Historical Accuracy vs Playability

[Charles2222]

Why thank you! :p (I actually tried hard to make that tail fit but the forum won't let me ) So you're into music, heh?

But who th is Earl Shivers?!

Earl Shivers

No, Earl, is, or perhaps was the master of the super-cheap auto body paint job. I'm not sure if his el cheapo commericals were broadcast beyond the confines of north Texas, but I'm pretty sure he was. He had this type of voice and accent that made him sound like a real con man. He said something like this at the end of the commercial: "$99.95 anyplace, anytime, Riiiiight". I wish I could find a video track or at least a picture of the guy. He was almost immortal he was so derided. (Actually I think it was spelled "Shibes" instead)

[Bernie]

Earl Shivers

No, Earl, is, or perhaps was the master of the super-cheap auto body paint job. I'm not sure if his el cheapo commericals were broadcast beyond the confines of north Texas, but I'm pretty sure he was. He had this type of voice and accent that made him sound like a real con man. He said something like this at the end of the commercial: "$99.95 anyplace, anytime, Riiiiight". I wish I could find a video track or at least a picture of the guy. He was almost immortal he was so derided. (Actually I think it was spelled "Shibes" instead)

That would be my grandfather, Earl Schieb.


Just kidding...but that is how you spell it.

[Charles2222]

Berine: Sheesh, you spelled it wrong too. It's Scheib.

Take a look: http://earlscheib.com/default2.asp

They may have upgraded in recent years and it's certainly been a while since I seen his face.

[Vathailos]

K62,

In a meeting between two equally skilled people you can tell a difference of 25% between buy points and it will quite spoil the game. If there is any merit to your idea, 300% is a really wild exaggeration. How about you play me with just 2000 points against 3000 (that's 50% advantage for you mathematicians out there ) and the loser will eat his hat

I can save you the time. How about you wager on my opponent in a game I've got going currently, he's the US, I'm GE. 15K points to my 10K. His name is Roland Rahn (talk about a cool name!), and he's a nice fella from Germany. Hope mommy can cut your hat into little pieces for ya. :p

And btw, if you honestly believe what you said, namely:

I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in the programming/design team. Or else we're spending time in vain discussing your solution since it will never be implemented.

Why did you comment in the first place? Trying to stifle open, free-flowing discussion about improving a product (in a forum members of the design team do read) unproductive. If you don't like it, don't read it. Simple.

Moreover, if only members of a design team had "valid input" as you see it, this would be one seriously empty set of forums. If I find a bug, and I'm not a member of the design team, I should just keep it to myself, because it'll never be implemented?

And one last question Sparky. Unless you're a member of the design team as well, how is it that you know what "will never be implemented"? Or were you just talking our your ___?

Charles,

I think both sides would need the "option" to roll the dice. Reason being, otherwise it gives one side the power to control the randomization of the battle. Both sides start with the option in this hypothetical. If one fella isn't a risk taker, he simply doesn’t click the button. He gets his default 10K (for ease of illustration). Done. His opponent may want to take the chance. So, no. There would not always be a 33-300% variance. It would depend on decisions to "roll" by both players, then the randomization of both, one, or no rolls.

The "idea" would allot both sides their points on the purchase screen. If the option was turned "ON", then both sides could keep their 10K, one side could opt to "randomize", or both could. Perhaps the more extreme results (either .5 or 1.5 multipliers) should be more rare. As I agree with you that a 3:1 advantage would be VERY hard to offset. a lesser variance (.25 perhaps) might be less devastating. But I think the realism it would add would be a huge benefit IMO. You're on a movement to contact for example, and you as a Company may well bump into a Battalion on the move. That'd be your 3:1 ratio right there. Again, extreme example, and only happens when both roll the dice, and when both get extreme results. You could also initially start with a 10000 vs. 10000 pt. battle, and end up fighting a 5000 vs. 5000 point battle, with both sides thinking they're overmatched.


But I'd like to reiterate that your opponent doesn't know what happend with your roll. He'd know he's got his points (10K reduced/increased <= whatever modifier).

And again, it was only a thought, to alleviate some of the "predictability" I'd seen others complain about. I appreciate your opinions/critiques.

