Scenario Length- Your Preference?

[Wild Bill Wilder]

I just read the post on the new scenario, Heroes at Dawn. Sounds intriguing. I will give it a looksee.

Doo mentioned the fact that he likes a 60 turn scenario. I found that quite interesting.

I am wondering about how the rest of you feel about scenario length.

We have touched upon this before but a lot of new folks have joined us since then.

I am curious. What is your personal taste as far as scenario size and length? Of course I know 60 turns equals 60 minutes and some scenarios demand just that many turns to properly develop.

I like the longer ones occasionally, but in my personal play I prefer the shorter ones, usually 25-35 turns, with an occasional "quickie" (10-20 turns).

My own reasoning is that I don't like to leave a battle and then come back to it. I prefer to start and finish it in one sitting. Time constraints are always a problem for me as a player just as they were for battlefield commanders.

Of course, whatever the scenario length, one does want enough time to develop his plan of action.

But then, time is often a factor in war. Commanders have always been pressured to get it done, to move on, to get the job done.

The "top dogs" are under pressure to "get the war over with," and this passes down the chain of command to the battlefield commander, whose caution is sometimes reprimanded by those above him as being too slow, as holding up the advance, etc.

So in conclusion, what size or time frame do you prefer in scenarios that you play?

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Wild Bill

Lead Tester

Scenario Design Team

Combat Mission-Beyond Overlord

billw@matrixgames.com

[groundpounder]

Bill,

I prefer a scenario length of 30 - 45 turns. Then again it depends on the flow of the battle. If I get one into the 45 to 60 turn range and there is still sufficient pucker factor and the outcome is not clear, I don't mind that it's long or has to be set aside. What I do mind about long scenarios is when I'm given a lot of reinforcements to early and I wind up with traffic jams. This may be due to my catious nature though. I tend to advance slowly until contact is made then turn up the heat! I do like the occasional added pressure of time since it provokes different tactics than battles with no time pressure.

GP

[MikeT]

While I an still a new player I a find myself enjoying smaller battles. It seems to be that you can concentrate better and "enjoy the show" of smaller battles.

One thing I would like to put in a plug for is the ability to create "dirty" battlefields. I would like to see the option of starting the battle as reinforcements with the map already showing destroyed/burning vehicles, dead infantry, possibly borken/routed infantry, destroyed terrain.

MikeT

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"Quando omni flunkus moritati"

- Motto of Possum Lodge

[Guest wwb_99]

I, for one, would like to see some fog of war about scenario endings. I.e., not having them listed at the bottom of the screen would be a start. True random endings (a la steel panthers) would be really nice. But in general I perfer 25-35 turn, reinforced company sized battles. I seem to lose interest after a point. On the other hand, some scenarios seems too short, with the action getting interesting as the buzzer sounds.

WWB

[Disaster@work]

Smaller battles surely. I have very little time outside of work, then personal projects (comic book), then social life (dating). If I have only an hour to play some sort of game a night I'm afraid Half-Life: Counterstrike wins out over CM. However, if I have 2-3 hours I will spend half of it designing a scenario and the other half testing it.

[Count Sessine]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for all your hard work designing scenarios.

I like all sorts of turn limits... depends on the battle.

However, as you, I think there's too few short ones, 10-15 turns, as its often the ones I feel I have the time to finish. Also, its best to finish them of in one sitting.

/CS

[pathfinder]

Depends, though usually 25-30 turns ends up being about "right"...

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unca pathy will show ya the path,

if only he could find it himself!

[Guest Napoleon1944]

I think it depends also on the hardware. I am running on a 200MMX machine and the turns compile slower so I prefer smaller battles and shorter turns since it takes less time. When I get my new machine, I am going to try to max out the units and have a mega game!

[Peterk]

I have a soft spot for the quickies - 15-20 turns or so. Bruyeres, Aachen and Walk In Paris come to mind as good fights (hey they're all city scenarios too!)

p.

