Lots of dust......higher elavations....longer battles?

[JasonC]

First, it is at night. They aren't even expecting opposition over much of the movement. Not the best example, therefore.

Second, the stated rate of advance, *planned*, is 100 yards per 3.5 minutes. That means 28 turns to advance 800 yards. At night.

"Move" goes that far in 8 minutes. With half stationary at any one time, they can use short bounds, and still only have anyone moving at all part of the time.

Third, they did not manage to achieve that rate. It says one company was held up "for a considerable time" after advancing 200 yards.

The rate of advance was not meant to allow for something as ordinary in combat as flanking MG fire. When that was encountered, things slowed down, to well below the 800 yards in 28 minute rate.

It says another passed under its own arty because the latter was 800 yards short, implying the enemy and objective was around that close by that point in that company's movement (i.e. if the arty had been 800 yards longer, it would not have hit the friendlies but presumably the enemy).

[Sergei]

Strange no-one's mentioned the enemy reactions yet. Have you ever heard of the term "initiative", and how the attacker is supposed to benefit from not giving it up to the enemy? Also ever heard the axiom "a counter-attack comes never too early"??? So even if your company might have all the time in this world, the enemy defenders might send a message to their higher echelon and request for reserves, effectively screwing your attack. Sending reserves might be hard if say the whole enemy battalion is under attack at the same time plus its support elements are being bombarded. But after a while maybe real attacks can be differentiated from feint ones, weaker attacks are repulsed and thus forces can be allocated to where they push back the enemy. Or, if the enemy is really on the run, they could utilize those hours you waste by packing up their stuff and retreating to a new position. This actually happened a lot in Lapland war - Finns come across strong German positions by the road, and go for a long hooking march through the wilderness. After a couple of hours the Jerry figures out why the Finns aren't attacking, and pull back a few kilometres.

I also don't think adding 60 minutes extra to a scenario length is a good idea when playing against a human opponent. Otherwise the attacker gets an overwhelming advantage (supposing the scenario is meant to be balanced the way it is). A scenario never ends too early for the defender (see the axiom above).

Just to see what I mean, you should see a scenario called "Making Motti" which is in the depot and nicely demonstrates the flow of a real battle. Taking ground is easier than keeping what you've taken...

[eichenbaum]

I think that the editor should give the designer every possibility, hours of fighting or a 500 meters high mountain.

Try to siege Monte Cassino in CMAK for example. That's certainly not a 30 minute battle.

It will always end up with lots of different kinds of scenarios and game play. That's why this game is so great

[xerxes]

The CM portion of a simulated battle is generally not the entire length of time of the battle.

Sometimes scenarios are too short, but that's a question of design and playtesting.

In accounts I've read of many small actions the commander did not have carte blanche for the time to capture an objective. Most CM battles are part of a larger action, thus the objectives need to be achieved in a certain time frame.

But, most important of all, most players don't like to sit in their foxholes while the attacker sneaks for the first 40 turns. This is a game after all.

Scenarios where in playtesting, you find that the scenario is ending while the forces are still heavily engaged probably have too short a turn limit.

[SgtMuhammed]

Originally posted by xerxes:

But, most important of all, most players don't like to sit in their foxholes while the attacker sneaks for the first 40 turns. This is a game after all.

Yes, the old hours of boredom followed by 15 minutes of terror doesn't exactly lend itself to a thrill a minute game.

The funny thing is that if CM weren't already time compressed people would be bitching about how long it takes to complete even a simple battle.

[James Crowley]

Michael

No need to be so formal; Jim is fine.

"30 minutes is not an unrealistic amount of time for a unit to cross the start line (now called the "line of departure) and be expected to secure its objectives."

Very possibly, but how many achieved that?

"Perhaps Mr. Crowley could provide some historical examples of company actions that were expected to take longer?"

Examples that were “expected” to take longer. No.

But any number of examples that “did” take longer, often very much longer. I don’t recall reading of any that achieved their targets in that time frame. Perhaps you have some examples of those?

"CM simply isn't a realistic game; a realistic company assault would be preceded by a ton of artillery plastering the target, with the company then advancing a couple hundred metres to clear out some holes in the ground or buildings, behind the cover of the artillery. Where's the fun in that?"

