Perfect means most realistic...Your definition of "Gamey"

[Lady Roxanne]

Buying units is undeniably gamey.

What is it about completely random games that you find FUBAR, Peter? Is it the barren maps, the tendency toward green and conscript troops, or something else?

[Darryl60]

So far I've only played CMBO&BB in single player.

I mostly play random QBs. Though I will occasionally set force types when I feel like playing a specific kind of battle.

You find yourself in some real nasty situations that way...but it's a good learning experience.

The weirdest game I ever got out of a random QB was me defending as the Germans with pure Infantry and the Soviets attacking with pure armor...on a heavily wooded map.

[ July 26, 2003, 03:04 AM: Message edited by: Darryl60 ]

[Jaws]

Gamey..... Is that when someone looses a game and than want to find a justification for his loosing?? And calling his opponent a gamey player?? Well in my opinion we must learn from every battle we loose. Ok it's not fun loosing but if I loose a battle due gamey tactics the next time it won’t happen to me again. For example if some one use 4 tiger tanks in August 1942 I basically make a plan to destroy that with AT guns and ambushes. Of course I don't no if my opponent is going to buy that Tigers but in my back pocket I buy some assets to destroy those Tigers. Same as planning pre planed arty in set-up zones. Just spread your man and put them in any cover you can find. It never cost me that much troops that I wasn't able to fight on. This week I was suppriced by someone who blows up the only three bridges over a river with charges.... Yep I still learn every day.

What I'm trying to say is that's what make CM fun for me and that's why I still play this game after 3 years and there no other game that hold out that long.

[ July 26, 2003, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: Jaws ]

[Gungalley]

Will we be able to convert CMAK to CMBO, since they both used the same countries, units etc...

[eichenbaum]

I think that 'Gamey' is using every possibilty to beat your oponent, realistic or not.

You play the game to win.

You start a war to win.

Eichenbaum

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh:

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

It may not be the ultimate in gameyness, but putting a landing craft on top of a high hill to act as an ammo magnet and a Borg spotter certainly has a large coefficient of gamiosity in it.

People actually do this???? Even I would walk away from the battle if I saw my opponent try anything like that.

[snips] </font>

[theike]

I dont know.

If u play against any opponents u can get, that can create unfriendly situations maybe. But for me the whole 'gamey' thing isnt an issue.

Im no rankings player for this game. (But i know from Unreal Tournament people playing rankings are not allways the most socialy involved people around...but that was a completely different game,surely People were much younger, and the game itself was sure to get adrenaline up to your ceiling for u, witch is never a good situation for a social environment)

For me cmbo and now cmbb is a game i play just to gather thoughts on, and just to cruise around in.

Its like a vacation to me, and im taking in all the scenery and make notes of every situation that seems new to me.

Its one of the highest quality games ive played sofar. I mean it gets people involved so early in so many and such broad ways.

When ive played my Brother, (nick= GUMMER) (who had the game first) i never won and only last year ore so im getting a occasional win in here and there.

Thing is: i dont mind !!!

(At the moment we are playing pbem on a map ive made called: 51-rural bigger-4

Its quite open, really, there is just one stretch of wooded terrain on one site of the map where it stretches all the way up from attacking setup zone to the defenders main objective points.

I had played that map before against the ai, me being the attacker on that. Ai gave me a nice insite to where to put some at-guns aside the slide of woods and on the hill in the farrest corner. And i bought 2 companys of infantery to guard the woods. One along the way to meet him up a bit, and one just beside the cloister being the major flag holder.(3 large flags) There was one large flag also close to the central point where i was going to take the meet. And that one was where the road started to come up from the lower terrain from the side of the map, going through the stretch of wood up to the cloister, i hoped to take control of that one with the company that lay there to wait him up in the woods

But he never came to meet my infantery!!!

He just bought alot of tanks, with some units riding along on them, dropping some of at any small flags he encountered. He Drove 2 platoons, one being Tigers !! from his rear all the way up to me over the wide out open. I could see him from driving up towards me from the beginning.

I shot my at-guns dead empty on his Tigers. (did take out a platoon of panzers though)

Darn...He even came with 6 tanks to that one large flag down the road and the woods.

Now we are in the final stages of that game, and i have just my riffle inf, who for a match only have molotov coctails to use.

There is nothing i can do now...he is shooting up the whole place. All i could do is run up to flags at the end, as so they wont be in his hands, but maybe in uncontrolled state.

I probably will...(gamey as it is. He would do the same)

I purchased the wrong units to give him a good match. Ore maybe he bought the right one's this time around.

I wouldnt call it gamey anyways. It was a unfortunate situation, mainly for me. Witch itself is a very realistic situation.

And the game was worth playing. I enjoyed some points in time, (the choice i made with my one and only captured Panther to not wait any longer but to go up to the cloister with it, meeting his 6 tanks who where JUST about to arrive!!) and overall it leaves an impression of what happened one time at a battle.

Ill now set my knowledge around that.

