to vetern or not to veteren?

[Pak40]

A piece of advice for newbies when buying heavy machine guns:

Get the best quality HMG that money can buy

Here's why:

HMGs are more usefull than the LMGs in two ways: 1)more firepower 2) more ammo

The only way to take advantage of point #2 is to get a Veteran+ HMG because the regulars tend to break/route before they even burn 1/2 of their ammo. That's half of a unit's firepower wasted!

However, with Veteran HMGs I have had them stick it out until they're down to LOW or DEAD. This is gets most bang for the buck.

Remember, that MG teams and guns are the only infantry that DONT lose firepower when some of the men or wounded or killed. Therefore your really want them to be there until the end.

[JasonC]

Pak40 said "9 times out of 10, Veterans will be victorious". A better argument that those that use all veterans are pikers cannot be imagined. Where is the sport in a handling 9 to 1 favorites?

If you win, what have you proved? That you are a piker! If you lose, what? That you are an unlucky idiot who wouldn't make corporal in the Italian army! But take greens, and if you lose, so what? You were sporting. And if you win? Guderian should take notes.

A modest portion of vets now and then for variety or realism or sheer mayhem, that is fun. All veterans all the time in search of victory, is just pathetic.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Ouch! Jason, surely you're not trolling for a fight? This seems so, so.. well, ummm... beneath you!

First a joke in a previous thread & now some trolling... you're not going through a mid life crisis or somefink, are you?

Regards

Jim R.

[ 10-17-2001: Message edited by: Kanonier Reichmann ]

[xerxes]

I've found that conscripts, greens, regulars, veterans and crack all have their good and bad points. The more interesting question (for me) is how you use each of these. For defending a town/city, conscripts do a great job. For scouting and detection of the enemy crack are amazing. If you are trying to KO a bunker the better tank crews are worthwhile. For a defensive rocket barrage in an assault scenario concript 150mm rockets are stunning (cheap and a lot [6] in a redundent pattern are nasty). Snipers certainly need to be upgraded but all the others seem to depend on the situation.

I'm playing a PBEM assault where I have a attack force of three ami crack HTs and they are shockingly effective.

Then again, I like computer pick games and quasi-historical QBs where your picks are heavily restricted so I'm more interested in how to use then what to pick.quasi-historical Qbs

-marc

[Pak40]

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

Pak40 said "9 times out of 10, Veterans will be victorious". A better argument that those that use all veterans are pikers cannot be imagined. Where is the sport in a handling 9 to 1 favorites<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You're taking what I said out of context. I was clearly talking about a situation where there is 1 Veteran platoon vs. 1 Regular platoon. In Combat Mission Quick Battles we will never see that matchup because the force selection is by points, thereby making any force selections even no matter what the quality of troops. In other words:

1000 pts Regular troops = 1000 pts Veteran troops

It's an even matchup and either side has an equal chance of winning the battle, all other things being equal. The Regular side lacks quality but makes up for it in quantity. So it is no less "sporty" to choose all veteran troops. Nor is it less historic to choose all Veteran troops.

[Gremlin]

In my experience, veteran units are well worth the price under certain circumstances. Buy them when single shots really matter: infantry can engage in extended engagements, but AFV's, AT guns, and PIAT/zook/schreck teams need to be accurate with the initial shot(s). These are valuable, high-profile units whose strengths should maximized not only through proper use but through their experience rating. The same applies, in essence, to sharpshooters.

Also, buy veteran units when those units will anchor defensive setups or help hold key ground: MG squads in particular, though the principle could extend to an infantry platoon just as easily.

In general, I think veteran status is less vital for reserves, who should ideally be coming in to fight already weakened enemies.

[ 10-17-2001: Message edited by: Gremlin ]

[Gremlin]

double post

[ 10-17-2001: Message edited by: Gremlin ]

[Chad Harrison]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pak40:

You're taking what I said out of context. I was clearly talking about a situation where there is 1 Veteran platoon vs. 1 Regular platoon. In Combat Mission Quick Battles we will never see that matchup because the force selection is by points, thereby making any force selections even no matter what the quality of troops. In other words:

1000 pts Regular troops = 1000 pts Veteran troops

It's an even matchup and either side has an equal chance of winning the battle, all other things being equal. The Regular side lacks quality but makes up for it in quantity. So it is no less "sporty" to choose all veteran troops. Nor is it less historic to choose all Veteran troops.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

that was my original point. yes if you take one veteran platoon against a regular one, 9 out of 10 times the veteran one will win (disregarding the uber combat bonus HQ's!). my original point was that for 1000 pts, the regular side will have about 1 or two extra platoons. so its not one on one.

so how many of us take more for less route, or take the less for more route. from what i have seen on my 1500-2000pt ME, it seems that more than half of those i play choose the less for more route. and i tend to buy the more for less. and every time i do so the comment comes up "where are all those men coming from?" that doesnt mean i win

it just means i have more to work with.

