The Battle of Kherson (PvP Campaign)

X

xIGuNDoCIx

Guest
Gents,

As some of you may or may not know I am currently in the midst of running/creating a PvP campaign for CMBS called "The Battle of Kherson". I have info/status of it posted on both the BF forums and at SimHQ and things are going OK.

BF Thread for the campaign:
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/118901-battle-of-kherson/#entry1596093

After speaking with several members of TFGM it was suggested to bring what we have over here for guidance as you obviously have experience with these kinds of projects for the CM titles.

We have created a rule set that gives the standard CM player a little more strategy, depth, and context than the run of the mill CM QB games. Obviously we have hit bumps in the road and have had disagreements regarding what should be implemented and how it should be done not only from a "realism" standpoint but also from a "game" standpoint. I will be the first to admit that it is a fine line to walk and not everyone will be pleased with certain decisions.

I would say that the biggest issue we are having at the moment has to do with how to handle withdrawals/cease fires/surrenders. I have noticed reading through the various campaign rules here at TFGM that the general consensus is to allow a player to withdrawal after a % of turns is completed with the added risk of losing another % of his/her remaining troops. While I agree and am satisfied with that train of thought I do have some players in our campaign that feel they should be able to perform "delaying actions" and be able to retreat at will without any consequences. As you can imagine this had created quite an uproar among some players and myself (the Game Master) and we have even had one of the teams leaders quit due to differing opinions.

I guess what I am asking is for you guys to look over our rules and help us make them better as you have such a vast knowledge of running/creating this type of experience for CM. I am also interested in bringing it over here as this seems to be the hub for all things CM related PvP wise but I am unsure of the process on how to do that.

Here is the link to our campaign rules.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8D2hKk_-A9aY25kZnpYUV9Xak0/view?usp=sharing

Thanks for your time and sorry for this wall of text!
Mike
 
I will look over the rules tonight but we definitely have room for this kind of campaign as it is a hole in our portfolio at the minute. Although Rico is making headway in creating something of a much smaller scale.... having not looked at your rule set yet I dont know how they would compare.

Bringing it over will be easy. I will create forum areas. Give you moderator access to said areas and set up 2 separate areas that are private for opposing teams.
 
I see you expect a 2 week battle turnaround time... I find this timescale very short?

Instead of players being in charge of tallying up losses and initially building up their forces have you thought of running it through an excel file. I use that for the OOC battles albeit we dont factor in reinforcements due to the sheer size of the OOC Campaign.

I think tallying up numbers will put players off?
 
I see you expect a 2 week battle turnaround time... I find this timescale very short?

Instead of players being in charge of tallying up losses and initially building up their forces have you thought of running it through an excel file. I use that for the OOC battles albeit we don't factor in reinforcements due to the sheer size of the OOC Campaign.

I think tallying up numbers will put players off?

Yes the two week time period is short in term of typical CM MP and this has always been an area of discussion. Fortunately a lot of the current players prefer playing their battles via TCP/IP. As always something like this can always be changed as the rules do allow for some flexibility. As the GM if a particular battle is going great and both players want to extend I have no problems going over that 2 week period so that they can fight it out.

As for the excel file suggestion I am not familiar with that way of doing things with CM. Can you export your CM armies to an excel file?

Mike
 
No I put each units OOB into an excel file.

As they die I fiddle with the percentages.

So say you sent out a full recon unit and at the end of the battle 50% casualties are recorded I would remove 50% across the OOB.

The players have access to the percentages and overall condition of the men and their skill level.

In your case you could also issue points for bringing in reinforcements or attaching other support weapons rather than just removing percentages.

Just an idea.I have sent a screenie to our conversation. :)
 
Ahh I see! Yes that is a much more streamlined and efficient way of managing a units reediness. Now is there a pre-made excel file floating around somewhere?
 
I've got something that's semi-automated... ie you pick everything from drop down lists and each row equals a unit. Using it for the Radzymin Campaign.

I quick look over your BF forum post the other night. My recent experience tells me you're going to run into problems with players picking their own OOB and giving them some high levels rules and a points value.

