Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
A simple and elegant solution has been proposed on another forum: that units which remain engaged after each round of combat should be frozen whilst the player sets up a new set of attacks. A failed check against force proficiency would still end the turn. This satisfies me entirely

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ORIGINAL: Industrial

Thats my ideal solution, too, (except for the early turn ending!) problem is that it would probably require quite a lot of code-rewrite, so as an intermediate solution I could live with units breaking off an attack and beeing able to be given new orders again.

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Ideally, when the unit is locked in combat as you proposed, I get an option to break off combat, with the other unit (maybe based on its proficiency/loss settin) getting a chance for an immediate counter-push (similar to an disengagement attack). After this counterattack the unit should return to its original hex and fortification status.

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none of these come even close to the situation an early turn ending or turn-burn produces, as it would mean that because for example something goes wrong with the attack of one division, 6 army groups suddenly stop whatever they are doing for x days.

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OK, well it happened quite often to me in DNO, usually it was the finnish front (opening at turn 6 and by than the Axis shock is gone),

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I had for example a finnish regiment attack a soviet engineer company, burning 5 combat rounds in a row because they decided to continue attacking, completely screwing up the entire german front.

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ORIGINAL: rhinobones

This sounds a lot like a suggestion I made to the TDG.

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At the time it wasn’t all that well thought out and therefore, was not well received. Mostly my fault for not providing a clear explanation.

The suggestion did not use proficiency, but instead communications as the check. A unit out of communications would continue with the last set of orders received.

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After the completion of a round, and when at least one unit passed the communications check, the round stopped and orders could be issued to all units which had passed the communications check. In fact, it would be possible for a unit failing the communications check to continue with orders received during a previous turn.

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Maybe the rounds should always automatically stop after round #9; just to give the troops an opportunity to dig in.

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2

There is something called max rounds per battle now. Works reasonably well. It's up to the designers to go back and set in their scenarios.

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Me

I know that TOAW III allows scenario designers to modify it, yet players still have no control over these features, but they should have. It belongs into the advanced rules, and both players should be able to decide prior to playing a scenario whether they want early-turn-endings/turn burns or not.

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ORIGINAL: Erik Nygaard

Another simple (?) addition, allow most infantry-type unit icons to be allowed movement between airbases.

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ORIGINAL: Industrial

I know that TOAW III allows scenario designers to modify it, yet players still have no control over these features, but they should have. It belongs into the advanced rules, and both players should be able to decide prior to playing a scenario whether they want early-turn-endings/turn burns or not.

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ORIGINAL: Erik Nygaard

One simple thing, I'd like to be able to use group movement for ships.
I've designed a couple of scenarios with a lot of individual ships and its a chore moving them one at a time.
Also group movement allows escorts to move with seatransports.

Another simple (?) addition, allow most infantry-type unit icons to be allowed movement between airbases.
The units should ideally not divide when entering the new aribase.
Currently you have to fudge with using glider/para symbols to allow pure airtransport of units.

Thanks
Erik

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

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ORIGINAL: Industrial

I know that TOAW III allows scenario designers to modify it, yet players still have no control over these features, but they should have. It belongs into the advanced rules, and both players should be able to decide prior to playing a scenario whether they want early-turn-endings/turn burns or not.

You can go into the editor and change this if you want.

However, think of it like this; Would you consider it reasonable for players to want to go into the editor and halve or double the attrition divider? The change you're proposing players be able to make as idly as they please can be just about as dramatic, and could wreck the scenario. Leaving it in the scenario editor- where it is still accessible to anyone who wants to change it- makes it clear that this is not a playability option, but rather something which is fundamental to the design of the scenario.

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ORIGINAL: Industrial


heck, as the decision to play with standart rules instead of advance rules in itself will disable so many features, it should be outright removed from the game so that players can no longer fiddle with the scenario designers idea of how to play his work.

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Attrition divider is a setting thats specific to each scenario and can change the look&feel of a scenario quite drastically, so there is a good reason why it's only available through the scenario editor, but turns are universal to each scenario, each scenario no matther what size scale or year is based on 10 turns, and as I can't imagine any scenario that would break by allowing both players to have guaranteed 10 combat rounds I dont understand why you won't allow the players access to such a feature?

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

It would absolutely break a good number of scenarios. For example in Seelowe the British player has to operate under the knowledge that his turn could end at any point, reflecting the rather better German operational art at this time, and the relatively amateur nature of the British army being portrayed in the scenario. Your change would remove this burden from the British player, and suddenly his force will be able to launch intricate and dynamic attacks without fear of dislocation. Not right at all.