And will want to play my Brother some more )

Is there a point? ahwell, im not bothered

I just wanted to type and tell me some while waking up :cool:

[ July 26, 2003, 09:46 AM: Message edited by: theike ]

[PeterX]

What is it about completely random games that you find FUBAR, Peter? Is it the barren maps, the tendency toward green and conscript troops, or something else?

I'm glad you asked, CrankyKris. The principal problem is that if you choose random, the game drops you on the map with your random forces instead of defaulting to the PBEM screen. Thus, the intiitaiting player can keep generating random setups till he finds one that he likes. Bad BFC.

And yes, I've also noticed a tendancy on the part of the computer to generate a bit too many treeless maps. However, the experience levels seem accurate given the year; in 1941-42 the Soviets, for exmaple, should be mostly green or conscript and the results reflect this. I'm currently involved in a 1943 Random Assault as the Russians and my troops are mostly Crack with a few Elites thrown in. Tree coverage is dense. The issue is still in doubt, but my opponent and I have already have had too learn tactics for units that never appear in ladder games like the Russian ******. (He may be reading). What a weapons platform!

-Peter

[Lady Roxanne]

Originally posted by PeterX:

I'm glad you asked, CrankyKris. The principal problem is that if you choose random, the game drops you on the map with your random forces instead of defaulting to the PBEM screen. Thus, the intiitaiting player can keep generating random setups till he finds one that he likes. Bad BFC.

-Peter

Ah yes, this would be a big problem in a competitive setting. The only work-around I can think of is a third party. This person would generate the random battle, choose a side, enter a password, and immediately save the game when dropped on the map.

He then sends the file and password to one of the two combatants he's doing the favor for, who then launches the saved game as a PBEM. Even the sides could be random because the 3rd party can choose either side and send the file to either player. The side decision is made by the 3rd party.

Hmmm....I have an idea I need to think about.

Anyway, the gamiest thing you can do in CM is buy your own forces with unrestricted force mix in a QB, especially if you are importing a map you're already familiar with.

[Jack Carr]

Jaws posted: Gamey..... Is that when someone looses a game and than want to find a justification for his loosing?? And calling his opponent a gamey player?? Well in my opinion we must learn from every battle we loose. Ok it's not fun loosing but if I loose a battle due gamey tactics the next time it won’t happen to me again. For example if some one use 4 tiger tanks in August 1942 I basically make a plan to destroy that with AT guns and ambushes. Of course I don't no if my opponent is going to buy that Tigers but in my back pocket I buy some assets to destroy those Tigers. Same as planning pre planed arty in set-up zones. Just spread your man and put them in any cover you can find. It never cost me that much troops that I wasn't able to fight on. This week I was suppriced by someone who blows up the only three bridges over a river with charges.... Yep I still learn every day.

The type of behaviour you have defined here did not even remotely enter into my thoughts as I posted to start off this thread. It appears to me that what you are talking about here is more along the lines of, "Dealing with sore losers and learning from your mistakes regardless of the circumstances".

Eichenbaum posted: I think that 'Gamey' is using every possibilty to beat your oponent, realistic or not.

As above, I'm sure that what you are writing is coming from your heart and that you firmly believe this.

The more responses I see in this thread the more I am starting to agree with MickeyD on this particular subject. MickeyD posted:

I've said it before. There are two types of CM players.

First there's the 'historical recreationists' cut from the same cloth as those Civil War reenactor types who think a digital wristwatch on the battlefield ruins the whole experience. A CM equivalent would be cherry-picking units for power instead of authenticity, hugging the edge of the map to avoid encirclement, etc., etc. These are 'gamey' tactics. Showing the game engine in action to them is like pulling back the curtain to expose the Great and Power Oz.

The second type of CM player sees CM as a GAME, not a historical tool, and considers anything the game engine will allow is perfectly acceptible -- historically accurate or not. These are the guys with the all KV-1 formations in early 1941. They play to WIN! (See Phemur's comments above).

The very reason I started this thread by quoting one of the developers of the game is that by BFC's own admission, the game is intended to be "realistic". Can you use it to create and play out "un-realistic" situations? Of course you can but understand that when this is done, you have left behind a large element of what it was created for.

To simply state, "I play to win", immediately brands you as a certain type of Combat Mission player, one that is probably more at home trying to climb the latest CM tournament ladder.

[Col Deadmarsh]

I think it's naive to think that all people fall into one of the two groups. I play for a ladder and play to win, but I don't use every means to acheive victory if it means doing something completely unrealistic--like putting boats on top of hills to attract fire. Maybe a couple of you can justify this behavior, but I'm sure the players who do this aren't doing it for the same reason. They're doing it to exploit the game engine's weaknesses.

While I have yet to see any boats used as ammo magnets or someone surrounding a victory location with a wall of fire, I frown upon stuff like this because it takes away from the reaslism of the game...and I'm a ladder player.

[Lady Roxanne]

I think players can have good competitions without gamey play getting out of hand. The way you do it is with scenarios, not QBs. Another way is to use fully random QBs. One of my most memorable CM games so far was a random QB. I mean everything was random. I was trying to crush unfit conscript Finn tankette crews with green tank hunters on a foggy night. It was a blast!

[Andrew H.]

