How where the QB prices decided

[Monty's Double]

But the 85mm armed T34 is more expensive than its 76mm brethren (especially with rarity), so relatively speaking the StuG is cheaper.

[Cthulhu Dreams]

Rarity shouldn't enter into balance arguments. It's a function of history, not game play. People play with rarity in an attempt to approximate the actual worth of hardware like the tiger at the end of 42, or because they want a historical game.

Historical games arn't about balance.

Your point about cheapness is a bit meaningless. Lets say for the sake of argument it's balanced when the 85MM gun is introduced - it doesn't address the actual value of the stug related to the t-34/76.

However this is all a dead letter, as battlefront are hardly likely to release a BB 1.04 patch with revised pricings for everything.

[ September 24, 2004, 02:34 AM: Message edited by: Cthulhu Dreams ]

[Monty's Double]

Your point about cheapness is a bit meaningless. Lets say for the sake of argument it's balanced when the 85MM gun is introduced - it doesn't address the actual value of the stug related to the t-34/76.

But you are choosing to frame the arguement using only two units, and the point about this game, and any wargame, is that there are many, many units, all with a complex balance of abilities. In your own example of a russian attack with germans using StuGs in defence, the StuGs look great value v the T34's but against infantry they aren't too hot, with low MG ammo and only a few HE shells. So what do you do to the points value of the german vehicles? Adjust them up to take into account the T34s then back down because of the infantry?

Sorry if I've misunderstood, but I just can't seem to get my head round what you are asking for, and it seems a bit disingenuous to then complain that BFC won't change the system, if you can't explain what you want changing.

[dieseltaylor]

CDreams

"Plus, pricing should only be based on the times units are effective, and if they are being choosen and used in an optimal manner."

!!!!!!!!! I am lost for words.Almost. I cannot see a valid point in the quoted sentence - whether a weapons system is being used optimally is very much a function of the terrain, weather, and the opponents force. And you cannot legislate for the incompetent commander who will complain that the points do not work for him in his battle.

Apparently within your fixation concerning points value of Stugs and T34's you are ignoring Valentine IX's and CAS which are available to kill Stugs ahead of the 85mm being available in the T34.

[Cthulhu Dreams]

Two seperate issues.

@Monty's Double.

Re: Stugs. People appear to agree they are uber in CM:BB in one situation or the other - consider the thread in Hints and tips forum for what I mean.

The reason is because there is a disconnect between the real value of the stug and the price. This disconnect is caused simply because the stugs cannot be penned frontally by the soviet ATG of the period.

No-one really whinges about them in CM:AK *despite * them being the same price in QB's, because the US guns can pen their frontal plates. The real value is different because of the weapons the opponent has.

That was all I was ever getting at.

@Dieseltaylor:

I was simply suggesting you price units based on optimal play. Play isn't optimal if you choice units that are not suited for the opponents force, weather conditons or terrain are they? Of course you cannot legislate for bad players. I wasn't suggesting you do. After all they don't play optimally.

Good point about the Valentine IX's though.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by Cthulhu Dreams:

Two seperate issues.

@Monty's Double.

Re: Stugs. People appear to agree they are uber in CM:BB in one situation or the other - consider the thread in Hints and tips forum for what I mean.

The reason is because there is a disconnect between the real value of the stug and the price. This disconnect is caused simply because the stugs cannot be penned frontally by the soviet ATG of the period.

If the disconnect is with the price of the StuG, shouldn't the pricing be adjusted to make the StuG more expensive, not the T-34 less expensive?

I was simply suggesting you price units based on optimal play. Play isn't optimal if you choice units that are not suited for the opponents force, weather conditons or terrain are they? Of course you cannot legislate for bad players. I wasn't suggesting you do. After all they don't play optimally.

Good point about the Valentine IX's though.

Basing prices on "optimal" play only makes sense only if choose-your-own QBs are presumed to be the standard. Many people, myself included, would disagree that this should be considered the default form of play; the kind of cherry-picking you see in most QBs is simply ahistorical.

Are T-34/57s still available in mid '42? If so, that - plus valentines - would solve the problem nicely.

[Cthulhu Dreams]

If your playing historical battles, you don't need a finely tuned points sytem cause your playing historically.

The only people to whom accurate pricing is relevant is to people playing QB's for the win.

