You should not be able to move units between HQ's during deployment

[byzantine1990]

Just played the "Final Push" scenario Warsaw Pact. I set up my units, started the turn and.... I had M1 Abrams shooting up my deployment zone. Absolutely massacred my HQ and AA units. I closed out and looked at the NATO side and see the deployment zone for tanks is very far back naturally. It was only scout units that could deploy so far up.

This destroys the scenario balance if I can put my most powerful units into positions where they can hit deployment areas.

Also, maybe this scenario needs to be adjusted. Seems unfair to allow NATO to see into your deployment zone on turn 1.

[JacquesDeLalaing]

It would be perfectly fine if the possibility of altering OOB/deployment zones was borne in mind during scenario design.
In cases where it was probably not, however, it might strongly affect the balance of a scenario - as you've just experienced.
I can't add my own experiences for now. I've stopped playing until the big bugs get ironed out.

[altipueri]

Why should scenarios be balanced or fair?

Frankly, if you find yourself in a "fair fight" your strategy has failed.

[JacquesDeLalaing]

A scenario should have fair "victory conditions". Even an scenario that is intentionally militarily unbalanced can still have balanced victory conditions (e.g. if the victory conditions anticipate very one-sided casualties). If victory conditions are unblanaced, then it's a bad game and I wouldn't bother playing it. Why set up a game if I know my opponent will win anyway?

Also, a superior plan (that rewards you with advantages/unfairness over the opponent) should be based on tactics and comparing your plan with the opponent's plan. It should not be based on gamey exploits that the enemy is unable to counter. In a competitive game, both players need to have a base level of agency.

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But to be fair, I think that the deployment issue can be house-ruled quite easily. Non-functionable SOP settings (only one "standoff range" and "dismount at" setting per unit, not per waypoint; and this single setting cannot be be altered retroactively), the move hasty exploit (delay always 10 min), unwanted deviations from planned routes and Fog of War-inconsistencies are the elephant in the room right now.

[byzantine1990]

Why should scenarios be balanced or fair?

Frankly, if you find yourself in a "fair fight" your strategy has failed.

Nothing is wrong with a scenario that's skewed to one side or the other. There's fun to be had defending against an overwhelming opponent and seeing how long you last.

The problem is game mechanics messing with scenario design. If I can put my most powerful units into your deployment zone and have them blasting away at HQ units is that fun?

In this scenario. All of my scout units were destroyed before they could get moving. How is that fun?

[Kilo59]

Why should scenarios be balanced or fair?

Frankly, if you find yourself in a "fair fight" your strategy has failed.

PBEM play, at a minimum?

[byzantine1990]

Why should scenarios be balanced or fair?

Frankly, if you find yourself in a "fair fight" your strategy has failed.

PBEM play, at a minimum?

I hope we can agree there is a difference between fair and balanced.

A scenario can be skewed to advantage one or the other side. The trick is seeing how well you can do with stacked odds but your skill is what matters.

Fair is when the opponent uses a loophole that gives them an advantage and the outcome is out of your hands. Like being able to shoot your opponent in their deployment zone turn 1.

[blackcloud6]

Properly analyzing the mission and task organizing appropriately is proper planning. Why would we want to take that away?

Now there could limits imposed such as not allowing 6 M1A1 platoon to be placed under a company HQ just to get all of them forward into an advantageous position.

[kevinkins]

"If I can put my most powerful units into your deployment zone and have them blasting away at HQ units is that fun?"

Is this true? No wargame, PC or board, would allow this. Are there ways a designer can prevent this like exclusion zones?
Maybe there was a simple oversite allowing access to the deployment zone. I have to be missing something here.

[WABAC]

Was the OP playing against the AI or a human?

Seems to me the game is pretty well dedicated to cross-attaching units to form combined-arms teams in order to exploit any advantage or opportunity. That being the case, does the game adequately model span of control? Sure, one unit may be able to deploy forward. But how many sub-units can it control well?

It's issues like this I love about the game. It's what I think about when I think about plans. as much as I ever do that.

