Something to Ponder While Awaiting CMBB

[Ace Pilot]

I’ve got an ethics question for the group. I’ve come across a number of CMBO situations where, for lack of a better term, certain “military intelligence” would assist me in deciding what orders to give. My question is, what types of “military intelligence” do people think it is acceptable to gather? Let me provide a couple of illustrations.

1. You know your enemy has a Jumbo Sherman, and you suspect it is hiding behind a building. You can probably get a flank or even rear shot by rushing a halftrack with a 20mm gun over there, but you can’t remember whether the Jumbo Sherman’s flanks are vulnerable to a 20mm. Normally, you could click on the enemy unit and check, but since your troops haven’t spotted it yet, that option is out. Is it ethical to go into scenario editor and check the stats of a Jumbo Sherman?

2. You’ve got a tank hiding behind the crest of a hill. Several hundred yards away is an enemy tank. You’re not sure whether it’s a good idea to advance to a hull down position on the crest line and take a shot. Is it acceptable to go into the scenario editor and set up a similar situation so you can check the To Hit percentage and To Kill chance, or even do some actual test runs?

3. Is it ethical to go into the scenario editor to check the point values of units? For example, you may be wondering whether it is worth risking a vanilla Sherman with a vet crew to get a Panther with a regular crew. Depending on the current score and the point difference between the tanks, the exchange may or may not be worth it. The only way to check is by going into the scenario editor to check point values.

4. This one actually happened to me in a PBEM scenario. It was a meeting engagement where I knew both sides were pretty evenly balanced (i.e., when I got reinforcements, I suspected my opponent got very similar reinforcements). Shortly after receiving some towed antitank guns, I spotted my opponent towing an antitank gun behind a small hill. I had just unlimbered my gun and learned that it would be more than 3 minutes before it would be ready to fire. At this point, I knew what kind of antitank gun my opponent had and thought about going into the scenario editor to determine what his unlimbering time was. Instead, I assumed his unlimbering time had to be similar to mine, so I rushed a halftrack and a light armor unit around the hill to wipe out the gun before it could set up. It took about a turn and a half to get there, but I figured I still had plenty of time before the gun was unlimbered and ready to return fire. I was wrong and lost both the halftrack and light armor to his gun. I learned after the scenario was over that his gun unlimbered about twice as fast as mine did. So, should I have checked unlimbering times in the scenario editor and saved my poor armor?

Any other ethical dilemmas other have thought about?

Ace

[Michael Dorosh]

Crews in the field, who lived and died according to these stats, would just know it. A player looking it up midgame should not represent a problem - though the stats available to a player are probably more complete than those available to AFV crews during the war, especially new enemy types just being discovered.

Since there is no way to stop a PBEM opponent from doing the same thing, I suppose a safe course is to just assume everyone is doing this.

It does seem like dirty pool to run scenario tests on situations arising in current games, and I don't do it myself - but I couldn't prove that ina court of law, and arguably, a master player would have all this memorized anyway.

Frankly, if anyone wants to win that badly as to print out spreadsheets of armour penetration stats or bog chances, they probably aren't someone I want to play against anyway. I always thought that not knowing all this stuff was part of the fun. Depends on your outlook, I guess.

[ August 30, 2002, 09:57 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[YankeeDog]

I don't think it's really a question of ethics; it's just a question of how you like to play the game. It's only unethical if you and your opponent agree that checking stats in the scenario editor or wherever is not allowed, and then you do it on the sly.

In the games I play, I would assume that any of the above mentioned tactics are fair game unless specifically stated otherwise at the beginning of the game. For the record, I check Chris Hare's CM charts for armor stats and arty delay times, etc. all of the time while playing, which is basically the equivalent of opening the scenario editor to check stats. I would expect my opponent to tell me if he wanted to make using reference materials like this out of bounds.

IOW, if you're not sure, ask your opponent. If you don't like the rules your opponent prefers to play under, find someone else to play against. As long as you're being honest about it, you're being ethical.

Cheers,

YD

[Chad Harrison]

Ethics in CM are a very interesting thing. Unless someone asks you not to do so, that is a resource that you can go to. Does that make it right though? Really comes down to whether you are playing to play or playing to win.

Those who are playing to win would for sure use all those techniques (and more) to ensure victory for themselves (I played on a ladder long enough to know that). Those playing just to play and for fun would not to those things, simply because it just doesnt matter, as long as I am having fun!

