Am I Bad Sport?

[Vesku]

Because I constantly refuse to play anything but heavy forest maps in 1000-1500pts MEs. My arguments are.

1.) If you fail to secure objectives first attacking is almost impossible because you have to cross very large areas of open fields even in moderate trees mode. Also in my opinion the more trees the more option you have for attacking meaning more fun.

2.) You cannot have enough arty/HE throwers to pound the **** out of opponent because of low pts limits.

3.) Too big luck factor concerning victory flags. They are not usually exactly at the center of the map and of course terrain will benefit either me or my opponent more.

I really love to play 1000-1500 sized games because I can micromanage every squad and still enjoy it, but in my opinion they are not very balanced because of mentioned things and winner is too often decided by how lucky he got when the map was created. If it was attack or assault the attacker might be able to use his superior firepower to take objectives but in MEs it is usually also attack mission for another player and he doesnt have the extra 50% points. Another option might be that I am just a crybaby

Cheers.

[ April 15, 2003, 08:38 PM: Message edited by: Vesku ]

[easytarget]

to me it just sounds like you've found a type of battle set up you like to play

nothing whiney about that

i happen to like the type of set up you're describing myself and often play qb's much like the one you described

moderate hills, moderate to heavy trees, ME, 1000-2000 points combined arms

[Dandelion]

This used to be called "swamping".

Suddenly, players stopped buying the formerly so popular "übertanks" - in fact they stopped buying tanks at all. Instead, they bought masses of infantry - the more the better, but quality was also a factor. At the start of a game they'd run like hell, disregard casualties completely and secure objectives. After that, there is simply no way of removing them within the timeframe of a ME. Over a period one encountered this a lot. But then word was out and it was considered very gamey. I think the ME setup dropped drastically in popularity.

If swampers bug you, buy halftracks or armoured cars. Run them toward the objective and somewhat beyond at the very beginning of a game. There you'll find the swamper masses running in the open - his infantry will never be quicker than your wheels. Voila, gun him down and rout the rest. Works every time. Fun? Nope.

Personally, I find the concept of a meeting engagement focused on a VP flag confusing. Forces that meet, both in advance, are heading somewhere else no? So logically, they would want to either break through or at least stop the enemy advance. To me, that sounds like exit points and casualty count. Not flags.

The concept of trying to secure an objective in order to force the opponent into the attacking role is natural enough tho. Germans defined offensive as the securing of froward defensive positions, upon which the enemy counterattacks would be shattered. If this position could be taken by a rush, they would probably not have minded.

I must as always recommend premade scenario's )

Regards

Dandelion

[Beta1]

maybe not a bad sport, perhaps just a little dull

I like the odd heavy forest map but to only play one type of map is rather boring. Your basically saying you dont want to play open maps because HE chuckers and arty is too dominant but instead want to play maps where the SMG is totally dominant.

Learn how to use you HE and infantry together and those open spaces stop becoming so hard to cross. Raise the points slightly (I normally favour 2000) then its much easier to push a flag rusher off a flag.

Look at it this way. If you play 1000-1500 points on a realtively open map then even if like you say the other guy rushes the flag and sits on it (say in a wood) you are a little stuffed as its going to be hard to apply enough pressure to shift him.

If you play 2000 points you can now afford an extra FO or/and some direct HE chuckers (shermans/pn4s etc). Now if he rushes the flag all he's done is provide you with a target. He rushes, you suppress his support elements and apply HE/arty to the flag until his men bug out. OK thats making HE more powerful buts that the point of HE - heavy firesupport.

And if your that worried that non-symetrical map will benefit one side get CMBB and just load up a symetrical map for your QBs.

[The Tanklord]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

This used to be called "swamping".

Suddenly, players stopped buying the formerly so popular "übertanks" - in fact they stopped buying tanks at all. Instead, they bought masses of infantry - the more the better, but quality was also a factor. At the start of a game they'd run like hell, disregard casualties completely and secure objectives. After that, there is simply no way of removing them within the timeframe of a ME. Over a period one encountered this a lot. But then word was out and it was considered very gamey. I think the ME setup dropped drastically in popularity.

