CMBB: Do you see something gamey here?

[argie]

I will put the 'facts' as neutral as possible. I will expose my reasoning later, when some people says what they think.

Sit Rep:

- Two experienced players met in a ladder's game. Axis attack 1500 points. medium map, 25 turns variable, town, gentle slopes, moderate three coverage (IIRC).

- The map is fairly flat, with patchs of threes spread as usual with those settings. Little cover at Attacker's setup zone. Defender's left flank has more buildings and LOS obstacles than the other. Defender's right flank has a paved road running towards the East side of the map behind the town. Another paved road intersecting it goes diagonally from NW at ~600 m from West border to the NW corner of the town.

- Set up of involved troops: The Attacker sets 7 AFVs + 7 HTs all carrying troops at 500 mts from the NW corner town in parallel lines of 7, back to front and side to side one of each other. Another 3 AFVs carrying troops are deployed something like 30 m at the South from this main body of troops.

- Turn 1: Some Batteries of Soviet artillery fell over the heads of the main formation, killing 2 HTs, killing the gunners in another 3, and making all the troops on the AFVs, but 2, to dismount under fire. The vehicles started to move forward.

Thoughts?

[kenfedoroff]

It's not so much gamey, but the result of some poor bastisch having to set up for target practice due to the nature of the map. Not much fun for either side.

My 2 cents,

Ken

[CMplayer]

First turn arty is 'fire plan' but obviously the defender can't have had a fire plan registered to hit that spot at that time since presumably the attacker just arrived.

This is made worse by there not being anywhere to hide.

A related nit that I have, is that command delays should be ignored on turn one. A vehicle with a movement order should be able to be viewed as having already been in motion as the game began, for instance.

This latter, in itself, would go a long way towards remedying the problem, since vehicles could immediately start spreading out, to get out from under one of these gamey, defenders' first turn instant arty barrages.

[walpurgis nacht]

I don't like to get hung up on whining about gamey tactics . . . it is a game! But there are a few things that are in painfully poor taste in this game:

-scouting with "crews"

-KVs in '41

-prep bombarding attacker's setup zones

If you're opponent was experienced as you say, he knows what he did was cheap.

[tar]

It is also possible that the defender forgot about the special first turn rule.

But on the other hand, attacker setup zones are usually big enough that there is no reason to setup quite as densely as the attacker did in this game. Side-by-side and back to front is just asking for trouble from artillery. They need to be spread out more so that they can survive the artillery fire.

[xerxes]

No, not gamey, just foolish.

The attacker clustered his forces, obviously in a location that the defender could see. Forming up within detection range of the defender is a really bad idea. Defensive spoiling barrages are perfectly legit. There is no reason for the attacker to make the spoiling barrage so easy and effective.

If I was the defender and saw this on the opening move I'd probably suggest we redo the setup. Not really a fun game if you've annhiliated the attacker in the first minute and there are 30 turns left in the game.

In extreme cases, prebombardment does become gamey. ie. playing unrestricted and buying 10 concript FOs and dumping everything on the first turn. After that the defender leaves the map and wins on kill points. Naturally the defender loses a CM opponent too.

[Redwolf]

I have seen a number of scenarios and quickbattle generator results where the attacker could not set up out of LOS or had only one out-of-LOS spot where the defender could klnow where he hangs out.

I wouldn't say it is gamey on part of the defender but it is a game and/or scenario error that an attacker may be forced to set up in a place where is is instantly hit by observed artillery fire. It is not realistic.

In my opinion the defender should have to order first-turn artillery before seeing enemy forces, whereas the attacker should be able to target as he can now, so that he can take possible pillboxes set up in sight into account.

Or scratch defensive preplanned fire for the defender, he has TRPs.

All that is made worse by the stupid incremental delay for waypoints. If the attacking forces even want to move along a road there will be a lot of delay.

[kenfedoroff]

Originally posted by CMplayer:

A related nit that I have, is that command delays should be ignored on turn one. A vehicle with a movement order should be able to be viewed as having already been in motion as the game began, for instance.

This latter, in itself, would go a long way towards remedying the problem, since vehicles could immediately start spreading out, to get out from under one of these gamey, defenders' first turn instant arty barrages.

Great Idea. Hope they fix this someday.

Sincerely,

Ken

[Screeny]

Sounds like damn luck of the defender...not really gamey just plain luck

[argie]

Ok. Good answers. Lets see how I reasoned on that.

1 - Game Scope: the CM battle is the critical point of the assault after the recon and the assembly for the battle was done. The assemble for an attack of 1500 points could take from half an hour to a few hours, depending on the Intel and resources.

2 - Terrain: there was good LOS for most of the map. The Attacker had a fairly big deploying zone, 200 m deep, being at 500 m from the defender deployment zone Western border. There were patches of threes to hide inside or behind infantry and vehicles. In fact, the two AFVs still carrying troops were out of LOS from the Defender.

