CMBN games seem to be more imbalanced...

[noob]

I only play custom scenario H2H PBEM games and up to now my observations about CMBN and all the H2H scenarios i have played have been:

The artillery is far more devastating than CMx1, and this combined with generally smaller maps and smaller force sizes than CMx1 makes it far more likely your infantry forces will sustain physical and mental casulaties quicker resulting in your fighting effectiveness dimishing quicker.

After looking at the force sizes of custom scenario H2H battles after i've played them the force ratio for attack / defence battles tends to be no higher than 1.5 to 1 in favor of the attacker, and in one battle i played the attacker actually had less men, so i'm beggining to suspect there is a force ratio issue that could be a contributing factor for the extreme results mentioned.

[slysniper]

I only play custom scenario H2H PBEM games and up to now my observations about CMBN and all the H2H scenarios i have played have been:

The artillery is far more devastating than CMx1, and this combined with generally smaller maps and smaller force sizes than CMx1 makes it far more likely your infantry forces will sustain physical and mental casulaties quicker resulting in your fighting effectiveness dimishing quicker.

After looking at the force sizes of custom scenario H2H battles after i've played them the force ratio for attack / defence battles tends to be no higher than 1.5 to 1 in favor of the attacker, and in one battle i played the attacker actually had less men, so i'm beggining to suspect there is a force ratio issue that could be a contributing factor for the extreme results mentioned.

In the old system, many designers developed the feel for a good ratio. I always thought that to get a good hard fight that might drain the attacker and turn it into either sides battle as to momentum that ratio was 3 to 2.

So if the defender had a thousand points, the attacker had 1500, just as this statement mentioned. If you wanted the attacker to push the board, you increased the ratio.

With the new system, a ratio that works best might take a while to determine.

Also, when doing design work now, the point value of units do not show up. So it is harder to say. I have a 3 to 2 ratio as one builds a scenario because there is nothing to relate it to, so you have to be a better judge as to what units you are setting up against each other.

I do not understand why they cannot leave the point value in that menu, It is in the system for qb games.

[womble]

"Sane" points allocations will also depend on what the force is supposed to achieve within a certain time window. If your scenario is a huge map, with a large town that's the only terrain "occupy" objective, and you only give a length of an hour, the attacker is going to need a greater force advantage to achieve the goal than if you give them 2 hours, as they won't have time to wait for arty missions, they'll have to sacrifice stealth and protection for speed. Missing the sweet spot on these levels will result in extreme victories for one side or another.

[PanzerMiller]

I think it should be a house rule that if you post something like this you need to send out a bottle of wine to every person who reads it or at least some excedrin. My idea of a Kolmogrov-Smirnov test is to see how many bottles of Smirnov some guy named Kolmogrov can drink while still standing upright.

Right on, sburke...! Discussions about statistics can get a bit esoteric and jargon-y, eh??

Sadly I can't speak from too much experience here since I haven't played much CMBN (but I am an aged CMBB veteran). But it seems to me that there's been alot of discussion around here about people who will try a scenario, get their ass kicked a few times until they learn the mechanics and the more demanding tactics, and then (based on their long experience with CMx1) will begin to own the AI in subsequent scenarios (or iterations of the same scenario). That's gotta be a big factor here...

Damn, I gotta start playing this game...but the learning curve scares me a little bit, and with a job, travel and two teenage kids, my trip along that curve could take awhile...

[GreenAsJade]

For the record, I think this discusison only really applies to H2H.

As PanzerMiller says, with the AI, you can learn something about the scenario and go back and kick it better next time on the same match. You can't do this H2H. Generally H2H games play the scenario blind.

The results that I posted were all H2H games.

GaJ

[Vergeltungswaffe]

I would say its the opposite, in my experience. There is a lot more slow recon, firefights develop less quickly since every unit on the board doesn't immediately target anything spotted, and you typically aren't assaulting a small fixed point with the goal of wiping out everything near the flag.

[pcelt]

I agree with Normal Dudes comments (Page 1)

The sample sizes are so variable and there are so many variables related to the samples which are totally uncontrolled that no reliable inferences can really be drawn.

The old adage about statistical evidence applies---"Crap in=crap out." (or words to that effect)

[GreenAsJade]

I disagree. I think 80 games is a decent number of games to look at and say "gee, that's interesting".

For heaven's sake, people complain about the balance of a scenario they played after _one_ playing. They are happy to look at graphs like this:

http:///gregories.net/bobster/bobster.cgi?function=scenario-results-histogram&scenario=Carbide%20Carbide

and say "gee, that scenario looks imbalanced" ... after only 5 games.

