Public Demand: Who wants to see Titans of TH, RD, BoB clashing?

[Broken]

Fionn, Zahl,

I agree that TH is somewhat over-represented. Part of the problem is that Ed, who could give some coherence to the RD position, is missing. There is no clearly dominant player at RD, as there is at TH (Swamp). If Ed re-appears and selects someone new, I will step aside, since Ghost is a much more "known" player than I am.

I hope "Titans" becomes a regular event. Then the relative strengths of the different ladders will become more apparent, and the ladder representation can be adjusted accordingly.

[Broken]

Rob,

I appreciate the endorsement, especially since you do such much to make RD "happen". I am sure you, Buckeye, Titan, Zahl, and others on RD I have not played, could give a good accounting of themselves in this tournament.

[Treeburst155]

It seems one of our Titans has actually played an early version of one of the scenarios we intended to use. For this reason we will have to go with four scenarios from Boots & Tracks (The RoW II scenarios)and three "pick your own" scenarios.

SCORING

As each scenario will only be played four times among this group I think we should go with a variation of Wreck's scoring idea (a variation of the Nabla system for playoff games).

I propose 3 points for the best score from each side of a scenario, 2 points for the second best, 1 for the third highest, and zero for the lowest score from each side of a scenario. The highest total wins after all seven games are tallied.

For reasons of gamey play, any contested VL points need to be divided in some manner. There are two ways to do it:

1) Given a final score of 50-30 we could just add 10 points to each player (contested VL is worth 20) giving 60-40.

2) Another way (preferred by scoring experts like Redwolf and Fionn) is to award contested VL points according to the percentage of total player points scored by a player. For example: 50-30 would give the winner 62.5% of the total player points scored (80). This same portion of unclaimed/contested VL points would also be given to the winner. The adjusted final score would be 62.5-37.5. This maintains the final point ratio between the players. Method 1 will decrease this point ratio.

Since level of victory as defined in CM is not of concern to us (only points in comparison to others who played the same side of a scenario),it does not matter which method we use. There will be some effect on tactics however. Anyway, this needs to be worked out. I'm open to a vote.

THE SCENARIOS

We will be using four new scenarios by Boots & Tracks. Nobody has seen them except for the RoW II people who are playing them now.

One or more of these scenarios MAY be deliberately unbalanced. This does not matter. Your goal is to score higher than the others who played the same scenario from the same side you did. This is the nature of the Nabla system. Balance does not matter.

For this reason, you should never surrender. Withdraw, and let the game auto-surrender for you. For all you know, your crummy 18 points will be the high score from your side of the scenario. Allowing your people to be captured in large quantities (surrendering) virtually guarantees you won't have the high score from your side.

SECURITY

No discussion of the scenarios is permitted on the tourney thread. This includes final scores because they tip off players as to scenario balance. You won't know what you are getting into with these scenarios. You need to assess the situation yourself, and act accordingly.

THE "CHOOSE YOUR OWN" SCENARIOS

These three scenarios will be played on custom maps. I will place the forces you choose on the final maps, tourney save the scenario, and send the secured file to the German player to start the game.

Since these games will be scored using the same system, I think the same side should always start on the same side of the map. IOW, Allies always set up in the west, for example. Otherwise, there is virtually no similarity between the battles so a comparison of scores is impossible. There would be no "same side" really. I'm open to thoughts on this issue.

I will need a copy of the agreements made by players regarding force purchases. In the case of disputes, this agreement is all I have to go by in making a judgment. Therefore, these agreements should be specific. Any grey areas that become the subject of a dispute will see the ruling go in favor of the accused. If an agreement fails to deal with an issue at all, don't bother lodging a complaint. You should have thought of that while negotiating.

No editing of "free" unit attributes like HQ bonuses, ammo, fausts, rifle grenades, gammon bombs, etc.. I WILL be repurchasing your forces anyway, so you will be stuck with the random/default. Also, please select forces from just one month and let me know the month you used.

Any other editing is up to the players to decide. All I ask is that you give me explicit purchasing instructions if you do lots of editing.

