Sneak movements through defense : why?

[jhmorneau]

Hi,

I'm new to SC2WAW and I've been caught off guard more than once by units with high mobility sneaking through 2 defensive units (in diagonal).

Here is a rough drawing of it (with x being defensive units and y the sneaky bastard)

Before : After :

x x

y y

x x

I lost two towns because of this and it really hurts!

In most wargames that I know offensive moves invariably end the very moment the moving unit comes into contact with an enemy unit.

This is definitely not the case in SC2WAW.

Can someone explain me the reason(s) why?

To my mind it is unrealistic and gamey.

Thanks for your attention,

JHM

[Kuniworth]

Actually it does not make any sense and is troublesome in very aspect. Thats just what you get with tiles.

WaW is a truely great game and I guess we are spoiled to have such support from the Dev.

However I am still angry that instead of introducing hexes and retreat-rules we now continue down the same road with an expansion with the same basic tiles. Im not doubting it will be good just frustrated that we are not able to take the sc series to the next level.

[Canuck_TAR]

Why wouldn't you be able to drive through?

Its a simple military manouver, the act of penetration, envelopment or turning. If one side has intel that there is a gap between to armies/corps why not drive between them?

[Kuniworth]

Penetration, yeah right. The absurdity of tiles can easily be examplified: both sides can sustain their supplylines through the diagonals. Look:

'Y

X X

'Y

both sides got supply between units. This is just an example that these tiles are flawed(along with distances etc)

[Big Dog]

Penetration is also extemely unrealistic in the extent the units penetrate. Certainly, a part of Blitzkreig tactics was to penetrate and envelop. But in all verisons of SC, a single unit will penetrate hundreds of miles behind the front lines, well out of any hope of supply. This feature requires you to garrison every city to prevent one of these walkabout units from penetrating the Russian line at Karkov and capturing Kubishev.

[Ottosmops]

I fully agree with Kuniworth.

A situation as in the picture below shouldn't be possible.

The German tank is in supply, and so is the Polish corps below.

[pzgndr]

The problem is not with tiles but with how the adjacent unit movement penalty is applied, for both movement and supply calculations. If the penalty could be revised to apply only to intervening tiles between enemy units, then it could be increased to be more realistic. Also, some addditional penalty for armor ZOCs would be nice.

[Marty Ward]

I don't understand the problem. With tiles or hexes you only need to have 3 covered to form a line that cannot be moved through from an adjacent spot.

[jhmorneau]

Thanks for your posts.

Marty, you're absolutely right : when using hexes you need to have 3 covered to form a line.

The problem with SC2 is that you have the optical illusion that two units in a vertical line will prevent enemy units from going through. This is misleading to say the least.

Now, what about implementing the good old rule which says : moving into a tile adjacent to one enemy unit will automatically end the move?

This could do the trick.

Cheers,

JHM

[Liam]

Agreed, but Hexagons aren't real either. It's the supply system of Strategic Command that is difficult to get a hold of...... So that a tile or hex 200 miles away from a city gets supply? WHY??? That's much too much distance for WW2 trucks and in certain places HORSES!

The point I think you have to remember is that there are a lot more cities, towns, depots, bases, etc... along the way and that does cover SOME of the supply factors. There are certain bonuses and penalties in regions also which attempts to reflect some historical emphasis in regards to supply.

In Tiles you merely need to post an extra unit to cover the Center so you have a very natural and historical defense formation like a U or a > wedge

i.e. a 1588 Spanish Armada

The Tactical Aspects of SC can be given or taken but the strategic appeal is much more

Also Minor Take Down would be impossible, as would any conquest if you started penalizing units stretching - - - 3 deep with movement prices as well as supply prices as far as I can see now... that or it would just be slower. Considering that would mean offensives would have to start earlier and end earlier...

So the game would be more boring..

Hexagons may be superior, they may be neater... but they're what we assign to territory, some land may allow incredible incirclement and some may not

[Kuniworth]

Im sure PDE will be great. But it's not what Im looking for.

This constant "destruction" of units instead of retreat rules, combined with too many attack directions(tiles) take away the fun of having a frontline.

I love to see SC 1 with the enhancements and editing capability of sc2 plus retreat rules.

