NP1 D-Day to Caen

[Baron von Snafu]

Interesting solution but not sure if the cure is worse than the disease Sgt. Bilko. I agree that the worst handled aspect of the CM series is their treatment of inter-round operations. But your concerns is the least of the issues. As the designers themselves say, the inter round gaps are half an hour to an hour, and since the German reserve battalion starting at the back of the map can get to the front lines in under 20 minutes, it seems pretty ridiculous to say no one can move a foot in an hour. In NP1's case, we have 9 x 25 min rounds or 225 minutes in total, 3 and 3/4 hours of combat in a 14 hour day battle (5am to 7pm). Thus the inter-round periods are actually over an hour each.

It also leads to REALLY gamey behaviour like in Round 2 when I get my TRPs you can be guaranteed they are going exactly where your troops ended last turn, followed by the dumping of my 105 and 150 mm shells on their thus entirely destroying your round 2 advance before it even starts (I'm happy to be Germany by the way). Totally ahistorical which will lead to a silly result in game terms.

Finally it is unenforceable, and any rule that is unenforceable is pointless. Someone could move a unit unintentionally and then has no way of getting it back to where they had it except by wiping out their whole move and redoing it. In the NP series, some turns take 2 hours (average half hour to an hour), so its a bit harsh to force someone to redo everything just because of a mistake.

I'm happy with the designers zen on this point, that both sides have run low on ammo by the end of the round, the fire slackens, everybody notices it and starts to wriggle back to reload before resuming hostilities. This waxing and waning of combat is a common phenomena through history (not just WWII) and although I agree their system is simple and allows more flexibility than historical, yours is simple and allows none. It is already harsh enough that front line units often don't get resupplied without forcing them to stay their for another hammering (and their lack of supply forces you to set them up out of the action in the next round anyway). So no, I wouldn't play any scenario with that house rule. In CMAK, if anything it is the lack of flexibility in set up that destroys scenarios and ops, not too much.

The worst problem is their silly system of throwing back the defenders from good defensive positions between rounds virtually irrespective of the position in the game that is far more ahistoric. Its a particular problem because of their averaging so that if you can get a small group to the edge of the map in one part, means you advance a km or more across the map. Hopeless.

And the solution is so easy. You do what CIV does and put a ZOC around units (CIV does it around cities), say 250 metres for a tank, big gun or spotter, 100 metres for a small gun/mortar, and 50 metres for an ant (or however you want to define them), all of which are modified by weather AND most critically, does not extend across unbridged rivers. Then if you have competing zocs (e.g. a tank and enemy ant within 300 metres of each other) you work out the boundary by taking more of the gap from the weaker unit than the stronger (in this case 5 metres off the ants zoc for each metre off the tanks zoc). Each unit always gets its 25 x 25 sq metre space as a minimum but even there units might be moved by a bit if that would mean 2 opposing units would be in the same 25 metres.

This would lead to a much more flowing front line that would be more historic and would still leave the defenders in place to fight the next round. Most importantly it wouldn't give you free flying over every river, the most RIDICULOUS aspect that occurs in all the CM series. In CMAK you never need to attack across a river, just move up to the edge and have a nap until the end of the round and then fly over next round when the CMAK God decides you deserve another 500 metres that just happens to include the Rhine (as I say absolutely absurd).

But the CM series has only been around for 10 years and the designers saw fit to stop at 1.03 with this nonsense still in place, so until the CM designers get back to game design and do the Pacific (can't wait for the caves on Mt. Suribachi) the house rule WE play is that no unit can be set up across a river until it has physically moved across (unless the map itself scrolls past the river which often happens when the attackers have a picnic in the bends of the river allowing the map lurch to get you halfway to Berlin leaving the river long behind). Of course if you don't want to play with that house rule, no worries happy to play as the designers appear to have intended, with the Rhine as a minor irritant rather than a serious military obstacle.

As to the AT gun, it is out of its zone, but if you notice it is not locked, it is red based so if you want to move it you can place it anywhere in the red zone instead. I recognise that they probably meant for it to be in the white zone but it only has 25 ap shots and I have no tanks, the red zone gives it more places to set up and it will be dead by the 5th minute whereever you have it. It normally wouldn't matter but I have just spent several weeks concocting the 'perfect' German setup and it would be an awful lot of effort for one useless at gun (you do have another 22 platoons and 17 tanks after all).

NP1 is a op that the Germans should initiate because it takes 20 times longer (and in my case 50 times longer) to do the German set up than the Allies and if you want to replay it you don't want to have to re-do everything from scratch. The allies on the other hand only take half an hour to an hour as its more or less a case of stuff the bottle where they are concerned.

So if you insist on those two conditions I'll have to decline I'm afraid. One reason I want to play it again is that I feel I have done so badly in my set up against Walkure (and to give him credit, his set up was brilliant, one of those where you first look at it you think what a fool but when you actually try to target anything you quickly work out who the fool is and it isn't walkure) that I want to redeem myself in the next round, and having to re-do the German set up will take forever I'm afraid (cos I ain't changing all that micro-managing now).

Regards
BvS