Encirclements

[John DiFool the 2nd]

After playing Kuni's Russian Front scenario a bit

more (added several Russian oil wells), I realized

something: aside from turn one I was never encircling

large numbers of enemy troops. Not only that but I

hardly ever had a genuine chance to do so (as opposed

to a foolish opportunity).

Problem #1 is that supply is intimately tied to

cities-you need cities to keep your troops in good

fighting order. Hence taking enemy-held territory

is pointless if such territory has no cities.

Problem #2 is how supply can be denied to an

encircled enemy (or rather not denied). Let

me use an illustrative example, which assumes

we are playing Kuni's scenario...

Say you are a transplanted German general who has

traveled forward in time to use our modern-day

simulations for better insight into the war back

home (and 60 years ago).

You face a frontage of several Russian units,

behind which is an enemy-held city flanked by an

HQ. You decide to annihilate the flank units with

your air/infantry and then send your tanks around

into his rear, just as the textbooks on Barbarossa

say is was done, with the hope of cutting off his

supply, and permanently killing the surrounded

units. You hit end turn confidently, reasonably

sure there can be no escape for the cauldroned

enemy units. But recall this is the SC universe

not the real universe.

His turn comes, and you notice strange things

happening. Somehow despite the fact that your

Panzers have left no gaps in their circle at all,

you see all damaged enemy units in the cauldron

getting fully reinforced! Worse, NEW units

magically appear next to the city, including a

couple of newly formed Russian Armors! You wonder

how the hey all these supply and reinforcement

trains got by your menacing Panzers-didn't they

destroy the railroad tracks as they crossed them?

You're sure your armor commanders were carefully

guarding each major road and rail line...

Well in SC supply like I said is based on cities.

Most other games of this scale base supply ultimate-

ly on tracing a line back to a major supply source

(capital, major city or railroad junction, the far

east edge of the map). SC does too-to a point.

But even a surrounded city still gets a supply

level of 5, and worse any HQs next to said city

then get their full supply level! And even worse,

supply CAN be traced through the diagonals of the

squares, DESPITE the presence of enemy units next

to said diagonals!

So what happens in the above example? You know it-

the German units, because they have no nearby city

(yes probably an HQ but he can't get too far into

the front for fear of enemy attacks) are now the

ones in a poor supply situation. They do some

inconsequential attacks on their turn, and then

get annihilated by the Russians the turn after

that.

To take the territory and the city then you attack

the flanks, but only to squeeze the enemy from the

north and south, eventually arriving on the outskirts

of the city 2-3 turns later and taking it. All

units you killed can be bought back at 1/2 price.

That is essentially what I did in the two-sided

(no AI) game I played earlier this (last) week-

just outflank, eat away at the line, take the city,

rinse repeat.

If you are determined to REALLY encircle something,

you have to have tons of units (armor) to cover

all the diagonals, be reasonably sure there's no

enemy armor in reserve, and probably goodly amounts

of air superiority (to kill that pesky HQ). Other-

wise it ain't worth it.

This syndrome gets so bad that the Russian can

leave city-less gaps in his line, inviting the

German to march into them to his doom, since for

him to do so is simply not effective without a

supply source to anchor his spearhead.

I guess the above long-winded rant is probably old

hat to the vets here, but I've hardly ever seen it

addressed explicitly. It can affect the standard

scenario just as much as it can Kuni's (or Thrawn's

too I'd imagine), and a lot of essential flavor of

such a campaign is lost.

[benpark]

This is my main gripe with the game as well.

One way to alleviate it would be to institute RR and major highways. These features are needed for the smaller, "operational" scenarios as is. For the strat game with RR, unit encircled would need to trace a path to within a square or so of an unblocked supply route.

[arado234]

I couldnt agree more.I think it should be if you have a zone of control(like in third reich)you cant send any renforcements.The only thing the surrounded units can do is draw say about 40%supply only from any uncaptured city inside the zone of control that they control,Unless the surrounded units were in a fortress like cherbourg etc.Although i dont know how you would add the fortress feature into this game.Otherwise if they remain surrounded for a month(like third reich)they are eliminated.

[Liam]

The Supply Key is what causes all this. It highlights those Lost tiles back to the other side the next turn when calculating supply, I often ask myself, WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY. You can encircle but without a bomber you'll never destroy a unit Plus with a Sacrifical Low end HQ units will inevitable survive. I suppose the only way to truly encircle in SC2 is this!

take 6 or 7 Air Units, Kill Russian HQ

Bomb it's City to at least 3, so units cannot have sufficient supply on that City to rebuild...

Encircle with the extra Tiles neccessary to cause an Encirclement, that means you probably could benefit from Motors 2! LORDY!

Is it even worth it? NAH, destroying and encircling is pretty rare, better off Destroying Armies, Tanks, AFs, HQs and other high priced items neccessary for the war effort. You won't get that effect on this Scale..

