"Total" QB Results!

[Eden Smallwood]

For awhile now, maybe a long time even, I've been playing QB's. After getting CMAK initially, I went to Scenario Depot Part Deux etc and downloaded every "Allied vs AI, Pts<1500" scenario I could find...

And that was fun for awhile. But then, naturally, I'd run through them all and/or I got annoyed with the tendency too many authors have to put you up against truly preposterous odds, as if only a real man's man would complain about fighting an equal number of German forces.... only to find that there were six more Tigers waiting in the flanks to make things... ah... "challenging" towards the end of the engagement...

Anyway, I started playing QB's exclusively, and that worked fine for awhile too, but now I find that all my results are "Total".

Usually I win, of course, so it's a "Total Victory". In fact, awhile ago it really was "total": 100% to 0%. So you will probably say, "turn up the AI experience factor or troop complement"...

Well hang on, cuz it's not that simple. I'm not saying I win them all: I still lose a fair number of battles-- but those are also Total outcomes. "Total Defeat" of course.

But there's no outcome in between.

I think it has to do with: A) my QB's have to be small, (because of HW), around "500 pts" (increased automatically if attacking, etc), and when I go to start turn 1, I either have The Right Stuff, or I don't. IOW, if the AI has picked Panthers, and I end up without any anti-armor stuff and the battlefield is wide and flat... I'm hosed. If there's enough cover or something, I'll win.

It's hard to explain; maybe that's clear, maybe not. I can't tell right now. If you know what I'm talking about, what would you do to get more QB battles that are "in the middle" of the challenge-spectrum? Increasing the AI exp bonus would pull down my wins, sure. But that would also turn my defeats from "aw shucks, another 5 minutes and I coulda got him" into Total Agonies... Know what I mean?

I've been playing with everything totally random except I like to buy my own forces. But maybe there's a magic combo of Year/Region/Map/Etc where things work out better than Random..?

[Dave H]

(snip)

I've been playing with everything totally random except I like to buy my own forces. But maybe there's a magic combo of Year/Region/Map/Etc where things work out better than Random..?

I don't think you'll find any magic combination of year/region/map that will change this situation in small QBs. Random terrain and random AI units will sometimes be in perfect synergy and you've had it. Other times you will face the worst possible units to fit the terrain and you can walk over the AI. If you know the terrain ahead of time you can improve your unit selections but not the AI's unless you specify a particular formation (Infantry, Armored, etc.) for the AI's force selection to match the terrain. That may help some to alleviate the one-sided battles.

My #1 suggestion would be to try playing a QB against another player instead of the AI. I suspect your days of both total victories and total defeats will be over permanently. Do you PBEM?

[JoMac]

Hello,

I usually like CMAK PBEM games that are 600 points. The first game will be a Meeting, but future games can be anything else. I also like to use some House Rules to make CM alittle more interesting.

If interested, just post reply back.

Thanx

Joe

[costard]

Eden Smallwood,Dave and Jo have it right - play someone else and "Totals" are far harder to achieve.

Having said that, Axis bonus, Force Balance and Dynamic Flags (with you attacking) - all available in the parameters screen - should help you out.

[Eden Smallwood]

My #1 suggestion would be to try playing a QB against another player instead of the AI. I suspect your days of both total victories and total defeats will be over permanently. Do you PBEM?

In hindsight, it is perfectly obvious I would have gotten this response; it's perfectly natural, after all! Ergo, I should have mentioned something in the first post: there is a bug in CMAK which forces me to restart my machine, *fresh*, before playing.

IOW, CMAK will freeze up IF and ONLY IF the machine has ever been put to "sleep", (since the last restart). That's not a huge deal, if I'm going to play a whole game, (QB)-- the overhead of restarting is small if I'm going to do an entire QB. But in the case of PBEM, it would perhaps mean a restart per turn... In the case where I end up with a challenger who sends a turn per day.

See what I mean?

Ah, well... having said that, perhaps you guys are still right-- maybe I should just suck it up and do the PBEM thing. It was fun in CMBB. ( Has anyone seen "WhatsHisFaceSomething Cerda" ? )

JoMc67, offer noted, give me some time to work on a (separate issue) email bug I have right now in OS9. "House rules", LOL! But I bet they are something I would want too...

costard, thanks for mentioning "dynamic flags"; I never thought of that, I'll try that tonight, FWIW. Force balance I don't mind, but the Exp Bonus can be annoying. At least for me, there is nothing more aggravating than trying to get my green/conscripts to advance against crack units... Talk about blood pressure!

[phil stanbridge]

I adore QB's especially when I give myself the overwhelming advantage in numbers and quality of troops. It's fun to play an absolutely huge QB of 5,000 points + versus a much smaller enemy, but it is equally surprising just how much of a fight they put up.

