ROW Vets: Deliberately Unbalanced Scenarios

[Treeburst155]

Nabla,

Enemy exit zones are visible, and also marked as such.

To All,

A word on luck in scenarios while I'm here. Scott and I agreed that no extra luck should be introduced into scenarios by the use of aircraft or variable reinforcement entry times. 'Wet' ground conditions was brought up IIRC, but I can't remember what the verdict was on that one.

Treeburst155 out.

[Nabla]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Nabla,

Enemy exit zones are visible, and also marked as such.

Damn. Off to do some lobbying again...

[kevinkins]

To Scott B - yes "Another Day" was/is for Allied

vs the AI. Although it leans to the Axis it appears to be OK for 2 player also given all the data. I am hoping that even in the hands of the AI those Tigers will be tough on the human player.

- Kevin

[Treeburst155]

Another Day spoiler

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Kevin,

It depends on how aggressive the AI is with the Tigers, I think. If the Tigers come forward there is a good chance they will die.

I took over one game of "Another Day" for a dropout where he had moved two tigers well forward, not far behind the first treeline (from Allied perspective). They were overwhelmed by enemy Shermans before I could extract them to safer firing positions. Two dead tigers combined with a later lucky shot at range by a vanilla Sherman on a third tiger finished it for the Jerries.

________________________________________________

Thinking a bit more on extremely unbalanced scenarios, it comes to mind that these types of scenarios would probably not be much good outside the context of a Nabla scored tournament. From the perspective of Boots & Tracks, this is probably not a good thing at all. Of course, the occasional blooper could always be created by somebody else and shuffled into the deck with the genuine B&T scenarios.

Treeburst155 out.

[CombinedArms]

I was an Allied player who went on the tactical defensive after taking the first VL in "Another Day" (ultimately winning a minor victory) and I wasn't bored for minute.

My opponent quickly tried to seize the initiative and a complex cat and mouse game eventually ensued with both of us manuevering for advantage and losses on both sides. At the very end I'd killed two Tigers and immoblized the other two and had five Shermans remaining.I would have gone on the attack at that point if I'd had a few more turns.

At I've said, I was very pleased with the balance ratios in all of the ROW scenarios. It's truly lopsided scenarios that I wonder about (though these seem to have their advocates) and none of these were truly lopsided.

[Holien]

To me Another Day favored the Germans. I could win that game every time as the Germans. The trick is to know what to do.

Just because it appears balanced does not mean that it is.

However we could discuss that until the cows come home and not get any where. I am happy to agree to disagree.

As for the games I want them to be fun and challenging. I do not think a lopsided affair would be challanging unless the designer makes it something different which in itself might have merit.

Sat waiting for someone to attack with limited forces and limited options is not fun. You need forces, options and interest.

I only represent my view and do not aim to impress it upon others and I am mature enough to know that other people have different views.

H

[Treeburst155]

Combined Arms,

The amount of action in a scenario is highly dependent on your opponent in many cases. In the game you just described I probably would not have counterattacked with my Tigers (I think they're crummy tanks ). It would have been a standoff with you on one end and me on the other.

Would this have made the game boring? Naah, it would have made the game OVER in short order.

Treeburst155 out.

[Treeburst155]

Originally posted by Holien:

To me Another Day favored the Germans. I could win that game every time as the Germans. The trick is to know what to do.

You would have to define "win" here. Does that mean 51 points? I can get a draw with the Allies every time in Another Day. Shall we try it?

Holien says:

Just because it appears balanced does not mean that it is.

The numbers say that it is balanced when played by 36 different pairs of players. You cannot define balance based on one person's ability to win from a given side. This appears to be the idea behind your statement here. What is balanced for Wreck is certainly not balanced for the general community.

However we could discuss that until the cows come home and not get any where. I am happy to agree to disagree.

Disagreement as to scenario balance is a good indicator that a scenario is balanced.

As for the games I want them to be fun and challenging. I do not think a lopsided affair would be challanging unless the designer makes it something different which in itself might have merit.

