CMBB--New Proposal For Rarity System

[Battlefront.com]

OK, jumping in a little later here, but first a response to the starting post:

Colonel Deadmarsh,

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Correct me if I'm wrong but in the upcoming game, if you choose rarity settings, you are penalized points for choosing armor or whatever that was only produced in small numbers during the war.<hr></blockquote>

Get ready to be corrected Rarity is a system where pricing is dependent upon the historical availability Force Type (Pioneer, Infantry, Armored, etc)., and finally Unit Type (PzIIIJ, Soviet SMG Squad, etc.). The price is different each month of the war depending on historical reality. CM also has a National Rarity which determines how likely the player will get a Nationality (Germany, Finland, etc) and Branch Type (Waffen SS, Luftwaffe Infantry, etc.) for a particular Region (Finland, North, Central, and South) on a particular month of the year. Confusing? Hopefully not , but if so, this should help...

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>1st example: Player A has a penchant for King Tigers. He loves these babies and wants to take one in his next game. Why would he opt for the rarity option if he is going to take a big point hit for doing so?<hr></blockquote>

Answer - he shouldn't. Rarity is designed to eliminate "penchant"s of all types, not cater to them. That is how the current system in CMBO works and it remains active in CMBB as well. Rarity Setting = None.

Plus, as others have said, you can play with Variable Rarity which might, just MIGHT, give you a chance to buy that expensive unit at a decent price.

Also keep in mind that Rare does not equal Desirable. Some really crappy things will be priced high because they also happened to have been rare. This will eliminate the chance of CM from buying crappy and rare stuff for you to use when you let the game decide what to pick.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>2nd example Player B is a grog who is starting a game with another grog, Player C. Both players like a realistic game with realistic forces. Both players want to use the rarity system to insure that their opponents also pick a realistic force. Neither are worried about taking point hits because they plan on taking only realistic forces in their mix. If both players only use realistic forces, what is the point of them playing a rarity game in the first place?<hr></blockquote>

Answer = because if you put 1000 grogs in a room and ask them what the pricing for this or that vehicle or unit should be on this or that date you will likely get 2000 opinions Instead of having thousands of grogs do the research necessary to answer this question in an informed way, we did it for them. That establishes a single baseline and everybody should be at least happy with the fact that there is no ambiguity.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>3rd example Player D is on a ladder where the points you get to spend need to be used carefully, with every unit taken needing to fill a purpose on the battlefield. With that in mind, why in the world would this person take anything with a penalty on it when it will decrease his chances of winning? This person plays to win. That is his motivation.<hr></blockquote>

Answer - people who want to be "gamey" will definitely want to not play with Rarity. Since it is an option, this type of person will probably never play with anything but the "None" option.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Now, after having written all this, I feel guilty because I have always been for more options in the game but I really can't understand the use of this feature. Namely because the bottom line to most people playing the game is WINNING.<hr></blockquote>

Correct. But as can be seen in hundreds of threads, and thousands of posts, there are different WAYS to win. There is the "gamey" control freak method, then there is the super anal historical way. Those are two entirely different ways to play the game. Thankfully, most people play Combat Mission first and foremost to have... wait for it... FUN!! I think it is safe to say that the majority will love this feature and the super anal historical players will too. That leaves the minority "gamey" folks using the "None" option. Since the options are OPTIONAL, everybody wins.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Now, I realize that some people do play for fun but aren't these the people who are into the realism aspect of the game? The people who want realistic forces just to enjoy a simulation of history? Well, if this is true then what need do they have for a rarity system?<hr></blockquote>

Because it isn't true. You are just not looking at this from anything but your own narrow perspective. I think the vast majority of people on this BBS are sick to death of seeing King Tigers and Jumbo tanks. Therefore I think the vast majority would get more enjoyment out of the game with the Rarity system. I know I do.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Whatever faction you fall into, all of them added up equals a very large portion of the CM community who seemingly don't need a rarity option for their game.

Like I said, I've always been for more options but I honestly can't see the need for this one in CMBB.<hr></blockquote>

You will once you see it And since it was coded up months ago, there is little point in removing it now that it is done and working great.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Proposed Solution:Instead of having players take a point hit when choosing rarity units, why not have a randomly-generated unit availability list when players choose to play with the rarity factor.

