Slitherine

With all but one game done from the last round, I think we can go ahead and proceed to Round 5.

Round 5: Winter Village
(Axis player listed first)
Acererak vs. Arminius
CharlyG vs. SailingGuy
Sleet vs. thesharpend
shawnt63 vs. PirateJock
LOGAN5 vs. Crestone
junk2drive vs. hidde

As in previous rounds, the Axis player should set up the game and PM the password to his Allied opponent.

Game created & PM sent!

Thanks SailingGuy for all the setup!

Salute.

Has anyone here purchased Blitzkrieg France and then gotten an error message when playing MP scenarios other than those in Blitzkrieg France? I'm discussing this problem with Pip and wondered if anyone else has experienced this?

Not me, sorry.

I have the expansion and had not tech problems whatsoever.

Hope you fix it!

Cheers

No issues like that... maybe try uninstall and reinstall?

Thanks for the responses -- Pip & I are now beginning a test play of a scenario where this problem about "script" incompatibility came up, so hopefully we'll sort it out.

More two weeks and no news from thesharpend. We've only finished turn 2 in the Along the road scenario and my opponent was out of town for 10 days during holidays.
I hope he has no problem.

I admit to being a crappy player but this Winter Village appears to be the most unbalanced battle I have yet to play. 11 turns remaining and it is over for the Axis.

junk2drive wrote:I admit to being a crappy player but this Winter Village appears to be the most unbalanced battle I have yet to play. 11 turns remaining and it is over for the Axis.

I can sympathize with you, Junk, and I'd have to say there are quite a few scenarios that are very tilted towards one side or the other. One of the basic issues is flag placement which often allows one side or the other to quickly seize a winning number of flags & then set up defensively, making it very tough (although not always impossible) for the de facto attackers.

One solution would be to have a nice little map generator (such as Combat Mission has). You pick the concentration of terrain features - hills, forest, towns, etc. - the weather conditions, the year of the war. You decide how many unit purchase points the two sides will have -
pick your units from a list appropriate to the theatre and year, deploy them in a zone on your side of the map, and away you go.

I played a lot of those against human opponents and I think the set ups allowed both sides a very even chance at victory. It also eliminates the edge that one gets by already being very familiar with the map. Both players are seeing the terrain for the first time.

Combat Mission doesn't use an I go - you go turn system. Instead it's I plan - you plan - we go. In other words, three phases for a "turn."
In the first two phases, each side plots movement and/or fire and in the third phase, all results are resolved simultaneously. It's a very cool system in many ways.

I like BA a lot, but for MP play, and especially for such things as this little tournament we are having, a map generator along the lines I described would improve things greatly. Wonder what Slitherine would think of such a thing.

hidde vs junk2drive

Allied
Kills: 22 = 44
Flags: 7 = 70 (it's seven,right?)
Loss: 2 = -6
Win: = 30
Total: 138

Axis
Kills: 2 = 4
Flags: 0 = 0
Loss: 22 = -66
Total: 0

The casualty number for me is partly explaind by the fact that junk apparently wanted it over with and stopped moving or shooting after turn 5.
When it comes to balance...well, I know it's winnable with both sides without the flags. This is the first time I play with flags and I think at least one is poorly placed.
The flag on the Germans left flank should be placed in the woods and not on the road in front of it. Then at least both sides would have three flags that could easily be taken from the outset.

Correct, I gave up. Zero is zero and I wasn't going to waste my time. I have never played this battle or this map.

junk2drive wrote:Correct, I gave up. Zero is zero and I wasn't going to waste my time. I have never played this battle or this map.

That's true but perhaps we should consider the feelings of the others I'm competing with the other allied players. I think you could have caused me at least 20pts more in the negative. It might not matter in the end in this tournament but if it were close it certainly would.
It's feeling a bit slow here...how are the other games progressing? Is thesharpend back?

I had one PZIV left when I gave up. Since you are so good at bleeding off op-fire with the M5, then the Sherman, then kill with the M10, I was afraid to come out in the open. I was also hoping that the unused shots might help with op-fire.
I doubt that I would have outright destroyed anything. That is the only points change. You still would have rolled over the rest of my forces.

I surrendered the match, 10 more turns to go and nothing but a few infantry left, not worth another week of back and forth.

So what is the score that is supposed to result from the surrender?

From the first post in this thread ...

SailingGuy wrote: NO SURRENDERS ARE ALLOWED as this skews the scoring system. Please play out each scenario until the bitter end.

If a player drops out during a game, his opponent in that game will score a number of points equal to the average number of points (rounded up) scored by all members of his flight for that round. However, if the remaining player can demonstrate that he has already scored more points (when his opponent of dropped out) than he would have received using the Averaging Method, he scores the higher number of points.

Not sure if the averaging applies to surrenders or only players dropping out the competition.

Just started my game against shawnt63 so the night is, as they say, still young

Not wanting to give shawnt63 any ideas but is there any merit in the Axis grabbing the easy flag(s) and digging in to wait for the Allies to attack? Not so much trying to win the map, more damage limitation ... and you never know an opening might develop for counterattack.

Cheers

PirateJock wrote:
Not wanting to give shawnt63 any ideas but is there any merit in the Axis grabbing the easy flag(s) and digging in to wait for the Allies to attack? Not so much trying to win the map, more damage limitation ... and you never know an opening might develop for counterattack.

I think you might be in the right path, young Padawan...Actually, if not for some very silly moves on my side that cost me two tanks (including my Panther), the outcome of this battle could have been very different for the Axis in my case.


Regarding the SURRENDERS, they are indeed not allowed precisely because they might tweak the results as we are competing not just agains the other flight, but against our very own. I understand is a bit frustrating to keep going when everything seems lost, but lets have some fair play and die with honor, boys.

In this case I will consult with SailingGuy, but I think we will give Crestone the average points of his flight round as stated in the tournament rules, unless he can prove (maybe with his opponent confirmation) that he could have got more points (maybe if Win + All flags result in more points?).

When we all signed on for the tournament, we all agreed in effect to honor the rules that we all had a part in creating. I can understand the frustration of getting wiped out in a scenario that is not perfectly balanced. I think we all have been in that position -- look at the first two desert rounds. War is hell goes the cliche, and I reckon we ought to put up with that aspect as well as the sweet fruits of victory.

As far as this last scenario goes, my tally at the point of Logan5's surrender was:

6 flags = 60
20 kills = 40
3 losses = -9
victory = 30

Total = 121

[/b]BUT, as I think Logan5 would agree, with so many turns remaining, the Allies would certainly have taken the last flag. It is also highly likely the remaining Axis units would have been killed, and very possibly with no further losses to the Axis (my reasoning being that during the earlier stages of the battle, when the Axis were at full strength, and most capable of inflicting damage, only 3 Allied units were lost.) I hope Logan5 will give his opinion.

In any case, this may be a moot point as Hidde almost certainly will be the Allied victor regardless of how the final battle turns out.

Crestone I agree with you, that is why i surrendered. No chance to hold the flags and nothing to do but hide in the woods.

Thanks for your response, Logan.

So my question remains -- how is this to be scored?