Slitherine

You have your tank behind cover. Move one tile forward and you know that Tiger gonna shot. There isn't really any other way to go.
A couple of times in this situation I've taken a poor lorry and sent it forward to a certain death just to get the other tank to get a round off.
If the enemy tank don't shoot, you can always let the bait dance back and forward one tile at the time untill it does.
As long as their morale is over 50% they happily do whatever I tell them
Well, it feels gamey to me and I will try to refrain from doing it again

Unfortunately it's really difficult to avoid situations like this in computer games. When sitting round a wargames table with friends you wouldn't dare do such a thing without risking being called a bad sport or even a cheat, so why do it just because your opponent isn't in the same room?

In the Close Combat series I watched opponents save a half track or a jeep until the last moments of a game and then grab a victory location with it, or send a half track down a main road defended by enemies to grab a victory location which they could cover from long range with machine guns and AT guns. They won games because they held victory locations, but actually they held nothing, they used game mechanisms to twist the outcome of a battle.

It seems to be standard practise these days for people to yell at developers to patch games to stop people doing such things, I would suggest that we play within the spirit of the game a little more and avoid the outrageous.

Hello Amaz!
I just posted on the FOG forum asking if it's only me that play BA.
And here you are as an answer to my question Up for a game?
I would say you are right about gamey tactics. Best and simplest way is if we all avoid it.

This is not gamey, this is "strategy". It's a "gamey" game and not a realistic simulation. Tactics, like you describe, are all part of the game.

Fortunatley in about 12 MP games up to now with different opponents I've not come across such gamey tactics. Seems like a good crowd.

While it is gamey, and maybe even useful under specific conditions, I caution against using trucks as useless items.

Transport isn't actually useless. Just because it isn't a massively armoured gun platform doesn't mean it's useless.

I've won some fights all because MY infantry got there first.

Is it possible the battle win conditions could also deter this kind of move?

DSWargamer wrote:While it is gamey, and maybe even useful under specific conditions, I caution against using trucks as useless items.

Transport isn't actually useless. Just because it isn't a massively armoured gun platform doesn't mean it's useless.

I've won some fights all because MY infantry got there first.

Wish I could say the same. My very first and only game included tactics such as this. I refuse to use them, though.

My first game of chess included tactics such as pawn sacrifice. I was cool with that.

We did talk about it in the beta, but personally I agree that 'wasting' your fast transport capacity is somewhat foolish. And as has been said, it's also a very hard mechanic to prevent inside the game logic.

Cheers

Pip

pipfromslitherine wrote:We did talk about it in the beta, but personally I agree that 'wasting' your fast transport capacity is somewhat foolish. And as has been said, it's also a very hard mechanic to prevent inside the game logic.

Cheers

Pip

I aggree, it's foolish if done, lets say the first half of a battle but towards the end you often can waste a couple of transports.
But I understand it's almost impossible to prevent other than by "gentlemens aggreement"
Opinions differ but to me things like this makes the immersion factor suffer. To me that's an important factor...

Well sure. But then I find that I cannot get particularly immersed in anything if I always have to worry about breaking whichever house rules my enemy might have made up. Opinions differ and that.

Any suggestions are of course welcome - we have reduced their LOS distance so they are no use for scouting really. They are also pretty flimsy so will only soak up one shot.

Maybe we could make any shots on empty, unarmed trucks free?

Cheers

Pip

Nothing gamey about sending your trucks in on a suicide mission to draw fire, both sides can do this if they want so it really gives no advantage. I don't think we should be putting in a bunch of house rules, it reminds me of the "no camping" rules in FPS games its part of the game.

LOGAN5 wrote:Nothing gamey about sending your trucks in on a suicide mission to draw fire, both sides can do this if they want so it really gives no advantage. I don't think we should be putting in a bunch of house rules, it reminds me of the "no camping" rules in FPS games its part of the game.

I agree. Please, no free shots!

I really wasn't suggesting that there should be house rules. I like to play games with people that enjoy the game the way I do. That's enough.

@hidde: Yep, I haven't played a multi-player game yet, but I would be happy for my first to be with you!

Any suggestions are of course welcome - we have reduced their LOS distance so they are no use for scouting really. They are also pretty flimsy so will only soak up one shot.

Perhaps just making sure scenarios have only a limited amount of "useless" trucks is enough. So if you use them for distraction you'll sacrifise your mobility (of infantry & static weapons).

We are writing about soft transport I hope. I find the hard transport like a Bren Carrier is useful sometimes against infantry and I will use them for such but trucks I just get them behind cover in case I need them later. I just don't like those unsightly burned out hulks littering my battlefield.

When sitting round a wargames table with friends you wouldn't dare do such a thing without risking being called a bad sport or even a cheat, so why do it just because your opponent isn't in the same room?

Well, the wargames table with my friends always involves exploiting every trick in the book.

Every 'game' has it's exploits. I think because it is a lot of stuff being run by the computer, we might tend to think it is more the gamey than it might be in say a board game.

But I've played board games in the past, and if you reeeeeally new the design well, you could get some fairly annoying effects in.