Wandering "commando" brigades

[kondor999]

Paul's brigade seems to be operating commando-style again, about 4-5 miles away from the nearest Union unit and with Ewell's division all the way down there in the bottom right corner.

 

Paul was routed earlier, somehow managed to retreat to the north, then decided to make a big end-run around the Confed left flank for a VP location that is miles behind enemy lines.  Right now, there's nothing stopping either a player or the AI from such shenanigans.

 

We really need something to keep the AI from doing this, because it's both implausible and "gamey".  Some kind of massive loss in morale for being so far from the rest of your forces seems like a sufficient deterrent for human players.  For the AI, some kind of rule to direct it not to send units this far from any support source would do it.

 

 

[soccercw]

I think one way to handle this, and increase the importance of Corps commanders, is to have a penalty for being too far from the corps commander.  Maybe a secondary radius can be created where troops outside that range suffer a constant ticking down condition penalty or something like that.  This will also keep corps more together in the field

[Maus]

Right now, there's nothing stopping either a player or the AI from such shenanigans.

 

Actually there is something that can stop this sort of thing from happening: you.

 

The first scenario is too sparse to make a really solid line of battle, I'll admit, but the game rules don't need to artificially degrade a unit for overextending. You just need to destroy them off the map when they overextend; a bad move is only bad if it's punished.

 

Or perhaps you've overextended and the AI is punishing you for it, as it should.

[kondor999]

Not really.  The idea of detaching an entire brigade just to provide rear area security when Hill's entire Corps will shortly arrive and annihilate a lone Union brigade that decided to commit suicide is fairly ridiculous.  This never happened in real life, as no one would waste an entire brigade either to go on such a short-lived, one-way kamikaze mission or to try and defend against it.

 

In addition, since things like ammo, food and water are not in the game, there is nothing to prevent a brigade from going on one of these ridiculous romps.  Were those factors simulated, such an errant brigade would soon find itself short of everything and would be reduced to standing around, waiting for someone to happen by to accept their surrender.   

 

There are 2 ways around this: 

 

1.  Either simulate the underlying logistical factors which would prevent such silliness.

2.  Impose a limit on how far units can stray from their corps commander.

 

The latter solution is more in keeping with the scale and focus of the game, and accomplishes the "logistical tether" without a lot of fussiness about keeping track of minutia.

 

Actually there is something that can stop this sort of thing from happening: you.

 

The first scenario is too sparse to make a really solid line of battle, I'll admit, but the game rules don't need to artificially degrade a unit for overextending. You just need to destroy them off the map when they overextend; a bad move is only bad if it's punished.

 

Or perhaps you've overextended and the AI is punishing you for it, as it should.

[David Fair]

Maus, how do you know this situation was caused by overextending?

Enemy units in UGG rout through your units and end up behind your troops. It is a flaw in the game and is being worked to ensure troops rout in a logical/realistic direction. Players can't stop this from happening. Right now the remedy is playing a silly game of cat and mouse.

The game engine is driven by victory point locations not military logic. Kondor999, excellent post highlighting the design flaw.

Because units could be attached/detached from/to corps it makes sense that units should be operating within a reasonable distance of a friendly corps commander. These goofy division runs for VP locations destroy the credibility of the game because they completely ignore fog of war, command and control, logistics, and the reality of military intelligence before risking the lives of over a thousand men operating behind enemy lines. The VP locations are arbitrary. They shouldn't be in the game at all; but, if they are going to be in the game then they should "turn off" or be "unchangeable" once a VP location is so far behind the lines. It is absurd to suggest it is reasonable to punish a player for this design problem.

[kondor999]

Once again, I want to make it very clear that I love this game.  It's just that it's still in Beta.  For anyone out there on the fence about spending $10 for this game, let me just say that the game is worth double that - even with these issues unresolved.  It simply plays far better than the old classic Sid Meier's Gettysburg, which is extremely high praise indeed.

[Maus]

no one would waste an entire brigade either to go on such a short-lived, one-way kamikaze mission or to try and defend against it.

 

The AI does this quite often, so I defend against it. It's challenging to defend against, yet I'm always able to do so successfully. I do it to the AI when I play as the Union too. It works for me, and considering that the AI seems to have defeated you doing it, it seems to work quite well. The AI does not defeat me when it does this, however, because I defend against it. I do not say, "No one would send a whole brigade back to defend against such an impossibility!" I simply send a brigade back, and that works very well for me. You had enough momentum to advance Pettigrew beyond Oak Ridge, which suggests to me that you too could have spared a brigade.