I learned very quickly that Wargamers love to be very picky and will go down to the 'n'th degree is tweaking their lists until they are just right. There's also an expectation that the level of detail will be kept across the board as the campaign progresses. It's not an attack against us as wargamers, it's just who we are... but at the same time I wouldn't want to get into a fight where you as GM disagree with one side because you've deleted a Bradley IFV with an APS, while they argue black and blue they only lost a Bradley without APS. Don't expect internet communication to be full proof. :)

Biggest mistake of the Radzymin Campaign has been the OOB and letting both sides 'go shopping' to create a force. Shopping is the fun part, maintaining it is a bitch.

2 Cents. :D
 
I've got something that's semi-automated... ie you pick everything from drop down lists and each row equals a unit. Using it for the Radzymin Campaign.

I quick look over your BF forum post the other night. My recent experience tells me you're going to run into problems with players picking their own OOB and giving them some high levels rules and a points value.

I learned very quickly that Wargamers love to be very picky and will go down to the 'n'th degree is tweaking their lists until they are just right. There's also an expectation that the level of detail will be kept across the board as the campaign progresses. It's not an attack against us as wargamers, it's just who we are... but at the same time I wouldn't want to get into a fight where you as GM disagree with one side because you've deleted a Bradley IFV with an APS, while they argue black and blue they only lost a Bradley without APS. Don't expect internet communication to be full proof. :)

Biggest mistake of the Radzymin Campaign has been the OOB and letting both sides 'go shopping' to create a force. Shopping is the fun part, maintaining it is a bitch.

2 Cents. :D
If you don't mind I may want to grab your automated sheet and try it out.

Thank you for your insight and yes we (wargamers) are a finicky bunch! During this campaigns inception I envisioned a project where the individual player would be able to create their own Company/s and in turn create a storied history about it as the campaign went on. I really wanted to stay out of mandating the players to play with pre-made units as I felt it would take away from their personal attachment of the units that they would command. So far, we have had no problems in maintaining and keeping track of the units. Yes it is a workload on players, leaders, and myself but I think it has paid off as initially intended.

Unit loss disagreements can be mitigated by the fact that I (as the GM) require the end game screen caps from both teams and the final turns to verify. I have found an old tool that someone created for CMBN that exported the entire end game results for every unit (kills, losses, etc) but unfortunately it does not work in CMBS and the author (JapPanzer) does not own CMBS so he cannot modify it.

CMBN Battle Recorder
CMBN Battle Recorder Repository - http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=2762

Mike
 
@Ithikial/@Bootie,

Thought I would pick you brain so to speak in regards to managing/creating CM based PvP campaigns while keeping your player base actively engaged.

Something that has come up recently in our CMBS campaign (The Battle of Kherson) is that player who are not actively participating in a battle feel left out and/or bored. This is compounded by the fact that campaign turns take a good amount of time to complete and players either grow impatient and end up quitting or they just can't dedicate the time needed to keep up with the campaign and resign. How have you guys managed to keep the player base engaged and "satisfied" in your previous campaigns? The last thing I want is for a player to feel left out.

While on my way home from work yesterday I was thinking about having the players who are not taking part in a direct campaign battle with their respective campaign units instead fight smaller one off battles against each other or someone from the TFGM community. The winners of these battles would gain "resource points" for their team as these battles would represent small covert raids on supply routes/convoys.

The purpose for these smaller battles would be twofold:
  1. Keep all players engaged
  2. These battles would have a direct influence in the greater campaign strategy for their team

I think that for these purposes the forces would have to be no more than 2 PL per side and limit armor to a minimum.

Anyway just my thoughts on the matter and would love to hear your suggestions/critiques.

Mike
 
We have decided to re-launch the campaign once all current players are signed up over here. We will more than likely need additional players to fill slots from those who have dropped out. With the re-launch I have re-done the campaign map using "The Operational Art of War 3" scenario editor. Below is a quick preview of the map and new unit counters (WIP).

BoKv2Mapanb44c.png
 
Sorry for the delay in replying. Busy RL at the moment.

