Leveling big buildings – a valid or gamey tactic?

Haohmaru · December 2, 2003

I don't see how my idea for penalising the attacker for building damage would create gamey situations. There were a few questions: what about defender's fire? like I said the score could relate only to shells fired by the attacker, so if the defender decides to destroy his own buildings it will make no difference. Someone also mentioned that it would cause the defender to cram all his units into the buildings, well who says the defender has to know about this? It could be made clear only in the briefing of the attacker. Furthermore like I said you could just have one building have this penalty in place, perhaps even have a flag on this building, so in effect no matter what, you have to take this building, but if you damage it the points you will get by taking the flag will be reduced. Take the building intact and you get full benefit from the flag points. This could reflect historical situations such as the taking of ports or bridges, where taking them intact was very beneficial to the attacker. The point of all this really is not to try to eliminate gamey behaviour but rather to try to add some variety to the game. Because, personally I'm starting to get a little tired of chasing flags all the time (we've been doing that for 3 years) and I'd like to see some more factors affecting the victory score at the end.

Haohmaru · December 2, 2003

...The one problem this would create however is that the tacai would have to be programmed to not blow the crap out of a unit which it spots in a building where the penalty is in effect.

SGT FSDSAP · December 2, 2003

I have read most of the statmenet here. This is my first post on this forum but I can tell you from my experience as a tanker myself. Is that I would and was always told to level asuspected strong point or anti-tank point first. You might ask why? Any building that is over one story gives advantage to the anti-tank group. It gives you a higher vantage point to get to the thinner top armour. Plus you are lowering your enemies ablity to view the battle field.

No smart commander will leave the enemy that is known or unknown to be in some position of advantage with knocking out or supressing that position first before advancing.

CKibler · December 2, 2003

Another way to help combat the leveled-town effect -- especially for the upcoming CMAK game -- is for the scenario designer to make most (if not all!) buildings "Heavy". Now, this is assumning that a heavy building is of masonry/stone/stucco construction, and a Light one is made of wood.

The big added benefit of this is that it would also be more realistic -- as there's just not that much wood in North Africa to use for construction (but lots of rocks & sun-baked clay!). In the southern Med (Italy, Crete, Sicily, etc) stone & stucco is (correct me if I'm wrong) also probably the preferred building material.

xerxes · December 2, 2003

Having building destruction/preservation points for scenario design is a great idea. It could be used in all kinds of ways to improve scenario design.

jacobs_ladder · December 2, 2003

From what I understand it was also common Allied practice to use fighter bombers to take out church steeples and other observation points. Well, at least from Normandy on. The source I'm referring to didn't mention this tactic being used in other theatres, but I don't see it as much of a stretch to assume it was. Might be an interesting option to put this in the game (planes targetting buildings, I mean).

Alkiviadis · December 3, 2003

NO penalization. Period. I don't think anyone should be punished for the tactically correct move. In fact I find the entire concept outrageous - something that an MBA/suit would come up with.

The Germans typically avoided setting up in edge buildings, because buildings on the perimeter of a town always get nailed.

Michael Dorosh · December 3, 2003

Originally posted by Alkiviadis:
NO penalization. Period. I don't think anyone should be punished for the tactically correct move. In fact I find the entire concept outrageous - something that an MBA/suit would come up with.
The Germans typically avoided setting up in edge buildings, because buildings on the perimeter of a town always get nailed.

Far better to take the advice of actors and directors.

Alkiviadis · December 3, 2003

Far better to take the advice of actors and directors.

Jack Carr · December 3, 2003

Originally posted by Leutnant Hortlund:
MikeyD
Yes, but now you are talking about situations where you have ID'd enemy infantry in those buildings. I dont think anyone is arguing that you wouldnt rubble those buildings if you could.

What we were talking about was situations like if you arrive at a village you know to be enemy occupied. Suppose it consists of maybe 40-50 houses and other buildings. How many real life commanders would order the troops to start shooting up buildings up at random?

Not many is my bet.

In a scenario where the map has a village on it don't you always know the enemy will be there? After all, it's Combat Mission. The enemy is always going to be there. It's sort of a given from the games perspective. Before I go off half-cocked on this, do you mean that the scenario briefing dictates that your forces know from prior reconnaisance that the enemy is there?

If enemy has been spotted within the game inside certain buildings I would say leveling the buildings that the enemy was last spotted in would not be gamey/unfair/ridiculous in any way.

From the original post I interpreted the situation to be that from the get go, one guy simply rolls up his big guns and systematically levels every building in sight for no apparent reason other than "Hey, there might be enemy troops in there".

I think what you described here is a different situation.

Jack Carr · December 3, 2003

Originally posted by REVS:
The building damage model is just like the borg spotting and real line of sight problems. Hopelessly unrealistic and gamey. It's enjoyable though, but for goodness sake, guys, it's just a game! An effing game!

What I propose is that we be completely and utterly gamey, because what we're fooling with is completely an utterly a game! Any response here, or is this just too inconvenient a concept to deal with?

LOL! Hey man, go for it!

Jack Carr · December 3, 2003

Quick question for all who are replying to/following this thread. In most instances were villages cleared of non-combatants before a fight?