[Sergeant Saunders]

I can't remember who said it and I believe it was in reference to the Eastern Front, so may have more relevance to CMBB, but ...

"Quantity has a Quality all of its own."

[The Commissar]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sergeant Saunders:

I can't remember who said it and I believe it was in reference to the Eastern Front, so may have more relevance to CMBB, but ...

"Quantity has a Quality all of its own."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I always thought it was Lenin who said it, but a PBEM buddy inststs it was Patton.

Go figure

[MyNameW]

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

I also won't buy veteran tanks anymore. They just keep dissapointing me because they don't know how to shoot! I'll just buy regulars and I am satisfied if they cannot hit a tank at 150 meters with first shot.

The difference in quality is not as big as is in price.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Veteran crew will never abandon his tank unless it takes casualties. But regular crews may ran away even all of them (including their tank) are in good health

[JasonC]

Au contraire, my friend, the context was explicitly whether or not they are worth the price. And you said you once thought they weren't, but "one day, after reading this forum from guys like Madmatt and Steve (who were CM Veterans at that point) about how they choose everything veteran, I decided to give Veterans another try - and boy did they kick ass."

So the thesis being defended was quite clearly that taking all veterans (not some) is favored by expert players, and works. Which incidentally, I don't dispute.

And my point is that I have seen the "all veterans, all the time" approach so often, that I am sick of it. And I know why people do it, too. It is because it does tend to give an edge, at least with the most common levels of play.

And people on this board often ask "should I do something?" as though that is exactly the same question as "will it increase my chances of winning?" But they aren't the same thing.

You should not do everything that increases your chances of winning. Playing only the AI also increases your chances of winning (I hope to near unity LOL), but that is exactly the reason -not- to do it.

No, the point system does not fully equalize the effect of quality levels. Higher quality levels are usually more effective for the point cost. (In the case of infantry they sometimes do have one Achilles heel, however - running out of ammo, especially defenders vs. attacker odds).

If all you care about is winning, take vets like Steve and Mad Matt - and Pak40. But all vets all the time is a lousy way to play CM, because it is unrealistic, lacks variety, is less challenging, neuters half the effects of the command delay, suppression, and rally systems, etc. And when everyone always uses one quality setting, there might as well not even be any quality settings.

All things in measure. Some vets sometimes are good for variety. Min-maxing your winning chances and bending every aspect of the CM point system for the sake of winning only, including all vets all the time, is awful. It reduces variety and with it the enjoyment everyone will get from the game, and needlessly so.

Someone wondered if I am saying such things just as a joke, or to pick a fight, or directing them at one person. No, it is much simpler than that. I am saying it (humorously I hope, for the earlier installments anyway) because I believe it.

Personally, I wish the quality settings were set so that "medium" gave you an option of green or regular and let you mix those, while "vets" were only available (along with crack, or regular and crack perhaps) with a "high" quality setting. Because I think green troops play more realistically in CM, and that the real quality mix in the war was probably greens and regulars, not regulars and vets (as the units perform).

In the meantime, I can at least point out to people what they lose in variety stretching every nerve to win, instead of picking things because they are challenging or fun. In short, don't pick all veterans. Not because it won't help you, but even if it does. Don't, because it is boring to play all vets all the time on both sides. Use them sparingly.

[Commander]

JasonC - I will play you a PBEM. You take the green guys and I will take a mixture of regulars and veterans. What do you think?

[JasonC]

Sure, you are on. You are also the Allies and are attacking. Check your mail.

[edgars]

Will you give us an AAR?

[Spook]

Your points are taken, Jason. And you are right, playing with lower-quality troops on occasion adds variety & a greater challenge.

What is problematic to the wider application of your views, however, is what the central goal is of most wargamers, even CM gamers. They are still just that: gamers. And gamers play to win first & foremost, by the most sneaky, underhanded, knife-in-the-back method allowed by the game rules if at all possible. Especially so of those who are trying to move up gamer group ladders.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this, if such gamers are playing strictly from the viewpoint of "it's just a game." Of course, per your point, gamers who play like this----seeking victory through absolute optimized conditions, rather than challenging themselves on what they can do with "constrained" resources---should not presume that they can cut the mustard in a military training simulator, or that they are of comparable command skill to historical figures like Patton, Slim, Manstein, or Zhukov.

