A Quick Battle AAR: Shermans vs Pz IVs, Not Your Fathers Combat Mission

[fugazy]

for the Shoot-n-Scoot, a link to the cmsf tactic forum show what CMx2 can do, (and understand why CMx1 is a neolithic game now...)http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=82035

[Rocky Balboa]

Bill you mentioned earlier in the AAR that you gave the Capt some pointers on how to achieve a good hull down position. Do you suppose you could give us that same lesson complete with pictures? I'm sure it would be very informative and enjoyable ...

[Vark]

So the 15 second initial pause, in CM:SF, has been revised to 5 seconds? If true you have a whole new series of tactics available.

[Bil Hardenberger]

Rocky, I plan on doing some game tips like achieving a good hulldown position, terrain masking etc... but really wanted to do them after the game is released.

Let me think about it.

[LeeW]

Bil

Was there any reason for the 60 minutes for the QB? Seems like we use to play them in 20 or 30 minutes in CMx1, of course depending on the size of the battle.

Reason I ask is that the game moved pretty fast and was over in less than 20 minutes. There would have been alot more time available for recon for both sides, at least the leading elements of the two forces making sure they didn't run blindly into something.

In light of your post on recon being important and the time available, would you have done the recon different now with the experience of this game behind you?

lee

[ChrisND]

Bil

Was there any reason for the 60 minutes for the QB? Seems like we use to play them in 20 or 30 minutes in CMx1, of course depending on the size of the battle.

The time limit is now user-selected, so it was 60 minutes because they chose for it to be.

[willmontgomery]

95% of the work needed to make CoPlay has nothing to do with how the players are connected. So no... I'm talking about CoPlay as CoPlay, not as RealTime or WeGo. It's a huge deal and we're not sure it's commercially viable to add.

I apologize if I am being obtuse or annoying, but...

Suppose we pretend that I didn't use the term "CoPlay". Suppose I had merely suggested that single-player mode be enhanced so that it would be possible to retain the movie from a turn, making it accessible/replayable during the subsequent orders phase, and also saveable during that phase. Obviously movies can already be saved in a game file, because that happens as a matter of course in a PBEM, so saving the movie itself cannot be a huge deal. I'd be surprised if retaining a (notional) live reference to a (notional) movie object while proceeding into and operating within orders-giving mode would be a huge deal.

Like any modification, this "enhancement" would require programming effort, and for what purpose? Simply so that a friend and I could share a single-player game. Between ourselves, we would feel that we were playing co-operatively, but the software itself would never have to know. The game wouldn't even have to know that there were two of us giving orders, let alone which units supposedly belonged to me and which to my friend.

CoPlay itself has been dreamed about for a long time, and apparently there are serious doubts about its viability. Got it. However, maybe "CoPlay-lite" (such as I have tried to describe here), which wouldn't require the software even to be aware that multiple people were playing, would be relatively easy to implement, and maybe it could do a surprisingly satisfactory job of fulfilling some of the CoPlay dream, at least for PBEMers, who are already used to saving and exchanging files.

[Peregrine]

All this talk about the points and the scoring... as Steve said this is still a BETA and scoring is being looked at. For another thing, when I play I don't put too much stock into the end game scoring... I have problems with the score most times.. instead I look at in game performance versus my competition (and I rarely play the AI) to decide how I did...

...in this game I would say I got a tatical victory, on losses alone, I lost five tanks to Warren's nine, plus I held the objective, if not with overwhelming manpower I did control it by fire.

So take any of these end game scores with a grain of salt, as they never tell the whole story.

Anybody have any comments on the tactics that were used in this game, or on battle plans/approaches used?

Bil

As you said it is still BETA and I didn't QB in CMSF and I was assuming the scoring part of the engine would have been one of the things that would have been pretty solid but as Steve said earlier it is still being looked at.

When you say that you "have problems with the score most times" is that in reference to CMx2 QBs or CMx1 QBs.

I thought the CMx1 QBs scores were unerringly accurate. You also had the little percentage maker as well so if you got and draw and felt you should have won you could see that you were only a % point or two away from a victory.

That said at the end of my time playing I did feel that I could extract more bang for buck (point) out of some tanks over others but the points overall seemed pretty accurate.