Remeber even the 6th army at Stalingrad could've attempted a Breakout up until a certian point even though surrounded, a Cornered Tiger can still Gut you! You must be cautious in the way you take the Beast Down.

[Kuniworth]

Yes the supply stuff is another killer to ww2 fighting together with the no retreat rules, too high experience and tiles.

Tiles been covered so many times but thing is the critics were right. Tiles make you need 8 corps/armies to completly cut off an enemy unit, anyone think that is realistic?

I 100% agree that encirclements are pointless. Ive noticed this a bit back in my own scenario and Biaylostok. Historically this was a great german victory completly surrounding the forward russian elements at the first stages of the eastern front campaign. But in my scenario this doesnt work, no point doing an encirclement.

Look I've been doing some scenarios for SC2 and continue to support this fine game, but at the same time I can clearly see the flaws of it.

I really want to see a SC 3 with lots of the suggestions we talked about here and earlier. And lets use our community's big strength while making it; eg that we got a pretty big fanbase to support and improve it.

Vital would be;

- hexes

- retreat rules

- working ww2 tactics

etc

[hellraiser]

"working ww2 tactics"

well, imo, this is one of the problems that causes so much sorrow

If SC2 was actually a tactical game, you guys would've been right-but it is my guess that sc2 was never intended to accurately simulate tactical issues.

Basically, if a unit kills another unit - this leaves your imagination to work - was it encircled? was it killed in a frontal assault?

In SC2, you just kill stuff...on a strategical level. The game does not show how the actual killing was performed

[Retributar]

I think one of the places to start to increasing the 'Realism', is to have a slightly larger European Map, in order to provide increased opportunities for encirclements...and hidden movement's, and also as Kuniworth mentioned, maybey we need to go back to hexes?.

A possible solution to encirclements, might include instead to use 'Overlapping' zones of control in lieu of requiring a unit in each and every square to completely encircle a unit?.

So this would mean that when 2 or more unit's of the same side overlap their zones-of-control or influence, that...that would in effect have the same influence as we now have by needing to have a unit physically in that space!. This would mean now that instead of requiring 8-unit's to do an 'Encirclement', that we could now do it with only 4-Unit's!.

Perhap's too, that when two-separate units exert a combined overlapping zone-of-control, that the surrounded unit would now, not be able to traverse through that ZONE-OF-CONTROL at all, other than ONLY moving directly into it! [The Overlapping ZONE-OF-CONTROL]...but, again as i just mentioned... not through it!.

[ December 04, 2006, 02:51 AM: Message edited by: Retributar ]

[SeaMonkey]

I believe a simple solution is to make contested ZoC block supply in either player turn. Only by having a friendly unit occupying the tile do you negate the effect of the opponents ZoC for supply tracing purposes.

This is the way it was for most board wargames I grew up with.

[TaoJah]

I donno.

Say there are some troops and a HQ around a city when the city is "cut off" and surroundered. Do you think that all those troops all of a sudden fall out of supply ? I don't think so...

I don't buy this whole encriclement theory, sorry.

[ev]

Historically, encircled units kept on fighting for long periods of time during WWII... We hear of the big encirclements and the huge numbers of prisoners taken by the German forces in 1941, but we forget it reducing these pockets took a lot of manpower, effort, and, often hard fighting. ...look at Stalingrad, Bastogne, etc.

I have issues though with "operating units" adjacent to enemy units. Units should not be allowed to operate out of combat. A unit adjacent to an enemy unit should not be allowed to "operate". Likewise units should not be allowed to operate into areas in enemy ZOC.

Same should apply to reinforcements... Reinforcements should not be allowed into tiles adjacent to enemy units. And, cut off cities should not be allowed to receive reinforcements... much like overseas cities.

I also believe that motorized and armored units should be made faster viz a viz foot soldiers. Level 1 Armored and Level 2 motorized infantry should treble the speed of foot (non motorized) infantry. Of course, this can be achieved by a combination of slowing infantry and speeding up armored and motorized units.

Increasing the speed diferential between motorized viz a viz foot units would make it much easier for mechanized units to pocket foot infantry formations.

[SeaMonkey]

Remember SC tiles are 50 miles, thoughts of disengagement/engagement characteristics need to take that into account, as well as the time period involved per turn, ie. avg. two weeks.

For a surrounded city / blockaded port unable to trace a supply line(uncontested tiles) to its capital or primary supply source should immediately acquire a supply of 3 / 30% efficiency, unless scripted otherwise.

This would allow an HQ in the vicinity to provide a higher (8) supply efficiency but at the risk of loss. You know your opponent will target that HQ ASAP. The HQ fulfills an organization and coordination requirement for air supply, or possibly clandestine ops.

Every turn that the city remains surrounded the supply should drop by one until it reaches 0 making the HQ support worth only 5 at that moment or without(HQ) the remaining units in the pocket have consumed their logistical support base.

Gentlemen, I believe you know we're talking SC3 here, because I doubt this enhanced supply model will find its way into the code of SC2.

But ideas are good.