Operational Game to go with CMBN

[noob]

"Really good point, i may wait till the summers over and get the the project fine tuned."

Or you could just start it in the Southern Hemisphere as we'll all be inside.

There will be probably be more Americans playing CMBN than any other nation i suspect so that could determine the start date but please correct me if im wriong

[Magpie_Oz]

There will be probably be more Americans playing CMBN than any other nation i suspect so that could determine the start date but please correct me if im wriong

Probably true enough but that does not preclude the notion of starting with a smaller group in the "off season" to get the system up and running for the main event.

[noob]

Probably true enough but that does not preclude the notion of starting with a smaller group in the "off season" to get the system up and running for the main event.

Thats another good point, i could create a mini operation to do just that, im assuming you would be interested in participating ?

[Magpie_Oz]

Thats another good point, i could create a mini operation to do just that, im assuming you would be interested in participating ?

Yes for sure, just depends a little bit on how my work pans out as to what Internet I have (I work in the desert) but I'd be keen to be involved in someway, sounds like a fun set up and even with crap Internet I can help with admin.

[noob]

Yes for sure, just depends a little bit on how my work pans out as to what Internet I have (I work in the desert) but I'd be keen to be involved in someway, sounds like a fun set up and even with crap Internet I can help with admin.

Thanks for the offer but hopefully the beauty of this system is that the admin work is negligable, however i am thinking of allowing access to the video files for public consumption in the form of Video AAR reports if the participants give permission so someone to help create those would be good as i dont know the first thing about the technical side of videos, i cant even workout how to post screenshots on the BFC forum, any advice ?

[noob]

Yes for sure, just depends a little bit on how my work pans out as to what Internet I have (I work in the desert) but I'd be keen to be involved in someway, sounds like a fun set up and even with crap Internet I can help with admin.

What do you mean specifically by "crap Internet" ?

[Sergei]

What do you mean specifically by "crap Internet" ?

It's a series of tubes, except the tubes are also used for sewage.

[haouai]

Actually ive a had a re think of the CMBN side of the operation after reading all the responses about the venture i think i will be going to implement a QB method to the tactical resolution side of things,

For example instead of giving each player a set amount of troops that have to be tracked gthrough the game they will recieve a point allocation for the whole operation (to be worked out later) and every time they take part in a CMBN game after contact on the operational map they will fight a QB where they buy whatever units they want (rarity permitting) with the map and deployment parameters conforming to the terrain and battle type.

There will be a single battle points limit to avoid ungainly force sizes for the purposes of fast CMBN turn rates.

This would remove a lot of work for the Admin and give the players an added element of interaction and avoid the infantry heavy battles you mention.

If the battle is a stalemete and the forces involved wish to carry on contesting the map in the next operational turn the QB can reflect the combat effects of the participants in a generalised way with losses being made up with the spending of more points from the individual players points allowance.

Of course this is all dependant on getting CMBN and messing around with the QB system to test it out but i think its an elegant way of circumventing a few pitfalls

That's what I'm trying to do.

A player have a KG, or a Task force, with (for exemple) 3 Inf Battalions and 3 Tank Compagnies (1 sheet = 1 Inf Bat or 1 Tk Co on the operational map) that he can move as he wants to.

Each Battalion (or compagnies) have a CM points:

ex: Inf Battalion is 1200 Inf Pts and 300 Support Pts

Panzer IV Co is 2200 Armor (only Pz IV) pts

...

According to the operational rules (simple is better), when a battle have to be resolved, a CM QB is creat.

Even if there is a lot of sheet on this battle, the CM OOB is made with few units (as 1 inf compagnie with support, depending on the available operational units on this battle)

It's represent only a few part of a big battle on the operational map.

So if 6 inf. Battalion (player 1) are assaulting a simple Inf. Battalion with a Tank compagnie (player 2) in the operational map, the CM battle will be a QB with 500 inf. pts against 500 Inf AND Armor pts.

the CM result is equal to a roll dice on a classic CRT (Combat Result Table in wargame words) as: total defeat is a 1, a draw a 3 ... and a total victory a 6.

