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Thoughts on Scenarios


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Lets get this straight, I have never designed them in my life and generally I do not play them that often, however as I have probably played 200 + games not often is still a few.

I started playing in the early days of CMBO we would have weekends with four of us playing TCP/IP LAN games and believe me you can learn an awful lot watching games where you see both sides at once. And playing one or two minute turns you get through a lot of battles. Anyway so I tend to play fast. So that’s my background for the comments I am going to make:

Now I actually have enormous respect for those people who do scenarios and the effort they put in. If this comes over purely as a knocking piece that is not the case. All things are improved by people putting their views and kicking the ideas about to see if they are valid or not.

My biggest gripe about scenarios is that they come with an agenda. I will explain that. If you play an ME , excluding random forces, you know roughly what the other guy has to choose from and you know where the flags are. Good or bad you know the computer has no bias.

In a designed game you have more operating. The designer may have conceptions of what happened in a particular battle , or he may like designing maps and then makes a battle based on what he thinks will work.

To the player of the manufactured scenario he now is not only playing an opponent but the designer and possibly the play testers who may or may not have tweaked it “right”.

I will run through the types of design[er]

1. I want it balanced therefore I build a symmetric map

2. I want it balanced I give them equal tanks [ I always think of these two as placing one tank each on the end of a very long bridge with the flag in the middle giving undoubtedly a symmetric map and equal forces ]

3. I am going to recreate a historical incident to the best of my ability. That it is not winnable for both sides is immaterial to my aim.

4. I am going to recreate an historical battle and provided you do what I want you to do the battle is balanced.

5. I am going to do a nice map, I understand the units capabilities , I think this might work and it plausibly could have happened.

Design Problems

Let me breakdown what I think are problem areas:

1. Engine Mechanics – what the CM engine does badly

2. Bad design

3. Scenario single play versus repeated play

4. Scenario testing – quality of players

Engine mechanics

Under-powered 76mm makes Russian battles more uneven than they ought to be

Allied tanks zooming through tall hedges

Fortification glitch in CMBB

Squad unitary firepower

Uber-spotting

Reinforcements appear at random placing

Problems with bridges

Movement intelligence, particularly road movement where apparently, as in a current game, a tanks unit can plot a highly convoluted path around obstructions, shellholes etc whilst still 2 or 3 minutes away from tanks that have momentarily stopped.

Bad design

Accepting that the game engine has weaknesses designers should endeavour to avoid those problems outlined above.

For instance the Cullin hedgerow cutter was a triumph of PR over reality at a time when the Western Press needed good news from Normandy. Allowing for that opinion we find that ALL allied tanks can prance through tall hedges with ease. In fact the light Honey’s get through quicker than most whereas the mighty Tiger can never get through. Bear in mind that operationally the cutter was only there to avoid tanks going over and showing their belly to enemy AT assets.

Therefore any scenario that relies on this huge game design fallacy I am afraid is flawed.

Allowing reinforcements to appear on map in range of enemy weapons is a crime against good design.

I find that the infantry model is flawed , and acknowledged as such in that squads only fire at one target. So I believe that, unlike the heavily modelled armour, the infantry model is slightly busted and infantry heavy battles are inherently weak because of this.. The game was actually primarily tank centric and that this tends to obscure the weakness.

Scenarios: design choices

Firstly there is the very important first choice. Is the game for repeated play or is it one where you expect the players to only play it once. I think of these choices as surprise games and puzzle games.

The puzzle game can be won however it will need more knowledge of the scenario, and skill than an average player would bring to a game. An example of this would be Chaulnes Version 1 which also falls into the category of a surprise game also but would require repeated play to even beat the AI.

I believe Tiger Valley is strongly a surprise game as with perfect knowledge from repeat play I am not sure it is balanced.

One of the Monte Cassino games I think is a puzzle game that also includes a set-up trick to seriously increase the attackers chance of winning. Gate of Hell I think may be flawed but for certain is a puzzle game in terms of how to win.

Scenario Testing

This a troubled area as relatively few gamers help with the testing. Any balancing and comments therefore come from a small population and my concern here is that depending whether they are really good, or really bad players, may skew the recommendations for balance.

Also in those scenarios with several options open to players if the chosen option is a disaster the balancing adjustments may again be skewed. Repeated play will never be the same for these testers if they play again as they have too much knowledge of the game.

Unfortunately the only cure is more playtesting and fortunately at Band of Brothers we have been able to exhaustively play several scenarios from the Proving Grounds. Less helpfully some games are played mirrored or with advice from previous players so any reports on gam balance are thoroughly devalued for some one who will only play one side with no prior knowledge.

Lastly many years ago I was aghast to find that despite the acknowledged need to speed testing along that very few testers used PBEMHelper in trusted mode which allow 100+ email games to be reduced by two thirds to 35 e-mails.

I suppose following on from testing is the value of briefings..

Designers give hints which you have to interpret. For instance:

“When I designed it I put in heavy cratering to indicate where the enemy has a TRP.”

My next scenario after reading this piece of designer lore was to avoid heavily cratered areas – not that this in anyway applied to that game

“Your force is small so try to control casualty.”

I decided that the village immediately in front of me was going to chew up my 57 infantry so decided to to go around the flanks with my many tanks and get a cross fire on the enemy infantry. Regrettably the warning meant I was to dive into the village with my tanks immediately as my flanks were teeming with a platoon of Panthers. And my FO was shot from pretty much where he started the game as the Germans apparently could set up within 80 metres of me.