[Redwolf]

The funny thing here is that veteran tanks almost never pay off. And that is even for pure tank hunters (tank hunters in the sense how you use it, not vehicles type).

What you you pay and what do you get for it:

- less reaction time to new orders

- higher accuracy (about 10% less radius)

- less time to first shot (about 10%)

- higher rate of fire (about 10%)

- less confusion in certain situations, especially lower probability to just sit idle as regular tanks do sometimes

- better chance to spot enemy

- better chance to identify spotted enemies

- less chance to bog down and if bogging down, better chance to

recover

- less abadon probability on penetration or being surrounded with heavy fire

The critical situation where you need the veteran is the engagement with enemy tanks and to a lesser extend towed guns. Of the points listed above you only use the higher accuracy and time to first shot. The higher rate of fire may or may not make a difference. All the other goodies are almost useless, but raised the price.

The question isn't whether you are better off with veteran or regular. The question is if you are better off with a higher number of regulars, approaching the same overall price as a lower number of veterans. You spend about half of the veteran's extra cost in things that you don't need in this situation. If you would choose more regular vehicles instead, the overall raise in rate of fire and overall hit probability is much better than by buying less veteran vehicles. Try it out, the same points spent in veteran PZ IV versus regular Shermans (or vice versa) will amost always see the veteran guys as the winner when placed in tank-vs-tank situations.

Plus, the regular unit is more robust against bad luck and screwups on the commander's side and it has more maneuver units that allows for a lot of freedom like engaging units from more different directions, building reserves, guarding flags, single-vehicle attacks on defenseless targets like mortar batteries or transport asserts.

Another lesser know thing is that, at least in my testing, the veteran unit is often the one with higher time-to-first-shot time. Above I said the time was less for the veteran, but that applies to plain testing on area or soft targets. If you engage an AFV, the veteran unit seems to prefer to take a little longer for a better-aimed shot, while the regular one fires faster, but misses more often. However, on short distances (common in CMBO) I found that the regular behaviour has the better win chance, especially considering a higher number of vehicles doing it.

As for spotting, vehicles spot much worse than infantry in CMBO anyway. Infantry eyes are a must for CMBO vehicles in any case, it buys you almost nothing to get the AFV with the better spotting.

Crack vehicles are a different issue, my impression is that these may offer enough combat bonus to actually turn the chances, but so far I didn't make extensive tests. At least they get off a well-aimed first shot like the veteran, but in less time than the regular's quick'n'dirty approach.

If the game is very big (point-wise) and I can easily fill a combat tank platoon with the maximal useful number of vehicles (which is 4 or 5 in average terrain, everything else will scatter and arrive piecemeal and the advantage of number is lost), but still cannot affort a similarily decent second platoon, then I might consider upgrading vehicles in the first platoon instead of forming non-tough vehicle pairs elsewhere.

[ 10-18-2001: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[JasonC]

To redwolf - I agree uniform upgrading of tanks makes less sense from a winning point of view than uniform upgrading of infantry and teams, which was the most common cases. One vet per platoon may be reasonable for vehicles, from a pure winning point of view, and I also see little reason to upgrade artillery spotters (especially fast US ones).

To spook - I understand the psychology of it well enough, that is why there is something to talk about, after all. And I am not against people playing wargames to win, that is definitely half the fun. What I suggest instead is that people distinguish a little setting up the game conditions, including force selection, and fighting to win once the conditions and forces are set.

Trying to min-max the force selection and fight conditions stage tends to break even the best simulation. Because the bargains are focused on the weakest points - mispricings, overmodeled effects, particularly useful but historically scarce items, etc.

When players compete vigorously on this score, they are in a prisoners dilemma game. Each gains by going farther out into min-max land, but their mutual efforts mostly cancel each other out on the advantage front, while trashing historical and simulation accuracy, and game variety, as byproducts. They'd be better off if they cooperated at this stage - somewhat, within reason - instead.

Force quality is only one example of this, there are many others - super sized artillery, all automatic infantry, hordes of the cheapest guns, etc. Some try to get around this by having the computer pick the forces, but that has its own drawbacks.

Some "head game" at the force selection stage is fun, and it is also interesting to select your own forces, planning on various ways of using this with that. But it is the variety that makes this part interesting, and too much min-maxing damps variety.