I beg to differ; IMO CMBB is very realistic; not totally realistic but a pretty good approximation. Can it be made more realistic and still fun?

Presumably that is one the intentions behind CMX2.

Fun? Much like marching green/conscript Russians over open ground under fire; fun? yes, insofar as it is a realistic challenge.

"Was Mr. Crowley advocating a game where we spend 2 hours crawling up a mountain to get in position for a five minute assault? Granted, it would be much more realistic, but who would want to play it?"

If that were a reasonable approximation of reality, I would. However, the climb may well have taken much longer, especially in Italy, and is of course out of CM’s scope. The assault, I would suggest, took far longer than five minutes, or thirty minutes for that matter. I’m not sure what you are suggesting; five minute firefights over a couple of hundred metres?

________________________________________________

Of course there were time constraints on company/battalion/brigade operations; I don’t believe any one is suggesting otherwise.

Only that the constraints are realistic reflections of historical events; that the attacker has enough time to construct an attack without inviting huge losses.

I certainly support the notion of longer, or even open ended, battles that do not artificially terminate at some predetermined and often irrelevant point in time.

And, yes, ammunition expenditure does seem to be something of a problem area. Do infantry (especially) expend it too quickly? Do they not carry enough? Whilst maybe not an issue over thirty minutes, ammo re-supply surely must be a consideration in battles of an hour or more. If not, then how were those battles (i.e most of them) fought?

[WWB]

Originally posted by xerxes:

The CM portion of a simulated battle is generally not the entire length of time of the battle.

[sNIP]

But, most important of all, most players don't like to sit in their foxholes while the attacker sneaks for the first 40 turns. This is a game after all.

Bingo. I did some polling a while back. The perferred length of battles was in the 25-35 turn range by a large majority.

And if players really like sneaking about for 40 minutes, they can feel free to lengthen the battles in the editor.

WWB

PS: The Seige of Monte Cassino is pretty much beyond CM scale. Some of the actions during the seige are quite doable in CM though, either as battles or operations.

[ August 24, 2003, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: wwb_99 ]

[Michael Dorosh]

I'd suggest anyone that seriously advocates open-ended scenarios (ie no time constraint) probably has very little experience in either designing or playtesting for balance CM scenarios! Time is one of the tools that a scenario designers uses to ensure a "fair fight". Given the normal 3:1 attack odds, an attacker should win every single time if given 200 turns to work with. The time constraint - whether or not it is handled well in most CM scenarios, which may be the real issue here - is a great levelling tool, as much so as throwing in another FO of 81mm or whatever other balancing techniques scenario designers use.

For what it is worth, I've often felt that with five turns more, I could have carried the day. Frustrating? Yep. But then, if I had been given 200 turns, maybe that scenario becomes a "can't lose" proposition, and that surely is no fun.

Given appropriate force balances, attackers in CM have no business losing, all other things being equal.

[ August 24, 2003, 01:44 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[James Crowley]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

Bingo. I did some polling a while back. The perferred length of battles was in the 25-35 turn range by a large majority.

And if players really like sneaking about for 40 minutes, they can feel free to lengthen the battles in the editor.

WWB

I too like to play short battles sometimes as well; however I expect them to be on a very small map with a fairly low unit count. That's fairly realistic. The final assault as it where.

However far too many battles, using the same time frame, are at batallion plus level and are often on quite large maps. What do people expect, realistically, to achieve in that time. This isn't just the final push. It's the initial bombardment; the movement towards the objectives (often well over 500 m) and then the seizure of the flags. There's no sneaking, or climbing to talk of.

All I am saying is where did this happen, historically, and when was the outcome based on the elapsed time of thirty odd minutes?

And if the historicity is unimportant then why in Gods name do we have endless threads on this forum arguing the toss about the correct penetration of this, that or the other AT round and a million and one, other minutiae.

For me, the "fun" in CM is being able to replicate - within obvious limits - some of the company/batallion level battles I have read about, or battles like them, in as realistic a manner as possible. In some areas CMBO fell short, which is why CMBB was so heavily upgraded with realitic MG's, fatigue effects and so on.

