Moriarty Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 MT brings up a very good point. There's a lot to be said for the camaraderie of playing a pbem game. Some people say nothing ... just trade turns ... that can get dull. I get as much enjoyment from trading barbs, jokes and whatnot with folks as I do playing the game. I've met a number of good people out there who play fair, play tough and make the game a good time. I've also run across a few doorknobs, but, hey, it goes with the territory. ------------------ "Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change." -- Oddball "Crap." -- Moriarty [This message has been edited by Moriarty (edited 03-10-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moriarty Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 move along. nothing to see, here. just a server burp. [This message has been edited by Moriarty (edited 03-10-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Space Thing Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 I always like to give it my best when I play CM. If my best doesn't win the game? So what. I'll learn from the loss and hopefully do better next time. A lot of the times, I like to put my units in the best places at the best time with the best odds and let the AI win for me. Losing at CM (or any wargame for that matter) shouldn't ever threaten someone's self image -man or woman. CM is a game and afterall, games are to have fun with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFCElvis Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 Contrary to my self promoting personality the bottom line for me is "was it a fun game?". Currently I am playing 2 games that are very interesting and fun and although I would like to win them I will feel satisfied even if I lose (chrisl and MarkIV). And Germanboy I am not defending that bastard Meeks/Hamster but in the games I have played him he hasn't been gamey to my knowledge and actually the best CM opponant I have played since Fionn. The little piece of dog crap has my number. I think I am 0-3 against him (I could be wrong I may have beaten him a while ago and don't rememeber because my brain is soggy from too much beer and whiskey). ------------------ "When they finally put you in the ground..I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down" Elvis Costello Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever Babra Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 Originally posted by Germanboy: When a battle is over it is over - this one was. If I feel there is nothing left to do I surrender... I'm the gamiest of all gamey bastards -- I run away!! ------------------ "Za Rodentia!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 "Herr General, message from Berlin." "Vat does it say Hauptman Schneek?" "Herr General, From Berlin, most urgent and immediate - RUN AVAY, repeat, RUN AVAY!" ------------------ "Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth." -Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916) [This message has been edited by Bruno Weiss (edited 03-10-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 Winning is unimportant. I'd rather lose a good game than win a boring one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamsters Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 Ya, what he said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunny Bunny Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 I feel better after a game when I win, but I am not very good at CM so I have accept losses ! Regards, GB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fan Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 Sure, I'm a competitive person who likes winning, but like many others who have posted before, I enjoy more the thrill of discovery, the close of battle, the artful and dangerous give-and-take dance of combat, and the repartee that an interesting opponent and I can engage in. I enjoy most of all, perhaps, the chance to learn from better and more practiced opponents, and hopefully in the future, the chance to be able to help others learn. I detest sore losers and also don't much enjoy games where there is none of the back-and-forth banter. Just my $0.02. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Lucke Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 I'd rather lose a hard-fought battle than win a walk-over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goanna Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 To me it all depends on how you define winning. I just lost (surrendered on turn 15 of a 30 turn QB) to Tomcat, who along with guys like Sgt. Morgue, is about the best player I have ever taken on. Now against someone like that, I would consider it a "win" if I did some things tactically correct, kept him from implementing his plans, got a few good kills in and learned some new tricks to use on some other sucker. Intersting that winning, as stated above, is defined within QBs and scenarios quite differently than it is in real life. In the CMMC, for instance, prefecting a style of play like Babra has may well be more prized than fighting to the death ala Lawyer. Personally, I have yet to grind either beneath my heel, but they are on my list. I also want to play a signature match with jason because he is a mine of info and on the off chance I win I can force him to change his name to something punchy like j-man or jc so I don't have to scroll to read threads he participates in. Hey, you calling me a doorknob, pal? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 If I have no hope of winning the game I try to minimize how badly I lose. What I do to achieve this is totally dependent on the scenario/situation involved. Every game is different. If this means withdrawing until the program surrenders me then so be it. There's no sense in sticking around if your people are going to get slaughtered with little hope of doing likewise to the enemy. If my CO relieves me of my command for saving the lives of my men then so be it. Who is to say I wouldn't get relieved of command if all my guys get slaughtered needlessly? Either way my CO is unhappy. If in a PBEM game I have spent several weeks building an attack and my opponent surrenders before I launch it then I'm thrilled. I just accomplished my mission, took prisoners, and minimized my casualties. Surely my attack would have been beautiful since my opponent didn't even want to endure it. If an opponent consistently surrenders prematurely from my point of view then I would probably quit playing him as he is no challenge. As a CO he has no stomach for a fight. He should be relieved of command. When one player is no longer enjoying the game (he's losing bad) he may surrender. The winner should be a sport about it and accept the victory. Time is valuable. There's no sense in wasting it if you are no longer having fun. Being a good winner is just as important as losing gracefully. Treeburst155 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jd Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 Course this is the advantage of the cesspool - winning is a means to make jokes brag and puff hotair, and losing is an opportunity to make jokes brag and puff hotair. Actually I think my pool comrades play a "generally" realistic and straight up game. I have never had to deal with weird force mixtures. As for tactics, some are better than others, but it is the camaraderie that matters For me one of the rites of obligation is to go on the board and confess I sucked big time in a game (hear that chrisl, you'll get it eventually!) I guess what I am saying that alot