Matrix Games Forums

Hi guys. Is browsing enemy platforms by using "Game/Browse Scenario Platform" a cheat ?... or can it be considered it's intelligence gathered info ?
What do you think ?
Thank you.

I like this feature, especially when in Editor mode.
In normal gameplay, I would rather see it populate the info for all non-friendly sides with platforms that have been detected.

Cheat or not? ..... views will differ but it is something you have to make a conscious decision to do, so no inadvertent spoilers.

In the vast majority of military operations (across the spectrum from normal peacetime to all-out war) you usually have a pretty good idea of what hardware you will face.

Back in my day, we had various classified and unclassified sources of information. Janes Fighting Ships being one of them.

This is even present in the movie "Hunt For Red October" where in a scene while the captain of the USS Dallas is looking over a chart, you can see a copy of Janes in the background.

I like to think of the DB in CMANO as one big Janes Fighting Ships, All the worlds Air Forces, and several other technical manuals all rolled into one.

The DB alone is worth the price of owning this fine sim.

I think that in the '50s movie 'Battle of the River Plat' one of the British Cruisers refers to Jane's as well.

I believe a concern is that the 'View Scenario Platforms' may give you a clue as to what is 'in play' and what isn't for the enemy force. My thought is that having a ready reference far outweighs the very minimal downside. In most scenarios, the briefing plus knowing the date and country of the opposition will give you most of that info anyway. I suppose that in very small scenarios it may take away some surprise but, probably not.

Not a cheat in my books.

I don't see why you just can't overcome the weakness of looking at it if its that big of a concern. Use the OOB dialog instead and just work your way through them.

I think of it as intelligence. You generally will have a good idea of what you're going to be facing. Sometimes you have a good idea of when or where, but not as often. Platform list won't tell you where and when you will encounter them, after all.

I also take a cue from the situation in the scenario and/or orders. If the orders and/or situaion make this a surprise, I tend to treat it as such, and not look at the platforms beforehand.

There is a way of cheating with Browse Scenario Platforms, which I admit I have used sometimes.

That list shows alive platforms in the scenario, not destroyed ones.

This means that you can tell when you have eliminated all of a certain kind of platform, which is not entirely realistic.[:D]

ORIGINAL: HalfLifeExpert

There is a way of cheating with Browse Scenario Platforms, which I admit I have used sometimes.

That list shows alive platforms in the scenario, not destroyed ones.

This means that you can tell when you have eliminated all of a certain kind of platform, which is not entirely realistic.[:D]

This means that you can tell when you have eliminated all of a certain kind of platform, which is not entirely realistic.

ouch ! didn't know that. It should be fixed to display initial platforms, not alive ones.

Again, just don't look at it.

See, after YEARS of playing paper and counter wargames solitaire...things like this dont bug me.

There's a whole branch of the military dedicated to gaining this information, and it's not just for the fun of it. It's certainly not cheating to use the db viewer.

ORIGINAL: thewood1

Again, just don't look at it.

Well, we are suppose to get some intelligence about expected enemy platforms, so why should I restrain from looking at ?
Ok, it's no big deal but maybe this should be one day reconsidered by the devs (ie. to see only inital units, not the alive ones)?

On the subject of available scenario 'OPFOR intel' - (although admittedly a little off topic).
Those players who have Northern Inferno should have a look in the NI scenario directories where they can find some OPGEN/OPTASK messages done by.Sirius
These are a great way for a scenario author to provide a fairly realistic overview of the various threat assessments.

They are well worth a read before starting any of those scenarios - Being given OPFOR intel details like threat weapons/ranges, threat emitters is a great way of 'setting the scene' and could most certainly not be viewed as cheating [:)]

There are some sections of these signal formats that don't really apply to CMANO but a cut-down version would certainly work.
They could even be made available under Special Actions allowing the player quick and easy in-game access.

So perhaps a suggested improvement might be to only update that list on scenario load, hence you get a sense of what was available in the beginning but not necessarily a sense of what's there now?

ORIGINAL: HalfLifeExpert
This means that you can tell when you have eliminated all of a certain kind of platform, which is not entirely realistic.[:D]

Hope this low priority. You can just not look and solve problem. Most country know what adversary has. This issue is nitpick I think.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”


― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I tend to consider most of my suggestions low priority unless something is completely broken because I'm not paying for changes. The fact that they pay any attention to me at all speaks volumes about their excellent taste in advice.

I think there is something to not knowing the "ground truth" of when things are destroyed. During the Balkans conflicts, NATO greatly over-estimated their effectiveness at drawing down the FRY ground forces as a result of decoys, mobility, misidentification of their target, camouflage and difficulties determining whether a particular target had already been destroyed or not (e.g. recording a tank "kill" when in fact they'd just hit a burned out tank hulk that had already been struck). They weren't nearly as successful as they'd been during the Gulf War. It wasn't until after they'd integrated the US Army's counter-battery radars into the ATO generation process that they were really successful at all against the ground forces, and then it was only against the artillery.

Uncertainty about exactly what state the enemy is in, is a real thing and impacts people's decisions in real ways. It even impacts whether you think you won or not!

ORIGINAL: BDukes

Hope this low priority. You can just not look and solve problem. Most country know what adversary has. This issue is nitpick I think.

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

ORIGINAL: thewood1

Again, just don't look at it.

Well, we are suppose to get some intelligence about expected enemy platforms, so why should I restrain from looking at ?
Ok, it's no big deal but maybe this should be one day reconsidered by the devs (ie. to see only inital units, not the alive ones)?

To me, the point is that it's your choice to look or not look, and it's also your opinion whether that it's cheating or not. It's a single player game, so you have no one else you're playing with to 'cheat' out of anything.

It's subjective, so there's no right or wrong answer.

'cheating' is maybe not the most apropraite word. What I mean is 'how to get the maximum realism' when playing.