HPS PzC II

[dgk196]

Hello...

I wholeheartedly agree with you on that one! Could be that its because the game doesn't look at the aspects of what a command can do, or should be doing, and how efficient they are at it.

For instance, having the various categories of what a 'command' does might help!? Such things as a 'rating' for each of the following...

Commanding Officer, Executive Officer, Chief of Staff, Supply, Artillery, Communications, Intelligence and the various Liaison officers of the 'command in question' and those of the 'supporting units!?

By assigning a 'value' to each of these categories you could derive an overall efficiency rating for the 'command' and each of its units. This would give you the ability to determine the units ability to perform both their individual tasks and those that take coordination to accomplish. The 'ratings' could be numeric (my preference) or an alphabetic association (A,B...) as it is now.

Ideas?

Dennis

[Dog Soldier]

Hello...

Yes, that's what we figured the disruption was simulating. I doubt the unit would be disrupted if the guy digging the officers latrine got zapped. But, on the other hand, most every military organization has redundancy built into it. So that it is not brought to a grinding halt because of the loss of one person.

One of the chain of commands functions is to allow the unit to keep on operating when casualties are incurred. Otherwise 'large' organizations would be 'fragile' in the way they are in the game now. I think maybe a change in leadership rating would be in order, better or worse is possible. As we are talking about 'large' units, word of the demise of individuals might not be known by subunits until long after it happens!? Also the time frame of a turn is 'long'. Even if there was some initial confusion as a result of key losses, would it really take 2 hours to overcome?

So, to sum it up... the option to select the level of effects and the type of effects, maybe should be an option for PzC II. That would allow a large number of variables so that scenario's could be fine-tuned for desired results.

Dennis

The effects of disruption are temporary.

That is why it is rare that a one man loss results in disruption. Some units have second in command that takes over without missing a step. Other units, especially ones where the leader was very charismatic and strong, are stunned and ineffective for a short period of time. Not all units react the same. Giving the player more unit ratings so they can control this type of event by using their units differently would be adding complexity without much better results. A 'B' quality unit will recover from this loss much faster (next turn in most cases) than an 'E' quality unit which might take several turns. Those unit quality factors do simulate how quickly a unit can recover from such a loss as described. The quality rating of a unit is an expression of both to the quality chain of command in a unit counter and to the actual training, experience, tactical expertise of the soldiers in the unit. Seems to work to me.

Saying it is two hours long as unreasonable is a bit much since all turns except night turns are two hours long. Creating effects to only last a partial turn is not something I have ever seen in any gaming system based on turns.

Once you introduce individual leaders in a game of the PzC scale, players tend to spend unrealistic efforts to nail such leaders. That produces game issues of a different type solving nothing.

Keep your command HQs close to the units they are commanding without unduly exposing those same HQ units and you will find less overall disruption. While an HQ can have a large command radius, that does not mean the uni needs to remain at the extent of that range from the action. Sending the local HQ close to the flash point of the fight to better control the subordinate units (in attack or defense) is a good use of your HQs. Not every point on the line is critical. The player needs to focus his HQs where he thinks they are needed the most.

Dog Soldier

[tbridges]

[quote='dgk196' pid='394835' dateline='1413084547']
Hello...

Keep your command HQs close to the units they are commanding without unduly exposing those same HQ units and you will find less overall disruption. While an HQ can have a large command radius, that does not mean the uni needs to remain at the extent of that range from the action. Sending the local HQ close to the flash point of the fight to better control the subordinate units (in attack or defense) is a good use of your HQs. Not every point on the line is critical. The player needs to focus his HQs where he thinks they are needed the most.

Dog Soldier

Hey...I've been working on improving my game by trying to minimize the effects of enemy electronic warfare. This renders HQs "Out-of- Command" with the resultant reduction in their morale (and therefore their ability to help their units recover from disruption) and exposes otherwise hidden HQ's vulnerable to air and arty attack.

The User manual says:

"SIGINT detects enemy HQ at (hex coordinates). This allows you to detect an enemy HQ that would otherwise not be visible to you. The HQ unit is shown as an Unknown unit on the map. You can detect enemy HQ units that are within twice their command range from one of your units.
• Enemy jamming affects HQ at (hex coordinates). This alerts you to the fact that one of your HQ units is being jammed by the enemy’s Electronic Warfare. An HQ unit that is jammed becomes Out of Command. You can jam enemy HQ units that are within their command range from one of your units."

Since both of these negative effects result from being "close" to the enemy, how do you handle this? Do you keep the HQs close to the action and hope the potential electronic warfare effects are minimal? Or?

[dgk196]

Hello...

Guys, thanks for your input and views on the various subjects mentioned. All I was saying was that I would like it if there where a variable that didn't allow the 'disruption' of an entire battalion because of the loss of one person as a result of a combat.

For PzC II, I can see retaining the current event outcome... but it should, or could be a variable, that can be disabled or altered to fit the preferences of the player(s). Its just something that I think could be included in a 'PzC II' game. New game, new attributes. If a new version where to come out... I'd like to see the 'old' game reside inside the new game. So that, you could play the original scenarios or upgrade them to the 'new' status without having to completely 'build' a new scenario.

Dennis

[BigDuke66]

Don't take the terms and the numbers too "obviously", just look at the manual:
"A unit that is Disrupted represents a unit has been made less combat effective because it has been exposed to very heavy fire. This represents the fact that control of the formation has been reduced, thus
reducing fire effect of the unit as a whole. The men are still firing but more at the target of their choice. If
the unit is composed of tanks, then many of the crew commanders have "buttoned up". Disrupted units have 1/2 fire value."

So basically such a unit got nailed because of heavy fire, the number of losses is just a result of that heavy fire just like the disruption itself is a result of it and not because of the single loss.

