The CMBB "Rope-a-dope"

[Crash Deaton]

I love both CMBO and CMBB but I have one complaint that I'd really like to see addressed in a patch or at least a future version.

The complaint revolves around the fact that the way the game is currently set up there is often very little/no incentive for a player to move on an objective until the last few turns in a game. Certainly, terrain can impact such tactics to various degrees in different batles, but for the most part I've spent way too much time playing games where I fight for and hold objectives for 25-35 turns only to have my opponent rush the objective on the last couple of turns with everything he has so he can be sure I'm pushed off it just long enough to get the points. It's a lot like Muhammed Ali's "Rope-a-Dope" boxing style. Let the other guy win every round while "punching himself out" and then move in for the kill in the last couple of rounds. A great tactic in Boxing and a realistic strategic approach for a war (especially Russia), but not very realistic at the tactical level.

I've had some military experience as a grunt and as an "air winger" and I can tell you, unless you are a SEAL, Recon Marine or SF guy of some sort, your mission is almost always to take and hold something - and usually you need to get there by a certain time. You know, they're actually downright particular about that sort of thing in wartime - just not in CMBO/B. I can almost here the orders now - "Sure, Captain. Show up any time you like. Just make sure you're there when the curtain goes down!" RIGHT!!

Here's what I propose:

1) "What time is it? My watch took some shrapnel" - Keep variable game end times (it was a good first step to solving this) but ADD an optional possibility for a scenario to end early if the objectives are <U>not</u> being actively contested - a sort of reverse twist on the current approach for dragging a scenario out.

2) "Where the heck are we -exactly?" - Keep the "Mystery Objective" feature

3) "We needed that objective 15 minutes ago Lt. Go see if you can reanimate those guys you just got killed." - Add definable start and end periods for when an objective is actually "active" and worth victory points and make it where these conditions can either be known or unknown to the other side (That'll stop those last turn rushes cold - -HAHAHAHAHA)

4) "Get the enemy off that hill before their big guns get set up. Their artillery spotters are murdering us." - Add a feature that allows the value of a victory location to be defined on a per turn, or a turn-by-turn basis. By this I mean you could either say it's worth a flat X points per turn between turns X and Y, or you could define a unique value for each objective, for each side and for each turn number.

5) "Get that hill so we can spot for artillery fires that are due to happen at X o'clock." - Add a "You must hold the objective by turn X" feature that could be set by the scenario designer.

6) "Make sure there's no bad guys over there and then go take that hill and wait for relief" - Add a "Hold the objective for a minimum of X turns" feature. This would allow you to simulate an objective that just needs to be passed through to make sure there is no enemy there vs. one that you really need to tae up residence on.

I'd certainly welcome any other ideas (besides the obvious answer of picking a new opponent) that anyone has for using the existing system to avoid this sort of P.I.T.A. gameplay until we have a reasonable fix for it. This is a wargame, not foreplay, and I'm really getting sick of spending 35 turns watching opponents "hang back" and 5 minutes on the real battle. Actually, it's a perfect analogy for the women's joke about men that say, "Was it good for you?" after they've only had a couple of minutes of serious fun. The answer is a resounding 'NO'. (Not that the game itself isn't a blast).

[ June 25, 2003, 06:33 PM: Message edited by: Crash Deaton ]

[Soddball]

I like some of your ideas, particularly the 'progressively decreasing value of a flag' idea. What you CAN do to alleviate the existing problem is pick maps with a low number of small flags on, and keep points values high. This will discourage flag-holding, since (for example) it won't be worth losing a 114 point StuG to hold a 100 point flag.

[Nippy]

Originally posted by Soddball:

I like some of your ideas, particularly the 'progressively decreasing value of a flag' idea. What you CAN do to alleviate the existing problem is pick maps with a low number of small flags on, and keep points values high. This will discourage flag-holding, since (for example) it won't be worth losing a 114 point StuG to hold a 100 point flag.

Oddly enough, I'm engaged in a battle like this right now. Shosties4th and myself are battle over medium size map with a single small flag at the rear of the map. As the defender, I can't afford to engage in suicidal defence. The attack can't afford to rush headlong into my defences either.

