It's not that I don't get the rules. I get them.
But I just don't understand the rationale for this "order" in the game. I mean, I can understand the myriad of random events that can help or screw you along the battle, and these are well captured on the cards' events that happen sometimes.
But I just don't get random events that are provoked by the players, like... "Bam, your weapon just broke! Sorry about that..."
I mean, what's the rationale of you provoking (with the force of your mind) a feed jam on an enemy machine gun... random events I can understand, but "provoked" random events...
Right now, we are playing "Asset Denied" cards as duds, only using them for their actions...
What do you guys think about this? Is someone doing something about it?
Otherwise, I think this is a really great design. I'm already looking for buyers for my Tide of Iron...

Cheers!

Asset denied replaces "artillery denied" in CC:E. That card ONLY let you break an enemies radio, thus in 50% of games, for 50% of the players, it was usually worthless.

The rationale is that the designers wanted to give the players more options with these cards, to prevent them from being duds. If I recall correctly, asset denieds still fill the roll of old artillery denied's, in that they usually have very good actions on them (defender only actions?). This forces a tough choice between breaking the enemies weapon for a turn or two, or using the great action on the card.

On the theory that more hard choices = more interesting gameplay, this would be an improvement.

It is still an abstraction for random events, however. It isn't designed to simulate your weapon breaking and falling apart because the opponent used the force. They can't just break it anytime they want, they have to have the card first (most decks in CC:E had only 3-4 artillery denied, i'd guess CC:P is similar with asset denied). And weather they get that card is a bit random, it's just a bit different random mechanic from CC:E's "JAMMED!" trigger.

As long as you can get past the idea that it is your opponent that's actually jamming your weapons, i think it works fine.

I have heard this in other places and I just want to point out that there is only ONE designer of Combat Commander, Chad Jensen. Other folks have played support roles - most notably John Foley and a fine cadre of playtesters. But there is and only has been ONE designer.

I'm pretty sure each deck contains 3 Asset Denied cards.

I think AD is probably the most controversial aspect of the CC:P design (at least, compared to CC:E). I've been waiting for someone to start a thread on it

As a way to increase the options for Artillery Denied and produce more interesting gameplay choices, it's a winner. As an aspect of a simulation, however, it's debatable!

To me, the most questionable part is the ability to play two of them in the same turn to permanently remove a weapon. This is something the opponent can do nothing about and I find that a bit curious in both gameplay and "realism" terms. I've toyed with the idea of having AD activate its target as a house rule, this would prevent double-whammying something in a turn and would give the opponent one turn to respond with Asset Request. However, I am still undecided about AD in general and haven't taken to tweaking anything yet. Chances are I won't.

I'm still undecided if I like AD in its current form or not compared to the random weapon breakage found in CC:E.

I understand that I can't make my opponent's weapon break any time I want. First, I need to get the card, which can take some time...
But with the card in my hand, it's not hard to design a strategy where I make my opponent's gun break and then move my squads right in front of his now crippled machine gun crew to a safely covered hex.
The pseudo-randomness of the weapon jam went through the window the moment I decided on a move knowing ex-ante that a threatening machine gun would break.
That's my problem with the card.
If the game was "Combat Commander: Clone Wars", I wouldn't mind this effect at all... But it's tough to describe to my game buddies what the hell this effect means in terms of realism of gameplay...

Any discussion of AD needs to include AR as part of the discussion as the two orders are complementary. So I am curious, do you like the AR in its current form or not compared to the random weapon repair found in CC:E?

In my mind, I liked the changes that were made to the AR order. Expanding it from just Artillery Request to Asset Request and the ability to spend an order and activate a unit to directly repair a malfunctioning weapon without relying on the whim of a random hex roll. (And I have been stung in a CC:E Scenario by having multiple MMG's broken and then watching them all get eliminated by a single sniper roll.) So the ability to actively repair weapons is a good one.

(Edit - Unsaid, but implied: I like the changes/updates to AR, so to modify the AD card to be inline with that seems like a natural consequence of the design so I am happy with its implementation also....)

Back to the discussion at hand, I like the AD in its present form. It helps improve the flow of cards through one's hand (a feature of CC:P coompared to CC:E/Med). In addition, it adds another choice when issuing orders and another tactic to utilize. But as has been pointed out, each deck has only 3 AD cards in it. And each faction has significantly more AR cards (6 for Japanese or 2X AD; 8 or 9 for the Allies are ~3X AD). So while it possible to hoard up cards and play 2 to eliminate a weapon - that is a bit the old discussion of saving up Ambush cards. You are spending a valuable slot in your hand to hold onto one AD while waiting one of the other 2 to be drawn. A decision and tactic that as the game player you can opt to pursue.