[YankeeDog]

Cthulu --

Only BFC can state definitively how they arrived at the QB prices, but I think it's very unlikely that prices were arrived at completely "without consideration for the strength of the AT weapons on the other side of the table."

Rather, I think the important point is that since the pricing system assigns a given weapons system just one price for the entire period it's available for purchase, by definition it must consider the strength of the system vs. *all* potential opponents on for *all* fronts, throughout the *entire* war -- IOW, without "time period" adjustments, or something similar, by its very design the QB pricing systme simply can't adjust for the effectiveness of a system vs. a specific opponent (such as Stug vs. 85mm) without affecting other matchups in other conditions, time periods, etc.

So the price of 80mm StuGs is some average of their ability vs., among other things, T-34/76s, in an all armor fight in open terrain on a clear day in 1942 (VERY effective!) But it also represents their ability in a foggy armor knife fight on damp ground vs. T-34/85s in late 1944 (not very effective at all, lack of turret really hurts them, as does higher ground pressure and lower speed).

Obviously, with such a broad net, even if BFC did "consider" the "abilities of AT weapons on the other side," the Stug's price is going to be disproportionately cheap for some time periods/conditions, and too expensive for others. It's the old "One size fits none" problem.

And this doesn't even start to take into account non- armor vs. armor, or armor vs. ATG matchups. T-34s of all types can dish out a lot more hurt against infantry than Stugs; the T-34s have much more ammo, and MGs as well. This all has to be factored into the price.

Here's another way to look at it:

If I understand you correctly, you're advocating something like, "the price of Stugs should be adjusted when 85mms arrive on the Russian side because the 85mm is much more effective against Stugs than the Russian AT weapons previouly available."

Fine. That sounds like a nice idea. But where do you draw the line, and how many adjustments do you make? Do you adjust the price when the 85mm first starts showing in significant numbers on the SU-85? Do you adjust again when the even more effective T-34/85 shows up? And at what point do you make the adjustment, when T34-85 achieves a rarity of under 10%, or do you make multiple adjustments as the T-35 becomes more and more common? What about ammo effectiveness changes? Early Russian 85mm ammo, as CM models it, can only barely penetrate the Stug front, but later war 85mm ammo gets much more effective against the StuG frontally; are you going to make another adjustment when Russian 85mm ammo quality improves?

And you simply *cannot* evaluate a weapons system's effectiveness vs. "weapons on the other side" without taking into account battle type and conditions. Again, are you trying to come up with a fair price for Stugs vs. 85mm-armed Russian platforms in open terrain on a clear day, or Stugs vs. 85mm-armed Russian platforms in a nighttime city fight? In the former having 85mm weapons available vastly changes the dynamic. In the latter, the improvement is considerably less.

Your comment about Tigers & T-34s is actually dead on to what I'm talking about here. *On average*, Tigers are a more effective weapons system than T-34s, so they cost more. In the specific case of night scenarios in the mud, Tigers are probably less useful than T-34s, so their QB price is "unfair," the T-34s are "underpriced" relative to the Tigers *in this specific situation.*

Similarly, if you look at the price of StuGs in open terrain, good LOS conditions pre-Russian 85mm, they're "underpriced," because there's very little that can knock them out at range on the other side. You are, however, talking about a *specific* set of circumstances, and not the effectiveness of the weapons system across a broad spectrum of conditions, time periods, and opponents.

And so far, this is just looking at the pricing of Stugs and how it might be adjusted with the introduction and frequency of 85mm Russian weapons. Add a few more weapons platforms and/or updates (tungsten ammo, anyone?) on either side, and you've got a huge morass of a multi-level relational database. Adjustments to the price of any one unit are inevitably going to affect the relative 'fairness' across a whole spectrum of potential matchups.

Actually creating a program that could sort all this out would be quite a challenge indeed. With more recent technological and conceptual advances in so-called "fuzzy logic," computer routines it might be possible, I don't know as this isn't my field. I am quite sure a program that could actually sort all this out would be quite remarkable, though.

Personally, I'd rather have Charles focus his efforts elsewhere!

Oh, one more thing: The above shouldn't necessarily be taken as an endorsement of the current price of 80mm Stugs in CMBB. I think a strong argument can be made that they are underpriced. Actually, IMHO the problem is more with the undermodeling of certain Russian weapons' effectiveness vs. the Stug than it is the Stug's price per se, but this topic as been discussed ad nauseam elsewhere. . .

Cheers,

YD