3 - Game Limitations: at turn one, an armored force of 17 vehicles carrying two Coys of infantry suddenly appears, tele-transported, at 500 m from the defensive zone, in full LOS from the defensive positions. The assembly of such force is artificially 'hidden' by the arbitrary starting of the game.

4 - Attacker apparent intention: to exploit such game limitation, by deploying a force unmolested artificially close to the enemy and proceed to rush it inside the defensive position, by the most exposed flank.

5 - Attacker Tactical mistakes: to deploy packed. To deploy in full LOS from enemy.

6 - Defender's line of thinking:

A) Game related: the intention of the Attacker is to exploit the artificial start of the battle with a rush. The tool the defender has to prevent this kind of exploitation of the game limitation is the pre-planned barrage.

Realism related: the Attacker has a formation that is not tactically sound (a bunch of tightly packed vehicles). No real life commander can have the luxury of 'deploying' such force at 500m from enemy in full LOS without being subject of some kind of 'ambush'.

C) Historically related: the 'rush tactic' can be done, but is not doctrinal of any army in any time period. In real life is suicidal. Artillery bombardment of assembly zones (or suspected assembly zones) is doctrinal. The time for the assemble of an attacking force to take a town will vary, but will not be lower than a half hour.

D) Psychologically related: the Attacker was an experienced player. He knew that a prep barrage was possible. Thus, deploying that way, i.e., not in tactical formation, nor concealed or spread, was considered by the defender as a gamble, done by assuming that the defender wouldn't have purchased IF arty, or was unaware of the possible use of it.

7 - Defender's resolution: the Defender first choice was to use only one FO in the prep barrage, just to make the troops dismount and to show the Attacker what was he doing wrong. After further thinking, being the Attacker an experienced player and not a novice, the Defender finally choose to unload all his arty on the Attacker's formation, as an experienced player doing that was definitely taking a high risk with the expectation of a huge gain: to take his troops to the weaker (by terrain) defensive flank as soon as possible.

My opponent is accusing me of cheating and of unethical behavior. I've followed a well reasoned path to come to the use of the prep barrage in that way and I'm not yet convinced I was doing wrong.

Please, show me the fails in my reasoning.

Thanks.

[ November 13, 2003, 08:01 PM: Message edited by: Ariel ]

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Your logic is perfectly sound. Your opponent is a whiner. He took the risk, he takes the consequences.

Accusing you of cheating is ridiculous when the game engine specifically allows you to do this.

Regards

Jim R.

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by redwolf:

All that is made worse by the stupid incremental delay for waypoints. If the attacking forces even want to move along a road there will be a lot of delay.

AGREE.

The incremental delay for waypoints is not a good feature. It's justification was poorly thought through from the beginning and it works badly in practice. It should never have been put into the game. The arguments pro and con have been hashed out elsewhere. To put it briefly, it is based on a confusion of levels of command. If a vehicle is to drive down a road, the guy giving the order doesn't have to explain to them every spot where they are going to turn along the way. The same goes for infantry, where the squad leader will automatically choose a tactical route along the way.

[ November 14, 2003, 04:21 AM: Message edited by: CMplayer ]

[CMplayer]

Ariel, interesting reasoning. Now I'm less sure about it. Nice debate.

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

Accusing you of cheating is ridiculous when the game engine specifically allows you to do this.

This I disagree with. There have always been ways of playing which the game engine allows, but which are considered bad form. That's why we are having a debate at all, we're trying to determine what is or isn't bad form, not just saying that anything allowed by the engine is okay.

[walpurgis nacht]

Originally posted by CMplayer:

Ariel, interesting reasoning. Now I'm less sure about it. Nice debate.

I sort of changed my mind after hearing his reasoning as well.

However, in QBs, the attacker's setup zone is exactly 1/2 the defender's zone. So you can measure this as the defender and know exactly how close his "starting line" will be. Surely the attacker will place most of his units on this line. So I still generally think it is a little unreasonable to prep bombard the attacker in his setup zones.

But, it does sound like your opponent was just being obvious by starting within LOS, when he didn't have to. So it was probably a good lesson for him.

Certainly not cheating . . .that's silly. The AI does this all time. Which, I usually don't mind, because it's the AI

[ November 14, 2003, 05:54 AM: Message edited by: Walpurgis Night ]

[Dschugaschwili]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Or scratch defensive preplanned fire for the defender, he has TRPs.

Actually, that would be my preferred solution. I just can't think of a situation where planned fire would make sense for the defender. If you really want to be able to hit the attacker on the approach, make the map 500m longer and increase the time by 10 minutes. That way the defender has to at least aim at a moving target with his arty.

Dschugaschwili

[xerxes]

Player pick QBs are the most "gamey" way of playing CM. If you want to increase realism, you have to move to scenarios.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Walpurgis Night:

However, in QBs, the attacker's setup zone is exactly 1/2 the defender's zone. So you can measure this as the defender and know exactly how close his "starting line" will be. Surely the attacker will place most of his units on this line. So I still generally think it is a little unreasonable to prep bombard the attacker in his setup zones.