So, unless someone asks you not to, and you really want to win, go for it. Your opponenet (if he is smart) is doing the same thing.

Chad Harrison

BTW, most your examples are things that you would know by heart after playing the game for long enough. The only one that I have ever done is setup another QB and buy what I have seen my opponent has so far, and then experiment to see what else he 'could' have. A nice process of elimination.

[ August 30, 2002, 11:44 AM: Message edited by: Chad Harrison ]

[Leeo]

Play for fun and by the seat of your pants, and there are no worries. I'd even contend that the way to have fun is to play by the seat of your pants. That's just me, of course, and I understand people like to play the game in different ways.

I strive (mostly unsuccessfully) to try and develop a feel for how the game works instead of picking apart the statistics. I doubt the commanders in the field at the time had detailed information on how much armor their rounds could penetrate. They just learned (if they survived, or from others who had) that it was a bad idea to take a Panther on frontally with a vanilla Sherm.

[Ozzy]

Originally posted by Ace Pilot:

1. You know your enemy has a Jumbo Sherman, and you suspect it is hiding behind a building. You can probably get a flank or even rear shot by rushing a halftrack with a 20mm gun over there, but you can’t remember whether the Jumbo Sherman’s flanks are vulnerable to a 20mm. Normally, you could click on the enemy unit and check, but since your troops haven’t spotted it yet, that option is out. Is it ethical to go into scenario editor and check the stats of a Jumbo Sherman?

Yes, the crews should be trained to know this. The incertainty factor comes with the proper identification. Is it REALLY a Jumbo? Several factors have influence on identification (unit type, experience, sight conditions). I have expereinced several times that my light armour saw a British "Tank Destroyer", which then resulted to be a Sherman VC Firefly and a burning light armour

2. You’ve got a tank hiding behind the crest of a hill. Several hundred yards away is an enemy tank. You’re not sure whether it’s a good idea to advance to a hull down position on the crest line and take a shot. Is it acceptable to go into the scenario editor and set up a similar situation so you can check the To Hit percentage and To Kill chance, or even do some actual test runs?

Again, yes. Crews are trained before sent to combat.

And again, the aforementioned factors (among others) have influence on accuracy.

Hit and Kill are only chances, and you can see the wildest extremes sometimes.

3. Is it ethical to go into the scenario editor to check the point values of units? For example, you may be wondering whether it is worth risking a vanilla Sherman with a vet crew to get a Panther with a regular crew. Depending on the current score and the point difference between the tanks, the exchange may or may not be worth it. The only way to check is by going into the scenario editor to check point values.

A definite NO. I consider everything that is aimed on cumulating victory points -instead of just playing and having fun- gamey.

4. This one actually happened to me in a PBEM scenario. It was a meeting engagement where I knew both sides were pretty evenly balanced (i.e., when I got reinforcements, I suspected my opponent got very similar reinforcements). Shortly after receiving some towed antitank guns, I spotted my opponent towing an antitank gun behind a small hill. I had just unlimbered my gun and learned that it would be more than 3 minutes before it would be ready to fire. At this point, I knew what kind of antitank gun my opponent had and thought about going into the scenario editor to determine what his unlimbering time was. Instead, I assumed his unlimbering time had to be similar to mine, so I rushed a halftrack and a light armor unit around the hill to wipe out the gun before it could set up. It took about a turn and a half to get there, but I figured I still had plenty of time before the gun was unlimbered and ready to return fire. I was wrong and lost both the halftrack and light armor to his gun. I learned after the scenario was over that his gun unlimbered about twice as fast as mine did. So, should I have checked unlimbering times in the scenario editor and saved my poor armor?

Now that sounds a detail somewhat too specific for normal troops. In that case I would consider it not very ethical to check editor

other ethical dilemmas?

Adjusting artillery target too far from initial spot (spotting rounds required) during PBEM - quit scenario and reload opponent's e-Mail

[Herr Oberst]

No. No. No. No. No.

Do any of those actions, and you definitely reach and surpass the definition of Gamey Bastard in my book.

#1: Commanders in the field didn't walk about saying "Well the field manual here says that our 20mm can kill him from the side, go for it lads."

#2: There is no "Oops, Redo!" command in real life. And there are no "time out's" in combat. This is not basketball, football, etc, etc.

#3: Playing based on point values IS gamey.

