VERY questionable result : Surrender in "Advance" scen

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

#1, read the manual, page 100-101. "exited units, generally worth 2-3 times the purchase value (note: units eligible for exit that do not exit score points for the enemy)". Or just set up any scenario with an exit victory condition, and advance to the last turn. You will see the guy who was supposed to exit forces lose, without a shot fired.

I've designed a couple scenarios that use exit VCs ("The Fire Brigade", and "Get the Guns"), so understanding this point was rather important. In "Fire Brigade", only certain items matter for exit - which, you can play it and find out, it is double-blind - LOL. In Get the Guns, the U.S. player has to try to exit 4x105mm towed howitzers from his own map edge, before German raiders destroy them. (Or after the raiders are beaten, if you stand and fight - your call).

#2, a big reason designers don't make scenarios without *any* flags, is that solo play is still the most common way of playing, for time reasons. And the AI orients on flags. Without flags, it hardly has a clue what to do. But I sometimes design scenarios without *many* flags, and keep the flags I do put in, the small 100-pt ones (worth only a vanilla tank or infantry platoon apiece). That lets the AI have something to move on, and still leaves losses or exit conditions the overwhelming factors in victory.

#3 I am aware of the problem caused by a long screen name. But some of you people seem to think I can change it at will, and I can't. There is no provision for changing screen names on the CM forums. And re-registering does not work, because the software then thinks "that email addie is already spoken for". The only way to change a username is for the CM ops, to delete the whole record and then start over. I have asked them to do so in my case, recently, but it has not happened yet.

Incidentally, I think the part of the registration screen that says "username can be up to 25 characters", should not say that, because it isn't true, in practice. At the time I picked it, I hadn't the slightest idea where it would appear, or if it would appear, let alone any notion that it would not "wrap", or would change the size of any CM displayed "record" fields. But as they say, SNAFU.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

#1, read the manual, page 100-101. "exited units, generally worth 2-3 times the purchase value (note: units eligible for exit that do not exit score points for the enemy)".

Are casualties "eligible for exit"? I've heard conflicting points of view on this. Or do they only count to the enemy as casualties? It would seem like a double penalty to count them first as dead, then as not having exited.

[Lorak]

Jason, I understand your point about the AI needing the flags to move on. But for H2H games it really adds a lot to the battle.

Also in operations There aren't any flags. So I guess it could be tried as the AI defending with no flags. As playing the AI as defense is the best option anyway.

It was just an idea I was throwing out. But if you have a third party design maps for some of your games with other people... have them make a nice ME with no flags. I think you'll enjoy it.

Lorak

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"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

=^..^=

[Guest tero]

>Change the resolution on your monitor; I have no problem with this.

Won't help if the no-frames version is at home and I access the board through the CM home page.

[This message has been edited by tero (edited 03-01-2001).]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by tero:

>Change the resolution on your monitor; I have no problem with this.

Won't help if the no-frames version is at home and I access the board through the CM home page.

[This message has been edited by tero (edited 03-01-2001).]

Point taken. Posting on the sly from work, you naughty boy?

[Guest tero]

>Posting on the sly from work, you naughty boy?

I do not know what the hell you are talking about.

[Guest tero]

>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?

Not really.

Seems there is a difference in doctrinal thinking evident here. tss and I and were weened on tales about and (also other Finns who have served their national service)trained to fight out CM scale battles just like this example. Ie: few or no reserves to be expected, every resource counts, your ace in the hole is the fact that you have the initiative while the enemy has numerical edge(and qualitative edge in equipment). Dividents from success are equal to the dividents from failure. Knowing when you have reached your limit is paramount.

>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.

There are times when operational IS tactical to the extreme. By pushing on to the limit you keep the operative initiative AND the tactical initiative. Instead of preparing for an expected counterattack you keep the enemy busy with the defences so he has no time to organize an immediate counterattack.

>I find it funny that this discussion is really hanging only on a totally flawed scenario design decision.

These kinds of debates are often the most interesting.

>If the designer had given room for an assault force that would not provide points for exit, all this discussion would be unnecessary.

Yep.

>Heh - what's wrong with a classic set piece attack?

IRL ? You put your eggs in one basket. You broadcast your objectives. You mass your resources to convenient rally points to be hit by enemy air and LR arty assets. The success of an operation often lies in braking from the routines.

>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.

Agreed.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Gee Michael, we are being really slow today, what? LOL. Yes they count twice, as dead and as not exited. Read the manual, and you see that they also count twice if they *do* exit ("2-3 times purchase cost").