This has been suggested at least a dozen times before and quite simply doesn't work. The whole point of Rarity is to stop, prevent, destroy, eliminate, etc. "Cherry Picking" unit choices. Having the ability to buy "2 King Tigers" is pointless since the fact is that 99 out of 100 times the player shouldn't be able to buy even one.

If you are proposing that CM just leave things off the list if they are too rare, that is basically what the pricing system does. Only a pure fool would buy one King Tiger instead of 4 Panthers for example. But the price differences can be much more subtle than that, so why not allow for shades of gray?

[Battlefront.com]

I think this thread is a PERFECT illustration of everything that I wrote above for the following reasons:

1. Clearly the majority WANT to see our system in place.

2. The majority clearly understand that this is an Optional feature which may not appeal to all people. But since it is optional, it can be turned off.

3. Being a grog or not dose not preclude the fun of variety. In fact, variety is the spice of life

4. Being a grog does not necessarily mean knowing roughly what units should be available to what degree on a given month for a give year of the war. This will be especially true for non-German or Soviet forces. Who here knows how common the Romanian 75mm Resita AT gun was in August of 1944? Beter yet, who even knows what that gun is and why anybody would want to have it?

5. That all of this has been debated, many times, over the past year. Nothing new has been proposed since probably the first debate. And since we have already coded up the system, and are super pleased with the results, it is rather pointless to start up another debate without understanding the previous ones or having the game to actually play with and see first hand what it does.

6. Most importantly... there is more than one way to play Combat Mission and it is a VERY bad idea to assume that everybody wants to play just as you do. Best thing to do when reading this BBS is read between the lines and figure out what the major play groupings are. Then make a mental tally of how many fit into each catagory so you can better assess issues like this.

Steve

[ 01-20-2002: Message edited by: Big Time Software ]</p>

[Panzer Leader]

BTS: one question:

Will we have the charts?

For rarity, it would be nice to have charts with the manual (or on the disk or in the game) showing when units were at their most common and rarest? And to code this, you must have compiled all that information, so giving it to the players shouldn't be that difficult, right?

I will definitely want to be able to "see" which units are over or under priced before and during the unit selection phase.

[Kwazydog]

Actually it tells you that infomation directly in the interface Panzer Leader. It is displayed as a plus or minus percentage.

Dan

[Battlefront.com]

Kwazy is correct. Plus, if we were to include charts... oh my GOD would the manual be huge You guys have NO clue how many units are going to be in this game. None And thanks to Rarity, you will eventually find out instead of just seeing IS-2s and King Tigers slugging it out 90% of the time

Steve

[Tero]

The price is different each month of the war depending on historical reality. CM also has a National Rarity which determines how likely the player will get a Nationality (Germany, Finland, etc) and Branch Type (Waffen SS, Luftwaffe Infantry, etc.) for a particular Region (Finland, North, Central, and South) on a particular month of the year.

Will there be a possibility to pick ahistorical forces and combos in inapproariate regions like hordes of better German armour (PzKw-IVG or better or even Tigers) helping out Finnish infantry in the far North/Finnish region with the rarity system off ?

Also, will there be such nuances like SS Gebirgsjäger and Heer Gebirgsjäger or just plain Gebirgsjäger ?

Oh, and yes, will there be Finns from June 1941 until the early winter of 1945 or will there be a cut off at the static phase ?

[ 01-21-2002: Message edited by: tero ]</p>

[Battlefront.com]

Hi Tero,

No, there can be no mixing of forces (at all) like having Hungarians in Finland and Fins fighting alongside the Italians outside of Stalingrad. As far as the code is concerned this is no different than having Tigers in Finland, or having a King Tiger available in 1941. I do not think there is any chance of getting this changed for Quick Battles. However, Scenarios can be made with where all the rules are broken. You could have a King Tiger in Finland supported by Fins and Romanians if you want

Yes, we will have SS and Heer versions of Gebirgsjägers for example. Their TO&E was very similar (at least in theory), but the few differences they did will be reflected in the game. The Germans will also have access to the few, crappy AFVs present in Finland before the arrival of StuGs. We are using "Wehrmachtin Panssarit Suomessa" as our primary refference for this.