“Quickness might be your best asset”

I played this immediately after the one above so I raced my four tanks into town immediately. All four killed and the infantry on board wiped ……

Oh well : )

Good Design

Good maps help*. Options for players can really make the game so much more enjoyable. Tanks work well in CM so use them and provide BIG maps so movement is possible and can have purpose. Also BIG maps allow for the use of light vehicles. Combined arms is good so allow a large enough force that they can have realistic force pool to use.

* As a geographer and traveller I am perhaps a little pickier than most but when looking at a designed map just check there are no sillies , two large villages within 800 metres, or stone walls in a marshy landscape. An area of countryside with hedges, stone walls and wooden picket fences is very unlikely as one would predominate. I think it is easy to overlook the ground scale and realise that the area is actually very small for most maps

[ February 12, 2007, 04:47 AM: Message edited by: dieseltaylor ]

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diesel,

Nice post, lots of helpful information and feedback.

I usually fall into the 4 or 5 groups, the caveat being that in the case of 4) I provide tons of context in the form of good briefing maps, extensive briefings and background information. However, I pick situations which could be won in non-optimal ways, but the tactic employed historically by the winning side is always simulated and usually nets the best results (assuming the enemy hasn't been reading his history and was able to block that route). Obviously these type 4 scenarios don't have the highest replay value. For 5) I often call these 'historical' in cases where I a) know the time and place of engagement B) find a topo or hand-drawn map or at least know the general geography c)know the OOB's of both sides in some detail and d) place everything it proper historical context. The only thing missing is a blow-by-blow historical account at the CM time scale. I never end up as a '3' because I always tweak the flags, timing and bonus points to allow either side a possible victory, although of course in complex scenarios with unknown players you will rarely have chess-like balance. Also, I cherrypick historical situations which were close shaves and could have gone either way.

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While yur points are relevent, you have failed to point out that, also, it is players who have both an agenda and preconceptions.

And they will seek the scenarios by designers that they desire.

And they will write essays like yours, which will, by necessity be diametrically opposed to yours.

And round and round it goes.

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I must admit I thought it a given that all players have degrees of CM skill and good and bad knowledge of WW2 which gives prejudices as to what should have happened and why they lost : ).

That is what makes play testing so difficult as your audience ranges hugely in quality. However confining myself to talking about scenarios I felt was doable.

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No it's not a given under any circumstance.

The one reason people design scenarios for this and any other system is they want people to play them.

Why should any person play their scenario instead of any of the other hundreds out there clamouring for attention?

If you were to adhere to your guidelines most scenarios would play pretty much the same. It's also worth bearing in mind that most historical battles battles of any age are much the same. They also tend to be either hopelessly lopsided, tedious, indecisively dull or repetitive.

This is why you see the same battles published over and over again, there are very few interesting conflicts.

In over thirty years of gaming and a number of years actually involved with it (as a programmer and tester) I've seen these discussions more times than I care to remember.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, far from it, but I will point out that while everyone seems to disagree on almost anything there is one on which ALL agree.

A bad scenario is one that is not played.

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dieseltaylor,

A most cogent discussion. As for Tiger Valley, I will eventually be able to provide effective feedback on your concern because I'm facing a foe who has played my side (British) twice, the Germans once, and is playing as the Germans in another TV battle as well. Think I got all that right! In any event, my knowledge is limited to dimly remembered AARs from when I judged same for ROW V.

Thus, he has excellent intel regarding what I have, but not, by and large, where I have it. I have informed him that I'm going to practice Buddhistic nonattachment if I lose, which is likely, IMO, given his major intel superiority, but shall be vocal in my rejoicing if I win. Frankly, I think a draw would be impressive, but I'm going for the victory nevertheless. My chief advantages are my repeatedly demonstrated ferocious, tenacious defensive skills and a tactical cunning which may well set him back.

Victory would be all the sweeter given that he's an actual combat veteran.

Regards,

John Kettler

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I am going to interested in its replayability. I had the RoW game and have one half finished game and one three quarters finished game. I am the English in all of them and think it is a pretty good hand against an Axis who is not fully aware of the forces and timings.

There are lots of lovely wrinkles AND sufficient forces for the defender so I think it will always be a great game to play. Good luck.

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Originally posted by dieseltaylor:

Good Design

Good maps help*. Options for players can really make the game so much more enjoyable. Tanks work well in CM so use them and provide BIG maps so movement is possible and can have purpose. Also BIG maps allow for the use of light vehicles. Combined arms is good so allow a large enough force that they can have realistic force pool to use.

* As a geographer and traveller I am perhaps a little pickier than most but when looking at a designed map just check there are no sillies , two large villages within 800 metres, or stone walls in a marshy landscape. An area of countryside with hedges, stone walls and wooden picket fences is very unlikely as one would predominate. I think it is easy to overlook the ground scale and realise that the area is actually very small for most maps

Sorry to say that many many non european scenario makers don´t really have an idea what landscapes in europe look alike when it comes to crafting a map. They too oftenly create wildernesses more appropiate for most parts of deepest in russia (or the US!??). It´s mostly sufficient to consider that most parts of western europe is more or less densly populated and there´s few parts of landscapes left that weren´t shaped by man during past 2000 years for a particular reason.

Considering that CMAK is more and more used to portray and play NWE type battles, it should be kept in mind that certain terrain types meant to be put on italy or desert style maps, simply don´t fit on north-western europe style maps. These are vineyards, rocks and rough (mainly due to graphics, less so for effects). Many map makers use these to add "variation" on their maps, where none of this kind would be present in real landscapes (excluding those that are KNOWN to feature the metioned terrain types).

Map sizes: Not much to add actually. Make it appropiate for force sizes, range of main weapons and style of battle.

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