Considering starting a WW2 campaign

[Panzerknacker]

I like it good job concord.

Just one question came into my head while reading it.
How does CM register wounded Soldiers getting medic aid from their Comrades?

Are they shown as OK Men in the end screen?

 

[holoween]

I plan to have the battles maybe 40 minutes long. This allows for some maneuvers and planning in the battle, rather than a mad race against the clock.

40min is actually quite short even for just a single infantry company.

I like it good job concord.

Just one question came into my head while reading it.
How does CM register wounded Soldiers getting medic aid from their Comrades?

Are they shown as OK Men in the end screen?

They show up as wounded in the end screen. If you dont give them mecic aid they have a far higher chance of dying at the end of the battle.
So a simple rule like 1/3 of the wounded come back into the unit strength would make picking up casualties very important to maintain combat power.

 

[Rico]

40min is actually quite short even for just a single infantry company.



They show up as wounded in the end screen. If you dont give them mecic aid they have a far higher chance of dying at the end of the battle.
So a simple rule like 1/3 of the wounded come back into the unit strength would make picking up casualties very important to maintain combat power.

40 minutes is quite short -- but if you want to keep a tourney ticking over and maintain interest of particiapnts, you can't go much longer.
If battles take longer than a month in PBEM to resolve, than from experience, the whole thing will just slowly wither and die...

 

[Panzerknacker]

Alright thanks @holoween, i think its a good rule to go by that then.

I think 40 minutes is good for a "small" map 1x1 km. You should be able to do some maneuver and attack the enemy.

 

[Bulletpoint]

If you make the campaign about both sides trying to destroy the other, I think it will make for a stalemate where both sides cling to the best defensive locations. Assuming rational commanders, of course.

Also, from a realism perspective, attacks are nearly always about seizing important locations and/or breaking through to strategic depths and/or encircle the enemy. Attacking the enemy head-on to destroy him is a losing proposition unless you are way more powerful than he is. Thus the rise of "search and destroy" missions in Vietnam and today's counterinsurgency asymetrical warfare.

So what I would advise would be to have, say, 5 victory locations to fight over. No need for a points system, just count them at the end of the game.

 

[Concord]

I will have a think about that.
If I was to consider it, then the 7 large towns would be the objectives I think.

 

[Rico]

If you make the campaign about both sides trying to destroy the other, I think it will make for a stalemate where both sides cling to the best defensive locations. Assuming rational commanders, of course.

Also, from a realism perspective, attacks are nearly always about seizing important locations and/or breaking through to strategic depths and/or encircle the enemy. Attacking the enemy head-on to destroy him is a losing proposition unless you are way more powerful than he is. Thus the rise of "search and destroy" missions in Vietnam and today's counterinsurgency asymetrical warfare.

So what I would advise would be to have, say, 5 victory locations to fight over. No need for a points system, just count them at the end of the game.

Clear missions and objectives always a good idea for commanders.

 

[holoween]

If you make the campaign about both sides trying to destroy the other, I think it will make for a stalemate where both sides cling to the best defensive locations. Assuming rational commanders, of course.

Also, from a realism perspective, attacks are nearly always about seizing important locations and/or breaking through to strategic depths and/or encircle the enemy. Attacking the enemy head-on to destroy him is a losing proposition unless you are way more powerful than he is. Thus the rise of "search and destroy" missions in Vietnam and today's counterinsurgency asymetrical warfare.

So what I would advise would be to have, say, 5 victory locations to fight over. No need for a points system, just count them at the end of the game.

Clear missions and objectives always a good idea for commanders.

Destroy enemy forces in a certain area is a fairly clear objective.

There are several ways of incentivizing commanders to make offensive moves

• model supply so encircling enemy troops gives a significant advantedge
• put artilery as markers on the map that get destroyed if an enemy marker moves into them

Also creating the power concentrations necessary to destroy the opponent in certain areas and create a breakthrough is exactly what you would expect the commander of each side to be working for. If you simply sit evenly spread out and wait you will just get outmanouvered and destroyed.