Sat waiting for someone to attack with limited forces and limited options is not fun. You need forces, options and interest.

The "interest" is provided by the fact you would not KNOW you are defending against limited forces. You also have to keep in mind the others who play the scenario from your side. What if one or more of them decides to attack out of the defensive position and does this successfully. You will not do well in that scenario. You were too busy being bored to win. Also, the wildly out of whack scenario adds more interest to the other scenarios because the uncertainty regarding balance permeates the whole tourney.

I agree that a healthy majority of the scenarios should be no worse than 60-40 balance. Maybe even a VERY healthy majority should be this way; but, in order to preserve doubt, there should be an occasional blooper, whether players find the blooper scenario entertaining or not. The blooper enhances the entertainment value of the rest of the scenarios.

So Holien, shall I send you an allied setup and the original scenario file for Another Day?

Treeburst155 out.

[ October 29, 2002, 07:18 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[The_Capt]

Hey guys I made the finals on Another Day. I managed to kill all four Tigers and win. I did the same with Duel at Dompaire in RoW I so I for one am very happy with unbalanced scenarios if for the sole reason they seem to be the only ones I can consistantly win

Seriously. I think the 60-40 rule is a good one but then again often we don't see 60-40 until 50 guys play the scenario.

Let's go a little deeper...

Holien spoke of options. I think this is a good point. A scenario can be very unbalanced force wise but it can also be unbalanced manoeuvre-wise as well. I think an idea is that if you are going to shortchange a player with a significant shortfall in forces you should increase the area in which he can deploy them in. This raises the options available to that player.

Force quality can be another factor, as can terrain. A much smaller force in good terrain with lots of options is in fact not so imbalanced.

I think the key here is not whether unbalanced scenarios are bad but whether they are boring. With imagination one can have an unbalanced scenario that is anything but.."Lab Rats" anyone?

[Treeburst155]

The Capt brings up good points. Force size is only one way to unbalance a scenario. It can be done simply with the time limit for example.

The extreme example of an assault against superior forces is probably the least entertaining way to unbalance a scenario. I'm trying to show that even a scenario like this has merit with regard to the tourney as a whole, and can be somewhat interesting if approached with the right attitude, for lack of a better word. Even a hopeless assault can be designed to give the underdog choices and options. Large setup zones and abundant cover come to mind, as mentioned by The Capt.

BTW, The Capt did well in Another Day because tigers are crummy tanks.

Treeburst155 out.

[ October 29, 2002, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Treeburst155]

Replied with quote when I wanted to edit. Move along now.

Treeburst155 out.

[ October 29, 2002, 08:11 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Redwolf]

Inbalance is not fixed.

There are scenarios which are balanced when both players are experienced but unbalanced when both are inexperienced. The key here is how "difficult" the sides play.

The level how the game results rise with player quality may not be the same for both sides.

Consider an attack where you have too many vehicles, too few infantry, too few roads and too much mud. The defender is pretty vanilla with a few AT guns 'n stuff. Obviously the defender's chances to win are more even for different defender qualities. The batter player will still defend better, but the difference is by far not as big as for the attacker. For the attacker a single mistake means be pisses away a bunch of tanks (or worse, one after another peascemeal) or he uses his infantry and the slightest screwup ruins his few infantry for the game.

[ October 29, 2002, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Redwolf]

In general the unbalanced scoring gets an unconditional thumbs up from me. The issue of boring games due to careful players can probably be fixed with possible reinforcements, that will obfuscate the balance a lot unless the player is very number-heavy and gamey.

And also, the side which is obviously the underdog may get careful. But the stronger side will have to realize that it can push ahrd now. If the nabla scoring system highly rewards high victories (that doesn't me it should badly punish huge losses) the player on the stronger side actually has to. Even if he holds the flags, if he had losses he needs to make good by inflicting enemy losses, otherwise the other players playing the scenario from the same side will come out on top of him.

[Treeburst155]

EDIT: Post deleted

LOL!

