Rules for a solo QB campaign

[Wreck]

I created a set of rules to be used to run a solo "campaign". Sure, it's just quickbattles. Sure, it's just the AI. But it's fun to keep track of your guys.

[Deathdealer]

Looks interesting - I need to go through these in detail as this is one aspect I do miss in CM...

By the way - did you get my file for Titans tourney ?

[Lah]

A lot of hard work there mate, well done for your efforts and nice presentation.

If I may offer some constructive critism it does seems complicated and too involved to me, maybe you will find some people who like this. I belive if you want rules to appeal to a wider section of people you would be better off making them as simple as possible, many people have a hard time just finding the time to play.

Wish I had enough time to give your rules a go though

[benpark]

Nice work, Wreck. I also need to sit down and look at everything, but you seem to have made a good system for a campaign vs. the AI, something I have been looking forward to. Looks like I have something to work on this weekend, thanks.

[edgars]

Hi Wreck!

I read through all of the rules and tried to understand them (and did, to some extent...). But it would be very helpful, if you wrote a 1+ battle AAR, with every dice roll and detail covered.

Thanks anyway.

[edgars]

One small mistake.

In Experience level table you have put the Crack above Elite.

[edgars]

One thing which seems missing is, how to determine the number of turns, i.e. the time given to the commander to complete the task.

Shouldn't this be calculated somehow?

[Marlow]

Interesting. A couple of quick comments:

In determining the German force, you should roll force type first. If you get Volksturm, it should automatically be an infantry force.

Also, maybe a roll before German force selection, and on a 1 or 2 (or something) use unrestricted German force type, random force composition and random quality.

[Wreck]

Questions in order..

Ari, yes I got your titans setup. I have been lazy about that. I never play monster battles because the setup is such a bear.

Lah - it is designed to be somewhat complex; in fact if there were any benefit in more complexity I would probably do it! The point here is the geekiness of tracking your individual squads and weapons. After you do a few battles, and using the cheat sheet, it becomes fairly quick to do experience/replacements. But surely if you think it's too complicated, that's a valid criticism. I just don't see how to make it simpler without destroying one of the things I want, which is that tracking of individual units.

Ciks - I am aware that examples *always* are necessary to understand rules. Just have not made the time to create one. Regarding the turns (and also map size), I just leave those at the default - 30 turns and medium. I realize most everything else is specifically set, so probably the rules should mention that.

Marlow - right about the Volkssturm. As you can tell I had not given that much thought. Also having a German "armor" attack with fallschirmjagers doesn't make much sense, so maybe I will rule those out. As for randomizing the German force, usually the player will know what the force is, so that won't work. And the rules randomize the force just fine. On the other hand, setting it that way in generation may save a die rolls. I am not sure what else it really gains but I will have to look at the process.

Thanks to all for your comments and criticisms!

I am thinking about expanding the system so that a few in-game events are scored. In particular armor is fairly scarce and so tracking armor kills would not be too onerous.

[edgars]

Also, maybe a roll before German force selection, and on a 1 or 2 (or something) use unrestricted German force type, random force composition and random quality.

If you roll it as "not known" i guess then the force type is unrestricted and force is random.

But the replacement calculation is really PITA.

If someone could design the web-from or a little software, where this is done automatically, it would be a big help for this overall great idea.

[ July 31, 2002, 10:32 AM: Message edited by: ciks ]

[Smiler]

Yup this is very cool. I'm looking forward to giving it a shot.

In fact, it's so cool, it makes one wonder if anyone's ever thought of adding an operational layer directly into CM:BO... You know, maybe just having CM export some text file that an external operational client manages or something. Sounds pretty simple.

*runs and hides*

[edgars]

Can unit experience drop below zero? I now it can mathematically, but what do your rules say about this? For example, i had a platoon HQ two man down, routed at the end of the game. According to my calculations it has -3 exp. level before replacements:

7-5-5=-3 (2 casualties, routed, routed at the end)

So, the replacements coming to the unit are green. Then the "After Replacements" experience would be -1.5?

EDIT: Just to make my question more clear: So this -1.5 value will affect the total experience gained (lower it)?