If Player 1 have a total victory (player 2 is strongly pull back as the operational odds want) and if Player 2 have a Total victory his forces was abble to repulse the Player 1 assault, according to the CRT result.

Casualties in CM is the base to calculat the total casualties for Player 1 and Player 2 operational units and in a futur battle, this units will have less CM points to make a CM OOB.

[noob]

That's what I'm trying to do.

A player have a KG, or a Task force, with (for exemple) 3 Inf Battalions and 3 Tank Compagnies (1 sheet = 1 Inf Bat or 1 Tk Co on the operational map) that he can move as he wants to.

Each Battalion (or compagnies) have a CM points:

ex: Inf Battalion is 1200 Inf Pts and 300 Support Pts

Panzer IV Co is 2200 Armor (only Pz IV) pts

...

According to the operational rules (simple is better), when a battle have to be resolved, a CM QB is creat.

Even if there is a lot of sheet on this battle, the CM OOB is made with few units (as 1 inf compagnie with support, depending on the available operational units on this battle)

It's represent only a few part of a big battle on the operational map.

So if 6 inf. Battalion (player 1) are assaulting a simple Inf. Battalion with a Tank compagnie (player 2) in the operational map, the CM battle will be a QB with 500 inf. pts against 500 Inf AND Armor pts.

the CM result is equal to a roll dice on a classic CRT (Combat Result Table in wargame words) as: total defeat is a 1, a draw a 3 ... and a total victory a 6.

If Player 1 have a total victory (player 2 is strongly pull back as the operational odds want) and if Player 2 have a Total victory his forces was abble to repulse the Player 1 assault, according to the CRT result.

Casualties in CM is the base to calculat the total casualties for Player 1 and Player 2 operational units and in a futur battle, this units will have less CM points to make a CM OOB.

Have a look at my website, ive done a re write to accomodate my new CMBN operation QB battle rules.

[JasonC]

First a major misunderstanding. The Normandy 44 game I was talking about (and reviewing favorable) is this board game from GMT -

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38718/normandy-44

It isn't a computer game. And the scale of the one I see on your website appears to be much more tactical than the board game above.

Second point, a point of history. The Americans definitely didn't get to St Lo from the beaches in 48 hours. More like 40 days. For the first week ashore they did push south toward that area, but the assault southwar stalled in that week, and the front stabilized, while all US logistic effort was directed to support the western drive across the Cotentin *****ula to isolate Cherbourg, and then to drive north to that city, and storm it. There was then an operational pause of several days as forces and supplies were redirected back to the St Lo area for the drive south, which commenced in early July, a month after the initial invasion.

Third point - you are not going to be able to recreate or follow even the whole of US forces ashore for even the first week, with tactical CM resolution of every battle. The scale of forces involved is simply way too large for that - an entire army. Ignoring the *****ula, Utah, most of the paras etc can cut that down to a corps sized operation initially, but it grows quickly even in that first week.

Fourth point - your stated rule envision tying tactical commanders to specific operational formation and each of them fighting every op move, and imagine letting those not engaged watch the other fights will be a kind of second prize for those not fighting. This won't be what actually happens, remotely. For two reasons, operational incentives within the campaign and player availability realities.

Forces in CM battles frequently lose a third to half of the engaged force even on the winning side. Sometimes the engagement is relatively inconclusive and the losing side losses are similar, but frequently they will be near 100%, total force kills. If op commanders pushed to engage everywhere along the frontage in every op move, the forces involved would evaporate completely in 3 to 5 operational moves.

Instead, campaigns typically open with such overactivity as the op commanders haven't yet realized how important force preservation is going to be, but then rapidly scale back in aggressiveness. With frequently only 1-3 locations having actual operational combat thereafter (sometimes none, sometimes numerous collisions some of them unintentional, to be sure). Unless the op rules also strongly prevent it, the op commanders will tend to "overstack" into these active fights, bringing large portions of their remaining live heavy forces, armor especially.