[Jack Carr]

I read your post and like your ideas. Certainly would seem to be worth some thought on Battlefront's part. Don't know how feasible this would be for Battlefront to do. Good thinking.

[MikeyD]

Some of your concerns are addressed in the variable ending option. Kind'a hard to rush the flag in the last two turns when you don't know which two turns are the last!

Most of your other concerns can be addressed by skillful scenario design. It's not really fair to judge CMBB on Quickbattles alone (not to say that you were). You want to take-out that artillery spotter on the hill? Stick a small flag next to him and specify it in the scenario briefing!

I recall BFC said awhile ago that they tried hard to avoid any hard-and-fast scripting in CM. They were afraid it would be too limiting. A good scenario designer can go a long way towards making you happy (though I'd like to see a LOT more 3rd party scenarios show up!). I doubt they'll do much reworking of the game engine for CMAK, but they've already promised much fancier on-the-fly unit control than is now possible in this engine.

[Edited 3... make that 4 times over. My typing skills are awful today! ]

[ June 25, 2003, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[tar]

I like some of the ideas for variable flags. I suggested someting similar, especially since it would allow one to design scenarios for things like a rearguard action where your objective is to delay, but not necessarily stop an advancing enemy force. You also need a similar time-variable feature for exit points. The sooner a defender leaves the map, the fewer points it's worth. The opposite for an attacker.

But as far as the flag rush goes, it would seem that if you regularly face opponents who do this, you should take advantage of this foreknowledge and prepare a defense of the flags that makes it infeasible. That means a bit more of a forward defense. Since the enemy is hanging back, you should take advantage of that to move the defensive line forward. Don't just sit on the flags. You can also consider doing some of your own spoiling attacks to dislocate the enemy forces before they start moving.

As for wanting to get an enemy artillery observer off a hill, I think giving the opponent such an observer should be enough incentive in the game already!

[SFJaykey]

I like the idea of flags decreasing in value, and in fact proposed a simple idea along those lines myself: Large flags equipped (optionally) with timers, which turn them into small flags after a certain number of turns.

In terms of a "take and hold" type of scenario, there is a great mechanism already in place: operations. In one op I am playing BEM now (it's on your cd), the attacker gets recon forces in the first game, some attack forces in the second, and the main body of his force in the third. I expect the defender to get counterattacking forces in games 4 and/or 5.... Ops don't have to take a lifetime to play: the one I'm playing has turn limits of only 15+ turns/game. Short ops of as few as 2 games could provide nice attack/counterattack scenarios.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Some of your concerns are addressed in the variable ending option. Kind'a hard to rush the flag in the last two turns when you don't know which two turns are the last!

Most of your other concerns can be addressed by skillful scenario design. It's not really fair to judge CMBB on Quickbattles alone (not to say that you were). You want to take-out that artillery spotter on the hill? Stick a small flag next to him and specify it in the scenario briefing!

I recall BFC said awhile ago that they tried hard to avoid any hard-and-fast scripting in CM. They were afraid it would be too limiting. A good scenario designer can go a long way towards making you happy (though I'd like to see a LOT more 3rd party scenarios show up!). I doubt they'll do much reworking of the game engine for CMAK, but they've already promised much fancier on-the-fly unit control than is now possible in this engine.

[Edited 3... make that 4 times over. My typing skills are awful today! ]

The original post makes a good point!

"Some of your concerns are addressed in the variable ending option. Kind'a hard to rush the flag in the last two turns when you don't know which two turns are the last!"

I must admit I play almost all my games in PBEM against one opponent. We always play prebuild scenarios and both mutually agree to play them double blind always.

I disagree that the variable turn end is not predictable

I think it is VERY predictable and the original poster makes a good point.

there is a golden moment near the end of every game when the gamey falg rush seems to be an obligatory tactic. Usually just in time to win and typically NOT too early to allow the defender any concerted counter attack.

It usually comes with 1-2-3 minutes remaining on the variable turn clock with the FULL expectation that turning a flag in the dieing minutes will guarrantee valuable extra minutes of play.