[ July 31, 2002, 10:47 AM: Message edited by: ciks ]

[Wreck]

ciks: correct, experience below zero is fine. You got some sad sacks there. I had originally had a "conscript" experience level starting at -10, but then I realize that Americans never get conscripts so it was rather moot. It makes me really wish that the game lumped green/normal together instead of conscript/green and normal/vet. Until you get your company up to normal, there is no unit variety outside of scrounged stuff and the effects of immediate attacks.

Incidentally, I round all experience off to the nearest whole number. And when it's x.5, I always round up.

[Danzig]

Dang, that looks spiffy. I've always been aching for those wonderful old days of Steel Panthers when I would 'level up' my core units! =)

Thanks for all the hard work, I will have to try this out this weekend!

[Green Hornet]

I was just thinking about how one could do something like this with CM. I was goig to sit down one of these nights and try to figure out a way to play QB campaigns against the AI while maintaining some degree of realism. You've done more here than I ever would have.

This looks great. Thanks for the effort and for sharing.

[DougieB]

Wreck

Brilliant just what the Doctor ordered.I assume that, if one wants to play a campaign from the German viewpoint they need no modification and can be used as is.

Douglas

[Juju]

Nice work, wreck. Just finished my second battle, using your system. It's a lot of fun. I do like these type of things.

Doing the reinforcement calculations gets easier after you've done 'em a couple of times, too.

[Wreck]

I just added rules for German counterattacks, and detailed the rules for immediate replacements. I have also detailed a few of the things people asked for here, and added a full example at the end.

DougieB - doing this with Germans should be pretty straightforward, yes. You would have to think about and jigger the size of auxiliary forces, though. That table is rigged to generate American auxiliary forces, not German. Other than that I think everything would translate pretty well. You'd also want to jigger scrounging a little bit, but that should be obvious enough.

Doing the campaign as Germans would likely be much harder, since you would be being attacked all the time by combined arms and you might or might not get decent AT in any particular battle. I think it much more likely that you would get unlucky and get creamed in a battle (though currently I think the campaign is too easy... so...)

Juju - yes I find using the printout I can do all the replacement stuff in 10 minutes. A small price to pay.

[Marlow]

A couple of other ideas:

How about some way to add AT assets to your force during a German armor attack or ME. In a lot of battles with the U.S. on the defense or ME, there is no supplemental force, and therefore only the base infantry company. This force would be hard pressed under an attack by armored forces. Maybe a random roll, or use of favor points to get the battalions AT gun platoon or a TD or two for the battle.

Also, arty is a little sparse for the U.S. Since arty is a part of the supplemental force, and that random selection is based on only a small part of the total force you will be using, the arty you get (if any) is far less than would realistically be available. I would give the option to reduce the points used in selecting the supplemental force and give a roll on an arty availability table (something like 1-3 81mm, 4-5 105, 6 155). Alternatively, leave the support points alone, and make the roll(s) on the arty table only available on a random role of 1-3 (modified by favor points).

[Olle Petersson]

I really like this initiative!

It gets me started to do something similar but aimed at a moderated campaign. (Two players setting up the battles for each other. This allows better use of the editor and more freedom.)

Some comments on your rules as written though:

1) Why no assaults?

From July on, and definitely from September, these could occur every now and then.

2) Auxillary force.

Given the small size I feel that vehicles, and not least armour, could be given more dominance to balance up the total force. Artillery could also be more common, as noted.

3) Why stick to US troops?

British or Polish should do just as well...

4) Time and Weather.

- To "time of day", why not have a "random" option to be used occasionally for German attacks?

- To the Weather table add a +1 modifier for oct, nov, jan and mar.

- In Precipitation change places; 1-2 Thick fog, 3-4 Fog, 5-6 Rain. Add modifier; Dawn -1. (Fog is most common at dawn, and rain is more common than fog.

5) Bying the force.

Buying extra platoons to get the right troop quality, and then march the excess straight off map, will result in reduced global morale.

Perhaps there is some way to circumvent this problem?

6) Next Assignment.

First battle modifier should be +3 rather than -3.

7) Replacements.

Perhaps add some chance that some of ones own wounded will return to the unit if "Next Assignment" is in two weeks or more. These will of course add experience to their unit.

8) Scrounging

What's the reason for adding specified quality units? Adding a heavy weapon team is a valid way to represent such a weapon being added, but that team should, IMHO, be the same quality as the platoon it's attached to.

Upgrading platoons to "glider" status seemed stupid, until I read your explanation. It makes perfect sense!

