Meeting Engagements are Absurd

[bodman]

We already know that sweaty overweight balding males are too stoopid to take proper tactical stances!!

I beg your pardon. I may be overweight and losing some hair, but I am not sweaty. I have central air.

[Jowa]

A ladder isn't a place that I would seek historically represented situations anyway. Ladders strive for balance. Historically, leaders would seek areas where the scales were tipped in thier favor. Meeting engagements may not be historically common at all but they are fun and challenging, for myself that is.

[Cpt Kernow]

The only problem I find with ladder ME's (In CMBO)is that they are a test of a very particular skill set.

1.Who can gain the most utiity from there purchase points. (I think half the battle is in choice of units)

2.Who can most skillfully place there INF and AT guns. (If all else is equal better placement of these particular assets can win the game, esp if flak weapons have been allowed)

I prefer to play scenarios merely because I think one has to be more flexible to towards them tacticaly, I think Ladder ME's often come down to a competition of process. E.g. this is my process for playing ME's I will test it against yours.

With scenarios players may have to overcome tactical situations they have never faced before and this is why I prefer them.

[Le Tondu]

MEs are the only games that I play against another person. Flags off and you have at it. Yeah, one attacks and one defends in any battle, but that can change many times.

Ah, its all a matter of taste and I like MEs. thank God they're there.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I prefer attack/defend QBs and have played them for the large majority of my ladder games. But the occasional ME is great for a change of pace. They are also the QB type where I like to use random weather :cool:

The MEs I have played do not play out like the cluster@#$! PeterX describes. The action is much more deliberate and varied. I think MEs are what you make them.

If you want strictly historical games, play scenarios. But even there, scenarios designed for multiplayer are balanced to give each side about an equal chance of winning, so you're still dealing with balanced forces smashing into each other. The only difference is the forces are picked for you.

[Bruno Weiss]

Okay now to summerize the opposing forces of thought thus far. We have the Uberladders versus the closet AI types, and the ME'rs versus the scenario wheenies, with a late movement towards an alliance between the attack/defend'rs and the scwheenies (for short), against the ME'rs. Where's Sid Meyers when ya need him?

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Cpt Kernow:

The only problem I find with ladder ME's (In CMBO)is that they are a test of a very particular skill set.

1.Who can gain the most utiity from there purchase points. (I think half the battle is in choice of units)

Yeah, but it is a lot better in CMBB where you don't have the single bargins created by game mechanics limitations.

2.Who can most skillfully place there INF and AT guns. (If all else is equal better placement of these particular assets can win the game, esp if flak weapons have been allowed)

People often agree to have guns in tow at the beginning of a ME. If you get nailed then you can bite yourself somewhere for having insufficient observation.

And again, that is much better than in CMBO now. AT guns now die easier once spotted, and penetrations are only statistically deadly after either much overpowered penetrations or multiple hits.

In addition, the Flak guns now have a hit probablity of ^2 compared to normal guns, not ^3 as in CMBO.

[KG_SSpoom]

I prefer any type of battle over a M/E QB.

It may be me or my opponents but they always seem to play the same. Dont get me wrong obviously to each his/her own. Im not a win monger I enjoy playing this game for the "historical" feel, which to me never (or rarely) would include a even point meeting. I recently told a friend that playing him in m/e QB was like playing on his home field (no offence just an observation)he is a big even M/E fan where I am not.

[Dale H]

Steve's statement about the rarity of MEs at CM's level makes sense if you think about the nature of combat during WW2. I suspect that statistics would show that on CM's level there were a lot more probes to locate the enemy & assaults to achieve local positional advantage on the offensive side & many positional defenses on the other. It would be less likely for two simultaneous chance offensive encounters to occur. Maybe we should be thinking in terms of prepared & hasty defense, probe, hasty & deliberate offense type of scenarios when making up QBs in CMBB or CMBO. Try reading Macdonald's Company Commander for more insight into the nature of combat at CM's level. Just my opinion.

