Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (Full Version)

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toawfan -> Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 12:51:24 PM)

One of the very few supreme aggravations with this game and your ability to true carry out a strategy and plan is turn burn caused by hidden or unknown settings by your opponent.

No matter how meticulously you check the battle planner to make sure you are not burning a turn, you still can have a PBEM session end abruptly. It appears to be because the defender has "ignore losses" as a setting that prolongs battle rounds.

This is not fair; should be fixed to prevent an entire round from burning; or should be reflected in the battle planner.



Panama -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 3:39:01 PM)

There are other things that cause turn burn. If you use one or more units that has a red health indicator or pure bad luck with a failed check.

I do agree with you on turn burn though. One combat 500km away can cause all of the combats across the board to take the entire remainder of the turn regardless of their complexity or odds. Totally unreasonable.



toawfan -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 4:04:49 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

There are other things that cause turn burn. If you use one or more units that has a red health indicator or pure bad luck with a failed check.

I do agree with you on turn burn though. One combat 500km away can cause all of the combats across the board to take the entire remainder of the turn regardless of their complexity or odds. Totally unreasonable.


But an attack with red health or when you're low on movement points would show up in the attack planner as taking more rounds, if I understand correctly.

I scroll through all attacks to make sure that I'm not burning the turn -- yet it still happens because of something the defender has done or that is certainly not reflected in the attack planner.

It seems like we should be able to assume that the attack planner is accurately showing how many rounds we have left in a turn. It is so essential to strategy. Otherwise, you end up not setting your defense, not moving into gaps and not setting your air status.



Panama -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 6:10:24 PM)

In history how many battles went as planned? If nothing, it shows us to expect the unexpected to happen. Once a battle plan is put into motion it is beyond anyone's control. What shouldn't happen does happen. If the game exactly reflected what you had planned it would be so far from the realm of reality it becomes fantasy.



toawfan -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 7:05:45 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

In history how many battles went as planned? If nothing, it shows us to expect the unexpected to happen. Once a battle plan is put into motion it is beyond anyone's control. What shouldn't happen does happen. If the game exactly reflected what you had planned it would be so far from the realm of reality it becomes fantasy.


But I think you're missing the point here. There's a big difference between a battle not going as planned and the inability to make the battle plan to begin with.

In the case of unknown turn burn, that's the same as saying, "I could not give my orders because there was no more ink in my quill to write out the orders."

The game still has all the fun and realism of variables and uncertainties if you actually get to carry out your battle plan such as: Not knowing exactly how many defenders there are; how strong; movement points left; tactical, local or other reserves that will enter for defender; fog of war; etc.

The other impractical result of turn burn is like this: I just crushed my enemy and know that others might counter-attack. But I'll just stand here, not prepare for defense, not dig in or anything because I don't have any orders. And all of my aircraft who were involved in the early sorties will not switch back to air superiority (patrols) or anything. They'll just stay in mid-air after the combat attacks because no one ordered them to do anything.



pionier -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 8:28:06 PM)

maybe you got to learn alot about toaw.

The turn end eighter when after the resoloution of all combats less than 20% movement points are left or if your force proffiency check fails.

detail:

Your turn will end if either of the following conditions apply:
quote:

You have launched no attacks. The mean remaining movement allowance of your entire force is too small to allow for successful exploitation of your attacks, i.e., and average of less than 20% of the movement points remaining, among the units involved in the last series of attacks. Your force fails a proficiency check. This is the primary use of the force proficiency value, though it should be noted that the force proficiency value is not the exact probability that the turn will continue after each series of attacks.


From the manual:

quote:

Force Proficiency(0-100%) - This represents the overall proficiency of the force. This characteristic is used to determine the length of your turn. Reconstituted unit proficiencies are averaged with this value.


and

quote:

The turn ends if 1) a random number from 1 to the maximum number of remaining rounds equals 1, and 2) The current player's force proficiency is less than a random number from 1 to 100.


this leads to this table: (left: remaining rounds left,  center: force proficiency values)

[image]http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/8785/dadadan.jpg[/image]






Panama -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 9:46:14 PM)

If you really want to end turn burn open the scenario in the editor and change the maximum rounds per combat to one.



larryfulkerson -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 11:03:36 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama
If you really want to end turn burn open the scenario in the editor and change the maximum rounds per combat to one.

