The armor/point controversy

[Guy w/gun]

Hello all. After looking through all the threads about the armor point allotments and whether they're fair/historically correct, I realized something and would like to ask everyone about it.

Is it just me, or was the whole "quick battle" mode an after thought? It seems like it was a feature that was grafted on to a game that was meant to be scenario/ops based only.

I like QBs. 90% of the time I play CM, its a QB. Qbs are good because they allow the player(s) to battle in terrain that is totally random. Playing scenarios is fine, but most of the time I like to simply pit allies vs. axis and have fun.

It seems that most people try to QB historically correct. I often try to do this as well, but not always. Sometimes it's fun to pit 10 KTs up against 10 stuarts .

Its also my understanding that the point system was meant for those who wanted to build there own scenarios, not for "buying" units to use in QB's (hence why less than a week after I got the game, I was posting asking why an M4 costs was so much relative to the cost of a Panther) Also It's my understanding that the values are based on many things besides AT ability.

Because of all this I'm really begining to think that BTS added the QB feature as more of an afterthought, believing that most players would choose to play scenarios both solo and head to head.

Please BTS correct me here if Im wrong.

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Guy w/gun:

Hello all. After looking through all the threads about the armor point allotments and whether they're fair/historically correct, I realized something and would like to ask everyone about it.

Is it just me, or was the whole "quick battle" mode an after thought? It seems like it was a feature that was grafted on to a game that was meant to be scenario/ops based only.

I like QBs. 90% of the time I play CM, its a QB. Qbs are good because they allow the player(s) to battle in terrain that is totally random. Playing scenarios is fine, but most of the time I like to simply pit allies vs. axis and have fun.

It seems that most people try to QB historically correct. I often try to do this as well, but not always. Sometimes it's fun to pit 10 KTs up against 10 stuarts .

Its also my understanding that the point system was meant for those who wanted to build there own scenarios, not for "buying" units to use in QB's (hence why less than a week after I got the game, I was posting asking why an M4 costs was so much relative to the cost of a Panther) Also It's my understanding that the values are based on many things besides AT ability.

Because of all this I'm really begining to think that BTS added the QB feature as more of an afterthought, believing that most players would choose to play scenarios both solo and head to head.

Please BTS correct me here if Im wrong.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Seems to work find to me. I don't think you could code something like that as an afterthought.

[Guy w/gun]

Maybe afterthought was the wrong term. Hmm...I don't know really how to describe it.

Nobody complains about the scenarios because they're already made and a lot of them are historical (ie why no one complains that in Villers Bocage that Whittman is outnumbered.)

But since QBs are such a fine point with everyone, and when the point values are tweaked it makes one side happy and the other mad, I'm beginning to think that BTS meant QBs as a secondary or side feature, where as today they've seem to become the main way people play against each other.

I'm probably wrong on this one, so like I said before...correct me if I am.

[Guest Big Time Software]

QBs were always a part of the CM design, from day one. I knew that I personally would play QBs most of the time, as it appears is true for a lot of CM players.

The point costs for a unit were arrived at independent of either QBs or scenarios. If anything, point costs are more relevant to QBs because the game needs to be able to figure out how to balance each side. With premade scenarios that decision is left to the person making the sceanrio, so in theory there didn't need to be point values at all if there weren't QBs.

What we didn't do was put in a Rarity system. That would have fixed many of the fair/historical questions. Unfortunately, we just didn't have time to implement one. As far as force pool balances, we will still have these even when we put in the Rarity option into CM2. It is still necessary to make balanced forces internal to a particular side (i.e. Combined Arms needs to have a little bit of everything, not just one thing).

Steve

[Treeburst155]

I played QBs for the first couple months I had the game because I was interested in fair fights rather than historical situations. When I got tired of QBs (they weren't that fair anyway) I started in PBEMing the scenarios. That's when things really got fun. I wish I could convince people how much more fun it is to play the scenarios rather than QBs. Many of them have great replay value too. Even if you played them just once you could play for a year! I've got 228 scenarios on my drive. If only half of them are any good I've still got over a year's worth of PBEM. I won't go back to QBs until I can't find any new scenarios. That may never happen since more are created every week.

The one fun thing about QBs is choosing all your own forces. That is also the root of most of the QBs problems. It isn't worth it.

Forget chess-like fairness since QBs don't give it to you anyway. You want fair competition? Play the same scenario 4 times; twice from each side. Who ever gets the most total points is PROBABLY (not always) the better player. Larger scenarios are probably better gauges of skill due to the fact that luck tends to even out. That lucky gun hit on your Panther by a Greyhound is not so critical if you've got eight more Panthers.

QBs are great for practice, experimentation, and for saving the scenarios for double blind games against human opponents. That's about all. I really don't understand the infatuation with QBs. To each his own I guess.

Treeburst155

[Guest JAZZA]

Funny thing Treeburst155,I did the exact opposite.I only played scenarios for the first few months,probably more.I agree with you that they are more fun than Q/B's.For a start scenario maps are imo, way more interesting to play than the generated Q/B ones.This is one of the reason's,after month's of Q/B pbem's, I'm starting to look at playing more scenario's again.Although it is neat to be able to pick a force of your choosing.The ultimate for me would be able to make a custom map,choose the weather,date etc..and be able to purchase forces then send it off to an opponent for them to choose their forces.It would make for a good style of game I think.

[Guy w/gun]

Thanks Steve. Im glad you didnt take my question the wrong way.

[Treeburst155]

Jazza,

You can do exactly what you described as far as making a scenario and choosing your forces. Your opponent just has to be trusted not to look at your force choices when he loads the scenario into the editor to choose his stuff. This can be difficult to do since in fairness he needs to see the map (you have)where your forces will be all lined up. The way around this is to send him a copy of the map before you place forces on it, along with the real scenario file. There also has to be an agreement not to edit forces such as adding 50 rounds to arty or messing with the capabilities of leaders. In effect you are codesigning a scenario with your opponent.

As long as you are playing an opponent who considers winning secondary to fun and surprise, the above works well. If you would like to try this with me I am willing. I even have a great map I made that is as fair as you can get and suitable for medium to large battles if you want to use it.

Another way is to have a 3rd person actually purchase the forces for both sides from lists (screenshots?) supplied by each player. That way you don't have to trust the other guy. I personally don't feel this is necessary since the cheater really only cheats himself out of fun and challenge and there's no money on the game anyway. Also, the final .cmb file as saved by the player who purchases his units last should be sent back to player 1. Now the trust needs to go both ways since both players have the ability to look at each others units. (No tournament saving)

This idea is really no different than doing a double blind game as far as cheating is concerned. You really don't know for sure if your opponent is playing blind or not.

Another great thing about setting up a battle like this is that there are no restrictions on what you can spend your points on. Things can get way ahistorical but I don't care. You can always agree to some house rules before choosing forces. I personally don't like to see a guy use more than two sharpshooters because of the nature of spotting in the game. You might as well play with FOW off if you are going to use six sharpshooters. Anyway, I better get back to work.

Treeburst155