Rules Question

[Von Brownhoffen]

I was wondering what the general rule was on this site concerning removing transports(or any unit for that matter) during a game voluntarily(using the remove unit button).I thought I saw something on this once but cant find it and am hoping some vets can let me know.

Von Brownhoffen.

[Scorched Earth]

Hi, in general it is not considered sporting if for example your opponent has cornered your soft or hard vehicles (or infantry) and you exit them from the board thereby denying your opponent points. So watch your flanks!

Hope that helps

Scorched Earth

[PaK man]

To elaborate on Scorchie's excellent reply, you're going to have to decide with your opponent beforehand if removing such soft vehicles is acceptable before you get down to the fighting...

As a rule of thumb, I exit all my soft vehicles the first chance I get, and up 'till now, haven't run across anybody who has objected to that practise. My own opinion here is that quite frankly, if you want to leave the things on, by all means, I'll be delighted to take them off your mind. Usually though, if an opponent has gotten into your rear areas and is truck hunting, he's more than likely going to find far better targets than the soft vehicles to shoot at.

The other side of that argument though, can be tricky, and one that Scorchie addressed in his reply. Exiting fighting vehicles and units would irritate me to no end...particularily if I needed to kill the exiting vehicle to put me over into "major victory" territory. Denying points to your opponent through evasion, guile, and good defensive tactics is one thing, using a quirk of the program to accomplish the same is just poor sportsmanship.

I'm not sure if there's a hard and fast rule that exists which you can refer to, but failing that, if you're in the habit of exiting fighting vehicles when things go south on you, I'd be sure to clear that with your opponent before you play him.

IMHO, of course...

Darrin

[Major Major]

two good replies. one exception where i think you can definately remove units is when you have a battle with 'Exit Objectives' (shown as a '?' in a oval objective marker.

(Ray: hint, hint ;) )

here, your objective is to remove units. as your opponent will have an objective of stopping this exit, it can be dangerous to move soft targets to these exits and the question of whether to exit hard/infantry targets for points is balanced by the problem of having fewer 'escort' to assist weaker units.

[Big Ivan]

I disagree on the option of not using this rule!

Transports and soft vehicles have very low life expectancy in any of the scenarios. They virtually add nothing to the game except giving points to your opponent. If your trying to win a game why would one leave points on the board?! That sounds absurd to me.

Take for example "Where the Iron Crosses Grow" The Hun is out numbered 4 or better to one in this scenario and 2/3 of the objectives can be reached in 5 turns out of 16. To not give the Soviets a major victory the German has to exit material! On the flip side the Soviets have to watch their own losses and not blindly charge across the open like so many opponents I've faced.

I think the practice of exiting is acceptable because it forces the better side to play better in the opening by move and finese. In real combat do units stick around to take more punishment? No. They get the heck out of there or become badly routed or worse captured. Which brings me to another point. Unit routing. It would be nice if somehow through the use of the unit moral, combat units could be routed. In turn if this would happen objective points would go up by an undisclosed percentage.

[PaK man]

I agree with you right up to the point where you began to make comparisons to real combat.

If this was real combat, a routed unit...or any unit for that matter, if it was beaten to the point of near destruction wouldn't be able to escape complete destruction by flying off the landscape, thus making it utterly out of reach to the opposing side.

I further agree with you that soft transport has basically no use on the battlefield after it's done it's job of getting troops to the fight...exit them if you want to, keep them at your own risk. But removing combat units...units with offensive capability, simply because someone wants to deny those points to their opponent, means that they've used a convenient feature of the program to salvage a situation that their poor play got them into in the 1st place.

I understand your logic of course...if one player played that well, it wouldn't matter how many units his opponent exited, the better player will win every time. But what about opponents of roughly the same level of skill?, Or what if a rookie has a good day and gets the veteran on the ropes and has found himself a T-34 away from taking the game from a draw to a minor victory?

I'm not sure about you, but if I were that rookie, and my victory was denied me because the veteran beat me in a race to the edge of the map, I'd feel more than just a little cheated.


If a player performed that well against his opponent, why should he be cheated out of the possibility of total victory, simply because the way of getting to that total victory was denied him by units fleeing to the side of the map, and disappearing?

Darrin

[Scorched Earth]

More interesting thoughts. I agree with Darrin on the combat units. In a game i am playing now i had to accept the loss of some King Tigers who were cornered on the edge of the board with no where to go unless i exited them. As this game is teetering on the edge of a draw it would have been extremely unfair to deny my opponent the points. Regarding soft transport, i think that again the best way out of this is a prior agreement between players on what is acceptable re exiting - without forgetting this is meant to be fun.

cheers

Scorchie

[Warhorse]

My personal opinion would be to indeed discuss it with or opponent, and designate your rear-most edge, preferably a road hex, as the exit point to then remove them from combat. It would totally rely on the honesty of both players, of course, to not just 'beam' them out once out of sight of the enemy!!