When it comes to two player scenarios I do ignore the result and rate my performance based in hindsight of what a good result would be. I think most players of experience do this as two player genuinely balanced scenarios are extremely rare

The CMBB/CMAK QBs meeting engagements on the other hand I feel are always balanced if:

- you play with a lot of forces. More forces means more shooting means that "luck" doesn't rear it's ugly head. And if it does it should balance across both players eventually.

- you don't go extreme with your force selection. This can set you up for a loss before you even start.

All that said it seems the CMBN scoring is a work in progress so lets see what happens.

Not in response to you but there were several mentions somewhere above that QBs MEs weren't realistic (especially big ones). For sure this is true. They are gamey but when it comes to finding a two player game balanced game this in my opinion was the best way to get it. I am not keen to see arbitrarily placed high point VLs that may be of zero tactical importance being the key to winning. In CMBB/CMAK they were carrots to get forces moving into contact and not decisive in achieving victory. Also scoring as commented above didn't seem to give the loser the credit they deserved.

[LongLeftFlank]

I suppose the Co player on each side who issues his orders last could always record a FRAPS movie of the turn and post it on a hosting site. It would need to be either in "God mode" or multiple takes to meet the needs of the various viewers though.

Mulling this a little further, could Charles add a "Titanium"'FOW mode which disables the feature where if no unit is selected all friendly and spotted units are visible. If no unit is selected, all you see is an empty map. You're stuck with navigating among your units with the +/- keys and see only the friendly and enemy units they see. So then CoPlay becomes a matter of assigning each unit to an AI group with a unique PIN. As each coplayer logs in in turn, he gets to +/- to and issue orders to only the units in his AI group. C3 among the players can be resolved via various house rules. Or sumfink.

[LeeW]

The time limit is now user-selected, so it was 60 minutes because they chose for it to be.

So did they set it at 60 minutes so the AAR could be sure to run it's course, which seems so, since neither seemed to use the extra time.

An ME doesn't need to mean two forces crashing into each other. So were they more in test mode rather than tactical mode.

How do troops move to contact, which is what an ME would seem to be to me. Eyes to lead the column and feelers on the flanks. The more speed needed the greater the need for the recon element. 60 minutes seemed to be plenty of time for some careful recon and would have actually given The_Capt's infantry time to get closer to the battle. Bil's force was more mobile so would have covered more ground.

Just wondering

lee

[ChrisND]

So did they set it at 60 minutes so the AAR could be sure to run it's course, which seems so, since neither seemed to use the extra time.

An ME doesn't need to mean two forces crashing into each other. So were they more in test mode rather than tactical mode.

How do troops move to contact, which is what an ME would seem to be to me. Eyes to lead the column and feelers on the flanks. The more speed needed the greater the need for the recon element. 60 minutes seemed to be plenty of time for some careful recon and would have actually given The_Capt's infantry time to get closer to the battle. Bil's force was more mobile so would have covered more ground.

Just wondering

lee

I'd bet money they just picked a nice round number without giving it five seconds thought.

[The_Capt]

I'd bet money they just picked a nice round number without giving it five seconds thought.

And we have a winner!!!

[ChrisND]

And we have a winner!!!

I'll be PMing my address for you to send that large sum of money to.

[gunnersman]

I apologize if I am being obtuse or annoying, but...

Suppose we pretend that I didn't use the term "CoPlay". Suppose I had merely suggested that single-player mode be enhanced so that it would be possible to retain the movie from a turn, making it accessible/replayable during the subsequent orders phase, and also saveable during that phase. Obviously movies can already be saved in a game file, because that happens as a matter of course in a PBEM, so saving the movie itself cannot be a huge deal. I'd be surprised if retaining a (notional) live reference to a (notional) movie object while proceeding into and operating within orders-giving mode would be a huge deal.

Like any modification, this "enhancement" would require programming effort, and for what purpose? Simply so that a friend and I could share a single-player game. Between ourselves, we would feel that we were playing co-operatively, but the software itself would never have to know. The game wouldn't even have to know that there were two of us giving orders, let alone which units supposedly belonged to me and which to my friend.