Live and exited, and dead and not exited, basically balance each other. Live and on the map is an intermediary condition, and it gives the *defender* some points, for that item. Items marked as "should exit", *should* exit - not "may".

And units so designated are weighted heavily in the victory determination, about twice as much as ordinary casualties. The mission for one side is to exit those units, and for the other side it is to stop those units.

If half die and half exit, then that will be drawish, because both sides have half-accomplished their main mission. To win, the exiter must exit *most* of his "should exit" units, alive.

For designers, the issue is simple. The exiter should only be required to exit a portion of his force, preferably those with the most combat power, e.g. his AFVs or whatever. Unless you want to require him to blow through a roadblock type position without serious delay or serious losses - then you could require exit of everyone.

Someone with an "exit" victory condition, conceptually, needs those assets at *another fight* which is taking place beyond the map - or to start such a fight. The designated units are worth more, because their value (in CM terms) will be multiplied if they succeed in being present at multiple fights in sequence.

This is part of the whole mobile warfare idea. A tank fights with the value of one infantry platoon (say) in fight A, but then lives and proceeds to fight B, and lives and proceeds to fight C, and by the end of that, it has delivered a combat value of its cost 3 times over. It is "in three scenarios". If the defenders in battle A kill it, they do not just get it out of *their* hair. They save the guys in fight B and C from having to face it the same day, too. They can also accomplish that part of it, without destroying the tank, if they stop it and keep it from getting to the later fights.

That is what exit-type VCs are set up to reflect, the way CM has laid them down. It is a perfectly sensible approach. Designers just have to know it beforehand when setting up scenarios using such VCs. And since other games have made single scenarios with exit conditions of an entirely different character, care must be exercised in translating VCs from some other system to CM.

[bebbetufs]

Tero!

If you're using Internet Explorer you can go to view->text size->and choose a smaller font. It helps a lot. Also try opening the posts in a new window, that removes the frames!

Bernhard

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

Gee Michael, we are being really slow today, what? LOL. Yes they count twice, as dead and as not exited. Read the manual, and you see that they also count twice if they *do* exit ("2-3 times purchase cost").

No, I don't think I'm being slow - I got an email from Madmatt saying that he didn't know the answer to the questions I raised and would put them to Steve. If you read the manual yourself, you will see they are rather vague and actually don't address the points I raise at all.

Seeing as how you are not/were not on the design team, I think I will go with the answer BTS provides us, no offence, rather than your interpretation of the rulebook.

Thank you for your time. I hope to play the third scenario of your campaign this weekend.

[This message has been edited by Michael Dorosh (edited 03-01-2001).]

[ASL Veteran]

I don't find that it is necessary to keep some force of troops as 'not eligible for exit' to make a balanced exit scenario. Heck, Wild Bill made all the Germans in 'Fear in the Fog' as eligible for exit and that scenario seems reasonably balanced to me. The only question I see here is whether the fact that the Americans surrendered prevented the German from gaining the exit victory points that he would be due if the American had not surrendered (thus preventing those remaining German units from exiting)... seems pretty simple to me.

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When we were in the Bocage country we were assaulted by them Tigers ... you know what I mean by assaulted huh? WELL I MEAN ASSAULTED!!!!

[Guest Germanboy]

Originally posted by ASL Veteran:

I don't find that it is necessary to keep some force of troops as 'not eligible for exit' to make a balanced exit scenario. Heck, Wild Bill made all the Germans in 'Fear in the Fog' as eligible for exit and that scenario seems reasonably balanced to me. The only question I see here is whether the fact that the Americans surrendered prevented the German from gaining the exit victory points that he would be due if the American had not surrendered (thus preventing those remaining German units from exiting)... seems pretty simple to me.

If you read a later post by Pascal, he is saying he tried it with an immediate US surrender and he got 100%, so that is not a problem.

I have not played Fear in the Fog, but all the exit scenarios I played, the only one that ever achieved a draw for the exiting party (attacker) was the one with Poles and Germans from the CD. All the other ones were straight to devastating losses for the attacker. Suggests to me people are not designing them correctly, but I guess we will have to disagree there.

Michael, I know this discussion has moved on, I just wanted to make clear that my intention was not to scare people away from ASL conversions - it was a simple statement that I had given up on them. As my personal opinion. A matter of taste. I have no doubt there are good ones out there, but I don't have the time to waste trying to find them amongst the crap ones. So I stopped playing them.

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.