Briefings - what to include?

[flamingknives]

Just curious as to what people out there in Scenario Land put in your briefings.

For instance, how much info on the enemies forces do you include?

Should you modifiy force balance on the basis of intelligence? (in the military sense)

[Patrocles]

Good question! I'm having a go at my first battle designs and it depends on the particular battle how much intel I will give the two sides. I would be curious to know what other people do with this part of the battle design.

[Fredrock1957]

Gentlemen

If you go to my scenario page... link below... and click on the name of the scenario's you can see what I put in my Main Briefing.. Allied Briefing, Axis Briefing... etc... the only thing that is also included in the briefings in the scneario itself is the "force makeup".. per each side of course... dont want to post spoilers at the web site..

Regards,

FredRocker

[Andreas]

A basic rule is that the more complex the scenario/op, the more detailed the briefing needs to be in the intel and mission section.

Briefing content is something I am still working on. While I have never thought of balancing out intel against forces, I think that is quite an interesting idea, and could work quite well.

Maybe difficult to pull off reliably though, since scenarios are played by players of varying ability, and this basically adds another level of complexity.

One final point - on the CM scale, you need to be very detailed with the reinforcements. Just saying 'armoured reinforcements will arrive within the next 30 mins' does not cut it, IMO. On this level, commanders would normally know who they can expect, with what, and a more detailed timeframe (unless again this is all part of a complex plan, in which case it ought to be spelled out clearly in the briefing).

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by Andreas:

One final point - on the CM scale, you need to be very detailed with the reinforcements. Just saying 'armoured reinforcements will arrive within the next 30 mins' does not cut it, IMO. On this level, commanders would normally know who they can expect, with what, and a more detailed timeframe (unless again this is all part of a complex plan, in which case it ought to be spelled out clearly in the briefing).

I disagree about the arrival times. No one can say with total certainty that X will arrive at exactly 10:04am. It is covered by one of the three Great Lies...

The trucks will be on time

The chow will be hot

I won't c... (ok, forget the last one)

[xerxes]

I think exact to the turn arrival times are very unrealistic. Unless the reinforcements are literally just off map and will arrive in the opening minute or two, I don't think you should give an exact arrival time.

[Sergei]

I suppose Andreas means that it has to be more accurate than "within 30 minutes". And the composition and arrival zone of the reinforcements should be made clear, to the extent that you can use that data in your battle planning.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Sergei:

I suppose Andreas means that it has to be more accurate than "within 30 minutes". And the composition and arrival zone of the reinforcements should be made clear, to the extent that you can use that data in your battle planning.

What he said.

[Soddball]

I think it depends very much on the scenario and the kind of ambience you're trying to create. For my CM:BB scenario "Kneiber Dam" I deliberately kept the amount of information available to a minimum and concentrated on generating atmosphere before the battle. That's because the battle is a surprise attack at night. However, when I made "Chalon-sur-Rhone" for CM:BO (American attack on dug-in Germs) the Americans had a pretty good idea of what was turning up to support them, whilst the Germans (who were relying on 'firefighting teams' to reinforce them) got little information.

The only way I don't like to do it is for the briefing to have:

Your reinforcements:

Turn 4:

1 x PSW222

1 x Inf Platoon

Turn 9:

1 x Panzer-IVJ

For me, that wipes out any sense of immersion.

Another thing that's always fun is misdirection and misinformation. Part of the thrill is that you have no idea when your reinforcements will arrive, where, or what they'll consist of.

[Patrocles]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Briefing content is something I am still working on. While I have never thought of balancing out intel against forces, I think that is quite an interesting idea, and could work quite well.

Maybe difficult to pull off reliably though, since scenarios are played by players of varying ability, and this basically adds another level of complexity.

Good point! The last serious wargame I played was the Advanced Squad Leader. I got used to merely looking at the scenario OOB to determine what forces I was up against...guess I need a bit of weaning from that aspect!

(Though I did manage to wrangle two ASL friends for a few games of Double-blind ASL! what a blast.)

I recall looking at some army manuals with examples of briefings for battle planning. These enemy intel straddled the line well usually saying, "expect 2-3 platoons of heavy enemy armor supported by engineers at company strength..." etc.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Soddball:

Another thing that's always fun is misdirection and misinformation. Part of the thrill is that you have no idea when your reinforcements will arrive, where, or what they'll consist of.

These are really two different issues, and I try to avoid deliberate misinformation. I think that had at some point taken over briefings, to the extent that the line 'don't expect enemy tanks' came to mean exactly the opposite. I prefer vagueness in those cases, instead of blatant misinformation.

[Capitalistdoginchina]

From a playability point of view it is not always a good idea to give exact details of reinforcements, placing or composition in the briefing.

Some players, if they know (For example) armour is arriving say within the first quarter of the battle will wait for them to arrive before making a massed attack on enemy positions.

This can effect the way the battle is played out and the balance of the game. Not to mention the opponent claiming that the scenario is terribly unbalanced.

Not only that, but for me, when i am playing a scenario, i get a real thrill when i get reinforcements just when i badly need them. I find it adds excitement, unpredictability, uncertainty and it can change the course of the battle as well as my strategy - and in MHO it is more realistic - so i tend to bear this in mind when designing a scenario. Its just personal choice though.

There are a lot of players who really expect to know the full intel in order that they may play the battle the way they want - but some designers want the battle to play the way they intend it to be played.

Horses for courses I guess

CDIC

PS. Since it is also known that a few unsavoury players may open up both briefings to see OOB before choosing sides when playing scenarios it helps to prevent players from choosing the side they think is strongest. Mind you even without the briefing if they really want to they can play it out first against the AI - It does happen!