Some more thoughts on battle mechanics

[Obsolete]

It's been many months since I last played TOAW and I thought I'd do a little bit again for nostalgia. One thing bothers me again with the battle planning.

As I understand it, if you bring in a unit from quite a distance, you suffer a time penalty. Fair enough, but IIRC the battle planner always assumes the actual planned battle does NOT start until that late unit finally arrives.

It seems to not make sense that a general would delay an entire battle just because one silly unit is late to show up. Perhaps I'm looking too deep into the logistics and not missing a greater picture here?

[Panama]

You don't have to include the late arriving unit in the battle. You could start the battle excluding the late arriving unit and the result would be as you seem to want. If the battle concluded with the defending unit still in control of the attacked hex you could throw in the late arriving unit for the next round or whenever you thought appropriate.

[Obsolete]

You could start the battle excluding the late arriving unit and the result would be as you seem to want.

Actually, you hit it right on the head there. I was hoping I was over-looking something there and I was. This is why I should wait will I've rested before posting on the forum.

[Obsolete]

There is one other question I have regarding the mechanics. As I understand it, vaporized units are not truely destroyed as long as they can trace a line of communications back to their side. This then alows them to be reconstituted. However, I noticed even when I have a unit totally surrounded, I still get the battle result ofes of it being vaporized, instead of destroyed.

Am I correct in assuming the engine still counts this as totally destroyed, instead of a regular vaporization.

[sPzAbt653]

Kinda two things going on. When a unit evaporates it may or may not reconstitute depending on designer settings. Some may, some may not. This isn't displayed anywhere during play, so you have to rely on the scenario briefing to give any clue as to who comes back and who doesn't. Also, reconstituted units usually come back after about 4 weeks, which means in a shorter scenario, you may not see any reconstitute.

Next, when a unit evaporates, a percentage of its equipment goes into the replacement pool. Unless the unit is not in supply at the time, in which case none of its equipment is recovered into the replacement pool.

Any good ? Or still confusing ? [:(]

[wodin]

the turn mechanics is what I always found difficult with this game...I can tell it's a great system....but to hard on the head for me...

[jomni]

The new beta patch seems to have changed the turn system a bit.

[Obsolete]

Any good ? Or still confusing ?

Mmm, somewhat. It also doesn`t help when I read different articles and they often can`t even agree on even basic issues in regards to battling. But I still consider myself a novice so I`m not going to be egotistic here and start demanding on how I THINK the game should make issues.

Though I have always thought reconstitution was a little bit of a cop-out. If the Desert Fox could simply reconstitute after waiting a certain amount of days or weeks, the Egyptians may very well have been liberated from UK occupation, and so on. Clearly elements like this don`t make sense when looking at theaters like that.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: Obsolete

Though I have always thought reconstitution was a little bit of a cop-out. If the Desert Fox could simply reconstitute after waiting a certain amount of days or weeks, the Egyptians may very well have been liberated from UK occupation, and so on. Clearly elements like this don`t make sense when looking at theaters like that.

Yes, reconstitution is a bit of a mouse turd in the pudding. No way to control it when making a scenario. It's been pointed out that it's severly damaged units being rebuilt in the rear areas. In that respect it can be somewhat managed by limiting replacements. That's not a really good way to handle it but that's what we have.

[Obsolete]

I`ll try to keep a closer eye on replacements, etc. I still have a few things to learn (or re-learn). In the Attack Planner for example, I can`t ever remember reading an explanation as to what the second combat value means.  Often there is something like 55 +22 for my combined strength.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: Obsolete
I`ll try to keep a closer eye on replacements, etc. I still have a few things to learn (or re-learn). In the Attack Planner for example, I can`t ever remember reading an explanation as to what the second combat value means.  Often there is something like 55 +22 for my combined strength.

I believe it's ap+at, but I don't remember the order.