 

The solution is not to add another system to the game, it is to play by the rules of the game as written rather than by the rules as you think or wish they were written. If you do that, you'll find this is a curious challenge in the first scenario that is not very difficult to overcome. First try to solve the problem yourself before you claim there is a flaw in game design that needs such heavy-handed fixing.

 

In any case, this is the only real instance of this kind of thing I've ever seen in the game, and it's certainly because the first scenario is very thin on units. I don't think I've had a unit get behind me in any other scenarios which was not utterly decimated by my reserves. If you find this behavior creates a dissatisfying game, then there are far better ways to solve it than to include an entirely new logistics system (no matter how simple). Simply move that objective point forward to McPherson's Ridge, and I imagine the alleged problem will go away. That will take far less development time and keep within the spirit of the game, which is that of a game rather than a simulation.

 

 

 

Enemy units in UGG rout through your units and end up behind your troops.

 

I have not seen this behavior myself, but it's certainly worth changing. I imagine it would also help allay kondor999's grievances without altering the game's fundamental design.

[Zelekendel]

Once again, I want to make it very clear that I love this game.  It's just that it's still in Beta.  For anyone out there on the fence about spending $10 for this game, let me just say that the game is worth double that - even with these issues unresolved.  It simply plays far better than the old classic Sid Meier's Gettysburg, which is extremely high praise indeed.

 

Well said, but I thought the game is still in Alpha? So many issues to sort out still, a beta is more like a release candidate, or very close to one.

[Jade Falcon]

Hi everyone. I had this exact same issue last night. Weirdly enough it was also Paul's brigade that was carrying out these light commando raids. The strange thing is Paul should have been helping his comrades out not carrying out some fools errand to attempt to take Herr's Ridge by himself.

 

Why the Ai seems to try this stuff now and again I have no idea. Maybe its a bug but it always tries it on when I'm preoccupied so its possibly a tactic. Shameful, sneaky, unsporting and kind of causes me to have those complete disbelief moments in an otherwise brilliant game.

[Reisman17]

I have to agree with the VP rushes/ enemy after being defeated falls back, regroups and goes after a rear VP. I still feel they recover way too quickly. A brigade that has just been in battle and has lost should not be able to reform 2-3 seconds  later. The men would be heavily demorilised and would be badly disrupted (e.g. men scattered over a large area - this seems to be added in for melee fights now but I would also like to see this with firefights as well). It should take a good amount of time to recover morale and reform the basics of a unit (e.g. get the men to line back up etc....). Not to say I cant stop this behavior but usually it just does not feel right diverting one of your front line units (or reserves if you have them) to stop one enemy brigade. I agree that being able to keep units within a certain distance of a general makes much more sense and seems more realistic. If a brigade does decide to leave to generals area there should be a morale penalty until the unit  returns to under the generals influence. A 3 star general should have a much larger area than a 1 star general (to signify the general's able to controls his brigades much better when he is a better/better trained general).  The only time I could even consider a seperation of a brigade from the rest of the army would be either cavalry (which should always operate seperately ) or a brigade that would be used to guard a particular point in stopping or at least slowing down the enemy (e.g. river crossings - not hills). If you want a hill you should send your generals troops to it. If you want to know if anything is close the the hill before fully commiting to moving to the hill send the cavalry forward to scout for you. I do understand that people do now want to wait for a defeated brigade to recover however this is what happened in battles. If you waited until your units got beaten you should suffer for that. This is  why it is important to be able to order your brigades to retreat before they get broken and this should give you (and the AI mind you) the time to pull your brigades back so your brigade could regroup/ recover morale/reform before reengaging the enemy again. I think each time a brigade gets defeated its total morale that it can recover should be less than what it would start out with and each defeat should drops this lower and lower until the brigade breaks (or surrenders :-))  (e.g. first loss loss 25%, second loss 50% third loss 80%, forth rout - obviously these are just some numbers to throw out and are not final numbers). These should also depend on the quality of the bridge (e.g. rookies may only last two-three losses - veterans may be able to take 5-6 losses before breaking as an example). Well I hope the developers come up with their own great idea to take this into account as I feel this is an important part of any battle. 

 

Reisman17  

[67th Tigers]

Another option, one that I use on tabletop, is available.

 

Don't allow "out of command" units to move at all, but only to react. One obvious reaction should be the brigadier deciding to rejoin his commander, and march to the sound of the guns.

 

That of course introduces a real use for generals.