80 games is significant enough to be interesting.

GaJ

Another random interesting graph apropos the topic of this thread:

[Wodin]

Thanks for pointing out the bleeding obvious.

What is your point?

Do you think that despite annecdotal evidence in this direction, tabling some actual data, scanty as it is, is a bad move?

Or maybe you'd like an actual conversation here in the forum where we converse about CMBN and our experience with it??

I happen to think it's interesting.

Are you willing to hazard an opinion about what the trend will be as more data points come?

Do you think that scenario designers will get better, and that this will deliver a better percentage of close-fought matches?

Do you think that scenario designers are fine, and we're just looking at a random small sample?

GaJ

You don't half come across badly sometimes mate...you sound aggressive and arrogant....you do yourself no favours and it's because of this I take no notice of anything you say. Every thread you start is a complaint of some kind or other...really can't understand why your still playing the game.

[GreenAsJade]

I'm sorry for coming across arrogant and aggressive.

I think that in reality I'm just passionate I'll try to watch myself.

Every thread you start is a complaint of some kind or other...really can't understand why your still playing the game.

I addressed this question already.

I guess since you don't read what I say, you didn't read my answer

What I said was that the purpose for coming and discussing here in the BFC forums is exactly to talk about how the game might be improved - what its shortcomings are and what might be done about them.

What you see as a "complaint" is not a "whinge", it's a "Problem Report". I come and I say "here is this issue, I'm seeing it, it affects me so it probably affects others, let's discuss, see if I have it right, and if I do what should be done about it".

Many times, we learn that I have it wrong. Like the cover thing, for example. Totally a learning thread: I'm sure I'm not the only one who had no idea that in real life rifle ammo is so powerful and cover is so poor.

Other times, I have a good point about what is wrong with the game as it stands, and either some workaround comes out, or it the usual "we hope BFC reads the thread and does something with it".

I'm passionate about the game. CMxx is the only game I play. I pour hours and hours of unpaid work into supporting it. WeBob Bobster, McMMM, CMMODS, CMSFMODS, H2HH, scenarios, mods ... etc. In this respect, I think my money is where my mouth is. How many others can say the same? I come and discuss the problems with the game only because I want to see it improved.

I think a bit of frustration on my part is only to be expected if I come and start a thread like this one, based on data that no-one else has taken the trouble to collect and share, and the first response is some guy pouring cold water on the size of the dataset without any other contribution at all....

Cheers,

GaJ

[Berto]

I disagree. I think 80 games is a decent number of games to look at and say "gee, that's interesting".

For heaven's sake, people complain about the balance of a scenario they played after _one_ playing. They are happy to look at graphs like this:

http:///gregories.net/bobster/bobster.cgi?function=scenario-results-histogram&scenario=Carbide%20Carbide

and say "gee, that scenario looks imbalanced" ... after only 5 games.

80 games is significant enough to be interesting.

GaJ

Another random interesting graph apropos the topic of this thread:

Would be interesting to tell us what are the points available in this scenario.

We may find that the points have preferential distributions.....

[Johnsy]

GaJ, I think you're doing a great job mate. Your contribution to the CM community is to be commended. I love your website and the H2Hhelper that you've developed. Keep up the great work mate.

[Sgt Schultz]

From what I have read, and experienced in my Me vs AI romps, the possibility for more extreme point results is present, but is being adressed at the designer level. It is more a synergistic effect than any one of two issues.

The shipped QB maps did not take into account the wealth of info developed by the community since release. Concealment is easier to find in newer maps. I am such a fanboy I hate to take issue with someone's hard work, but some of those QB maps.. well let's say they could do with a facelift. Not one thing is stopping someone from playing with any map in their hard drive to improve it.

Trying to make a scenario that works for both RT and WEGO is not easy. The time factors involved are difficult. This can lead toa WEGO player having loads more time than needed.

Smaller average battles make for less depth, and then add in the learning curve of a new engine. When things go wrong, they go wrong in a big way.

-----------

No Exit is as balanced a battle and map as I could make. Play it with someone whose skills you know, and tell me about extreme results. The casualties may be extreme, but the totals shouldn't be.

I do plan to upgrade that map with the new terrain knowledge we all shared lately, so it will be even better.

[BletchleyGeek]

Thank you for the graphs, GaJ. They sort of match what I've seen on AARs and on my own games (I'm playing right now Carbide Carbide as the US, and I see the expectation in the briefing about overrunning the German force behind a river with a similarly sized American one isn't going to happen).