#4: You makes your moves and you takes your chances. See #1 above. You make mistakes and it costs you a couple of pixels. Be happy about that. Those are the lessons you won't forget.

[xerxes]

I don't think any of those things are unethical, but frankly, they would really take the fun out of it for myself if I did those things. I'm much more into the "immersion" and checking stats, running test cases, etc, just sounds like work.

[Commander]

I have to agree with xerxes. It sounds like a lot of work.

If you suspect your opponent has a Jumbo then plan an ambush with one of your shreks. It might be exciting to run your 20mm down there but you will probably lose it in the process because of something you didn't know about.

I don't worry too much about points myself. I always play as Allies and if you do that then you know the Axis get a lot of good stuff for the same points.

I guess the bottom line is that your questions seem to be related to playing to win or playing for fun. I personally play for fun. I like to win but don't get upset about the losses. (I would always be upset then as my regular PBEM opponent Leta is really good at destroying my forces!)

[Redwolf]

It frightens me that I know all this crap out of my head anyway, including the unlimering for most guns and the hit probablities.

Anyway, Michael, I don't agree. I don't think real-life tanks would know more than very, very rough stats about tenemy tanks. The 20mm driver would certainly know he can't hurt a Sherman, even fromt he side. But nobody in the German ranks except a few random people in a HQ would know where exactly one of these nasty thick-turret Shermans is thick. No British tanker would have a clue what exactly the angle of a Jagdpanzer IV ("SP 88") would do to his rounds with the funny red caps which were supposely all-mighty and work so well against the Tiger I.

[Commissar]

In short,

I don't really think it's unethical but you should probably let your opponent know before the battle that you do this so that you both agree to do it or not.

Personally, I think you should do your scenario editor tests before battles to find out whether your tactic would work or not. Part of the excitment is the unknown factor. Commanders in the field during the War could not pop open a laptop and do a test although they can do this now, of course.

[WWB]

I really put no faith in CM's to hot probabilities. From what I understand they are intentionally inaccurate anyhow, so why fixate on them. Play the freaking game and have fun. You win some, you lose some but its ok. Your digital soldiers will respawn to fight another day.

WWB

[Michael Dorosh]

At best, it's another vote in favour of TCP play.

Really though, once a player gains familiarity with the game system, he becomes far smarter than his historical counterpart and less able to reproduce historical results - especially if the unit being simulated was not a good one.

I mean, think of a battle where a very raw company goes into action under the command of a sergeant because all the officers have been killed. You can simulate the terrain, weather, weapons and order of battle in CM - but you can't handicap a player's tactical skill or knowledge of weapons system to match the actual commanders at the time. So any hope of a realistic recreation of that action is impossible.

Which is beside the point since in the end, CM is a game, and all that the game is intended to do is provide the same starting point and roughly the same physical means. The command, and knowledge of battlefield conditions, is up to the player.

How do you simulate cocky American tankers with the new Sherman 76, having been told they could take out Panthers and Tigers with ease, in June of 1944? The experienced player knows better and will not use his Shermans the way the real life ones did.

[ August 30, 2002, 11:26 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Scipio]

I play because it is fun.

But I also play to win, and I think it is my 'duty' to delivere the best possible fight and I expect the same from my opponent. Information is just the most important weapon on the battlefield. There is now question about it.

So I don't think that any of what has been menttioned is 'unethical' or 'gamey'.

I also don't think that 'Sniper-Scouts' or Jeeps moving into the enemys rear is gamey. Why should it be? It is my duty to secure my flanks and my back. If I don't do so, I haven't deserved anything else than a kick in my back. BTW, we shouldn'also forget that a CM battle is in general unrealistic - the action we see is in reality usually the action of a whole day, not of an half hour. Casualities like in CM within each hour of the day on such a relative small spott of the frontline would be military catastrophe in reality. A battle is much slower, with many pauses with no bloody action, what doesn't mean that nothing is happening in this times. Runners deliver messages from forward positions, prisoners are interrogated, aircrafts or vehicels recon the battlefield. All this must be assumed to be abstracted in the game. So I think to 'pause the battle' and 'check the fieldmanual' is not unethic. If somebody has a problem with it, he should just imagine that a commanders has asked his troops about there experience with a special tank, for example.

If there are unethic things, then this:

An opponent that disappears, especially when things start to go wrong for him.

An opponent who starts to whine if I use a weapon or tactic he don't like, but that wasn't excluded before the battle. And than act as if it is my fault, and that I just should know that there is 'silent agreement in the whole CM community not to do this or that' or similar BS.