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ORIGINAL: Industrial

Without looking up that specific scenarios I can think of several ways as to how to simulate a brittle defender better, like lowering the proficiency of his divisions, setting his formations on internal support and lowering force communication level, besides hoping for early turn endings to simulate operational weaknesses.

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If a scenario relies on potential turn-burns or early turn-endings to simulate the weakness of one force than something is substantially wrong with that scenario.

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Guaranteed 10 turns would make supply drain attacks far to strong, so this needs to be corrected in the same patch, easisest by making the supply lost for the defender proportional to the attacking force size compared to the defenders size.

So 3 towed 37mm AT guns attacking an infantry division should lose something like 50% of their supply from that attack (if not outright destroyed) while the defender should suffer only 1% or even no supply loss.

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Next thing would be to change the entranchment progress relative to the remaining movement points, and than there wont be any reason left of how guaranteed 10 combat rounds could lead to possible exploits.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Now we are discussing early turn ending due to a failed check against force proficiency. In that regard, I think your above statement is faulty.

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I'm all for making supply drain attacks less effective. Though I'll note there shouldn't be a unit with 3 towed 37mm AT guns in a scenario where you will commonly have a division all in one hex.

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What about setting artillery and aircraft back to passive support at the end of a turn?

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ORIGINAL: Industrial
I could come if with many more examples of how early turn endings result in unrealistic situations, but the best argument is still: a turn represents a given time-span, lets assume 1 week. If player 1 has an early turn ending at 50% he'll effectively only have 3,5 days out of this week, while his opponent without an early turn ending would be able to counter his advances with an entire week of combat operations. That's a totally unjustified advantage for the player without an early turn-ending.

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ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

In short, a turn represents a certain amount of time, yes, in which a certain amount of activity can take place. Whether it does, relies on the tactical, and operational, competence of the commander, luck, and the interference of the enemy. The division of the turn into tactical rounds is only an approximation of linear time within the context of the game. It is a game mechanic, an abstraction, if you will, and not a strict timepiece.

Question: If each move on a chess board represents an hour of "real-time", how long does it take for a bishop to cross the field? How long does it take for him to cross half the field?

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ORIGINAL: Industrial

now force A resloves its attack, eleminates the roadblock, and the turn ends early, leaving all units with 50% of theri MP left sitting there. Now, in real life those troops would have their orders to advance as soon as the roadblock is cleared to follow their predisigned objectives, but in this situation they will simply sit it out.

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Or take artillery units which were moved to the front (range 2) and set to TAC reserve to help opening a breakthrough in the front, tac. settins so that they support the attacks whith the player expecting to advance them further once the front is breached. Now the turn ends early, the arty remains on tac and because of that advances into the frontlines during a conterattack from Force B. Now, how unlikely is that? Arty would never behave that way, and the only reason why they were on tacRes was because thats the only way in TOAW to get them to support combat without digging them in.

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Or take the situation of a Theather Option beeing available for one turn to decide where reinforcements will appear, Player A wants to first get some probing attack going to decide where the enemy is weakest, gets an early turn ending and therfor has no chance of selecing said TO, getting no reserves at all?

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I could come if with many more examples of how early turn endings result in unrealistic situations, but the best argument is still: a turn represents a given time-span, lets assume 1 week. If player 1 has an early turn ending at 50% he'll effectively only have 3,5 days out of this week, while his opponent without an early turn ending would be able to counter his advances with an entire week of combat operations.

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Take a 1/3rd understrength german AT company vs a dug in soviet rifle division in DNO and you'll be able to simulate just that

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Artillery yes, you cant go wrong with that, but aircraft is a different thing, players wight want to set some aircraft to rest, switch others from CS to I or AS, simply giving them random assignments usually wont do it.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

In real life, the second force wouldn't wait patiently while the first force set up its attacks and went ahead. They'd actually be responding at the same time. So a failed force proficiency check means the attacker has been unable to strike decisively before the defender can react.

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This is a complaint to make about the way artillery is set to passive support, not about the system of early turn endings.

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However, note that the artillery being pushed to the front means that they will be particularly likely to get caught out if the second force is able to get in a quick counterattack (as they are doing in your example). Presumably had the turn continued, the guns would have been pushed on again so as to support continued attacks further on.

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Better than making attacks consuming 80% of the turn, then taking the TO with the same effect as if he had made the decision at the start of the turn.

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This assumes the attacker hasn't moved any of his units by more than 50% of their movement allowance, nor dug in any of his units.