9) General

How about using favours to have extra units permanently attached to the core company?

Adding a specialist platoon of some sort (*) would improve combat performance.

Not more than a total of three (different) platoons could be added though.

(*) Examples; Engineer, Armored infantry, Halftracks (turning the organic "infantry" into "armored infantry"), Tank destroyer (towed), Tank destroyer (self propelled), Light tank (Stuarts), Medium tank (Sherman, Cromwell).

Cheers

Olle

[Wreck]

Marlow: both of your ideas are in sync with what I have been thinking on. You are right; on defense you probably would get some battalion level AT assets normally, and less likely some dribs and drabs of other units.

And definitely, I want to bring arty into it. Playing Americans should feel American... blowing the crap out of places and then waltzing in. As it is, playing the campaign feels German. Shells are too precious so you never get support; instead you use men.

I shall have a patch for both of these things shortly. I want to have at least 81mm support in almost every fight, and frequently 105 or 155mm support. But this will require reducing the other auxiliaries you get.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Green Hornet:

I was just thinking about how one could do something like this with CM. I was goig to sit down one of these nights and try to figure out a way to play QB campaigns against the AI while maintaining some degree of realism. You've done more here than I ever would have.

This looks great. Thanks for the effort and for sharing.

This will be a lot better with CMBB I think, with the ability to keep maps and forces, etc. I was hoping to present rules like this for a specific unit, lasting the entire campaign in the East. Guess I'm not the only one thinking along these lines. Perhaps once CMBB is out some of us might put our heads together and see what we can come up with. Some good ideas here.

[Wreck]

Olle - hmm, lot to reply to here.

Certainly, human referees can do much better. If these rules are helpful in that end, great. At the least it would be nice to enter a battle against unknown German forces truly blind. However the main problem with other people is that they only play on their schedule. Refereeing seems like enough work that I would either want to do it full-bore (and not need any steenkin' rules), or not at all.

I didn't put in assaults simply because I don't think they are appreciably different than attacks, especially against the AI. I stand ready to be corrected on that.

In the aux force, yes I am going to put in more artillery. The vehicles I think there are enough of; armor is already there in 5 of 6 attacks.

I used the US merely because it was simple. The exact same rules would work for other Allies, certainly. The Brits might have slightly different modifiers for December, mainly, since they weren't much in the Bulge. I don't know much of anything about Polish troops in the west in WWII so I can't comment on that.

For time of day, we don't need "random" - that's what die-rolling gets us. Of course it would not hurt to add that, but it adds complexity. The weather ideas are good. Did it really snow at all in Oct? For now I am leaving off the +1 for Oct.

Regarding marching off map... yes I noticed the morale problem (finally). I had thought that units off the map should be neutral, but I guess I am wrong. I might change that rule to leave them on. This has its own problem, namely, that the extra units bolster morale artificially. And they are possible targets, which we don't want. I don't think there is any perfect solution here. I need to figure out how these units leaving affects morale, but it seems like the best solution will be to require that half of them leave, or something like that. Then your force's morale will start a bit lower but be more resistant to decrease, which is fair.

The first battle modifier is intentionally -3, to make there be a chance that you skip June entirely.

I had thought about tracking wounded from your unit, as a fraction of casualties - KIA. But this seems more trouble than it is worth. Experienced replacements seem to do about the same thing.

On scrounging: the reason for adding various quality levels is just variety. "Cause we can". It doesn't really add or remove much. I don't see these "extras" as particularly attached to a platoon, other than, of course, the glider upgrade.

Finally, your ideas on adding attached units are interesting. However, adding more than a modest increase in strength of the core unit will require reworking the battle-size table. Recall that it is calculated with the assumption that your core is about 600 points or so. Adding on, say, a platoon of TDs would make your core 1000+ points.

I am sure I could work out a generalization of that table. Actually, the main reason I resist adding too much to the core is that the resulting battles would get very large, and large battles are not my cup of tea. But I am sure some people would love that. "Small" scenarios as 2000 points, larger ones at 3000 and 5000. (I shudder to think it.)

[JasonC]

I have some comments, which I hope will prove constructive. I like the overall idea a lot, and have run such things as a ref in the past (before operational CMx10 things). Making it possible to run one against the AI is a fine idea.