I misunderstood Redwolf's posts completely. Good points concerning balance there, Redwolf.

Treeburst155 out.

[ October 29, 2002, 09:52 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[U8led]

I took over one game of "Another Day" for a dropout where he had moved two tigers well forward, not far behind the first treeline (from Allied perspective). They were overwhelmed by enemy Shermans before I could extract them to safer firing positions. Two dead tigers combined with a later lucky shot at range by a vanilla Sherman on a third tiger finished it for the Jerries.

HeHe

I like the unbalanced 60-40 is excellent. I don't like the night fighting, especially in the finals. Lends itself more to luck then players ability to command in my oppinion.

U8led

[Treeburst155]

What is it about night fighting that players think is so prone to luck. Is it the friendly fire incidents?

Treeburst155 out.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

What is it about night fighting that players think is so prone to luck. Is it the friendly fire incidents?

No I think its the morale. BFC game troops in night very low morale, they break very often and unpreditably. As always, once they turn their back to the enemy they are dead.

To add insult to injury, late in the game when global morale goes down the effect increases.

Hm, I begin to dislike that whole global morale thing, but then, I already did so in CMBO times

Almost forgot: smallarms fire in the night (in CMBO) is extremly deadly. I wonder how BFC came to do it that way. Certainly you would expect less precise fire instead, especially above SMG range.

[kunstler]

I think unbalanced scenarios can be alot of fun, as you try to make the best of a bad situation.

The only complicating factor for me is the orders you are given for the scenario.

In Another Day, I thought I should stop my attack after taking the first line of woods, as the open space was murder on my Shermans with Tigers hull down on the next ridge line.

Two things occurred to me:

First I didn't think it was very sporting to stop, and I did think it would lead to a boring game. Good points against worrying about that here, so no problem.

Second, tho, were my orders. I was supposed to take those cross roads, if I remember correctly. Now, if I was a real commander, could I just call off my attack and say to my superior, well, gee, there were, like, these big tanks there, so we decided not to.

Can an officer actually decide this in real life? I don't know much about real military affairs, but I've read of commanders being chewed out for being insufficiently aggressive, getting sacked, whatever, for not attacking, even when it would be a botch.

German and Russian officers in particular seemed to get stuck with stupid orders from above. Did they have the option to be prudent?

Everything I have read indicates otherwise, they attack anyway, against impossible odds, which makes unbalanced scenarios where they call the offensive off to be safe, and disobey their orders, unfeasible/unrealistic or something of that sort.

Would you really have that option, at that level of command, or would you be relieved and someone else put in charge to finish the job?

Ok, I'm nit picking here but that's what occurred to me. Moving right along . . .

kunstler

[Treeburst155]

Very interesting, Kunstler. I hadn't thought of how the briefings might influence play for the more honorable, less gamey players such as yourself. I would of course ignore orders if I thought they interfered with my REAL goal of scoring maximum points.

I also wouldn't worry about being a good sport by initiating ill-advised action just to make the game more interesting. As soon as I hit a point in the scenario where I feel I cannot improve my score, I'm ready for a ceasefire. That could be very early in the scenario or not at all.

Briefings probably should contain a sentence like this: Press on to the crossroads unless you feel resistance is too heavy. Don't be a hero.

Your real "orders" are dictated by the size and location of the flags, and your estimate of the casualty ratio that will occur if you move on a VL. In "Another Day" that far VL (Allied view) is only worth 100 points. You can't lose many more guys than your opponent while taking the flag if it is to pay off in the end.

Thanks for bringing the briefings into the discussion. They are indeed important.

Treeburst155 out.

[Nabla]

Originally posted by kunstler:

I think unbalanced scenarios can be alot of fun, as you try to make the best of a bad situation.

The only complicating factor for me is the orders you are given for the scenario.

[snip]

Second, tho, were my orders. I was supposed to take those cross roads, if I remember correctly. Now, if I was a real commander, could I just call off my attack and say to my superior, well, gee, there were, like, these big tanks there, so we decided not to.

