Some areas for possible larger, longer SB scenarios

[Jeff Conner]

Scenario designers have used a couple different techniques to simulate resupply. One is the introduction of fresh weapons as reinforcements. This includes the introduction of small arms via trucks or other means and the replacement of fixed units (such as artillery) with new fresh, or nearly fresh units.

Reinforcements in a longer game can be quite powerful as not only do they have weapons at full effectiveness, but their status (and hence morale) is at full effectiveness also. Defenders can also receive reinforcements simulating the commitment of their reserves. Or the designer can encourage the player to establish his own reserves that he can commit when he wants to.

One thing this discussion seems to be overlooking is the addition several years ago of the "Rest" value in the pdt. If a unit does not move, fire or receive fire during a turn, it is deemed to be resting and will have it's effectiveness (both the unit and it's weapons) increase. The amount of increase is set by the designer in the pdt file (which if you haven't looked at, you probably should). So if your units are fatigued and low on ammo, pull them out of the line for as long as you can and they will recover, although perhaps not as fast as you would like. Unfortunately, while this feature has been added to the older titles, in many cases no values have been included and so the recovery rate is set to zero. You should check the pdt value to determine if there is a non-zero value before trying to rest your units.

As for new titles with major changes in programming, that is far beyond the scope of anyone who comments regularly on this message board. And given the paucity of response to changes suggested by the design group through the years, I wouldn't hold my breath. I think most of us have ideas on what would make the game better, but there are constraints that most of us don't understand.

Jeff