Wish List (2) - Command Realism

[Eckerslyke]

(Due to my relative inexperience, I may be referring here to things I'd like to see which might already be present in the software, but which I haven't discovered yet.)

We have the best of both (or all) worlds with our battle software. We can step back from the battle, taking the broadest possible view, as a supreme commander might, in his tent, formulating grand strategy and barking orders to his clerks, who would write them down and give them to dispatch riders who in turn would run to their horses to deliver them to the local commanders in the field. But then, unlike the supreme commander, we can drill down to the brigade, even the unit level, and micro-manage the individual encounters almost as if we were standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the troops who are putting our orders into practice.

OK. Lots of fun, but not very realistic. Napoleon or Wellington had to trust that the subordinate would carry out the order neither more- nor less-enthusiastically than was intended. Was the subordinate a gung-ho type who would interpret 'Advance' as 'Attack'? Or would he advance until he encountered resistance, then signal back and wait for further instructions?

If we battlers play both parts, those of Supreme Commander as well as all of the subordinates, then we are missing out on the uncertainty which the framer of a strategy has to endure after issuing an order, then waiting to see what the result is.

So my initial idea would be, as an option, for a kind of AI feature to be available below the Supreme Commander level, where broadly generalized orders (such as 'Take that hill' or 'Clear the far bank of the river') would actually be carried out by the 'automatic' local commander, to whom could be assigned some kind of temperament (such as 'fanatical', 'serving out his time until he gets a pension', 'just received a dear john letter and doesn't see any point in continuing to live', etc. You get the idea.)

You could turn it off, and go back to doing the nitty-gritty as well as the big-picture stuff. But if you wanted to experience that 'hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach' which comes from being uncertain how well your subordinate will carry out your orders, then this might be a neat feature to have.

OK, so I'm standing by for all of you to tell me that this can already be done with some menu I haven't yet looked at!

[BigDuke66]

Yea would be a great addition.
For now I refer to this:
https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...?tid=66411
The Optional Command System by Bill Peters, the main designer of the Napi series.

[Eckerslyke]

Yea would be a great addition.
For now I refer to this:
https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...?tid=66411
The Optional Command System by Bill Peters, the main designer of the Napi series.

That Command System by Bill Peters is an excellent overview of what I had in mind. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. It's a lot to think about if you are doing it manually, though, and I would be concerned that in having to do so much calculation, the realism of command would again be undermined, but this time as a result of the effort to be more realistic.

How ironic!

In real life, if a local leader were 'out of command', for example, then the first the supreme commander might know about it would be when he noticed the troops in that command not behaving as he had ordered. Upon reaching that conclusion, apart from any other action he might take to bring the leader back into command or replace him, his confidence in issuing further orders to that leader would be affected.

Since we are speculating about a wish list for additions to the software (however unlikely they may be ever to be implemented), then perhaps there could be some way for information to be available to the battler about conditions which affect the transmission of orders - for example, we can easily highlight 'out of ammo' units at present, so why not a means to highlight leaders who are 'out of command' - rather than having to examine each leader individually?

Maybe the software could also determine the point which would be the centre of sound (based on the number and position of artillery units firing in that turn, regardless of affiliation), so that leaders wishing to 'march to the sound of the guns' would know which way to head?

But I can see how the optional command system would be a great enhancement for solo battling against the AI, especially if you adopted the idea of writing down the orders, and being disciplined about observing delays in some of those orders being received.

That calls to mind something else which has been bothering me about command realism - but that calls for another post on this thread!

[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?