Surely CM is dedicated to, yes fun, but also realism. The length of battles, IMO, is an integral part of that realism

[xerxes]

I tend to disagree about using the number of turns as a balancing mechanism (in most cases). I personally find it frustrating to have a battle end just at the "good part." A good turn length to me is one in which the attacker has sufficient time to pretty much fully expend their resources (ammo, men, afvs). A good turn length also means the attacker doesn't have to "rush" things so much that they get butchered. When I'm trying to figure out # turns I rely on a number of factors BUT I assume (and indicate in the briefing) that the attacker is going to move forward from Turn 1 working to gain position and intel. If a player wants to send out numerous patrols to recon they won't have enough time.

Turn length really depends on the situation the designer wants to create. If it's a tight turn limit there absolutely should be a reason (and it should be clear in the briefing).

If it's a extra long turn limit it should be clarified why this is. For example, the briefing should state that enemy disposition is almost completely unknown and you should start with extensive recon.

As a rule of thumb, for shorter scenarios (20-30 turns), the attacker should start in the jump-off position within 1-2 turns of being engaged by at least the forward defensive screen.

One exception is that when designing for tournament play I use a somewhat tighter turn length due to the need to get games completed in a timely manner.

But it's always interesting to hear all the different points of view on this very important scenario design issue.

[xerxes]

If the scenario is a complete combined arms full scale battalion assault on a prepared position then 30 turns would probably be on the low side. I'd be thinking this type of engagement would be in the 45-60 turn range.

[SgtMuhammed]

One big thing people have to consider is where all these scenarios come from. The majority of us are not professional and these represent a best guess or a hey neat kind of effort. Scenario length is usually one of the last things that gets looked at unless the designer is lucky enough to have some dedicated playtesters to advise him.

That having been said, much of the problem with the time scale is the lack of prebattle knowledge. As it is actual game play might represent the final rush but because of the mechanics you still have to do your recon and your prep during the same timeframe.

Unfortunatly until CM includes some sort of recon element it is up to the designers to supply enough information for the player to operate with. Questions such as likely routs of approach of the enemy or defended areas need to be identified. The majority of battles are not fought completely blind. Surprises do happen but commanders usually did know about where they could expect the enemy to be. We can only hope that future games will allow for the use of maps during the battle briefings.

In many respects though the game itself is way to fast. I have often complained about the pioneers and their magic mine clearing but other things are entirely to fast. Building clearing is the biggest.

It can take days to clear a single building and usually takes hours for anything bigger than a standard house. In the game it is possible to clear a multistory appartment building in a minute. This is just not possible in reality.

Movement is also too fast. Yes there are times when you might actually walk non-stop for a couple hundred meters but what is more likely is that you will stop every now and then because you saw or heard something. Or you could stop because the LT is getting some new orders from the CO. Or a number of other reasons.

Yes this is a great game but it is just a game. There are compromises that have to be made to insure that people actually want to play it.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq):

Unfortunatly until CM includes some sort of recon element it is up to the designers to supply enough information for the player to operate with. Questions such as likely routs of approach of the enemy or defended areas need to be identified. The majority of battles are not fought completely blind. Surprises do happen but commanders usually did know about where they could expect the enemy to be. We can only hope that future games will allow for the use of maps during the battle briefings.

As has previously been suggested elsewhere, something like this can be accomplished through the use of terrain labels. The scenario designer could mark one patch of woods "Anti-Tank Guns", another "MGs & Wire", another "Mortars". The labels need not be more specific than that, nor need they always be truthful. Further, there should be enemy locations not marked at all. By juggling all these factors, one can provide the desired degree of pre-battle intelligence. Unfortunately this cannot be incorporated into QBs at present, but perhaps something like this could be included in the engine rewrite.

Movement is also too fast. Yes there are times when you might actually walk non-stop for a couple hundred meters but what is more likely is that you will stop every now and then because you saw or heard something. Or you could stop because the LT is getting some new orders from the CO. Or a number of other reasons.