With about 2 minutes remaining you can turn a flag quickly and because it changed know that you have at least 2 more minutes of battle before the game ends, sometimes it goes longer, but you can always count on at least one or two extra minutes if a flag changes hands in the last 2-3 minutes of a game.

I think it is predictable and good players time their attacks knowing there will always be just a few extra minutes to finish off the defenders in "overtime"

I think the original poster makes a GREAT point!

-tom w

[ June 25, 2003, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Crash Deaton]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

there is a golden moment near the end of every game when the gamey flag rush seems to be an obligatory tactic. Usually just in time to win and typically NOT too early to allow the defender any concerted counter attack.... I think it is predictable and good players time their attacks knowing there will always be just a few extra minutes to finish off the defenders in "overtime"

BINGO! You just described almost every PBEM Club game I've played over the last 6 months.

To be clear here, I really don't fault my opponents for what some refer to as "gamey" tactics. It's just a function of the 2.5 dimensional objectives in these games.

(The following is not meant as a slam against the game or anyone. Hell, I like this game a lot better than I did my first wife! Please give me a shot at explaining myself before you get ticked at me )

With few exceptions, EVERY military objective exists as:

1) A Place (that might move around a bit if the objective is potentially mobile)

2) A Time (which might be a single fixed point in time, a series of single-event times, or variable period with variable starting and/or ending time)

3) Degree of importance (which can also vary because of a host other factors including changes in Times and Places brought about for any reason whatever)

Finally, remember that "No plan ever survives contact with the enemy" and tuck away the fact that all of the above is subject to change, on-the-fly, with (or without) notice, and you have the basic ingredients for a Military Objective.

so...

We already have control over the Place as long as we are happy with fixed point objectives. I'd love to see individual units be able to be assigned an additional objective point value so you could do a "Kill or Capture Hitler (or the HQ Unit, etc.)" scenario or something along those lines - but I digress a bit from my main point

As it exists right now, we can really only control the Time element of an objective in one way. We set the scenario length and decide if it is variable or not. That's it. It's a car with an ignition key, but no brakes or gas pedal - but you do get to decide if you want to measure the gas in the tank or just "eyeball" it. Either way, it's "Just drive 'til she quits, pal. And, by the way, the Highway Patrol knows exactly where you are going, when you have to be there, and they're waiting for you. Have a fun trip!"

Without regard to what decisions we make on the game length, the only Time that <U>really</u> ever matters in CM games, is the very last turn. And for us "serious" players that play enough to learn such nuance in a game, it can tend to give us something more akin to "Stepping on a Landmine" than a "Combat Mission".

If the mission is to get someone/thing/unit to be somewhere on turn 20 so they can cap Adolph's motorcade as he drives by there and put an early end to the war, you're going to have to make it a twenty turn game without a variable end time because that road junction isn't really worth squat before turn 19 ends or after turn 21 starts. I could certainly be "creative" with scenario design and do that, but the real action in any assasination scenario would be much more apt to happen on turn 21 AFTER the first shot was fired. Alas, we won't get to see that because our game just ended.

Degree of Importance is the last element to an objective and that is also a fixed value right now. Much of the time that is probably fine given the time scale of most CM games. That said, in wartime there are certainly lots of situations where the longer you don't hold an objective the worse a situation might become.

Since CMBO pretty much defined playable tactical anyway (after they went and over-complicated good ol' Squad Leader with the ASL Library of Congress)I'm guessing that most of us grew up playing more operational and strategic type wargames where we were trained to think of an objective as a big place you go capture and hang on to while you are marching for Moscow, Berlin, Paris or Rome.

I know BFC tests the hell out of things to make sure they're great, but I think the collective "we" took our eyes off the tactical ball just a bit and let an a operational way of thinking about victory survive the translation into a tactical game. I hate to say it, because I really don't like much about the 1st-person tactical shooters, but the Clancy stuff that I've seen does a much better job of simulating the intricate timed "Ballet of Combat" than does CMBB, just on a smaller scale. It's a easy mistake to make that a lot of young platoon commanders make in real life because we're programmed almost from birth that you have to hold onto things after you get them. In the tactical world, things are cut with sharp knife and possession of the turf at a given point in time is usually what matters most.

