Do we have too much control over fire in PzC, what’s your opinion?

[Glenn Saunders]

I have long wondered if the rules covering direct fire, arty & airstrikes give us to much control over which unit can be targeted in a stack of multiple units and if the alternate fire rules actually represent a more realistic representation of WW2 combat?

Personally - I've long wondered myself if the system give WAY TOO much control over all aspects of combat - in particular, movement.

Unfortunatly the bulk of the players demand this absolute control. You need not look too far to find people complaining that they stepped in a friendly minefield (when in fact no minefield is friendly) because they accidently stumbled into it and it was no longer showing on the map.

Players believe that because as the SUPREME cmdr looking over the whole battle - it somehow preculdes a unit getting lost and going down the wrong road. or down a track thinking it was the right cleared path. Sh!t happens like this all the time. But this has been a huge player complaint.

I've lobbied a couple times for variable Movement rates so as you move forward sometimes you would lose MPs for no reason. Maybe A quality units might have extra MPs added. John wanted nothing to do with this idea because he said for a start, peopel would report these imprecise things as bugs.

I actually have a new game in test now with a new disruption rule which I've been asked to explain EXACTLY how it works when I don't know myself, nor do I feel players need to know the exact details on.

Players used to exercise too much control over air missions until we implimented a air strike limit on hexes which works something like stacking for Aircraft.

There are also examples where people want a hot key to SAVE MPs (there is a button for this BTW, but that isn't enough) so they can save MPs and hacve EXACTLY enough to move units out of T mode and deploy their guns for next turn. When in reality you don't know exactly how far a unit can move and set up in a given period on time.

Other people don't like how difficult broken units are to assault and clean up unless surrounded - but this rule is designed to simulate what is involved in taking and processing prisoners. Something they don't care about when their is limited time remaining in a Scn before final victory is measured.

I've asked for a S|O option type where the player doesn't get to select which option he wants - rather it would act liek a random event - but again - it is not within the pl;ayers comntrol and John doesn't think people would like it.

There are lot of examples of this - people have learned and demanded this control since the first boardgame when they could phyically add an extra unit to an attack and recalculate the odds to be 4-1 instead of 3-1 before rolling a 6 sided dice.

Anyway - I agree there is too much control on all aspect on pretty much all games - not just this series. But I am not sure this is much that could be done - that people would accept and John would build for us.

Glenn