Forum > Theater of Operations: World at War
Counterattack at Belle Fontaine
A Canadian Cat:
Oh BTW @Mad Mike and I are still fighting our battle out in CM. I am continuing with the battle based on the discussion we had. E Co and F Co are done fighting for now and are holding the ground they took while G Co is moving up to attempt to flank the portion of the map that E and F Co by passed. Things are still going and G Co has received a few casulties but nothing serious yet.
choppinlt:
--- Quote from: Christian Knudsen on June 20, 2017, 04:45:54 AM ---I am leaning toward adjusting the persistence percentages upward a bit for ASL (so your option #2), and then adding a modifier for a good ELR (an ASL morale mechanism, if you recall. This is rolled for at engagement start, and is influenced by unit morale and cohesion in TO). This is largely because I am including a lazarus mechanism in the reporting stage, whereby an ASL infantry casualty has about a 33% chance of not being a TO casualty, in order to deal with the squad level "resolution" of ASL, and the fact that "eliminated" in ASL terms does not necessarily mean MIA/WIA/KIA.
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Ha, I like the term 'lazarus mechanism'! 8) Agreed, I think this makes perfect sense under the circumstances.
--- Quote from: Christian Knudsen on June 20, 2017, 04:45:54 AM ---We will see what we end up with, and next time I will see what happens if I up the persistence a bit. I am thinking of going from 4/9/18 for attackers to 6/12/24, with a bonus for ELR of 4 or 5, and a penalty for 0-2. This will end up with high losses, but the lazarus mechanism should correct it closer to the TO values, provided one does not lose too many vehicles.
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Yeah, it will be interesting to see how this will work out.
--- Quote from: Christian Knudsen on June 20, 2017, 04:45:54 AM ---I'm a little leery of "normalizing". Why play the scenario if you are just going to plug in results based, I assume, on some sort of "victory level"? Perhaps I am misunderstanding it, but it seems like it takes away the incentive for playing the engagement out.
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So my concept for normalizing mentioned in my #3 above is fairly simple. If any of the 4 parameters (casualty % of Side A, casualty % of Side B, advance distance, and battle duration) get too far away from established thresholds for that tactical situation, then it would impact the others parameters/results used to input back in TO. For example, the tactical commander can play out and endure horrific casualties to gain a few hundred extra meters, but the results become 'normalized' a bit when inputting back in TO. For instance the attacker's losses would be lessened, but so is the battle duration, limits of advance, and losses suffered by the defenders. This would allow for greater flexibility on the tactical resolution while keeping results more reasonable for TO purposes.
Honestly the more I think about it, Options 2 and 3 are VERY similar to each other. We have to be careful with Option 2 that we don't accidently give the attackers an artificial advantage by increasing thresholds. Both sides would benefit from the increase, however it may allow for the attacker to gain more territory as a result. It's just one of the things that need to be considered for balancing purposes.
--- Quote from: Christian Knudsen on June 20, 2017, 04:45:54 AM ---The other option, which I think many will take, is to do away with the persistence mechanism altogether. This will have a big effect on TO, but that may be part of the game...
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If you are suggesting that persistence be ignored when it comes to battle resolution, that is certainly an option. However if I were your CO who gave you specific orders to limit casualties and there was a blatant disregard for this order, I would probably take you out back and personally :shooting-two-guns !!! ;) So I would say that this option would be used cautiously for that reason among some other reasons.
As I mentioned before, there would be nothing wrong with playing out a tactical battle after TO "results" were determined.
--- Quote from: Cougar11 on June 20, 2017, 03:54:49 PM ---Just a quick thought about the casualty treated for withdraw. I think this might warrant multiple battles, in order to weed out the extremes prior to adjusting. Even though the great American artillery should be massive lol, it probably will not occur like this every time. It would be interesting to see this battle played out a few times to get some metrics.
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Great suggestion!
--- Quote from: A Canadian Cat on June 20, 2017, 04:01:27 PM ---Great discussion. The way I see it there is a conflict between the way we play tactical level games (fight to the bitter end) and the way that operational and RL are frequently played (make sure casulties are minimized). Finding the balance is clearly going to be important. I think toning down the tactical battle player's first instinct to fight to the bitter end would be a good thing. We should be disengaging and withdrawing much more then we do. On the other hand what you just experienced regarding on turn one the Germans experience enough casualties to cause a withdrawal does not lead to a satisfactory experience. I'm am saying that guidelines should be in place for casualty limits.
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Agreed!
--- Quote from: A Canadian Cat on June 20, 2017, 04:01:27 PM ---On the one hand what you experienced - first turn forced withdrawal of the Germans - happened two or three times out of a campaign where there were 20 tactical battles that would be OK really. Another angle that could be considered is to have a feature built into TO that suggests when a battle would or would not be a good candidate for a tactical level game to be used for resolution. For example if there is a large attacking force and disorganized defenders the outcome is probably pretty clear and might not lead to an interesting tactical battle. Note I am not saying prevent a tactical game being used I'm saying TO could be programmed to recognize which engagements are more likely to lead to interesting tactical game resolutions.
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Cat, I have given this some consideration before. And I think there are easily analyzed parameters that can be used to help give players some guidance. In many cases players are going to have a pretty good feel for a tactical battle leading up to it. But I can certainly give an indicator to help. For instance, the battle between you and Mad Mike was extremely lopsided in terms of total combat power available, but terrain, available support and overall condition of the defenders made it a potentially interesting battle to execute. And to my point earlier, you reached your limits regarding the battle, but you are playing it out some more for fun at this point!
A Canadian Cat:
--- Quote from: choppinlt on June 20, 2017, 07:13:31 PM ---And to my point earlier, you reached your limits regarding the battle, but you are playing it out some more for fun at this point!