[arado234]

You could also adopt the Third Reich rule which gives Armor a Z.O.C.costing any unit leaving an enemy Z.O.C.3 movement points.This would solve alot of the problem and create another,slowing the game down because in Third Reich you can exploit after the attack.

[Marty Ward]

I don't know the actual scale of each tile but they seem pretty big. Big enough that a 'corp' might not exert a lockdown on getting supply through.

Perhaps a reduction in supply for passing through a "ZOC" would be a better solution, say 2 or 3 less per tile when traced through an unoccupied tile adjacent to an enemy.

[SeaMonkey]

Same ole crap! Hexes vs Tiles, stagnation vs exploitation.

Ha! Look at the title of this thread, imagine....sneaking......infiltration...in wartime.....Blasphemy..I say! Totally unrealistic. It should be easy to surround the enemy...I mean he only occupies 2500 square miles in a single tile, a singular corps formation...no chance that anyone, not one single sub unit to get away.

Look at the pic. above, only takes two more units to close the envelopment. Look at that Nazi Panzercorps, kind of looks like an arrow with the panzers as the point doesn't it? Reminders of "Kiel and Kessel".

Never seen that before!

You guys dwell within the realm of defining creativity, try to get on the level of the "thought of". :confused:

Glad that Hubert did.

[Liam]

Territories from Paradox, Hexagons from Matrix and at least Battlefront like CIV explored Tiles

It's an old concept, I recall seeing it in SSI games and in a favorite of mine, Command HQ back from '88 or '89 for PC Wargames, ModemStyle

You have to have a definition of territory of realestate, SC2 WAW or Vanilla is plain tiles. Mostly, it takes into consideration that 75% of territory is passable for gameplay

More Historical Wargames can be quite slow, boring... If you make it realistic you would have to add in some other factors that aren't included. I.E. A Great Tactical Manuever allows for German Panzers to Thrust 50 Kilometers into France meanwhile the French just retreat confused and befuttled...

You'd steal Blitzkrieg away I think it very essential to have quick successive victories when a major force ratio is achieved. 3-1 or 5-1... No matter how you pile on the Army Group, or where you will win in Tiles, Hexes, Territories and in real life. So it's most realistic just to overrun the defender. Defense is a war winner in SC2 as it is other games

The Dice in games to solve Disputes can be annoying too, so that not every game is predictable... History is nice but impossible, the look and feel matter

The way to make tiles work would be to add more terrain, tiles, cities, towns, etc... And make the map bigger

[xwormwood]

Originally posted by Kuniworth:

Im sure PDE will be great. But it's not what Im looking for.

This constant "destruction" of units instead of retreat rules, combined with too many attack directions(tiles) take away the fun of having a frontline.

I love to see SC 1 with the enhancements and editing capability of sc2 plus retreat rules.

With this everything is said.

I couldn't agree more.

[Timskorn]

I loved Command HQ…such simplicity, yet with enough detail to make strategy more than putting more units in one area than your opponent. The map was basically a series of squares that allowed overlap of units which occurred in real-time. It was really novel, actually. Only infantry could enrench, and happened when they sat for x number of turns. Only armor could "blitzkrieg" through units, and flanking bonuses applied when you engaged a unit from multiple sides. Air units could bomb cities and units, intercept and be used for paradrops. Subs could sneak attack by sitting still at sea, and land units attacking from sea were considered amphib assaults with penalties applied.

I'd actually love to see an updated, more historical version of that. It was truly a "beer and pretzel" wargame.

Ok, I'm off topic…sue me. But to try and make a point here…I think its mostly hardcore wargamers that make hexes a big deal. If something "works" and is fun, I really don't care what is used. If it's hexes, great…if it's squares, whatever.

[Bill101]

Originally posted by Kuniworth:

Im sure PDE will be great. But it's not what Im looking for.

This constant "destruction" of units instead of retreat rules, combined with too many attack directions(tiles) take away the fun of having a frontline.

I love to see SC 1 with the enhancements and editing capability of sc2 plus retreat rules.

Destruction is no different from their commander having to take the units out of the line to rest, reform and be reinforced. That's why we can buy destroyed units back at cheaper cost.