Getting the right balance between players and campaign rules set is probably the hardest part for any multiplayer campaign. Then you've got to contend with players doing things strategically in game you weren't prepared for, like being pixeltruppen pacifists!

It's part luck of the draw but having a core group of players who belong to an existing club is probably a good step in the right direction I think as you know at least they'll be coming back to visit the forums every few days at the latest. Nothing is a sure thing in this space unfortunately, even the FGM's big OOC for CMBN has had it's ups and downs with players coming and then going over the years it's been running. When it started out I was a mere on the ground commander and have been promoted to Axis Field Marshall in the space of a 'campaign week.'

Few tips (just my thoughts)
- Be a fair but a firm game master. Impose a minimum turn rate you expect players to meet if they sign up. You've put in the prep work, the least you can get back in return is a player commitment level.
- Have people you know with good track records for your opposing team leaders / CO's.
- Rule set is easy to understand since the players (with the exception of a few die hards) won't read it in full.
- Automate whatever you can to keep the game master's role during the campaign ticking over at a fast rate.
- Get creative and provide updates / a narrative to go along with it. Gives some sense of what's going on and why these series of linked battles are occurring and keeps players interested. It's more inspiring than saying Battalion 101 attacks Battalion 104.

Just some thoughts. :)
 
@Ithikial/@Bootie,

Thought I would pick you brain so to speak in regards to managing/creating CM based PvP campaigns while keeping your player base actively engaged.

Something that has come up recently in our CMBS campaign (The Battle of Kherson) is that player who are not actively participating in a battle feel left out and/or bored. This is compounded by the fact that campaign turns take a good amount of time to complete and players either grow impatient and end up quitting or they just can't dedicate the time needed to keep up with the campaign and resign. How have you guys managed to keep the player base engaged and "satisfied" in your previous campaigns? The last thing I want is for a player to feel left out.

While on my way home from work yesterday I was thinking about having the players who are not taking part in a direct campaign battle with their respective campaign units instead fight smaller one off battles against each other or someone from the TFGM community. The winners of these battles would gain "resource points" for their team as these battles would represent small covert raids on supply routes/convoys.

The purpose for these smaller battles would be twofold:
  1. Keep all players engaged
  2. These battles would have a direct influence in the greater campaign strategy for their team

I think that for these purposes the forces would have to be no more than 2 PL per side and limit armor to a minimum.

Anyway just my thoughts on the matter and would love to hear your suggestions/critiques.

Mike

Well, part of the issue was the map scale relative to the number of units which combined with the lack of supply rules to make "dancing" too strong a strategy. Reducing the number of hexes alone should go a long way to countering that problem. Additionally, very basic supply rules could be used to ensure that dancing carries an inherent degree of risk, insofar as certain positions become key.

My idea for supply rules would be pretty straight-forward; if your unit is within two hexes of a road that can trace back to friendly lines, then unit is supplied. That means it can receive reinforcements and fights at full-strength. Out of supply means a 25% haircut to the unit's in-game strength. A full turn out of supply means a 50% chop to in-game strength. A second full turn out of supply and the unit disintegrates. That would instantly give the possibility for relatively minor "chess moves" to provide a direct impact, meaning that flank security matters, superior numbers of attacking units matter and therefore the semi-isolated "fixed points in space" gives way to fists of multiple units colliding into each other, providing multiple fights per turn. Paired with a smaller scale, that could be just the thing to keep most everyone involved.

As for an alternative idea: perhaps have pre-set formations and -- if there are insufficient number of player battles generated -- break them up and fight battles on a scale on step reduced. For example, one turn REDFOR launches a raid on a BLUFOR-held objective with a force two dismounted rifle companies with attachments, while the rest of the REDFOR rests and replenishes. With three players on the team, instead of one REDFOR playing taking the entire force and playing a single BLUFOR player, the force is broken up (evenly, task-organized, etc.) into three separate elements each playing out a separate PBEM. Obviously this concept can be carried too far (it might be OK to split a reinforced battalion five ways, but not an understrength company) but I think that it can be intelligently applied to keep as many players involved as possible with the inherent advantage of smaller-scales lending themselves to faster resolutions.