Paul,

Thanks for the "heads up" on Combat Leader. The other day I decided to look at those forums, and you've definitely got my level of intrigue pegged now. Hoping there's a pre-Christmas release for solely self-serving purposes. I can ask for it as a gift from my lass . In sincerity though, I'll be grateful whenever it comes out, looking forward to it!

EDIT:

Oh, and Charles... Didn't Earl used to do his own commercials? Reminded me of Nathan Arizona, proprietor, Unpainted Arizona, from Raising Arizona.

[Charles2222]

Vathailos: A potential problem is that without somebody agreeing on a set number, be that player one or not, you might just get lost in infinitity. Suppose player two is 33% of player one and player one is 200% of player two. Do they keep going in a loop until they agree? Seems easier to pick one player for whatever amount you'd want to start with, because it wouldn't matter other than agreeing who is the guy with the partial force so to speak and who is not. If player 1 is the set player amount, at 1000pts. say, then though that set number is the number player 2's varaiance will work off of, it doesn't mean that the end result is that player one always has the largest force, because player 2's variance could just as easily be 300% as 33%. The only problem I cans ee is that settling on player one being the non-variable player may not sit well simply because they have the initiative all the time, but as far as force size goes, it doesn't matter who has the set number since the other player isn't limited to varying in only the smaller degree, but could also triple. I settled on player one more for the idea that player one is always the human in the AI games.

Been thinking a bit though....Isn't there a way in the preferences where you can literally face a force 10 times or 100 times your own if you wanted? Well yes. The next question would be, how would you amke it random? Well my brother and I a long time ago in the dark pre-computer days found a number of methods so that would still be available. The main problem though is that it only works for scenarios, because with a campaign you can't reset the AI forces to different percentages of yours unless you feel like darting around with loading battles as scenarios every blasted battle, which is too much a hassle for me. Why I mention that, is that all SPWAW needs for the whole idea to become reailty, albeit not as fancy, would be if it would just allow you to input different force sizes before the AI picks, before each battle.

Raising Arizona? Yeah he resembled what you might call a young Earl Scheibs, but he didn't have that con man twang to him I don't think. Riiiight!

[Paul Vebber]

Sorry but CL will definately not be out this year.

[Vathailos]

Paul,

Thanks for the prompt reply, and I'd just read through more of the CL forum, and realized we're looking perhaps 2nd QTR 04. Which is certainly understandable. I also really like the explanation for the timetable, "doing it right the first time".

Excellent! As for any beta help you'd need... Currently doing Horizons, did AC as well, but this (wargaming) stuff is where my heart is. Just dreaming, I know your list of folks who'd love to help with CL is long and distinguished.

Charles,

Interesting thought and heck of a work-around with your campaign variation work.

Not sure what you're thinking about with regard to "infinity" however RE: the hypothetical "randomizer".

The sequence is set and finite. Example:

Before game, both players (we'll use a single battle PvP for simplicity) agree on which nations they'll be playing(say GE vs. SO), type of engagement (say "meeting"), and point total (say 10000).

If the "randomizer" is "OFF" in preferences, purchase and subsequent battle continue as they do now. No change.

If it's "ON", then purchase screen pops for player creating the battle. He's given his standard purchase screen for GE. He sees a button under "Mission" for example that says "Combat Chaos". On this screen only, he can choose to click it. He may only click it ONE time. Assume he doesn't chose to. He goes ahead and buys the 10000 points of equipment/men/etc. He enters the password and sends his turn to his opponent as per usual.

The SO opponent has the same options as the GE player, but he chooses to "roll the dice" and clicks on the "Combat Chaos" button. Much to his chagrin, it results in a "Enemy sabotage in your rear area" result. The SO player now has 8000 points to spend buying units. He may not re-click the randomizer button for better results. He buys, places, and sends his turn 00 to his GE opponent. Done.

From that point forward, it's just like a regular battle, except neither side knows what size force he'll be facing.

But the % multiplier is only calculated ONCE, and only if a) the option is turned "ON" in preferences and b) the player clicks on the randomizer in his setup to roll the dice. There would never be more than a 300% point difference if both chose to risk it. It would never be more than a 50% point difference if only one chose to risk it. It would be a standard game in all respects if either the option was "OFF" in preferences, or neither side chose to risk it.

