"Run for your Life!" issue version 1.11

[ThePhantom]

Paper Tiger, I do know with the Marines on veteran, I was able to achieve a solid victory. This was done on Webwing’s original scenario. So I can continue the way I like to play if I have my veteran Marines. You are right the experience is a huge factor in how well the units react under fire.

However, my "Run for your life" issue started when I sent a platoon of Marines to the fourth trench on Red Pepper scenario. They got in the trench but decided to run in the other direction down the hill. There was certainly no heavy small arms fire...... nothing to force a withdrawal. This upset me very much. Never have I seen my hard dogs running in the other direction with, what I assumed, was a marginal threat ahead of them. I was shocked in fact. Then on my third or fourth time I played. I rushed a scout sniper unit to the wood line in the North East of the map. At its OP, I saw what was creating the withdrawal. A massive group of enemy infantry... Perhaps a company plus was flanking my forward position Marine platoons. These Marines on their own initiative were running back to prepare a better defensive position. I, as the overall self appointed commander and chief, failed to realize they were reacting on their own to the situation.

I now understand the error of my ways. It is a lesson well learned. Webwing rushes two powerful infantry groups on both flanks opposite the player’s center. His overall mission is to give the AI some life and the groups advance rather quickly. Those who decide to "Hold the line" will be able to block the attacking forces (But you have a high chance of a simple draw victory). Those who attempt to counter attack and then advance had better maintain a solid force into the objective. Webwing has also updated his scenario and gives more supporting elements for the more aggressive player..... Thank you, Webwing.

All in all, there has been some tweaking of infantry actions... One of which is your unit will only advance with contact if they are equal to or superior in numbers (or firepower) to the enemy. If they are not.... They will not advance but run back to a defensive position.

[Paper Tiger]

Okay, I see what you're saying and that's a very impressive programming achievement. I guess I'm not seeing it react to 'massive groups of enemy infantry' because I'm manouevering my platoon of veterans with a tank and IFVs in support in the face of superior numbers but I'm definitely the one shepherding the conscripts and not the other way around. Without the vehicular support, I do see single veteran squads repositioning when they run into very close quarters with a single enemy conscript squad that's in good order but what's not realistic about that behaviour?

[Pandur]

i guess this all shocks us now and than. i had a syrian vet airbore squad bust out of a perfectly safe house just becouse their BMP3 suffered catastrophic explosions about 30 meters away. noone was hurt, noone shot at them...,all was dandy suddenly they ran out the house on the front door!!!, took heavy fire and well imagine the end...

in the end it seems its just a matter how you word it. either they ran away or they look for a better location for the duration of their stay

however, my personal belive is that, if it gets to damn hot and whatnot they gona run, that why we(they too) are humans and not machines. you can train that away to some point but still it exists as a factor.

[Webwing]

Like Pandur said it is a matter or wording. I said they were too brave. Opposite being cowards. That´s exactly what happens if you lower the experience level settings.

I´m really short of time but this got me really curious. After playing a bit more with it I noticed that it is not necessarily the number of enemy troops but the fire power they are directing at you that counts. Even facing groups only slightly bigger than yours if they are throwing everything they´ve got at you, then your troops might fall back and reposition.

Initially I was testing only with infantry. In that case more numbers = more firepower. Thus my previous conclusion.

So it might be the amount of rounds/bullets/grenades coming your way that influences the result. The side with superior fire power is the one to force the enemy to reposition.

[cabal23]

I think Battlefront may have added a, "Run for your life" calculation that is tweaked too high

That's as may be or... the Marines experience level is just set WAY too low in that scenario to give you a believable result. An exciting and entertaining one, certainly, but not realistic. Because of the huge disparity between the two armies, in my opinion, even the very best units the Syrians have, Republican Guard, Special Forces or Airborne, should rarely rate better than Regular when fighting with the US and everything else they have should be green at best but mostly conscript. Meanwhile, US troops, especially Marines, should really start as veteran with a fair mix of Crack units and for the best US formations, crack/elite.

