Question to the community regarding the sportsmanship and z-fire

[Imp]

Well this is dragging on & going off topic but my 2 cents.

PBEM Z fire is an integral part of the game & while those that use it excessively bog down the game by restricting movement they tend to loose because they give away to much info. Only ever played one guy who was very good at it on the right type of map.

The MG thing
In my view they work as they should in this game their main role is suppression either to break up an attack or soften a defence.
The kill rating is therefore not a major factor though higher is nice of course.
So in use in game the MG42 & Vickers provide similar suppression & the MG42 gets a few more kills. Ignoring other factors like accuracy, range etc.

Okay now lets adjust the MGs another way so they are in line with what you are saying Simon, we will assume for this both teams carry the same ammo.
1 Set MG 42 Kill to the same as the Vickers
2 At least double the ROF from 9 to say 19
Now in human hands its way superior as you can elect to take a few shots or fire the full amount at the expense of ammo.
This has now become a superb Z fire tool allowing you if you so wish to put down double the suppression in a turn that the Vickers can.
Ignoring supply problems you could also introduce MG units with a move of zero or 1 & far higher ammo loads for defence, that MG42 is now nasty.
For units advancing yes the ammo loads are probably a bit high but I believe it was common practise for other units supporting the MG to carry ammo for it. Just assume this happens in game.
You said PBEM games are over pretty quick, would you expect the MGs to run out ignoring strategic supply problems. I seem to remember Vickers MGs fired virtually continuously for 12 hours, lets call that 200 game turns.

[Cross]

Hey John,

I agree that excessive use of z-fire bogs down the game.

Ten Vickers did fire continuously for 12 hours. Each gun fired 100,000 rounds, which is over 6,800 lbs of ammunition per gun. Which is again my point, let people buy ammunition dumps/transport if they want to shoot z-fire for the entire battle.

We could argue back and forth about the various merits and weaknesses of the Vickers and the MG42, but excessive z-fire could be addressed by reducing ammo for all HMGs. Personally, I’d reduce the MG42 ammo a lot more than the 500-600rpm weapons, for the reasons already given.

Rifleman would always carry extra ammo for their squad LMG (total LMG ammo would be 600 for a US section, 1000 for a British section, and 1150 for a German section) but I’ve never heard that other units would carry ammo for HMG sections; unless you’re talking about transport and supply units?

ATM we have a 3xMG42 crew of 9 with 270 SP ammo units.
If we use a 1.5 second burst (30 MG42 rounds) for one SP ammo unit then that’s 600 lbs of MG ammunition! That’s the maximum a horse and cart can carry (the horse alone could manage 200lbs).

That said, I recognize that mortars in SP carry more ammo than they should, and I think that is where RightDeve has a point about subjective game balancing. But mortar ammo still has to be used with care in the game, where MG ammo can be fired off with reckless abandon with complete disregard for fire discipline, and causes too much z-fire. Most players won’t waste much mortar ammo on z-fire.

Creating defensive and offensive MGs might help the situation slightly, but I wouldn’t have defensive MGs with more ammo, better to have mobile MGs with a lot less ammo; and or make MGs more expensive. Or just give all MGs less ammo and buy ammo supply for defensive positions.

Another thing that may help is to change triple MG units to only two or even one MG per unit; and as a bonus the MG crew sizes would then be more realistic.

Perhaps another idea would be to have z-fire (for infantry and MGs) cost more ammo units.

FTR, I do like the new accuracy for z-fire. It’s more realistic.

cheers,
Cross

[Imp]

The problem really with Z fire is its to good due to the eye of God nature of the game. Units instantly know where Z fire is needed.
Dont take as gospel but I am pretty sure it was common practice for the Germans to carry extra rounds for the MG42 specifically because of its ammo.
Messing with ammo is subjective & if being realistic MGs were Germanys main source of suppresion late war. People would moan if German arty came with the handful of shells they had availabe to fire each day

[Aeraaa]

Now that you've mentioned it Imp, one of the things that I always thought this game should have is giving the player the ability to change the ammo loadouts of its units prior to a mission (or at least for a specific scenario). That way you could simulate situations with very low ammo, like late war German units...

[Imp]

Originally Posted by Aeraaa

Now that you've mentioned it Imp, one of the things that I always thought this game should have is giving the player the ability to change the ammo loadouts of its units prior to a mission (or at least for a specific scenario). That way you could simulate situations with very low ammo, like late war German units...

You can for specific scenarios you set up just select the unit & press the D key, if you want to change all identical units press clone when your done.

[Firestorm]

Yes It's cheating and I tend to not do it to the AI since they can't retaliate in kind (human beings are fair game). I've felt this way since even before z-fire was so effective. It's especially handy when you're using lower quality armies with lots and lots of infantry, HMGs and MG-equiped vehicles (World War-II era Poland or China, or any modern third-world army), or when you're facing same.

Originally Posted by Aeraaa

I dont consider it cheating,unless you can show me another way how to move to the building that has an Infantry squad in an urban map were you have 1 or 2 hexes visibility and not take massive casualties in the process...

The "proper" way to neutralize enemy squads before getting into grenade range is to drop artillery, that or set up the shootout where it'll be more in your favour (find another angle to attack them from, or wait for them to come to you). If you've no artillery for the former and no patience for the latter, either Z-fire or expect to do a lot of dying in that kind of terrain.

[RedGuard]

My friends and I found that Area Fire may be too effective.Though you have militias only arm with .303 rifle, they can still kick the elites' *** easily with myriads of area fires - every single shot may cause at leat 1 suppression

So, some guys tend to buy hordes of militias, flood over every soldier who dares to stand in their by simply pressing "Z" key frequently, which have made elite units useless for they didn't have that many shots

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by RedGuard

My friends and I found that Area Fire may be too effective.Though you have militias only arm with .303 rifle, they can still kick the elites' *** easily with myriads of area fires - every single shot may cause at leat 1 suppression

So, some guys tend to buy hordes of militias, flood over every soldier who dares to stand in their by simply pressing "Z" key frequently, which have made elite units useless for they didn't have that many shots

Simple answer - if you have not agreed a set of PBEM rules in advance, anything is fair in love or war. So agree in advance what is "gamey" in your view and see if your prospective opponent agrees to it.

Me, I would simply love an enemy PBEM player who does that sort of thing as it makes targeting my arty assets so much easier... You did buy lots of nice mortars, MRL and such things, if your opponent is a proponent of massed militia (with poor morale) Z-Fires?. Get them running and its game over for them, really.

Andy

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by Mobhack

Simple answer - if you have not agreed a set of PBEM rules in advance, anything is fair in love or war. So agree in advance what is "gamey" in your view and see if your prospective opponent agrees to it.

Me, I would simply love an enemy PBEM player who does that sort of thing as it makes targeting my arty assets so much easier... You did buy lots of nice mortars, MRL and such things, if your opponent is a proponent of massed militia (with poor morale) Z-Fires?. Get them running and its game over for them, really.

Andy

Yup, that's how it was done IRL as well, lots of artillery and air support, not counter with your own infantry (Korean war may be the best example).