[Guest Napoleon1944]

I just played the Wiltz scenario for the second time and I liked the size of that battle. It can be completed in about an hour. Although I think the fact that I destroyed 90% of the German armor made it such a fast play battle.

[jackson44dday]

I personally like the shorter ones. Just because i can get it over with and see the results.

Sometimes i'll play long ones if both sides can hold out for that long and if there is alot of action.

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He who conquers the past, cammands the future, he who cammands the future, conquers the past. - Kane

[Wild Bill Wilder]

I agree, Count. We need those quickplay scenarios just for a break if nothing else. Some good quick fighting when one has a few minutes and nothing more.

I'm glad you all are enjoying the ones I have done. There is nice variety on the way, from quick play up to 35 turns. I rarely, if ever, do one for more than that. I am afraid I get bored with 50-60 turn battles, but that is me.

I like to finish when I start. Operations are an exception, but I try to finish each battle in an operation in a sitting. I lose track otherwise.

Thanks for all your comments!...These are a help to know how I should work.

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Wild Bill

Lead Tester

Scenario Design Team

Combat Mission-Beyond Overlord

billw@matrixgames.com

[Berlichtingen]

20-30 turns. The size battles I most enjoy generally end withing the first 15-20 turns anyway

[Vergeltungswaffe]

From the looks of this thread, I guess I am an exception. I much prefer long scenarios. 60 turns or more is great. My reasoning is that I like the idea of having a large map, having to recon the area ahead, gauging enemy resistance, or trying to determine what path the attack will come from. To me, this makes playing against the AI much better, as well as human opponents. For any that have played Close Combat, the two things I hated most were hitting the start button only to have 11 units in clear LOS within 200m that weren't there a second ago, and scenarios that only lasted for about 10 minutes of real time.

After two months of CM, and many outstanding Wild Bill scenarios, I now almost exclusively play operations. I still remember playing the Villers-Bocage Op as my first one and enjoying the first 10 minutes of the third battle as my troops and Tigers probed forward, but found no Brits for several hundred meters. The tension built to an incredible point as I waited for them to put up a stand. If this is boring to many, sorry, getting to the battle is half the fun. I also like that any thoughts of suicidal end game rushes are harshly rewarded in operations.

Quick Battles are there for those times when you can't or won't take the time for something bigger. I say devote your considerable efforts toward long, large scenarios and ops Wild Bill. Thanks in advance for the many yet to come!

[Bobbaro]

With regard to battle length, I have punched a line of thought that was not well recieved and shall set it out again. But, first as to preferences.

It is my opinion that our varying moods, circumstances etc, play a determining role in what length we prefer. Some of us find our lives in circumstances that make playing the longer scenario a difficulty, and that therefore might lead one to a bias against such scenarios.

Then there are those personality traits involving patience, curiosity, agressiveness, inexperence, imaginativeness, and more that do play role in an individual's response to game length. Sheer physical factors also figure in here. I have played a long scenario for hours forgetting real time and living entirely in the virtual time of the computer battle. I finished to stagger away to bed bedraggled by sitting so long and concentrating so hard as to reflect that it was such a shame to feel so badly and not be hung over from drink. Straying into bed shortly before dawn, I could not sleep for the battle continuing to rage vividly in rememberance. My nervous system acted like it was operating on an overdose of caffine. This kind of experence is not for the fainthearted. So, to each, his own.

The individual, who having the leasure, circumstantial freedom, and appropriate mood that still prefers a relatively short scenario in all cases has in my opinion an outlook that occupies a position with respect to playing longer games that a wargamer has, who will not download the CM demo and enjoy its incomparable merits. Or haveing done so, will not buy the full version. It is simply a thing sort of like walking up on a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, with thou laying back comfortably on her blanket with a come hither smile, and turning one's back and walking away. Damned, if I would not at least ask if she minded that I sit down, take a sip, nibble a bit, and whether, she liked to discuss politics - - - - or something else!