Potential downsides: some players may prefer larger PBEMs, naturally disparate results will tend towards the mean outcome (draw/minor victory for evenly matched sides) overall, there is no provision for mid-PBEM reserves, etc.

A second alternative would be placing forces within a very constrained map area and already in direct contact, generating an overage of fights of which players pick-and-choose the one they want to play out and which can be auto-resolved. The downside here is that how do you get both sides to agree and potentially making the operational layer superfluous to the whole thing if auto-resolved battles decide most operational matters.
 
Well, part of the issue was the map scale relative to the number of units which combined with the lack of supply rules to make "dancing" too strong a strategy. Reducing the number of hexes alone should go a long way to countering that problem. Additionally, very basic supply rules could be used to ensure that dancing carries an inherent degree of risk, insofar as certain positions become key.

My idea for supply rules would be pretty straight-forward; if your unit is within two hexes of a road that can trace back to friendly lines, then unit is supplied. That means it can receive reinforcements and fights at full-strength. Out of supply means a 25% haircut to the unit's in-game strength. A full turn out of supply means a 50% chop to in-game strength. A second full turn out of supply and the unit disintegrates. That would instantly give the possibility for relatively minor "chess moves" to provide a direct impact, meaning that flank security matters, superior numbers of attacking units matter and therefore the semi-isolated "fixed points in space" gives way to fists of multiple units colliding into each other, providing multiple fights per turn. Paired with a smaller scale, that could be just the thing to keep most everyone involved.

As for an alternative idea: perhaps have pre-set formations and -- if there are insufficient number of player battles generated -- break them up and fight battles on a scale on step reduced. For example, one turn REDFOR launches a raid on a BLUFOR-held objective with a force two dismounted rifle companies with attachments, while the rest of the REDFOR rests and replenishes. With three players on the team, instead of one REDFOR playing taking the entire force and playing a single BLUFOR player, the force is broken up (evenly, task-organized, etc.) into three separate elements each playing out a separate PBEM. Obviously this concept can be carried too far (it might be OK to split a reinforced battalion five ways, but not an under-strength company) but I think that it can be intelligently applied to keep as many players involved as possible with the inherent advantage of smaller-scales lending themselves to faster resolutions.

Potential downsides: some players may prefer larger PBEMs, naturally disparate results will tend towards the mean outcome (draw/minor victory for evenly matched sides) overall, there is no provision for mid-PBEM reserves, etc.

A second alternative would be placing forces within a very constrained map area and already in direct contact, generating an overage of fights of which players pick-and-choose the one they want to play out and which can be auto-resolved. The downside here is that how do you get both sides to agree and potentially making the operational layer superfluous to the whole thing if auto-resolved battles decide most operational matters.


I agree the map was much too big. The newer map will be smaller. I believe the old map was something like 88 x 39 hexes. The new map is 49 x 28 (see the WIP shot of it below) which I think will give the two teams room enough to move but small enough to close the gap to engage fairly quickly. Like you stated a trimmed down map is going to go a long way. I also agree with you about the "surrounded rule" and that definitely either needs to be reworked or thrown out all together.

BoK Map Re-Dux (WIP)
BoK%20Cut%20Small%20Wip%20copy_zpstjzuhmc3.png


I really like your "Supply" idea. It's something that I had thought about before but couldn't come up with a simple way of doing it. Your solution is straight to the point and will make it very easy to incorporate into the rule set.

Both the player generated forces and default Company point size is also something that I have been wrestling with in my head from day one. Trying to find a nice middle ground where the battles are not too small and not too large is difficult when every player has a different preference. I've also felt that players would grow more attached to units they command when they have had a hand in their creation versus being handled a stamped out vanilla company from the QB roster. Maybe I'm wrong and you guys just want to put warheads on foreheads! Lol! Please let me know because if you guys just want to brawl and don't care for the narrative aspect we can do that too (in many ways its much easier to manage).