The shipped QB maps did not take into account the wealth of info developed by the community since release. Concealment is easier to find in newer maps. I am such a fanboy I hate to take issue with someone's hard work, but some of those QB maps.. well let's say they could do with a facelift. Not one thing is stopping someone from playing with any map in their hard drive to improve it.

Well, the QB maps were done before release, so it's understandable they don't take into account what we're learning. Regarding the point you make: indeed, DIY is the way to go... if you first know what to do GaJ brought up something that seemed strange, people here have pored over it for a while, and now we might perhaps getting a hint of what might the problem(s).

Trying to make a scenario that works for both RT and WEGO is not easy. The time factors involved are difficult. This can lead toa WEGO player having loads more time than needed.

Much of that time is "dead-time". Since one does not get feedback on what happened until you watch the 60 secs movie, it's usual than your units remain stationary - and spotting their surroundings - for a substantial part of a 60 secs segment. You can optimize, but I don't think it would be wise to invest a lot of one's time into devising a very nice plan with timings and at all, when it could well happen that after the first 20 secs it turns out to doom the force executing the plan.

Very much like there's with the H2H only/AI only/both tag, a good tag would be Rt only/WEGO only/both.

Smaller average battles make for less depth, and then add in the learning curve of a new engine. When things go wrong, they go wrong in a big way.

Some redundancy in assets which might be critical (say, an FO) could be a good idea. Especially in CMx2, where you can have your FO 100 meters behind the action, in a covered position and he can be unfortunate enough to take a stray .50 round right between the eyes... I think one needs to be careful with %losses and the like, you might end up penalizing twice or thrice a player for the same mistake.

No Exit is as balanced a battle and map as I could make. Play it with someone whose skills you know, and tell me about extreme results. The casualties may be extreme, but the totals shouldn't be.

I can attest to that: I even posted a screenshot of the result into your scenario thread. That's the kind of feedback I think scenario designers can get the most out of it. I might be wrong, but I'm under the impression the feedback designers get is low or isn't concrete enough (like a results screen).

Well, it also helps that during most of the scenario it's night time. While charging along an American football stadium at midday facing several MGs certainly isn't a wise move, charging along the same stadium at night (lights off, no moon, of course) might be even a shrewd move.

BTW, No Exit isn't a meeting engagement at all. I'd say it's more of a US attack/probe

I do plan to upgrade that map with the new terrain knowledge we all shared lately, so it will be even better.

Looking forward to that!

[GreenAsJade]

Very much like there's with the H2H only/AI only/both tag, a good tag would be Rt only/WEGO only/both.

Do you think this might only apply to VS AI? In other words, if you develop a scenario for VS AI, then you need to specify whether the *AI plan* suits RT or WEGO.

It's not obvious to me that scenario design should differ for RT vs WEGO. It might, I can see that, I just can't yet see "why?". It feels wrong that you would design a scenario differently depending on the player's mode of control.

GaJ

Afterthought: I've probably gone off topic into a thread that should be in the scenario design forum!

[noob]

It's not obvious to me that scenario design should differ for RT vs WEGO. It might, I can see that, I just can't yet see "why?". It feels wrong that you would design a scenario differently depending on the player's mode of control.

I agree, i think the only distinction between two scenarios should be whether they are H2H or play versus AI, in my experience the two design considerations should be separated as all the scenarios ive played that have been classed as playable both ways are always unsatisfactory from a H2H point of view, the reason being that the designer has to massively compensate for the AI's lack of cunning which usually translates into hugely restrictive set up zones and imbalanced force ratios.

What the community needs is dedicated H2H scenarios that conform to historical attack / defense force ratios and open set up areas to allow defenders to fully exercise their tactical imagination.

[BletchleyGeek]

Yes, this thread should be in Scenario Design & Modding.

I'd say that the size of the map and of the forces involved matters a lot. Objectives VP count should also take into account player's ability to get reasonable situational awareness (watch assault on the left side, go back to right side, find everyone dead, no trace of the culprit) and response time (not reflexes entirely, also to come up with a new plan for your units when the one you had goes down the toilet).

[GreenAsJade]

Reminder (old thread, long thread):

FWIW, I think this effect is both "real" (statistically significant) and is now completely explained.

The explanation emerged in some other threads recently.

The explanation is that many CMBN scenarios use the "all or nothing" victory conditions, without including proportional points-for-kills scoring.

