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Bullwinkle58 -> RE: Retreat direction (1/7/2017 12:14:05 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Revthought
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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
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ORIGINAL: John 3rd
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ORIGINAL: HansBolter
No control over retreat direction.
It will almost always be in the worst possible and most mystifying direction possible.
If this game EVER gets redone, I would put a 'button' in for a retreat location/direction. This idiocy of these units going the exact OPPOSITE direction from where they should go defies the imagination. My disaster in Burma with my game against Dan has seen not ONE, not TWO, but THREE horrific retreats dooming units to extinction.
Why is it "idiocy" to expect terrified, wounded, starving, often leaderless troops not to go in any direction that relieves the pain? A rout is not logic in action. There are hundreds of historical examples.
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d you are asking your troops to "fight to the death" practically. You have them entrenched, fortified, and likely poorly supplied.
I'll bite. In the case of Malaysia, when my men know that the entire front is retreating towards Singapore, that there is no support in any other direction, and no hope of rescue if they are cut off from the rest of the front, I suspect that their inclination will be to retreat in the direction of Singapore. Not towards that base in the jungle to the North of Singapore that's already been abandoned.
That said, I get your point. Sometimes the situation on the ground dictates the direction you can retreat. The forces in front of you can break through on a flank, and cut you off from the line of retreat you'd prefer to take (or have been ordered to take).
From a totally wishful thinking perspective, it would be nice if I could order the direction of retreat in conjunction with a "delay" order. For example, instead of "defending" I'm ordering my units to put up enough fight to delay the enemy in front of them as they withdraw in the direction of Singapore.
I suppose you could also call that order "withdraw" and then allow the player to set a destination hex that the AI will try and withdraw towards.
There might be an orderly retreat to Singapore IF any officers were alive, or IF some NCOs could read a compass or IF Private Schmuckatelli didn't lead the run-off-into-the-bush-and-live movement. Hell of a natural leader, that Schmuckatelli.
There are two conflated issues here re the game.
1) Your base falls. The enemy takes possession, plus the AF, port, supplies, fuel, oil, resources, manpower. Forts return to zero. The losing side, you, retreats in good order, staying in the same hex. In a stack situation some LCUs might be destroyed in the loss, some might not be. There are morale checks, probably experience and leadership checks, probably some randoms. The manual gives an outline of the Japanese mechanism to an extent, including banzai charges, etc. But THIS is what you're talking about re Singapore decisions. An orderly retreat from the base. If you're left alone you can leave through any open hexside, in Combat, Move, Reserve, or (rarely) Disorg. mode. Usually your opponent is not that nice, but you could HR it if you wanted.
2) The other case being spoken of here and called a "retreat", isn't. It's a rout. Fortifications collapse, the enemy pours through the breaches, and pandemonium reigns. Your losing side leaves the hex pell-mell in full out, "every man for himself", "Red Badge of Courage" mode. There's no leadership, there's no morale, there's no structure. It's chaos. And there should be, in chaos, odd outcomes as far as direction goes.
If you don't like either of those you have the option in many cases of leaving the hex before the fight. Or moving some out while a core remains to hold the doors open. It's all about choices. [8D]
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