[Big Ivan]

All very good points gentlemen. But the fact of the matter is I play the game to win, I think we all do and to do that I think its legal to use every option within the system. Its called playing the game as its presented. Granted its a cheap way out but in a lopsided scenario its an option to save face if you will if not for anyone else but yourself.

It is definately a controversial option within the engine that is debatable both ways no matter how you swing it.

This is why I think there maybe needs to be improvement to the original battle system. But unfortunately TS in its wisdom forgot to explore the "what if". You have to admit it would be really cool that if you exited your units combat or otherwise you would be penalized somehow in the final tally.

thanks!:)

[Scorched Earth]

Nice thought on the engine change. Does anyone know if there is a planned re-issue/upgrade for EFII by Talonsoft?

Scorchie

[Warhorse]

Unfortunately, no. I believe it is no longer supported, and is 'as is' basis now. Maybe one of the folks that know programming, and have already done some tweaking, will be able to track the routines down, and do something brilliant with it!?

[Mister Lawrence]

I would not put any faith on Talonsoft making any other changes in the CS games. The games are old, and IMO the design team at Talonsoft is no more. It is even very hard for me to get technical advice from those folks, and they try to cater to gaming clubs.

The fact the the CS games are still of interest testifies to the success of the game design,

However, because of the limitations of the game design, players often "agree" to certain rules to compensate for the limitations. I do not know of anyone who plays Combat Mission for example who would run an empty truck down the road for recon. Matter of fact, I am not sure if I have ever seen a truck on a Combat Mission battlefield. Combat Mission forces a player to use common sense. In CS you can avoid using common sense and block or recon with a truck. As mentioned, you are just giving points to your opponent. I myself have won several close games because all of sudden transports pop up in view and raise my score. Good rule of thumb, do what you would really do on a battlefield.....and if you are playing someone you have not played before, get a little agreement in advance.

If anyone plays me ...PLEASE send those trucks and half tracks toward my lines :D I am going to keep mine out of sight.

[Arctic Fox]

What about HQ units? In one of the games I am currently playing (A Tough Nut to Crack) the Germans have happily over run my position and reduced my offensive units to a few fixed guns. All I've really got left are various motorised HQ's which I ran at full speed to the edge of the map with the intent of bailing out while my valiant heavy machine gun teams stayed back to give them time to escape.

Since the destruction of the HQ's will net my opponent a good 80 or so points, and they're about to be caught in a very nasty Stug III and Panzer IV pincer manouver, what can I do? It would seem crazy to leave them there to die. If I had more map, I would just keep running and running until I eventually caught up with some other allied tanks to help sort out my panzer problem (or ran out of continent...hmm, time to play battle of the bulge methinks).

--Arctic Fox

[Wolf]

Arctic Fox, you just hit the nail on the head with this one - "If I had more map".... The scenario's provided by Talonsoft only show the actual combat area, often forcing people into following History. The only answer to this is to design scenario's with bigger maps, giving players more options.

[Mister Lawrence]

I would not exit a HQ unit. The "more map theory" would not hold since a slow HQ would be run down anyway. It would be like a Chess King trying to outrun a Queen.

Besides , if there are enemy tanks that far into your rear, and your HQs are unprotected, off hand, I would say the battle is not going well.

[Arctic Fox]

Talk about an understatement. The game has developed into 'Catch the HQ', while my divisional and battalion command sections go running about with Panzer IV's and Panzergrenadiers snapping at their heels. I can probably keep it up for another two or three turns, but the game goes for another ten :)

--Arctic Fox

[John Paul]

Not that it really matters,but are there any units assigned to those HQ's still left?

About the trucks,let me just say that i haven't played many games against human opponents,but i know when i have a transport or HQ unit on the ropes and the PO exits them i tend to feel a tad bit cheated.Also if your on the offensive by removing your transport your denying yourself a valuable assest.True they should be used to get your forces near the front then ,at least i do this,withdrawn to a safe enough distance to still reload troops if a breakthrough or more urgent situation calls for a fast response.Infantry and guns are just to slow not to have transport avaliable,though i do tend to play the larger scale maps.

[Mister Lawrence]

If you are going to use the transport there is no need to exit them, just pull them back to safety.

[Arctic Fox]

Nope...there was about 80 VP's worth of Battalion, Divisional and Regimental HQ's that all got blowed up real good.

--Azrael