Biltong Posted September 13, 2002 Share Posted September 13, 2002 Getting a bit bored with the demos? Want to take CMBO and CMBB to a new level of realism and unbelievable addiction? The launch of Wreck’s Rules disappeared in the fanfare of the demo release and I think they are of such importance as an enhancement to CMBO (and eventually CMBB) that they should be mentioned again… Wreck came up with these rules some weeks ago on the BO board. He went to great lengths in creating a very realistic set of rules, but did not spend much time in advertising it, which is a pity, since I think most players would love the tension, excitement and realism that they provide. Put it this way – the demo pales in comparison to what the Rules did for my gaming pleasure His intro goes: "Anyone who remembers Panzer General, Steel Panthers, or Close Combat knows the fun of a campaign game. Carefully nursing along your force, slowly building it up to be something special. The horror of losing a valued unit. The glee when you increase in quality...." Basically you have a company of men and variety of extra units (armor whatever) that you take through the whole CMBO time frame from June 44 till the end of the war. As you lead your company from D-day onward all the parameters of the battles are dictated firstly by historically accurate data, E.g. in June 44 you are more than likely to get flat terrain and in December more than likely snow etc and secondly by a random factor (the die roll), but this is still influenced by history: E.g. you are more likely to meet up with Volkssturm after Feb 45. Your individual men/units gain or loose experience during each battle... after 8 battles I'm still green - but then I'm only in the 1st week of July and I took a lot of hammering with my green troops in June. You also gain or lose favor with your CO depending on battle outcomes and other factors: e.g.: don't lose armor and especially don't let them burn!! The CO gets highly p'd off and you lose his favor, which you can use to influence some of his decisions. E.g.: whether you should attack straight after your last battle without even getting reinforcements For each battle you'll also get additional forces: armor; arty; AT; air support etc., depending whether you are defending, attacking or conducting a probe etc.... You might think that this is CMBO – old hat! But it is not - I've been a PBEM player for years, but this is the most excitement I've got from any war game to date... At nights I can't wait to finish my CMBB demo games to get back to my campaign. Wreck told me he'll bring out a version for CMBB, but it will take some time... He first wants to run the historical qualifiers past the grogs before releasing it, so it might be a couple of months after CMBB arrives before we see the new set... enough time to give it a try with CMBO. The volume of rules (+- 15 pages of - mostly quick scan tables)might put you off at first, but once you've gone through them before your first battle, they are very easy and quick the 2nd time around.... You only use them once between each battle: for setting the parameters and defining your units (and sometimes the enemy) – it takes me +- 10 minutes between battles, that is all. What I find so addictive is the tension of realism... Your men's survival becomes very important... even to the extend that you'll rather loose a battle than loose too many men!! Those mad flag rushes just don't exist anymore... Realism Rules like I've never seen before. I never thought I would ever say that playing against the AI is better than PBEM, but this is it.... In QB's, PBEM's and all designed scenarios you always have a (sort of) balanced foe, but that is stupid - in the real war this hardly ever happened... With Wreck's Rules you have the real thing: Sometimes you know who your opponent is, but sometimes you are facing unknown odds: Sometimes you have an easy go of it - hammering green Heer troops, but later that night you might face a counter-attack from SS Panthers, before you had chance to get reinforcements... and no armor to support you... :mad: or Division might promise you a lot of supporting arty, but a fog sets in just before your assault, making them useless You have to think on your feet and learn to retreat when necessary... no more heroic defenses or assaults till the last man!! As a learning tool this is unsurpassed.... You learn to think and act like a real soldier... If you think you’ve got your tactics down pat, LOL – Think again… You will get into situations that you’ve never encountered before… :eek: Wrecks rules has brought a dimension to CM that I never expected... the fact that you are playing the AI hardly matters... all that matters are the survival of your troops and once in a while you even try to capture the flags... If you decide to try it: Give yourself an extra 105mm FO and one or more tanks (depending on your experience) * The rules have been designed for Grogs... I consider myself a Vet, but I lost my 1st 4 battles until I assigned myself an extra 105mm FO and a Stuart, then I finally got going... I'm now on battle 8 and slowly starting to learn when to retreat; when not too fight or push for the flags (very important!) and how to be VERY careful! You learn with your troops and you