Rules for a solo QB campaign

[Wreck]

Sgt Kelly - it is possible, but unlikely, to end up on defense with no AT assets outside of your company zooks. I take it you got your roll on the auxiliary AT table but rolled a 6? If so, chalk it up to bad luck - sometime the Germans did attack with tanks and Americans got creamed. Though I expect that after you learn the AI better you can prevail even in this circumstance.

If you have an older ruleset, then perhaps you have not noticed the auxiliary AT defenses table? Generally you will almost always be given *something* extra for defenses.

[Wreck]

ryddle - the system would be easy to adapt for use on humans, but only if one person or the other were willing to take on the role of the Germans, specifically not getting a core and not getting to "campaign" as such. You would only have to adapt the Battle Type/Multiplier chart so that it does not bias the points the Germans get. (A human getting, effectively, +50% forces in each battle should win almost every time.)

Even in that sort of arrangement, there are "gameyness" problems that you would probably have to consider. For instance, it would be a very good tactic for a human playing the Germans to specifically target your core units and take losses to do so, to keep your company quality low. Or he might intentionally retreat into deeper cover whenever he thinks you have IDed his units well enough to be creditted kills against them. That sort of thing.

[kgsan]

Originally posted by Wreck:

Sgt Kelly - it is possible, but unlikely, to end up on defense with no AT assets outside of your company zooks. I take it you got your roll on the auxiliary AT table but rolled a 6? If so, chalk it up to bad luck - sometime the Germans did attack with tanks and Americans got creamed. Though I expect that after you learn the AI better you can prevail even in this circumstance.

If you have an older ruleset, then perhaps you have not noticed the auxiliary AT defenses table? Generally you will almost always be given *something* extra for defenses.

Wreck, I thought that Sgt Kelly's query was referring to the following provision of your rules:

"Next we determine the friendly force size of the battle. This is the size of your force, in points. To do this, we add up (in points) all the stuff we have assigned to the Americans so far . . .[if you have an attached armor section add 200 points.] Add to that the number of artillery points you got, which should be from 0 to 600. Add to that the number of defensive AT points you got, if any, from 0 to 200."

Is the refernce to adding 200 points for an armor section referring to armored auxillary or does it refer to the AT forces? I assumed the latter because otherwise you seem to get an incongruous result. In my first game I had an attack with, of course, a green core force. In caluclating my current force value I thus had 500 in core forces plus I had 500 in arty. I rolled a 900 Target Point Size. Now it seems like this should leave me with 100 points for my armor aux force (900-800) giving me 1 sherman. But, if you add 200 points for an armor aux force in the calculations above, the perverse result seems to be that you don't get any aux force at all. I thought that this affect was what Sgt. Kelly was referring to and it did not make much sense to me either.

In any event I want to add my voice to the chorous of appreciation for your effort on these solo campaign rules. I'm certainly enjoying playing with them.

Regards,

kgsan

[hobo]

Two games down and I have a few tweaks for you to consider:

1. For immediate attacks, add 70% chance of attacking same german unit type and +1 modifier on whether the force is known.

2. Mortars will never gain experience because they should not lose men and almost never get credit for a kill. One idea would be to give 2 exp points for every KIA recorded and share that among all of the surviving units. Even a unit that hides in the cellar during a battle gains experience between battles as all of the units talk about the last battle.

3. Give favor for KIA ratio. something like 5 points for 2:1 KIA, 10 points for 3:1 KIA, -5 points for 1:2.

Thats it for now.

Regards,

Chris

[Olle Petersson]

More bitching about the weather...

Wreck, you seem to have misinterpreted my last suggestions a bit.

Here's what I mean.

Weather tables:

WEATHER

0-2 Clear

3-4 Overcast

5+ Precipitation

Modifications

Oct, nov, feb, mar +1

Dec, jan +2

PRECIPITATION

0-1 Thick fog

2-3 Fog

4-6 Rain

7+ Snow

Modifications

Dawn -1

Dec +4

Jan +2

Nov, feb +1

Originally posted by hobo:

1. For immediate attacks, add 70% chance of attacking same german unit type and +1 modifier on whether the force is known.

