France '14 - Driving the Wedge Feedback & Discussion

[Volcano Man]

Well, not really. The thing is, the scenario is only 13 turns long. IIRC, the scenario is so short because the Belgians are conducting a delaying action here, which is about as long as they resisted before retreating to Antwerp. The exit hexes exist so that the Belgian player can pull back unused forces for points at the same time that they delay. So yes, IIRC the Belgians can hold out for as long as they can here, or they can give up objectives and go to the exit quicker with other forces, because either way it is rationalized that on the 14th turn they will cut and run and abandon all terrain in this area. Basically, the more objectives they can hold before that point, or the more they can exit the map in exchange, then the more effective their delaying action has been. And in all actuality, if the Belgian commander can take a leap of faith then he can actually score more points by withdrawing to Antwerp than by attempting to hold/delay in forward positions. The attempt here is to create a dilemma because both choices carry risk. The optimal choice IMO would be a mix between the two, hold forward and fall back under pressure, but also move to protect Aarschot and withdraw the bulk of our forces to Antwerp.

Simple, yes, but it is the only real way to get the intended point across as far as a measurement of success in such a situation with off/on type objectives, without just putting no or very few objectives on the map and having just exit hexes. Usually the "run for the exit hexes!" makes for very dull scenario so I wanted to provide an either/or option.

Another problem you run into is that objectives must be provided so that the Germans are "scored" based on progress. As you say, Tirlemont was not held heavily. Maybe it shouldn't be worth as many points, but the Germans should be rewarded for advancing on it in force. It is not really my concern that defenders typically cannot figure out that they are able to give up objectives in some scenarios, and instead choose to hold to the last man. I am trying to make both a historically accurate scenario and a "fun" scenario, and sometimes these do conflict with each other (usually not though). Of course the other issue is that it is often difficult to find hard accurate data on what the Belgians did during the early invasion so a lot of assumptions have to be made as well.

Other than that, although I might incorporate some of the suggestions into an update -- all I can say is that I really don't have the luxury to go back and make major changes to all the old scenarios unless there is a serious problem, because it requires checking, rechecking and re-balancing/testing. At least I cannot go back and revisit every old scenario anytime soon if we want the next title in the series to come in our lifetime.

In other words, feel free to modify the scenario as you see fit as a mod.