I have a simple rule. If you don't speak before the battle has started, mum the word and live with it.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Herr Oberst:

No. No. No. No. No.

Do any of those actions, and you definitely reach and surpass the definition of Gamey Bastard in my book.

#1: Commanders in the field didn't walk about saying "Well the field manual here says that our 20mm can kill him from the side, go for it lads."

#2: There is no "Oops, Redo!" command in real life. And there are no "time out's" in combat. This is not basketball, football, etc, etc.

#3: Playing based on point values IS gamey.

#4: You makes your moves and you takes your chances. See #1 above. You make mistakes and it costs you a couple of pixels. Be happy about that. Those are the lessons you won't forget.

Great Post

I agree completely.

"Is is ethcical"

No. No. No. No. & No.

Do any of those actions, and you definitely reach and surpass the definition of Gamey Bastard in my book.

#1: Commanders in the field didn't walk about saying "Well the field manual here says that our 20mm can kill him from the side, go for it lads."

This is a matter for the Court of Gamey CMBO players, I would call it gamey for sure, is it is unethical? I would suggest it is unethical if your opponent was an unsuspectingplayer who was just playing for "fun"

-tom w

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

Ethics in CM are a very thing.

I agree

Seriously, I agree with most of the others that none of the things you mention are inherently unethical. The reason for this is something Chad pointed out: good players, or players who have simply played the game a lot, will usually know this stuff off the top of their head anyway. So, the question then becomes if you already know it without having to look it up is it gamey or unethical to use that knowledge to influence your decision making? Is it even possible to not use it once you have it? I think the answer to both questions is no.

[Black Max]

Ah, the question that has plagued soldiers since the beginning of time. The ethics of battle.

Many soldiers will say there was a certain code you followed. If the code was broken by either side, the consequences were brutal and extreme.

Yet different battles had different rules. Thus the phrase "War is Hell". You never knew what your opponent would do in order to win, or better yet, survive.

And yet. The war stories that seem to be the most memorial (to me anyway) are not of how many men were killed, or what was done in order to destroy your enemy, but of how 2 opponents who crossed swords, fought the good fight, and yet maintained the respect of their adversary by adhering to "the code". Or, better yet, their ethics.

[Chad Harrison]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

Ethics in CM are a very thing.

I agree </font>

[Ace Pilot]

I have to admit that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the range of answers. I especially like the concept (that several have expressed) that whether these tactics are acceptable or not really defines whether you play for fun or play to win. Based on the fact that I didn’t check the unlimber time in example #4, I guess that makes me more inclined to play for fun. I also thought that these examples illustrated various “shades of gray” but I’ve been surprised at the number of responses that saw them as either black or white.

I do have a difference of opinion with those that say playing for points is gamey, simply because the whole scoring system is based solely on points. I have to assume that in a scenario with multiple victory flags, all players will go for the combination of flags that gives them at least a majority of the points. In my mind, it’s an easy (and only logical) jump to basing other decisions on their point values. Perhaps I’m oversimplifying things with this example, but that’s how I see it. Maybe CMBB will have some more flexible victory conditions that will remove the focus from points.

[Leeo]

Ignore the flags and destroy the enemy, and you'll end up winning most of the time. There's the rare exception, but the goal of pitched battle is to defeat the enemy, and the territory will follow.

[Doug Beman]

All these things seem like too much work.

Also, aren't gun unlimbering times affected by crew quality?

DjB

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Ace Pilot:

I do have a difference of opinion with those that say playing for points is gamey, simply because the whole scoring system is based solely on points.

Why then say "gamey" like it is a bad word? It's a game after all.

[Doug Beman]

Originally posted by Ozzy:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />other ethical dilemmas?

Adjusting artillery target too far from initial spot (spotting rounds required) during PBEM - quit scenario and reload opponent's e-Mail</font>

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by Leeo:

Ignore the flags and destroy the enemy, and you'll end up winning most of the time. There's the rare exception, but the goal of pitched battle is to defeat the enemy, and the territory will follow.

I concur, especially in anything but a small battle where casualty points tend to make the flag points pretty inconsequential. That's why I'd like to see more scenarios with dynamic flags, especially those where only the attacker knows what the real objective is, which, I would think, would encourage manuevering and feints. In fact, I'm trying to design one myself.