IMO, we need more control over our objective's timing and values to really be able to realize the full potential of this game for simulating real-life combat missions. I know serious changes require serious money and the current game is pretty damn close to perfect already (and would be if everyone played it as if their life was really on the line). So I'd really like to find a solution that is workable AND viable. The simplest and most flexible solution I can think of would only require that each objective have a seperate table for each side with turn-by-turn values for that objective. It seems to me like a simple way to facilitate modeling almost any set of circumstances we might want to create and it offers the added benefit that existing scenarios objectives could default to the same single value they are currently assigned on every turn and the added functionality could be added to future scenarios (and I'm sure that the MOD community would do something about the current "stock" scenarios pretty fast once the ability was there).

OK, I'll shut up now.

[ June 25, 2003, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: Crash Deaton ]

[['nzn]]

I once thought out this one: make exit zones for the both players on the opposite sides of the map, for them to rush through each other.. then you wont get any unnecessary waiting

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Crash Deaton:

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

there is a golden moment near the end of every game when the gamey flag rush seems to be an obligatory tactic. Usually just in time to win and typically NOT too early to allow the defender any concerted counter attack.... I think it is predictable and good players time their attacks knowing there will always be just a few extra minutes to finish off the defenders in "overtime"

BINGO! You just described almost every PBEM Club game I've played over the last 6 months.

To be clear here, I really don't fault my opponents for what some refer to as "gamey" tactics. It's just a function of the 2.5 dimensional objectives in these games.

(The following is not meant as a slam against the game or anyone. Hell, I like this game a lot better than I did my first wife! Please give me a shot at explaining myself before you get ticked at me )

With few exceptions, EVERY military objective exists as:

1) A Place (that might move around a bit if the objective is potentially mobile)

2) A Time (which might be a single fixed point in time, a series of single-event times, or variable period with variable starting and/or ending time)

3) Degree of importance (which can also vary because of a host other factors including changes in Times and Places brought about for any reason whatever)

Finally, remember that "No plan ever survives contact with the enemy" and tuck away the fact that all of the above is subject to change, on-the-fly, with (or without) notice, and you have the basic ingredients for a Military Objective.

so...

We already have control over the Place as long as we are happy with fixed point objectives. I'd love to see individual units be able to be assigned an additional objective point value so you could do a "Kill or Capture Hitler (or the HQ Unit, etc.)" scenario or something along those lines - but I digress a bit from my main point

As it exists right now, we can really only control the Time element of an objective in one way. We set the scenario length and decide if it is variable or not. That's it. It's a car with an ignition key, but no brakes or gas pedal - but you do get to decide if you want to measure the gas in the tank or just "eyeball" it. Either way, it's "Just drive 'til she quits, pal. And, by the way, the Highway Patrol knows exactly where you are going, when you have to be there, and they're waiting for you. Have a fun trip!"

Without regard to what decisions we make on the game length, the only Time that <U>really</u> ever matters in CM games, is the very last turn. And for us "serious" players that play enough to learn such nuance in a game, it can tend to give us something more akin to "Stepping on a Landmine" than a "Combat Mission".

If the mission is to get someone/thing/unit to be somewhere on turn 20 so they can cap Adolph's motorcade as he drives by there and put an early end to the war, you're going to have to make it a twenty turn game without a variable end time because that road junction isn't really worth squat before turn 19 ends or after turn 21 starts. I could certainly be "creative" with scenario design and do that, but the real action in any assasination scenario would be much more apt to happen on turn 21 AFTER the first shot was fired. Alas, we won't get to see that because our game just ended.

Degree of Importance is the last element to an objective and that is also a fixed value right now. Much of the time that is probably fine given the time scale of most CM games. That said, in wartime there are certainly lots of situations where the longer you don't hold an objective the worse a situation might become.

