Headquarters Experience

[I/O Error]

This is not a major problem, but it is something that bugs me.

Does anybody else have an issue with the way headquarters gain experience? The manual says, "For HQ's, combat experience is dependant on how well units under it's command perform in the field." Seems good.

Below, they say this:

Attacker Losses < Defender Losses | + 0.1 Attacker's HQ, - 0.1 Defender's HQ.

Attacker Losses >= Defender Losses | + 0.1 Defender's HQ, - 0.1 Attacker's HQ.

I'm replaying Panzer General II this weekend, and this is why this came up. In their system, experience is gained regardless. Admittedly there's no HQ system, but the SC method seems flawed.

Surely there are times when attacking, and taking more losses than your foe, will be a success in a strategic and a tactical sense? And that your command structure will gain valuable experience? There is the argument that an officer never really learns anything until he is forced with disaster and is forced to overcome it. Now, the unit experience system is fine. But when you have HQ's that can LOSE experience because some other unit does poorly, that seems wrong.

I mean, did Soviet generals actually LOSE command experience when their troops lost many soldiers, but still managed to hold or take ground?

Thoughts on the matter? I'm sure this must have been mentioned before, but I had no luck finding similar threads in a quick search. Regardless, there aren't any on this page, so please post with your thoughts.

[ October 19, 2002, 07:41 PM: Message edited by: I/O Error ]

[SeaMonkey]

I/O think of it more as a prestige thing. Are your troops more or less enthusiastic depending on your prior success in combat? Would Patton have been able to influence his soldiers to extra-ordinary efforts if he had constantly lost battles?

[Yohan]

The current rules also don't assist the gamey tactic of building cheap corps and throwing them away on attacks to build an HQs experience for the air war.

[I/O Error]

I strongly disagree with your calling that a "gamey" tactic. That was quite literally what helped save the Soviet Union. (As a contemporary example, that single aspect of the Eastern Front was perhaps the only thing that "Enemy at the Gates" did right.)

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by I/O Error:

Surely there are times when attacking, and taking more losses than your foe, will be a success in a strategic and a tactical sense?

Absolutely, and no doubt that some of the very best tactical maneuvers have happened under quite dire circumstances.

Yet I agree with SeaMonkey in that a "victory" entails more than merely troop or material losses, it involves also the loss of prestige, not only from those you directly command, but from the higher levels of military and political government, not to mention -- how the "yellow press" will treat such a failure.

The public knows little of muddy, bloody details; rather, it is usually left with looking at a large map that has pins stuck in it, indicating the grand scheme of things.

As is said, all the world loves a Winner, and while I personally do not always see the outcomes of Life's real or metaphorical battles as cut & dried "losses," the painful realization that a valued military objective is no longer controlled tends to overwhem any positive feelings for a "job well done."

In game terms, one thing that I try to do is keep a stronger strike force so to accumulate a few victories here and there, which keeps the HQ from dropping too low in experience value.

This also tends to encourage some offensive moves so that all will not degenerate into merely a defensive, attrition sort of warfare.

[dgaad]

Originally posted by I/O Error:

I mean, did Soviet generals actually LOSE command experience when their troops lost many soldiers, but still managed to hold or take ground?

Soviet generals and troops who gained experience in a lost battle were usually rewarded with a Commisar's bullet to the brain, or a trip to the Gulag. So, the answer is yes.

Seriously, though, its true that many armies, particularly the German and Soviet, but also true of most of the rest, did lose experienced officers if they "lost" a battle, even if they held ground. These losses were from the Increase Combat Performance Through Terror philosophy which permeated the Soviet system and, later, the German, but also due to military politics in the Western armies. General Mark Clark, for example, who was described after the war by Eisenhower as "The Man who Never Made a Mistake", was passed over for higher command because he was the General in charge of the Anzio invasion, which was widely regarded as a failure. General Patton was nearly cashiered for being considered to willing to throw away the lives of his men (which came to a head after the "slapping incident").