I thought it went without saying that immediate attacks is a direct follow up with the same units involved on both sides. (The winner decides to take advantage of the situation and pursuit the loser...) Am I wrong?

Generally I feel that the battles shouldn't be even. The attacker should normally have the advantage, otherwise there's little reason to attack.

Meeting engagements are typically not planned, and the relative force sizes could be just about anything but even...

Sgt Kelly's battle seem fairly historical and a good account on how it should be. (Usually the other way around though, with a US tank company attacking a single VS platoon...)

Cheers

Olle

[Wreck]

kgsan - the 200 points for the "attached armor section" section should, currently, never be added to your force total since there are no rules which would ever attach an armor section to your company. Infantry AT units are definitely not armor.

The square brackets indicate rule "stubs" - rules that are not done yet, but I am thinking about. In this case several folks have indicated an interest in longer-term attachments of armor to the core. I have not done anything about implementing rules for that. But I figured I would put that there so that people that want to make up their own special rules for such attachment would see the right place to calculate.

BTW, the "perverse result" of not getting any auxiliaries of the selected force type seems to be a bit common with the rules as they are. I may slightly increase the battle sizes to deal with that.

[Wreck]

hobo - I like the idea to make immediate attacks likely to involve the same German force. Perhaps I should take Olle's suggestion and make it always the same... hmm. Also one thinks that they should likely involve the same terrain as well.

Regarding experience gained for casualties generally, that is an idea I thought about but rejected because I worried about the problem of people just leaving zooks at the back and they gain experience. But on the other hand, you are right that there does need to be experience gain for the support weapons that rarely get any. (That's part of the motivation for the rule allowing riflemen to replace into support units.) I am thinking about this.

[ryddle]

Originally posted by Wreck:

ryddle - the system would be easy to adapt for use on humans, but only if one person or the other were willing to take on the role of the Germans, specifically not getting a core and not getting to "campaign" as such. You would only have to adapt the Battle Type/Multiplier chart so that it does not bias the points the Germans get. (A human getting, effectively, +50% forces in each battle should win almost every time.)

Even in that sort of arrangement, there are "gameyness" problems that you would probably have to consider. For instance, it would be a very good tactic for a human playing the Germans to specifically target your core units and take losses to do so, to keep your company quality low. Or he might intentionally retreat into deeper cover whenever he thinks you have IDed his units well enough to be creditted kills against them. That sort of thing.

Sounds good, and thanks for your reply.

-R

[Wreck]

Rules updated.

</font>

• tweaked weather ala Olle's suggestions </font>
• slightly increased battle size</font>
• changed auxiliary force generation quite a bit. Hopefully this will generate better aux forces.</font>
• added whole-force experience gain for battles</font>
• changed immediate attack and counterattack rules to preserve terrain and German force types.
  </font>

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by Wreck:

... there does need to be experience gain for the support weapons that rarely get any. ...

Suggested factors;

- Being "close" (small arms range) to the enemy. (Applies to AT teams, FT teams and small mortars.)

- Spending ammo. (In "valid" fire. Not just area target a random spot to spend it.)

Cheers

Olle

[Flesh]

I've been thinking along these lines (solo campaign rules) for quite some time. I reckon these rules could be easily implemented as a computer program. I'm a computer programmer myself, so I can help out, if needed. However, it would be really cool if we could do a program that generates CM scenarios for the campaign. So, in this regard we have two options:

a) ask BTS nicely for the details of the scenario file format and hope they are feeling charitable.

reverse engineer the scenario file format ourselves.

I must admit that I don't hold out much hope for option a. Also, option b could prove very difficult.

Anybody else got any opinions on this?

[ August 06, 2002, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: Flesh ]

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by Flesh:

I've been thinking along these lines (solo campaign rules) for quite some time. I reckon these rules could be easily implemented as a computer program. I'm a computer programmer myself, so I can help out, if needed. However, it would be really cool if we could do a program that generates CM scenarios for the campaign. So, in this regard we have two options:

a) ask BTS nicely for the details of the scenario file format and hope they are feeling charitable.

reverse engineer the scenario file format ourselves.

