S43 Question For Glenn.(and anybody else with an opinion)

[Mr Grumpy]

Glenn,
Why can the Axis forces in S43 not evacuate the island as in the historical battle?
I am drawing close to the end of a CG and my Axis opponent is going to have to fight to the death as he does not have this option.
Was a exit hex not considered?

Not criticizing a great game, just curious :)
Regards,
Darran.

[Glenn Saunders]

Glenn,
Why can the Axis forces in S43 not evacuate the island as in the historical battle?
I am drawing close to the end of a CG and my Axis opponent is going to have to fight to the death as he does not have this option.
Was a exit hex not considered?

Not criticizing a great game, just curious :)
Regards,
Darran.

The Basic reason is Historically Hitler would not have any talk of evacuation of the Island. It simply was not an option. We had a way to make Exit Objectives work, but we couldn't make them come into effect after a certain turn. I suppose we could have requested this as a game enhancement, but we have no way to tie this into an "event" so it just didn't lead us in a direction we wanted.

What date is your Campaign up too?

Glenn

[Mr Grumpy]

Glenn,
Until i receive a move back i cannot tell you the date, but we are on turn 191 and his defense lines East of Etna at Sant Alfio/Riposto, West of Etna at Bronte and on the North coast at Sante Agata have collapsed, not sure how much longer it will be until i get to Messina (20-40 moves?).

If you think i have achieved that quickly my opponent has not played well (by his own admission), i trapped and destroyed most of the 15 Panz and HG earlier in the game.

Thanks for your answer, this is a difficult situation to build into a game and i suppose if there was a exit hex the Axis player could just run away!
Regards,
Darran.

[Steel God]

I seem to remember that during testing we were faced with the problem that if we had an exit hex, the German player who had no scruples could just pull back the key units and win the game by denying the Allies the VPs for destroying the units. We did want the exit hex, even more so for some of the smaller scenarios that dealt with the final stages of the battle than the CGs, where withdrawal of forces is an established historical fact....but as Glenn said, we only wanted it if we could make the exit hex appear after a certain date. But it was either available from turn 1 or not at all.

Paul

[Mr Grumpy]

Ok,
I understand, thanks both for your input :)
Darran.

[Glenn Saunders]

Glenn,
Until i receive a move back i cannot tell you the date, but we are on turn 191 ...

That makes it roughly 28th or 29th of July.

I think the warning order to evacuate was issued 2 Aug and the first troops embarked on the night of August 11th. Which would be roughly in around 130 more turns from turn 191.

I figured by that time the action would be over and special programming to accomodate evacuation wasn't worth the effort.

Glenn

[Mr Grumpy]

And my game only proves that point ;)
Thanks for that, it's always nice to know why things are like they are!
Darran.