Reasons you lose...

[Der Kuenstler]

They say we learn more from defeat than victory. I am curious to know what you guys think are the main reason(s) you lose. For me most of the time it's lack of patience. I'll want to make something happen and start taking risks with my armor when I know there's 15 turns left. Or I don't have the patience to give each unit an individual move so I'll use "group" orders. I made a sign that says "patience" and taped it to my monitor to remind me to slow down!

[flamingknives]

Patience, or lack of it.

Aggresiveness, or cautiousness.

Misreading the battlefield ("Oh, I didn't think he'd be able to see me from there.)

[Andreas]

I designed the scenario.

[Hans]

Certain nameless bastards shooting at my guys - it's dang rude I tell ya

In reality:

Mismatch of units to the mission, terrain and enemy (lack of tactical intelligence)

Lack of detailed planning (see above)

Lack of patience, lack of long term fall out for defeat (actual death or relief for failure) tends to make me take chances I wouldn't in a real war - which makes me over aggressive.

A dastardly computer or human to take advantage of the reasons above.

[athlete]

The guy I'm playing with is literally a 30 year armour Officer, and has forgotten more about tactics than I'll ever know.

Mostly at this point, I can fight the good fight, but I still on occasion suffer losses due to lack of game-mechanics knowledge. These forums have helped some...for example, I didn't know there were now gun depression restrictions once and counted on it...and got obliterated. I didn't understand the command system until a few weeks ago, had know idea of the dramatic effects of being in command, particularly arty spotters etc...

My tactics have come a long way, and I still feel as though I'm learning a lot. Two fights ago I got my first victory, last scrap saw a Tactical defeat but it was close. I don't think he's taking much for granted anymore, so that's progress.

I think I'm 1:27:1 now. heheh

[ June 08, 2005, 07:18 AM: Message edited by: athlete ]

[stikkypixie]

Poor planning, for me that is frontal attacks all the time

[flamingknives]

Are you sure you don't have any Canadian blood?

[gautrek]

Because i'm crap about sums it up for me.

[Paul AU]

Why do I loose…

Mainly, because I don’t care enough about winning.

I haven’t memorised complete tables of AFV stats, which gets what ammo in which month…. or year-by-month-by-nation infantry characteristics. (Nor am I gunna).

I don’t slavishly check the LOS from/to every tile every one of my (or their) units will be entering. I haven’t got a terrain-effects/LOS table taped to my wall. Don’t have Excel spreadsheets on firepower/ammo-to-cost charts.

For all the B.S. and palava that lots of ‘winning’ players come out with here, 90% of their victories are due to the fact that - they have.

Other than that….

Among my other (real) weaknesses are a penchant for the high-risk, high-reward maneuver; an over-reaction to any casualties of mine; and a reluctance to be passive in defense.

I should be a little less Rommel, a little more Montgomery; I should be more like Field Marshal Haigh; and learn to sit still when I should.

“Hell, when he first came out here, he thought he was John Wayne, going into Iwo Jima. I saw him deck an admiral for torturing a prisoner! Now… he does the torturing himself. You boys take a good look at him - he’s one damn fine American killer!”

- How Sleep The Brave

[Achtung Baby]

The AI cheats I tell you!

Impatience, bad deployment, time management and weather.

[chashm]

I win now because I finally found a player who is worse than me. I play him all the time. (So what if he is 2 1/2)

[General Bolt]

Lack of studying the map. Mostly I keep the view set to 4 or 5. I fail to get down to the 1 or 2 to see the contours to advance in the gullies/hills. When I do get down to 1 or 2 and I'm looking around when a close-up tree blocks my view it bugs me and hit 4 or 5 agian to see better - wrong thing to do.

Basically, I only look for trees/buildings as concealment/cover not slopes.

On defense When I see a hill I gotta hold the high ground, I never use "reverse slope" defence. Also poor deployment - view set to 4 or 5 and my opponents use the slopes I never see as cover.

[Dandelion]

Hmm...

- Absence of enemy mistakes to offer an opening.

- Unable, or at least too slow, to identify and act upon an important turn of events.

- Poor battle morale (focus on the limits of my possibilities without exploiting or even considering the limits of my enemy's possibilities, overly sensitive to casualties, exaggerated estimates of enemy strength etc).

- Infatuation with a brilliant plan leading to failure to adapt to developments.

- Narrow mindedness, tendency to restrict planning to realistic enemy behaviour regardless of game mechanics and opponent.

- Frustration or other loss of temper, usually from successful enemy harassment or evasion.

- Stress (timelimits), forcing reckless behaviour.

- Having a very interesting person at the other end writing really interesting e-mails so I lose my focus, try and be finished with the turn and focus all energy on writing an equally interesting return letter.

Yes those will be the major ones. Boredome should be reckoned with as well I guess. Realising halfway into the game that you don't really enjoy the setup or environment as a game experience, regardless of how things are turning out. Bored is quickly synonymous with reckless and sloppy.

Cheers

Dandelion

[Corvidae]

Why do i lose??? same reasons that everyone has posted already,,

I get cocky, i get stomped,,

i get lazy, i get stomped,,

and sometimes i just get bad luck, and i get stomped,

I dont do the spread sheet thing, nor the fire power to amo load table thing, i'm not that deep into it,, but i do come out better than the other guy most of the time, my best games are minor victorys,,

[lucero1148]

Whenever I've lost a battle it's due to not having a good tactical attack plan for the situation.

All best

Patrick

[yuvuphys]

Not paying enough attention...then before I know it....

[ May 28, 2005, 12:09 AM: Message edited by: yuvuphys ]

[Michael Emrys]

Gee. Now that's bogged.

:eek:

Michael

[Bone_Vulture]

I'm not a WW2 wiz, but amongst my close friends whom I play against I tend to be the most enlightened one. Especially when attacking, I sometimes let my ego rise above common sense and take needless risks. And when the manure hits the fan, I try to hammer myself through, burning reinforcements instead of opting for a fresh backup tactic.

[DTrill]

I lose mostly from hesitation and being overly cautious. Combat is like sports, the great players do things when they should do them, not when they have to do them.

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by DTrill:

I lose mostly from hesitation and being overly cautious

Like it has been discussed before, aggressive recon is critically important in CM.

[Harper88]

Being too often surprised by unexpected developments. No matter how much I try to anticipate the unanticipated, it routinely jumps up and bites me in the butt.

In battles where my armor is numerically superior but technically inferior (Tiger v. Sherman, for example), the inability to bring about multiple simultaneous axes of attack, resulting in getting popped off one by one.

[yuvuphys]

Mostly I need to learn to take my time. I started playing games where time limits weren't a factor about a week ago to take the time pressure off, and being patient has helped me a ton on the attack.

[Loeffe]

My most common reasons for loosing...

On attack:

a) bad timing (from support troops arriving too early to smoke screens arriving too late)

lack of recon (geez, is that a 150mm inf gun? Didn't see that coming)

c) failure to concentrate the forces, break the MLR and roll up the enemys defence (sometimes you just hit the defence like a brick wall)

On Defence:

a) Opening up too early, and wasting my ammo.

Betting on few, high quality, AT-weapons, when the enemy has a lot of tanks.

[Sergei]

Alcohol.

[ParaBellum]

Lack of alcohol.