I disagree with your statement that Marines should start off Veteran. A guy fresh out of boot reporting to his first duty station is not a veteran. He has never experienced live fire for real under stressful combat situations. Now in a month you may say he is veteran having survived a few battles and learned a few things from his team mates. I just finished a scenario soon to be posted about a platoon of very green soldiers(I provide an realistic explanation why in the briefing) with a few crack/vet leaders going head to head with a much more capable Syrian Spec Forces group. I also can't agree that Syrian Special Forces can't rate above Vet. That's silly to suspect that there aren't capable soldiers in the Syrian military that are well trained. They may be fewer, but I am certain they exist.

I agree with Webwing that it's a play style thing. You will have to be much more careful with those green soldiers than usual. I think we are spoiled because most scenarios I play the Marines are always the more highly motivated, trained, and armed force on the field. I thought it would be cool to turn the tables a bit. I think I have seen this conversation about red vets not being the same as blue vets too many times. My solution is to bump blue down a notch and red up a notch and I think you have slightly more fair fight if you are looking for equally balanced forces. Also playing around with the other soft factors can make a much more interesting battle.

[Cpl Steiner]

I haven't got time to read this whole thread but thought I'd share with you a horrifying incident I witnessed in CM:SF yesterday. A squad of Marines was quick-moving towards the enemy when they ran into a minefield - one being killed and several being injured to varying degrees. Rather than cease moving, they panicked and turned tail towards the cover of a nearby building, suffering another fatality and two more seriously injured in the process.

I suppose it's possible that troops might do this but to my mind any soldier with any sort of decent training - or indeed common sense - would realise that legging it out of a minefield is not very wise. I should add, the squad was not under any enemy fire other than maybe the odd long range pot-shot when they entered the minefield.

I was not pleased!

[Field Marshal Blücher]

I disagree with your statement that Marines should start off Veteran. A guy fresh out of boot reporting to his first duty station is not a veteran. He has never experienced live fire for real under stressful combat situations. Now in a month you may say he is veteran having survived a few battles and learned a few things from his team mates.

I agree with everything you've said. However, I do believe that most Marines in game should start off Veteran, for two reasons:

First of all, look at the definition of "Veteran" in the manual. I'm too lazy to check exactly what it says, but if memory serves it says that it doesn't necessarily mean actual veterans; it can also mean that the Marines have been trained to a very high standard. This leads to my next point.

I believe that the Marines in CM:SF are mostly not meant to be "fresh out of boot reporting to [their] first duty station." They are meant to represent Marines that have undergone extensive post-boot camp training and military exercises and probably many will have experience in Iraq or Afghanistan. Will there be green Marines? Yes. If the Marines are fresh out of boot camp, then yes, at the most they should be Regular. But I think that the vast majority of Marines will have extensive training beyond boot camp if not actual combat experience.

[Webwing]

Three issues here:

- The run for your life behaviour.

- The realist settings that should be used for the Marines and Syrians.

- The mission Red Pepper and how it should be approached.

First I think in spite of what CplSteiner has reported from his game I believe the game is very, very solid after 1.11. Yes, there will always be room for improvement of the AI. Our pixel soldiers will always do some strange things that a real soldier would never do and so forth. But the package now is very enjoyable and the AI seems to have really come to life. With a good plan in the editor to back it up there are fantastic possibilities for very challenging missions.

Second is the realism of the settings. I´ve read, not only in wargame forums, but also in flight sim forums and others, endless discussions about realism. I´m not going to start another one. It´s enough to say that no matter how much real world data you put in it, or if you want to call it a simulation and not a game, it will always be far from the real experience. And most seem to agree that a game that managed to be 100% realistic would be either boring or would end up killing you!

Back to the game though we all agree Marines will have better weapons, and more experience than the Syrians as a general rule. So to make a realistic mission in the game challenging and interesting the way to compensate for that is to give the Red side some vehicles and none for Blue. But that is not realistic. You actually need to give more and better vehicles for the Marines and less for the Syrians. Air support and Artillery is the same thing. Back to square one. So you are left with two other options here: Numbers and tactical advantages. The later meaning Red is in strong defensive positions and Blue is in need to cross open areas to get to the objective.

And so we get to the third issue, the mission Red Pepper itself.