It's sometimes very difficult to figure out how a player arrives at a certain force list at a certain point level when heavy editing is involved. I don't have the time to figure out the puzzle.

Treeburst155 out.

[Ghost of the 90th]

Cool, I am in.

Username: Ghost358th

email: jfc23@hotmail.com

For the record, I play both TH and BoB. Lately though it has been really hard to get TCP games at BoB, so I been playing TH more and more.

TH is the TCP spot, always has been. I have the attention span of a knat, so it should be interesting to see how I do in a PBEM tourney.

And as far as 3 TH players; well, Wreck has not played there in a very long time. Also, TH is the undisputed toughest ladder. (No knock to BoB) I have played everywhere and everyone(under many names) on the net and can say without a doubt, TH is the toughest. This is not bragging or chest thumping, it is just plain fact. The top ten there are a murder's row from CM hell. Try it sometime to see for yourself.

Well, thanks for including me. Anyone posting odds yet? Side bets? etc...

is their a link somewhere that I missed to all this ROWII stuff?

Ghost358th

[tecumseh]

Originally posted by Ghost of the 90th:

Anyone posting odds yet?

I am sure it will come down to a match between Swamp and Wreck. Ghost will drop out because he is bored. Fionn will drop out because he gets offended by something.

[Broken]

Ghost,

Just out of curiosity, under what names have you played on the RD ladder? Have you played anyone currently active?

Posted by Ghost:

Also, TH is the undisputed toughest ladder. (No knock to BoB) I have played everywhere and everyone(under many names) on the net and can say without a doubt, TH is the toughest. This is not bragging or chest thumping, it is just plain fact.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Just a word of warning to all opponents who play against Ghost 358th... just don't mention that you have spent time watching sub-standard war films sometime in the past, he gets easily upset!

Regards

Jim R.

[Wreck]

Hey, the idea of giving integer points based on relative order surely does not originate with me. Someone invented it for the ROW final; and it surely must predate that, right?

Anyway, I agree with using 3-2-1-0 points. It's similar to 2-1-0 as I propounded earlier, but adding one more level because we went up from 6 players to 8. If Fionn (or anyone else) is still uncomfortable with its workings/fairness, please let's get it out in the open and discuss it. I believe it is a good and fair system, and am happy to discuss how it works.

One advantage to using 3-2-1-0 over Nabla's, is that we will not have to wait for the end of ROWII to compute score. With 8 presumably very dedicated players, we are likely to finish before all 72 of the ROWII fellows.

Regarding neutral-flag handling: if both redwolf and Fionn think proportional adjustment is right, it's right with me. So I will vote for that if we need to vote.

Regarding the three choose-your-own scenarios: I am all for choose your own, but I would prefer if we could agree to "fix" as many aspects of the battles as possible rather than have them all negotiated. This makes them more comparable to each other. It also means the effect of terrain on the battle will be fairer.

If nothing else, I think we should fix the type of each battle. I suggest two attacks and one ME. The terrain obviously matters a lot with this.

Ghost: ROWII has its own thread, easily found on the front page of this forum.

[MajorTaktik]

Originally posted by Broken!:

[QB]Ghost,

Just out of curiosity, under what names have you played on the RD ladder? Have you played anyone currently active?

[Deathdealer]

If nobody noticed it I'll play anything ...

With three "QBs" it's hard to get 2 attacks and 1 ME - I suppose idea was to have one of each

Points, well you get all the points anyway so doesn't matter to me LOL

[Treeburst155]

I really can't think of a better scoring system than the integer Nabla discussed above for this particular tourney. If there are no strident objections we will go with it. I also think the proportional flag-split is the way to go since at least one of the Titan's prefers it. It is really just a matter of preference.

Because of the scoring, the "pick your own" scenarios do need to be similar from player to player. The more similar the better IMO. I think these scenarios should be exactly the same EXCEPT for the forces, which will be chosen by the players. IOW, Map A would always be an Allied attack from west to east with the same parameters, etc.. Only the forces are different.