Now, the other matter. I have a growing resentment towards designs that place a premium on completing the mission in under x minutes, where those x minutes are so playtested to be quite near the minumum of what a designer has playtested to be required. I say that in a sometimes doubted faith that adequate playtesting was done. Within the context of a scenario there is plenty of leeway for a failure to be at y spot in time to adequately punish a player. But when the turns run out, there is no reprieve.

May I suggest that unless a scenario designer has a doggone good rationale for cutting the turn length close, that in most battles, a matter of 10 minutes or even most of the time a lot more, most battles that ended in success were taken as victories - even if the schedule of higher headquarters was not met to minute and often enough to the hour.

When higher headquarters lay a plan on so tight a schedule as to make ten minutes critical, they are micromanaging, an overcomplicated battleplan, violating all principles of simplicity. While numerous citings of examples to the contrary may be possible, that does not consider that the vast majority majority of battles saw such a more liberal definition of success.

In scenario play the challange of completing a mission on so tight a schedule does have a reward in satisfying the motivation of having met a challange successfully and can be enjoyed on that level. However, I find it generally irksome, when I add the motive of economizing on the lives of my virtual soldiers, preserving enough equipment to have a viable chance of standing against a counterattack with the forces available at the end, to consider that at the end of the last turn, I took the final objective, killed more of the enemy than they inflicted on my pyhrric forces, and got the AI pat on the back. I have a different sense of what success in battle really is. Yes a prebattle rationale can alter that. Even the Alamo claimed a role in the final analysis. Generally, I get far more satisfaction out of having enough turn leeway to be allowed more than the most simplistic tactics. Then when the turns end in which ever manner, I have an actual sense of haveing won or lost.

To finish with the original question in mind, my last thought is that there is a lot of instant gratification in a short battle and sometimes the psyche demands that. But, there are also broader and deeper opportunities in CMBO's longer turn frames available; and, when we are able to avail ourselves of these we have a greater appreciation of more of what the game can bring us. It seems that most votes go the the shorter scenarios. Pity. Perhaps it is just part of the continueing accelleration of the pace of life with the attendent depreciation of the broader and deeper aspects.

[Guest MantaRay]

Personally I like long battles. I look at them like they are mini-operations. I think the reason is I like to move my troops into position, not just start toe to toe.

I guess I also mean Huge battles. I think I could handle a 10 turn game if there were 5 Divisions on each side Maybe CM 2 or 3, but I still like em big.

Ray

[groundpounder]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MantaRay:

Personally I like long battles. I look at them like they are mini-operations. I think the reason is I like to move my troops into position, not just start toe to toe.

I guess I also mean Huge battles. I think I could handle a 10 turn game if there were 5 Divisions on each side Maybe CM 2 or 3, but I still like em big.

Ray<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ray,

Try "Hell on Horseshoe Hill", its a large battle that requires lots of maneuvering to engage without getting creamed.

GP

"Try not to draw fire, it irritates everyone around you."

[This message has been edited by groundpounder (edited 11-06-2000).]

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Bobbaro,

You have renewed my faith in mankind. I knew there had to be some folks out there that enjoy the whole process and the thought involved in it.

[Bobbaro]

Well what the heck I thought, the proof is in the pudding or what ever the hell. Anyway, I felt the necessity to place money or something as replacement for mouth. Did a large map, 5000 pt meeting engagement as a "quick" battle. HAH!!!!!!!!!!! Starting somewhere after 9p.m. I had thought to play a start up and finish later. One turn lead to another and I staggered off to a late breakfast this morning at 11:30 AM. Just a few hours down the track. It was a hell of a play. For PBEM, I am sure the results would have been different. I eked out a very strong tactical victory. Now if the engine would allow for resupply etc. It would have justified some more turns. With reinforcements surely. As it was I set the number at 50 and a few more would have helped the pace near the end. However, any advantage there would have been well balanced by my deteriorating physical condition. It ain't much better now.

