Specialties

[Uxbridge]

Considering how smooth and streamlined many things in the game are, the mechanics regarding specialties strike me as somewhat odd. Say you have a number of Specialties points to spend and desire to attack across a river. By spending a point your unit gets an attack bonus to aleviate the effect of the river. Fine.

It's when the situation has passed that the peculiarity appear – the engineer battalion has glued on to the parent unit and will stay there for the duration of that parent's life. I have difficulties seeing the Specialties as something intrinsic to the unit; rather they should be army assets that could be diverted to any spot needed: engineers, commandos, artillery regiments, etcetera. My main concern is that I never really play with the Specialties. Except for the attaching when they are first made available, and that's only in the whim of the moment, I never care much about them as they always seems to be to far from the spot where they could be used anyway.

Of course, it's not a patching matter, rather some pondering for upcoming versions of the game, but I would like to get this thought out of my head.

What about if the system worked as now up to the point where the Specialty becomes available. At that point the player chose wich type to aquire. But instead of attaching it to a unit, he places it in a pool. A drop-down meny tells him his options and the number and types already in said pool. If he wants to use the Specialty immediately, he goes to the unit in question and chose it the same way as it is done now. There should be one difference, however: the unit chosen will need the same critera as a unit to be rail transported (full MP) and will forfeit all it's MP's for the rest of the turn.

If the player, at a later stage, like to free the unit from the Specialty, an Alt-shift click on it (or some such), will send the Specialty back to it's pool. In order to get some "distance reality", it will take at least 1 turn before it is again avaliable, an additional turn if there's any body of water between the unit and that country's capital, and an additional turn if the distance between the unit and the capital is more than 20 hexes or so.

Imagine now that you're to invade Normandy. You have saved up a number of Specialties, and the turn before D-Day you attach Elite status to the units first to go ashore. Or maybe there's some Market Garden-like operation in the wind. You put elites in the paras and bridge crossing capabilities for the ground armour. Yes, maybe you have to wait a number of turns, because some of the assets must be taken from Italy, but that's all in the strategies of war.

Whith such system, the Specialties would be much more playable.

No idea what the AI will do, however.

[Meteor2]

I like the idea, because a permanent attachment seems a little bit unreal.
And they are always in the wrong place, als you said.

Why not cumulate the specialities as attachments to the HQs?
As equivalent for engineer, artillery, recon battalions?
Or AT or flak or something.
As long as needed, they can be attached to a unit of that HQ or otherwise it goes back.
A problem maybe is the undestructability of these units?
If a corps has losses, the special attribut can be destroyed then?

Maybe Alvaro can think about this...[:D]

[cpdeyoung]

Opinion :

Elite really is not a speciality that can change over a two week period.

You do not make an elite unit easily. You can give it extra equipment but it is how the equipment is used that determines if the unit is elite.

You give a unit a "Guards" designation because of its superior performance. If the unit is average calling it elite won't change much. The other GIs will get a chuckle perhaps.

Chuck

[Uxbridge]

Elite are something that I think has an improper wording here. Obviously, since you can now assign it at point blank notice, it can't be that the units suddenly gets better. I see it as some commandos, combat engineers, or such units, added to the general formation; something that can also be detached. The abstract elite or not elite lays in the experience factor.

[AlbertN]

I like them as they're, but I'd like more options and mayhaps 'half' specialties that costs less too.

Like a +5 Experience "Elite" (Veteran?) or a +1 Gun only (for 50 Specialty points), as long as other various type of bonuses.

[AlvaroSousa]

The idea above is really good. In WarPlan 1 it will be too hard to code into the game and create all sorts of bugging problems. Just like I added the convoy toggle and it messed up everyone's game and I had to scramble to get a fix out which half worked and didn't fix games. so on and so on. So I am hesitant to introduce any new systems into the game. I also like keeping it fairly simple for players. There is always a balance between fun and realism in games like this.

As is you can simple rail that specialty unit to another area and rail another in its place if you need to use it.

I will keep this idea for WarPlan 2 though.

[Uxbridge]

Yes, that's how I wanted you and the others to see it – a suggestion for the future.