Hmmm....what about attacker/defender unit point ratio? I am unfamiliar with these ratios. Is it 1.5:1 for an attack? Players could decide on any point ratio they want for these battles so long as they are the same for all, naturally.

I would like to give players as much freedom as we can with the last three battles; but the more that is left up to the players, the more the integrity of the Nabla system is undermined.

What I'm saying here is the scenarios should be entirely human designed by a non-player except that no forces are chosen. These .cmbs would be the ones used by me to place the players' forces. Do the Titans want to choose forces blind?

Treeburst155 out.

[xerxes]

And just to clarify, BoB is NOT a ladder.

edited.

[ June 07, 2002, 02:24 PM: Message edited by: xerxes ]

[Wreck]

Attack:defend points are 3:2, in QBs. And though it is true that we might have any point ratio because of the referee-buying, I think staying with 3:2 is appropriate since QBing is an important part of what I would consider CM mastery, while playing with weird point ratios is not. And we are already going to get some weird ratios anyway, in the four ROWII scenarios.

Similarly, I think I would prefer to limit player buying to full units; that is no cherry-picking within companies, battalions, etc. I see no huge problem with this, except that it is very non-typical of PBEM or ladder play. At least, in my experience. If anybody thinks it is important, let him voice the thought!

Another reason to play 3:2 and quickbattleish would be as an empirical test of the proposition that attack/defend is easier for the attacker. Lots of good players think that, but I think the evidence is not really convincing. This tourney can help to take out the effect of player skill, which is one of the main confounding factors.

So I would suggest one German attack, one German defense, and one ME.

Deathdealer: 2 attack/defends, 1 ME is what I meant.

[Wreck]

Regarding what the players should know about the map, again I say: keep it QBish. We should know the size of the map, the terrain/hilliness/etc, the weather, the date.

Basically, we should be able to use the editor to autogenerate maps so we know what we are dealing with.

The referee should then autogenerate maps until he gets one that is more or less OK, then maybe tweak it in relatively small ways that don't invalidate the overall character of the map, but perhaps add some tactical challenge. So, don't stick in a new river, but maybe remove a too-well-placed building, say. Or add one hill in someone's setup to even out a hill on the other side. Or move the flags to fairer locations. That sort of thing.

[Broken]

I agree to the proposals in Wrecks last two posts. I like "cherry picking" within battalions, companies, etc., but I am not obsessed about it if the other players are uncomfortable with this style of play. I prefer to see the map before hand, but buying blind is ok too.

I like Wrecks suggestion of German attack, German defend, and ME as a format for the three "player selected" scenarios, I would strongly suggest identical conditions for all players within a particular scenario. For example, the German defend games would all have the same unit purchase rules (Panther 76 in September, Short 75, or whatever). I don't want a situation where I am "negotiated" out of using SMG infantry in my German defend game, and then find that it was allowed in the other 3 German defend games. I don't think the other players would want this either. Having the same purchase rules would also make it unnecessary to send "unit purchase contracts" to the organizer for each game.

[Treeburst155]

OK, we're on the same page here.

I like the idea of keeping these things basically as QBs. I would auto generate maps in the editor, and clean them up a bit; but not so much as to effectively change the terrain parameters I started with. Players would know all the parameters I used; also weather, ground conditions and type of battle (Allied attack, etc), before they pick forces for the battle. They would not see the actual map. They could generate their own to get a feel for the map.

Attack scenarios would be 3:2 force ratio. How about map size and defender points? How big do we want these battles?

Hmmmm....setup zones. I would have to create the setup zones. I guess I could just do it exactly like a QB would for the type of scenario.

On unit selection rules. I'm all for a set of rules if you guys can agree on them. We could use different purchase rules for different scenarios which would be followed by all, for the reasons Broken mentioned. We should probably establish the different map parameters before we assign a set of purchase rules to a map. We don't want heavy trees and mud to be some kind of armor engagement (or do we? ).

Treeburst155 out.

[Deathdealer]

Things look to be developing pretty nicely...

