NEW: Prokhorovka 5: The Historical Battle

[Crossroads]

Thanks Cole, now that's a thorough feedback if I've ever seen one   

Appreciated especially as this is a monster of a game, not that easy to play through...

Let my try to comment on your observations.

1. I have to ask Alan about their stance at that moment of that day. Alan's done research on Prokhorovka for years, I am sure he's considered it from various views. He explains their group composition and strengths in detail in design notes, but I am not sure he made any comments as how prepared they were for the coming German onslaught. Both had been in combat just before, I note. I'll get back to you.

2. Artillery, when modeling true OOBs, especially in larger scenarios... I agree VE's approach and how he's modeled big scenarios makes them infinitely more playable, but I concur in this being a weakness in game engine. It is perhaps something the original designers took straight out from boardgames, but how it was done doesn't represent this scale well, if much at all. I could write a long post about that issue alone, but I'll save it for later. Suffice it to say this is an area that needs some careful consideration, where the goal is to have true historical Artillery OOBs in the map, and performing historically. This would include their HQs in that losing a Battalion HQ at the moment for instance does not punish them at all. The other aspect are the organizational boundaries that could be modeled better, as now any resource on map is at anyone's (short) availability. (Most of that would fall under optional rules, existing and new, likely)

Other aspect is the Soviet armor. It defies the belief the amount of tanks they managed to lose year after year in Eastern Front... It makes no sense looking at T-34 characteristics for instance. Good thing we now have Adaptive AI so perhaps we can do something to simulate this better in EF III. (Adaptive AI is optional, peeps). 

But yes, this has a making of a true classic. Alan's done some great work with CSME 2.0 where he took the original Chinese Farm scenario (Crossing of Suez by Israelis, the original name for which the battle is known is somewhat belittling), and broke that into 8 separate battles. I'd really like to see that happening here as well, in that we would have this monster, but we would have bits and pieces from around the scope put into other scenarios. 

3. Playing monsters. Yes, good points. How to do away with replay animations, but receive the information in some format, like a full Damage Dialog instead of the snippet that is currently provided? Options to skipping various replay and begin-of-turn animations. These might not be easy to code, and would benefit the largest of scenarios only, but we can dream... 

4. Totenkopf at Prokhorovka. Looking at this map, and this battle as a whole, it does not make any sense does it? But then again, Kursk salient as a whole did not make much sense I guess. It must have been the German sense of superiority when fighting in summer conditions? They did after all destroy everything they initially faced, both in 41 and 42.

5. Victory Levels. Always the hardest, only playtesting will tell. Thanks again, keep us with the latest on your games!