A good argument for the return of the non-crawling Sneak command. This would trade (much?) slower movement for greater alertness and reduced exposure. By "greater alertness" I mean that they would be quicker to spot an enemy unit and to take cover and/or bring fire onto it relative to units using other forms of movement. These latter might require a little dumbing down to retain balance.

Michael

[xerxes]

I'd like to see an infantry "hunt" command where the infantry advance cautiously (using cover), stop to engage any enemy and continue their advance once the enemy is gone.

[eichenbaum]

Originally posted by xerxes:

I'd like to see an infantry "hunt" command where the infantry advance cautiously (using cover), stop to engage any enemy and continue their advance once the enemy is gone.

What's the difirence between 'huntings' units and the units with a 'move to contact' & a 'target area' ?

You can adjust the waypoints in every turn. Or do you expect the enemy to be gone in just 1 minute ?

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by eichenbaum:

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

I'd like to see an infantry "hunt" command where the infantry advance cautiously (using cover), stop to engage any enemy and continue their advance once the enemy is gone.

What's the difirence between 'huntings' units and the units with a 'move to contact' & a 'target area' ?

You can adjust the waypoints in every turn. Or do you expect the enemy to be gone in just 1 minute ? </font>

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

I just played "A Battle of Minors" from the CD as a PBEM. It has the unusual length of 24 turns. My impression is that the attacker has such an overwhelming force compared to the defender that the only way to balance it is to limit the number of turns. In this arrangement the strategy for the defender becomes more of a slowing-down-the-attacker game rather than actually trying to win outright. Time pressure can make for interesting variations in strategy, but I think it can also be a lazy way to balance an otherwise unbalanced scenario.

Dr. Rosenrosen

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by Runyan99:

It is my belief that World War 2 commanders had more time to make attacks than is generally given in CM scenarios.

Certainly they did, and 2 hours seems like a good time limit.

Well, we'd better shave a half hour to a hour off while your commander works up his plan, deceminates his orders and gets his me sorted out and prepped for the task.

Oops, better make those maps bigger so we can play out those exciting advances to contact. Nothing like exchanging 15-20 turns worth of PBEM files where nothing happens to get the excitement levels up.

Sorry, but 30 to maybe 40 turns is more than realistic for a battle starting at the point of contact. If you want to play attack/regroup/attack again, that's what static ops are for

[JonS]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

Sorry, but 30 to maybe 40 turns is more than realistic for a battle starting at the point of contact.

Berli,

I think this is where the point of difference is. I agree that 30-40 mins is enough for what you indicate, but the problem is that many (some? a few?) scenarios give you 30-40 mins AND start way back from when the guys step across the startline. So in those cases the attacker ends up hopelessly out of time, and/or has to throw tactics pretty much out the window in order to get his forces up to the point of contact in enough time to be able to win the fight, and hope he doesn't get ambushed too badly on the way.

Naturally not all scens are like this, but enough are to generate threads like thois every month or so.

Regards

JonS

[Runyan99]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

Oops, better make those maps bigger so we can play out those exciting advances to contact. Nothing like exchanging 15-20 turns worth of PBEM files where nothing happens to get the excitement levels up.

Maybe I am in the minority here, but I am interested in this part of the battle. I enjoy the move to contact, and particularly the uncertainty of knowing exactly when and where the enemy is going to be encountered. I like playing out the clashes between recon elements and the forward defensive screen before the attacker makes contact with the MLR.

I also feel that scenarios which include this part of the battle require far more planning, tactical guile, and overall 'CM skill' than a scenario in which contact is immediate, and enemy positions all but certain. Give CM players a battalion or two, a kilometer of ground to cover, and an unknown enemy position, and you will really see who knows how to handle their virtual soldiers.

Are Crowley and I the only guys who seem to have the patience for this sort of game?

[rune]

There is NO one correct way to do a battle. The majority of mine I add in plenty of time to recon or to flank. However, I did make scenarios to feel the pressure of time. If someone tells me there was never a battle where the objective was to stall for time, I'll gladly point them to several books.

A Battle of Minors was made with unbalanced forces and 24 turns to balance it? Bull****. One, it is 25 turns, and 2, with so many units on such a small map, more turns were not needed. Rosenrosen, will be glad to review any scenario you made.