OOOooooh, hey this is a really quick, really easy fix. Thanks for that.



Telumar -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 11:32:40 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

If you really want to end turn burn open the scenario in the editor and change the maximum rounds per combat to one.


One is insane. Why at all bother with the loss settings then? Just make sure your unit doesn't break up and set everyone on Ignore Losses.

Three might be a better value.



Panama -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 11:50:00 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Telumar


quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

If you really want to end turn burn open the scenario in the editor and change the maximum rounds per combat to one.


One is insane. Why at all bother with the loss settings then? Just make sure your unit doesn't break up and set everyone on Ignore Losses.

Three might be a better value.


He didn't want turn burn at all and wanted a guarantee with that. That is the way to do it. It's not something I would do but nothing else seemed to matter.



Telumar -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 11:56:02 PM)

Hehe, definitely...

And I just tried to show him the golden middle..



Sker -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/11/2010 11:57:09 PM)

I think 3 it's the best value for mrpb. It likely make you have 3 combat per turn and still doesn't screw so much the realism of the game.



Panama -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/12/2010 12:20:43 AM)

And then there are the people who don't like all of the combat rounds. They complain that it's too much to keep track of or something like that. All they have to do is change the number to 10. Give them one round and nothing to complain about. [:D]



toawfan -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/12/2010 5:38:18 AM)

The proficiency, movement points and health already seemed to be reflected in the attack planner. If you click on the unit that is low in either, all of the buttons will light up to show that you will burn the turn.

I really think the hidden turn burn has to do with something on the defenders' side that is not reflected but should be -- like ignore losses or something.



Curtis Lemay -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/12/2010 7:54:41 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama
If you really want to end turn burn open the scenario in the editor and change the maximum rounds per combat to one.

OOOooooh, hey this is a really quick, really easy fix. Thanks for that.


Note that that guarantees that the tenth combat round will be left unused. When you get to eight rounds used, the player-phase is guaranteed to end after the next combat execution. So, since you can only get one round per battle, you can't get that tenth round.

Also, note that this will not prevent early-turn-ending. It will only prevent early-turn-ending that is caused by turn-burn. There is another mechanism that causes early-turn-ending: After every combat phase, there is a random check against force proficiency and rounds left. If that check fails, the player-turn ends. Note that, since this mandates that each combat phase be one-round long, it maximizes the number of times that this check will be performed - increasing the chance of early-turn-ending by this mechanism.

In fact, if your force is very low proficiency, you may not want to shoot for one-round phases for this very reason. Shooting for two-round phases may give your force a better chance to get the full ten combat rounds in some cases. See my article about maximizing combat rounds:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2231066

One final point - I tried using an MRPB of one once, and strange things seemed to ensue. For example, it seemed to become much more difficult to get defenders to retreat. But these were not rigorous tests, so your mileage may vary.



ralphtricky -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 4:08:19 AM)

Elmer takes the tactic that he plots only 3:1 odds or better in the first three rounds, then only 2:1 for the next 3, and finally only 1:1 or better. The theory there is that the decisive combats will be done first and they will take few rounds. It seems that the 1:1 slugfests are the ones that will burn the turn since neither side is taking enough casualties to break it off.

I may be off on the numbers, but that's the basic idea that Elmer uses. It doesn't seem to work well with all scenarios, but it's the basic idea. Designers can edit those values now, so I'm hoping that will help Elmer.



toawfan -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 4:43:41 AM)

It just keeps happening to me and it's very, very frustrating. Really does drain the fun or strategy out of this game for me.

Here's what just happened. I was on my first turn; planned a critical amphibious assault; went on the offensive on several fronts; battle planner showed no burns beyond six icons; the stars showed I would have 40 percent left.

