Gregor_SSG
Matrix Hero

Posts: 681
Joined: 3/6/2003 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Capt Cliff Treale, Artillery did destroy units! During the Bulge a regement of 12th SS PZ attacked the 1st ID outside Bullingen (sp) and got wiped by the VT fused arty! They were shattered and houres de combat (sp) for about a week, then returned at 50% strength if that. The most extreme is the carpet bombing Panzer Lehr endured during Cobra. Lehr was shattered and was not reconstituted until way after the Noramndy campaign was finished. Units in BIN or BII should not be destroyed but shattered/disappear to reappear say within a week at a depleted strength. Instead of this silly two to four hits there should be a percentage strength bar that decreases to a point the unit vaporizes. Both games are quasi-operational/quasi-strategic games. They use regements with some battalions, but mostly regement level. Regements don't disappear for good, unless you hit them with a 5 klick nuke! They lose command and control and just disappear until they rallies around the flag, so to say. JSS, DB WWII?? Never heard of it. Got a website link you can provide me. What we need now is "Streets of Stalingrad" for the computer!!! I've played the board game with the cool non-NATO counters, just gives a great feel to the experience. Come on Combined Arms!!! There are so many battles in in WWII that you can find examples of everything that you care to look for. For instance, in the opening weeks of Barbarossa, some Russian units fought to the last man, even when totally surrounded, while others surrender en masse at the first report of tanks somewhere on the their flanks. Our game has a surrender chance for units, so where do we set it? At 0%, (plenty of examples of that), at 100% (likewise lots of examples)or somewhere in between? What we're going to do is set it at a level which reflects the our judgement of the correct level of fragility within our game system. If, as with earlier games we didn't have a surrender chance in the game system, then we achieve that fragility by other means. Should we apologise for this? Of course not, every game contains abstractions and choices by the game designers. I think that your choice of a linear strength meter is inappropriate, because I don't think there's an easily expressed linear relationship between the number of men in a regiment and its combat power. It also creates problems when comparing units with different numbers of men. Allied units typically had more men than equivalent German formations, does that mean that they fight better, or that they're more resilient because the same artillery attack causes proportionally less casualties to a larger unit? I don't think so, that's why we use the combat steps to avoid these problems, and to allow us to produce direct comparisons of combat power, which is what really matters, rather than raw numbers, which are only part of the equation. Also, if you read all of my first post, you would have noted the fact that there is carpet bombing in Battles in Normandy, and you can in fact carpet bomb the Panzer Lehr, with often devastating results. Naturally, you are free to agree or disagree with any or all of our design decisions. I'm just taking the opportunity to explain some of our thinking. Gregor
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