of the win/lose is taken out if the guys you play with are straight up and decent (and if anyone posts this back in the pool, I'll deny it and that's my story, and I'll stick to it) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamsters Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 What I don't understand is that everyone thinks there are only three possible outcomes: Win/Loss/Draw. This is inaccurate, there are four levels of win as well as four levels of loss. That people only see it in black and white is a result of various ladders (And Lorak, you putz) caring only about victory of defeat. If we started to take into account Total, Major, Minor and Tactical victories, we'd see more realistic play. As an example, if a ladder gave 2 points for Total victory, 1 point for Major, .5 points for Minor and .25 points for Tactical, we'd see players take more into account regarding the execution of their battles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisl Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 Originally posted by Hamsters: If we started to take into account Total, Major, Minor and Tactical victories, we'd see more realistic play. As an example, if a ladder gave 2 points for Total victory, 1 point for Major, .5 points for Minor and .25 points for Tactical, we'd see players take more into account regarding the execution of their battles. Typical scoring also doesn't take into account the different types of battles-- getting a minor or tactical loss as the defender in an assault is probably harder than a minor or tactical win in a meeting engagement. The ladder at CMHQ (that never actually worked properly) was supposed to take some of that into account (attackers points, defenders points, and each of their victory points). ------------------ "If you can taste the difference between caviar on a cracker and ketchup on a Kit-Kat while blindfolded, you have not had enough aquavit to be ready for lutefisk." (stolen from some web page about lutefisk) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 I have to agree with the Horde of Rodents about relative levels of victory. It's one thing to have the game math declare you the victor, quite another to finish with a fighting force that would last another day (or hour) in battle. That said, I will speak for the "I'd rather win" point of view. I hate losing squads. I hate seeing my little Mark-you-know-whats burst into flames. I can't stand it when arty slams into my troops, especially those miserable 14" rounds. And I utterly despise losing games. It has (ahem) happened. I still enjoyed the games. Sort of. Usually, the closer the outcome, the greater the wellspring of resentment at continued losses, and the more likely I am to fight to the last cartridge. Still, it's hard to enjoy a victory that is so marginal that you know you were destroyed as an effective fighting force. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PawBroon Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 Not that GermanBoy here needs any support from me, but for the benefit of those who hadn't played him yet, here goes: Andreas is one of the best and the most enjoyable player to duck it out with. The fact that I had won in both of our games has nothing to do with it. Not only does he play well but he plays fair. When he is loosing he is falling back on reserve troops. When tanks, guns or MGs are KOed he runs the crews at the back of the map. Every game we played had been hard and had been thouroughly enjoyable. Falling back to secondary positions while being fired upon is a lot more difficult than to sit still and fight in a Pyrrhic way... ------------------ You are not Obsessive-CMpulsive, you are Allied-Retentive. Mark IV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knaust Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 How important is losing at PBEM to you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 Pawbroon wrote: Falling back to secondary positions while being fired upon is a lot more difficult than to sit still and fight in a Pyrrhic way... Precisely, well said Pawbroon. Which, would add quite a challenge as well as divert focus from the flag VL's were an option for withdrawal available "officially", anyway. ------------------ "Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth." -Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iskander Posted March 11, 2001 Share Posted March 11, 2001 Well, now that I've sobered up and can form complete sentences, I'll chip in. Winning/Losing and Setups When I play the AI, I use a mix of canned scenarios as well as QB's. However, against humans I have only played QB's. I rather unfortunately think that in playing another in a designed scenario the temptation to "peek" at the OOB of your opponent would be overwhelming. Only if an opponent and I had agreed beforehand that this particular engagement would be more a "let's get a feel for how this particular battle played in History" rather than "Have at you! I'll nail your arse to the wall!" would I use a canned scenario with a human. Thus, from the get-go, every PBEM I fight is immediately ahistorical; that is, gamey. Winning/Losing and GamePlay Although this Board's collective definition of "gamey" is elastic enough to serve as bungee cords for leaping off of the Jakarta Towers, I try to keep things simple for myself; it may sound stupid, but this is what I do: for issuing what looks like an "unusual" order to any unit, I "role-play" me standing there and telling that kid LT to his face. Thus, if I couldn't honestly say, "Nevermind them StuG's, son! Hop in that jeep over thar' and take that hill!" then I'm not plotting that MOVE order, either. I then base my troop deployments and tactics on what I've been able to learn from gaming all these years plus what I read from Real War commanders. This doesn't mean I never issue hard orders or certainly not that I've had entire commands wiped out as a result, but they are the only heuristics I am comfortable with. Winning/Losing and Surrendering The game that the Laywer (just because we're not in the 'Pool will I bold this) and I are playing right now will serve as a useful example. While not yet over, it's close enough.... We both started with a pretty balanced armor/infantry mix, mixed terrain, in the dark. To look at the map now you would wonder that Detroit and the Ruhr could make so much steel... and have us break it so quickly. We've both lost tonnes of men and armor and the only tank still moving is one of his MkV's. We're down to thowing rocks at each other in a small copse of trees in the center of the map. Should I have surrendered when my last tank bought it? When half of them had? When I ran out of arty? When I lost an entire platoon on Turn 2? Now, when my e-men are throwing crap instead of grenades? The answer is no, not yet. I honestly think that I might still pull off a "win" in this battle-taken-in-isolation. Yup, that's the key: if this was only one part of an Operation or a part of some kind of entire campaign (like in CM6: Beyond Your Ability to Afford It), Hell Yes, I'd have withdrawn/ceasefired/surrendered... something! But in this game are found a set of criteria that you just don't see in Real Life in general and Real War in particular. It is thus these gamey criteria and my rational or otherwise belief in victory that determine my endgame options. Bah. That's too wordy. Going back to the Cess now.... Iskander slips under the disgusting surface of the Holy Mother Pool with nary a ripple... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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