Can an officer actually decide this in real life? I don't know much about real military affairs, but I've read of commanders being chewed out for being insufficiently aggressive, getting sacked, whatever, for not attacking, even when it would be a botch.

[snip]

Ok, I'm nit picking here but that's what occurred to me. Moving right along . . .

No, you're not nit picking at all, this is a very important aspect of (possibly) unbalanced scenarios, and yet another thing which complicates their design. I wrestled with this quite a bit when preparing the scenarios for Nordic Championships.

What you've described above is the lack of fallback conditions (I hope this term makes sense in English). That is, for an unbalanced scenario to be credible, you have to have some statements which tell you what to do in case of an unbalance (surprise). An example was given by TB - "...unless you feel resistance is too heavy". Without statements like this you really don't know whether you are allowed to change your goal or not. In real life you'd have to contact your superiors, and you can't do that in CM (although I even thought about acting as the superior in the Nordic Championships, but abandoned that idea pretty quickly).

Now in Nordic Championships all scenarios which I designed contained fallback conditions, even those that were not intended to be unbalanced. Why? Because if only truly unbalanced scenarios had fallback conditions, they'd spoil the surprise. Therefore, if my logic has been correct, in tournaments with unbalanced scenarios, all scenarios must have fallback conditions. I hope the B&T guys are listening... Well, I can motivate them by noting that fallback conditions are also a very neat way to save the ass of the designer in the case of an unintentional unbalance. We already saw a potential case like this above.

There are different types of fallback conditions you can use. Right now I remember two distinct types which I've used. One is that mentioned above already - what to do if enemy forces are too strong. Another is flexibility w.r.t. the goals. For example, you can tell the player that he has flexibility in selecting the objectives (flags) he takes over, or enemy units he tries to destroy (hit and run -type of scenario). Hmm, maybe these are the two types. I'll have to think about this.

Thanks for bringing up this important issue.

[ October 30, 2002, 04:08 AM: Message edited by: Nabla ]

[Holien]

TB.

As you well know my statement refers to the Allies attempting to take the crossroads and hence the flag beyond it.

For sure you can get a draw, but is that the aim of playing the game?

I am more than happy to pick up the gauntlet and take the challenge. A win to me is scoring more points than the other player, but I am happy to go by textual description.

On another issue could the design of Another Day been enhanced to have two big flags and a small flag on the crossroad. Would that have enhanced the game play and made it less unbalanced? Or would it have been more unbalanced?

Anyway we are talking the toss at the moment and I am happy with playing fun and exciting games where I do not know what my opponent will have and what will come.

(I have played no scenarios on the new CMBB yet as I want to play them Double Blind with Humans as this is really the only way to play, IMO.)

I do not want to play games which waste my precious gaming time, i.e. boring and with little tactical challenge.

P.s. TB I will be away for a week but please send the set-up if you have time so I can be made to eat my words.

Tis only a game and I am no Titan.

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

What is it about night fighting that players think is so prone to luck. Is it the friendly fire incidents?

Treeburst155 out.

It's partly friendly fire and partly morale, as already indicated. Even an elite unit under a superb HQ will sometimes break unpredictably and get wasted or run away and blow a key aspect of your attack.

But probably the main thing, as someone above indicated, is that small arms fire is so darn deadly. Esp in night/fog conditions, units can't see each other to fire until they're well within highly lethal ranges and CMBO doesn't seem to lower the lethality AT ALL to account for night conditions. That means a platoon can walk into an ambush and just plain be erased in a few seconds--and, if it's a small scenario, lose a couple of platoons and there goes your whole attack. If there's little cover, and you're attacking, its very difficult to avoid such abrupt annihilations. But if you'd just chosen to move 10m to the right, perhaps you would have missed the ambush altogether (out of LOS) and routed the enemy instead. This could happen in real combat, but the heightened lethality of CMBO night combat (no melting into the darkness for these solid squads under fire) makes the consequences of any unfortunate move much greater.

