Extreme assault?

[Dan Caviness]

Hello fellow blitz'ers:

I always enjoy the passion you guys generate.:bow:
Hopefully Jason is on good terms with all those generating some of the passionate dialogue...or is that acidic vitriol burning my screen?
(joke)

I've found that once you learn a system, and conquer it, change is painful.
We all discovered at some point that you could disrupt, surround, and takeout. Or...if you didn't...you started losing a lot more. I first learned it at the hands of a Canadian PBEM partner, started using it myself, ruthlessly and with no remorse, and it became infamous in our circle as the "Canadian Takeout".

Man...it worked...it was awesome...and you could start pushing disrupted units around in a military "rugby match" or just clean take them out by circling the wagons. You could even herd them on top of each other with forced retreats....ride 'em cowboy....stack them up and take them all out clean with one assault.
We all started using it so fast the later gentlemen's rules concerning unloaded halftracks on assaults and trucks as surrounding units got born. All good.

It does become a bit predictable however. You can see it in the old 1.02 where players just systematically worked their way through your stack, disrupting them one at a time until it was time to end their misery. I have to say Jason saw that, and attempted to remedy it.
He did.

But....I also agree with some of the suggestions that perhaps a middle ground could be found...or simply an adjustment to the Extreme Variability as it stands. And man...I hope you boys are all old partners...some of you boys were the mean one's in school weren't you?... :kill:

I make these following points in a constructive way.
All are of course only my opinion:

1. Multiple assaults should still be rewarded with a near "100 percent" shot. If you have enough surrounding units to do it twice and have all defenders disrupted from the start...the chance should go up dramatically. Or, in cases where you assault a surrounded disrupted defender with multiple units from multiple directions you should have a "100 percent" chance of doing serious damage if you don't take them out. You may incur damage as well of course, but in such cases, you should at least put a serious hurt on the defenders almost every time.

This rewards the thoughtful player who sets up such a confrontation and is willing to pay the price (massing units adjacent a defender who is likely calling in SERIOUS artillery to teach you why you shouldn't be doing that) for his chance at the "Canadian Takeout".

2. Terrain and defensive modifications have to play a bigger part than they used to, and now with 1.04 they do. Guys...that was long overdue. But...it can be the most frustrating part of it. When your trying to take that critical bunker or pillbox that is spotting EVERYTHING and you know it's got to go and you've taken the pain....got shot up snuggling up...etc....it can REALLY hurt your entire game to miss that for one or even more turns. I'm playing Von Luck in a Normandy scenario at present. Every German bunker or pillbox I miss on those clifftops costs me lots of VPs for that extra turn or two.
I'd like to see (sorry Jason you write the algorithyms good luck on this one!) a reward to the player that has assaulted the same hex and units the turn before and failed. IE, end the poor slob's misery. If he failed the first turn, it's probably cost him dearly. If he musters up the mustard to do it again the following turn...and the defenders are not getting reinforced...which they won't if they are surrounded...his chance of succeeding on assault should go up.

3. I love the new clean overun when you use armor to assault MG units on open ground. (If 1.02 worked that way I never noticed) No surrounding and multiple direction assaults needed. Assault them, I believe disrupted or not, and they are gone. Over run. It works every time on MG units I know, not sure if some other variant infantry with good armor attack values go down so easily. (probably NOT need to find out) That part makes great sense in the game.

Open ground...infantry....here comes armor...your well and truly screwed. Unless of course your packing a six pack of panzerfausts or whatever. Note the overun is not the same as simply capturing them while surrounded though...they just get ground up into tread lubricant.
I like that part.:chin:

Jason needs to account for that tread lube by reducing the tank's movement cost the following turn...

All told I have come to grudgingly admire the new system.
I do believe some adjustments may be in order, but it is a step in the right direction.

Guys....IMHO...the old way was just too automatic and once you learned the steps that cha-cha was easy to dance all night long...


Regards to all,

Dan