The next comment is about the passages on your site that mention that attack defend fights will always be 3 to 1 point odds supposedly to compensate for the strong defensive terrain. Um, if the odds don't depend on the op moves the overall commanders make there is no reason to have an op layer in the first place. If every fight is at the same odds, what the heck are op moves supposedly accomplishing? The whole point of the op layer is to let the overall commander seek a local odds edge here rather than there, and the like.

Second, 3 to 1 point odds in CM fights typically result in blowout wins for the side with 3, regardless of tactical role or terrain. If the side with 3 arrives staggered, the weaker side might live, but not normally.

Overall, I'd say the set up still needs work. I hope this helps.

[noob]

Second point, a point of history. The Americans definitely didn't get to St Lo from the beaches in 48 hours. More like 40 days. For the first week ashore they did push south toward that area, but the assault southwar stalled in that week, and the front stabilized, while all US logistic effort was directed to support the western drive across the Cotentin *****ula to isolate Cherbourg, and then to drive north to that city, and storm it. There was then an operational pause of several days as forces and supplies were redirected back to the St Lo area for the drive south, which commenced in early July, a month after the initial invasion

Well i for one am not going to argue with you over the historical events of this particular theatre as i'm not qualified to do so and also i am not trying to recreate history, the main reason for my venture is to create a simple easy to use system that allows players a chance to play a two player CM game that has future consequences as opposed to the stand alone scenarios we are used to so if the title of my operation is provocative to seasoned historians it was unintentional and i will change it to avoid misleading people if as you say its impossible to achieve the stated goal in the time frame i am using.

Third point - you are not going to be able to recreate or follow even the whole of US forces ashore for even the first week, with tactical CM resolution of every battle. The scale of forces involved is simply way too large for that - an entire army. Ignoring the *****ula, Utah, most of the paras etc can cut that down to a corps sized operation initially, but it grows quickly even in that first week

I am not trying to, i just want to create a game that incorporates CM as a tactical resolution engine so historical force sizes arent a necassary factor anymore.

Fourth point - your stated rule envision tying tactical commanders to specific operational formation and each of them fighting every op move, and imagine letting those not engaged watch the other fights will be a kind of second prize for those not fighting. This won't be what actually happens, remotely. For two reasons, operational incentives within the campaign and player availability realities.

I would like you to clarify this point if you may ?

If the non participating players during a CM combat phase can watch the unfolding of a tactical battle that they have some sort of indirect investment in, isnt that better than just letting them hang for the two or three weeks it takes the participating players to resolve said battle ?

Forces in CM battles frequently lose a third to half of the engaged force even on the winning side. Sometimes the engagement is relatively inconclusive and the losing side losses are similar, but frequently they will be near 100%, total force kills. If op commanders pushed to engage everywhere along the frontage in every op move, the forces involved would evaporate completely in 3 to 5 operational moves

Well thats not an issue now im dispensing with historical numbers, i can adjust the QB allowance pool accordingly once i get CMBN and work out the maths that would allow the game to last longer than the first couple of rounds.

The next comment is about the passages on your site that mention that attack defend fights will always be 3 to 1 point odds supposedly to compensate for the strong defensive terrain. Um, if the odds don't depend on the op moves the overall commanders make there is no reason to have an op layer in the first place. If every fight is at the same odds, what the heck are op moves supposedly accomplishing? The whole point of the op layer is to let the overall commander seek a local odds edge here rather than there, and the like.

I agree with your implication that achieving force "imbalance" should be the rationale of an operation and in fact im leaning toward a system similar to chequers where the players get "bumped" to the rear areas of the map if they lose a CM battle rather than "taken" which would then give an operational raison d'etre for the CM games "if" the victory conditions were tied to aquiring territory in a certain time frame.

However the efficacy of such a system will stand or fall on the victory conditions applied which i will have to ponder on.

Overall, I'd say the set up still needs work. I hope this helps.

