1914 replacements

[Volcano Man]

Yet again, the BEF receives recovery AFTER the early campaign so it is not as if it never recovers losses. In other words, they will regain strength after the early campaign is complete. Yes, I am aware that the RWK and other units received replacements during the early campaign, but it was very few and far between, small in number. You say 10% of the battalion returned to the colors, but that was once or maybe even twice before the end of the early campaign, not a steady stream of replacements that kept coming in, constantly until the end of the campaign. And if that were the case, it was certainly not the case for every unit according to my research. So the problem is not that they did receive strength, it is the rate and consistency in which they received it, which was well below what recovery and replacements can represent.

Yet, this is what replacements and recovery does, it creates a constant stream of strength coming into the unit, which is certainly not historical for the time. This cannot be represented in the early campaign because both replacement and recovery would make them regain too much strength, much beyond the historical truth. Here is why:

1) Replacement rate is VERY powerful. The percentage applied to replacements ensures that the unit will regain that specified percent of strength EACH TURN as long as it is good order and in good supply (and in command). This replacement rate occurs regardless of the current standing strength of the unit is (which is unlike how Recovery works), because it is representing something that is independent of unit quality: actual replacements flowing it. So if you give even a 1% replacement rate to a BEF infantry battalion, then it will replace 10 men each turn, essentially 80 men a day (nearly 10% strength each day). This is obviously outrageous. Think of replacements as something that will give the unit a Borg like attribute, constantly regaining strength in addition to Recovery, which makes them very hard to kill from constant fighting. This is certainly not an attribute that the early BEF should have.

2) Recovery rate is more of what they should have, however this too is, IMO, too powerful for how they should be represented in the early campaign. The reason for this is that recovery rate, unlike replacement rate, depends on unit quality. So, with a recovery rate of 1%, and the unit quality of the BEF at A and B, it ensures that the recovery rate is actually 2% and 1.5% respectively. The good thing about recovery is that it directly depends on the unit's current standing strength (so that it recovers that specified percentage of lost strength, rather than that specified % of total strength). However, this too means that the unit can recover too much strength in the early campaign if only you get them well committed to a fight so that they lose quite a bit of strength. Get them into a fight to where they lose 1/2 their strength or more and you will be recovering quite a bit of strength to allow you to fight on at the next opportunity. Again, this doesn't quite encourage historical BEF behavior in the early campaign when resources were stretched thin, but it does encourage historical behavior in the late campaign - which is why they get recovery there.

So in essence, it is a game play issue, an abstraction if you will. The BEF is already as powerful as, well, they are the most powerful thing on the 1914 battlefield. If they received either replacements or recovery then they would not be inclined to do what they historically did: run for their lives to the south until the counter attack at the Marne occurred. They need to be discouraged from making a stand and this discouragement comes from the historical truth that although they received some replacements, it wasn't at the level that neither recovery or replacement affords them. What would be historical about the situation if they could sit around and regain wholesale strength to where they could stand and fight at every canal and river between Mons and the Morins?

So the short answer is this (sorry for the long wind):

Unfortunately you cannot adjust the replacement rate of units since this is hard coded in the OOB, and I don't know who in their right mind would think that the BEF should get replacements because a replacement rate of just 1% would be a disaster since they would regain strength too much, too fast, too regularly. On the other hand you CAN adjust the PDT file and change recovery from 0% to 1% but this will give replacements to the *entire side*, not just to the BEF (which is another reason why it is not used in the early campaign, to create a finite feeling until mobilization has caught up and the front settled down to where field hospitals and depot units could return men to their parent formations). But, feel free to give a 1% replacement rate in the PDT to both sides if you want, that is the only way it would be fair, but as you can see I am quite committed to the current replacement and recovery rates in the early OOB. ;)

Hope that helps...