Andre,

Have you tried playing with the rules as written? AD is a great card and tactic and, as has been said, is complemented by the AR order.

Perhaps you've had one too many AD's ruin your plans?

Hi Mark,

The first time we played, we used the AD cards following the rules by the letter.
And I know they add more strategic options for the player but, as I mentioned before, using them doesn't feel right in terms of realism.
I know some people who will trash a game for using a certain model of tank or airplane that was not available for that country in that year or that theater... let me say that I'm not one of these guys when I talk about lack of realism.
But this specific card, fun as it might be to be able to use it, erodes realism and simulation too much by introducing some Jedi powers to your commander in the field.
That's just how I feel. I guess everyone approaches wargames with a different perspective.

Combat Commander is a Design For Effect game, not Design For Cause. In other words, the game EFFECT of you playing an Asset Denied will be the breaking of your opponent's HMG, but you didn't CAUSE that breakage: the real-world implication is that that opposing unit chose that particular to moment to fire at you ... and jammed trying to do so. That's why the enemy weapon you choose to break must be within LOS of one of your units. Are all your units outside of that weapon's range? Then (a) that was a poor choice of weapon to break since it isn't threatening you; or (b) the weapon operator was shooting at a phantom target.

*waves hand* You will now send me $20 for the dispensation of this official answer.

I generally like the way AR / AD work. I won't repeat the arguments above.

I'm still a bit concerned about the ability to groom for two copies of AD and destroy an asset without any way for the other player to respond. Or, let's say, I find it to be an interesting design choice.

It's expensive to do, no question. Typically only the attacker can afford to even try to do it. And it's not really important in scenarios with several significant weapons. In a small scenario where the defense might only have one major weapon, then there is some interest in the design choice to make it not possible to block the double whammy.

I don't find it analogous to the double Ambush situation. I can defend against a double Ambush: I can run away before you get there or I can put more units in the hex. Against double AD, there is no defense.

*IF* AD activated the broken asset, then the "victim" could defend against permanent breakage by grooming for AR. This would be costly for a defender, but would be a gameplay choice.

I'm not saying it ought to be this way. I just find the current design choice to be interesting.

Edit: I also find it terribly ironic that the typical "realism" complaint against CC is that it is too random, but the "realism" complaint here is that it is not random enough!

I don't like the mechanism either. I think it gives way too much control to the players (preparing your offensive by cycling cards to draw Asset Denied, always breaking the most critical weapon so that the others never break). CC:E handled broken weapons better (although perhaps the repair mechanism is too fiddly because it is easy to forget to check when random hexes are generated).

But I don't think I would like the solution of having weapons never break, either.

Wargamers are a cranky lot. Every game should:

a. be historically accurate
b. have deep and rewarding gameplay
c. be quick to setup
d. easy to learn
e. finely detailed nuances between every piece of hardware in the battle
f. represent fog-of-war, supply issues, morale, weather conditions, seasons and any other possibly relevant factor
g. provide complete control
h. playable in under 2 hours
i. compact storage
j. mounted map boards
k. no randomness
l. random events
m. tanks (regardless of era)



BTW: I'm not directing this at anyone; I'm just glad I don't design wargames for a living!

Interestingly, during development we found that doing this is, more times than not, the suboptimal play. *If* one was lucky enough to have two Asset Denieds in hand, it was often much more effective to break two different weapons than eliminate one, for several reasons:

1. Those two enemy units couldn't acquire new weapons while the broken ones remained attached.

2. Those two enemy units needed to "waste" an activation just to fix their weapons.

3. In the short run I make twice as many of my opponent's weapons inoperational.

4. One or both of those enemy units might retain some sort of detrimental movement modifier by still having heavy weapons attached.

Some food for thought, anyway.


So? There's no defense against "Jammed!" --> "Elim #" in CC:E, either. One sits there helpless wondering if he'll ever get to use his precious weapon again.


For whatever CC product may be next, I'm open to suggestions should you have one....

The "so" is that in CC:P, I can plan (if I want) to destroy my opponent's weapon and there is no corresponding counterplan. In CC:E, both breaking and fixing are outside the player's control.

Sure, at the expense of doing other things as that first Asset Denied clogs up your hand. Even then there's no guarantee that the other two ADs won't disappear into your discard pile as die rolls or random hexes or whatnot.

