Good Lord, I lost to the AI

[Cribtop Gamer]

Well, actually, I got to the point where the only way to beat the AI would be to allow it to counter-attack and shoot its armor down using the gamey "my tanks in column on a road can all shoot through each other" gambit, so I quit. Still I haven't done anything but smack the AI around for months and months.

I was playing "All or Nothing," and frankly I've figured out that this scenario exposed a weakness in my game.

As you probably know, All or Nothing involves an advance by a HUGE number of British troops/tanks in rain and wet ground conditions. This forces you to stick to the roads and requires you to take two bridges on the way to the objective. Massive hills and deep valleys are everywhere.

What happened was I just didn't get there in time. I lost maybe 10 casualties and two halftracks, murdering every member of two Pioneer platoons and their supporting bunkers and ATGs in the process, but I just took too long. I was sure there would be ATGs in certain commanding positions and I was too cautious.

I tend to move to contact with a screen followed by massive firepower and eliminate enemies with said firepower when the screen discovers them. This conserves cohesion at the expense of speed. All or Nothing taught me that sometimes you must be willing to move forward more quickly and be more willing to crack some of your eggs in order to make the omelet.

My questions: How to do this?

What are your tactics for moving to contact?

If you have both "slow" and a "fast" tactics for movement to contact, how do they differ and in what different situations (terrain, enemy, time limits, etc.) do you employ them?

[BloodyBucket]

Hey, playing with the settings set to the AI's advantage using ground level views only, I lose to the AI a lot.

Plus, I'm no good.

[Cribtop Gamer]

Good point. I should have said "Good Lord, I lost to the AI while not playing at ground view because the scenario was too big!"

[Fionn]

Hell, I've lost to the AI more than I've lost to human players (with no AI advantage etc etc). Of course part of that comes from playing scenarios to test balance prior to release but still part of it is due to the fact that the AI can get a little lucky and usually has a cohesive plan ( even if it is a little on the dumb side).

[Cribtop Gamer]

True enough, Fionn, the AI is nothing to sneeze at in the proper circumstances.

You are one of the acknowledged experts on movement to contact. Any theories? If you've played All or Nothing, how did you advance to the enemy?

[Fionn]

I haven't played all or nothing but for movement to contact the answer is always the same:

Find the enemy using as little force as necessary to win the recon fight and get to his MLR and provoke a response. Get him to overcommit ( less experienced players often need a LOT of forces to achieve a certain objective within a given time frame. This means that they often, to more experienced eyes, overcommit) and then when he is extended and off balance either counter-attack his attack ( preferably at its base) or smash through his lines somewhere else ( at a previously identified weak spot) with that large reserve you've saved by winning the recon battle with far fewer forces than your opponent used.

Of course the above is predicated on your ability to attack an equal or superior enemy force and wipe it out whilst suffering few casualties yourself. That ability, unfortunately, only comes with games played AND most importantly taking the time to learn from the games you play.

I've seen a lot of players who have played 50 or 60 games and are not one iota better than they were after their 3rd PBEM. Why? They don't take the time to actually LEARN from their lessons.

A famous general in the past once said that he could take a mule on 20 campaigns but that wouldn't turn it into a good field marshall. The same applies in CM.

As to theories... If it works in real life it will, to a large extent, work in CM. I just do what I'd do in real life and it works.

[Austrian Strategist]

Originally posted by Fionn:

I haven't played all or nothing but for movement to contact the answer is always the same:

Find the enemy using as little force as necessary to win the recon fight and get to his MLR and provoke a response. Get him to overcommit ( less experienced players often need a LOT of forces to achieve a certain objective within a given time frame. This means that they often, to more experienced eyes, overcommit) and then when he is extended and off balance either counter-attack his attack ( preferably at its base) or smash through his lines somewhere else ( at a previously identified weak spot) with that large reserve you've saved by winning the recon battle with far fewer forces than your opponent used.

What if he doesn´t (actively) commit to the Recon battle at all? Then you will have a large reserve, but so will he. You will have used some time (and lost a few men) just to identify the forward-most part of his defence-in-depth, so what now?

