Wish List (2) - Command Realism

[Eckerslyke]

When we 'issue orders' as Supreme Commanders in our battles, it really means devising a 'Grand Plan', but then actually moving the units ourselves, so we act as local commanders too. And this gives rise to another departure from realism, if we have a desire to experience battle realistically, in the same way as would the overall commander on that day.

Our turns represent 10 - 15 minutes of real-world action. The software presents each un-moved unit in turn, from left to right. We can choose to follow that, or jump about. I think for many battlers, it is customary to start each turn by focussing on the area of the battlefield where something important needs to be accomplished, the result of which will affect what happens elsewhere in that turn. Then, based on the outcome of that 'pivotal' encounter, we carry out the rest of the unit moves for that turn.

How many times do we find ourselves either disappointed or delighted with how our first encounter turns out, and this causes us to be more- or less-adventurous with the moves of other units in the same turn? And how realistic is this?

How realistic is it to change (sometimes entirely reverse) an order within a 10 to 15 minute period?

In the years of my mis-spent youth (mis-spent in playing Diplomacy, that is), I used to like the manner in which orders were given in that board game. Each player wrote down precisely what he wanted his pieces to do in the current turn, and these written orders were presented simultaneously. The conflicts were resolved by a 'games master' who was not one of the players.

So, sometimes you would find yourself having committed units to inevitable destruction, because some pivotal component in your strategy upon which they had depended for their success (indeed, survival), had not met with the favorable result which you had expected.

Isn't that more realistic than the way we do things in our present battles?

I wonder if it would be better for us to be able to move all our pieces to where we want them to go, not actually discovering enemy units which we had been unaware of, and not receiving defensive fire from the enemy, while we carry out our movements. But then, when all the orders had been lodged, we would press a button (irrevocably!) and have the software figure out what the results were. Units we had blithely moved into hexes we could not see might be stopped in their tracks. Enemy defensive fire might disorder our units, causing them to have to stop short of where we needed them to be for our grand plan to succeed.

Would'nt something like that be more in accord with what the Supreme Commanders would have been doing, in real battles?