Another suggestion for a game engine ammendment

[consume]

I recently encountered a situation where a hex stacking limit prevented units from retreating after being assaulted and led to something like 75% losses for them in a single turn. I don't know the exact amount but a 1km hex has to have something like a MILLION square meters in it, that is more than enough space to displace if hard pressed, it seems absurd to me that in an emergency soldiers would choose to surrender en masse rather than bunch up a bit to escape capture. Now, in most situations, hex stacking limits are appropriate, especially to represent traffic jams on roads, etc...but in this case to suggest that the hex is FULL and impenetrable with men standing shoulder-to-shoulder hoplite phalanx style seems a bit much. Would it be possible to consider waiving hex stacking limits in cases of retreats? It would even be appropriate to displace the most mobile units in the destination hex, possibly even disrupting them to represent the chaos of intermingled units...but anything is better than losing entire bns because the engine says they cannot retreat through a line of friendly foxholes because they just happen to be ocuppied.

Is this the right place to post this? Do the designers read this forum?

J

[U124IXB]

This game need a simple rout rule despite zoc's and stacking. The one thing I have a problem with the most is how easy it is to lock down a unit an whittle it away.I'm sure i'll get blasted for this post :(

[Glenn Saunders]

This game need a simple rout rule despite zoc's and stacking. The one thing I have a problem with the most is how easy it is to lock down a unit an whittle it away.I'm sure i'll get blasted for this post :(

No blast from me - Your entitled to your opinion just like everyone else around here. But I sure hope you send me or HPS Tech Support the example from your previous post where the AI stacked three Btln - a FULL REGIMENT - in a single hex and allowed itself to be encircled.

Not saying it can't happen - only that I would like to see it myself.

Glenn

[Glenn Saunders]

Is this the right place to post this? Do the designers read this forum?

They do - but an example is always the best way to illustrate your example.

Also - I think you are reading too much detail into some of the simple game mechanics. STacking limits have never been about how many men, tanks or trucks you can fit in a hex. And for every man that carrys a gun in the game there are likely three of four more not represented in the game that are also in that hex, cooks, medics, Vets, Ammo, ect ect ect.

For example a Beachhead hex wouldn't have these extra units and so there is an exception allied to the stacking limit there.

We also need to discourage people from creating huge KIller stacks like kings in checkers.

IN any case - we read the forum - at least I do. And I try to help where I can and keep an open mind for things we can do to make the game better - especially if they don't involve redesigning the game.

Glenn

[consume]

And for all those reasons, I agree that in most cases hex stacking limits are correct and necessary...but what about the specific instance of preventing retreats like I first mentioned?

Also, since different armies had quite different teeth-to-tail ratios, according to your example above would it not be prudent to have differing stacking values for each side, ie, very high for the "solve your own problems, live off the countryside like Mongols" Soviets, to very low for the "every guy has his own tailor and chauffeur" Americans?

In any event I don't know how many of the unrepresented supply and service troops would be within a kilometer of the firing line anyway, so how much influence that should have on stacking limits for combat units is debatable.

J

[Rev Rico]

I have certainly been the beneficiary of the stacking limits effect on enemy units retreats (and the victim, too!). It does seem a little stringent. How about the overstacked retreating units are automatically broken and the units occupying the hex before are disrupted? Lot better than complete annihilation.

[Liebchen]

I have certainly been the beneficiary of the stacking limits effect on enemy units retreats (and the victim, too!). It does seem a little stringent. How about the overstacked retreating units are automatically broken and the units occupying the hex before are disrupted? Lot better than complete annihilation.

That sounds like an excellent solution, to me.

[FM WarB]

Be careful what you wish for. How'd you like an undertrength bn retreat over, and disorder a stack behind it that was going to form your Main Line of Resistance?

[Liquid_Sky]

Why not just be aware of what your stacking in a hex is and make sure they have a retreat? Seems to me I hardly ever lose units to failure to retreat due to overstacking..

If you right click on the display...in the middle of the hex is a number, which represents the troop equivilence stacked in the hex....after that, its just simple math.

[FLG]

Don't forget that losses in this game are not necessarily men killed. They represent units which have lost cohesion and dispersed as well.

Retreating while in contact with the enemy is one of the hardest maneuvers to accomplish for a military unit. It requires the utmost discipline and preferably an artillery preparation.

A disrupted unit trying to retreat, being pursued by an aggressive enemy, into a location in which the lines of communication are blocked is going to end up being broken up and dispersed.

Your troops won't be dead, but end up dispersed as flotsam in the diaspora which accompanies any successful offensive. Eventually those men will be washed up with the remnants of other dispersed units where the military will collect them and start reforming the units. However, this uniot reformation is usually outside the timescales of this game.

Try reading Guy Sajer's Forgotten Soldier. Most of his time seemed to be spent fleeing the enemy and then being re-rolled back into his unit by an uncaring military. And he was a member of the elite Gross Deutschland.