(This is assuming you are the Attacker, turn limit is short enough to be a serious consideration, and the Defender´s strategy is 'Delay-Delay-Delay'.) :cool:

[ June 10, 2002, 02:02 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

[Fionn]

Umm, Austrian you HAVE to advance irrespective of whether he has an FSE or not so I really don't get your point.

You seem to be saying that reconning in the absence of an enemy FSE is a waste of men and materiel... Umm... Interesting. Maybe if you can be absolutely 100% sure he has no prepared ambushes it is BUT you CANNOT assume that when playing a human. You HAVE to assume he is competent and is going to fight a counter-recon battle of his own.

I think the idea you seem to be peddling that recon is worthless vs a defence in depth and that you'd be better just charging towards it ( even though you don't know where the MLR actually is) is incredibly dangerous and naive. Maybe that's not what u are saying though since it really does seem quite far off base. Perhaps you could clarify your position?

Still, if the enemy let my FSE find his MLR's front line trace then my FSE will have done its job ( its job is to find the MLR... it fights an enemy FSE if necessary but its JOB is to find the mLR). Once the MLR is found I will be even more confident of victory since the enemy's lack of an FSE means he won't have much/any intel re: my main body and I can use it to strike wherever I wish.

As to the enemy having a major reserve if he doesn't fight the FSE battle. Well, he'll have a slightly larger reserve than usual but in the average 3000 point defence that would be only of the order of 500 points extra ( at most). By ceding me total initiative and not gaining intel re: my main body he'll lose far more than 500 points.

E.g. If I spend 500 points worth to find his front line trace and have 4500 points vs 3000 and am attacking I'll have 4000 points left to hurl at the weak point in his line. He will have at most 1500 to counter my attack with ( since the other 1500 will be caught up in defending his MLR elsewhere). 4000 vs 1500 is simply nowhere near a winning proposition.

You're welcome to do whatever you want in your games of course but there is a reason that real military officers who play CM always put a LOT of thought into the recon battle. That reason is because it is so decisive. Personally I can usually call a game by turn 5 when I begin to see how the recon battle will shape up. The person who loses the FSE battle ( or refuses to fight it) loses. It is that simple. It doesn't matter if they are defending or attacking or doing an ME. If you lose te FSE portion you will lose.

[ June 10, 2002, 03:00 PM: Message edited by: Fionn ]

[Austrian Strategist]

Originally posted by Fionn:

I think the idea you seem to be peddling that recon is worthless vs a defence in depth and that you'd be better just charging towards it ( even though you don't know where the MLR actually is) is incredibly dangerous and naive. Maybe that's not what u are saying though since it really does seem quite far off base. Perhaps you could clarify your position?

Fionn, you got me totally wrong. I wasn´t arguing for no Recon. I was arguing for no Counter-recon. If I am Defender, I let you do your Recon to your heart´s content and watch the clock. I am arguing about best Defense here, not best Attack. And my Defensive Doctrine is: Do as little as possible, and watch the clock!

I do not (very much) disagree with your ideas about Attack. I do (very much) disagree with you about Defence, which should be an entirely different thing. The main advantage of the Defender is: He has the VLs already, so nothing happening is to his advantage. Therefore, his priority should be for nothing to happen. As a Defender, I am not interested in destroying the Attacker (which you seem to assume). I am interested in keeping the VLs, and watching the clock. This is what I would do in real life!

Edit: Reading your post once more, I should add 2 more things for clarification:

-I 'specialize' in battles of 2.000pts or less. All of my experience is with small-to-medium scale, and I consider 1500pts 'medium'. So the question is: Are you of the same opinion for a 1500pts battle?

-Regardless of this, I am convinced your Recon -necessary as it is!- won´t give you very much against what I consider 'Defence-in-depth'. It is very usual for me to put 50% or more of my forces into reserve. So my MLR will be weak everywhere; but that´s the point of Defence-in-Depth!

Finally: In a Tactics game, I do usually view 'value' in 3 dimensions: Material, Space, Time. Defence-in-depth, imo, is about trading material and space for time.