The dividing map axis was horizontal on a very wide front. I got a reinforced battalion. There was a pretty good road network with a longitudinal length running most of the way in the enemy deployment zone and a cross road system that divided the victory locations and map into a single flag on my right map one third and pair in the center and 3 more clustered a little further to the left.

I attacked on the right with two companies and left the other hidden looking up at the center pair on a hill. Using AFV transport I moved about one half of a company up on the objective. I have done that a lot, making a rapid advance at the start when and where I feel that I can get a safe jump in occupying key terrain either by riding or by running.

A lot of maps lack sufficient depth to make riding much faster than running, but the troops arrive rested and that helps. The rest can catch up and catch their breaths later.

The way the battle went was that my two attacking companies encountered a counter attack somewhere starting somewhere about turn ten. I got some earlier armored probes which all bit the dust. I had a hell of a time with fighting off about two companies and was mighty glad for the concentration of the bulk of my forces.

The remaining company got started off on their approach to the twin flags on either end of the central hill as things started winding down carefully working their way using only fair cover. They took the hill with no opposition. I risked their unsupported attack, well they had artillery available so not entirely unsupported. I used some of the 105 available for the first attack as my forces there were mainly too closely engaged. It was sprinkled ahead of the assault then diverted in a prelim unobserved barrage on the other VL area.

By now the work on the first objective was winding up and when the last of the attackers were being cleaned up, I started boarding two platoons which had a decent amount of ammo left. Then I starting the whole caboodle toward the final objective, armor and riders running on the road.

I had developed a sanguine belief that I had taken out the vast bulk of his armor. Initial contacts at the final objective cluster was reassuring I had it covered on two sides rather well, infantry on one and armor on the other. One scout unit even penetrated to the backside and got a friendly flag there, but that was a rather thin force and would have been ineffective otherwise as it was out of ammo.

There was even one platoon coming up on the objective across open ground on the remaining side and they succeeded. A few infantry units turned up on the initial armored encounter. Not impressive. But by the end that little farm hamlet with adjacent woods and clearings tightly arranged well for hiding various units until they decided it was high time to put in an appearance proved to be damn near the Waterloo for my forces. The only suggestion of powerful armor on the map was the loss of a M18 mysteriously knocked out from some long range location. By the time I got through I had traded about 8 for 8 AFVs for he had a MKIV, a stug, a couple of halftracks and 3 Panthers. Discretion being the better part of valor, I kept two Shermans confined to supporting the infantry and they they survived. The Panthers kept pussyfooting back and forth through a little path way between woodlands that divided the area back and front. The woods were just full of infantry.

The equalizer was artillery. As the last turn ended a barrage of 155 HE assisted with a generous sprinkling of 81MM mortar fire. That left his two remaining Panthers immobilized and greatly assisted my infantry attack. I was able to support my infantry with two tanks while he did not bring any of his to bear on mine to speak of. Otherwise he had a fresh company in a good defensive position against a fairly comparable force. I had maybe a couple of squads over what he had. Artillery and tank support. As it was he still held a flag or two.

These marathons are justification for a little R&R off the battlefield. Son In Law is cooking up a little confrontation for about 100 guys to play Italian Campaign on my property in late Jan. They may be supported by the Nimitz Museum as gesture of appreciation for their volunteer reenactors who do living history for them. That should be fun.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

The best part of your AAR was your references to units either running out of ammo, or attacking with the ones that still had a decent amount left. Ammuntion is, of course, probably the biggest limitor on the battlefield. Many battles have been won or lost for want of ammo on one side. I just finished playing a scenario involving the Pegasus Bridge where my PanzerGrenadiers successfully pushed the Tommies out of the area surrounding the bridge only to run low on ammo while defending against a large, determined counterattack. Thus, we had to pull back, and give up our hard fought gains. I just had to grit my teeth and enjoy the realism of it. In a 20 turn game, I would have won a huge victory, but by the end of this much longer one, I had to suffer a narrow defeat.

Enjoy your Italian Campaign!