[ October 30, 2002, 10:05 AM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Vadr]

TB 155 writ:

I ... wouldn't worry about being a good sport by initiating ill-advised action just to make the game more interesting.

I was knocked out of the first round of the newbie tournament because I did exactly that. With a commanding points lead and a solid defensive position early in the game, I came out of my holes and hull-down to make for a more interesting fight. My opponent handed my head to me. Tournament play (IMO) is (or should be) different from 'casual' play among friends, at least if winning or advancing is important to you. This not to say I advocate gamey tactics such as last-turn flag rushes or using crews as scouts, but in RL, a commander would not risk the lives of his troops to make the battle 'more interesting' once his objectives had been met, or while he felt he had a good chance of meeting them.

In "Another Day" that far VL (Allied view) is only worth 100 points.

Ah. Now see, I missed that point completely, and the fact that I did explains why I was *so* disappointed with the outcome of the scenario. I killed all 4 Tigers, held both flags at the end and still had substantial forces remaining, but got only a draw. Had I understood that, I could have killed two Tigers and sat down on the first flag. I would have done no worse, and quite possibly could have done better, with fewer casualties. I just learned something, thanks.

Thanks for bringing the briefings into the discussion. They are indeed important.

Very much so, and they can be used to simulate 'higher command' directives.

U8led wrote:

I don't like the night fighting, especially in the finals.

I've got no objection to night-fighting in the finals (or anywhere else), but I did have a real problem with one of the finals scenarios in this tournament, which happened to occur at night. I put details in the conclusion of my AAR for it, and I'll say no more about it here until TB clears us to discuss it. I'm sure we have the same scenario in mind.

V

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Holien:

To me Another Day favored the Germans. I could win that game every time as the Germans. The trick is to know what to do.

Just because it appears balanced does not mean that it is.

{snip}

H

H,

One reason it might be hard to win every time with the Germans is that at a certain point in the battle they're almost sure to be losing. The Axis force starts out in locked positions which are far from optimal and the Allies get a platoon of tanks before the Germans do, in time to help the infantry drive the Axis from their first positions. And at one point, the Allies briefly have 8 Shermans against two Tigers. A capable Allied commander should be able to win the early phase of the battle, taking the first VL, driving the Axis back to the second line of trees and getting covered positions for his own men. The Allied commander also has better arty (105 vs. 81), and he knows the location of the Germans, who have shallower cover. So he can hide his own infantry force in good cover (monitoring potential attack routes) and hammer the Germans with arty. At this point in the game, I had a minor victory in hand. That's why my Axis opponent had to try to attack.

The German commander can't just go hull down with his Tigers and expect to win if the Allies refuse to launch an all-out attack. And if the Axis leader tries to attack with 4 Tigers against 8 Shermans (plus lurking zooks) he's certainly running some risk. And if the unlucky Axis commander shows a Tiger flank somewhere, there are plenty of Shermans waiting to pounce.

So, I may be wrong, but it doesn't look to me like a certain win for the Germans. I'd be glad to try it with you though, and get my comeuppance, unless you've already got your hands full with TB.

BTW, if this were real life and higher ranking officers tried to give me a hard time about my approach, I would point out that my tactical defensive was just a temporary measure to deal with the Tigers. As indicated, by the end of the game I'd killed two Tiger and immoblized the other two and had five Sherman's left, plus a very much intact infantry force, so I was ready to jump off onto the attack again. Then, if they wanted to sack me, let 'em sack me. A good officer needs to know when to modify orders.

[ October 30, 2002, 10:06 AM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Stoffel]

HI Mike,

Interesting discussion,recently I played in the two steps of death tourney and the other one by Trajectory.

Most scenarios were unbalanced and for some the testers told they were unwinnable for the defenders.

I like such challenges,I actually managed to win 60% of my battles.

Keeps you sharp in finding methods to engage and defeat your enemy.

Just compare it to real life.

War isnt fair.

Henk