Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: kombrig

I guess this discussion leads nowhere - it's a matter of taste. In the end those who want something to be different can always use the editor. It's really not hard.

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ORIGINAL: ironduke1955

In regards to the tendency of players to form long lines and fight a kind of World War 1 type war. Cavalry should not have been the force to break that log jam. They could not have done it in the First World War. There is a method for breaking such Impasses its called Blitzgreig. The Combination of armor artillery and air power to blow a whole in the enemy line. The main drawback to this happening in this game is scouting not only can you see the units opposite you you can see the units behind them and this takes away the element of surprise a major element in a war of maneuver. It should be a lot harder to gain intel about what you are facing especially in a fluid situation. The vast majority of attacks launched on the Russian Front had guesses at best about what they were facing. The Allies with vast air superiority had a easier time of it but air superiority alone are not guarantee's of knowing what you are facing ie: Battle Of The Bulge being a excellent example.

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The range of tactical intelligence should be redced in my opinion. For most units the range of one hex would be enough. Armored cars, jeeps, halftracks and cavalry should have max range 2. Plus the latter units should have stronger intel in their range (more precise information about the enemy). In reality the combination of air, agent and radio intelligence was used to try to determine enemy concetration in more deeper rear areas.

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I agree with ironduke that the tactical intel is slightly too powerful. This can be indeed considered a important factor which hinders blitzkrieg. The other factor, I think, is "flying production" - even if you manage secretly to create strong attack force which manages to achieve success at the beginning, then your opponent simply will "fly" a large part of his production against your attack force and creates strong enough force which hinders the blitzkrieg down. In reality: if operational surprise and breakthrough is achieved and the opponent does not have strong reserves present, then the opponent must collect (transport) forces to the threatened sector. This takes time in reality (but not in ATG).

Also, currently in ATG it takes large amount of resources (in trains) to strategically transfer significant units and their readiness is reduced. I myself hardly use strategic transfer because it is much easier to use the "flying production" in the role of strategic transfer. Even the readiness is not reduced so much. The same applies in creating reserves - in ATG you don't really need reserves because you know that the "flying production" is always there where you need it in the next turn - it's your reserve.

The solution? The "flying production" should have readiness of 10-20 when it arrives to the destination HQ. Or one can of course play with hardcore production turned on.

But don't get me wrong - ATG is still my favourite game.

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My team mates and I usually refer to this as "direct distribution", and I like it. Again we are force to sacrifice some realism for enjoyment.

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Certainly slower rates of readiness recovery are a excellent way of helping with effective Blitzgreig. And certainly the period from when a unit is created untill it reaches optimum Readiness could be collated to training.

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The solution? The "flying production" should have readiness of 10-20 when it arrives to the destination HQ.

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Lower readiness maybe, but that would also soak up a lot of supply and in some games I have a desperate need for every drop of supply I can produce.

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Just a quick thought about the cavalry.
If any of you have read Clausewitz, he points out that in rough terrain the (mountains) the defender is at a disadvantage for anything but guerrilla warfare.
So for all of you guys who are complaining about how unrealistic it is to have cavalry fighting well in the mountains, having large armies dug in on mountains and/or in swamps and/or in jungle is rather unrealistic as well, if for no other reasons than logistics. That all being said, try not to think of them as lancers and mounted swordsmen, rather, the were mounted rifle infantry, riding horses into a combat area and dispersing and dismounting and leaving some men to watch the horses while most of the men went ahead to fight. On D-Day +2 and D-Day +3 , thousands of Canadian and British troops brought collapsible bicycles ashore to help with thier mobility.

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All of the advantages of defending mountains dissappear as the size of the units in the mountains is increased.
The attacker may concentrate all of his strength at one place and the defender will find it difficult to reinforce trhough mountain passes.

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Mountains simply cannot support large fomations, in 1944, when Konev pinned the 1st SS panzer up against the Carpatian mountains, the 1st SS Panzer did not just climb up and dig in. They were effectively cut off, not given a great defensive position.

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If we tried to change everything to make it "more realisitc", we would sacrifice much of what is enjoyable about the game.

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ORIGINAL: Meanfcker
If we tried to change everyting to make it "more realisitc", we would sacrifice much of what is enjoyable about the game.
I still think that the only real change that needs to be made, is to make guerrillas available to all factions.
Meanie.

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Totally agree with the Halftrack line of reasoning. Halftracks are great, if somewhat expensive, additions to any infantry force.

I did a bunch of combat sim experiments using halftracks looking for a good way to counteract cavalry. Overall the results were good, especially when coupled with defending in non-open terrain.