But you have overdone the play balance aspects, methinks. See, in a campaign, the human player has to get very "tight" about loss tolerance. His force needs to survive through battle after battle. And as a result, you neither need nor want to put him in the situation of winning or losing every QB by a hair's breadth, and with 50% losses. But plus 50% AI force size tends to do that.

+50% AI forces is a fine balance idea for *one* QB against the AI. But the cumulative losses of battle after battle even against normal strength AI forces will be quite sufficient. If you think about it, the original force is facing a total enemy of 100% times n, over n battles.

If anything, the human player might have a somewhat larger force than the defaults. Losses to the winning side in attacks, even against the AI, can easily run 1/4 to 1/3 of the force. Which may not seem like much, but over 10 battles it leaves 1/18 to 1/58 of the original force left alive. The player needs to be trying to keep his losses to more like 5%, 10%, 15% of his force in each engagement. Since the AI can easily have far better unit quality, he will need odds for that, even against the AI.

Also, the supplimental forces tend to be vanilla because the computer picks them. They have a little of each. The result is a force mix weighted toward infantry, and with very little artillery support. A green company does not amount to 500-700 points either, but to 433, and less with losses. I'd suggest permanently attaching a 105mm FO to the green company. This gives a base force of 608 points, closer to the level your auxiliary force chart is based on. And it ensures some sort of supporting artillery all the time, with the most common sort - standard field howitzers from divisional artillery - always available.

To give an idea why I think this sort of thing is necessary, a typical set of initial rolls gives a US attack in June 1944 through rural heavy woods, flat, at dawn. The Americans wind up with a green company, green 4th platoon, 2nd 50 cal, 3rd MMG, a mortar section with 2 81mm mortars, one Greyhound and an M-20 - against 800 points of *high* quality combined arms Germans, dug in.

Without a stitch of artillery support in dense forest, without one heavy AFV (not that the terrain calls for one, but the enemy force can have an thick AFV easily). This means the first fight can easily be a negative odds ~7 on 8 attack, greens against crack, light armor against full AFVs, without artillery support.

Now, one of those might be a fun challenge against the AI. But 10 of those in a row - or anything remotely like it - is going to leave absolutely nothing of the original force. The whole thing will be determined by replacement rates. The sense of husbanding your original force through the campaign will not arise.

I also like the idea of possible permanent additions to the core force. I'd suggest awarding them for your "favor" points, as one way of "spending" them. A permanently attached engineer platoon, for example, or 4th infantry platoon and extra teams (MMGs and zooks), or pair of Shermans or TDs, or a cavalry platoon. They might be ~230 points as CM regulars, or about 1/3rd the size of the base force. E.g. -

Engineers - Engineer platoon, zook

Infantry w/ MGs - 4th platoon, zook, 50 cal, 4 MMG

Infantry w/ Mtrs - 4th platoon, zook, 81mm FO

Cavalry - 2 M8, 4 Jeep MG

Shermans - 2 M4 Sherman

TDs - 2 M10, 1 M20

That way, there is something else to "husband" through the campaign, and the player can get used to working with a particular supporting arm.

For what it is worth.

[Wreck]

Jason - interesting. You are worried about the campaign being too hard. I am worried about it being too easy! In fact I have some tentative rules thought up to make it harder, lol. As follows: the player should remove from the aux force the first one (or two) platoons of infantry generated.

Last night I played an attack into heavy woods, using that rule (removing two platoons). I still got a total victory, but I did take more casualties in my core than I had in the previous few fights (all total victories thus far). The enemy was a regular infantry force. I don't see that crack enemies would be that much worse or better. Yes they are nasty individually but they are fewer.

Thus far, at least for me, the diluting effect of replacements has not nearly overcome the effect of experience gain. The squads gain experience very rapidly; HQs less so, and support weapons almost not at all. The average experience is up to 33, though right now we are about to immediate attack. If I took replacements right now, the experience average experience would drop to 24.

I do plan to do something to make the fights much more artillery-centric and less infantry heavy.

You are now the second person wanting more significant attached forces. Yes, it would be nice to carry a couple tanks along. I would think it more likely that a company might get hold of some halftracks (M4A1s are terrors in CM). My main problem with this is that it makes everything bigger, as I mentioned above, and that it requires more serious work to calculate proper aux force size if one wants balance (which I do). I shall think on it.