we don't know whether the attacker has any reserves to exploit, or the defender to prevent it. A well designed break-through operation should feature an assault force that does not need to exit for points, and a breakthrough element that has to exit for points. That would be simulating the typical '2nd BN will pass through 1st BN once the latter is on the objective to continue attacking southwards.' ------------------ Andreas Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pascal DI FOLCO Posted February 28, 2001 Author Share Posted February 28, 2001 Ok, I have to give some precisions : 1- You're right with the spoiler alert, I should have been more careful. My apologies. 2- I feel I've won but our games are registered in our "club ladder", so it "hurts" my ranking that it's considered a draw but no big deal 3- I lost nearly half my force (somewhat less than that...), but in effect some 30% of the damage I took was sort of unavoidable, due to mud and mines (I had no engineers !). So indeed exiting 100% of the force was impossible even without any enemy and in peacetime !! 4- I not only asked for compassion , but also to have some answers on the score system in "exit" scenarios : Normally points are awarded with enemy losses and VLs, but how do work exit VPs? If they only add for the attacker they unbalance the conditions, so I suppose they are added initially to the defender's VPs, at least in a measure (say 50%°...Can someone confirm ? And in case of surrender, how the game scores ? I feel I would have add a *better* score if US didn't surrender and I was able to exit my (half) force - that's the test I have to do - and in this case the score system is broken when surrender occurs in a scen with exit VPs awarded... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasoncawley@ameritech.net Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 The way exit points work in CM, is the *defender* gets the points if that unit does *not* exit, and the *attacker* gets the point if it does. In a case where the attacker exits half of the force designated as "should exit", the victory will turn on losses and flags on both side. But the exit/didn't exit points are very heavily weighted, so a large victory generally requires exit of more than half the designated units. It is quite common for the defender to win the VCs, even while the attacker nukes his force and forces a passage - if he gets "reduced" in force strength doing so. The conceptual issue for scenario designers is about use of the "should exit" setting. It does *not* mean the attacker gets extra points for exiting that unit, but can do so or not as he likes. If it dies or stays on the map, it counts as dead several times over for victory. The best way to deal with this is to not designate the *entire* attacking force with "should exit". If you give a "should exit" designation to the *tanks*, for example, the outcome of the fighting part of the engagement will be more directly reflected in the overall result. This allows the attacker to expend some of his force, or to leave some of it on the map mopping up or holding the corridor open. I hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tero Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Jason, PLEASE change your handle to a shorter one. It craps out the view whenever you post your most excellent posts. PLEASE, pretty please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pascal DI FOLCO Posted February 28, 2001 Author Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net: The way exit points work in CM, is the *defender* gets the points if that unit does *not* exit, and the *attacker* gets the point if it does. In a case where the attacker exits half of the force designated as "should exit", the victory will turn on losses and flags on both side. But the exit/didn't exit points are very heavily weighted, so a large victory generally requires exit of more than half the designated units. It is quite common for the defender to win the VCs, even while the attacker nukes his force and forces a passage - if he gets "reduced" in force strength doing so. The conceptual issue for scenario designers is about use of the "should exit" setting. It does *not* mean the attacker gets extra points for exiting that unit, but can do so or not as he likes. If it dies or stays on the map, it counts as dead several times over for victory. I hope this helps. Yes, this helps me understand I've been stripped of a victory due to poor scenario VC setting, everyone was marked as "should exit" Had any idea on "surrender" behavior ? Does the winner get exit points ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Pascal, Please go back and edit your first post to add the spolier warning. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pascal DI FOLCO Posted February 28, 2001 Author Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by Kingfish: Pascal, Please go back and edit your first post to add the spolier warning. Thanks Done, I hope it's fine now ? One can skip the spoiling text... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by Kingfish: Pascal, Please go back and edit your first post to add the spolier warning. Thanks Hehe - it seems it was a not very well designed scenario anyway. We are all much better off knowing and not wasting time with it unless the victory conditions are changed, it seems ------------------ Andreas Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tero Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 >Email me privately for recommendations. OK. I am currently attending a W2K MSCE course so it may take a while though. I do have a few slots open for PBEM though.... >Totally. Well... you do have to take into account game engine limitations... >Any commander would react to this by shifting mobile reinforcements to this sector to prevent such a breakthrough. Assuming this IS the Schwehrpunkt. If this was a spoiler attack gone right then the defender would face a dilemma with the shifting of the Schwehrpunkt. >IRL both would be possible, in CM (beyond taking losses into account when computing final points) we don't know whether the attacker has any reserves to exploit, or the defender to prevent it. True. But I think that given these facts in front of us the reward for the winner should be better than just a draw. >A well designed break-through operation should feature an assault force that does not need to exit for points, and a breakthrough element that has to exit for points. That would be simulating the typical '2nd BN will pass through 1st BN once the latter is on the objective to continue attacking southwards.' "Test book application" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Germanboy wrote: Any commander would react to this by shifting mobile reinforcements to this sector to prevent such a breakthrough. True, but then his reserves