ORIGINAL: Capitaine
The fact is that what happens to a unit on one side of the map should not be able to exert this instantaneous affect on units on the other side of the map. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about Swedish ski battalions of Bolivian infantry brigades.
Ah, but it doesn't, really (have an effect), unless you make it that way. All you need to do is (1) make sure you move all essential moves before you engage in combat; (2) have a good feel for what kind of attack will exhaust a turn; (2) make sure you declare all essential attacks
before you order an attack subject to (2) above. If you follow this formula, you are assured of making all your attacks in a given turn. You are not necessarily assured of multiple attacks, but you are assured of at least one.
The above is true - though I don't think its particualrly relivent to the point.
It does however note another aspect of early turn ending that I feel is a weakness in the model. You mention that all attacks should be done with a good 'feel' for whether or not they are going to cause early turn ending. I agree completely. Its critical in TOAW to have a good 'feel' for your units. A new player often makes the mistake of thinking that very high proficiency units like varous SS formations are good to attack with - in reality its often the worst thing you can do with them since they are simply not going to break off, and if the defenders hold, large amounts or the entire turn will be used up. So the current model rewards the idea that elite units are bad to attack with.
The problem with this is it makes the game that much more punishing to new players or players that are not experts on the TOAW eccentricies. This is hardly a good thing for the game in general. Nor do I particularly think that Norm sat down to make it intentional that elite units should not be used early in the turn. Its a side effect of what was created and probably was not really exploited by players until they had had many years of experience with TOAW and had come to realize that some units should never be attacked early in the turn and that some units should never be used in attacks not on the basis of any kind of historical validity but simply because TOAW will punish you if you do it this way by sucking up the rest of your turn.
The reason for the semi-random turn ending has everything to do with your ability to exploit combat realistically. As such, it is one model for depicting that facet when you are playing at the proper scale. Once you get beyond the appropriate scale of simulation, you lose the essence of the model. The model is central to Norm Koger's game and his design intent. It is the single most important thing about the game. It's what makes TOAW such a good simulation even though it is IGO-UGO.
I don't at all concede to the idea that early turn ending is the single most important feature of the game and that we don't have TOAW if its modified in any way.
Its certianly important that some kind of random stop event takes place for units some of the time - otherwise its far to easy for us to set up and exploit attacks. But that can be handled on a formation by formation basis with a fair amount of validity.
Oleg is correct that all scenarios must appreciate this dynamic if they are to be valid TOAW scenarios. There is no TOAW to be a fan of if you abolish the end-of-turn model. It's a given. If you want to do something else, you need to find another game b/c it's not TOAW.
Its not a given - early turn ending is not some sacred cow that we can not modify in any way, any more then the rather half hazard naval model we have is the epitomy of TOAW design, and changing it would some how ruin TOAW or make it substantially some different game.
One might as well argue that the fact that people can cheat was part of Norms deeper philosophy and tinkering with that fundementally destroys the TOAW experience.
Play and design operations, at the smaller time and distance scales. Those will generally be better games.
The problem has almost nothing to do with time and distance scales. In fact the smaller time and distance scales make this problem worse not better.
Fall Grau's Division sized units and 50km hexs does not really suffer to badly from this. The size and scope of the scenario means that generally your not doing all that many attacks in most turns and early turn ending is more of a nuissance then something thats really breaking the scenario.
Its when one has regiments and battalions by the hundreds and are attacking along a slew of critical roads - which have to be cleared themselves and their shoulders have to be widened for the offencive to work that the problem really gets highlighted. Such scenarios involve very heavy use of support elements and careful positioning of units to accomplish ones goals and a single case of bad luck when some Enginier Battalion refuses to give and the attacking regiment refuses to break off causes everything to to suddenly and abruptly come to a grinding halt. In such a scenario Early Turn ending causes a great deal of frustration and makes play balancing the thing significantly more of a crap shoot since very large amounts of luck are deciding what happens to a great many units.
Possibly what you mean is that all TOAW scenarios should have only a few dozen pieces a side and should only cover a single attack. In such a case TOAWs turn ending model works fine at whatever scale one opts to use from corps down to companies and 50km hexs or 2.5 km ones because so few units are involved. Its also worth noting that longer games in terms of the total number of turns actually played tend to allieviate the problem. If I only have 8 turns in a scenario having any one of them abruptly end is an absolute disaster - if I have 100 turns then my turn endings and my opponents turn endings will tend to equal out (presuming players of roughly equal skill) and pure chance will be factored out.
So as it stands the best TOAW scenarios should have no more then a few dozen pieces a side at any given time and should be as long as possible. That is the ideal scenario in terms of how the current model works.