The front in Finland is considered by us to be "live" from 1941 until the armnistace (or slightly after) in 1944, without interruption. However, I am not aware of why the front should be kept active until the winter of 1944/45.

Steve

[ 01-21-2002: Message edited by: Big Time Software ]</p>

[Tero]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

However, I am not aware of why the front should be kept active until the winter of 1944/45.

Lapland War against the Germans.

[Chad Harrison]

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

A perfect example of the rarity system is in a game I recently played with variable rarity turned on. I cant remember the *exact* details but it should give you a fair idea of how it worked. It was May '42, and I was playing as the axis player.<hr></blockquote>

I have the wrong job . . .

I think that the rarity system that they have will be fun. In ASL it was like what you mentioned; ie. either its availiable or its not. But this way we will get to play really any vehicle at that time, just at a price.

I personally look forward to having the T34 being dirt cheap, and buying them a platoon at a time. I like to play realistic battles, and I play on the RD ladder; but this system appeals to me very much so.

Chad

[Michael Dorosh]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

I think that the rarity system that they have will be fun. In ASL it was like what you mentioned; ie. either its availiable or its not. But this way we will get to play really any vehicle at that time, just at a price.

Chad<hr></blockquote>

You were better off than I was, maybe. I was brainwashed to think everything in all 10 volumes of the ASL Rules was canon and not to be messed with - never occurred to me NOT to use rarity! I wonder how groggy CM players will be...

[Thermopylae]

I suppose you have a point Mr. Dorosh...but could you imagine buying "armor support" the same way you buy fighter-bombers? AHHH!!!

[Mattias]

All grog for me..

If the rarity system works as well as BTS makes it sound I think it will be just as default for me as "full" fog of war is now, i.e. I have never played without it...

Same goes for the "automatic selection" if BTS manages to make it effective and realistic.

M.

[Col Deadmarsh]

Well, I have to say that Steve makes it sound really nice and now I'm starting to trust them more on this--after all, that Combat Mission game was a decent piece of software.

I'm wondering though about computer-picked forces. How will people react when the computer gives them a completely overpriced rarity unit they never wanted in the first place and uses up most of their points to boot? Hopefully they've come up with some kind of formula to prevent this kind of thing from getting out of control.

[Priest]

Steve,

You said that we do not understand how many different units are in the game, but OH! how we want to know!

[gatpr]

Yea verily, I promise diligently to play with rarity the first 99 times I play. Of course that may take a week if I'm busy with teaching le histoire to mes infants. So I could see all those esoteric units that have been mentioned. Did someone say salivating like a Pavlov dog?

[dalem]

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

I'm wondering though about computer-picked forces. How will people react when the computer gives them a completely overpriced rarity unit they never wanted in the first place and uses up most of their points to boot?<hr></blockquote>

You mean like getting three roadblocks while Defending in a 500 pt game?

I would either buckle down and play the scenario with what I had or start over. Same as now.

[Battlefront.com]

Colonel Deadmarsh,

Thanks for the new found faith in our abilities

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I'm wondering though about computer-picked forces. How will people react when the computer gives them a completely overpriced rarity unit they never wanted in the first place and uses up most of their points to boot?<hr></blockquote>

The answer is simple... the system isn't that dumb It is fully aware of how much over and under each unit is priced and will tend to buy things which are under to slightly over priced. Meaning that you are highly unlikely to ever see the game buy something like a King Tiger even, since I doubt Variable Rarity will ever discount it to an extent the system would be happy sacrificing for. But perhaps you might luck out! And with Fixed Rarity... forgedaboudit!

Priest, I can't even count how many things are in the game or are likely to be included. When you include all units, all nations, all time periods the numbers are rather huge. Even if this were a battle of two nations instead of six, the number of units would likely be equal to the six of CMBO. But CMBB does have 6 nations (Germans, Soviets, Romanians, Fins, Hungarians, and Italians) covering 4 years and the whole front. Huge I tell you

Steve

[Col Deadmarsh]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Colonel Deadmarsh,

Thanks for the new found faith in our abilities

The answer is simple... the system isn't that dumb It is fully aware of how much over and under each unit is priced and will tend to buy things which are under to slightly over priced. Meaning that you are highly unlikely to ever see the game buy something like a King Tiger even, since I doubt Variable Rarity will ever discount it to an extent the system would be happy sacrificing for. But perhaps you might luck out! And with Fixed Rarity... forgedaboudit! <hr></blockquote>

I'm still confused as to the difference between fixed rarity and variable rarity...

