HPS PzC II

[Buccaneer]

Operational Areas. Man am I with you on that one. With, at times, limited abilities to communicate among your own troops, you might have to plan things out. Such as, where units are to be... where they are to go, what they are do when they get there, or do to get there. Almost none of these things need to be done in most games. I definitely would like to see such a system imposed in a game. I mean we are talking WWII here. 'Radio's', at times, phone-lines (to be cut), signal flares, message runners... visual observation and so on. No... cell-phone.... geo-synchronized... computer integrated data... backed up by satellite images situations.

This is a problem with most war games ... board games included. You, as the player, are omniscient. That's not really going to change. You have instant communications, instant and accurate intel, can change your plan in an instant, and have the new plan out to your troops in the next. The only games I've seen handle this well is "Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm" and the "Command Ops" series. They do not resolve the omniscience problem ... but they do add command delays and limited orders. Whether or not this makes things more "realistic" or not is up for debate. It does make for different tactical choices.

I do disagree with your point that no planning needs to be done in the Pzc games. I find it to be the opposite ... fail to plan and you can plan to fail ... especially in the larger scenarios. The smaller the scenario, the more limited your options and the more limited the choices that are necessary.

At some level, I'd like to see operational area limits... plans for units operating in those areas and so on! Preplanned artillery activities to be coordinated with follow up attacks according to a plan / time table and so on, sometimes it can really be a challenge to get 'the cats to march in the parade'! That would really be a great option to be sure. I'd just like the game to feel less like a 'first person shooter game', there's just too much of that feel to it for me.

Operational area limits are abstracted into the game already: Limited map size, units available, etc. Preplanned artillery and follow up attacks are also a limit of the turn based nature of these games. The Command Ops series does a nice job with that mechanic ... but it is a pause-able, real-time, game where that mechanic can be implemented. In a game where a turn lasts 2 hours, that mechanic is abstracted in how the player chooses to use the resources available each turn.

Now ... phase lines and operational areas in a planning overlay along with someplace to keep notes on my overall plan would be a nice convenience!