Battlefield Reorganization/Recovery

[SeaMonkey]

Now you all know I'm not in favor of micromanagement but a proponent of "abstracted realism" as SC has so eloquently accomplished, so I'm going to propose another feature that enhances that SC tradition.

When a ground unit is completely eliminated there should be some random chance that the unit could reappear in the same or adjacent location at a very low strength, say 1 or 2, in the next turn, sort of the way partisans do. Failing in that, there should also be a randomized MPP addition, say 1 to 10, to the owning players MPP cache in the next turn.

The purpose of such a feature is to simulate the ability of units, especially the scale represented in SC, to recover and reorganize into an effective albeit weak force. We all know that units the size of corps or armies could never actually be eliminated, but just get disrupted to the point that they are no longer effective for military operations.

This feature could be connected to the "esprit de corps", ie. experience, that the unit possesses or perhaps a higher factor of reappearance if they were eliminated by an air unit....there are other possibilities? Notice that this feature does not contribute to micromanagement, it only requires it be coded and I believe adds a certain randomness to SC playability, not to mention the realistic aspects of combat.

[pzgndr]

SC2 will have retreats, which should give many units a second chance. Beyond that, a third or fourth chance may make it "too" difficult to kill units. Unit destruction and rebuild costs are also realistic abstractions.

We all know that units the size of corps or armies could never actually be eliminated

True, but where do all the reinforcements in the game come from? Some may be new or rebuilt divisions, but others may be the survivors of eliminated units that get reassigned.

[SeaMonkey]

Fair enough Bill, the retreat feature does model my proposal to a certain extent. On the other hand, when we are looking at SC2 turns that are a minimum of one week, it seems that the reality of the battlefield dictates that there should be a chance for an eliminated unit to get its act together, locally. The cluttering of the battlefield is one of my concerns, but that concern could lend credence to the use of fast moving, deep penetrations of armored and motorized units to further provide for the elimination(2nd attack) of reorganizing units in the flavor of Blitzkrieg operations. I especially like my proposal when applied to units eliminated by air operations, where disruption was usually short lived. Then again I'm trusting that HC and yourself with DD will provide us with the abstract feature representing this battlefield condition in some other manor. Simply speaking my MO is that a great strategic game is about the modeling of the other scales, operational and tactical, with realistic abstractions that do not add to the player's work load and creates a randomization of replay.

[Slapaho]

Would it not be better to 'remove' the 'destroyed' unit but add some MPP back to the pool to symbolise the survivors absorption back into the resource pool. Corps and Armies were very rarely trully destroyed but as effective fighting formations they were for all intent destroyed. One of Hitlers (and Stalins) failings was to build up fighting formations from scratch rather than, as their own military doctrine required, to withdraw combat experienced troops to re-equip and re-inforce and therefore keep their best formations at the peak of technology and maintain their experience. Hitler gave fresh troops the best equipment and they were basically wasted because the new formations had no experience to maximise the effects.

Destroy a unit and the country it belonged to gets a random number of MPP back between 1% and 5% of its max strength (for land units only). Equipment was very rarely saved - men however had the tendency to make it back to friendly lines. Even at Stalingrad a number of soldiers managed to escape (my grandads brother for one).