[ June 10, 2002, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

[Fionn]

Austrian,

My bad. I was sloppy. When I wrote recon etc I meant counter-recon. I still can't agree to a lack of counter-recon. it is a major no-no in my book but, hey, if it works for you that's cool u know? Different strokes for different folks

Have you read my current AAR with The_Capt over at Mods and Modders. I'd be interested in your view of that battle given that Warren's defence may somewhat resemble the sort of thing you're talking about.

re: your real life behaviour in defence. Hey, if it works for you that's cool. I simply turn flags off when the game starts and play without flags. As Drizzt said "Dead men don't hold flags". So, his ethos and mine is to simply kill everything which isn't wearing the same uniform as me and let the rest take care of itself. I often win defence games by dint of the AI auto-surrendering the attacker's forces after I've killed 80%+ of them. As I said above though, different strokes for different folks.

re: your later questions

My position does not change with battle size. Killing the enemy en masse is ALWAYS a good idea .

Against me I think you'd find yourself losing your entire first line of the MLR very quickly. Maybe not but I suspect it wouldn't hold very long or survive very long either.

re: your defn of defence in depth. Of course you are correct. That is a textbook definition. OTOH nowhere does it say that a defence in depth can't also be aggressive and seek to kill the enemy by the bucket-load. I often defend in depth but that doesn't mean I'm not looking to anihilate the enemy.

Different strokes for different folks though.

[xerxes]

I defend terrain, not flags. Flags are incidental. When I'm defending I plan on losing control of the area around certain flags. Best thing is, I know the OPFOR will be moving to occupy flag areas.

I've seen lots of people think their job is to defend flags. Quite frankly, it's the most common mistake a player on defence makes. If you lose the terrain advantage, your temporary control of flags becomes a long term liability.

[Cribtop Gamer]

Thanks for the great discussion guys.

I am now playing the very interesting scenario Cintheaux-Totalize off of the Depot from the German side. A very different scenario than All or Nothing, true, but I tweaked up my aggressiveness with the FSE and have had excellent results.

I know a lot about my enemy's locations, he knows little about my massive reserve (now bearing down on a weak spot after a feint), and although it's only Turn 10, I feel, as Fionn says, that I can almost call it at this point.

I think in All or Nothing I let my certainty that there would be ATGs in certain spots keep me from even sending FSE elements into perceived "danger zones." In reality, the ATGs weren't there, and all I did was waste time for fear of getting scouts killed.

Hopefully I'm learning more than that mule!

[CMsoldier]

Hey Fionn, i have been reading your AAR, and it is great BTW, but i just wanted to know what MLR, and FSE is.

[Stormin Norman]

sorry to butt in and answer

MLR - main line of resistance

FSE - forward scouting elements

actually I'm guessing on the last one.

but that is just the acronyms. *knowing* what they are entails a lot more.

[Fionn]

Actually FSE = Forward Screen Element.

Basically it is analogous to SN's guesstimate though and basically just means "those forces I've placed forward of the MLR".

[Fionn]

" Hopefully I'm learning more than that mule!"

I'm sure you are .

[Tarquelne]

What happened was I just didn't get there in time.

I love "racing the clock" in strategy games - it's a great way to balance almost any game.

Have you ever tried "bidding" on the number of turns in a QB or scenario? Given certain map characteristics and force ratios (4000 attacker vrs. 1500 defender, for example) you and your opponent bid on the number of turns necessary to take all the flags (if you design/alter the map yourself) or defeat the enemy. The low bidder plays as the attacker. (Or the high bidder the defender - either way works.)

[imported_Hiram Sedai]

Some questions regarding recon:

1. How would I know when I found his "MRL"? What does it look like? Is it alot of troops milling about waiting to rumble?

2. Considering that each time I split squads, my overal morale lowers, is it worth it to do that? I mean, as opposed to using squads or even a platoon.

3. Do most defenders just plant themselves around the flags and wait?

4. Is it wise to withdrawl recon elements or hide them for a while and then try to push through or sweep around with them? I've had some sucess with two squads that moved behind an attacking element. I used them to create a ruckus behind his slow elements.

5. When do you decide to actually attack what you see? My problem has been that I attack known positions with local superiority in firepower and then I discover the layers behind that position.

I know that this thread was made for opinions and stories but I have more questions than stories.

[CMsoldier]

bump for his questions above. i NEED to know

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Hiram Sedai:

2. Considering that each time I split squads, my overal morale lowers, is it worth it to do that? I mean, as opposed to using squads or even a platoon.