You alternative ideas have merit but also several drawbacks as you have listed. I think with the slimmed down map many of the problems will go away due to the fact that you will be engaged rather quickly. I am also strongly considering to allow players to break up their companies into smaller units to maneuver around the map. I know we had talked about it before and I shot it down only because I wanted this to not get bogged down into both teams going from 6-8 companies to 20+ smaller units running around the map as well as getting stuck into unbalanced fights (PLT vs COY). I am aware of the benefits of doing this and it would take additional micro management on everyone's part but the greatest upside to it is the amount of flexibility it would give you to maneuver your forces on the map. I also think that imposing a maximum turn limit will "light the fire" under both teams to accomplish their mission and decrease that dancing around the map.

We will figure all this out and get the campaign to a more balance playable state than it was previously. We have some time before the patch comes out to iron out all the details. The added benefit of hosting the campaign here on TFGM is that we have access to not only the forums for easier communication but also a wealth of knowledge and experience with these types of campaign.

Mike
 
Both the player generated forces and default Company point size is also something that I have been wrestling with in my head from day one. Trying to find a nice middle ground where the battles are not too small and not too large is difficult when every player has a different preference. I've also felt that players would grow more attached to units they command when they have had a hand in their creation versus being handled a stamped out vanilla company from the QB roster. Maybe I'm wrong and you guys just want to put warheads on foreheads! Lol! Please let me know because if you guys just want to brawl and don't care for the narrative aspect we can do that too (in many ways its much easier to manage).

My personal preference is for battles are the far end of small, talking about something like one or two rifle platoons, supported by a tank section, some attached specialists and maybe a pair of medium or single heavy mortar. But that is probably a bit extreme for most.

I didn't quite understand what you had in mind with the units, to be honest. I thought it was supposed to the general basically deciding, after soliciting input from the players. I got some input, but no one came to me with anything like a shopping list so I had three standardized unit types, more or less based on the terrain I expected to fight across. And I planned on swapping around commanders based on who was available any given time. Oops.

I don't care all that much for the narrative aspect, but I'm not against those who are into it either. I just want some form of operational context to make stuff like reconnaissance forces, bold maneuver, loss-exchange ratios, logistics, etc. actually matter instead of the relentless grind to grab a VP and hold it even in the face of losing your entire force because...? A big part of real combat is knowing when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, but in CMx2, there really aren't many times when players are supposed to say, "Know what? This looks really bad, I'm not going to grind my force down over this."

We will figure all this out and get the campaign to a more balance playable state than it was previously. We have some time before the patch comes out to iron out all the details. The added benefit of hosting the campaign here on TFGM is that we have access to not only the forums for easier communication but also a wealth of knowledge and experience with these types of campaign.

Patch is out. APS Abrams are still the apex predators of the CMBS battlefield, but they aren't nearly as cheap in terms of rarity. As a counterbalance, American infantry costs might be a bit lower than before, I can't remember off the top of my head though.
 
My personal preference is for battles are the far end of small, talking about something like one or two rifle platoons, supported by a tank section, some attached specialists and maybe a pair of medium or single heavy mortar. But that is probably a bit extreme for most.

I didn't quite understand what you had in mind with the units, to be honest. I thought it was supposed to the general basically deciding, after soliciting input from the players. I got some input, but no one came to me with anything like a shopping list so I had three standardized unit types, more or less based on the terrain I expected to fight across. And I planned on swapping around commanders based on who was available any given time. Oops.

I don't care all that much for the narrative aspect, but I'm not against those who are into it either. I just want some form of operational context to make stuff like reconnaissance forces, bold maneuver, loss-exchange ratios, logistics, etc. actually matter instead of the relentless grind to grab a VP and hold it even in the face of losing your entire force because...? A big part of real combat is knowing when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, but in CMx2, there really aren't many times when players are supposed to say, "Know what? This looks really bad, I'm not going to grind my force down over this."



Patch is out. APS Abrams are still the apex predators of the CMBS battlefield, but they aren't nearly as cheap in terms of rarity. As a counterbalance, American infantry costs might be a bit lower than before, I can't remember off the top of my head though.