Just as there are people who want to see if they could do better then a historical setup, there are people who only want a balanced scenario. Just as there are people who want 60 turn large battles, there are people who want 30 and small. The bottom line for the scenarios on the CDs is to give as many people as we can a chance to play a game design they like.

The people making scenarios for CMAK will be familiar. There will be a mix of scenarios as before. I look forward to the first "map looks autogenerated" when it is based on a 1:25000 map.

Rune

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Runyan99:

Are Crowley and I the only guys who seem to have the patience for this sort of game?

No - I know that Kip is too. Must have been something in those beers at The George you had when you were in London. Weirdos. What is wrong with battalion size 2x2km maps and a 15 turn fixed battle length?

Seriously though, I agree that many battles we see are simply too short. We have discussed this elsewhere, and I still think that even for a Byte Battle™ you need 25-30 turns variable as a minimum (the lower end if you are on a 400x400 map at most). For anything where you actually need to move forces, you need to give >=35 variable turns, IMO.

What I will probably do in the future is to suggest in the briefing to those who are interested in longer play against the AI to just open the scenario and give themselves 20 extra turns. I am also considering experimenting with non-game victory conditions, but am not quite sure yet how to do that, or indeed to make it work in multi-player.

[Wisbech_lad]

Yes, designers have to think more than just "30" turns.

But, many of us would not like to play too many scenarios that simulate the approach march/ FUP as well as assualt. There was one on the disc (relief of Kursun) that got slated because the designer (Franko?) was trying to illustrate a point that deploying from an approach march in poor conditions is tough. Many didn't like it, and complained their PBEM time was wasted by a "boring" approach march.

As for ammo burn out. Russian Recon C are your friend, backed up by SMG for the final assualt...

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Originally posted by rune:

A Battle of Minors was made with unbalanced forces and 24 turns to balance it? Bull****. One, it is 25 turns, and 2, with so many units on such a small map, more turns were not needed. Rosenrosen, will be glad to review any scenario you made.

Rune

Oops! Seems my wording was off in my post. I didn't mean this as a criticism, so I'm sorry if you took offense. Allow me to explain:

I liked A Battle of Minors, even though I got my ass kicked as the defender. There was lots of nice, up-close fire-fighting throughout the game. (Although I was a little grumpy that my AT assets were largely ineffective against the enemy tanks. Poor tactics on my part, I'm sure.)

My PBEM partner and I speculated that the time limit was very deliberate because he felt that he needed to sprint for the flag, and I felt that simply delaying him would be an effective strategy. As it turns out, when we reached the last turn (25), I still had possession of the flag but didn't have much left to slow down his sizeable remaining force. Unfortunately (for me), it was a variable turn limit, not a static one. The few extra turns were enough for him to claim the flags before the game ended.

So, in summary, I meant that the turn limit in this scenario seemed deliberate to motivate the attacker and change the dynamic for the defender. As you point out, this is a perfectly legit circumstance and worked in this setting. My comment about "lazy balancing" was not directed at "A Battle of Minors", although I grant that I didn't make that clear in my initial post. Even if I had had 50 turns, I was spent after 25, so the turn limit was right on in this case.

In terms of my own scenarios, I have a few. Perhaps I should get them out there on some websites and get feedback for improving my own skills as a designer.

Peace.

Dr. Rosenrosen

[rune]

Dr. Rosenrosen,

It is OK, I understand, going back and re-reading my post it seemed like i was challenging your opinion by looking at a scenario. We both did a oops! I mean it, as a few people here know, I am willing to check out scenarios and offer advice. Now, I don't want everyone reading this to start sending me scenarios, as my time is quite valuable right now, working on CMAK.

Mis-communication on both parts, and you indeed got the point of the scenario. Stalling for time in a restricted access [a mountain pass] was done, waiting for reinofrcements to set up another defenisve line. Rearguard action was another scenario where you had your work cut out for you by trading space for time. Greatly out-numbered, you had to infliect max casualties, and hit and run the entire battle while withdrawing. The scenario wound up 60-40 on who won [won't spoil it here] and people either loved it greatly or hated it greatly. However, it WAS something done during the retreat from Russia. If you are interested, I will send it to you.

Rune