Speaking of gamey tactics...

[Vadr]

I recently had an opponent throw up his hands and quit a game on me because he thought I did something gamey. Now, that offended me some, because I don't think I'm a gamey player (Peng matches notwithstanding).

Here's the situation:

We are near the end of battle two of the Stalingrad Pack Operation "Der Manstein Kommt". I am playing Axis and have 6 tanks and a reinforced company of infantry. My objective is to seize a bridge over the Aksai river to relieve Stalingrad.

The battle goes in my favor. I suffer heavy casualties among the half-tracks but not many among the infantry and none in my armor. By turn 18 or so, my armor and infantry are in the outskirts of the village. I've killed about 8 Russian AT weapons and I'm not taking AT fire from anywhere. Haven't seen any Russian tanks all day.

I can tell he doesn't have much infantry left in the village, and 1942 Soviet infantry isn't equipped with a lot of homogenous AT capability anyway. My infantry will never make the bridge by probable end of battle because they are all exhausted/tired from the advance.

So, I elect to try to take the bridge by a Coup de Main. I send 3 tanks down the main road in travelling overwatch at high speed. 1 tank about 100m in advance of the other two. I figure if I hit a mine or start taking fire with the lead tank, I can stop the other two short. As it turns out, my opponent does have two platoons of infantry back by the bridge, but of course the armor drives right through them with no harm. By turn 20, my 3 tanks are sitting unmolested on the far side of the bridge among the victory flags.

The battle ended up lasting until turn 23. Because of the argument which ensued, neither of us did any more moving, but I felt sure I could have gotten the rest of my armor and at least some of my infantry up to support the bridgehead.

My opponent felt these tactics gamey in the extreme, while I looked on them as a calculated risk based on battlefield intelligence. I didn't think he had anything left which could hurt my armor. As it turns out, I was right. Had I been wrong, I would have lost 1 tank. Had I been *really* wrong, I would have lost all 3.

I realise you all only have one side of the story (I told my opponent all this). What do you think?

Vadr

[Horus]

edit because i was wrong.

my first impression was right but i was´nt sure

anyways we see in war humans tend to do anything that´s possible to win

[ January 16, 2003, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: Horus ]

[xerxes]

umm, I think you left out the part in which you did something gamey.

[lassner.1]

Your opponent is dead wrong. What you did was risky, and it may have paid off. Conversly, had his infantry launched a coordinated assault against those unescorted tanks he may well have knocked some/all of them out. In any event, there are *many* examples from World War II where commanders took far greater risks than you did.

My reaction, as an observer, is to say: "you seem to have seized the bridge with a bold maneuver, but watch out for close assaults from the Soviet infantry or from whatever he may be holding in reserve."

Is it "gamey"??!! Ha! Not in the least!

[aka_tom_w]

my only question is ?

Is there something "gamey" you did that you are not telling us about??? :confused:

Can we assume from your first post that your opponent chose to resign the match, leaving you to claim a Total Victory ? :eek:

-tom w

[Erwin Rommel]

What you did in my opinion is not gamey at all..you did what any commander on a battlefeild would probly do..You had an objective to achieve and you believed you had the force to do it with.So you took a calculated risk and pushed forward toward the objective.As it turned out your guess was right on and you manged to take the objective point.Hell war is nothing more than calculated risks.You used in my opinion was a blitzkrieg style attack of push the tanks ahead and the infantry can come up and mop up.

[ January 16, 2003, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: Erwin Rommel ]

[aka_tom_w]

"When I play I use tactics that were used then..and alot of those are considered "Gamey"..so thats why I wont play anyone PBEM games."

You mean to say the Actual Combatants in WWII on the Eastern Front used Gamey tactics to try to win? :eek: :confused:

Say its NOT so!

(HEAVY saracasm)

Who has the signature file that goes something like

"If you think the opfor cheats, wait to you meet the REAL Bad Guys in action!"

(I am reminded of that signature file now)

-tom w

[mididoctors]

Risky rather than gamey...

Boris

London

[RSColonel_131st]

Not gamey. How often did the russkys strip their T-34 from Infantry support when their men came under heavy fire. The russkys still sent their tanks forward.

It was obvisiously not a last turn flag rush, it was an armor spearhead with the infantry lagging behind (not uncommon for the german blitzkrieg tactic).

Well done, send your opponent here to read this and maybe give us his version of the story.

[Tigrii]

In my opinin, anything which isn't totally outrageous (like aborting to load autosave, using tanks to draw arty, etc) is okay. If you want to have a totally realistic simulation of the Eastern Front, you shouldn't be playing this, you should be working on a time machine. Any "game" has "gameyness," so just use tactics that best fit the game, not real life. It is up to the makers of the game to make it as accurate as possible. BFC did a very good job on CMBB, so play the game, don't try to make everything totally historical.