Since CMBO pretty much defined playable tactical anyway (after they went and over-complicated good ol' Squad Leader with the ASL Library of Congress)I'm guessing that most of us grew up playing more operational and strategic type wargames where we were trained to think of an objective as a big place you go capture and hang on to while you are marching for Moscow, Berlin, Paris or Rome.

I know BFC tests the hell out of things to make sure they're great, but I think the collective "we" took our eyes off the tactical ball just a bit and let an a operational way of thinking about victory survive the translation into a tactical game. I hate to say it, because I really don't like much about the 1st-person tactical shooters, but the Clancy stuff that I've seen does a much better job of simulating the intricate timed "Ballet of Combat" than does CMBB, just on a smaller scale. It's a easy mistake to make that a lot of young platoon commanders make in real life because we're programmed almost from birth that you have to hold onto things after you get them. In the tactical world, things are cut with sharp knife and possession of the turf at a given point in time is usually what matters most.

IMO, we need more control over our objective's timing and values to really be able to realize the full potential of this game for simulating real-life combat missions. I know serious changes require serious money and the current game is pretty damn close to perfect already (and would be if everyone played it as if their life was really on the line). So I'd really like to find a solution that is workable AND viable. The simplest and most flexible solution I can think of would only require that each objective have a seperate table for each side with turn-by-turn values for that objective. It seems to me like a simple way to facilitate modeling almost any set of circumstances we might want to create and it offers the added benefit that existing scenarios objectives could default to the same single value they are currently assigned on every turn and the added functionality could be added to future scenarios (and I'm sure that the MOD community would do something about the current "stock" scenarios pretty fast once the ability was there).

OK, I'll shut up now. </font>

[Crash Deaton]

skilled players know how master the timing of the gamey flag rush and use the variable time to their advantage to dominate the battle in its dying moments.

Does anyone whole hearted disagree with this observation?

Not at all Tom, I agree completely. I guess the real point of this whole thing is that the lack of a time or value variable for objectives really forces us, in some ways at least, to have to fight the same battle over and over. (At least it will have the same tempo almost every time.)

Clearly, that's not taking full advantage of this great game. That's really all I'[m driving at with any of this.

Cheers to all!

[Pud]

Hi all.

I had made a mod last year which effectively made the turn number blank, so you couldnt even tell what the current turn is. It works so long as you trusted your opponent to use it as well. Couple this with random turn end and say bye bye to end game flag rushes.

[Erik Nygaard]

Originally posted by Pud:

Hi all.

I had made a mod last year which effectively made the turn number blank, so you couldnt even tell what the current turn is. It works so long as you trusted your opponent to use it as well. Couple this with random turn end and say bye bye to end game flag rushes.

Sounds interesting. Where do we get hold of it?

Thanks

Erik

[Dschugaschwili]

Originally posted by ['nzn]:

I once thought out this one: make exit zones for the both players on the opposite sides of the map, for them to rush through each other.. then you wont get any unnecessary waiting

I once played a CMBO scenario with exactly this setup ("Dutch Gambit" I think). Even though the game itself seemed pretty one-sided (I don't think any enemy unit ever entered my half of the map) I only got a very marginal victory. You just have to leave too many units on the map to prevent the enemy from rushing through with everything that is left, and units that don't exit cost you an insane number of victory points, so this kind of scenario is incredibly drawish.

Example:

Player A loses 50% of his troops, exits 20% and has the remaining 30% on map at the end of the game.

Player B loses 80% of his troops, exits nothing and has 20% on map at the end.

This leads to a score of about 60:40 in spite of the apparent fact that player B got seriously trashed in this game and probably never really had a chance.

Dschugaschwili

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Pud:

Hi all.

I had made a mod last year which effectively made the turn number blank, so you couldnt even tell what the current turn is. It works so long as you trusted your opponent to use it as well. Couple this with random turn end and say bye bye to end game flag rushes.

This is issue is so important (the timing of the flag rush) that I meticulously number every PBEM turn (4a, 4b, 4c-of-25+) on every PBEM turn file so I know exactly where I am on the game clock as I plot every move.

So for folks who number their PBEM turn files blanking out the game turn graphic in the game won't really do it.

Nice idea though.