If not, your "wrecking-crew" tankers are killing civilians. Would the Western Allies have done this? Perhaps they would have. I honestly don't know. The question is not meant to make a point, I just really don't know. Anyone have any information on this?

xerxes · December 3, 2003

Having VPs for destroying/perserving certain structures (designated by the scenario designer) would be a great tool because it would allow scenarios in which the objective is the destruction of a pair of bridges (for example), or capturing a bridge intact. It opens up a range of really interesting scenario goals.

Jack Carr · December 3, 2003

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
Jack comments seem silly; in game terms, levelling buildings is often very effective. Ask UFB what he did to my MGs and snipers in our current PBEM with long range fire from his SU76s

Scenario designers should have the option, IMO, of preventing the destruction of property. This was a real consideration at times; look at the episode of BoB where the British tankers refused to shoot at the houses in Nuenen because of orders from on high. Sorry to have to use a cinematic example. But the inclusion of civilians in the game engine rewrite would be a way of addressing this issue, perhaps. Though the presumption in CM is that all civilians have been evacuated before hand - not a bad presumption, as these things go. Certainly their inclusion would complicate things (how do you write an algorithm for a Russian squad in Berlin in 1945, having him decide between rape and combat?)

Other examples of deliberate destruction, or prevention of same, of property from real life don't come to mind now, but if we want advanced engineering modelling in the rewrite, this has to be addressed in some way shape or form - ie allowing bridges to be demoed will require some sort of restraint imposed by the scenario designer in some cases. May as well adress all property issues (or collateral damage, in the time honoured phrase) the same way while one is at it.

I wouldn't disagree that the tactic can be effective, especially if your tanks level buildings that did have infantry in them. My question here is simply, "Was this a common practice?"

I have already read some posts which quoted from various books where veterans said that it was done. Once this information is presented, the question is answered for me. The next time I see a building I suspect may hold enemy units, It's coming down.

Also, just noticed that your post also questioned the civilian aspect. Good question.

CombinedArms · December 3, 2003

Interesting thread. I'd be reluctant to call anything gamey that seems to be SOP for virtually all players. Almost all of us do it, right? So how would we ban it?

Then we have statements like this and the one that preceded it, which suggest that leveling buildings suspected to hold enemy units was SOP for WWII tankers.

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

Not only did they do it, but they had an SOP for doing it effectively with a 75mm Sherman gun. (I didn't know that about the AP round first.) I've also read in Doubler's "Closing with the Enemy" that it became SOP in urban combat for the US to level buildings with 155mm SPs (is that the M7? For some reason, the good folks at BFC continue to omit the US 155 from the game while giving the Russians and Germans their 150+ SP.) The captured German general commanding some German city, maybe Aachen, thought that using 155's to blow up building should be banned. I guess he thought it was gamey. In general, the Allies, both east and west, showed a strong disposition to use heavy doses of HE to muscle their way to victory.

Then we have the fact, which seems to have provoked this thread, that in "Line of Defense" leveling buildings seems like an obvious tactic--given your Shermans and their high HE loads. One reason it seems like an obvious tactic is that there isn't the sort of high building density you get in a city. The buildings to target are pretty obvious. The other is that you have an open field, with a clear edge to the village. The urge to blow up the outer buildings, which almost certainly contain Germans, is pretty hard to resist--esp. since the explosions are such fun to watch.

So I would tend to say, blast away! Meanwhile, there is a counter tactic that I generally employ as a defender. That is to place my infantry and AT teams in foxholes behind the buildings. Let my human opponent waste his ammo, blow the outer buildings to bits, then climb into the rubble. Plus the foxhole gives me a prepared fallback position. Here's another situation where the AI has a disadvantage. The AI defender always places units right in the buildings. And the AI never blows up buildings on spec.

Michael Emrys · December 3, 2003

Originally posted by Jack Carr:
In most instances were villages cleared of non-combatants before a fight?

Yes. Even if the defenders made no effort to clear them out, usually their own sense of self preservation led them to hightail it. If they couldn't "get out of Dodge" for any reason before the shooting started, they would try to get down in cellars or find some other cover. But civilian casualties were not uncommon. It was part of the accepted cost of war, much more so in that era than is the case in Western countries today. While civilians were legally entitled to a fair amount of protection by the Hague Convention, in practice almost anything short of the deliberate shooting of civilians was ignored. Any additional protection was usually at the whim of the local commanders and also effected by how much actual control they had over their troops.

Michael

Haohmaru · December 3, 2003

Originally posted by xerxes:
Having VPs for destroying/perserving certain structures (designated by the scenario designer) would be a great tool because it would allow scenarios in which the objective is the destruction of a pair of bridges (for example), or capturing a bridge intact. It opens up a range of really interesting scenario goals.

Exactly. I'm not bringing up this idea merely to prevent gamey tactics, but to introduce new ways that CM is played. I really hope that the next CM game goes beyond fighting over flags and adds more variety to the way it is played. I think some people disagree and want it to remain a war game at heart. What I'd personally like to see is some more direct feedback and intuitive mission goals so that every scenario feels even more different from the others.

Kong · December 3, 2003

I am in agreement as well that this was SOP for US troops in Europe during WWII. I certainly NEVER thought of this as a "gamey" tactic while playing CM. Besides blowing up buildings is FUN! A relative cheap alternative for building demolition is the Priest, my favorite though is the 105 Sherman!

Michael Emrys · December 4, 2003