I must admit that I don't hold out much hope for option a. Also, option b could prove very difficult.

Anybody else got any opinions on this?

Heh, this comes up every so often... and seems to do so in waves.

Re: a) It won't be happening any time soon. And, reverse engineering the file format is pretty much right out. Maps are encrypted (with a real encryption system ) to prevent cheating. There are lots of threads on this subject, go ahead and check 'em out.

Re: writing software to do Wreck's campaign rules... I had started throwing something together for the Mac... then I realized I was doing so in OS X.

How about a show of hands, how many people would want a Mac version that does "Wreck's Rules" but only in OS X? Of course, with the speed at which Wreck modifies his rules, I doubt I could keep up with changes until the rules stablize

[Green Hornet]

"...with the speed at which Wreck modifies his rules, I doubt I could keep up with changes until the rules stablize".

I agree. I've been following this thread daily for the past week or so and have been incorporating Wreck's updates along the way. All the input so far has added richly. Especially the added artillery and improved auxillary force generation.

I've only added one personal customization...I didn't like being limited to a sherman, halftrack or rifle platoon if I had 150 or less auxillary points. So, I randomly generate auxillary forces using a custom made chart if my auxillary force size is less than 150. The chart allows me to roll until my 150 points are used up and includes all types of units.

Anyway, once the rules stabilize, someone might try coding something up; but for now things are probably changing too quickly.

[hobo]

AAR - The Longest Day

Let me tell you about my day in WWII. I was a newly minted captain with a shiny new company. I landed in Normandy on DD+5 and told to move my boys into a nameless french village at dawn. We were making good time when getting to our objective when a few Jerrys come into view. We called in some 81 and 155 arty and that seemed to hold them back as we moved into town and assumed a defensive postures.

However, the Germs regrouped and attacked our position with an entire infantry FJ infantry battallion. 2 Coys came at us in the center and another attacked our left flank. I quickly noticed that they were as inexperienced as my boys. The arty helped tremendously but it soon turned into hand 2 hand combat. We took alot of casualties as some of my men broke and got mowed down by flanking fire. Running out of ammo I pulled back from the town and retreated to safety just outside of town.

Needless to say the old man was pissed at our results and ordered us to immediately take the town. He even sent us a Sherm to help out. I could only muster a full platoon so I decided to probe the outskirts of town on the right flank. I pushed to the edge of town but had to retreat when a hidden AT gun took out the sherm. Exhausted and depleted of ammo my boys retreated to our jump off town to rest for the night.

I was surprised that the battalion had moved out to a new position leaving sus the entire town to rest in. Unfortunately luck struck again at dusk when we heard armor mmoving at us. Evidently the Germans were trying to reach sea and destroy our source of supply. We were able to collect and handful of zooks to hold the huns back. I was shocked (probably due to the exhaustion) at the amount of force the Germans were able to attack us with. There must have been a dozen Stugs, a couple of Panzers and a 2 coys of infantry. We were able to kills 6 or 7 tanks and a couple of HTs where we ran out of both men and ammo and pulled our few remaining boys out of town.

I took a round to the hip and shoulder and had to be evacuated. There were only 17 healthy troopers from the force I attacked the village in the AM. The good news is my boys killed 4 times as many germans and a fair number of tanks and stalled their attack on our bridgehead. The company was so decimated that it was disbanded and the remaining troops sent to the replacement pool. I went home and recovered and lived to tell this tell. While I only fought for a day in Normandy, it was the longest day of my life.

Captain Clark

US Army 1944

[edgars]

Looks like you took some really hard beating there...

[Wreck]

Olle raises two different issues with his recent suggestions. These are things I have considered and rejected, but worth discussion.

First, he suggests that certain support units get experience for being close to the enemy. Experience for proximity itself is a fine idea; in fact that is the main reason for the extra award for the first prisoner taken. However, thus far I have avoided having anything in the rules that would require recordkeeping during play. I don't like having to stop the flow of play to jot notes, and I worry about forgetting to do so, but perhaps that is just me.

