Battle length question..

[Londoner]

It occured to me that the turn system as it currently is, brings a rather unsatisfactory ending to most Human V human games, esp. in meeting engagements.

I've had a few games now where the battle is in its last few turns and both forces are more or less intact/undamaged. One side holds the VL and the other waits until the dying breath to make a mad dash/banzi change type charge to grab the VL. This seems unrealistic. If there is only one large VC as is often typical, the ownship of the flag is obviously critical. A good example: Meeting engagement, one large VL, one small. turn 25 out of 28: I hold both VLs. Opponent throws the bulk of his forces at large VL, overwhelming the detachment guarding it. In response i throw, in a similarly mad charge, all forces that can get there in roughly 2 turns. It was not enough and my attack was replused. However, my opponent crippled his force in the process and put it in a tactically untenable postion (the VL was in LOS of all my mostly unused arty). Given acouple of turns i could have easily swept away what he had left, heavily concentrated on the VL.

It took me some time to get a desent sized force unseen to the VL, but my opponent had no insentive to stop or interdict me. He realised i wouldn't put my whole force directly on the VL, which would be tactical madness so he quiet sensibly waited until the last minute. He'd probed the flanks and found them very strong so he simply concentrated his force in one huge mass and stormed the front.

This to me seems unrealistic, a commander surely wouldn't wait until the enemy had got settled and dug into a location he was tasked with capturing, only to sacrifice his command in a banzi charge at the last moment for the sake of holding the location for acouple minutes before it is destroyed. This is what CM battles, to a certain extent encourage no? Surely a dynamic turn system would work better. Like reinforcments, battle ending could be random, ie a 10% chance of ending after turn 30. If a commander no longer knew precisely how long he had to hold a VL, he wouldn't be encouraged to adopt this quite IMHO unrealistic tactic. (Hobbes, dont get me wrong m8, it was still a cracker of a game)

Comments?

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In military operations timing is everything.

Wellington

1800.

[Head Mahone]

Sid Meier's Gettysburg solved this situation by giving a 10-minuet bonus. If an attacker overcame the defender of a victory location at the closing of a battle, he had 10 extra minuets to truly POSSES it. The defender had this time to mount a counter attack and if successful, the clock was then reset to a new 10-minuet bonus. Don't worry, this never went round and round. Like Combat Mission, a Gettysburg battle is brutal. In such an attack, there are bayonet charges and all. If you didn't posses reserves, it was unlikely that you could mount a successful counter.

To get back on the subject of C.M.. I have only experienced this problem in a PBEM game once. I still won, but it didn't matter because it made for a terribly boring game. That person was scratched off my PBEM list long before we ever finished the game. I think this situation is more of a problem with your opponents than it is with C.M. Email me a setup, and I'll show you what I mean. It'll be a completive, nonstop fight to the end, that I can assure you.

-Head

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"I don't need my junkie friends all knockin' at my door. I just wanna do an old time waltz with a buxom Irish whore!"

-Shane MacGowan

[Bruno Weiss]

This has been discussed in detail, on more than one occasion, but I can't remember under what title. Maybe try searching VL, or victory conditions.

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"Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses

open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth."

-Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916)

[Londoner]

Cheers ladz, head, a game would be good m8, i'll email you that setup...

------------------

In military operations timing is everything.

Wellington

1800.