Of course, you're opponent could be planning the same against you. So use your best weapon(s) early and often in order to enjoy maximum benefits -- because YOU never know when they might jam / run out of ammo / overheat / etc.

That's all true Chad, but doesn't change the essential observation that AD is unique in that it allows player A to destroy important resources of player B and there is nothing player B can do about it and there is no chance of failure (once you have the cards, of course). A minor rule adjustment can change that. Whether or not it needs changing is another matter! One which I don't have an opinion on.

I thought the Jammed trigger worked well for breaking weapons. The more you use it, the more likely it is to break, which makes sense. I think the idea of Asset Request to fix them is ok, although it loses the concept that some weapons are more reliable (easily repaired) than others. That part of the new system works well enough.

Whether it's better to save up Asset Denied to play two at once, or whether you might not even want to break the same weapon twice but you would rather break two different weapons, depends a lot on the situation and the scenario. Sometimes the defense rests heavily on one key weapon, and breaking that is a big deal. Sometimes you would rather break several weapons and your opponent isn't likely to fix them all anyway. The Japanese have fewer Asset Request cards, and if they are on defense they often aren't drawing cards very quickly, so the US attacker may actually tend to draw Asset Denied faster than the defender draws Asset Request, anyway.

Yep.

Coming from a Magic:The Gathering background, hand management there is crucial and no different than in Combat Commander. I'd argue that it's moreso in certain cases.

If the problem is that you feel it unbalancing that double AD eliminates a weapon consider that the person playing this is giving up card advantage and opportunity cost in some way. They are churning through their deck more slowly, they gave up their only two orders on defense, they decided not to play the Revive X in their hand and it cost them later in the game etc. In other words, you truly haven't just been sitting around doing absolutely nothing while this magical combo appears in his hands have you?

I also find arguments about "realism" in a game forum, be it video games, boardgames or whatever, to be ironic in the extreme. Chad's explanation about "Design for Effect" is pretty supportive of this idea -- it's a game and your decisions on how to use cards is that game. Asking for a "realistic" way for your card play to affect your opponent "in this game" makes no sense.

My 2c.

Well, I understand your point about approaching CC:P as a game (after all, that's what it is!), and not a simulator of real battles... but if you look at all the other orders, actions, events and pretty much all the rules of this fine game, you'll se that all of them sort of simulate effects that you can see happening in a combat situation, and that (to me at least) adds to the fun of gameplay.
As I've said before, I'm not always looking for realism in my games (I also come from a Magic: The Gathering background, BTW). But this specific order, when compared to all the others, seems almost like an outlier, an exception in the game mechanics, you know what I mean?
In other words, if CC:P was a game full of cards with effects like that, I probably wouldn't mind, for I would approach it like DOMINION or RACE for the GALAXY, where you look at the cards as tactic moves you can make in gameplay, rather than real actions you could perform in a combat situation as a field commander.
In some other thread, somebody said that one of the qualities of CC:P was the stories that every game creates and that players remember for quite some time. I agree with that, and I strongly believe that it is the simulation aspect of CC:P that creates those stories...
That's the point of this thread. I'm sorry to all if I'm not being very clear. Maybe it's my english...

Thank you, Chad, for participating on this discussion. It's an honor to exchange a couple of words with you.
And as to future CC releases, keep'em coming!!

Sorry scrub, but I just can't buy this. CC is a simulation game, so that the effects Chad has designed it to create are effects which should echo the real world of its subject, ie. squad-scale, company-level tactical actions. So there is nothing ironic whatsoever about people testing the reality of the gameplay against their understanding of the realities of WW2. And if people find that the gameplay stretches their willing suspension of disbelief, then you can't just handwave it all away with remarks that it all doesn't really matter because it's just a game after all. That just won't do IMO.

I don't have a problem with the Asset Denied order.

I tend to think of it as the effects of calling in an off-map mortar or something - gadzoooks - even a tank, to specifically take out a machine gun nest or other weapon. (Despite this being contrary to Chad's design intent.) It's fun and seems to happen only occasionally.

A little "deus ex machina"...? Well, perhaps. But we could pick on all kinds of other stuff as being unrealistic 'til the cows come home.

I have to butt in here just to say that it's a pleasure to read a thread with lively debate and well reasoned argument that hasn't descended into reflex shouting & histrionics.

Bravo!

I just want to point out I think Chad was doomed regardless of which way he went on jamming. Personally I think he removed some of the randomness and historical feel to add an interesting decision. I kind of like it, but I definitely can see why others don't.