Dilemma

[Poor Old Spike]

When we play ladder opponents,how much should we advise and help them,or should we keep quiet?
For example if a guy is about to send an armour group into rocky ground,should I warn him its there and that it'll seriously slow him down or immob him almost like tanktrap dragons teeth would?
Rocky ground is notoriously difficult to see because its just a thin scattering of dark grey boulders (as opposed to easily-seen square patches of "Rough" ground),and I can see them because I'm using the "High Visibility Rocks" mod which makes them show up like whitish flakes of dandruff. Plus I set the SHIFT-N terrain elements to "extreme",to make them even more visible.
Perhaps my opponent needs to know all this,so should I tell him,or is there a WHQ house rule that forbids it?

[[nzn]]

I think it depends on how strong is your ambition for a victory and how self-assured are you. :smoke:

[Poor Old Spike]

Another good case in point is the first map in the King of the Steppes tourney,where 14 roadblocks can totally prevent the attacking armour from crossing the river.
It'd be unfair on any noobs who don't know that and bought a big armoured force only to see it stranded on their side of the river.
In his wisdom Gonzo has scrapped that map and substituted a slightly modified one,but now we might get noobs not knowing that defending pioneers can blow all the bridges with demo charges in the first couple of turns...
Call me an old softie,but I don't like to see noobs get hurt (insert my halo emoticon here)

[Palantir]

This "situation" (vet vs rookie) advantage was brought up almost immediately and a solution was requested.

One has been initiated lets see how it runs.

Palantir

[KG_Leopard]

Well, I played some days ago somebody who was new to the club and told me that he never played vs a human opponent before. I didn't told him what to do during the battle, but given him an after action critic when we were finished.
My opinion is, you can't learn the game by playing vs the PC. The PC can beat you sometimes, but nevertheless it's a poor opponent. The best and only way is experience with human opponents.

Like this thing on the (skipped) steppe tournament map. The computer would never blow the bridges - while this is the first thing to do in reality since acient times.

IRRC, when I purchased CM, I played only a few days to learn how to use the interface before I started my first H2H matches.

[Poor Old Spike]

Although I'm an ancient grog Saruman lookalike,I'm not implying I know every tiny detail of the game off by heart,as I had to dive for the manual and also do thorough forum searches etc to read up on roadblocks,and I also had to run a few hotseat exercises to check out whether shallow and deep fords are crossable by infantry and armour,and also find out pioneers demo-charge abilities against bridges,all of which took lots of time,which I fortunately have.
I just feel a bit guilty because other people might not have the time to do all that:)
However I'm always glad to pass it on, to clue people up if they need it.
And seeing tourney maps 1 and 2 are now scrapped, I can now broadcast that roadblocks are IMMOVABLE and can never be got rid of,thereby blocking all armoured traffic and don't necessarily have to be placed on roads. (Think long Berlin Walls virtually anywhere on the map,maybe house rule definitely needed to limit their purchase?..).
And re fords, armour can only cross the SHALLOW variety,but infantry can cross shallow AND deep. (By the way,the fords are wider than their graphic makes them look,allowing several tanks to cross in line abreast at once..)
I've already posted about Russki pioneers;basically they can throw demo charges up to 30 metres,just issue a "Target" order against a bridge or whatever and you'll see a "use explosives" message appear at the end of the targetting line as you mouse it around.Charges seem to be more effective against central bridge spans rather than nearer the bank.
5 or 6 charges will usually drop a lighter trellis-type bridge,but lots more will be needed against a masonry one.
One last point,although I've been wargaming for many years,I've only had cmbb about 10 months like most people,so we're all equal in that respect :)