I am not against such recordkeeping completely. I do think that it is better to avoid it if possible. So for example I have considered adding in more detailed awards for armor/vehicle kills during play; it is a much harder thing for a squad to kill a tank than a bazooka, though neither are at all easy. Furthermore all infantry units (other than mortars) are extremely unlikely to kill a vehicle that is not fully identified. So there is not much problem caused by tracking only known kills, and not distinguishing one sort of vehicle from another.

For armor, killing other vehicles is relatively easy; and they often kill unidentified things. So if I do eventually add rules for armor attachments, then it will be likely that I will add some in-game tracking of experience for vehicle kills. What is important to me about any such system is that it track only a few events, which are obvious when they happen. Armor battles obviously fit these criteria.

The second issue that Olle brings up is tracking stuff that can easily be seen at the endgame (so no problem there), but which are under the complete control of the player. The case in point is the proposal to give experience for ammo spent; perhaps there should be 2 experience for ending "low", for example.

The problem I have with giving experience for things the player can control is that it creates a temptation to do so, and therefore grey areas. Olle sees this, so he specifies in his rule not just area fire. There are two problems with this. One is, that it may return us to the problem of in-game recordkeeping; but I have already discussed that.

The other problem is that specifying what is and is not allowed always runs into grey areas that make such line-drawing difficult. Say your zook comes within 200m of an enemy squad in a building... does area firing there count? How about firing directly at the squad? What if the squad is closing fast? If infantry targets are not allowed, how about firing at a distant halftrack?

Of course, some people may have no problem with such minor line-drawing. I find it annoying, and would prefer rules not make me do it. I am unlikely to add such rules unless there is a very clear need for them; and with the general experience rule and the intra-core replacement rule I think there are sufficient ways for support units to get experience.

Nonetheless, a related question does remain. Is there information, available at the end-game, which would be useful for awarding either experience or favor, which we are not currently using? I think I have got most of it, but perhaps there is something I have not noticed or thought of. Suggestions are, as ever, welcome.

[Wreck]

hobo - great job writing! I like seeing what people can do to imagineer the games into coherent narratives. I find I do that myself.

Your story reminds me: early on I had thought about adding a rule placing you, the commander, on the battlefield: whenever the company HQ takes casualties, there was a chance that the campaign would end right then. Such a rule would probably make for more historic uses of the HQ unit in the sense of it not being a sort of super-platoon leader. On the other hand, I expect players would get ahistorically supercautious with it. I find as it is I am rather more cautious with the company HQ than I am in normal games because I want to keep its experience up.

Hmm, I think I might add HQ instantiation as an optional rule. I think it is rather neat.

[Wreck]

Some new rule additions.

</font>

• You can now lose upgraded platoon status.</font>
• Added optional rule for commander instantiation.</font>
• Added air support rule.
  </font>

[Cameroon]

After a first reading of the rules (back before my other post), I was of the "cool, but sheesh that's a lot of work..." opinion. Then, I tried it... now it's just about all I've done. After seven battles, my company is now "regular" overall.

My "best" moment? One 105 shell killed 4 Crack Wespes. Heh, silly AI. Didn't give me much experience, but the brass liked it

I just put together an Excel spreadsheet to try and ease the after-battle work. Guess I've got to play some battles to make sure it works...

[edit]

I wish the CM Quickbattle generator would let you buy any unit at whatever quality. And/or delete sub-units. That's the biggest hassle with regards to the system.

[ August 08, 2002, 02:19 AM: Message edited by: Cameroon ]

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by Wreck: (Edited order by Olle)

... specifying what is and is not allowed always runs into grey areas that make such line-drawing difficult.

This isn't much of a problem.

It's the player that use the rules and draw the lines himself, thus ultimately decides what's "legal" and what's not.

The AI doesn't object, so it's only when a third party gets involved that any such problem could arise.

... certain support units get experience for being close to the enemy.

... However, thus far I have avoided having anything in the rules that would require recordkeeping during play.

After thinking this through a bit more I think "close" could be defined as "on map". After all the enemy might come charging in with armoured cars and what's not...

This would minimise record keeping, unless a unit exits the map really early.

Another motivation for defining the entire map as "close" come from the excellent game Command Decision; here there are negative morale modifiers for

- (known) enemy within 500yds.