[...]

Regards

Dandelion

Could you explain this further? When was this common practice? A month ago, a year, two years?

I searched for "swamping" in the CMBO forums and archives and came up empty.

The only time I can see this working is with parameters that allows you to dominate the map with ATGs, but then shouldn't it be the "explotion" of the parameters or the excesive use of ATGs that should be considered gamey and not the infantry horde?

I could be wrong though, it has happened before, so I would love to hear where this is comming from and why it hasn't been in the gamey-threads on this board that I have read (far from all, but they tend to repeat themself so I should have seen it at some time.)

[Dandelion]

Sorry if it offended you or your gaming style. But please don't drag me into any "gamey" debate. I was just informing this upset player here that he is not all alone in his dissatisfaction. Things repeat themselves, as you write, and this was just such a repitition that I recognised.

I first heard about swamping some years ago, don't remember exactly. It's not one of those things you note in your diary. But I remember clearly that it was well known and disallowed in several ladder groups at the time (there were quite a few such groups back then), and accusations of this hailed back and forth over pbem. Back then everyone seemed to have their personal rules that they tried to enforce on everybody else. It included variuous vehicles, units and whatnots. Sopme wrote these things down actually, and some sets of rules were used by various ladder groups. They'd be very upset if anybody broke their rules. Especially if they lost the game. I'm not sure if swamping was discussed in this particular forum, under that name or any other.

Personally, I'm not really into "gamey" debates. In fact I don't care for them at all. I think QB are ultimately gamey in themselves. Whether or not players "buys" infantry or Churchill tanks, or if they use their crews in combat or their machinguns as scouts, is really indifferent to me. If the game allows it, and your not going to be historical anyway, why not?

But it certainly works. Swamping. ATG or no ATG. Regardless of your armoured firepower, you won't have time to blow the infantry mass away. Try it out. And do you know very many QB players who do not rush objectives?

It would have worked in reality too. If commanders were oblivious to casualties and needed to hold a flag in a village for 20 minutes at a cost of a few hundred ordinary lives.

All the best

Dandelion

[The Tanklord]

Not offended at all, despite my handle I play all types of games/forces.

Apologies if I came across as so.

I was wondering about the date because I thought that this might have been an issue before I started playing CMBO.

I'm not intrested in the gamey vs non-gamey discussion either, in fact, I'm far from sure

that this gives any type of advantage at all so the only reason I mentioned the gamey threads was because you called it gamey.

Now regarding the intresting stuff.

The default numbers of turns in a QB is 30 and imho thats plenty of time to clear 1500 pts of infantry with a 1500 pts combined arms force against an equally skilled opponent. At 20 turns

it might be a problem, but then again, in 20

turns you don't have time for much fancy stuff at all and then the obvious choice is to go for the flags.

Of course there are maps were a infantry only force will win, what I'm doubting is that it gives some sort of advantage across the board.

I've played with pure infantry vs CA a couple of games and I reached the flags before my opponent and I would say it's about 50/50 whether I get kicked of them or not. Admitedly I haven't tried it with a green or conscript force to maximize the quantity of infantry.

The way I see it is that either you go for the objectives or you go for the enemy, if you go for the latter it doesn't matter if he's on the objectives or not. And yes, players that do the second usually don't rush the flags.

And before you ask, yes I've played some good ladder players, under diffrent sets of restrictions, some silly, some not. But never have I heard anything about not going pure infantry or not using fast to get to the flags, thats why I'm curious about this.

[Green Hornet]

My signature say it all with respect to my opinion on playing the same type of battle every time using the exact same or similar setups/parameters.

Variety is one of CM's strong points.

[Dandelion]

Well, the basic situation after a sawmping is that he is in cover defending and you are out in the open, attacking him with a force that in firepower is in no way superior to his. Pretty bleak odds.

1500 points will get you a battallion of regulars. Some nationalities will have to dispense with support elements, but a force of some 400 men is quite feasible even without exchanging support teams for squads or lowering experience (I seem to recall that elite and crack was often disallowed, a house rule I rather agreed with too, given the explanations given in the CM manual).