would be tied up and he would be in deep trouble if the enemy managed to get a similar result in another section of the front. - Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by tss: Germanboy wrote: Any commander would react to this by shifting mobile reinforcements to this sector to prevent such a breakthrough. True, but then his reserves would be tied up and he would be in deep trouble if the enemy managed to get a similar result in another section of the front. - Tommi Yes - totally right. And then he may call on the Rodney or on a Squadron of B-17s or on strategic theatre reserve or call up another draft back home. OTOH, it could also be that the main attack has been defeated. Or that your scenario was the main attack. All that is the realm of pure speculation. Who knows? But it is all outside CM's scope, isn't it? IMO anything beyond the immediate ability to withstand an imminent counter-attack really need not be considered. CMBO is not an operational wargame, but a tactical one. I find it funny that this discussion is really hanging only on a totally flawed scenario design decision. If the designer had given room for an assault force that would not provide points for exit, all this discussion would be unnecessary. tero wrote: > textbook application Heh - what's wrong with a classic set piece attack? It is as good a way as any to start designing a scenario IMO, and if the designer in this case had applied it, Pascal would not have had any reason to complain. ------------------ Andreas Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by tero: Jason, PLEASE change your handle to a shorter one. It craps out the view whenever you post your most excellent posts. PLEASE, pretty please. Change the resolution on your monitor; I have no problem with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net: The conceptual issue for scenario designers is about use of the "should exit" setting. It does *not* mean the attacker gets extra points for exiting that unit, but can do so or not as he likes. If it dies or stays on the map, it counts as dead several times over for victory. Do you know this for a fact, or is this conjecture? Are points for a casualty really multiplied for not exiting as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by Germanboy: > >OK. Why did you stop playing ASL >conversions ? Because all of those I played (except for one by Berli and Cory Runyan) were so shoddily designed that you wonder whether there was any playtesting whatsoever. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Treeburst155 and I played my conversion of Climax at Nijmegen Bridge a couple of times, and Pascal has done some testing for me as well. We found it pretty well balanced - but the tricky part about them is VC. It was a lot of fun to play, and gave the player hard choices to make. I usually disregard VC anyway - if the game was fun to experience, and victory seemed to be going either way, then I consider the game a win for myself regardless of what happens to my troops. I had the same problem of realistic VC in operations design; I don't know if it is the game or the scenario designer (in this case, me) just not having enough experience designing realistic conditions. I am starting to think this one has to get pencil and paper and map out the number of points all the troops are worth, what their loss would be, how many points for exiting or not. My question - is there any fuzzy logic involved, or can one compute with mathematical certainty how losses and flag capture and exit will result in the final points tally? ------------------ CANUCK: Clothing, Equipping and Employing the Canadian Soldier in Combat Mission Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russellmz Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by tero: Jason, PLEASE change your handle to a shorter one. It craps out the view whenever you post your most excellent posts. PLEASE, pretty please. heh, i can always tell a jason post by the extra wide column on the left... ------------------ russellmz, Self-Proclaimed Keeper for Life of the Sacred Unofficial FAQ. "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...
Guest Germanboy Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Michael, I have deliberately not given any more info about the scenarios I played. For the record, I stopped playing ASL conversions before you came to the board. I once tried to feed back on an ASL conversion scenario that was impossible to play PBEM, although IIRC it was recommended for that. I was more or less told that it was my problem. I am busy testing scenarios for others and making my own and improving these based on the feedback I receive. I prefer that over testing conversions, because I feel that CMBO is more than ASL, and I have no sentimental attachments to ASL. Unfortunately I can not help you on your question, starting from scratch is a lot easier for VCs, which is also appealing to me. ------------------ Andreas Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Originally posted by Germanboy: stuff Fair enough. But before you scare everyone off of ASL scenarios (there are some who do have a sentimental attachment), I just wanted to make it clear that while there are some BAD conversions out there, there are also some good ones, as well as people trying to make them better. At least two of them have posted to this thread. We all have our own interests, and CM is diverse enough for all of us to enjoy them. So if anyone else is interested in playtesting or converting SL scenarios, I am willing to host them. I am only interested at this point in the original SL-COI-COD-GI scenarios, as they are the ones that I look back on most fondly. ------------------ CANUCK: Clothing, Equipping and Employing the Canadian Soldier in Combat Mission Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorak Posted March 1, 2001 Share Posted March 1, 2001 Since there are some designers here. I thought I'd throw out some of my experiences. First I agree that a 100% exit demand is unrealistic. Designers should give the attacker some fodder, knowing that the 100% is impossible. Second, Why are not more people designing scenarios with no flags? I have PBEM's about three like this so far. These have to be designed more from a meeting engagment. But this adds a hell of a lot to the game. It makes both players play the terrain and each other. Not worry about VL's or some other arbitary location. So in these games, with a smal village or two, some hills ect... You have no push to head to a location. so forces tend to meet like they would have historically. Just a thought. Lorak ------------------ "Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking."--William Butler Yeats Cesspool Combatmissionclub and for Kitty's sake =^..^= Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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