In this instance, it's totally okay. If you have some units that are virtually invulnerable, as well as very mobile, and some that are very vulnerable, as well as immobile (tired), and you want to go a fair distance under fire, which do you use? Gamey means that you did something that wouldn't really have happened in WWII, but what decent commander would choose otherwise?

[laxx]

i think your tank rush was unexpected, and perhaps judged by your opponent as gamey. I doan think there is any other way to further tweak the scoring system, and I guess scoring points via VL is a "feature" not a "bug".

I do not think it is gamey, heck, if my troops are exhausted and time is short, I would do a tank charge, well, maybe not as coordinated as putting up a advance tank in front.

Perhaps, one can prevent such misunderstanding by having anti-rush-at-closin House Rules ?

cheers!

laxx

[Heavy Drop]

If you had executed this using an unsupported, lightly armored vehicle, say a flakwagon for example, I would have considered it gamey too.

As described, I think it passes the gutsy test -- maybe not the smart test -- but it is just such audacious moves that win battles (or loses 3 tanks).

[ January 16, 2003, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: Heavy Drop ]

[Hortlund]

Who is this crybaby?

"waaaa, he sent his tanks in without infantry support...that must be gamey since I dont have any AT assets left"

Sheesh...

[CombinedArms]

Sheesh is right!

In 1942, this is smart. a well executed attack that is probably worth the risk. In 1944/45, with shrecks and fausts, this is suicide. But not gamey either way.

The real life accounts I've read are full of examples like this--as well as counter examples where commanders refused to risk their tanks in close urban settings without infantry. Either way, it's a commander's choice to make.

I'd say, dump this opponent and find some new ones.

[imported_major_tom]

Originally posted by Leutnant Hortlund:

Who is this crybaby?

"waaaa, he sent his tanks in without infantry support...that must be gamey since I dont have any AT assets left"

Sheesh...

ROTFL!

That is a good question so who decided to bail out on you??

-tom w

[-E]

Originally posted by Vadr:

I recently had an opponent throw up his hands and quit

I found it. there, right there (where I'm pointing) is the gamey tactic. You selected an opponent who would quit before the end of the game, thus conceding the battle to you. That was slick! Oh yeah, you misdirected our attention with your amusing in-game story. But it was all smoke wasn't it? You successfully drew everyone above's attention away from the true gamey tactic you're guilty of! ...selecting a weiner as an opponent!

Are you a magician/illiusionist or politician by trade?

[rucrazee]

(Pardon me if I repeat myself)

Gamey - 1. One who is victorous in a two player Combat Mission game.

Groggy - 1. One who is woozy from one who is gamey. 2. One who should stick to history books.

[Michael Dorosh]

Unfortunately, weiners aren't easy to discern. I had a truly sad individual quit a game after 20 turns or so because, after picking computer generated troops, he decided one of my tanks was "obnoxious" and he didn't like that I had Green troops compared to his Conscripts. Such is life. He was added to my blocked senders list and has gone back to being a non-entity. At the time I published his name, figuring it would save others the heartache of going through the same thing with him. The only defence against a crybaby is not to play him.

[ January 16, 2003, 11:12 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Seanachai]

Well, we haven't seen many big dogs bark at this rabbit, but I'd have to say, Vadr (spelt, but not bolded...yet) that there was nothing gamey about what you did.

Although we haven't heard from your opponent, it sounds to me like he's either mis-read, or chosen to mis-read, the idea of a 'flag rush'.

A normal 'flag rush' would be conducted with only moments left in the game, and by units that simply could not hope to hold objective if the game was to last any longer.

I would say that 3 AFVs have a relatively good chance of holding a VL until the supporting units move up, provided no one killed them in the interim.

The fact that he can't kill them doesn't make what you did 'gamey'. Of course, any knowledge of 'point limits', unit 'point values', etc. automatically leads to a player's ability to calculate potentials that would never exist on a real battlefield.

However, it's true for both sides. Now, if your opponent is claiming that you should have behaved as though an entire Corps was waiting for you there, we'd have to ask if he can prove he's always played that way.

Which would still beg the question of local units acting on their local orders to the best of their abilities.

Certainly no unit ever returned to HQ saying: We did a quick count up of knocked out units, sighted units, and from our knowledge that it was a 1500 point game, figured the enemy had nothing that could overwhelm or dislodge us.