Make my moves. Boom. Everything over in one turn. My amphibious assault is left completely hanging, easily slaughtered while still on the boat; I have no chance to set defense; I am unable to advance on fronts where I really hurt the opponent; and worst of all, I did not get to set my air superiority at all.

This is a real game-killer.

I've read the manual several times; every single posting I can find about planning combat and avoiding turn burn; either this is needlessly complicated to explain or something is wrong in what the icons and battle planner are telling me.

It's the single most aggravating thing to an otherwise wonderfully complex game. I know I'm a rookie and learning, but if this happened in too many competitive games where I'm trying to win and not just trying to learn, I'd probably hang the game up and not play any more.

By the way, my force proficiency exceeds 80 percent.



ralphtricky -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 4:57:50 AM)

You might try posting what you tried to do in the war room, possibly in a SAL file to get some advice there.

If it showed 60%, that is where the last combat STARTS, so I'm not too surprised that the turn ended on you. One artillery or air combat on ignore losses starting on round 6 would push the ending to round 9 at the EARLIEST, and either the proficiency check kicked in, or a combat that started on round 6 ran long to end the turn for you.

I generally try for only 10-20% used in the first round although it does depend on the circumstances. I will be a bit conservative and delay some of the attacks until after the first round of attacks are finished. Sometimes it bites me, but it's generally better.

Ralph



toawfan -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 5:04:05 AM)

But is that possible in your one and only round? In other words, I make all my moves and see that I'll have 40 percent of my turn left. Then click and instead the entire round is over and I have to email my PBEM?

I'm not exactly sure what to email. Nothing special about my moves. I attacked in areas where I had supreme advantage, used sea transport to begin an amphibious assault, checked to make sure that I would have turns left. Boom. End of turn.

This game is rewarding as you learn all the twists and turns, especially stuff that's not in the manual and has come from Larry's teachings. But this is one where I've studied, asked, read again and still don't get it and am getting snakebit to the point where it's destroying any sense of a strategy.

It's like planning a D Day invasion, having everything set, ready, going as planned and then you dock offshore, drink a spot of tea, and allow Germany to move every bit of reinforcement to the beaches to shoot you before you get out of the boats.



ralphtricky -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 5:20:16 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: toawfan
But is that possible in your one and only round? In other words, I make all my moves and see that I'll have 40 percent of my turn left. Then click and instead the entire round is over and I have to email my PBEM?

I'm not exactly sure what to email. Nothing special about my moves. I attacked in areas where I had supreme advantage, used sea transport to begin an amphibious assault, checked to make sure that I would have turns left. Boom. End of turn.

Yes, it's possible. You had combats starting as late as round 6, that's what the problem was. You should go through and look at your combats to see which ones were starting after round 1 and whether or not they were really necessary. Try to do assaults in the early rounds with overwhelming force to avoid ending early.

Set the same scenario up as single player and try a couple of things with save games. Try attacking only with units which can reach the combat in round 1 or 2. Watch the results pane of the combat results for each combat, and it will show when the combat started, and when it was continued through additional rounds.

Remember that you can save at any time, and since you're learning, check with Larry to see if you can send him a save file to review, or if it's OK to post in the war room.

Ask someone in the war room to post their starting moves for that scenario. Beach landings are tricky, I've seen a couple of posts on how to do them, and I never can get as far as they do in the walk-throughs.

Ralph



ColinWright -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 7:57:46 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: toawfan

One of the very few supreme aggravations with this game and your ability to true carry out a strategy and plan is turn burn caused by hidden or unknown settings by your opponent.

No matter how meticulously you check the battle planner to make sure you are not burning a turn, you still can have a PBEM session end abruptly. It appears to be because the defender has "ignore losses" as a setting that prolongs battle rounds.

This is not fair; should be fixed to prevent an entire round from burning; or should be reflected in the battle planner.


'No plan survives contact with the enemy.'

There are problems with the turn ending paradigm in OPART -- but in my view they've been 'fixed' to the point where things have become too predictable already.