1.) Yes, and the defender is usually on the hilltops or close to the flags .

2.) No attacker has to put all of his troops at the start line.

With infantry forces, it saves several turns, but they usually can hide. When spread out (read: RL tactics), receiving some incoming in turn 1 is as bad as receiving it in some later turn. Advancing across the open always allows the defender to unleash his arty. I doubt anybody would find it gamey if the arty came down in turn 4 just 200 m behind the start line.

If a CM player wants to ride his troops as passengers, he can move them very quickly across the whole map. There is absolutely no need to park vehicles directly at the start line.

3.) Packing units in view of the enemy is usually gamey and everything is done to ensure a hidden assembly area. Had the attacker spread out his forces, the defender would still have been able to unload lots of arty - with results usually not worth spendign a whole FO

Please ask your opponent if he would have travelled on these tanks in RL.

If yes, he's an id...

If no, he is gamey!

Gruß

Joachim

[Andreas]

Heavy barrages on identified assembly areas were a common feature on all fronts of the war. If your opponent had the chance to assemble out of your LOS, and did not make that choice, his problem. If your opponent had no such choice, I would can the game and start a new one.

My £0.02.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by xerxes:

Player pick QBs are the most "gamey" way of playing CM. If you want to increase realism, you have to move to scenarios.

No doubt that in general scenarios are more realistic. But with regards to the problem discussed here:

I have seen a lot more scenarios that don't allow the attacker to set up out of LOS in more than one position than I have seen the same problem with Quickbattle maps.

The problem here is more in bad scenario design, IMHO, than in quickbattling.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Heavy barrages on identified assembly areas were a common feature on all fronts of the war. If your opponent had the chance to assemble out of your LOS, and did not make that choice, his problem. If your opponent had no such choice, I would can the game and start a new one.

My £0.02.

Well, yes, but in practice there are many scenarios and a good chunk of the automatically generated maps that have that problem (no hidden assembly areas).

The CM engine could help us with that problem by allowing defenders only a TRP-based preplanned barrage. That is good enough for realistic defense artillery. A defensive FO could come with a free TRP if you are concerned about cost.

A clean way to solve the problem. Restarting the game is not always an option.

[JasonC]

Gamey edge hugging flank rush meets gamey accurate barrage. Sauce for the goose, but not particularly realistic on either side. In a ladder game, it has to be considered acceptable, and your opponent must accept it.

There is no general need to ban defender planned fire with artillery. With tactical deployments, it usually is no more than a moderate payoff. The critical points are (1) the entire module must be fired, often wasting the second half of it because targeted men have fled the barrage zone, or are "overkilled" and (2) rally time to recover from the effects is maximum.

Most defenders prefer to dribble out their shells in 4-12 round mini-missions, to stretch limited support over a long time period. And try to fire close to the time of contact, to maximize the overall delay and to swing firefights in progress.

These are themselves gamey reactions to shell scarcity, and to god-like arty micro-control (particularly through use of TRPs). Compared to this quite common use, a prep fire at start up is actually more realistic, in the number of shells fired, length of the mission, and distance from the defense.

Nor did defenders lack info about attacker assembly areas. Intel is much scarcer at the start of CM fights than it usually was in the real deal. No man's lands were well known, ground well fought over already, enemy positions marked on maps or even photographed. Enemy operations security was often compromised, by signals intelligence or interrogated prisoners. It was not unknown for defenders to know the exact time of a planned attack, down to the minute of H-hour.

Real attackers do have more depth to deploy in than CM QBs give them. This is especially bad in larger QBs, on flat terrain (like this), with limited cover (this was OK but combined with flat, not great). One large problem with existing default set ups is that practical use of the cover almost forces wide front, linear deployments. Which are often tactically unsound, or very far from what one wants to address a particular problem.

Ideally, attackers would be able to designate platoons of their force for entry as reinforcements in one of the first 5 turns. Especially in battalion and larger fights, this would allow deeper column deployments. It would also preserve some uncertainty about the location of the main effort in wide open cases. The defender would know the set up zone would have men in it but not precisely how many or when. The defender should also be allowed a "reserve" to enter on turn 5 if he wants.

[walpurgis nacht]

Originally posted by Scarhead:

1.) Not a good defender. Hills are for a lone HMG or AT gun position. And flags are to be avoided like the plague.

2.) Of course he doesn't HAVE to, but use some common sense here. If you know the attacker's "starting line", with just a wee bit of common sense you can deduce where his covered startup lanes are.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Just to clarify my previous statement, I'm assuming here that Ariel hadn't previously agreed in any pre-battle negotiations to not use pre-planned barrages. As I'm reasonably sure that Ariel wouldn't break any such (hypothetical) agreements then no way was his use of the pre-planned barrage "cheating" or "unethical". I still regard his opponent as a whiner and a bad sport who can't stand losing in the circumstances I've described above.

Regards

Jim R.

[argie]

Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

As I'm reasonably sure that Ariel wouldn't break any such (hypothetical) agreements.

Regards

Jim R.

Wow! :cool: