CombinedArms Posted April 4, 2003 Share Posted April 4, 2003 My observation, as an avid player of and fan of CM scenarios--and a regular reviewer at Scenario Depot--is that CMBB scenario briefings are often considerably more straightforward and informative than CMBO briefings. CMBO briefings frequently gave both players, and particularly, the attacker, misleading or outright false information. This seemed to be a deliberate aspect of the briefer's art. The phrase "no enemy armor is expected," in CMBO, seemed almost to guarantee the appearance of a flood of high test uber cats. If a late war scenario said, "The Germans are whipped. Don't expect resistence," one could be sure of a tenacious defense. Rarely would any definite info be included for either attacker or defender about reinforcements and info about enemy forces and dispositions would often be sketchy at best--and not infrequently downright wrong. The player's art involved trying to extract some useful and accurate information from the briefing's tissue of dubious suggestions and doubtful assumptions--usually attributed to "higher intelligence" that was generally (and perhaps humorously) assumed to be quite unreliable. In CMBB the briefings are often considerably more straightforward and accurate--they may be missing important details, but they often contain a great deal of sound information. It's common to get specific, detailed and reliable info about reinforcements, often including not just force makeup but location and timing of arrival. And attackers can more or less count on reaping the fruits of some valuable recon of enemy positions that took place before the coming battle. My questions for CMBB players is--have you also noticed this difference? And do you like it? (I do--but all may not agree.) My questions for CMBB designers are--am I right in observing this difference? And, if so, what is the reason for it? Most of the designers are the same people as with CMBO, though with a sprinkling of new faces. But the new design style seemed established on the CMBB CD, which was put together by the vets.One reason I suspect for the shift (if the changed is in fact real) is that the engine redesign makes attacking considerably more of a challenge in CMBB than in CMBO. Not only is attacking more difficult; it also takes more time, and requires more deliberate planning. Shifting infantry around on the battlefield, in particular, is no longer a simple task. So while in CMBO, attackers were given shakey recon info to make their tasks more challenging, in CMBB, they're given more solid info to make their attacker's task possible to accomplish in the available time. Let me stress, again, that I'm not complaining--in fact, I like the new style because, much as I enjoy a good riddle or mystery, I like to be able to come up with a coherent plan even more. [ April 04, 2003, 07:56 PM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maj Soshtokovich Posted April 4, 2003 Share Posted April 4, 2003 Hi, Well I totally agree with you. The thing now is for scenario designers to develop coherent games hee hee. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Posted April 4, 2003 Share Posted April 4, 2003 The process of design has been "improving" and adapting to the player users. FOW is still important but more straight forward, more informational briefings is the style. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manchildstein (ii) Posted April 4, 2003 Share Posted April 4, 2003 the 'vussolami' series - at least in battle 10(?) - uses landmarks to point out potential soviet gun positions. this is one of the methods designers have used to help give recon to the players. i like to give a bit of recon info in my scenarios... either in briefings or as landmarks or both ...sometimes it seems that if no such info were provided, that the scenario would be too difficult... it's interesting to think that much if not all of this change since cmbo is due to the new infantry model... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CombinedArms Posted April 5, 2003 Author Share Posted April 5, 2003 Originally posted by Hans: The process of design has been "improving" and adapting to the player users. FOW is still important but more straight forward, more informational briefings is the style. Very interesting. One thing I'm curious about is how the style got set. Was this consciously discussed, for example, at Boots & Tracks or Der Kessel? I wonder if there will be a new shift in style for CMAK? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apache Posted April 5, 2003 Share Posted April 5, 2003 FWIW I'm not keen on the 'Mills and Boon' style of 'novel' that rambles on for two pages before much useful comes out. The "Sgt X sat in his foxhole as the sun rose over the valley, then suddenly blah balah blah...........". I know it's probably intended to create ambience and do a bit of scene setting but for me at least rarely manages to achieve it. I do prefer the style of briefing that IIRC Wild Billl advocated with a brief (and MOSTLY) accurate account of terrain, reasonsable intell of positions and enemy forces etc. [ April 05, 2003, 03:19 AM: Message edited by: Apache ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jiggles Posted April 5, 2003 Share Posted April 5, 2003 Personally I don't have a strong prefernce for the style that briefings take, with one exception. Whatever the scenario designer feels like is part of their artistic expression. The exception is the deliberate and obvious falsehoods which you've touched on. Some of these deceptions are so transparent that they spoil the scenario for me. There are a couple on the CMBB CD which fall into this category IMO (naming no names). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Posted April 5, 2003 Share Posted April 5, 2003 Combined arms An interesting cultural system question. The briefing style has evolve (and gotten better in my opinion) as designers mature and get more feedback from players. Most designers are players themselves and we note different styles (that sucks, hey that is good) and we copy. Two destinctive types of styles are emerging in my humble opinion. "documenteers" lots of info, setting the mood and lots of background info versus "quick and dirty" the basics with little FOW. There are other variants of this but that seems to be what I've noticed but my sampling is unscientific to say the least! Hopefully when Cmx2 comes out you could have a button to select the type of briefing you want: Full background Quick and dirty or FOW (very little info except on your own troops) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CombinedArms Posted April 5, 2003 Author Share Posted April 5, 2003 I actually like both the "full documentation" and "quick and dirty" approaches, depending on the battle and the style of the designer. I will be interesting to see how things continue to evolve in CMAK, but I doubt we'll have optional briefings any time soon.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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