- (known) enemy AFV (including APCs) within 1,000yds.

- any air strike within 2,000yds.

QB maps make you setup within 1000yds from the enemy no matter if you want to or not...

I am not against such recordkeeping completely. I do think that it is better to avoid it if possible.

I couldn't agree more.

The problem I have with giving experience for things the player can control is that it creates a temptation to do so, ...

This is a good thing, provided the things rewarded are "good" and "productive".

Olle sees this, so he specifies in his rule not just area fire. ... Say your zook comes within 200m of an enemy squad in a building... does area firing there count? --- If infantry targets are not allowed, how about firing at a distant halftrack?

What I specify is "no fire just to spend ammo and that you would not normally do".

I quite often use area targeting to achieve suppression of detected or suspected enemy that can't be seen by the shooter.

I do not place a Zook team way back and order them to target a nearby piece of ground just to spend ammo.

The last example, distant halftrack, depends on the situation. If it's imperative to knock it out ASAP, there are no AT assets nearby, and I'm willing to expose my zook team to do it, then it's fine. Otherwise it's bad tactics and the Zook team will most likely suffer from it later on (and thus deserve experience anyway).

Bottom line is the same as I noted above; this is a one player campaign, and it's up to the player what is defined as relevant/cheating.

I think there are sufficient ways for support units to get experience.

My personal opinion on the question of gaining experience is that it should be more binary.

During battle a unit either gains experience or not. Experience battle and live to tell about it is about as much that's needed.

Using weapons is combat yield experience, causing enemy losses as an effect of it is secondary. Even (unintentionally) missed shots provide experience.

I don't think there's any real reason trying to figure out exactly how "much" experience is gained by each unit, only if it is "sufficient" or not.

Take for example on map mortars, the larger kind.

Their job is to hang around behind the others and provide area fire every now and then.

If they successfully do so during a battle and are not viped out then they have gained full experience. The exact effect of their fire doesn't matter a bit!

I haven't really dug into the experience and favour rules yet, but I will probably come up with some opinion here as well once I have...

Cheers

Olle

[Wreck]

Rule modifications:

</font>

• reintroduced combined arms force type; with the revision to aux force generation this is needed with larger battles.</font>
• removed engineers from defensive AT attachments.</font>
• revised the description of how to generate aux forces. The process is unchanged but I hope the description is clearer now.</font>
• changed the multiplier for German attacks to 1.5, from 2.0. Until now all your defenses were effectively "AI +100% forces". No wonder they were so hard!</font>
• changed German quality table slightly to generate less high quality and more low. This is aiming for "reality" - play green units for that in CM. High quality Germans tend to fight to the death in their holes too much for my taste. </font>
• updated the battle log.
  </font>

[Wreck]

A small update: Andy Bass sent me a neat idea, that is to simplify the computation of friendly force size. The result is now up; it is much easier to do. There should be no differences between the tabular computation Andy sent and what was there before; it's just simpler to describe and do.

[Teamski1]

Gotta try these rules out! Thanks Wreck for your persistance!

-Ski

[hobo]

I know I am wasting my typing, but I really wish BTS would incorporate these rules into the game. I cannot imagine it would take much work. It sure would be nice to keep the guys throughout a campaign. One problem that cannot be fixed by these rules is that the leaders and their skills change with each game.

- Hobo

[Flesh]

I've been doing some research with regard to the possibility of writing a program that will automatically add the forces produced by these rules to a CM scenario. Anyway, I found a way of doing it that does not require reverse engineering the scenario file format. However, it does require a *LOT* of work as there are so many different units in CM. Here's the gist of my method:

It is possible to script/drive the CM scenario editor from an external program. To achieve, this the external program must make use of the system api calls that are used by the apps known as "macro recorders". This is quite complex and involves a lot of trial and error - but it does seem possible. I have already verified that it is possible by using a macro recorder that I downloaded from the net.

So, when these rules stabilise, if there is sufficient interest, I can have a go at doing this. Also, some help with unit lists etc. would be appreciated if/when the time comes. I can elaborate on the technical details involved if anybody would like me to.

[ August 18, 2002, 03:28 AM: Message edited by: Flesh ]