learn the HARD way.... But I tell you - this is the first time ever that feel I'm simulating the real thing! Enjoy! Rules here: http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2rb4w/qb-campaign.html Discussion on CMBO board here: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=025864 * Suggestions: Newbie: add platoon of Shermans (3 x M4) Green: 1 x 105 & 1 x M4 Sherman Regular: 1 x M4 Or choose any mix that you would like, but include the units in your core force that you take with you throughout the campaign.... i.e.: include the crews in your core force calculations. BTW - Those guys hosting CM sites should maybe have a look at these rules and consider hosting them.... I suspect there's going to be quite a demand for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted September 13, 2002 Share Posted September 13, 2002 I was wanting to do something like this for my GD site, but I am glad to hear Wreck can devote more time to it than I could. I'd love to host the CMBB rules on my site, per your suggestion, and can supply some info pertinent to the GD (terrain, weather, etc.) if anyone wanted to simulate that unit rather than an anonymous one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falkao Posted September 14, 2002 Share Posted September 14, 2002 Maybe someone could make an adaptation of the rules to include armor in the core force, since the experience the unit gets for its kills had to be reduced, unless you want a tank unit rising from green to crack having killed, for example 12 men, 3 tanks and one gun... (63 experience points) and perhaps a different way to calculate experience loss for crew casualities... Just an idea... Or even better, an excel spreadsheet or some other program that handled all calculations for you... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makes The Jelly Judder Posted September 14, 2002 Share Posted September 14, 2002 Or even better, an excel spreadsheet or some other program that handled all calculations for you... I created an Excel campain thing a couple of months ago. These were some of the features I included 1) A 100 by 100 square grid map that was auto generated by some VBA code. This included squares with a "Hill" factor "Woods" factor and "town/rural" factor. They even had set up zones for both players armies. 2) The number of turns for the campain could be set and an option for using a calculation of total terrain occupied in the victory calculation could be set 3) The user created up to 10 "Army Groups" of upto 5000 points in Value (The total points value could be set in the main game settings before the map was generated). Certain types of "Army Group" were restricted i.e. you could only have 2 Armour groups and 2 mech infantry groups. The army groups could move at different speeds(i.e. Armour groups could move 5 squares, diagonal movement is a bitch on a square grid map) and different spotting abilities. 4) Movement was controlled by some swanky VBA forms. If you attacked into an adjacent square you got an assault, two squares a attack ect ect. After you completed your moves the application would tell player 1 what types of battles to set up. After the battle both players would have to enter their losses into another VBA form, the idea being that 1 tank loss would equal a certain amount of points lost ect ect, and that the type of victory would add collateral damage i.e a total victory would result in the opponents "Army group" being totally wiped out and their points would be added back into their starting pool for re-allocation to the remaining "Army Groups". The whole thing worked (Barring play balance), but I canned the whole thing because the program relied on each user to be honest when inputing the results of the battles and selecting their units, I did try a system that required each user to enter the same kills loses which would then be compaired, and would not be excepted until they were identical. But it seemed unworkable for all but the most dedicated of players. I wish that the game just produced a simple text file saying the following when a battle finished Germans lost : 1000 Allies lost: 500 A similar notfication of points strength when the battle started would be useful too. Anyone intrested in my reworking this idea for CMBB? [ September 13, 2002, 08:40 PM: Message edited by: Makes The Jelly Judder ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Harrison Posted September 14, 2002 Share Posted September 14, 2002 Thanks for reposting this! Once the full version of CMBB finally gets here, I think that this would be a lot of fun to run through a few times. Should we start a contest to see if someone could run a company from Barbossa to Berlin? Not only would that be a long run, but it would have lots of men and women shooting at them along the way! Kind of the olympics, they get the medal for hitting you, and you get the medal shipped to your family when you get hit! Enemy Marksmenship Medal. Chda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biltong Posted October 16, 2002 Author Share Posted October 16, 2002 Any news on the CMBB version of the rules yet... Wreck? Just got the CD and can't wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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