Chit pushers and BftB...successes and frustrations.

[gabeeg]

I purchased BftB early on after much back and forth. I did not own or play any of the Airborne Assault games but thought that they sounded very interesting. I am mainly a tactical guy and come from a "over the board" background with Squad leader, etc. so I am most comfortable with the idea of chits and making a decision for each chit (be it unit or formation). I have to admit though I was entranced with the "idea" of BftB...I had a very difficult time getting into it. Each time I played I would lose interest, lose focus or lose track of important parts of the scenario. Reading pro and con posts since BftB has been released it seems that this is not uncommon for chit pushers. I see comments like "I feel like I am watching the game more than playing it"...and I felt that way to.

Recently I have begun to warm to BftB and am really beginning to draw enjoyment from playing it. I am convinced now that for some of us chit pushers it is a difficult transition. I also noticed some of the people that just love the game since day one are ones that play a variety of games and not mainly or just chit based. I know this is a generalization and there are plenty of chit pushers that loved BftB and its predecessors from the get go...but it seems to be to have a bit of truth to it.

For me it was letting go of the fact that I had to control each and every unit and learn at which level of command the game gave me that sense of control and satisfaction. For the most part making decisions at the regiment or battalion level is where it is at for me and only commanding smaller formations for specific tasks (I then quickly re-attach them). For me right now in my progress with BftB it depends on the scenario, but I try an find a sweet spot between losing track of who is commanding whom and attached to what formation with what orders and commanding small enough formations to feel engaged and "in the game" so to speak.

Now my question! For those chit pushers out there...how did you make a successful and enjoyable transition to BftB? What made it less a like watching a movie about a war game to an engaging and fun experience? For those few of you that never "got it" with BftB (probably few in this forum)...what was it that you could not get past?

...I still am not 100% there yet, but I see that there is more for me in this game...and as it is right now I am finally enjoying it. I am looking forward to the responses and hopefully pick up a trick or two on getting the most out of BftB.

One thing that still frustrates me a bit with BftB is that it seems like there is all this detail under the hood and I appreciate that one of the appeals is that it keeps these details under the hood...I for one want a way to see them For example we have information about armour thickness and penetration but how is it used? I wish that in the logs for the formation that it would show results of the calculations under the hood in a friendly manner like "lost M8 - penetrating rear hit Pak 75", "lost PzIV j - bazooka immobilization" or "8 men/M1 WIA/KIA 155mm artillery burst". Maybe it is more abstracted than it seems, and all these detailed numbers on armour, range, penetration are just informational... As chit pushers tend to be, it's these type of details that we like along with being in control

[Arjuna]

Harry,

Great post. Thanks.

Re More details from under the hood. Nice suggestion. We would have to extract the data you want from the fire and bombard events. But that shouldn't be too difficult. Each round of direct fire is resolved individually. So we know if it results in a kill or not and what the weapon is. For anti-armour fire we also know the target aspect. The only trouble is that i can see a plethora of such reports. We would probably need more message filters than just the message priority (Flash/Urgent/Routine). Eg show/hide damage reports, show/hide logistic reports etc. Good idea. Thanks.

[gabeeg]

Dave, thanks for responding.

I would be extremely excited to see some sort of "battle report" detail such as described above as an option in BftB. I hope you are able to add it in some way. Its a double shame to have your hard work in implementing that level of detail hidden and for us detail junkies not to be able to get at it

[Pergite!]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Harry,

Great post. Thanks.

Re More details from under the hood. Nice suggestion. We would have to extract the data you want from the fire and bombard events. But that shouldn't be too difficult. Each round of direct fire is resolved individually. So we know if it results in a kill or not and what the weapon is. For anti-armour fire we also know the target aspect. The only trouble is that i can see a plethora of such reports. We would probably need more message filters than just the message priority (Flash/Urgent/Routine). Eg show/hide damage reports, show/hide logistic reports etc. Good idea. Thanks.

I believe this have been up as a suggestion before on the COTA board if I am not mistaken. My suggestion is to rip the filter system from POA2, where you can set the amount of detail you want presented from the combat. More details in POA2 (turn-based) meant slower gameplay since the story of each bullet had to be presented for the player. I do not know how demanding your database extraction is, but for older machines could this become an issue?

[johndoesecond]

Hi gabeeg,

You were asking how it feels after so many years of all sorts of wargaming, once you get into BftB and "get it".

It's transformative. It's enlightening. It resembles magic!

It just feels so right and good.



P.S.
Ah, BTW, about the price: as an ad goes: there are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard.

[39battalion]

Just want to support gabeeg's suggestion of making a more detailed battle report visible to players.

This would certainly add to the immersion and make the firefights more interesting.

And congratulations to the developers for producing such a challenging and intriguing game---well worth every cent