-tom w

[GJK]

If the flags were worth a certain percentage of their total value at the end of each turn (total value of flag divided by # of minimum turns) that it is held, then it wouldn't matter who had it at the end of the game but who held it the longest.

Certainly makes sense in scenarios that have objectives such as "keep (something) open for as long as possible" or "keep (something) in control for as long as possible".

[Lt Bull]

This will not be the first time I have weighed in on the topic of "CM victory conditions" and how it is all handled.

Here is some background reading on discussions already had on this kind of topic at the CM Forums:

A CM "victory": What is it really trying to model?

CMBB - an enhancement for scenario/operation design

Some thoughts about the next generation of this engine....

Generally, I feel that there is so much room for implementing creative and innovative ways in which the CM game engine determines "victory" conditions. For me the concept of trying to justify the continued use of victory flags as they currently exist in CM as a valid and satisfactory way of modelling victory conditions in a game that markets itself as a "realistic" combat simulator is equivalent to trying to convince a food enthusiast that toasted bread is probably the most exciting and tantalising food they could ever expect to eat.

As far as "innovation" and "originality" in modelling "victory conditions" in recently created combat based PC games go, I would have to hand the most recent award to Battlefield 1942. Sure it is a FPS but the game has a clever open ended way in which it determines a "victor". It is a dynamic system which does give the feeling of the ebb/flow of a battle. I'm sure something can be learnt from it as far as alternate "victory determination" modelling goes and I hope that the BTS crew see an awesome opportunity to develop potentially groundbreaking concepts in how victory in a PC tactical combat simulator can be modelled more realistically.

Actually, I would even hazard a guess that the whole concept of victory modelling in CM as a discrete part of the game, separate to all the mechanics of the game, is given scant thought as a worthwhile potential area for improvement. I see it as an area just waiting to be properly explored and exploited as a innovative game feature.

I don't want to be fed more toast.

Lt Bull

[Crash Deaton]

Originally posted by GJK:

If the flags were worth a certain percentage of their total value at the end of each turn (total value of flag divided by # of minimum turns) that it is held, then it wouldn't matter who had it at the end of the game but who held it the longest.

While that would work for lots of battles, I'm afraid that would just change our problem from what it is today to a slightly different problem where we'd have an unreal level of focus on making sure we held onto everything for as long as possible - in every game. It's the darn in every game part that is the rub.

While, strategically speaking, we want to hold things as long as possible because that's how you win a war. Tactically speaking, it makes you rather predictable and that will lead us right back to a problem much like the one we already have.

Almost every battle will be at least a bit "different" in some regards from all other battles and we need a system that can give us that flexibility. Certainly there would be lots of wartime situations where "hang on for as long as you can" is the order of the day. In fact, that is very likely one of the most common orders, but there are lots of other types of missions as well that we couldn't model in that way. Sometimes, it's only worth being there on turn X (A la my assasination scenario example) and we really need to be able to simulate that fact as well.

I've been thinking about this a bit (could you tell?) and I think it's really about having the "Fog of War" that we always talk about apply to the victory conditions - just a bit. Not that I'm suggesting a game where we never could tell if we are winning or losing (that would suck BAD!), but it shouldn't be quite so apparent. It is that clarity about what the enemy objectives are that leads to such unrealistic play where one side can decide to either coast to victory having already secured a sufficient lead or they can do the CM equvalent of football's "two minute drill" and snatch the objectives with the end game "Bum Rush". While either tactic might be perfectly reasonable in a given real-life situation, it certainly shouldn't be a valid option for every single battle.

If our victory conditions <U>could</u> be done in such a way that coasting (or bum-rushing) to victory is not a sure-fire formula for success every time, we will introduce some more realistic variability into our games and squash the current problem. The player that uses the same tactic every time should now lose a few because, while they were kicking back and taking a smoke break in the midst of a firefight, the rest of the war kept moving and <U>those</u> events might change the value of their accomplishments so far resulting in less success on the battlefield because a commander wasn't aggressive enough. It certainly wouldn't be the first time THAT ever happened in a war. C'est la guerre!