Biggest issue for me, is the terrian generation is most aspects. Although it does more than a reasonable job on most occasions there is the time when it totally cocks up, and that's a shame when you have spent the best part of half hour cherry picking the best units. I don't get a huge amount of time to play long-winded scenarios now, so sometimes there's nothing better than to fire up a smaller QB. But the best way to play is versus another human.

[costard]

costard, thanks for mentioning "dynamic flags"; I never thought of that, I'll try that tonight, FWIW. Force balance I don't mind, but the Exp Bonus can be annoying. At least for me, there is nothing more aggravating than trying to get my green/conscripts to advance against crack units... Talk about blood pressure!

Sure can be more than a challenge. Command in depth to catch the runaways is fine, but they still won't get back to the front and fight.

Actually, I wasn't referring to the experience bonus but the Axis Bonus in the parameters screen - you can give the Axis a number of points (including negative, I think, maybe) to count towards the final score. JasonC did this well with his last lot of "unfair" scenarios: as the Germans you have an overwhelming advantage in the forces supplied, but if you don't use them correctly and take too many casualties you won't do better than a draw, even if you wipe out the Russians to the last man - they end up with points even if they don't take out a single German.

In a QB scenario you could use this to make sure that you couldn't possibly get 100%.

Cheers.

[costard]

meh, what a cockup. No such thing as Axis Bonus in QB parameters screen. Apologies for the mis-direction.

[cinacchi]

Eden,

to get a more "balanced" game, usually I use a mix of random troops and selected troops.

This is my procedure:

1) In the scenario editor, I generate a new map, and I buy the units that I want that my side and enemy side has (let say: 200 points of armors for a side and 200 (or 100 or wathever you like) points of "antitank" troops for the opposite side.

2) Then I go in the QB editor, I set my parameters about point, random selected troops and so on.

3) When I reach the moment to generate the terrain, I select Import map, and I select the map previously created.

4) The QB will generate a game, on that maps; it will ADD to your previously selected troops his random troops: so if you choose in the QB editor 500 points, and in the imported map you have 200 point troops for the Germans, now Germans will have roughly 700 points.

It's not a pefect solution, nut it can spicy a little the game.

[Joachim]

If all of the results were total victories, you'd be good.

But given the total losses, it looks like you play "all or nothing", probably bunch up, maybe rush.

Try a more realistic approach. Even losing "just" 10% of your force means your force is gone after a few weeks - which is the an outlier, like Stalingrad.

So whenever you defend, make sure you have got a way out for your troops. An when attacking, make sure you have the firepower to bail out your point and advance cautiously.

If you play QBs anyway, try RobO's campaign. You've got a core force that you take thru many battles. Saving them for another day is more important than winning there.

[Eden Smallwood]

meh, what a cockup. No such thing as Axis Bonus in QB parameters screen. Apologies for the mis-direction.

I smite thine apologies, for they impugn my honor!!

Eh, I mean I appreciate the effort even if it was wrong. I even appreciate just talking about my situation, really, just to know that I'm not totally crazy here.

In fact, unless I'm blind, the Dynamic Flags are also something only available to scenario designers, not to QB players. Oh well.

cinacchi, that sounds like *alot* of work for a QB. OTOH, it sounds like a really nifty way to make PBEM battles??? Where the designer picks most of the parameters, the map, and *some* of the force, but the players get to pick some of their own force too? Well, seems like a nifty idea.

Joachim, my total losses are attacks/probes where I just don't have the right arms to advance-- say it's wide open field and I'm looking at panzers and have only green infantry... Of course there are grey areas. If it's obviously absurd, I'll abort the scenario-- there's a difference between long odds and just sending my men to the slaughterhouse. But I'll play the long odds ones.

When you suspect me of "rushing"... Ha! I'm usually very conservative. The only time I really remember rushing in a really big way was playing someone's scenario that depicted the D-Day landing-- I did what I could with arty, but then I had to rush with everything I had. I had no choice! But it worked! I was amazed!

It was quite a thrilling little scenario, I must say. And many here I'm sure would urge me to go "review" the scenario, but like all scenarios, I go and grab it with a dozen others, play it, eventually, then when I'm done... Who knows where the heck I got it from? And how many clicks would it take to find it again? Ah well. I guess that was my review for the D-Day guy.

[Joachim]

Reviewing would be easy if you would take notes on where you got it. Or if the authers would put those notes into the briefing. I guess many even do that.

If you really select such odd forces, then well... it ain't rushing but not knowing when to abandon your objective. You know that you have to do it sometimes. But you don't always do it when it must be done.

Inexperienced forces are terrible. Try them as early war Soviets and they are even worse