The players point totals are not co-related. The calculation of points the GE player has is not at all based upon the number of points the SO player had, or vice versa. The variance is ONLY based upon the total of starting points players agreed to prior to the battle.

[VikingNo2]

Good Idea Vath on the "Combat chaos" , I have a few sugestions.

Don't just add point take them away as well


Second, make it have a effect on reinforcements, example getting half of what you asked for, or getting something totally different. I need two Plt's of tanks and some flamethrowing engineers, sorry Col but the only thing that can be spaired is a company (-) of regular infantry and one AT gun

The next game we play, I would like to try this we just have to come up with a formula, and exercise some trust.

[Charles2222]

Vathailos: That approach certainly has some merit, but I was goign on what i believe was a simpler route. To outline slightly:

1. Player 1 or which ever is the set player egts agreement with what size 'his' force shall be.
2. Player 2 or possible variance player, picks the at least somewhat random variance option and is either 33% of the agreed set amount or up to 300%.

Actually this turns out kind of funny, as I hadn't realized until I wrote the sequence what would happen. True, I know both players would know the set player's force size, and if you didn't wnat to know that wouldn't be good, but the funny thing is that once the 2nd player egts his force, he not only knows his own force size, but also player 1's. Player one would have the initiative, but player 2 would know both force sizes. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it's an attempt to get around the problem of player 2 maybe having such a small force that he may not want to play. Since there's an agreement on points from the start for player 1, player two knows his force will never be less than 33% of that, such that then if player 1's force is 3000, he has to make up his mind that he's willing to play with only 1000pts. possibly. If the set number is unknown to both players you might get an awful lot of restarts out there.

My idea is geared more towards playing against the AI, as it makes my main objective, that being the variance of "my" force secret from me. I'm not sure how many people would go for the idea of them picking a set force and then being told to chop off part of that force as your idea suggests. If it were me, two main problems would beset my being player one or two: 1) I wouldn't want a force too gargantuan or too small to my style 2) I wouldn't want to pick the force and then have part of it chopped off at the knees. IOW, I would want to go through with what I picked. I would rather have picked an 1000pt. force on my own, than have picked a 1200pt. force and have it chopped down to 1000pts. against my will. Even if I got to choose the 200pts. that got hacked off the total, this would amount to repicking my force, and that might get irritating fast. True, if part of your force straggles IRL you won't have a choice, but I'm not so sure that's part of RL that many players would care for.

I'm not sure which idea feeds more monkeys, but one thing that developed out of the approach I took which is pretty wicked, is that while player one has the initiative, player two knows the force sizes. It's difficult to say who really has the initiative then isn't it? Player one, therefore, would have to try to gauge player two's reactions to tell if he had a superior force or not, which would be fun in some ways, but unfortunately would defeat any purpose there might be if one is interested in making both sides unknown. It looks like for any long haul, that the idea might only stand up to a campaign against the AI sort of situation. Of course, that's assuming the AI wouldn't do what a human player would do if it knew the size of my force. When you think about it, the way these games are programmed, in a sense the AI really does know the size of your force, as indeed I know theirs. If any type of battle can have any force composition variance, then the AI would know your force size, and you, his, only if that knowledge came from some other 'direct' means.

[AmmoSgt]

As long as we are just brainstorming ..
How about a new unit rating called readiness .. ability to move a unit would require a readiness rating of , oh say , 50 .. to shoot and move a 70 but at reduced strenght .. unit is full strenght at readiness 100.
Readiness would increase over time , but would not be reduced , could maybe be stalled at some level by suppression.
The use of this rating would be to strictly delaying the ability of on board units to come into play( player control) .. mostly for purposes of simulating suprise or shock or sleeping troops ..
Say 30% represents a squad at night with 2 guys on watch in a foxhole while the rest of the squad sleeps .. or Tanks in lager crews dismounted making tea .. different from having the crews dismounted since you can't shoot at un-crewed tanks .. but it might take a couple or three turns to get the tank up and running crew in place ect whatever .
Readiness would start to increase either linearaly or maybe based on experience , using experience as a modifier , upon first contact or first spoting of the oposition. This could make an intersting scenario tool , maybe even useful for off board arty , maybe in offensive/ defensive battles
Lets say squad at night at sleep two men on guard 30% increasing at 10% a turn once the attack starts or that side realizes enemy is active in the area .. 2 turns squad is awake more or less troops make it to fighting positions can shoot but not organized another turn or two they can start moving but still not quite together couple turns later they are up and fully funstional.
Just a rough idea of the concept .. with two minute turns may 1 turn between stages I dunno .. lets say squad asleep 2 guys on watch incoming arty out of the blue wakes everybody up but they are stuck without command control in their foxholes can fire at the wire with reduced effect for a turn or two until the suppresion lifts heads are counted NCO's start giving orders .
I am not really fixed on any time set for response .. just floating the idea , could make alot that is not possible possible .. like patrol raids for prisioners , catching tanks in lager .. suprise attacks ... oh, and with only two guys on watch reduced spotting maybe ? Might make listening posts and OP's picket lines more necesary and not having everybody right up on the depolyment line ready for a mad dash all out charge starting turn 1 .. would be great for night battles, low vis , ect.