3:2 ratio is the way to go in attack/defends but about seeing map is bit difficult. Usually we don't see them and maybe that's the way to go. At least totally out of place things like road going up cliff etc should be erased with our good man Treeburst and I believe he'll do ok work.

Rules: I think 76 rule in general is what most people go with so I'd say it's highest weapon system to be used if we really need to have restrictions at all in armor section . Infantry then: I'd say if one chooses FJs then one has to stick FJ armor etc. October '44 rules out SMGs and still give us those 60m fausts so I'd say thats what I'd like to use. Allied side can mix ABs and regular rifle units if desired as Germans have motorized inf available anyway. Flaktrucks (Flakpanzers ?) are out of course. Point allocations: any idea ? 2000 for all of the fights to keep them managable = 3000 for attacker ? 7 AARs will eat up ones time pretty quickly so I think no monster fights though we can do some of those later if we feel like it...

I'm already expecting some serious trashing 8) so let's get on with it !!!

[Fionn]

1. Winecape did you get my email?

2. So what are the current OFFICIAL rules. Things are changing so often and so quickly I don't even know what current rules I'm being asked to give an opinion about

[Combat Opinion Staff]

I request that there be force type restrictions, like combined arms.

Swamp

[ June 08, 2002, 12:06 PM: Message edited by: Combat Opinion Staff ]

[Treeburst155]

Fionn,

That's just it. Nobody has hashed out the nitty gritty little details yet. That's what we're doing now.

Treeburst155 out.

[SurlyBen]

As far as size goes, I'd like to see at least one small (1000 points or fewer) battle.

I actually prefer small fights, so really, I'd like them all to be small... Seeing as how I'm probably in a minority of one on this point, I'm only gonna agitate for one small battle.

On restrictions, I'll happily play under any ruleset (or no rulesets). All I ask is that flak trucks not be allowed.

[ June 08, 2002, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: SurlyBen ]

[Treeburst155]

OK, this is great. Everybody post your likes and dislikes like we've been doing. I will then lay out a detailed proposal concerning the three "force pick" games. If it seems unpopular I'll throw out another plan, and so on. Eventually we'll come up with something everybody can live with.

Treeburst155 out.

[Combat Opinion Staff]

OK, this is great. Everybody post your likes and dislikes like we've been doing. I will then lay out a detailed proposal concerning the three "force pick" games. If it seems unpopular I'll throw out another plan, and so on. Eventually we'll come up with something everybody can live with.

Dislikes: unrestricted force composition, scouting with crews, flak halftracks

Dislikes for competitive battles: small points

Likes: too many to list

Swamp

Edited: nevermind, Nabla seems good

[ June 08, 2002, 03:46 PM: Message edited by: Combat Opinion Staff ]

[Deathdealer]

Ah, Swamp this was good thing to put on a post - I too hate to see some crew running around to fish out my positions. I think that is almost as important than flaktruck denial. Crew users should be SHOT or I'll scr@w you LOL

Flaktrucks and crews are basically what I think are most important thing to deny. Little consideration about artillery too is important as buying 10 big FOs isn't really showing anything about skills... I didn't think those would come out but I'll say it so we can't forget it

Surlyben has good point about point selections. Though I love bigger fights as there one mistake usually isn't fatal and one can make a comeback (if allowed that is...). Small attack/defends can be extremely painful though so I'd say 1500 ME and 2000 for attack/defends is fine with me.

Craig is away till Monday so we'll need to wait about his opinions though I think I can speak for him about those small things.

[Broken]

Likes:

Lots of purchase points (helps reduce the luck factor, tests grand-tactical skills, not just tactical),

Panther 76 (avoids uber-tanks and uber-arty without being overly restrictive),

Late war (more equipment variety),

Spring or summer (concealment is better),

Hilly, forested maps (wide open maps are kinda boring).

Dislikes:

Fighter-bombers (too random),

AT mines (can't see them - Daisy Chains are OK),

Rules which require each gun to have transport (these rules make guns too expensive, taking them out of the game).