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

[Mr Grumpy]

perhaps an optional rule would be the answer to keep everyone happy.

Blackie, please no more rules to added to the long list we have already, it just causes to much confusion, of course if the "obvious" opt rules to be used like night fatigue were incorporated into the default rules we would free up some space! ;)

I must say it seems like the standard operating procedure for attacking is pound away until you are lucky enough to "see" the Disrupted flag, then assault.

Indeed that is how 95% of assaults are conducted, having all your opponents units disrupted almost guarantees your success

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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,
Excellent post and i agree with your points, my post was just highlighting the issues from a firing POV but you are correct many other aspects of the game give players to much control over everything that goes on, i also agree that now players have that control there would be a howl of protest if it was taken away, not that i believe that should be enough reason to consider changes if it improves the game system, sometimes you have to force change for the greater good, you cannot keep everyone happy!

Even a minor change like not being able to target individual units while retaining all the present firing characteristics (so not to affect the losses) would go a long way to helping the defending player out and taking some control (but not to much) from players hands.

If that had been how the games were designed from the start not a single player would question this feature and i bet would have thought the ability to target individual units in a stack strange if someone suggested adding that change now. ;)