CoPlay itself has been dreamed about for a long time, and apparently there are serious doubts about its viability. Got it. However, maybe "CoPlay-lite" (such as I have tried to describe here), which wouldn't require the software even to be aware that multiple people were playing, would be relatively easy to implement, and maybe it could do a surprisingly satisfactory job of fulfilling some of the CoPlay dream, at least for PBEMers, who are already used to saving and exchanging files.

You could possibly do this if the scenario allowed it. The scenario would have to have a random unit (soldier, jeep, whatever) which would need to be tucked away somewhere which is out of LOS, possibly even out of comms with other units meant to be in play. When either "Co-player" is done giving commands to his/her/its units they could select on this random unit which is out of LOS. That would blind the other Co-player to his/her/its partners units. It would be tedious; whoever is looking at the map would need to have a unit selected at all times lest he/she/it view his/her/its partner's units on accident. Of course, there would also need to be a gentleman's agreement that no one would cheat...for what it's worth with this bunch.

[Battlefront.com]

I apologize if I am being obtuse or annoying, but...

You can do this right now without any modification. Open up a WeGo Game, Play 1 moves, saves, sends to Player 2. Player 2 moves, saves (good safety measure!), and ends the turn. This will show the resolution of the battle for Player 2. Before ending the playback he saves the game again. This save, not the first one, gets sent back to Player one for viewing. Player 1 then ends the playback, issues commands, saves, sends to Player 2, and the whole process repeats itself.

The suggestion for Player 2's first save is in the even that he accidentally ends playback he can recover from the problem.

This works right now, today, without any code changes at all. You could even play this with more than 2 people on a side and you could play against more than that on the other side. It's clumsy and does not limit FoW on the friendly side, but it does work.

Steve

[ClarkWGriswold]

You can do this right now without any modification. Open up a WeGo Game, Play 1 moves, saves, sends to Player 2. Player 2 moves, saves (good safety measure!), and ends the turn. This will show the resolution of the battle for Player 2. Before ending the playback he saves the game again. This save, not the first one, gets sent back to Player one for viewing. Player 1 then ends the playback, issues commands, saves, sends to Player 2, and the whole process repeats itself.

The suggestion for Player 2's first save is in the even that he accidentally ends playback he can recover from the problem.

This works right now, today, without any code changes at all. You could even play this with more than 2 people on a side and you could play against more than that on the other side. It's clumsy and does not limit FoW on the friendly side, but it does work.

Steve

But this only works for a game in which there is at least one human player on each side, correct? I believe he's asking about a "single player" game, where two people can play on the same side against an AI enemy. I've played many three player games in CMBO/CMBB, but they all required a human on both sides (so three players would be the minimum for team play).

Edit: willmontgomery's post made me think of something else. When playing one player games in CMx1 I often found myself wishing I could go back and view the replay from Turn X. It would be nice if there were some way to save and play back the movies from each of those turns. The way it works now, once you view the replay and click GO, it's lost forever. No showing your buddies the heroic actions of a lone Panzerfaust trooper or the amazing close call that just barely spared the life of your last tank.

[womble]

Correct, [units] do not count for points [in QBs]. The "count" in the sense that they matter for gameplay, which in turn decides (in part) who wins.

There are a number of technical problems with having a good, balanced scoring system for casualties in a QB setting. As is so often the case, those issues are not apparent to end users because simple outcomes are usually thought of being simple to produce. That's not the case here.

I have a suggestion. I think all the elements required for it to be implementable are potentially present, though of course the development time for the interface needed could take some shaking free

I like the concept of user-definable (including a 'random' setting) victory condition weighting. QBs are, as has been pointed out, inherently potentially 'gamey', artificially created situations with possibly false artefactual incentive/reward balances. I would like to see an interface that had some sliders, each with a 0-100% range, but tied so that the total of them all would be 100%. The sliders could be:

* Victory Locations

* Points value killed

* Rarity (multiplied by points value) killed <- this one's just a whimsy

At the moment, the game is fixed with the VL slider at 100%. I'm sure the other two values are held by the game and could easily be presented to a number crunch. The base total value of the VLs would be set to some multiple (I'm thinking 1, by default) of the points each side has to spend.