Given the map scale and the amount of units we often field, I think that retreat rules would contain quite a few pitfalls of their own which could far outweigh the benefits.

[ March 20, 2008, 12:23 PM: Message edited by: Bill101 ]

[Timskorn]

Retreat rules in SC2 would have little, if any, benefit to the gameplay. For one thing, it would be terribly annoying. Imagine you hit 3 or 4 units down to 1 strength, they all retreat out of danger. Next turn, your opponent reinforces them all or op-moves them all away. It would prolong combat and give more benefits to defense, which doesn't need any more help as it is. Two, as Bill said it's already abstracted and there is much more satisfaction in removing a unit from the game via combat than chasing them around like whack-a-mole.

I understand where you're coming from and the logic behind it and the idea might work in another game, but I don't think with SC2. This is something that would need to be planned on being in the game from the beginning, in my opinion.

[Bill101]

I think scale is a big factor here. In Kuni's Battle for Russia scenario it's possible that an ability for a unit to retreat could work because there's plenty of space.

However, if we take the fighting to liberate France in a typical Fall Weiss scenario, there isn't generally the space to have units retreating all over the place.

[Kuniworth]

Originally posted by Timskorn:

I understand where you're coming from and the logic behind it and the idea might work in another game, but I don't think with SC2.

Yes I agree.

That's why I wanted us to leave the SC2 era and evolve this series to something new. Instead we will see one more year or so put into PDE.

[SeaMonkey]

You know Kuni this statement has some great insight.

[arado234]

I think some people are trying to find the perfect or near perfect war game.With SC2 and the addition of W.a.W.Hubert and his team have come very close while not making the game to complicated or restrictive.

To me this game is supposed(other than the most important which is alot of fun)to be a combo of strategic and tactical warfare and they(imho)have achieved this almost perfectly without getting to complcated or technical.Some here think that W.a.W.is to restrictive because of the different rules and extra units.I prefer W.a.W.now that ive played both,although im playing a mirror SC2 and am enjoying alot(even though ive made a couple of mistakes thinking im playing W.a.W.)

If anyone here has played Squad Leader and its various additions know that game was as close as you could get to absolute realism but it took along time to learn all the rules.There is absolutely no way that can be achieved in any strategic type game.

As far as realism goes if more of an attempt was made to apply that to this game Germany would prettywell never have a chance to win once you factored in overall Allied might.

Maybe if there ever is an SC3 alot of these things mentioned will get added,but it may get to technical to be enjoyable so what would be the point.

[Timskorn]

The real trick is finding that middle ground between grognards and casual. To create the "beer and pretzel" style wargame that appeals to both. I know some argue that you can't try and cater to both or you'll alienate both, but that's wrong. It can be done, and SC2 is proof…albeit, *early* proof. It can certainly be even better.

There is always a temptation in a game like this to add more depth through features and more realistic modeling of war. This is both rooted in the desire to add more strategic options (and in theory, making repeated play throughs more satisfying) and to make it more historic. Adding oil, for example, would create a whole new layer of not only the decisions you make for your own troops and strategy, but how to deny those same options from your enemy. It also risks actually narrowing down your overall options if winning is heavily dependent on having it.

The other desire is simply to make it more historical. There's a major threshold for each player in determining what is acceptable or not to have, or not have, in a wargame. Does it make it too gamey, or too rigid? Is it actually fun to include this or that, simply because that was in the real war?

SC2 has done a fine job of finding that balance. I think the risk outweighs the reward at this point in adding too much to it. SC3 would have to be the game to tackle a new system from scratch, in my opinion. Also, I too went back to SC2 vanilla recently to play the Global War mod. It's refreshing to actually NOT have the extra units, allowing the game to go back to more of a chess match. I do miss the double-strike armor though… WaW is also great because it created a new gameplay experience, but didn't obsolete SC2 vanilla in the process!

[arado234]

One more thing and probably one of the most important(which cant be changed) is that we know before the game ever starts that one VERY important thing will happen,America and Russia will join the Allies.In reality Britian never knew any of this.This alone takes away from any attempt at any war game being "realistic".The Allies can plan accordingly but in reality had no such option,especially with Russia.