Equally, not many commanders went back and said: Although we had knocked out a great deal of the enemy's AT assets, and resistance seemed weak, our infantry was lagging behind, and we decided not to use our perfectly able tanks to take the objective for fear that the enemy was holding several battalions of tanks and AT guns in reserve, completely unperceived.

[Scipio]

Vadr, this guy/gal is a Weichflöte (loser, softie & and some worse), you should inform him about that. You should also recomment him/her to play vs the AI only, and maybe to stick his head in the own arse instead of wasting good peoples time.

[LightningWar]

If this is gamey. Then Hitlers Blitz was just plain gamey. Luckily the allies didnt think this way and quit

[Lindan]

Vadr: ask him for his password and send me a turn prior to the surrender. I'll gladly pick up the game and continue. (you may include a note to where EXACTLY you send the tanks, so I can get ready...)

[laxx]

interesting quote on Jochen Peiper and his tank tactics:

"Obersturmbannfuehrer (SS Lieutenant Colonel) Jochen Peiper was one of the most sensational figures of the Battle of the Bulge. He was handsome, daring, intelligent -- and only 28 years old. He had risen to his command through a combination of talent, drive, and political reliability. He had been an adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Gestapo. Later, on the Eastern Front, he had pioneered daring armored tactics. At the head of a small group of tanks, he would raid deep into the Russian rear, shooting up supply columns and wreaking havoc. He always managed to extricate himself from apparently hopeless situations. His legendary exploits had made him a hero in the German army and gained him rapid promotions.

But Peiper was ruthless. He would put two or three halftracks at the head of his columns and then charge deep into enemy territory. The halftracks would be sacrificed but the tanks behind them would then take out whatever defenses had been flushed by the halftracks. "

lifted from a text file of the game patton strikes back.

[Mr Byte]

wow now I'm worried...

I consider my self to be a fair player. I really do try not to 'cheat/use gamey tactics' in a recent double blind game against two different players (same scenario) on the attack with the Axis I advanced my armor WITHOUT infantry support (I plain forgot to mount them on the tanks ) my armor out stripped the infantry and made contact with the Soviet infantry which I began to blast out of there holes

it didn't take too long before I had no armor left (bloody hidden AT guns :mad: ) my infantry advanced into soviet prepared defenses with no support :eek: well I lost that one.

My other game, I am the defender but because my opponent is out of town for the start date I do NOT load up the game to see the soviet side (I could have known the exact soviet OOB for the first game that way)

when my other opponent gets back we start our game he proceeds to hunt each of my AT assets down checking them off as he gets them, because he knows how many I have from playing the soviets in his other game. when he gets all of them, in comes his armor and blasts be out of existance.

Now I don't count my opponent 'gamey' he just had information he couldn't avoid using (if you know, you know)

I cannot help thinking 1. would I be considerd gamey for advancing my tanks with out infantry(ok it didn't work but it could of )

2. rushing the flags when I was the soviet player in a hopeless attempt to hold them for as long as possible (it was a sad and pathetic sight)

3. my opponent be considerd for using information that in reality he could not possibly have known.

like I said I have NO problems with either of my opponents both great guys and players.

but I think I will never play another double blind game because it is impossible not to use info you shouldn't have, but do.

sorry I waffled here I had a point when I started this but can't remember what it was now :confused: but I'm buggered if I'm going to delete this now!!!

[ January 17, 2003, 05:32 AM: Message edited by: Mr Byte ]

[SgtMuhammed]

If tanks were never supposed to advance without infantry then why make them any faster than a walking man. The Brits tried that remember, didn't work to well.

Standard tactic on both sides when attacking a defensive position was to pound it until you hoped the enemy was stunned and disorganized and then send in shock troops, tanks, or whatever mobile units you have to effect a breach and then pray that you can get your infantry up in time to hold it. There are countless examples of this tactic succeeding as well as failing. The point is that this is how things were actually done and in fact continue to be done.

As a commander you constantly evaluate what the worst thing an opponent can do to you is. From there you either take appropriat steps or you pray your opponent doesn't know or guess what that thing is.

RL example: We were in defensive positions (as OPFOR). American Mech company blasts its way through one of our obsticals leaving 2km gap on our lines. Luckily for us the follow in attack never came after we contained the initial breach because we had exactly one at asset left. Had the American commander sent his reserve M1s through the breach when we had such limited means to resist would he have been gamey? Does anyone think he didn't send the tanks because he worried that it might be "unfair" or "unrealistic?"

Tactic are tactics. Like real commanders you will only succeed if your tactics can successfully counter and overcome those of the enemy. If not you lose, such is war.

[ January 17, 2003, 06:42 AM: Message edited by: Sgtgoody ]