Soviet tactics and retreat paths

[Cavalry Corp]

After 3 books now, which all comment on this - I would like to post this.

It seems the Soviets developed a tactic ( which worked many times it seems) of attacking a seam of two German Armies and even Corps - they were able to make wider gaps as German units had the unfortunate capacity to retreat back within a corps boundary so in game terms -

If the retreat hex has the same move value the unit should retreat towards its HQ or another unit of the same Corp.

This would simulate this very well. any takers for comments.

Cav

[Beethoven1]

Entirely independently of what is historical/realistic, I have been thinking for a while now that the order of priority in which units retreat really needs to be changed to retreat towards HQ as the first priority for purely gameplay and balance reasons.

The reason for that is that the current retreat priority system makes it too easy to herd units in unrealistic and implausible directions simply by manipulation ZOC (which is currently pretty much tops in the priority list). This often leads to unrealistically high losses from WW1 grinding when executed properly by a skilled player (also a result of routs and rout losses being tied too closely to morale, and particularly to the threshold of >50 or <50 morale).

By contrast, positioning a unit's HQ is (largely) under the control of the defending player. If the defender could position their units/hqs with the knowledge that their units will at minimum not retreat to be FURTHER AWAY from the HQ, that would put at least some agency back in the hands of the defender and away from the attacker. Currently, as a result of the igougo system paralyzing the defender during the attacker's turn, the only player who has agency to manipulate this mechanic (outside of special and unrealistically absurd tricks like positioning triple stacks of air HQs in hexes where the defender doesn't want units to retreat to in order to make it impossible for them to retreat there) is the attacker.

[jasonbroomer]

Entirely independently of what is historical/realistic, I have been thinking for a while now that the order of priority in which units retreat really needs to be changed to retreat towards HQ as the first priority for purely gameplay and balance reasons.

The reason for that is that the current retreat priority system makes it too easy to herd units in unrealistic and implausible directions simply by manipulation ZOC (which is currently pretty much tops in the priority list). This often leads to unrealistically high losses from WW1 grinding when executed properly by a skilled player (also a result of routs and rout losses being tied too closely to morale, and particularly to the threshold of >50 or <50 morale).

By contrast, positioning a unit's HQ is (largely) under the control of the defending player. If the defender could position their units/hqs with the knowledge that their units will at minimum not retreat to be FURTHER AWAY from the HQ, that would put at least some agency back in the hands of the defender and away from the attacker. Currently, as a result of the igougo system paralyzing the defender during the attacker's turn, the only player who has agency to manipulate this mechanic (outside of special and unrealistically absurd tricks like positioning triple stacks of air HQs in hexes where the defender doesn't want units to retreat to in order to make it impossible for them to retreat there) is the attacker.

+1

Once you learn to herd, the results can be devastating for the Soviets

[Gray Lensman_MatrixForum]

Entirely independently of what is historical/realistic, I have been thinking for a while now that the order of priority in which units retreat really needs to be changed to retreat towards HQ as the first priority for purely gameplay and balance reasons.

The reason for that is that the current retreat priority system makes it too easy to herd units in unrealistic and implausible directions simply by manipulation ZOC (which is currently pretty much tops in the priority list). This often leads to unrealistically high losses from WW1 grinding when executed properly by a skilled player (also a result of routs and rout losses being tied too closely to morale, and particularly to the threshold of >50 or <50 morale).

By contrast, positioning a unit's HQ is (largely) under the control of the defending player. If the defender could position their units/hqs with the knowledge that their units will at minimum not retreat to be FURTHER AWAY from the HQ, that would put at least some agency back in the hands of the defender and away from the attacker. Currently, as a result of the igougo system paralyzing the defender during the attacker's turn, the only player who has agency to manipulate this mechanic (outside of special and unrealistically absurd tricks like positioning triple stacks of air HQs in hexes where the defender doesn't want units to retreat to in order to make it impossible for them to retreat there) is the attacker.

This "herding" issue could be strongly curtailed if the game code routines were to randomize the retreat priority, (towards the HQ or towards the nearest supply), keeping the players guessing somewhat.