[K62_]

K62,
I can save you the time. How about you wager on my opponent in a game I've got going currently, he's the US, I'm GE. 15K points to my 10K. His name is Roland Rahn (talk about a cool name!), and he's a nice fella from Germany. Hope mommy can cut your hat into little pieces for ya. :p

Hiding behind somebody else is a lousy way to prove your point. Don't worry, I don't play against cowards.

[Vathailos]

Hiding?

I have 8 games going currently (RB, Viking, Spencer, Wombat, Roland, Sapper, Dwayne and papa Hawk) plus a role in the Red Snow campaign, work a full-time job, and have an active "off duty" schedule. I'm just about out of time for new games. How is that hiding behind anyone?

And cowardly? I'm not the self-styled "wise guy" (read either "smarta$$” or “mobster wannabe”) who has to give himself a 50% points advantage to challenge someone. That's a little closer to the definition of a coward in anyone's book.

From what I remember, your contention was that “a difference of 25% between buy points and it will quite spoil the game”. Spoil the game? I think winning with a decided disadvantage is both challenging and rewarding. Why? Because if the points are equal, luck and skill play a part in the victory. If the points are skewed from the beginning, a victory on the part of the disadvantaged player is much more a sign of skill.

You’re either over-confident in your own abilities, inexperienced, or blowing more smoke if you honestly think that spoils things for everyone. So what if you don’t like a real challenge. Some do.

Would have thought all those spankings from Gary would have taught you a little humility… :p

If you're so brave, reverse the tables, "Mr. Courage" LOL! Set up a game where you've got 4K to my 6K, let’s say you as GE and me as SO in OCT1942, and stop all the self-aggrandizing. Post it in the AAR Section, and I'll get to you when I get to you.

If you haven't gathered it by now, being obnoxious isn't the way to work your way to the top of my "who to play next" list.

EDIT:Back to the topic at hand...

1) I'd like to know what other changes to mechanics or OOBs folks like Ammo SGT et al would like to see to make the game more historically accurate.

2) I'd like to quantify my original poll answer by saying that I'd want the best "playability" possible while sacrificing the least amount of physical/OOB accuracy. How's that? IMO though, we've already got a product that's close to 100% in the "playability" aspect. Other than fixing the "impervious smoke" issue, and a few other minor realism aspects, I'm incredibly satisfied.

Oh, and did I mention that 8.0 is being produced by volunteers, and is FREE?

:)Thanks again Dev Team!!!:)

YET ANOTHER EDIT: Ammo...

Sorry, just did read your idea. I think that sounds great! To further expound on specifically the idea of starting to mount/wake up. That "first enemy sighting" could cause all units "in contact" either with radio or w/in hex range of a command element. Other units are delayed in their recovery by a turn (as their buddies fire warning shots their way, blow horns, shoot flares, and the word spreads...

[Charles2222]

AmmoSgt:

How about a new unit rating called readiness .. ability to move a unit would require a readiness rating of , oh say , 50 .. to shoot and move a 70 but at reduced strenght .. unit is full strenght at readiness 100.

Actually, that sort of idea could tie in with the vagueries of an operational overlay, such that the frontal operational hexes might not have any snoozers, but the rear areas might.

[Charles2222]

Vathailos: Wait a minute! Are you saying they're going to settle that awful smoke issue????? Tell me it's true!