Yes it does need more work and yes it does help, thanks for your input

[noob]

Second, 3 to 1 point odds in CM fights typically result in blowout wins for the side with 3, regardless of tactical role or terrain. If the side with 3 arrives staggered, the weaker side might live, but not normally.

Given that i will not be creating CM battles that are staggered what ratio do you suggest ?

2:1 in favour of the attacker ?

[RogCBrand]

There will be probably be more Americans playing CMBN than any other nation i suspect so that could determine the start date but please correct me if im wriong

I always assumed that even in their Winter, those Down Under have much nicer weather than us!

[JasonC]

"isnt that better than just letting them hang for the two or three weeks it takes the participating players to resolve said battle ?"

You will be regularly rounding up pairs of players that can actually commit to playing the game on schedule, for each tactical fight. Even if you let the tac commanders "flex" across all the operational units on their side - if you tie them to individual op units you will instead routinely encounter regular delays because one tac commander on one side is unavailable, either completely dropped or can't commit to playing fast for the next 2-3 weeks. And especially using PBEM and thus with long delays between games, lots of your players are just going to lose interest and leave on you - or only be available at their convenience, rather than your scheduling. You will be regularly recruiting replacements to take the place of people who drop, and will be continually explaining your systems and what you expect to each newbie.

If you had a fight for every op square every turn, that would be an even bigger issue, but after the first 2-3 op turns you won't. Force preservation will make the overall side commanders limit their risk and how many places they mash forces together on the op map, each turn.

Also with PBEM some will finish long before others. Leaving players in limbo while they wait for the slower games to finish. Sometimes due to the fight just being larger, sometimes due to one player involved having some real life issue during the resolution period, causing delay for his game.

In other words, you won't have a norm of 12 people all merrily banging away and all of it being resolved in the same time period and all of that happening in 2 weeks. You won't have that norm minus 2 players whose forces didn't engage that turn, eager to watch instead. No, you will have a floating pool of 20 players, 6 tactical players playing happily, 2 side commanders filling in as tactical ones as well, one of them replacing a guy half way through his game to keep turns moving after the original's daughter went into the hospital, and the 4 games involved finishing at 2, 3, 4, and 7 weeks after starting, respectively.

Which is just as well because if you as a single ref had to create 6 full scenarios with tweaked forces reflecting the terrain on the op map and the forces sent there, every two weeks, on top of updating the operational situation, going back and forth with one op commander to clarify his intentions in his somewhat vague orders, consulting with one tac player about what happened in one of his games just finished to update the op situation correctly, playing appointment secretary for 20 people to get pairs who can commit to play each other - all every 2 weeks - you'd have a stroke (lol).

As for tactical force ratios, 2 to 1 is the top side of winnable for defenders. At least it was in CMx1, x2 might have more defense dominance or it might have higher typical losses, we'll have to see about that. In CMx1, a good tactical commander could translate a 3 to 2 edge into a marginal win in which the attacker and defender each lost 1 from those (leaving 2 to 1 alive), while taking the ground. Regularly. And sometimes if the defender messed up, just getting a total enemy force kill for his 1 out of 3 losses.

I hope this helps...

[Magpie_Oz]

What do you mean specifically by "crap Internet" ?

When at work I have fairly low band width and some major firewalling going on

[Magpie_Oz]

I always assumed that even in their Winter, those Down Under have much nicer weather than us!

We do, I was just using that to get you fellas to think out side the square, (or States)

[Tactical Wargamer]

Man I just wish BF would make an add-on for CMBN like a CMC. There has to be demand for something like this?? I would take this before some or even any of the other add-on modules planned for CMBN. A basic operational system with an excellent tactical platform would indeed be revolutionar.... like CMBO was in its day.

Even the click fest like TOTAL War does something similiar.....mind you their tactical system is nothing like BF's.

[noob]

Man I just wish BF would make an add-on for CMBN like a CMC. There has to be demand for something like this?? I would take this before some or even any of the other add-on modules planned for CMBN. A basic operational system with an excellent tactical platform would indeed be revolutionar.... like CMBO was in its day.

