3 things I'm tired of

[Crossroads]

To EA or not to EA? That is the question?

Indeed!

My apologies to Shakespeare... as I butcher one of his famous lines! ;)

I'll throw my into this discussion too!

IMO, EA is a situational optional rule. It "breaks" many "pre-EA" designed scenarios and unbalances many "classical" ones. It's fine for scenarios designed with EA in mind.

I am not quite sure whether we can generalise on EA on/off to either direction? It requires a different planning & execution for sure. The rest depends on map to some extent, but on available forces mostly.

And in terms of scenario design, EA is sometimes the "only" method available to the designer, to achieve balance. For example, in my Rising Sun "The Battle of Manila" scenario under going testing in the H2H Section; I originally designed it without using EA. Unfortunately, in repeated test games, the Americans were able to steamroll the defending Japanese and essentially win the game halfway through the 20 turn scenario. For a battle that historians have described as the "worst urban warfare in the Pacific theater," my scenario was pretty much an American "cake walk" without using EA. :)

This is interesting as it is the total opposite of *Fight for rubble, where EA=off enables the defender to hold off superior enemy forces. With EA=On, the defender would have had absolutely no chances for succesful counter attacks, but would have slowly and surely lost the battle of attrition and lost the Victory locations to enemy.

I need to play Manila scenario at some point of time to understand the difference here.

However, in an ideal JTCS world, I would like to see a close assault rule that eliminated and voided the "disrupt-surround-destroy" tactics... but took it a step down from current EA game mechanics. IMO, EA essentially decreases and in some cases, eliminates the option for players to actually use close assault - even when preceding assaults with the recommended "softening up" by massive amounts of direct and indirect fire into enemy held areas. This restriction on close assault is especially true when attacking entrenched defenders in built up areas like suburbs and city hexes.

Again I am not sure this is the general truth. It may very well be the case in scenarios you have played so I am not saying I do not believe you. It is just different from what I've seen.

First, the classic EA=Off can be fun on certain scenarios, on that I agree with. Then again, EA=On can be absolute fun as well. It really depends on the scenario, be it a stock scenario or not. Many scenarios can be equally played with either option.

I do not agree that a scenario needs necessarily be designed for EA=On, but I agree that it needs to have certain preconditions that allow for different tactics. Time / length may or may not be one of them.

Secondly, EA=On does not require massive firepower or preparations. Just enough to cause a disruption or preferrably kills on one of the defending units. After that, the odds on assault being succesful are greatly improved.

Take a pill box for an example. In many cases it is easier to take on a pill box with EA=On, as otherwise each and every unit would need to be disrupted. Now that requires massive firepower.

With EA=On, target the weakest unit, blast it with firepower you've got, and assault the hex preferrably with good assault factors and from various directions, and in a manner you can prefferrably do a few assaults in the same turn. If the first assault provides a kill or disruption on defender, that is the sign the hex is about to fall. Stay the course!

All it requires is to have the units available. Not necessarily more turns, or anything like that.

NET: I think EA went a little too far to the "Extreme" side of close assault... and if it could be "moved" a little more to the "less-Extreme" side... it would be an acceptable compromise for more players.

That maybe true. EA could be a slide bar? Low as currently without it, Middle for new middle ground, and Hard as it is currently implemented? Something for everyone.

Hopefully, we are not with rolling out another EA discussion?

We most certainly are, but in a civilised manner. Long may it continue