Possible exploit regarding surprise rules

[Bromley]

I'm still not sure what the surprise rules are meant to be, so forgive me if I get something wrong.

The exploit comes from the use of surprise rules to hit unspotted units in defensive positions. Using them you can bypass any defensive bonuses that might otherwise be enjoyed.

LAND: I'm sure that this would work for other units, it's just more obvious with tanks:

Advancing a panzer on Paris. You know that the DCR is in Paris, so as long as Paris is unspotted you can force the DCR out of it's carefully prepared defenses. It will initiate an attack even if it's strength 5 and you're strength 10 (and this is before it has had a chance to upgrade).

SEA: Spain is the perfect example. An Allied Spanish CA can move towards Marseilles/Italy and surprise units stationed in port. Ones at sea would be fair enough --> a normal encounter. But the ones in port, even though you might not want them to sortie, will do so. Not a huge problem against the RN, as in that case there's a like-for-like loss of its strength. But against a suicide fleet, such as the Spanish or French, there's a problem.

[Konigs]

I agree 100% with this. Units that are surprised should not attack but get a higher defense bonus and combat be forced on attacker. Units that advanced blindly into combat took a beatingin real life. Italian navy good example, superior in speed and firepower, no air support for eyes. Infantry unit walking into prepared defense positions, ie omaha beach were cut down badly. Units did not run out of their positions in a wasteful attack when their positions were well prepared and gave them advantage. UHHHH, unless you were the Japanese, we all no the end of that story....

[Hubert Cater]

Actually the hidden defender does receive a 25% readiness bonus while the moved unit takes a 25% readiness loss. After that the hidden defender will only attack if the attack odds favour it... otherwise the attack option will go to the recently moved unit. Perhaps not an ideal situation in every case as noted above but in most cases it does punish the player for bumping into hidden units recklessly.

[Konigs]

Example, Bromley runs his tank next to city and infantry is there, infantry attacks his lvl 3 tank and automatically looses half of its unit strength while tank takes loss of 1 or 2 points. Infantry has lvl 1 AT. Does not seem right, now second tank comes up and crushes infantry for 1 point or no loss 3rd tank walks in city. Seems when they ride, up hten have to attack they at least take more losses. This happened to me inlast gaem against Bromley.

[Hubert Cater]

Question for you, are you sure it was not a case of surprise contact and then Bromley choosing to attack the hidden defender now revealed?

I only ask as a change from SC1 was that if contact still did not reveal favourable odds for the hidden defender then the player that originally moved his unit has the option to follow up on an attack himself.

If not and if you see this happen again, send me a turn so I can take a look and I can better make an assessment as otherwise I am unfortunately only guessing

[Konigs]

No, my unit is attacking him, causing huge losses on a well entrenched unit. Happened today as matter of fact. Hawkeye-true launched a regular Russian corp at my enrtenched units by Moscow, I had a 90 + readiness and morale corp, with HQ right behind it, entrenched to level 6 with IW lvl 3, attack his unit and he lost 1 point and I lost 4 points. Just does not seem right. I have turn saved and will send it to you later so you can see it. Bromely has flu and will get engaged in this conversation more I am sure. He has an excellent technical understanding of your game. I just love playing it. I will send turn around 1:00AM Sat morning.

[Bromley]

Actually, I suspect that I had spotted the infantry in that particular case, as my "feel" of the surprise rules is that combat is not initiated if there is not a expectation of a greater-than-recieved damage result. I might be wrong though - I've got logs and saves, so if Konigs knows roughly when it was I can find it.

In my DCR excample, I can't remember if it was upgraded or not [EDIT - Of course, if I'd bothered to read my OP, I'd have known that it was not ]. Either way though, it was strength 5 and I was strength 10, so an attack from a defensive position was a *big* risk . Perhaps in SC3 a stance option, similar to that currently with airfleets. "Aggressive" as it currently is, "Normal" as it currently is if not in a defensive location (difficult to define, perhaps cities/forts?) and "Passive" = never attacks.

[ February 17, 2007, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: Bromley ]

[Konigs]

Hi Hubert, did you get to look at the turn I sent you regarding this issue? My unit attacked accross river which also should not have been favorable.

[Hubert Cater]

I took a look but as mentioned in the e-mail it is difficult to say for sure... perhaps the combat was 1-1 and your unit lost +1 and his unit lost -1 due to the additional +/- 1 combat addition it resulted in the 2-0 attack you observed.