Mirror Games

[dieseltaylor]

I play a game called Combat Mission. One of my pet peeves is those who say that playing the identical game mirrored is the only fair way to play. As it happens the idea has surfaced again and I wondered whether anyone had any thoughts. Here is me being polite on the matter : )

Anyway mirrored - does it have any relationship to CM and its attempt to replicate real war battles. Well obviously not as in real war you do not have perfect knowledge of the opponents forces and his terrain. Not actually just his forces but his specific ammo load-out and the quality of his officers. Even playing in normal games I have occasionally taken it seriously enough to count artillery rounds fired [and time lag] and have contemplated counting fire from on-board units. Must make much more sense when you actually have the starting round mix - but somehow it does not seem that enjoyable. Still if one is playing for the honour of the club ....

Of course what buggers things up is that in CM even the simplest shot at another tank can be deemed a miss and if you are unfortunate then a series of misses and non-fatal penetrations can leave the game totally unbalanced. Seems unfair that.

I am always impresssed by the player who can make good decisions based on limited information - sort of like real life leadership in war.

Is it possible to play another team evenly? Well if you believe in trust then half a team plays Germans and half plays the Allies. The overall scores are derived from people playing in ignorance of the opponents force. Given half the club plays each side then the balance of the scenario is irrelevant.

Anyone any ideas on arranging team events? Anyone agree with me that mirrored CM is an abomination?

[Thomm]

Mirrored Blue on Blue or Red on Red (in CMx2) has to be the most balanced way of playing CM. No side switching necessary, either.

Best regards,

Thomm

[dieseltaylor]

Humour me a bit Thomm as I only play CM1. How does a mirrored game work differently in CM2?

[hoolaman]

So do you mean identical forces in a single game, or different forces played twice and switching sides?

I guess you mean identical forces, if so it becomes something different, a wargame that really plays like chess, abandoning all pretence at a realistic simulation. There is something to be said for this in a tournament situation, I vaguely remember reading about CMBO tourneys where ther was some elaborate weighted average mathematical equation of scenario scores to get a winner. That is never going to be perfect, people may scrape into the finals by having better forces in battle X, so mirrored forces and sacrificing FOW is the only way to show who is the better player. You do run the risk of people gaming the engine for a win if they are more experienced players.

For a bit of fun I think it is better to go the "vastly-ahistorical" route to create a mission that plays balanced. In CMSF terms think green US Marines VS crack Republican guards or something.

[dieseltaylor]

Yes mirrored in this case is the identical battle played simultaneouslt from both sides by both players.

Hoolaman. You may be thinking of the Rumble of War tournaments were by the last Tournament there was a NABLA formula whereby freak results were dumbed down :

Ten Axis vs Ten Allied

First game

42 34 53 56 59 63 77 80 81 82*

Second game

83 23 37 43 53 56 13 21 38 38**

Third

83 23 37 43 53 56 13 21 38 38**

Third

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

175

As you see from the first row the par score if you like is the high end of the scale so getting a draw is not overly clever, losing is hard.

Line two we have our extreme event where Player 1 has drawn the noob and massacred him or the God's have allowed a heavy artillery shell a top penetration on the Axis TigerVIb at game start, or the sole artillery spotter suffered a fatal accident.

In any event the winningest player might be number 5 who never loses but is never the highest either! Fortunately the NABLA formula does the work.

There was a refinement [mine] that people play the same nationality throughout as this avoids the scenarios where the ability to win big can be alternately Axis or Allied and if you switch players between the forces ther may be an unfairness.

[Lt Belenko]

Two ways to look at it:

A. Its a only a game. Play any way you like mirrored/balanced etc. Might as well play checkers both sides start out balanced there too. Just make sure there are no terrain advantages to either side. Is black-red better than red-black?

B. CM is a simulation of war.

1. In real life the opposing commanders rarely knew the forces the other sides composition. i.e. only Double Blind play permitted. This is what I do mostly.
   
2. In RL battles where never balanced - QBs with balance are BS. Scenarios are often one sided - deal with it. A good scenario designer tosses in some bonus points to even out the victory conditions.
   
3. In RL there is never "goes overs" for anything - ever. Don't replay scenarios, there are 1500 out there for CMBB. Multiple replays until you get a gun key-holed just right at set up is bogus. Next time you bounce a check tell the bank you want "goes overs". This is what I do - mostly

Yup luck happens: A mortar round in the open hatch of a tank. The only medal I ever got in limited Close Combat play was just that. A ricochet of a round that should be a KO really sucks. A 45mm getting a gun hit on a Panther sucks too. Bet those things happened in RL war too.

Also in RL there can be the hero, the guy standing on the burning tank firing the 50 Cal turning back the battalion level attack. This is lacking in CMBB - deal with it. And in RL there were probably 1000 guys that climbed up on tanks only to die before they could even stand up thus fading into obscurity as another statistic.

Either way you play the game, forcing a little added RL or harmony and balance, it is just a game, with its imperfect simulation of real life. But it is the best game going. The biggest problem with CM1 and 2 is no health packs or manna potions available.

[JonS]

There was a refinement [mine] that people play the same nationality throughout as this avoids the scenarios where the ability to win big can be alternately Axis or Allied and if you switch players between the forces ther may be an unfairness.

um ... that only works if you play the same side AND the same scenario throughout. Otherwise you're just adding pseudo-randomness to no good end. Any given scen may be 'easier' for the Allies or the Axis to win, and your assumption is that in a pool of 10 scens 5 will be easier for the Axis, and 5 easier for the Allies, and therefore playing the Allies 10 times in a row means you get 5 easy and 5 hard scens.

But that assumption is fundamentally flawed. There is no particular reason why all 10 can't be easier for the Axis, or the Allies, to win. So by forcing a player to play only one side you are potentially advantaging them, or handicapping them.

Besides which ... play the Axis (or Allies) 10 scens in a row? Meh, no thanks.

Also, mirrored games? *yawn* no thanks. I get the reasoning, but it destroys FOW, which is more important to me.

Also, what are you doing here in the general forum? Can't you drum up enough support for your half baked ideas on the relevant forum?

[Kanonier Reichmann]

I agree. Mirrored games remove all fog of war and destroy the purpose of the game in my opinion.

I can see where you're coming from with regard to all players from one club, for instance, playing against another club and only playing the one side for a particular scenario, to ensure there's no question that information was unfairly shared between club members of what each side has. With the Nabla scoring system it will account for any inherent unfairness should one side be favoured over another.

Regards

KR

[MeatEtr]

I've never liked playing mirrored games. I've played in several CMx1 Tourneys over the years and recall one where they had us play mirrored. It was the one and only time I was actually happy to get knocked out in the first round.

It really just comes down to a matter of opinion and what you want to get out of the game.

[dieseltaylor]

Can't you drum up enough support for your half baked ideas on the relevant forum?

I thought I would come here where the old players retire to. I thought I would mention the CM game to jog the memory banks of the most senior ...

: )

Jon. - The tournament might be only 3-4 scenarios so the cross of playing one side is not too onerous. And it guarantees two happy winners : )