This doesn't seem complicated. The interface is a known quantity. The values are available. I only suggest it because I wonder if BF thinks we want something more complicated. I can see that having some auto-balancing thing that takes into account force mix and terrain fought over would be a beast, even to assign parameters to. Having it user-settable, though, allows the grogs who want to encourage 'historical' caution to set the slider to high on units value, and the ones who want a gung-ho charge for the VLs can set it the way it is now, with a last, cowering squad having the chance to claim all the VPs

To get even further off the reservation, and make MEs have a closer feeling to 'reality', how about a 'random force balance' option, which could set one side to be a different size to the other, with a commensurate increase in return on VPs (you'd have to include some factor for units destroyed, cos the smaller side might have no chance of ever getting any VLs). Would encourage recon and having asymmetric VCs often makes for interesting games.

[gunnersman]

But this only works for a game in which there is at least one human player on each side, correct? I believe he's asking about a "single player" game, where two people can play on the same side against an AI enemy. I've played many three player games in CMBO/CMBB, but they all required a human on both sides (so three players would be the minimum for team play).

Edit: willmontgomery's post made me think of something else. When playing one player games in CMx1 I often found myself wishing I could go back and view the replay from Turn X. It would be nice if there were some way to save and play back the movies from each of those turns. The way it works now, once you view the replay and click GO, it's lost forever. No showing your buddies the heroic actions of a lone Panzerfaust trooper or the amazing close call that just barely spared the life of your last tank.

This is possible too. But you have to manually save each...and...every...turn.

Nothing is automatic. Again, tedious.

[willmontgomery]

Before ending the playback he saves the game again. This save, not the first one, gets sent back to Player one for viewing.

Sweet! If saving the game during playback was possible under CMx1, I never knew it.

This is possible too. But you have to manually save each...and...every...turn.

Nothing is automatic. Again, tedious.

I'm 44.380821918 years old (approximately). When I was a child, we didn't have personal computers. When I was a little older, we had primarily text-based computer games. When I started my professional career, we were sharing a UNIX machine. Having to manually save each turn doesn't deter me at all, doesn't even rate on my personal tedium meter.

I withdraw my suggestion that BFC enhance anything in this area. I am convinced that they should invest their effort in other, more important areas. Once again, sweet!

[Childress]

Not in response to you but there were several mentions somewhere above that QBs MEs weren't realistic (especially big ones). For sure this is true. They are gamey but when it comes to finding a two player game balanced game this in my opinion was the best way to get it.

One cannot have a balanced game, in terms of roughly equal chances to win, in an attack/defend scenario? And size has nothing to do with it. Or do you mean by balanced that each side has the same potential for maneuver? Granted, it happened that on rare occasions precisely equivalent forces met on the battlefield. But neither side KNEW it. They assumed they were in a defensive or offensive posture. That's why 'Meeting Engagement's in Combat Mission play out in such an exceedingly odd way.

I found it curious that people will fork over $60 on a combat simulator, spend days debating the penetration values of a 75 versus an 88 or the bogging probabilities of a Matilda then sit down and play such an intrinsically improbable scenario. Not that they can't be fun, of course.

I had an opponent in CMAK/CMBB who would only do MEs. At the end he was proposing mirrored maps. 'To be fair'.

[Bil Hardenberger]

Bil

Was there any reason for the 60 minutes for the QB? Seems like we use to play them in 20 or 30 minutes in CMx1, of course depending on the size of the battle.

Reason I ask is that the game moved pretty fast and was over in less than 20 minutes. There would have been alot more time available for recon for both sides, at least the leading elements of the two forces making sure they didn't run blindly into something.

The game time limit was set to an hour before forces were purchased... nothing worse than running out of time in the middle of a great game. Most of our games are over relatively quickly, when one or the other decides he is in an untenable position so we (Warren and I) will cease fire, forget the last game and set up another. Armor heavy games rarely last very long while games with infantry can take a long time (game wise) to play out.

In light of your post on recon being important and the time available, would you have done the recon different now with the experience of this game behind you?

The only thing I would have done differently is purchase some light mobile force to perform the recon role... but as I explained in the earlier part of this thread, I thought we were both buying an armor only force (based on this line from Warren's setup e-mail, "here you go, buy some tanks and lets bust heads" (or something to that effect))... it wasn't until we were far into it that I realized Warren had something other than just armor.

