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shermanny -> RE: WitE 2 (11/3/2016 4:10:00 PM)
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Here's a thought about "sudden death".
Let's take it as a given that the Soviet Union wasn't going to collapse unless the Germans got to, oh, say, Gorki. And probably not even then.
Stalin couldn't be sure of that, and Hitler was hoping for a collapse. This means that in order for play to proceed along tracks that might have materialized, players have to have an incentive to try and provoke/avoid events they might have hoped/feared would bring on a collapse.
But we don't want those events to literally be "game over". So why not factor them into the victory levels? A player can boost their victory level by one or even two notches by achieving some sudden-death-like condition.
Some of those could be probabilistic. Players should be informed of the odds and which events trigger a sudden-victory-level die roll, but one couldn't be sure if the event would trigger. Maybe tie such an event to a morale level hit to the adversely impacted side.
On the topic of realism, the most badly needed game change is that the current combat system doesn't permit events such as the Battle of the Bulge (in the West) or Bagration (in the East.)
An attacker who has a considerable superiority of force and plenty of ammo and who is willing to take casualties ought to be able to make some impressive gains at the outset, at least if the defense doesn't have too much in the way of reserves immediately available.
Another nice-to-have change would be if motorized units set to "reserve" status were configured so that they simply couldn't be surrounded. If they found themselves on the brink of being surrounded, in my design they'd intervene on their own behalf, touching off a battle in the hex that was set to flip control. If they won, they'd displace then and there to that hex. If they lost, they'd rout. This could go on and on during the turn And once routed, they'd rout again rather than get pocketed. In such pocketing reserve self-interventions, they'd count as the defenders so they wouldn't need heavy odds to prevail.
They would intervene in any movement of combat that occurred along their own line of supply and communication to Army Group HQ, say. That way we have some concrete, programmable criterion, and the motorized reserves don't wait to the last moment and then try to block some cleverly delayed attack against a marsh hex that represents their last tenuous connection to home.
Reserve status would remain intact for purposes of this rule even if the unit came in contact with enemy units.
Again and again, in both the East and the West, mobile units (especially German and Soviet) fought their way out of apparently hopeless situations, emerging maybe badly damaged but still with some fighting elements and much of the command cadre.
The effect would be that Panzer divisions, or Tank or Mech Corps, that began the turn out of contact and in reserve mode, would react in the game like they mostly did in the real war, and twist and slip free of encirclement.
There'd have to be an exception for early Soviet mobile formations. For one thing, early model T34s weren't very roadworthy. Maybe just have cavalry corps enjoy this capability until late 1942.
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