I don't think that there's too much gameyness left in CM - although there is some. In the old pre-final cmbo days, there were a couple of completely unrealistic things that the game did that led to them being called "gamey." The old "jeep rush" was one - based on the fact that jeeps moved unrealistically fast and were unrealistically survivable, you could charge your (German) enemy with a bunch of .50 cal armed Jeeps and cause great havoc.

There was also a bug involving unarmored flak guns, although I've forgotten how it worked. But, somehow, it made these unarmored trucks almost impossible for tanks to kill.

There were a couple of other tricks like this; this is what gamey originally meant, and the only thing I've seen listed in this discussion that comes close is the use of an assault boat as a decoy.

Other stuff is more ahistorical (force selection or tactics) than gamey per se. I think that the term "gamey" should be reserved for those few tactics that actually exploit a bug in the system, and not be used to describe (1) ahistorical tactics ("It's completely gamey that you put all three of your squads up front; in a situation like this, the Germans would put one squad up and two back..."); (2) ahistorical force selection; or (3) just the fact that the other person won.

[Green Hornet]

I agree with Andrew completely. I think there should be two terms to descibe what is being discussed.

"Gamey play" and "ahistorical play"

I freely admit that I'm an ahistorical player because, in addition to sceanrios and random parameters, I do still enjoy QBs and purchasing my forces.

I'm an ahistorical player simply because I don't have enough historical knowledge to know if my force selection is realistic or not for a given time period.

However, I don't feel I'm a gamey player. I try my best to select a fairly realistic force mix and use relatively realistic tactics during my battles. I hope my opponents do the same. Anything else detracts from the game's immersive enjoyment in my opinion.

Setting an assault boat on a hill to draw fire might work well, but it just wouldn't be fun because it's so unrealistic.

Gamey play is purposely using the game's "limitatons or weaknesses" to create a totally unrealistic situation for the purpose of gaining an advantage over your opponent.

Ahistorical play is (knowingly or unknowingly) using force mixes and tactics that were not specifically used by the respective nations in WWII combat.

My three cents.

[Chad Harrison]

Originally posted by PeterX:

Chad Harrison posted:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />But then there are other issues. Is bringing AT guns to a ME QB without a vehcile to tow them gamey? Is using crews to hold flags gamey? Having all SMG squads gamey? From CMBO, is bringing a Flak truck gamey? Is firing on a KV with 12 20mm light AA guns gamey?

Yes, yes, and yes, but who cares? If a someone gets a kick out of playing with the same units, the same nationalities, the same troop quality, the same weather, in a bizzaro combat setting lilke a ME then, by all means, he should do it! Gamey? Well, it's a game. Sometimes they're fun in a repetitive kind of way.</font>

[MAUS_TD]

my opinion of gamey is:

when four borg cubes are hovering over the battlefield and asimilating al my tigers.

maus

[theike]

I just couldnt do it myself.

It being too unrealistic:

Grid overlaid terrain.

(isnt it just like making all units white, just to be able to see them more easy?):

Too gamey for me...

(but im out of here; im not gonna stay with the Borg around!!))

[ July 29, 2003, 07:45 AM: Message edited by: theike ]

[Joachim]

You know it is gamey when...

you don't have to take cover during the action phase 'cause the screen doesn't shoot at you:

Currently the monitor is placed in the garden, between some bushes, out of grenade but still in SMG (and wireless keyboard) range. Me taking cover way inside a huge stone building. Especially during the short periods of rainfall or at night (or both) it is tough to spot the enemy (or my own troops, for that matter). Binoculars help a bit, but in dim light, the problem gets worse. Man, now I know why they went for the top floor despite having better cover in the cellar!

Gruß

Joachim

[d34dm34t]

Ive only played one realy gamey battle in cmbo/cmbb and that was when opponent bought 15-30 landingcraft boats and placed them on the hill tops. hehe that sucked

I never finished that fight but i had already seen about 15 so i guess there was more on the rest off the hill tops.

Ive played some partly gamey games in cmbo were the cover arc dident exists, there ppl sent out a crew/jeep behind ur tanks to get them to turn around and then moved up thier tanks wich u reasently had have contacted with behind a small hill sor house. And Boom ur tank got smacked cause it turned around. But thank good it has been fixed with the cover arc.

i think the ratity factor in cmbb eliminated most of the gameyness that ppl talked about in the cmbo. like the player always had veteran king tigers. And then complained if you used CAS.

Maybe rarity chould be a varible instead of a constant: if u buy 1 KTiger the rarity for buying one more should increase. that way the line of kv exampel would also be fixed.

The borg factor is maybe a bit unrealistic but else it shouldent be much point in playing the game if u couldent control all units then u would need to have one player for each platoon and one that tried to organize them in bunker/tent only looking at maps, or even have all units as a real persons and give them electrical chocks if they got hurt so thy dident do to much rambo stuff. but i think there is enough 3d shooters out there.

might be fun to have a extreem extreem shadow of war were units only sees the units they have seen and the rest is only marked as reported in units like the [?]units. still the weakest link would in the end be YOU the player that still would be a bit like the borg master cause you would see through all eyes. hehe the time for each round would probobly increase 10-20 times then .