The "worst" example of this is the "Casualty" victory condition, which ironic feels like the most intuitive to use. I think this is the greatest contributor to the problem (and it _is_ a problem).

The "Casualty" victory condition gives the player a set number of points if ... and only if ... they exceed a certain level of kills. Each kill on its own is worth nothing. Either you got the level of kills or you didn't.

In a wargame, player expectation is that "killing the enemy" just goes without saying as a thing that you'll score for. The idea that it isn't is a nice feature for "special situations" , but far from general expectation. Furthermore, it is what creates this "all or nothing" spread of results.

In fact, the _only_ scenario victory condition that runs in line with player expectation is the "Unit Destroy Objective". This assigns partial points for partial destruction of the nominated group of units. Ironically, this is the most trouble for scenario designers to set up.

To me the moral of the story is "ask your friendly neighborhood scenario designer to please always include points for Destroy Units on the whole OpFor".

Until this is more prevalent, I think we will continue to see the lopsided distribution - it won't matter if its 100 or 10,000 samples.

GaJ

[BletchleyGeek]

In fact, the _only_ scenario victory condition that runs in line with player expectation is the "Unit Destroy Objective". This assigns partial points for partial destruction of the nominated group of units. Ironically, this is the most trouble for scenario designers to set up.

To me the moral of the story is "ask your friendly neighborhood scenario designer to please always include points for Destroy Units on the whole OpFor".

Thank you for gathering the data. I agree with the analysis, though I'd add it won't harm to set territory objectives so they're more fine-grained (when it makes sense, of course).

[JonS]

To me the moral of the story is "ask your friendly neighborhood scenario designer to please always include points for Destroy Units on the whole OpFor".

I can't agree with this, except for the proviso that if a designer doesn't really understand what each category of victory points does, how it works, and why they're using it in their scenario, then they probably are better off sticking to 'Destroy Units on the whole OpFor' and a couple of terrain objectives.

[slysniper]

As to how the game is scored does not matter at all, it does not matter if it is a all or nothing situation, if the designer wants that, then that is fine.

Unless you start using the results in tournaments and such, and the results are impacting ratings by the variences in the scores. Then the scores should reflect each loss and all the other differances in the game compared to someone else playing the same game.

So it might be more of a point to ask designers to set up scoring a certain way if the game is planned for a certain tournament that needs it to help judge the level of play. But just asking all games to be scored and designed that way is not a valid point. Other than it is the way you like it because it is what you are use to.

[Chris Ferrous]

I've never really understood this thread: I know when I've won, and I know when I've lost, and I know when the result is inconclusive.

So, who cares about points? (And whether or not the designer has got it 'right'.)

May I say that victory points are just a guide to make one reflect on the action after it's done and dusted. Perhaps one should think, 'Good grief, I lost 200 men and he only lost 199', therefore I lost.

Errgh, no, I don't think so, providing that generally you did what was asked, and remember, that as a platoon or company commander it would be very unlikely that you'd have any input as to the logic of an attack or a hard fought defence. That would be down to your commanding officer, and he may or may not have given you some tactical options to follow, thus restricting your course of action even further.

Thus, the 'feel' is what matters. Go with the 'feel, and you'll know whether you've won or lost (or at a pinch, drawn).

Good luck , everyone.

[Broadsword56]

+1 to Chris' comments. In my experience with CMBN, when my troops are getting beaten I can see, hear, and feel it quite clearly. When I'm winning I can feel it in the diminished enemy return fire, enemy gun positions suddenly gone silent, and my troops able to advance in good order without crippling losses. If you get down to ground level and look at what's happening, you'll know! Surprises will happen, and sometimes you won't know the ultimate result until the battle is over, but that's entirely realistic. Enjoy the journey.

[sburke]

There are quite a few different playstyles and I think a lot of the thread is directed around competitive play, ladders etc where points become more important. It isn't a style of play I am interested in, but I can understand the desire based on that style.

I personally don't really care about the victory screen. I tend to be much more interested in the battle itself than the end result and prefer being able to look at a battle from the context of whether I achieved a tactical objective with a certain expectation I have a functioning military unit at the end.

[MikeyD]

Its a tricky proposition comparing CM:BN battle result to 'previous games'. Because previous games involved snow-covered steppes, closely packed cities, forests, deserts etc. etc. If you were to compare CM:BN results to just similar Normandy bocage-type scenarios I suspect you'd see a similar binary level of carnage. Normandy is a special environment. And for those basing their conclusions off quickbattles, that's like using the idiot stepchild as a baseline when discussing the family's general level of intelligence.