Even the click fest like TOTAL War does something similiar.....mind you their tactical system is nothing like BF's.

What you say is true, such a thing is surely the "Holy Grail" of wargaming CM.

[noob]

Probably true enough but that does not preclude the notion of starting with a smaller group in the "off season" to get the system up and running for the main event.

Heres what you were talking about, still game ?

I've totally changed the game system and reduced the scale massively after the discussions on this forum so checkout the link on my footer and tell me what you think.

cheers

noob

[noob]

Man I just wish BF would make an add-on for CMBN like a CMC. There has to be demand for something like this?? I would take this before some or even any of the other add-on modules planned for CMBN. A basic operational system with an excellent tactical platform would indeed be revolutionar.... like CMBO was in its day.

Even the click fest like TOTAL War does something similiar.....mind you their tactical system is nothing like BF's.

Checkout the link to my website and tell me what you think, i'm still seven players short at the moment so if you fancy giving it a spin i'll sign you up.

[PAEZ]

Noob

I was reading the new rules.

What happends if the attacker wants to combat but the defender wants to retreat.

Im assuming a tactical battle were the defender has an exit and maybe points for removing units from the battle ?

Correct?

Paez

[chris talpas]

Speaking of Operational games, how many people played Atomic Games' "V for Victory" series?

[noob]

Noob

I was reading the new rules.

What happends if the attacker wants to combat but the defender wants to retreat.

Im assuming a tactical battle were the defender has an exit and maybe points for removing units from the battle ?

Correct?

Paez

Good point but i had to decide whether i was going to let both sides have a movement phase before a combat phase or just one side and i opted for one side because it rewards aggression as its harder to escape from a combat situation using that method than if both sides can move before a combat phase, and as the point of this is to play CMBN in an operational context i am going to favor any system that encourages more CM battles.

So to answer your question if the side that moves second wants to retreat it will have to fight a defensive battle and win it to retreat when its their sides turn to move.

[WineCape]

Man I just wish BF would make an add-on for CMBN like a CMC. There has to be demand for something like this?? I would take this before some or even any of the other add-on modules planned for CMBN. A basic operational system with an excellent tactical platform would indeed be revolutionar....

Well, if somebody can lobby the programmer(s?) at Panther/Matrix Games' Command Operations: Battles from the Bulge (CO:BFTB, rated as one of the best Operational wargames on the PC - see product page at http://www.matrixgames.com/products/377/details/Command.Ops:.Battles.from.the.Bulge. ) to try and approach Battlefront a-la-CMC style with a business plan... who knows.

Ahemmmmm.... Maybe Bil Hardenberger can broker such a deal/approach between BFC & Panther games to co-operate to make some very basic changes to both games so that CMBN can work (data wise) and they share in the profits of such an programming endavour? Bil aready stated that to some degree CO:BFB & CMBN might be a very good marrying of concepts given their focus on Normandy/Bulge. The former comes with extensive scenario/mapmaker/unit builder abilities to cover to make operational maps. Leave it then to the community to build those operation/tactical maps with BFTB/CMBN respectively, as long as their unit data can be shared in some basic way. Having some API format that exchanges the data sets between programs might be looked at in the future? But there must be a meeting of minds first between the companies, otherwise it will stay a pipe dream for another decade+

If not, at least some 3rd party hacks can try their hand at marrying the 2 sets of data to some degree to give tactical orders to CMBN PBEM. I would certainly buy such a game/concept, even at $100+. Maybe we wishing for such an idea are completely in the minority and not even worth the financial trouble to make it work commercially?

Everything starts with a dream. Bringing 2 companies together and making a 3rd work it out, or themselves in a limited data capacity, knowing the pitfalls of CMC... who knows?

[ChrisND]

Speaking of Operational games, how many people played Atomic Games' "V for Victory" series?

Heck I still have it on my computer. I play it every now and then with DOSBox.