To balance a company of Marines I would need at least a battalion of Syrians, or something like that, if I were to use "realistic" settings. Instead, what I did was to give Syrians more experience and less to the Marines. Unrealistic? Maybe but if I had the time I could write up a briefing justifying this. Syrians are special forces, Marines just out of boot camp, etc. And this would make it all realistic.

Instead of having a passive Red defense I wanted a very active one. I wanted the Syrians on the move, trying to flank your forces if possible.

There is no briefing proper but you are told the exact forces you have and the exact forces the enemy has. You have 1h30min to accomplish your goal. You have many options in that map and not just one way to get to the goal. No routes are blocked.

To me there are many challenging tactical problems there.

I thought that was an interesting proposition. That´s why I designed it anyway!

[Cpl Steiner]

First I think in spite of what CplSteiner has reported from his game I believe the game is very, very solid after 1.11. Yes, there will always be room for improvement of the AI. Our pixel soldiers will always do some strange things that a real soldier would never do and so forth. But the package now is very enjoyable and the AI seems to have really come to life. With a good plan in the editor to back it up there are fantastic possibilities for very challenging missions.

Just to put the record straight, I too believe the game is the best it has ever been after the 1.11 patch. The fact that troops react AT ALL to enemy fire is a big plus. As Webwing says, there will always be times when HOW they react doesn't seem to make much sense, but at least they are reacting. And to clarify about that incident I reported, two squads actually walked into separate minefields in the game I referred to. The first did the crazy "leg it to safety" behaviour and suffered more casualties as a result - but the other one ceased movement and stayed put.

I will never say there is no more room for improvement in CM:SF - there never will be - but v1.11 is definitely one of the best patches it's had.

[Paper Tiger]

I guess this better sums up my thinking on this topic

I posted this a couple of days ago in the 'Run for your life' thread. After a bit more thought, I would like to amend those settings for Airborne and Special Forces to make them veterans and also allow them a few more Crack units. However, in spite of their receiving the best of the equipment and standing head and shoulders better over their 'regular' Syrian counterparts, I don't really believe that a Republican Guard unit is any match for a standard US military formation and so they should mostly be regular when fighting the US. Certainly they will display more 'balls' than the regulars when facing US forces but from what I've seen in-game, regular performance is about how I'd expect them to perform in real life against a western army. Set them higher than that and you're just playing a game. BTW I'm not saying that they should NEVER be Crack or Elite, just that it should be a VERY rare occurrence.

Please note that I'm only talking about Syrian vs the US or Brits or Germans etc and not vs other Syrian units. In a Red v Red situation, I have no problem with setting Republican Guards to Crack with some Elite because they really are very good compared to their lesser trained brothers in arms in the regular arm.

With regards to US experience levels, we ARE talking about a conventional war and therefore I see no reason to set US forces at anything LESS than Veteran, except to play a game, as they really are much better trained than the Syrians. And besides, your government isn't going to stick untrained US units into a shooting war in the Middle East just yet. However, against Uncons, well, I can certainly see some justification for lowering their experience levels to regular for such situations as it's no longer a fully fledged shooting war.

Please note: conventional war, shooting war, NOT police actions where it's entirely possible for National Guard units to face uncons. Unless you can correct me, I don't believe that NG units were used in front line operations in either GW1 or GW2. However, that is a belief and I have no evidence to back it up. Further, I am not married to that belief and I will be very happy to revise that opinion if you can show me otherwise.

I also revised my opinion of the worth of Special Forces and Airborne units as I do have a very high regard for their training and I suspect that they would put up a very good show against a US force. But I don't have that same regard for Republican Guard units though, thus the generally 'regular' experience settings for them when facing front line US units.

My whole point is that if you want to create realistic scenarios (not fun, exciting and challenging scenarios) where US units Armed Forces face off in a conventional conflict with the Syrian Armed Forces, you'll probably get better and more accurate results with those settings than with pumping up the Red sides experience levels. I'm certainly not criticising anyone's work and I have no issues with these fun, fantasy missions either. I play them and have fun too but I'm not going to remotely kid myself that they're realistic.