It is better for both players to have some idea of the kind of force they want to simulate, and then to pick its elements for accuracy not for game effectiveness. When both do this, neither really gives up anything on the chances to win front. And they can still compete vigorously in the game, trying to get their force mix to work, etc.

So the point is to back off the push to win at all costs at the force selection stage. Be sporting and just try things, for variety and to challenge yourself. See if you can get some historical force mix to work, or some force mix you just thought would be interesting, historical or not.

Play others with the same attitude about the force selection and game conditions stage. This can be much more relaxed than negotiating "legal" this and "banned" that, which gets real old, real fast. Compete within the game, not at the scenario set up. You'll get more variety.

For what it is worth.

[Commander]

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

Will you give us an AAR?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sure thing. I always send a network camera crew to the front. Since I like to take risks, the crew is usually shell shocked but at least you get to see what happened. Funny thing...when the crew found out that JasonC was the enemy commander they started mumbling something about this being a suicide mission. Anyone know what they were talking about?

[Redwolf]

I would like to try my "veteran tanks suck" theory in PBEM. Not as a pissing contest, but to see whether my theory survives a human opponent.

Me regular tanks, you veteran tanks. Tank game, at least 50% points spent in Pz IV, Sherman 75 or Cromwell 75. If the German player can't hold himself, Marders. No howitzer vehicles, no flak vehicles, no towed guns. Rest of the points spent as we like, including tanks and vehicles with smaller than 75mm guns, but those vehicles must be veteran or regular as the player's main tank force.

ME 1250 overcast farmland med/med.

Any takers? email redwolf@cons.org

[Wreck]

Although I admit I have rarely tried them, I have never found veteran platoons to be compelling in competitive quick battles. (I have certainly faced them many times.) I prefer to play with more maneuver groups, more ammo to burn (especially on defense), and more bodies to absorb the enemy's shellfire.

I can see, though, how in games vs people that are not minimaxing their arty, vets might be pretty attractive. But I would not expect a top mechanic to neglect his arty. Not at tournamenthouse, anyway.

So I am not onboard this vet bandwagon I sense here.

[Wreck]

Jason, I can certainly see what you are saying and you are right in a general way. Assuming you can get a game with a person who you trust to be reasonable, backing off the minimaxing until the game starts is a good thing.

But that cannot be true in the general case. There are people who simply cannot toe a fuzzy line. And in any case, trying to explain this concept in IRC is not always the way one wants to spend time. (It is bad enough trying to explain what "fixed forces" means.)

The hypercompetitive game always has the advantage of being very easily and crisply defined.

[Sarge Saunders]

I may be a bit late coming in on this conversation, but here is my 2 cents worth:

Pak40 is absolutely right about veteran infantry. If I am going to buy a company I will always buy infantry. Despite JasonC, there is nothing 'gamey' about this at all. Pak40s allusion to 'Band of Brothers' is a case in point. This type of exceptional soldiering happened all the time! A veteran Company Commander can turn a battle. That alone makes it worthwhile. I have played PBEMs with Pak40 and he did beat me using veteran SMG squads. I did not complain? No I congratulated him on his tactics (I was completely surrounded!). In fact, I purchased a Sherman Jumbo (something some of these CM reality snobs would dissaprove of)

and it was knocked out easily by Pak40.

Veteran is not gamey!

Commander, I would not bother with playing JasonC. It would probably not be a fun game.

When you came up with the idea for a 5000 point QB I accepted because it would give me a chance to use weapons and units I normally don't in a PBEM. I am sure that the unit purchases we both made would be considered by some to be 'gamey'. Still the points offset the advantage. If one spends 350 points on a veteran 240mm Arty FO, one would expect to destroy at least 350 points of enemy forces (shattering 2 infantry platoons and disabling a tank for example). This does not always happen and it depends on the skill of both sides. If one buys and Ubertank (sic) for 300 points then will it be able to battle and take an objective held by a regular company of Volksturm single-handedly? Unlikely if the the Volsturm player is any good.

Yes, Yes... I know that there are examples when a Vet / Crack / Elite XYZ unit cost is lower than its ability to do damage to the opposing side. But overall, the points are balanced between quantity, quality AND utility. (a flame hetzer is a tough nut to crack under short 75 rules, but it will not single handedly win the battle!)

OK thats my rant. I generally agree with most of the helpfull comments here regarding vet or not to vet. Sad that some must "vet" their frustration by insulting others.

[Scipio]

Without reading all post above (I'm to drunken) : the troops are only as good as their leader. A stupid asshole can loose with an Elite force, a genius can win with conscripts.