The bug is more serious. The second half of the squad counts as dead, not only in morale, but also in victory points. If you cannot rejoin before the game ends, you lose the points like they were dead. This applies both when you don't get them to rejoin because of space/time or because the first half is dead.

[Fionn]

Disclaimer:

I'm PBEMing Hiram Sedai at the moment so I'll play some cards a bit close to my chest.

1. If your opponent is bad then you'll know because the MLR is a LOT tougher than the FSE and features a lot of units the FSE doesn't ( HMGs etc). OTOH if your opponent knows his doctrine ( hint, hint, hint) then he'll take pains to ensure that his FSE "blends" into his MLR in such a way that you'll only realise you're fighting the MLR battle after you're already largely committed.

of course, sometimes someone would make his FSE look like his MLR to freak an opponent out and other times one might actually not disguise the MLR at all. In either of the above situations something sneaky is being planned so watch out for the "boot to fall".

2. If you expect to take quite a few losses ( and in our game you should expect to take a lot of losses in the recon phase) I'd suggest that you shouldn't split all your squads up. If you take 20% losses and your morale is already only 60% due to split squads your morale will drop to about 40% and at about 40% you'll find it VERY difficult to continue attacking. Recombine all those squads and your morale would be about 80% and you can easily continue attacking.

3. A lot do, yes. It is a very dumb thing to do. OTOH since a smart, good player knows it is a dumb thing to do he will often count on his opponent thinking him too smart to place sizable forces at the flags and will use this to create "Safety Zones" for his FOs around the flags ( since flags are often on hills etc).

4. It can work. Whether it works or not depends on one's opponent and one's skill.

5. Well this is what everyone sees. The key to a succesful offensive is to take the first position and STILL have enough force in reserve and momentum available to quickly crash into the enemy 2nd line etc.

What you describe is one of the problems EVERY army since the dawn of time has had. I use Soviet doctrine so I echelon my assault forces in depth along a narrow frontage... so I might attack an enemy company with a Bn arrayed in company column ( so 1 company forward, another company 150 metres behind that, another company 150 metres behind that). So, the enemy company is hit by a company ever 2 minutes for 6 minutes in addition to all the artillery and tank and HMG fire directed at it.

Of course there are issues relating to bunching which arise when you do that but I'll leave finding those solutions to you. I don't want to give you too many hints after all

[Fionn]

Redwolf,

I'm not sure about the 2nd bit of your post ( them counting as dead for end-game calculations etc) btu I am SURE the first bit is wrong.

The lowering of global morale when squads are split is an intentional thing. It is a feature NOT a bug. You may disagree with the feature but it isn't a bug.

FWIW I think it is entirely reasonable to assume that someone who splits his command up into little portions is going to find the men a bit jumpy. When they train to fight in squads they like to remain in squads so, if you want to split your squads, there's a price in terms of combat capability to pay.

[Austrian Strategist]

Originally posted by Tarqulene:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />What happened was I just didn't get there in time.

I love "racing the clock" in strategy games - it's a great way to balance almost any game.

Have you ever tried "bidding" on the number of turns in a QB or scenario? Given certain map characteristics and force ratios (4000 attacker vrs. 1500 defender, for example) you and your opponent bid on the number of turns necessary to take all the flags (if you design/alter the map yourself) or defeat the enemy. The low bidder plays as the attacker. (Or the high bidder the defender - either way works.)</font>

[Austrian Strategist]

Originally posted by xerxes:

I defend terrain, not flags. Flags are incidental.

Flags are not incidental; they represent your mission, and this is the reason why you exist.

I use the terrain, but I defend the flags.

[imported_Hiram Sedai]

Could anyone explain, in terms a layman might understand, what a MRL looks like? Anyone? Please?

My first guess is that it's the main body of your forces that you would use to repel invaders if defending. But, that is still a bit general.

Edited to note that my disclaimer is that I never play games of more than a company of infantry and a few tanks. Therefore, many of the terms used get lost on me. I sincerely wouldn't know how to use more than one company.

Oh well, some have brains and others have good looks. I have a plethora of moles and body hair.

[ June 13, 2002, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: Hiram Sedai ]