Scheldt '44 - Realism versus Playability?

[Mr Grumpy]

I agree that this is a great thread and kudos to Mike P for his detailed answers/comments and his willingness to address the constructive criticism of this new title, I know from long experience on these boards that having the designer available to bounce questions off can often help players with their frustrations about aspects of a title that they may not fully understand or appreciate why certain design decisions were taken.

I suspected that the decision to rate a number of CW formations at D rather than C quality might lead to some discussion, not because the decision is wrong, but rather than because D quality units can be tricky to play and require far more careful management, planning and patience when on the offensive than C quality units, it seems only a small step down from C to D but actually the penalties that the game system imposes on D quality troops can really blunt their effectiveness, it took me a lot of practise and some great advice from players like Rick B before I was able to feel that I had a handle on them, I could go on but one simple rule of thumb is that you must keep D quality units in green fatigue, once they go yellow they are near useless and have to be rotated out of the line to rest.

Historical accuracy over realism is a very difficult balance to achieve especially when you have to take the inner workings and the limitations of the game engine into account, then you have to factor into the mix the desire of PBEM players to have a number of balanced scenarios to enjoy, when a number of years ago I edited a few scenarios to improve PBEM play balance I decided that I would sacrifice a little historical accuracy to achieve improved playability, the result........I received an equal amount of feedback praising my edited scenarios as they were so enjoyable to play and criticism for that fact they were not 100% accurate, so I fully understand you cannot please all the people all of the time!! 

The great thing is we have over 20+ PzC titles and three FWWC titles, so no matter what your taste in games there is always something for everyone!