In real life, of course, while you're doing things, so is your enemy. OPART introduces the artificiality of each side taking its turn -- but unpredictable turn ending helps to ameliorate that shortcoming. There you were, half-way to executing your brilliant encirclement, and your turn unexpectedly ended, and he withdrew before you could complete it. Or it ended and he counterattacked while you were still unready for an attack. Or...

Moltke warned you this would happen. The idea is to simulate actual warfare -- not allow everyone to predictably complete his turn.



ColinWright -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 8:05:24 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

You might try posting what you tried to do in the war room, possibly in a SAL file to get some advice there.

If it showed 60%, that is where the last combat STARTS, so I'm not too surprised that the turn ended on you. One artillery or air combat on ignore losses starting on round 6 would push the ending to round 9 at the EARLIEST, and either the proficiency check kicked in, or a combat that started on round 6 ran long to end the turn for you.

I generally try for only 10-20% used in the first round although it does depend on the circumstances. I will be a bit conservative and delay some of the attacks until after the first round of attacks are finished. Sometimes it bites me, but it's generally better.

Ralph



I inveterately use 'minimize losses' when attacking -- unless the units have really low proficiency or I can accept the turn ending on that round. Generally, if the attack has got plenty of power, it'll work anyway, and if it doesn't I can always try again -- and I'll probably get to try again since I haven't burnt the entire turn with Infanterie 305 desperately trying to obey the Fuhrer's orders.

I'm also extremely reluctant to launch any attack that is going to use more of the turn than the rest of the attacks -- again, that is, unless I am prepared to see the turn end that round.



BigDuke66 -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 9:20:03 AM)

I'm not to familiar with the editor but is "Max Rounds Per Combat" in the editor named "Max Rounds per Battle" or is this something different?
What should I think of a "Max Rounds per Battle" of 99?



Telumar -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 3:56:33 PM)

It's the same.

A MRPB setting of 99 is the default. Behaviour as in ACOW.



Curtis Lemay -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 4:28:02 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: toawfan

It just keeps happening to me and it's very, very frustrating. Really does drain the fun or strategy out of this game for me.

Here's what just happened. I was on my first turn; planned a critical amphibious assault; went on the offensive on several fronts; battle planner showed no burns beyond six icons; the stars showed I would have 40 percent left.


And that was your first combat phase? Then you were burning 60% of the turn with late units. Some attack you had set up was not going to start until 60% of the turn was over. Ideally, the combats that you set up in the first phase should not show any stars burned.

Second, let's make sure you understand about bombardments: The loss settings for bombarding units determines how many rounds they bombard. Set them to minimize losses to bombard only one round. If you set them to ignore losses, they will always bombard three rounds. (Note that this doesn't apply to support - just bombarding alone). Something like that, coupled with the late attacks could guarantee the turn ends after one round.

I have an article on how to conduct the critical first turn in my "France 1944 D-Day" scenario:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1546619

It's a good primer example of how to get multiple combat phases, since it's very detailed about how I set up the combats.



toawfan -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 6:12:46 PM)

Thanks, Curtis. I've read your primer multiple times and it just doesn't seem like the attack planner is following the stated rules. (By the way, all of your posts and info are very helpful).

I avoid ignore losses, understanding how that burns turns. There are some rare exceptions, but it's when I know that's how the round will end.

I remain puzzled. But I'm going to change to a much more cautious (and probably unsuccessful) strategy where I assume that I only get one battle round per turn. That will make for a very slow, overly cautious offense and probably one where the counter-attacks by the enemy will make this unworkable. But I've got to try something different.

Larry understands this game as well as anyone and the only concession is that he's getting unfairly surprised and harmed by turn burn as well in this Armageddon scenario.



BigDuke66 -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 6:51:06 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Telumar

It's the same.

A MRPB setting of 99 is the default. Behaviour as in ACOW.