[Dog Soldier]

[quote='dgk196' pid='394835' dateline='1413084547']
Hello...

Keep your command HQs close to the units they are commanding without unduly exposing those same HQ units and you will find less overall disruption. While an HQ can have a large command radius, that does not mean the uni needs to remain at the extent of that range from the action. Sending the local HQ close to the flash point of the fight to better control the subordinate units (in attack or defense) is a good use of your HQs. Not every point on the line is critical. The player needs to focus his HQs where he thinks they are needed the most.

Dog Soldier

Hey...I've been working on improving my game by trying to minimize the effects of enemy electronic warfare. This renders HQs "Out-of- Command" with the resultant reduction in their morale (and therefore their ability to help their units recover from disruption) and exposes otherwise hidden HQ's vulnerable to air and arty attack.

The User manual says:

"SIGINT detects enemy HQ at (hex coordinates). This allows you to detect an enemy HQ that would otherwise not be visible to you. The HQ unit is shown as an Unknown unit on the map. You can detect enemy HQ units that are within twice their command range from one of your units.
• Enemy jamming affects HQ at (hex coordinates). This alerts you to the fact that one of your HQ units is being jammed by the enemy’s Electronic Warfare. An HQ unit that is jammed becomes Out of Command. You can jam enemy HQ units that are within their command range from one of your units."

Since both of these negative effects result from being "close" to the enemy, how do you handle this? Do you keep the HQs close to the action and hope the potential electronic warfare effects are minimal? Or?

My comments were from PzC and not MC. I should have specified that I suppose. I do not play MC. It appears the electronic warfare aspect changes the optimal HQ distance from the troops at the front. Hopefully the MC HQs have a greater command radius than those in PzC which would alleviate this problem somewhat.

Dog Soldier

[dgk196]

Hello...

Sorry about not replying sooner. I follow what you are saying about the variables of the attack having the effect of disruption on a unit. If you play say small scenarios you maybe don't see it as much. But, in the larger scenarios, like Kursk, I've seen it a lot and more than once in just one 'turn'.

Since the 'variables' are losses, fatigue, morale and the 'effectiveness' of an attack, it would seem that those are the primary factors to observe and from which to draw conclusions!? That said, I've had battalions on the first turn of the game, as a result of an attack, incur single-digit 'fatigue', no change in the 'morale' rating and an indication of the loss of a single person which leads to these battalion-sized units being disrupted!

This can't be right, can it? I'm having a real hard time buying into that. So, are there some variables that can be set either in the scenario or within the parameters of the individual units that would make this less of an occurrence? My preference would be for it not to happen at all, but something tells me its not possible.

Dennis

[BigDuke66]

Well in case of an assault the losses are double to determine disruption because an assault I would say is a form of close combat and not simply a firefight.
Sure it looks bad of a single guys is lost and the unit is disrupted but again that is the simple "fallout" of the fire fight or assault that set the unit so much under pressure that it ends up in a state which is less effective in combat or simply in a disrupted state.

[Xaver]

For me the way to show units value is obsolete... with a single value show things like training, experience and morale you lose a lot of value in game, you can have for example a super experienced soviet infantry unit with good morale but that fails by a inadecaute training where a german unit compensate lack of experience and morale with a better training...

Other thing i never like is the supply area... i never find real that an unit in garrison be isolated and suffer next turn low ammo effects...

I think in DC serie these 2 areas are much better covered... maybe PzC is easier to understand with a simple view what and how is but offer some exploits not very fun where a minimal numerical advantage roll over on the paper better troops.

Disrupted... i see units with 0 loses enter on this status and see units losing a lot of soldiers unable to enter on this status... is a random value and i never find it good because you dont know when your units can enter in D status (maybe with a morale value you can control this better).

Lets see but i doubt see a II version.

[BigDuke66]

DC lacks in other areas, besides the scale is very different as DC is purely operational.
But yes more values might help to model certain aspect more detailed, but some designer can work that out, in the FWW series the designer for example made some HQ units with rather bad ratings to show the lack of good leadership or leadership at all but the units have better ratings to simulate that they are still good trained, so that is already a way of simulating the effects of experience & morale vs. training.

on the other hand the PC series already gives more values than the Napoleonic or Civil War engine gives and remember the PC series is from 1999 so seeing how "old" she is that gal is still pretty but you have to be into it.
And PC is surely more complicated than DC and not easier to learn, tactical level is always more complicated than operational.

And again I have to remind to NOT take anything a simple as it seems, low ammo doesn't necessarily mean they run short on bullets what btw should only happen when they fire, it can already state that the unit conserves ammo because of the encirclement. That is why you can still do defensive fire.
You can also turn to "Explicit Supply". with that you should have supply units that you could place with the "fortress" and units wouldn't go on low ammo but simply use that supply unit till it's empty

And the state of disruption is a matter of the Moral Test, if that one is failed the unit gets combat ineffective(disrupted) and that check is triggered when a pre-test is failed that works like this:
loss / (loss + base-value)
base-value is:
• 5 for platoon and uncombined company units.
• 10 for combined company units consisting of 2 subunits.
• 15 for battalions and combined company units consisting of 3 or more subunits.
So the amount of losses is purely a factor to see if the moral has to be checked, not the base for whether the unit disrupts or not.

And all in this game is "random", it is a matter of how high or low the values are as these make it more likely or more unlikely that a unit disrupts and not simply possible or impossible.
To somehow allow the player to know when that happens makes no sense, certainty is nothing that you get on any battlefield.
And that sometimes your troops don't hold up to what you expected of them is also simply natural on the battlefield, as said there is no certainty on the battlefield.