Sorry @Apocal for the late reply as I was gone this weekend for the big (let down) boxing match,

The more I tinker with and think about it the more I am leaning towards smaller unit engagements. (a few platoons with support assets) If we break open the COY's and let the players maneuver with their separate PLTs it will allow for greater operational flexibility.

With this I have also been thinking about a very different approach to the campaign. If we went with smaller units we could focus more intently on specific parts of the map (say the bridges in Kherson city) and have a branching "cause and effect" mission structure. The current rules set would need to be gutted (not a big deal) and I would need to sit down and hash out all the missions and how they would tie together via wins or losses. It would take time but could lead to a much simpler more focused campaign that ticks all the boxes for narrative, purpose, and ease of play. Also I don't think that we would do 13 missions like the example below but start with 8 instead. I would also need to figure out how to make this work for multiple players, not impossible but it would need some creative thought to work out. We could give each player a "mission" for their campaign turn battle. Each players mission is worth "X" amount of points, points determine if battle "1" is a win or loss and which way the campaign track moves the following week (either 2 or 3). At the end of the campaign you are going to be either fighting for Total Victory/Minor Defeat (battle 7) or Minor Victory/Major Defeat (battle 8).

Example
e32c82c16ebbcf733f9b5ef901ab085f-wingcommander-branching.png


Both you and Chris had very different approaches to your unit builds. Chris gave his men a 10K point cap to build their own COYs with some loose guidelines. The desire was, as you pointed out, to have each player build their own COY but like you said you received little to no response from your team so in the end you went ahead and created all of them.

Let me know what you think as any and all input is welcomed.


Mike
 
Last edited by a moderator:
After working some things out in my head this morning if we did go for the smaller more focused campaign the mission structure would be something similar to this. Keep in mind that I did not include "Assault" gametypes as the points disparity is much too great.

MissionStre601.png
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Been following you on this and have a suggestion. Noticed you mentioned somewhere about the concern on getting each participant a battle every turn. I have been with the OOC since it started and have to say Bootie runs it very well. But one thing that could possibly detract a participant away from the campaign is only getting one battle every other turn or so. Maybe if you made sure that ALL participants fought every round the excitement and participation would stick. You would have to juggle this depending on how many people were in on it. For example if you had 20 chits total (10 per side) and only six of those chits (3 from each side) ran into each other during the movement phase thus creating three battles. Well, if you had 10 participants playing (5 on each side) that would mean only 6 players would fight with the other 4 sitting out. I would suggest to allow everyone a battle by taking two of the battles and busting them down into two smaller ones. The two related battles would get scored as a combined battle with the total high score between the two getting the victory. Those two commanders would have the option to decide who gets what units for their individual battle from the chit involved. Make one map have a higher VP total than the other but also different terrain. They would have to converse to try and figure the best strategy to get the most combined points. This could be very difficult or easy depending on how many players and chits you have on the board but it may be a way to keep everyone involved ALL the time. No down time for any participants. Just a suggestion.
 
Been following you on this and have a suggestion. Noticed you mentioned somewhere about the concern on getting each participant a battle every turn. I have been with the OOC since it started and have to say Bootie runs it very well. But one thing that could possibly detract a participant away from the campaign is only getting one battle every other turn or so. Maybe if you made sure that ALL participants fought every round the excitement and participation would stick. You would have to juggle this depending on how many people were in on it. For example if you had 20 chits total (10 per side) and only six of those chits (3 from each side) ran into each other during the movement phase thus creating three battles. Well, if you had 10 participants playing (5 on each side) that would mean only 6 players would fight with the other 4 sitting out. I would suggest to allow everyone a battle by taking two of the battles and busting them down into two smaller ones. The two related battles would get scored as a combined battle with the total high score between the two getting the victory. Those two commanders would have the option to decide who gets what units for their individual battle from the chit involved. Make one map have a higher VP total than the other but also different terrain. They would have to converse to try and figure the best strategy to get the most combined points. This could be very difficult or easy depending on how many players and chits you have on the board but it may be a way to keep everyone involved ALL the time. No down time for any participants. Just a suggestion.

I suggested this a few days ago.
 
Back
Top Bottom