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Yes, for sure but inside the framework we discussed about ending vs. continuing and how far the advance continued. So instead of doing what the typical CM player would do - run E and F Cos into the ground and use G Co to continue as deep as possible. Instead E and F Co are setting up defensive positions to hold the ground they gained and G Co is flanking the fortified position to consolidate the battalion's advance.
For sure we are just playing for fun and your system already did something sensible with the results. I'm just seeing how one possible resolution would go in CM.
A Canadian Cat:
--- Quote from: choppinlt on June 20, 2017, 07:13:31 PM ---Cat, I have given this some consideration before. And I think there are easily analyzed parameters that can be used to help give players some guidance. In many cases players are going to have a pretty good feel for a tactical battle leading up to it. But I can certainly give an indicator to help. For instance, the battle between you and Mad Mike was extremely lopsided in terms of total combat power available, but terrain, available support and overall condition of the defenders made it a potentially interesting battle to execute.
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Cool. I'm not sure if that needs to be a top tier feature or added later but it would be helpful for those of us wanting to play the tactical battles out with another gaming system. Thanks for considering it.
Christian Knudsen:
Hey it's nice to see some folks reading this stuff!
--- Quote from: Cougar11 on June 20, 2017, 03:54:49 PM --- It would be interesting to see this battle played out a few times to get some metrics.
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I don't know that I necessarily want to re-fight THIS battle, but I do want to fight a bunch more battles to increase the sample size. Battles like this will happen, we need to know how to handle them. In fact, as I think I mentioned, I'm not too concerned about how the actual battle fights, I'm far more concerned about determining the before and after, and how that interacts with TO. Not to say there aren't issues about how the battle works, but a lot of that comes out of starting conditions, and should be fairly easy to adjust.
--- Quote from: A Canadian Cat on June 20, 2017, 04:01:27 PM ---...The way I see it there is a conflict between the way we play tactical level games (fight to the bitter end) and the way that operational and RL are frequently played (make sure casulties are minimized). Finding the balance is clearly going to be important. I think toning down the tactical battle player's first instinct to fight to the bitter end would be a good thing. We should be disengaging and withdrawing much more then we do. On the other hand what you just experienced regarding on turn one the Germans experience enough casualties to cause a withdrawal does not lead to a satisfactory experience. I'm am saying that guidelines should be in place for casualty limits... I have a question: earlier you said "Persistence is an optional mechanic that we are trying out" is that an actual ASL rule you are using?
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This is really the heart of the matter right now, balancing our desire for realism in terms of tactics based around force preservation against our very real need to make a system that produces fun, challenging, meaningful tactical battles. Interestingly enough, I had a fellow on the GS ASL forum basically say that he would not consider trying a system that would not forecast which engagements would be good battles and which not. I take that with a grain of salt, there are lots of crappy unbalanced ASL scenarios out there, and even a few campaign games that are not well balanced, and are prone to the snowball effect. I think that it will be fairly easy to pick out battles that are worth it, and recognize those that are not. As to your question, persistence is a TO effect for which I blodged together some ASL rules. ASL does have a somewhat similar mechanic whereby a side's ELR can drop during play due to losses. I don't know anyone who uses it, and it doesn't really meet our goal of limiting losses.
BTW, because of the impetus system, the Germans were not required to give up after Turn 1. Even with the additional Turn 2 losses, I could still make a roll or two and continue the battle, and who knows, I could get into a good position and inflict a bunch of casualties on the Americans in ongoing turns, which, so long as I limited my own (a lot, mind you), I could win the battle. But I don't think that meets the commander's intent of keeping casualties light, so I will start my withdrawal in Turn 3. Now the battle is still not necessarily over at that point, the defender might decide to pursue, in which case I have 4 turns to get my forces off the map. If he does not, then the battle ends, but the attacker will not gain any ground in TO.
--- Quote from: choppinlt on June 20, 2017, 07:13:31 PM ---Honestly the more I think about it, Options 2 and 3 are VERY similar to each other. We have to be careful with Option 2 that we don't accidently give the attackers an artificial advantage by increasing thresholds. Both sides would benefit from the increase, however it may allow for the attacker to gain more territory as a result. It's just one of the things that need to be considered for balancing purposes.
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I would increase the defender persistence as well though, by the same ratios. This would create longer lasting battles that are hopefully more interesting, i.e. don't end in the first 2 turns. I would compensate for this by adjusting the lazarus odds, basically. So battles last longer, and have more casualties, but more of these are recouped at the end. It should be possible to find a balance that allows for persistence to be meaningful, but not overly constricting, but then not lead to unrealistic attrition. As mentioned, the squad resolution of ASL casualties makes this really easy to justify.
I realize, however, that I am not at all dealing with you bringing territory into the equation. This is a good point, and one I need to think about. We haven't really talked too much about territory gain yet, although I seem to recall that you have had to normalize our tests so far to limit the amount of territory taken. I really don't like the concept of normalizing (that occurs outside of system transitioning), but more testing will iron out these issues, hopefully.
--- Quote from: choppinlt on June 20, 2017, 07:13:31 PM ---If you are suggesting that persistence be ignored when it comes to battle resolution, that is certainly an option. However if I were your CO who gave you specific orders to limit casualties and there was a blatant disregard for this order, I would probably take you out back and personally :shooting-two-guns !!! ;) So I would say that this option would be used cautiously for that reason among some other reasons.
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And I agree. But players may not - persistence adds a layer of book-keeping that a large number of players may just not want to bother with. We may just have to accept that players will want to fight to the death. One thing that works in our favour in this is that my ASL engagements have no Victory Conditions other than cause casualties and take territory. This may hurt us in other ways, but it definitely helps us in avoiding last minute suicide charges.
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