Also, units aren't out of supply until the turn after they're cutoff. Just surrounding a unit will still allow it to reconstitute. You need to keep it out of supply in order for it to be cut off.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Obsolete

Though I have always thought reconstitution was a little bit of a cop-out. If the Desert Fox could simply reconstitute after waiting a certain amount of days or weeks, the Egyptians may very well have been liberated from UK occupation, and so on. Clearly elements like this don`t make sense when looking at theaters like that.

Units only reconstitute if there are sufficient replacements on hand for them to do so, and only to the extent that such replacements are on hand. So I don't understand the objection. What difference does it make whether the replacements go into existing units or the reconstituted ones? Especially since reconstitution doesn't represent rebuilding units from scratch. Instead it represents units that have lost cohesion having that cohesion restored.

Without reconstitution, you might get a situation where a force was badly short of on-map units while having huge stockpiles of replacements clogging up the on hand piles. How is that realistic?

In fact, in my CFNA scenario, the reconstitution mechanism is one of the Commonwealth's edges over Rommel at the El Alamein position: Reconstituted Commonwealth units can get to the front in a hurry via rail. Axis reconstituted units have to walk from the western map edge. Without that, the replacements would all go straight to on-map units - no edge for the Commonwealth at El Alamein.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

ORIGINAL: Obsolete
I`ll try to keep a closer eye on replacements, etc. I still have a few things to learn (or re-learn). In the Attack Planner for example, I can`t ever remember reading an explanation as to what the second combat value means.  Often there is something like 55 +22 for my combined strength.

I believe it's ap+at.

That is correct.

Also, units aren't out of supply until the turn after they're cutoff. Just surrounding a unit will still allow it to reconstitute. You need to keep it out of supply in order for it to be cut off.

Whether the unit is out of supply when destroyed is irrelevant to whether it will reconstitute. That is only dependent upon availability of replacements and the designer's setting of whether the unit is allowed to reconstitute at all.

[Obsolete]

Well, the one thing good about always getting different explanations on how different features work in TOAW is that it doesn`t make me feel like I`m the only one who DOESN`T GET IT

Now when we look at replacements, I also was never sure on what the RATE really means. If I show a RATE of 2 rifles (or whatever), does that mean 2 rifles are expected on average to add back into my forces every turn, or is there another element to this.

I remember reading the original manual over the years until all the pages finally fell out, and I was still always mystified by a lot of things, even elements that it supposedly hit on.

[el cid]

2 rifles will add to your pool of replacements every turn.

What goes into you replacement pool wiil be:
- those two rifles
- part of the rifles lost during combat

What goes out of your replacement pool will be:
- replacement to units that lost rifles during the previous turn

I do not the order in which the above takes place.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: el cid

2 rifles will add to your pool of replacements every turn.

What goes into you replacement pool wiil be:
- those two rifles
- part of the rifles lost during combat

What goes out of your replacement pool will be:
- replacement to units that lost rifles during the previous turn

I do not the order in which the above takes place.

When units move they can also suffer a small bit of attrition. This goes back into replacements too. So combat, movement and replacement rate can all increase available replacements. There's a couple of other less common things that cause losses with some of that going to replacements too.

With 3.2 replacements happened at the beginning of the turn for both sides. Now I think it happens at the beginning of the respective player's turn before movement.

[Panama]

Reconstitution really is a tough one to call. Divisions have often been reduced to the strength of a battalion or less and still continue to fight as a cohesive unit. Divisions have been almost full strength and fell apart into a useless mob. It would seem Norm settled on something in the middle for when a unit becomes useless whether it's historically accurate for any specific unit or not.

[Obsolete]

Hmm! I started paying close attention to the replacements button. I ended up losing a single Tiger I out of 22 in one of my counters in the Kasserine scenario.  The count dropped to 21 in the inventory menu right away, but the value for LOST still remained at 0 for a few turns before finally showing up.

Not sure what happen there just yet...