 

[PhilM]

In the light of other comments, my two penn'orth ...

On the length of battles: I take @Rico's point about people losing interest with long battles (especially team memebrs who are perforce sitting out that "turn"): but, I also dislike battles with too short a timescale to reasonably achieve the given objectives ... IRL you cannot do much in 40 minutes, especially if someone shoots at you whenever you move ... if the battles can be no longer than 40 minutes, then they need to be on small maps and with small forces (relatively speaking);

I also favour "vanilla" units: e.g. Pz IV being the default Axis tank equipment, with perhaps one (small) unit of Tigers or Panthers on the whole "front" for selective use by the OC at the decisive (he hopes) moment ...

I'm not a fan of too many "meeting engagement"-type battles, with equal-sized forces stumbling upon each other and both attacking to seize the same objective. The battles need variety to keep players' interest, but IMO should be based on the premise that attackers have (or think they have ...) an advantage over the defenders, and whichever way the background storyline is set up (Russian offensive, German counter-offensive, etc ) one side or the other should be working generally on either an offensive or defensive premise, and have their objectives and VLs (and forces) structured accordingly.

Hope this is helpful, and not just illustrative of my prejudices!

 

[Rico]

In the light of other comments, my two penn'orth ...

On the length of battles: I take @Rico's point about people losing interest with long battles (especially team memebrs who are perforce sitting out that "turn"): but, I also dislike battles with too short a timescale to reasonably achieve the given objectives ... IRL you cannot do much in 40 minutes, especially if someone shoots at you whenever you move ... if the battles can be no longer than 40 minutes, then they need to be on small maps and with small forces (relatively speaking);

I also favour "vanilla" units: e.g. Pz IV being the default Axis tank equipment, with perhaps one (small) unit of Tigers or Panthers on the whole "front" for selective use by the OC at the decisive (he hopes) moment ...

I'm not a fan of too many "meeting engagement"-type battles, with equal-sized forces stumbling upon each other and both attacking to seize the same objective. The battles need variety to keep players' interest, but IMO should be based on the premise that attackers have (or think they have ...) an advantage over the defenders, and whichever way the background storyline is set up (Russian offensive, German counter-offensive, etc ) one side or the other should be working generally on either an offensive or defensive premise, and have their objectives and VLs (and forces) structured accordingly.

Hope this is helpful, and not just illustrative of my prejudices!

One way of speeding up the turnaround of battles is:

1. make sure opponents are in compatible time zones to ensure optimal file exchange -- possible minimum 2 a day
2. sign up only players who can commit to the time investment and good turn rates
3. have mechanisms in place so that if players drop out for RL reasons, stand in players can take over the battle -- ie: standardised passwords, CO's or GM sharing all dropboxes.

Reinforced company-sized battle 40 to 45 minutes should be plenty.

You can have a "meeting engagement" on the strategic/operational map ... but most battles will be attacks/probes as one side takes positions/objectives that the opposition will try and recapture.

 

[Bulletpoint]

One way to give players a reason to advance on the operational map would be to agree that all actual battles would be played as meeting engagements, regardless of which player initiated the battle.

If played as attack/defence, that would give a big advantage to the defender, making it a losing strategy to attack.

(I'm talking in the game context here. In real life, lots of other factors can make it feasible to attack, but I'm talking about a game situation where both sides are nearly exactly the same strength and both sides know the other's objective is to destroy their forces)

 

[holoween]

If played as attack/defence, that would give a big advantage to the defender, making it a losing strategy to attack.

Only if you assume equal points and equipment.
If you allow Force concentration by allowing 2 units of one side to attack the same one on the other and then allow arty to be freely alocated to support any battle you want you can quite easily create very loopsided attacks.
If you then have valuable targets in the rear like artillery batteries or supply dumps an offensive strategy can be far superior.

