futon river crossing Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 OK - I've just finished a PBEM in CMSF - 236 files - took over a year to play I rekon, in fact I can't really remember when we stated this scenario (Cane and Able - Brit Module) - My opponent failed in all his victory parameters and auto surrendered - I succeeded in securing all my objectives - yet still lost Now - I'm wondering - have the victory conditions been tweaked for CM:BN? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Springelkamp Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 Were your losses too high? Because that was probably the one hope that kept your opponent endure all that suffering. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
panzermartin Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 oh Wow pbem can last more than WW2 itself 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
futon river crossing Posted January 1, 2011 Author Share Posted January 1, 2011 Yer - my opponent got all his points from my losses - however he still failed as far this was concerned in his victory conditions, that is for the Losses section he "failed" as far as my losses are concerned, yet this was still more than double the points than I scored for securing all the victory locations and killing all but 1 of his troops - in other words he can completely fail - yet still win - anyway my point is - will this kind of thing still happen in CMBN? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackMoria Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 Yer - my opponent got all his points from my losses - however he still failed as far this was concerned in his victory conditions, that is for the Losses section he "failed" as far as my losses are concerned, yet this was still more than double the points than I scored for securing all the victory locations and killing all but 1 of his troops - in other words he can completely fail - yet still win - anyway my point is - will this kind of thing still happen in CMBN? Since victory conditions are dependent on the scenario designer, I would say that such things are possible and unlikely that we will ever get away from such issues. Case in point - CMSF scenario Afternoon Delight. Take any casualties at all and the Syrian side racks up more points than you can by taking all objectives and wiping the Syrians from the board. Rather galling to get a defeat by wiping the Syrians to a man, taking all objective points but losing because I had 2 wounded men. Don't know if this got fixed but the point is such weirdness does happen and it proves that scenario design is more art than science to get an exciting well balanced scenario. My hat is off to the many designers who do get it right and make good scenarios that are enjoyed by many. As for casualty points, a fair number of scenarios in CMSF reflect the western armies aversion to casualty taking in the victory conditions. Different mindset from WW1 and WW2, where casualties were the norm and minimizing casualties was not high on the mission parameters of commanders of the time. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 BlackMoria is correct. CMx1 had some flags, some points, and a simple equation that determined who had more of what than the other. A predication of who would win a particular battle was, towards the end, was therefore a lot easier to do. Partly because the conditions were so simplistic, but also because they were the same for both players 100% of the time. CMx2's system is, of course, vastly more dynamic in terms of the variety of victory conditions, the combinations used for any one battle, and the relative importance of each towards the overall standard for victory. On top of that, both sides need not use the same standards! Which means that by the end of a game it's pretty difficult to know who might win. We think this is a really good thing because it keeps players interested in fighting to the end instead of throwing in the towel after a flag has been taken or what not. The downside of giving scenario designers so many "tools" and power over the outcome is that the more interesting/varied the victory conditions are more testing is needed to make sure the end results make sense. And that's difficult to do consistently. As BlackMoria points out, Afternoon Delight is indeed a good "case in point". A scenario that a lot of people had much fun with until they got to the victory screen and realized that they lost. The reason? Because some revision of the scenario, probably to tweak something minor, somehow introduced a change to the victory conditions which caused the end results to not be what was intended. I know this for sure because I'm the author of Afternoon Delight And yes, it was eventually fixed. I can't comment on the specific battle futon river crossing fought through, but generally speaking giving scenario designers more tools and more control means a greater possibility of goofs in any one particular battle played. On the positive side, the overall experience (across many battles) is much better than it otherwise would have been. So like most things in live, the bad must be taken along with the good. If the good outweighs the bad then everything is about as good as it can be. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
futon river crossing Posted January 1, 2011 Author Share Posted January 1, 2011 All I can say is that in probably half of CMSF PBEM I've played the outcome has been WTF!! - Sometimes this has favoured me and others not...... I certainly take your point that the uncertainty can keep up your interest in what seems like a lost cause. So it looks like the answer to my question......... is yes In which case the scenario designers need to up their game 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisND Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 All I can say is that in probably half of CMSF PBEM I've played the outcome has been WTF!! - Sometimes this has favoured me and others not...... I certainly take your point that the uncertainty can keep up your interest in what seems like a lost cause. So it looks like the answer to my question......... is yes In which case the scenario designers need to up their game I wouldn't take those fulfilled/failed/acceptable etc results in the AAR too seriously... focus more on what the points were. A 100-point objective might be fulfilled and have the green light, while a 1000-point one might be failed or acceptable. Also, we (the scenario designers) have been getting more careful to spell out explicitly what the victory conditions are and what the point spread is, because I know how frustrating it can be to get a result you completely didn't expect. Afternoon Delight did that to me as well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krilly Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 I don't own CM:SF (yet, pondering it), but why would someone name a scenario Afternoon Delight? Considering what the song is about.... LoL. http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/6bcb71dede/afternoon-delight-music-video-from-anchormanfan 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c3k Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 Krilly, go ahead, take the plunge. At least try the CMSF demo. The game could be looked at as a training aid to get your skills up to speed before CMBN gets released. How embarrassing for you if the release finds you unable to properly command your troops! I can think of some other reasons to give it a try, but the demo should be a good start. Ken 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noxnoctum Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 oh Wow pbem can last more than WW2 itself And THAT'S why we need pausable RT . Cursed be PBEM! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenAsJade Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 Did "CMSF clubs" spring up, like CMx1 Clubs did, with tournies etc? If so, how well did the victory conditions/points whatever of CMx2 feed into tourney results, ladders etc? GaJ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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