Chaning attachments

[JonS1]

In order to 'attach' or 'rearrange' all I do is stack the different units together.

That's not attaching. That's stacking. Paper and cards had more elegant systems 30 years ago. I'd like to think that gaming technology has advanced a little in the meantime.

As for the power of a supreme commander...not sure how often Ike decided to move regiments around, or even SHAEF.

Not sure, huh? Well, when you find out, hows about you let us know? Oh, and don't forget that in addition to being Ike, you are also Bradley, Montgommery, Hodges, Patton, Dempsey, Crerar, and all the others, right down through corps and division to regt/bde/kg level.

Let us know how often they moved units around.

I suppose it would have made Rommels life a bit easier if he could have just attached the 21st armour's panzers to the 711th div on the beach.

Sure, because everyone just loves a dopey example that makes an irrelevant point.

I can think of way to many ways to abuse it

Of course you can. Anyone [deleted] can think of ways to abuse it. That's why you make it generally unattractive. Real military formations don't reconfigure themselves willy-nilly for a reason, and that reason is generally increased confusion and loss of cohesion.

So, how do you reflect that? You do it by making it slow to move units around - only one level per day, and only allowing movement within their current command chain, etc. You can also add fatigue and/or disruption. You could also include maximum attachment quantities (4 sub-units for a regt/bde, 12 for a Division, 20 for a corps, etc, with the attachment quantities edit-able in the OoB editor, and linked to quality level). That way, if you want to abuse it go for it, but you'll suffer the consequences.

Get the cost-benefit ratio in the right ball park, and abuse will go away.

that wouldnt reflect kindly on history.

Well, given that - at the moment - we can't do what the commanders actually did with their units, that's kind of a weak argument. It's made even weaker if you think that a game should be reasonably 'open', rather than running like a movie script.

And Glen makes a good point that you can simulate you what you want, without a lot of work being done to the game engine.

Perhaps, but surely the point of having a computer game is having the computer do the book keeping for you. What's the point of having a dog, and doing the barking yourself?

Also, there is the issue of the game's Combined Organisation Penalty. At the moment, I am being penalised for doing the kind of thing that should be normal.

By the way, I think the COP is a Good Thing™ to have in the game. The problem is that - with the highly restricted re-attachment rules - there is no way to avoid it, other than using a-historic tactics. That is a Bad Thing™.