 

[Bulletpoint]

Bulletpoint said:
If played as attack/defence, that would give a big advantage to the defender, making it a losing strategy to attack.

Only if you assume equal points and equipment.
If you allow Force concentration by allowing 2 units of one side to attack the same one on the other and then allow arty to be freely alocated to support any battle you want you can quite easily create very loopsided attacks.
If you then have valuable targets in the rear like artillery batteries or supply dumps an offensive strategy can be far superior.

The reason I assume equal strength is because it's a game situation and both sides know that they start out equal... If you use two units to attack one enemy unit, that means you lose local superiority somewhere else. It depends on the actual rules of the hex game though.. are we talking one unit per hex, do attacking forces cause pushback of the defender, is it an I-go-You-go or WeGo system, are casualties counted individually or based on thresholds, etc.

The defender gets to choose the type of terrain (by hogging the city tile or the forest tile), and also enjoys the advantage of defending in the actual battle. That generally translates into proportionally higher losses for the attacking side than for the defender. If the game is only about destroying forces, that means the attacker is worse off.

With clever maneuvering, it might be possible to catch the other side on the wrong foot. But even in chess, where both sides are completely symmetrical and it's only about maneuver, there's still the objective to take the enemy king.

(Having logistic targets would change things of course, but since @Concord wanted to get rid of terrain objectives to make the campaign simpler and easier to manage, that would be counterproductive, I think)

 

[rocketman]

I had reported interest in this one, but RL constraints forces me to sit this one out
So any reserves who have shown interest can be notified.
Hope it turns out to be a blast for all involved.

 

[Concord]

For the sake of (GM) ease, the active game turns will switch from one side to the other. German moves and attacks, Russians moves and attacks and so on.

The attacker can enter an enemy hex from any and all sides - so a maximum of 6 units may attack a hex. This would be extremely rare of course, but 2:1 can be common, and even 3:1.

When battles are set up, the defender will always occupy the center area, and the attackers will set up on the edges. Each attacker's location will correspond to the compass point they are entering from.

Even in an outnumbered situation, the defender can still damage the enemy companies substantially, which can wear down the enemy through attrition.

 

[Nathangun]

@Nathangun Bullseye. Your rules set will be the foundation of this campaign system, with a few minor changes.

To be fair, I used an altered version of @Rico Island War Campaign.

 

[Nathangun]

If battles take longer than a month in PBEM to resolve, than from experience, the whole thing will just slowly wither and die...

How true.

 

[Swank]

As a person who played a couple turns and commanded for a turn for the market garden campaign, I found it very engaging to specify the OOB for the battles where you can focus your attacks with concentration of forces and holding enough back for counterattacks and not knowing what your opponent had decided to do, made for exciting engagements. Sometimes lopsided one way or the other but opened the door to multiple outcomes such as tactical withdrawals and such. From what I gathered it was definitely an intensive effort for the GM but the scale of the operation was quite large and that might of been the main culprit.

I also believe that meeting engagements with equal forces will lack excitement and force very conservative strategies.

 

[Concord]

None of the battles will be meeting engagements. They will always be attacker/defender, as outlined above in post #115.

If players are concerned that each side will just get into position and wait on the strategic map, then we could create victory conditions.
We could say campaign victory is achieved by control of all towns (or maybe 5 out of 7), or until one side declares defeat.
One positive about this idea is that it would encourage each brigade to spread out a bit rather than clump together.

If we make the large towns victory objectives, here is one possible layout.

 

[Bulletpoint]

If we make the large towns victory objectives, here is one possible layout.

I think there would be three ways to decide VLs... either you put them in a way that makes it as fair as possible for both sides (as in your example), or you place them for realism, which in a Bulge setting would probably be at key road junctions and bridges, or you do a mix. I'd suggest to do the mixed version.

Also, I hope you don't mind me giving suggestions. It's your campaign and I just like to give ideas.