marc420
Posts: 224
Joined: 9/23/2002
From: Terrapin Station
Status: offline
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Hi,
I'm probably not the person to try to respond to this, because I've been playing games at this scale since before the PC was invented (old AH titles like Battle of the Bulge and Afrika Korps might ring a bell to old hands).
So, I wasn't iniatially confused with this game. I did have at least a general idea of how to approach it. However I'll be glad to add a few suggestions.
1) Someone mentioned the AARs both here and at Run5. Those are fun reading, at least to me. And they should give you an excellent idea of how a game progresses.
2) These tend to be some of the friendliest forums I've encountered. Especially the one's over at Run5. Feel free to ask questions and I'd bet you get some friendly help
3) Take one of the smaller scenarios and start playing it against the AI. At first you'll make mistakes. But you'll see how the AI hurts you for those mistakes. And then it'll start to be obvious of how not to do that again.
4) Most of the action happens at the scale of a few kms, and maybe 1 division, maybe several involved in an attack. Scaling from a big Combat Mission battle up to that scale is a jump, but not that big of a jump. So maybe look at some defenders and think how you'd like to attack them in CM. Do you want one big force coming up the road in a bunch or a column, or would you want your attackers to attack from various directions (ie the flanks)? To me, I'd rather have groups attacking from different directions in CM, and KP gives an attack bonus for attacking from more hexes. In CM, do you want artillery support for your attack. In KP, you get attack bonuses for artillery in range and committed to the attack. In those ways, KP does scale from CM, in that some of the same principles apply.
5) Since the CRT is probably a new concept to a CM player, KP gives a nice representation of this at the bottom when you launch an attack. At first, the only unit attacking is the selected unit, so the odds probably look bad. But here's what I do. I hit the "Max" button. That throws every adjacent unit, every artillery within range (up to a limit of usually 4), and any extra modifiers you have like leadership or airpower. So after you hit Max you are seeing your best possible attack for units you've got there now. After that, I usually start backing factors out of the attack, like I may want to save airpower and artillery for later.
6) The battle is then abstractly resolved. A day's worth of battle between divisions is resolved with a throw of a dice. This will result in steps being lost on each side (maybe) and maybe a retreat for the defenders.
7) Overruns are important. Generally a unit gets one attack per turn. Overruns are the exception to this. A successful overrun leaves the attackers still eligible for more attacks. So on the attack you can use this to launch multiple attacks on a defender or defenders and shatter a line. On defense you want to try to make your units overrun proof.
Mainly just get in and give it a try. Try it first against the AI just to get a feel for it, and because its easy and quick. Then when the AI's no longer a challenge, give a PBEM game a try.
The basics of this game aren't too hard to learn. Then you'll discover the game is subtle in many ways. I'm currently losing my first PBEM game as part of Run5's Wolf tournament. And I'm losing not because my opponent completely stopped the German attacks. No, I'm far to the east side of the board with a strong army left. But I'm losing because of some subtleties of the Victory Point system that my opponent did a very nice job of exploiting.
As such, this scenario we are playing looks VERY replayable again because I both want to see if I can do a better job as the Germans against this subtle strategy that's just defeated me, and also because at some point I want to play the Russians to see if I can do to someone else what was just done to me.
In fact, in many ways a scenario of this game is more replayable (in my own opinion) than a CM scenario, as the options available to each player are greater.
Note also that there are additional scenarios avaialble beyond the 5 or 6 that come with KP. There's the Across the Dnepr expansion pack that simulates the summer of 41 and Guderian's drive towards Smolensk, and there are other user created scenarios up on the Run5 site. For instance, there's a notice on these boards today that a revised scenario for Operation Husky in Scily is now avaiable.
To me, I've been playing games like this for 30 years. And to me, this is about my favorite scale of play. I own CM, and need to fire it back up again. And I've played the Squad Leader - Steel Panthers - CM scale over the years. But to me this big "operational" scale is my favorite. That may be just me, but to me there's a lot worth exploring at this level.
PS -- Keep exploring these forums and the Run5 forums when they come back up Sept 1 (bandwidth issues right now). There's a lot of detailed information, especially from Pterrok on the odds of attacks and effective ways of making attacks to achieve the results you want. This game is subtle, and the most effective means of attacking may not be the most obvious. But that's war, right?
_____________________________
Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism. ~George Washington
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