Default OK but what is usually recommended? I see some with 99 and others like the latest Weserübung with 4 what looks very different and I wonder why the differ so much.
Should the scales(unit, turn, hex, etc.) have an impact on what should be set in MRPB?
I hope this 99 setting could be the source of the turn burn I see in the "Poland 39" scenario.



ColinWright -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 9:08:55 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Telumar

It's the same.

A MRPB setting of 99 is the default. Behaviour as in ACOW.



Actually, and for whatever reason, behavior is not the same as in ACOW.

As I complained about with reference to Seelowe, even with rounds set to '99,' early turn ending became much less common. This made quite a difference, as now the British were able to really pound the (poorly supplied) Germans into red-light land with continuous attacks.

Not necessarily bad, and not necessarily unrealistic, but indubitably a change.



ColinWright -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 9:17:14 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BigDuke66

quote:

ORIGINAL: Telumar

It's the same.

A MRPB setting of 99 is the default. Behaviour as in ACOW.


Default OK but what is usually recommended?


That would depend entirely on what the designer wants to have happen in the scenario.

quote:



I see some with 99 and others like the latest Weserübung with 4 what looks very different and I wonder why the differ so much.
Should the scales(unit, turn, hex, etc.) have an impact on what should be set in MRPB?
I hope this 99 setting could be the source of the turn burn I see in the "Poland 39" scenario.


As I understand it, if you want to guarantee there will be more than one opportunity to attack in a turn, the value should be set to less than ten (or eight, or something). The setting determines an upper limit for how many rounds any battle can take.

If this is Ben Turner's Poland 39 you're playing, you shouldn't be having a severe problem with early turn ending.



Panama -> RE: Turn burn unknown when defender ignores losses (12/14/2010 9:49:38 PM)

Max Rounds Per Battle
It is possible to set Max Rounds Per Battle (MRPB) value for a Scenario
by using the Edit > Set Max Rounds Per Battle item in the
Force and Deployment Editor menus.
This value sets the maximum number of rounds that the attacking
forces will execute, for all battles, in each series of combats.
The default value is 99. The minimum value is 1 and the maximum
is 99.
This value can have a wide variety of different effects, particularly
when coupled with Shock events. Low MRPB values can minimize
“Turn burn,” but at the cost of attacks not having enough
tactical rounds to retreat defenders. Low MRPB values can also
yield better results from using Tactical and Local Reserve Deployments.
You can more safely use progressively higher Loss
Tolerance settings for Attacks, with low MRPB values, since the
number of tactical rounds that stubborn units continue attacks
and defenses will be attenuated.
While some Scenarios will benefit from very low MRPB values,
it is generally not recommended to set it lower than 3, as this
also attenuates the number of rounds that Artillery, Naval, and
Air units will bombard for, at their higher Loss Tolerance settings,
and may also adversely affect the net bonuses that positive
shock values have in reducing the number of tactical rounds
expended during combat. It is recommended that Scenario de-
signers using Shock events generally set this value to be no less
than the following:
(Highest Value Shock – 70) / 10
Your mileage may vary; playtest for overall effect throughout the
campaign.
Another effect to keep in mind when setting this value is that
the chance for ending the Turn by a “Proficiency Check” is not
affected. Thus, while players may realize more sets of Attacks
throughout their Turn, with low MRPB values, they will conversely
be more likely to have the Turn ended (eventually) by a failed
Proficiency Check, since one is made at the end of each series of
Attacks. See Turn Over (14.1) for details.
Scenario designers who change this from the default should indicate
the value used in their Scenario Briefing.


Six boxes in the attack planner is not a good thing. Throw in an amphibious assault and you are sure to get one combat round.

Keep the number of boxes in the attack planner at a minimum. In following rounds try not to add more than one or two new boxes if possible. Try and plan moves so that your units start a combat round adjacent to the hexes you plan to attack the next turn. However, like I said earlier, there are no guarentees, just as in the real world.

Open the scenario you are having problems with to see what the MRPB value is.

Never mind, looked myself. It's 99. So, according to the manual it should be no less than 8. Maximum shock ((150) - 70)/10 = 8.



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