Cheers!

OH MY GOD MY SPELLING SUCKS TODAY!! EDIT, EDIT, EDIT.

[ June 26, 2003, 12:09 PM: Message edited by: Crash Deaton ]

[xerxes]

It seems that the complaint must be about QB MEs. In an attack, if an attacker waits until the last couple turns to "rush" the flags he will either:

a. lose as he gets cut to pieces/pinned

b. take the flags, but he could have done that a while ago anyways.

An attacker needs all the time he can get, if he wastes it hanging around waiting for the game clock to run down, he only hurts himself.

[Eric Alkema]

I guess I don't quite get it.

The reason for attacking at the last minute is to prevent the defender from counter attacking, right? With variable game length the defender can extend the length of the game by contesting a flag. Is the problem that the defender gets blasted off the flag so hard that the flag is no longer contested? Is the problem that the defender can't muster a respectable counter attack fast enough to keep even the variable timer from running out? How many flags are we talking about? Are we talking about meeting engagements?

[Crash Deaton]

Originally posted by Eric Alkema:

I guess I don't quite get it.

The reason for attacking at the last minute is to prevent the defender from counter attacking, right? With variable game length the defender can extend the length of the game by contesting a flag. Is the problem that the defender gets blasted off the flag so hard that the flag is no longer contested? Is the problem that the defender can't muster a respectable counter attack fast enough to keep even the variable timer from running out? How many flags are we talking about? Are we talking about meeting engagements?

It's not really about any one battle type, per se, Eric. It's more about the fundamental design premise that makes the very last turn the only turn that really means anything as far as victory objectives are concerned.

The problem presents itself in a variety of ways depending more, I believe, on the combination of battle types and terrain fought over, than on any other factors.

As I'm sure everyone here knows or has come to realize, every battle, real or virtual, has it's 'moment of truth'. It's that pivotal moment when the battle is at risk and either side could win or lose. Unless you just lost your lone King Tiger to a bog result in a patch of light woods (or something equally maddening), that moment is most often going to happen as somebody is making a move on an objective(s). I take no issue with that. In fact, that is probably as it should be in most cases.

Ultimately, the whole battle really is a bit of a "flag rush" and at some point that rush is going to happen in every battle. Again, that is as it should be.

The flag rush may or may not result in a victory. I've certainly Drawn about as many of those situations as I've either won by doing it or lost by having it done to me. It's just a gambit like any other. You are absolutely correct on that point as well. <U>BUT</U>, it's the same gambit in almost every battle. And <U>that</U> is the rub.

Leaving casualties aside, the only moment in time that CAN mean anything for victory purposes in CM right now is the last turn of the game and our "Moments of Truth" almost always comes in the last 3-5 turns of the game when in real combat, there is usually a LOT of fighting left to do after the enemy decides it's time to make their move on the objective. So, unless we play operations where units are fixed in place at the end of each battle, the flag rush never really sees the kind of enemy reaction you would see in real life to the move on the objective. It's an unrealistic "free pass" for both sides because neither side has enough time left in the game to see the true results of their actions.

So, I guess the point is (at least for me) that over time, and a number of battles, there is a nagging sense of deja vu to almost every battle we fight because they really do tend to end very similarly more often than not. I'd like to see that addressed.

[ June 26, 2003, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: Crash Deaton ]

[Crash Deaton]

Originally posted by xerxes:

An attacker needs all the time he can get, if he wastes it hanging around waiting for the game clock to run down, he only hurts himself.

That rather depends on who has artillery!

[Eric Alkema]

Well I guess, because I am a novice player, I haven't figured out what advantage there is in waiting until the end of a variable length game. Is the variable length still not enough to allow for a counter attack?

[Hat Trick]

Originally posted by Eric Alkema:

Well I guess, because I am a novice player, I haven't figured out what advantage there is in waiting until the end of a variable length game. Is the variable length still not enough to allow for a counter attack?

I also am confussed. Couldn't this problem be solved just by increasing the length of time that gets added to the game when a victory location changes hands? From two minutes to five or ten minutes? Or am I misunderstanding the problem?