The idea with swamping was of course to use high firepower infantry, meaning Gebirgsjäger, paras or Volksgrenadier for Germans (as Sturm was often disallowed) and paratroops for allies. I've never heard of anybody swamping someone with English line infantry. That would be sort of cool :cool:

To shift a determined such force one will normally have to reduce it by at least 40%. That's AI - a human opponent will in fact be able to hold on though suffering up to 85% casualties, and he will fight to the last man by that flag, not regrouping to anywhere. That's about 160-350 men that need to be killed or otherwise taken out of action. Can also be expressed as 6-11 dead men every minute, assuming fighting starts at turn 1 and ends in turn 30. The enemy will be in covered terrain, heavy buildings if available. He will be keeping low and conserving ammunition. You will be advancing on him. I'd say it's a feat to keep up such a casualty rate without suffering equal amounts oneself, given that situation.

But of course, if you say it's not normally a problem, it probably isn't

As I understand it QB opponents started using swamping on both sides, meaning an olympic run to the objective and then a gory clash in the middle between two heavy infantry opponents. It would then be decided - just like Mr Vesku writes above - by who had the shortest distance/easiest terrain to the objective, and thus able to become defender.

btw, the sentence "have you met many..." of mine, above, was not intended to insinuate inexperience, but to highlight the fact that most players still rush objectives in QB ME.

Regards

Dandelion

[easytarget]

i'm more than happy playing ME's in PBEM

i play scenarios too in PBEM

don't see them as mutually exclusive

as for rushing the flag - all that accomplishes is an easy identification of where you're opponent is and results in a rain of death via a lot of arty

i've yet to encounter anyone in a PBEM game using this swamp approach you speak of - guess i've just been lucky in who i'm playing

[ April 16, 2003, 09:53 PM: Message edited by: easytarget ]

[lcm1947]

Vesku I kind of agree with you although at this point I'm not sure what I think. I just recently and I mean real recently started playing Pbem's and finding out that playing against the computer is not very good practice. I'm getting the stuffing beat out of me by all 5 of my opponents. I am completely off my game with these live people. Anyway, like I said I do agree with you about the open space and how you get across it without getting wiped out or at least a large portion of your guys but some do it so there must be a way it just takes practice I suppose. But I do rush the flags figuring the other guys was going to do the same thing but have found out differently - the hard way- arty! I also agree and prefer lots of woods but I don't think most people like that so hesitate to suggest it, but I could be wrong. So I guess I'm a swamper like Dandelion states. I actually would prefer having some rules saying that you cannot swamp as I think it's more fun trying to get at them (flags) in a more real life manner. I doubt that real soldiers rarely just blindly charged a location not careing how many lifes they lost or at least they only did it once. Anyway I'll not be swamping anymore and will make sure I buy enough arty to make my opponent wish he hadn't. That's a very good term Dandelion, swamping. I'll have to start using it. Interesting post by the way.

[Vesku]

Easytarget, low pt limits in 1000-1500combined arms makes in my opinion having enough arty / HE throwers for cleaning impossible.

Anyway I guess easiest solution would be to get learned in bigger battles where you can have decent stuf to clean strongholds out.

Oh and I prefer heavy forests because then atleast you can have some degree of suprise etc. Also the location of your troops is not that easy to spot for arty. In medium density maps you can pretty much tell it from the start were both sides will be when clashing starts. Besides they even dont look that "heavy forest" to me. This could be because I live in Finland and lots of trees is the standard not open field. Anyway thanks to all who have replied so far.

EDIT: What are these house rules? Some sort of "gentlemen agreements"? Idea sounds fine to me. I guess I have to some searching.

[ April 17, 2003, 03:18 AM: Message edited by: Vesku ]

[Dandelion]

Yes Vesku, house rules were gentlemens agreements, sometimes published on the sites of ladder clubs. Clubs such as those found here http://www.rugged-defense.nl/cm/cm.htm and here http://www.tournamenthouse.com/CM/ for example. Note btw that the No 1 guy in the latter club calls himself "Swamp".

