Ridiculous reinforcement locations!

[Hans]

Originally posted by Panther Commander:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by dieseltaylor:

I think one thing thta could be improved quite easily is to actually tell the sides where their reinforcements are coming in if they are road bound.

The player can at least then make efforts to avoid reinforcements being bounced on arrival - or choose not to.

As previously said by ne my worst scenario against a human did not even advise what my reinforcements would be!!!!!!! How can you plan a battle without knowing the balance of your forces?

My I make an observation that in the war I am beginning to suspect that you would count your troops in effectives - not "You have a second batallion SS xxxxxx DIV. coming in 30 minutes"

After all this could be any where from tens of tanks to ten tanks.

It may seem realistic to give the formation name but I believe the rejoinder would always be what is the effective strength. Some designers are very good about this - and to be fair one could even lie slightly to allow for off-board breakdowns and incidents : )

As I have never designed a scenario please forgive me if I have asked for something the engine is not yet capable of.

Having been in the military, I can't remember a single time when a Captain was told..."and you are going to get 10 tanks coming down that road in another 8 minutes..." Never happened. They would tell them "3rd Platoon is on the way to support you." And you DIDN'T CARE what 3rd Platoon had because you needed ANYTHING they were bringing!!

In my scenarios I NEVER tell the gamer what he is getting exactly. Tanks break down, air attacks happen, people get lost. There are no guarantees on a battlefield and if they give you an arrival time it will be wrong. I don't use deliberately misleading briefings though. Fuzzy is good enough for me.

Good Hunting. </font>

[British Tommy]

Another thing which is a pain in the butt, having to sort out the units when a large amount of infantry arrive on the battlefield as reinforcements. Much better to break say, a company down to platoon level.....but there again, you can only use so many reinforcements in a battle! :-(

[Hans]

Yep, a few times I've broken reinforcements into 1 turn "chains", ie three platoons arriving at the same location one turn apart. Makes it a bit easier.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Hans:

Yep, a few times I've broken reinforcements into 1 turn "chains", ie three platoons arriving at the same location one turn apart. Makes it a bit easier.

A scen of mine has half a btn of inf plus some tanks reinforcements. I had trucks waiting for them. 4 turns later the forward elements had raced down a dirt road and arrived in a recently cleaned village a mile away. 8 turns later 90% of the reinforcements were in position spread out across that village. It is very satisfying to see a perfectly orchestrated convoy. (Only one traffic jam when I got sloppy after the bulk had made it).

I would not like this in a medium scen. But anybody who plays a huge 10000+pts per side battle will probably accept this in those huge battles.

Gruß

Joachim

[ October 15, 2004, 09:39 AM: Message edited by: Joachim ]

[Joachim]

Double post

[c3k]

Gents,

A lot of well thought out observations there. I'd like to add the desire to have reinforcements appear in USABLE locations.

I played a scenario where one of my armored vehicles arrived as a reinforcement - IN A STONE HOUSE. It stayed there, functioning, but unable to plot a waypoint out of there. Grrrr. I consoled myself with the rationalization that I OWNED that location...

That occurred because the reinforcement zone wasn't large enough for all the units. I like a zone, screened from the battle, so I can organize the reinforcements into some sort of road-march or battle formation, then send them forward.

Thanks,

Ken

[Pzman]

Smaller amounts of reinforcements per arrivle help a lot. That said, the scenario designer has no control of what location, other than the general area where you place the reinforcement flag, that units start in. Sometimes I hear from players that in some cases a reinforcement zone is obvious to the enemy. Consider that there are only so many places on the map a designer can use. Also consider that the designer may be trying to keep the map small in order to keep the battle focused in one area. Sure this may not allow freedom of movement, but that was true with war.

In most cases it is a good idea to give the player a spot outside of view of the enemy, but a flanking move by one player can throw that off. I'd like to use one battle as an example. CSDT-To the Beach!, has a number of reviews stating that the reinforcment arrivle position is too obvious. That may be true, it is an obvious starting point in some ways, but consider the reality of AFVs and war for that matter. A road is the best way for a tank or other AFVs to travel, so they would use them whenever possible. Also for infantry it means not getting lost on route.

[Carl Puppchen]

I have never seen a tank placed INSIDE a building. Not that it hasn't happened, I just haven't seen it.

Actually the computer is usually pretty good with dropping units in kind of a "convoy" formation, with infantry loaded on tanks and supporting weapons being towed by trucks.

I am pretty familiar with reinforcements because the non-historical scenarios I set up have tons of random reinforcements coming in at all kinds of different locations. Usually the computer seems to do a decent job with placement.

Of course if I put them in an obvious place or somewhere where they will be instantly fired upon, that is my fault as a designer.

[DavidFields]

The preference for "exact" or "fuzzy" information about reinforcements, echoed in similar comments about briefings, and really seems to be a player preference issue--strongly opposing opinions felt by very good players, who have slightly different reasons for running CM.

But I think few people want to get overtly deceptive information (except in some very narrow situations), nor do most people want reinforcements to come in at a place they will be instantly massacred--even if I am the one doing the massacring, the exercize can feel a bit pointless (and I actually start feeling a bit sympathetic for the digital deaths). Unless, of course, the situation is due to some sort of superior maneuvering or flanking operation.

Overtly deceptive information, and massacres, may be historical at times, but it sort of damages the illusion that thinking brings about a better resolution of a struggle.