Magic target reference points?

[derbius]

The manual says, "Artillery strikes targeted near a TRP (within 50m) do not require LOS from the spotter" - so if I understand correctly, I can have a guy looking out for units near the TRP who is connected to nobody (so only omniscient me can see that troops are approaching the TRP) then I can click on the highest-ranking HQ I have anywhere on the map and tell him to order up some arty onto the TRP? Isn't that just an excuse for magic targeting? I think any unit should be able to call in arty to a TRP without delay but there should be some way for the message to get from the unit which sees the TRP to a unit with authority to call in the arty.

Or have I misread how TRPs work?

[Wiggum]

TRP's simulate artillery that was already adjusted to that area.

This was a tactic often used by the germans in Normandy, having their mortars pre-adjusted to a field and as soons as the enemy was pinned down by MG fire they could fire very fast and accurate without the need of a spotting rounds or a FO because everything was prepared before the actual combat started.

[Magpie_Oz]

I see what you're saying.

It does seem a bit odd that someone who cannot tell anyone can be the trigger for an HQ to order a pre-registered arty mission.

[stikkypixie]

The manual says, "Artillery strikes targeted near a TRP (within 50m) do not require LOS from the spotter" - so if I understand correctly, I can have a guy looking out for units near the TRP who is connected to nobody (so only omniscient me can see that troops are approaching the TRP) then I can click on the highest-ranking HQ I have anywhere on the map and tell him to order up some arty onto the TRP? Isn't that just an excuse for magic targeting? I think any unit should be able to call in arty to a TRP without delay but there should be some way for the message to get from the unit which sees the TRP to a unit with authority to call in the arty.

Or have I misread how TRPs work?

Unfortunately there is really no good way to enforce this. The player is omnipresent in the game and can do as he/she chooses. It's the same situation where a knocked out vehicle crew at the edge of the map spots an enemy armour attack down the left flank and the player reacts by sending reinforcements, even though there was no way the crew could have communicated with the main force.

Removing control from units out of C2 is not option since units cannot act on their own initiative, no AI is that advanced yet.

[Joey JoJo Junior Shabadoo]

Short of playing Iron rules and having your wife fire MG42 rounds over your head while you lie in a foxhole in your back yard with a laptop, there's going to be an inherent amount of gameyness in CM. After all it is only a game. Play under the honour system against the AI and opponents you trust. Leave a few minutes between spotting the enemy with your scout teams and ordering mortar fire to simulate a runner connecting with the FO.

[Magpie_Oz]

Short of playing Iron rules and having your wife fire MG42 rounds over your head while you lie in a foxhole in your back yard with a laptop, there's going to be an inherent amount of gameyness in CM.

........ ahhh doesn't everyone play this way? I even get the kids to act as runners to type my commands into the laptop. The wife wings one of them now and then but nothing that interferes with the game

After all it is only a game.

I would be very careful with the kind of talk my friend

[YankeeDog]

This is one of those situations where the "player as God" problem rears its ugly head. Difficult to "fix" without taking a lot of the fun out of the game.

However, it is also worth noting that the communication to initiate an artillery barrage on a pre-designated and pre-plotted spot could be done by relatively low-tech means. Flare or smoke grenade, for example. On the Eastern Front, the Russians sometimes used large signal flags to communicate when barrages on pre-designated target areas should start.

Particularly on the defense, units would also sometimes lay simple (morse code) wire lines to allow basic communication between forward OPs and command stations.

So there are a variety of ways that a forward OP with LOS to a TRP could communicate an "initiate fire now" order to an FO, without using a wireless radio. CMBN doesn't explicitly simulate this stuff so we just have to assume that, abstractly, this is what is going on.

[Mord]

I would be very careful with the kind of talk my friend

I remember one time my X GF called CMBO that "video" game you play...I went into this loooong drawn out explanation about how it WAS NOT a "video" game but an advanced simulation of WWII and the tactics there in...by the time I was finished her eyes had rolled back in her head and she was in a coma...she never called it a "video" game again, though.

Mord.

[Magpie_Oz]

I remember one time my X GF called CMBO that "video" game you play...I went into this loooong drawn out explanation about how it WAS NOT a "video" game but an advanced simulation of WWII and the tactics there in...by the time I was finished her eyes had rolled back in her head and she was in a coma...she never called it a "video" game again, though.

Chicks ! they just don't get it.

[derbius]

Thank you Yankeedog - your justification to get around the "magic" problem lets me play without too much guilt!

[Joey JoJo Junior Shabadoo]

........ ahhh doesn't everyone play this way? I even get the kids to act as runners to type my commands into the laptop. The wife wings one of them now and then but nothing that interferes with the game

Oh hell yeah, I even get the wife to throw potato mashers at me, afters she finished mashing the potatoes of course.

[mjkerner]

Oh hell yeah, I even get the wife to throw potato mashers at me, afters she finished mashing the potatoes of course.

Better than a plate of spaghetti, like my first wife!

[Wiggum]

I remember one time my X GF called CMBO that "video" game you play...I went into this loooong drawn out explanation about how it WAS NOT a "video" game but an advanced simulation of WWII and the tactics there in...by the time I was finished her eyes had rolled back in her head and she was in a coma...she never called it a "video" game again, though.

Mord.

Ha, must be as "interesting" for her like having to watch one of Sheldon Coopers Power-Point presantations about String theory...