Only one more thing and it's complete, and I reeeeally doubt it'll ever be done: huge maps on the fly picked in preferences. I won't play SPWAW at present simply because I'm so tired of 40 height hex fields when my force chosen is more befit at least 100 hexes. I know I can pick a smaller force for the map width better, but there's nothing I can do about the map getting smaller on it's own, apart from the loading as a scenario and editing it, which didn't work for me anyway, hassle. The game really is much more fun with wider maps anyway. There's nothing like the desperation of realizing that fire brigades may take 8 turns to get to the troubled spot.

[K62_]

Hiding?

I have 8 games going currently (RB, Viking, Spencer, Wombat, Roland, Sapper, Dwayne and papa Hawk) plus a role in the Red Snow campaign, work a full-time job, and have an active "off duty" schedule. I'm just about out of time for new games. How is that hiding behind anyone?

And cowardly? I'm not the self-styled "wise guy" (read either "smarta$$” or “mobster wannabe”) who has to give himself a 50% points advantage to challenge someone. That's a little closer to the definition of a coward in anyone's book.

From what I remember, your contention was that “a difference of 25% between buy points and it will quite spoil the game”. Spoil the game? I think winning with a decided disadvantage is both challenging and rewarding. Why? Because if the points are equal, luck and skill play a part in the victory. If the points are skewed from the beginning, a victory on the part of the disadvantaged player is much more a sign of skill.

You’re either over-confident in your own abilities, inexperienced, or blowing more smoke if you honestly think that spoils things for everyone. So what if you don’t like a real challenge. Some do.

Would have thought all those spankings from Gary would have taught you a little humility… :p

If you're so brave, reverse the tables, "Mr. Courage" LOL! Set up a game where you've got 4K to my 6K, let’s say you as GE and me as SO in OCT1942, and stop all the self-aggrandizing. Post it in the AAR Section, and I'll get to you when I get to you.

If you haven't gathered it by now, being obnoxious isn't the way to work your way to the top of my "who to play next" list.

I'm not interested in making it in your "who to play" list. There are better players out there :p And I believe you got more spankings from Gary, mr. Vat, than I did.

Playing a lot doesn't mean you're courageous. Standing up to your opinions does. Why are you trying to make me defend what you are saying - that it's fun to play with less points? Because you don't have the guts to do it yourself, that's why.

And it's mr. Wise Guy to you, monsieur "no one of consequence" Do you have any other skills than just talking a lot?

[Vathailos]

Point #1 - Please show me where I said "playing a lot [of games] makes [me] courageous"? I didn't. I listed the number of games I had going on concurrently (and a few of my other commitments) to indicate to you my lack of time. Please re-read my post if you were confused.

Point #2 - "Standing up to your opinions does [make you courageous]". Thank you. Using your guidelines to what constitutes courage, I'm already backing up what I say, therefore I must be courageous. Did you forget the part where I'm ALREADY playing a game at a 50% disadvantage?

Point #3 - And it'd be hard to have more losses than you against Gary, since I've never played him once. So that would be your record of 5? (more? less?) losses to Gary vs. my 0 losses to Gary. I would be inclined to believe however that we both have the same win record against the Bean Counter.

Point #4 - I never once said there aren't better players than me out there. I know there are several better players. But despite your incessant self-promotion, I'm not convinced that you're one of them .

With the kind of attention to detail you've just shown, I'm not surprised you hold the opinion you do.

Now, would a brave man give himself more points than his opponent? I'll help you with the answer:

No.

A courageous player would accept a disadvantageous or equal footing with his opponent, but certainly wouldn't have to have a 50% advantage in order to issue a challenge.

On that note, here's my challenge:

We'll play two mirrored games, GE vs. US, with equal conditions for both, switching sides the second time. If you want a measure of skill and an opportunity to be shown what is and is not "spoiled" by a points advantage, I'd be happy to oblige you.

We'll need a custom map, since we'll each need to start one battle as the Germans. Identical conditions/rules. If someone around here can make a map, it would be appreciated. Then, as soon as my plate clears a bit, we'll settle this.

Unless that is you, like your avatar, are just choking your chicken.