Finally, EVERYTHING I have written is merely my opinion. If you disagree with it, fine. No problem. You make 'em the way you want to and I'll make 'em my own way. I'm not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking but you will find that my 'scenario design philosphy' (if you could call something so uninformed a philosophy) is to make my missions as realistic as possible. This will be important when I return to doing Blue v Red missions after the Brit Pack arrives. I have my own ideas how to make challenging 21st Century Blue v Red missions without making my squaddies 'regular' or depriving them too often of the assets (artillery and air support) or the vehicles they should reasonably expect to have. No doubt you'll all hate them but I make 'em the way I like to play them.

[Paper Tiger]

A final word about the new 'buggering off' behaviour to use Steve's own phrase. I think this is the most important change to the game system we've seen since the introduction of ELoS. It has totally transformed the game in a fantastic way and I am really excited about the possibilities it opens up for scenario design in the future.

cheers

PT

[ThePhantom]

Very interesting post, Paper Tiger. I do agree with the experience settings. However, Webwing did update his Red Pepper scenario to 1.1 and added the Marine Corps essentials. Hummers, a cobra, 81mm mortar section and the Leathernecks experience to mostly veteran. He even moved the reinforcement area away from the LOS of the main highway. I beat the hell out of the bad guys and I loved it! However, the crazy thing is..... I actually enjoy his original scenario more.

In his original version the Marines are set at regular and have limited resupply. The final reinforcement group arrives on trucks in the line of fire down the main highway road. There are also a couple of BMP 3’s throwing 100mm rounds in the vicinity. To make matters even more desperate there is limited mortars and no cobra gunship support!!! Every aspect of the scenario is an extreme challenge.

To wrap this up I feel it is a game. The more challenging the scenario is the better the game. If it’s so difficult that I have to write on the forum and vent my feelings (I’m not a forum fan) then Wow what a game.

[Webwing]

Paper Tiger:

No doubt you'll all hate them but I make 'em the way I like to play them.

That´t the key isn´t it? The editor in CM:SF is a major part of the game. It allows us to create a huge variety of scenarios. Even the ones only we are going to enjoy. I have many I´ll never upload since I´m sure I´m the only one crazy enough to enjoy!

However, in the case of the mission in question I have made changes since I thought it would be interesting to compare the results. But I left both versions available for download. Although I should have renamed the second one Yellow Pepper!

PT, your campaigns and scenarios are simply awesome. It´s not because they are realistic or not but simply because you know how to mix the ingredients. I frequently read your designers post. On top of that you are a great virtual photographer!

-

[Webwing]

To wrap this up I feel it is a game. The more challenging the scenario is the better the game.

That´s no surprise. Your own Babbado series were along those lines!

And what a blast that was!

-

[Spartan]

Lets not make super soldiers out of these marines. Put real bodies in a bad place and natural instincts take over... IMO it would be a knee jerk reaction to make any changes now.. Of course when the Brits arrive they will stand and fight more often as they are better than the american forces:)

[ThePhantom]

You've got to be kidding. Our British friendly forces with less than 8 percent of the entire coalition can stand up better than the American forces? Why doesn't the British put their numbers involved a little higher? Oh I forgot, they are pulling out the majority of troops in Iraq by May of this year. How many are in Afghanistan? 5500 maybe.... Please, it’s like a small dog syndrome. The small dog thinks they're the biggest toughest animal on the block. Yet, when the real big dog comes out, they just follow right behind them. Your people are part of the events and have been since 2003. I’m proud of the fact that the United States and the United Kingdom worked together to beat the bad guys. However just remember, before you start trash talking American forces, it took your supper troopers forever and a day to take Basra. Give America a break. You’re either with them or against them. Read this article……… http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article4461023.ece

Now bring up the subject again of who stands up to fight. You better pray to your God that your country’s always on America’s side .

[Cpl Steiner]

The British Army is the best trained in the world, and the SAS are the best SF in the world. End of story.

If you read that article it says the army wasn't allowed to enter Basra because a British Politician, Des Brown, had to give his approval first. The deal, if there was one, was done by politicians and spooks, not the army.

[ThePhantom]

There's another little dog syndrome. Ruff, ruff, rrrrruff ruff. I can't wait for the Britts module. The Revolution 2 (This time it's in England), coming soon.