Bil

[panzermartin]

New QB system would mean nothing without selectable time limit. This is a great addition.

[Sergei]

One cannot have a balanced game, in terms of roughly equal chances to win, in an attack/defend scenario?

I know what you mean. In CMBB my favourite PBEM QB games were attack/defend games, whether I was attacking or defending. When attacking, it just felt so nerve-wrecking to know that I was probably in the sights of the enemy already, who was only waiting for the moment to spring the trap... and when defending, it was equally terrific to watch the superior enemy approach my few dug in defenders, trying to decide when was the best moment to reveal them... or had they seen them already?

For the obsessed-with-balance folks, CMBN will be just great because you can have Allied vs. Allied or Axis vs. Axis Quick Battles. If that's your cup of brew. But there's plenty of options for us normal people, too!

[The_Capt]

What would I do differently? Hmm

Well as to QB purchase, I am suprised to say; "not too much". I still would buy infantry. You guys didn't see it, lagely because I didn't make it happen but infantry can drive tanks to distraction.

The crew do not immediately identify AT teams and with AT grenades, Pz Faust death can come from many angles in the right terrain. Tanks get really nervous when you present them with a lot of infantry and with good reason. For instance in a game Bil and I are into now, I just chased 3 Panthers off the objective (a town) with a single platoon.

So if I could change my QB purchase, I would probably ditch the TD first and get Stuarts...I love those little guys. I would have switched a M4A3 75 for another 76 version (giving me two). I could have then pushed the Stuarts out in a recon role with my 76s/75s in overwatch.

I definitely would have tried to pull Bils forces into range of my infantry rather than go out and meet them on his ground. This would have been easier than it look as I had terrain that dominated the objective so unless Bil hid out in his forest the whole time (not his style) I had a good chance of getting zooks and guns at odd angles.

To be honest the approach I did use came close to carrying the day anyway. Had I gotten lucky on Bils Left and hit that last tank in his right flank platoon I could have engaged the rest of his force thru the trees. That single tank held me off long enough for him to get his reinforcements in.

Had I effectively gotten into hull down positions or covered positions in the trees with those 2 x M10s the equation could have changed. Or better yet, sent M10s down AA1 as well instead up AA2/3 with my Shermans.

Whole lot of options and a few different outcomes and this game could have swung wildly...what I really like about QB MEs actually.

[Broadsword56]

I found it curious that people will fork over $60 on a combat simulator, spend days debating the penetration values of a 75 versus an 88 or the bogging probabilities of a Matilda then sit down and play such an intrinsically improbable scenario. Not that they can't be fun, of course.

Couldn't agree more. But I guess it's just that some wargamers are from Venus and some from Mars (or whatever analogy works best here). Both equally valid in their own way, but totally different in motivation and taste (Battlefront marketing department take note)...

The type you describe is more competitive, and the "game" part matters more to them. It's like a sports contest, and a large part of the emotional payoff comes from being proven the better general/tactician, in a "pure" test of skill, like chess, where nothing extraneous can be blamed for the result. This is today's extension of the tournament player community at boardgaming conventions, who (still, I think), play ancient simple and pure games like AH's Stalingrad with great gusto.

The other type is more experience-motivated. They may be drawn in primarily by an interest in history. So realism and authentic play and tactics matter more to them. They want a time machine that puts them as closely as possible into the boots of Gen. Cota or Sepp Dietrich, to face the same dilemmas they did and better understand what happened and why. Eye-candy matters more to them, because the overall spectacle and drama of the game are a bigger part of the payoff than who wins. They can even enjoy a lopsided battle against desperate odds, they like quirky maps. They care about things like knowing the soldier's names.

And, come to think of it, I think there's one more type of gamer: The technician. I have a harder time understanding this, but from what I see I think their payoff comes from appreciating the technology of the game itself, the state of the programming art, the ability to tinker with details and get under the hood. This gamer is the one who loves the minute discussions of penetration capabilities and rates of fire -- tedious to some others, but crucial to making the games better for all the rest of us. And these are the people whose endless labors of love create the mods we all enjoy.

Game makers: Find a way to appeal to all these groups in some key way at the same time, and you've got a winner! I think the CM series fits that bill very nicely.