EDIT:

And sorry, no Charles. I was unclear. What I meant to say is that one of the things on my short "Hope They Fix This in 8.0" list would be the impervious smoke issue. I don't have any advanced knowledge of anything coming down the pipe with regard to 8.0.

I'd like to see a few things added as well (WP smoke for the US to mention one of them), but I'm not going to whine one bit about 8.0. Again, just very grateful.

[Belisarius]

As far as I understood from a thread a few (?) months back, "Impervious smoke" is hard-coded with the SPWaW engine and can't be fixed w/ any update?

Can anyone confirm or debunk my theory?

[Paul Vebber]

We tried to fix the "all or nothing" nature of smkoe in SP:WaW - IIRC there are like 3 "levels" of smoke and and level 1 doesn;t do much of anything except make it more likely to "lose track" of an infantry unit if it pops smoke and runs away. Artillery smoke and vehicel smoke grenade smoke blocked LOS.

In CL LOS is done a totally different way, so smoke is far more variable in effect.

The "readiness' idea sounds a lot like the effect of the formation characteristics "integrity" and "disruption". IF your troops are spread out in bivouac, then its much harder for a leader to effect the entire formation (like changing their stance from 'defend' to a movement related one, or to direct all their fire as a coherant fire group.) Also the more individually isolated soldiers are, the more quickly their morale goes south. The more concentrated a formation is eaasier it is to get orders out quickly and to direct their fire, but at the risk of vulnerability.

Disruption represents the lack of cohesion that a unit has, normally cohesion breaks down over time through combat friction if a leader doesn't spend time to keep it in check. High disruption requires more command points to be spent (or fewer "failed rolls allowed") (common leadership tasks take longer) and suffer adverse die rolls on their success - a double whammy!

One can design a scenario where one sides formations start the game geographically spread out (low integrity)- and with a high initial disruption level (most are asleep and not oriented to the battle. ) Such troops would hav ea poor ability to organize themselves to counterattack, and with only a few bad combat results could go over their cohesion limit and may disperse of surrender en mass. A really good leader could take charge in a local area and get a pocket of resistance established, and a small raiding force might be able to do a lot of damage, but if it hangs aroun in the enemy rear to long, enough of the victems could get enough cohesion to start counter attacking.

[Charles2222]

Well folks, working off the ideas Vathailos and I were kicking around, I've been playing a bit of SPWW2 and discovered something I before had not noticed. In a campaign you "can" change the enemy force level between battles and not have the campaign turned into a last battle scenario thereby (or that's my theory anyway). All you have to do is hit preferences as you're deploying your troops.

So my question now is this, since I don't have SPWAW installed at the moment. Can someone start a campaign and abort the 1st battle, and then get into deployment for the 2nd battle and see if preferences is available and will then let you override the enemy point total (like changing the XXX to 1000)? I'd appreciate an answer.

Despite what the answer will, it looks like SPWW2 will allow any size opponent I want after my battle has been assigned and the force is deployed. The only problem that remains, perhaps, for having forces you face during a campaign that are outside the establised envelope for that particular style of battle and not knowing what size force the AI will get, is, well, when I type in the force size I'll know what I typed. I can generate a random number for the force easily outsdie the game (and no, we random generator guys have something beyond dice), it's just how do I override the amount and not know the value?

IF CL, IF SPWAW, will generate a hidden value for you, within specified parameters (you might instruct it to pick anything between 1000-5000 for example) assigned by the user, you can both have forces outside the boundaries of said battle type and have the amount random and hidden. That is, if again, SPWAW and CL will do what I'm guessing SPWW2 will allow me to do, given this new information.

[Charles2222]

Paul Vebber: You mentioned the smoke issue a bit. If I understand you correctly it seems to me that the smoke during all the course of the SP's, with the possible exception of SPWW2, should have smoke, by infantry for example, of consistent duration across the board. Yet unless a lot of us have been imagining things, I think even within the life of just SPWAW itself we have seen quite a duration variance between infantry smoke at different times.

Ooooops. I think when Vathailos spoke of impervious smoke, he spoke of smoke you couldn't shoot through (at least I hope so) not the smoke lingers for too long (IMO). Because, in that case maybe there's still hope that the user or somebody touching code could shorten the smoke duration. Anyway can that happen? I've never heard of any smoke duration adjustment in the editor if there is one. Thanks.