Dale

[PeterX]

Dale posted:

Maybe we should be thinking in terms of prepared & hasty defense, probe, hasty & deliberate offense type of scenarios when making up QBs in CMBB or CMBO.

Hear, hear! Good one, Dale.

Also, I have to make a retraction. The ladder game I received turned out, on closer inspection, to be a homemade Attack/Defend scenario. In the words of Roseanna Roseannadana 'Never Mind!'.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by PeterX:

My beef against the ME, as a Quick Battle only, is the artificiality: the precisely equal forces, the flags in the precise middle of the map, the identical setup up zones with the identical depths, the predictable force selections. Also, in my experience, the game play tends to develop in very odd ways. Additionally, IMO, no computer generated map can rival, in tactical interest, a good map created by a user.

I very, very seldom play meeting engagements, but I had a really nifty one that I played in BO a year and a half or so back that I enjoyed quite a lot. It had an extremely handsome and tactically interesting map.

BTW, to shake the force selection sameness blues, give one side more points or an experience bonus. If the map isn't quite to your liking, run it through the scenario editor and modify it. Put the flags somewhere else. Throw in a hill or a river. Whatever suits your fancy.

Michael

[Ivan_996]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Ivan,

Meeting Engagements at CM's level (Company to Battalion) were very rare. It was, however, very common for two forces to meet unexpectedly during major attacks. The difference between this and ME battles is that one side defaulted itself to Defense, even if temporarily. For example...

Armor pincer is coming down the road, I am supposed to be going up the same road, I stop and wait for the bastards to come to me. If they do, I beat them and THEN advance to my objective. If they don't I figure out how best to attack and they are then on the defensive.

Now, from a strategic or operational level (Regt-Army Group) it might look more like a meeting engagement. But at CM's level, it would be an improvised game of "Who's Going to Defend?"

Steve

That would be logical but there is the human element.

It makes perfect sense to defend when someone is attacking you, just as you quote. But Battlefront scenario designers must have read enough historical accounts to know that both sides did not have the luxury to even make a hasty defense when being menanced by a sinister dictator.

[Kwazydog]

Originally posted by Sgt. Steiner:

A just found WW2 German training film? Where can I get a copy! I already have "Men Against Tanks", "Engineers to the Front", and "Sharpshooter: The Unseen Weapon". Another addition to the collection would be outstanding. Throw us a link, please!

Steiner, here is a site where it can be ordered in the states and a description of the video.

"VHS-128. PANZERS-MARSCH! In this, the first of an occasional series of supplementary films following the very successful and highly regarded Die Deutschen Panzer series the opportunity is being taken to offer the collector, modeler and general AFV enthusiast new footage that has been acquired since the release of the original eight videos. The format is that of a compendium which is fascinating by virtue of the range of the material covered. It begins with more footage of Tiger Is during Operation Citadel, although the major elements comprise the edited highlights of two German Army training films from late 1943 and mid-1944. The first of these was made for new crewmen converting to the Panther medium tank. The film features Panther Model Ds and early Model As. The second film from 1944 was made for the benefit of personnel serving in Sdkfz 251 Ds and the first Panzerjaeger 1Vs. Indeed, the film of this latter type may well be the only footage to survive the war and is the first seen on video. Once again the film deals with operations against the Red Army. Last are short sequences showing such machines as a late Model Brummbaer. Running time approx. 60 min, English narration, b/w. $ 30"

http://www.sonic.net/~bstone/blitzbooks/video.html

Dan

[ November 24, 2002, 06:17 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Ivan_996:

It makes perfect sense to defend when someone is attacking you, just as you quote. But Battlefront scenario designers must have read enough historical accounts to know that both sides did not have the luxury to even make a hasty defense when being menanced by a sinister dictator.

This is relevant how? What difference does it make at the CM scale whether the guy attacking you is working for a "sinister dictator" or the world's nicest democratically elected leader?

:confused:

Michael

[Sgt. Steiner]

OMFG! Thanks for the link, Kwazy..I can see where a lot of my spare change will be going. Too, way too many films there; may have to do a few liquor store heists to pay for them all..