CMx2 FR: battle difficulty rating

[Steiner14]

With the (much) increased realism of CMx2 (what i can see so far from the bones), historically accurate battles become more and more interesting (at least for me).
But who wants to play battles one side is most probably going to lose anyway?
Not much. And the available scenarios reflect that.
And why?
Because we always expect balanced battles.
When battles are played, now we always have in mind, they are more or less balanced and if someone loses, he was simply the weaker player.
This automatically leads the scen. designers to make almost only balanced battles (and they have to waste hours of hours to get the balance right, although the battle is already much fun, exciting and historically accurate).
The BALANCE rating at TSD even strenghtened this view that good battles need to be balanced.

With CMx2 i hope to see a much wider range of difficulty and especially more hard to win battles.
To get away from this "a scenario must be balanced" myth, it would be nice, if CMx2 would allow the scenario designer to give the battle a rating.
From very easy to almost impossible to win.
Or something similar.

Then we would not only get a much broader variety of battles, but also experienced players could play against beginners, by choosing the appropriately rated battle.

Ofcourse there should be the possibility for the designer, not to rate it and to keep people believing, it were balanced like it is now...

[ August 28, 2005, 08:59 AM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

[JasonC]

Well, I have no such expectation. I am perfectly capable of making my own assessments of any tactical task presented, as to how hard or easy it is, and I do not remotely expect designers to only show me ones with even chances.

[aka_tom_w]

I like the idea there there my be a field for "Balance Rating" or difficulty to win in the scenario line data in the scenario viewer..

It could be a difficulty rating but I would rather see something that would indicate the balance or the balance factor or something to give you some kind of idea of what was in the scenario before you try to play it.

Same with some kind of note or notation that would indicate some battles are better played from this side or that side against the AI or they are design for human vs human play.

I would like to know all that BEFORE I open up the scenario.

Its not a bad suggestion.

-tom w

[Cpl Steiner]

Some possible solutions: -

1. Hold out as long as you can: This would represent the sort of battle in which a rear guard is completely overwhelmed but can win the scenario if they buy enough time for their mates to escape destruction. You can in theory do this now by simply putting enough flags in the defender's area and reducing the scenario length such that they can still win if they prevent the enemy from taking all the flags by scenario end, regardless of losses.

2. Take as many with you as possible: This would represent a battle in which you are completely cut off and face certain destruction, but can still achieve a moral victory by causing the enemy a lot of casualties (a bit like Arhnem). You an do this now, by simply giving the weaker side a Victory Point Bonus.

Another Point: Campaign Mode. We know this will be included in CMx2. I used to play pen and paper campaigns and deliberately make the AI enemy a walkover, to represent well-planned attacks in which you are guaranteed to win, but don't want to lose valuable men and materiel you may need next battle. Lets face it, in a typical campaign, you would hope that most of the attacks your side mounts have been well enough planned that you have a better than average chance of victory.