Is fixed rarity what we have in CM right now where you can only buy certain units for each time period?

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>

Priest, I can't even count how many things are in the game or are likely to be included. When you include all units, all nations, all time periods the numbers are rather huge. Even if this were a battle of two nations instead of six, the number of units would likely be equal to the six of CMBO. But CMBB does have 6 nations (Germans, Soviets, Romanians, Fins, Hungarians, and Italians) covering 4 years and the whole front. Huge I tell you

Steve<hr></blockquote>

Wow...I just want to say as a "PBEM only" player, I have only just begun to aquaint myself with all of the units in CM. Hell, I've only just started playing my second game using the Brits! For CMMB, I may have to start playing TCP/IP games just to familarize myself with all the units up front before I find that CM3 is here.

[Priest]

Well Steve I have total faith in BTS's abilities!

I can only imagine the units and the variations involved. It should be very interesting.

If you ever need anything you know where to look (right Matt ) for support! (well actually most anyone on the board would saw off their arm for you but well you get the drift!)

[dalem]

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

If you ever need anything you know where to look (right Matt ) for support! (well actually most anyone on the board would saw off their arm for you but well you get the drift!)<hr></blockquote>

I would gladly saw Joe Shaw's arm off for Madmatt. Heck, I'd do it for almost any reason.

-dale

[Battlefront.com]

There are tons of threads on Rarity, but quickly... the options are...

None - same exact system as in CMBO. Units are available when they are available and always priced the same based on their capabilities.

Fixed - modification of the above to account for month specific Rarity, which will always be the same for that unit each and every time the game is played on that particular month.

Variable - modification of the above which randomizes the inflation or deflation of the Fixed Rarity price depending on random "roll of the dice". The prices can go up or down, with bigger changes reserved for rarer stuff. Always different for each unit on a given month every time a new game is created.

Use None for games where maximum Cherry Picking is desired, Fixed Rarity when the opposite is sought. Variable Rarity is somewhere in between, allowing a realistic chance of rare stuff coming onto the battlefield that Fixed totally rules out and None perhaps allows too many of.

I personally always play with Variable Rarity.

Steve

[Capitalistdoginchina]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

I personally always play with Variable Rarity.

Steve<hr></blockquote>

Note to self : Don't try to understand it, just choose Variable Rarity like Full Fog of

War and all will be ok

CDIC

[rune]

Incorrect...use EXTREME fog of war....

Rune

[Wolfe]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Priest, I can't even count how many things are in the game or are likely to be included. When you include all units, all nations, all time periods the numbers are rather huge. Even if this were a battle of two nations instead of six, the number of units would likely be equal to the six of CMBO. But CMBB does have 6 nations (Germans, Soviets, Romanians, Fins, Hungarians, and Italians) covering 4 years and the whole front. Huge I tell you <hr></blockquote>

Oh, how I am not looking forward to creating a unit database for this monstrosity!

- Chris

[Col Deadmarsh]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

There are tons of threads on Rarity, but quickly... the options are...

None - same exact system as in CMBO. Units are available when they are available and always priced the same based on their capabilities.

Fixed - modification of the above to account for month specific Rarity, which will always be the same for that unit each and every time the game is played on that particular month.

Variable - modification of the above which randomizes the inflation or deflation of the Fixed Rarity price depending on random "roll of the dice". The prices can go up or down, with bigger changes reserved for rarer stuff. Always different for each unit on a given month every time a new game is created.

Use None for games where maximum Cherry Picking is desired, Fixed Rarity when the opposite is sought. Variable Rarity is somewhere in between, allowing a realistic chance of rare stuff coming onto the battlefield that Fixed totally rules out and None perhaps allows too many of.

I personally always play with Variable Rarity.

Steve<hr></blockquote>

Thanks for the clear explanation Steve. I would guess I'll be playing variable rarity too.

Wolfe, I downloaded your charts but they don't work in Excel. I even changed to landscape view but that didn't do anything either. Basically, I can't see anything in the tables at all. No info whatsoever. I'm using Excel 2000. Any idea on what might be wrong?