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ORIGINAL: Industrial

I was precisely for that reason speaking about a roadblock, aka a unit left befind with the sole reason as to slow down the attacker, with no force B counterattack coming from anywhere. In that case it would be: roadblock cleared, empty front for 200 miles ahead without any enemy resistance, yet frindly units just sitting there idle for 3 days for no reason whatsoever.

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Dont try to justify any early turn ending with enemy interferance, Force B has plenty of time to make these interferences happen by actually moving his units to cross Force A's plans,

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there is absolutely no need for such a random and annoying and abstract thing as early turn endings in this great game.

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Thats just another point that could need some attention, but the main point was that early turn endings interrupt movement that is supposed to happen for no apparent reason. Beeing it units still set to wrong defencive stence, not able to advance despite having movement points left, not able to reunite after beeing split up earlier etc, pick whatever you want.

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Nope, what really happens: really weak counterattack with no chance whatsoever as to breach the force A defences, yet force A arty moves into the front line because of its setting, which is just stupid, subsequent counterattack will tear said arty unit apart in direct combat.

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Better than making attacks consuming 80% of the turn, then taking the TO with the same effect as if he had made the decision at the start of the turn.

Huh? Unless there is a houserule demanding that a player has to select a TO before moving any unit I don't see any logic in that. It should be entirely up to me as to when during my turn I select a TO, and first probing for enemy weaknesses before comminting my reserves via TO seems be be a VERY valid reason to delay selecting the TO a bit!

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It doesn't matter how many units that player has already moved, the more he moved the less painfull an early turn eding is, but that doesn't make that situation any less unrealistic, even if its just a division thats unable to move because somehow half a week suddenly vanished from them. Next time it might be 3 army groups with 80 assigned division, would you try to find a reasonable explanation for that situation too?

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
200 miles of empty road sounds like a pretty extreme circumstance. Even in the monster east front you don't often see something like that. Of course, the Germans, with their high force proficiency, would barrel on just fine. A worse force might well blunder and fail to advance.

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Dont try to justify any early turn ending with enemy interferance, Force B has plenty of time to make these interferences happen by actually moving his units to cross Force A's plans,

Not if it's the middle of Force A's turn.

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There's the crux of it: early turn endings are annoying. Well, sometimes things don't go our way.

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All rather necessary abstraction in a turn-based game.

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A really weak counterattack which can tear defending artillery apart?

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I'd say there should be an incentive in TOAW to take decisions sooner rather than later, just as there is in real warfare. You've just described it.

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What the effect does is inject uncertainty into the game. It is preposterous for the player to be able to know with absolute certainty that the enemy won't attack him for seven days. Absolute nonsense. So we have early turn ending. Yes, it's an abstraction. Yes, it causes weird effects, yes you and every other person who's ever played TOAW hates having early turn ending happen to them. The alternative is bad simulation.

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ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

You guys really, really, REALLY need to get away from the thought that each tactical round represents 1/10th of a turn's length, and that there is any sequential, one-to-one correspondence between them and the imaginary turn length divisions you've trapped yourselves into thinking of them about.

A turn that ends after the 5th round simply means that your forces only did half of what you expected they'd be able to do within the time frame that you were originally planning to have available for operations. That's as simple as I can put it for you...

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2

I don't think the individual unit proficiencies would be that much lower than the Germans. It's the ability to function on the operational level where the Allies should have difficulties.

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ORIGINAL: Industrial

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ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

You guys really, really, REALLY need to get away from the thought that each tactical round represents 1/10th of a turn's length, and that there is any sequential, one-to-one correspondence between them and the imaginary turn length divisions you've trapped yourselves into thinking of them about.

A turn that ends after the 5th round simply means that your forces only did half of what you expected they'd be able to do within the time frame that you were originally planning to have available for operations. That's as simple as I can put it for you...

this is where I disagree with you, a turn represents a given time span, and is divided into 10 equal parts, so each part represents 1/10 of said timespan. With 90% of my turn remaining, units will have 90% of their movement points remaining, as 1/10 of the gives timespan has just elapsed...

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ORIGINAL: Industrial

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2

I don't think the individual unit proficiencies would be that much lower than the Germans. It's the ability to function on the operational level where the Allies should have difficulties.

Put formations on internal support, lower force cummunication level, lower force proficiency level, change force loss intolerance and movement bias, many ways to find a propper solution, early turn endings on the other hand is not something that would in any way help in simulating french combat performance in WW2.

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2
Communication level - Not sure how this works. It was broken, so there is little data as to what effect this has.

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ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2
Communication level - Not sure how this works. It was broken, so there is little data as to what effect this has.

<scratches head>
It looks like it does quite a bit. I can't verify that these are true.

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Affects the chance of AA helping in a battle. It looks like low AA should have a 50 km range.