This seems to me like a complaint with the scenario designer rather than the game system. Jump in and mod the scenario to suit your druthers.

What frustrates me is displacing units acting like they have toxoplasmosis--the parasite that makes mice attack cats.

[CapnDarwin]

Should you be able to resubordinate forces? Yes, you should. Should the deployment zones be so close that it causes a "spawn camping" effect? No, you should not. We will be reviewing this issue and making adjustments to scenarios not to have "minute one" contact as can happen in the noted scenario. Thanks for pointing out the issue.

[CapnDarwin]

As for the "Balanced and Fair" point, we can use the system to build unbalanced, but fairly scored scenarios for either side. It is quite possible to have one platoon fight a regiment and win the battle by doing enough damage to the attacking force to score a win. That was a core design tenant of the system.

[kevinkins]

We will be reviewing this issue and making adjustments to scenarios not to have "minute one" contact as can happen in the noted scenario.

Any idea how many scenarios where this can be an issue? Maybe this one scenario is a "corner case".

[CapnDarwin]

Not sure on how many. We will be looking at all of them.

[cbelva]

First, Task organizing before a battle is a valid command action. Commanders and their staff organize in their planning to accomplish their mission. We will not be getting rid of task organizing during setup.

Second, This issue is my oversight for the most part. It never entered my thinking that a player would take advantage and do something like placing his line units underneath the Recon HQ. This would never be done in real life. This is on me. If I was playing such as player and realized that he had done that, I would immediately end the game and never play the person again. But that's just me.

Third, I'm surprise that this never came up in Red Storm. In Red Storm there was just one setup zone for all your units. They were not broken up by formation. You could virtually move any unit anywhere within the setup zone.

Fourth, This problem can be solved in most scenarios where it exists by making some adjustments to the scenario setup areas.

Fifth, This exploit would in reality would hurt the player in the long run. Recon HQs have very limited command range. Which means when the player tries to move the unit, it will run into extreme movement penalties and would be unable to resupply if outside the command range.

Sixth, There is one scenario that I know of where correctly to setup zone would not be possible. Part of the design of the scenario is that the recon has eyes overlooking the area where the enemy will be coming from. It is part of the design and to move the recon would hurt the scenario. For that reason, we are looking at ways to eliminate the players ability to use this exploit.

[byzantine1990]

First, Task organizing before a battle is a valid command action. Commanders and their staff organize in their planning to accomplish their mission. We will not be getting rid of task organizing during setup.

Second, This issue is my oversight for the most part. It never entered my thinking that a player would take advantage and do something like placing his line units underneath the Recon HQ. This would never be done in real life. This is on me. If I was playing such as player and realized that he had done that, I would immediately end the game and never play the person again. But that's just me.

Third, I'm surprise that this never came up in Red Storm. In Red Storm there was just one setup zone for all your units. They were not broken up by formation. You could virtually move any unit anywhere within the setup zone.

Fourth, This problem can be solved in most scenarios where it exists by making some adjustments to the scenario setup areas.

Fifth, This exploit would in reality would hurt the player in the long run. Recon HQs have very limited command range. Which means when the player tries to move the unit, it will run into extreme movement penalties and would be unable to resupply if outside the command range.

Sixth, There is one scenario that I know of where correctly to setup zone would not be possible. Part of the design of the scenario is that the recon has eyes overlooking the area where the enemy will be coming from. It is part of the design and to move the recon would hurt the scenario. For that reason, we are looking at ways to eliminate the players ability to use this exploit.

Glad to see a response to this. This was actually one of the battleplans that the scenario designer set up so it was a shock to have an M1 Abrams shooting up my spawn area.

I should have phrased the original title better. As long as you can't move a unit beyond it's default deployment area I'm fine.

[cbelva]

That is totally different. Can you tell me which Battle Plan it was??? You can't task organize Battle Plans at this time. Also, do you have a saved of the setup of that game you can send me?

[cbelva]

I realized you were playing against BP 3. I made a slight adjustment to it. That should solve your issue. Tanks can no longer look down into your setup zone.