PB Kursk '43 South impressions/discussion

[ComradeP]

Running out of time is the result, not the root of the cause.

The root is that the current stacking system favours the defender if he isn't forced to spread out his units, and allows him either to create roadblocks of sacrificial stacks that wouldn't happen in a campaign game or stacks units in objectives to a degree that makes it difficult to impossible to win a scenario with average rolls.

Often, it's not a major problem in a campaign or large scenario where you can outflank the enemy, but in short scenarios where flanking either isn't possible or where you have to capture certain objectives to win it can be a problem. How a system handles extremes is often as important as how it handles the average.

In the case of the example, the Germans are at more or less at the stacking limit with one of the strongest possible stacks they can create for assaults aside from pionier only stacks, and the Soviets are fairly weak with only a single platoon, so I was expecting maybe as much as a ~40% success rating as things only get worse for the Germans as more defenders are stacked in a hex, just like you need to take a detour as the Soviets in Moscow '42 when you encounter 800 men units.

I might be too analytical in the approach, but spotting how and why something might not work (preferably when it only exists on paper and no coding has been done yet) is what I get paid for as part of test teams or when working on Unity of Command. It's sometimes difficult for me to keep work and relaxation apart when playing wargames. PB, like PzC, has good core mechanics, but there are some things that in my opinion can leave too much of an impression on a game.