Even the somewhat recent Proving Grounds at http://www.garykrockover.com/ has at least one such rule, namely about flak trucks.

One of the most savage rulewriter of those times was this Fionn Kelly fellow, a controversial kid in so many ways. He wrote these http://www.rugged-defense.nl/cm/Fionn/FionnKellyBFRules.htm

But hey now everyone,

Bizarrely, I feel I have reintroduced an old "gamey" debate and thus in a way have launched the idea that it is gamey to rush the flag. I just want to make it clear that I do not personally have an opinion on this, really. You go right ahead and swamp away there Lee

Your all

Dandelion

[Dandelion]

...it strikes me now as I sit and ponder, that in reality, paras must be considered swampers.

Pegasus bridge, Ste-Mere-Eglise, Arnhem. They all rushed the objective quite oblivious to casualties (in fact they estimated 80% casualty rates in at least one of these cases). The job was to hold the objective a few hours. If everyone died doing it, or drowned in marshes trying to get there, well then that was just too bad.

So there you have it. The 101st, 82nd, 1st and 6th were all a bunch of gamey swampers

Regards

Dandelion

[lcm1947]

Well it's a well known fact that air borne troops are crazy as hell anyway. and now we find out that they are swampy too. But no Dandelion I've learned my lesson on rushing the flags too early. You have all the heavens fall down on your head that way. Nope, I'll be slowly advancing from now on. I do see the point of thick trees though. Like Vesku says in middle trees you pretty much know where the opponent's troops are and he knows yours. We need something between thick and medium.

[The Tanklord]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

Well, the basic situation after a sawmping is that he is in cover defending and you are out in the open, attacking him with a force that in firepower is in no way superior to his. Pretty bleak odds.

Well, I don't really agree (suprise!). First of all he has given up the initiative, he is on the flags with everything hes got and intend to stay there. Secondly he has given away valuabel intel. This should maximize the effectiveness of your arty amongst other things.

Then there is the point that usually there is more than one flag, which means he has to divide his forces while you can pick him of one flag at the time. The flags might not have optimum cover, then he have to defend from a poor position.

To shift a determined such force one will normally have to reduce it by at least 40%. That's AI - a human opponent will in fact be able to hold on though suffering up to 85% casualties,

and he will fight to the last man by that flag, not regrouping to anywhere. That's about 160-350 men that need to be killed or otherwise taken out of action. Can also be expressed as 6-11 dead men every minute, assuming fighting starts at turn 1 and ends in turn 30.

Thats good since the your forces are worth a lot of points even more than the flags. It sounds like a lot of men but then again many players puts around 2/3 of the points into infantry which means you need to kill 4-8 soldiers every turn (assuming your math is correct ) and this most people do without a problem.

But of course, if you say it's not normally a problem, it probably isn't

Glad you see it that way

I'm unsure if we might be looking at this from different perspectives, with a historically "correct" force and doctrine you might be out of luck against this fenomenon, but then again your opponent isn't playing very historical either. If you and you opponent are playing to just compete I doubt only infantry will gain you much if any advantage esp not after the first game when the element of suprise is gone.

I have a couple of exams during the next 9 days so I'm in all out study mode, but after that I'm willing to play you a game. You know what they say, seeing is beliveing

Regards

Dandelion

Cheers

Tank

[Firefly]

To be fair to the ladders and Fionn, the 'rules' were never mandatory and are only used if both players agree. It was quite common, in my experience, for two players to play their first game with the rules and then dispense with them in subsequent games once they trusted their opponent more.

I prefer scenarios for PBEMs though, atlhough I still occasionally play QBs if an opponent wants.

[Brodieman]

In the end though can't all tactics be termed "gamey"? Personally i play battles how the terrain suits units, with occasionaly unuusual units thrown in, just to keep the enemy guessing. I prefer a mix of units though soldiers/vehicles/mines etc.. as appropriate, but i hav eno beef woth others who purely select forces based on one way or another