ORIGINAL: Lava
ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Pelton is also cheating. So I figure I can cheat too.
[:D]
ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
I don't understand. The rules are clear that the first week new territory is taken there are extra movement costs involved. These include but are not limited to:
1) Lack of understanding of the terrain.
2) Unknown of when enemy will be encountered.
3) Road congestion as units are moving in ways that were not predicted in advance.
4) Small scale delaying actions by enemy units that are abstracted.
I understand the rules when terrain is DISPUTED... however...
Let's look at your list. All of those items are good examples of what Clausewitz referred to as "Friction in War" and are summed up in a very famous quote... "Everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult."
In his book "On War" he reflects that although a battalion may be expected/calculated to march a certain distance, in War, chance or even an insignificant event can throw that calculation to the wind... friction.
But though the rules you have applied to the game work well in the simulation of combat, taking into account the friction of war, one must also understand that friction is directly correlated to what Clausewitz referred to as "Danger in War." As he writes, "The danger which War brings with it, the bodily exertions which it requires, augment this evil (friction) so much that they may be regarded as the greatest causes of it."
*italics is my word.
Thus friction increases as danger increases. Conversely, friction decreases as danger decreases. It the situation illustrated with the above graphic the Soviet army has retreated. As your enemy retreats, danger fades and with it... so should friction.
Your model is incomplete because it does not include danger. Every time a Sov player retreats a significant distance, you model still penalizes the Axis player because it models friction as though each hex brings with it the same amount of danger, whether there is an actual ZOC there or not. Because of that modeling, retreat is actually an exploit available to the Soviet player, because whether or not the area is contested, the Axis player still receives the same attrition and fatigue even though the level of danger has dropped dramatically.
Ray (alias Lava)
It is not an exploit it might be something that could be done better. He's actually saving the germans a few MP's by not having units stuck to the panzers to cause even more MP loss so the germans should be thanking him.
So calling it an exploit just seems a little like hyperbole. Now thinking about it you could probably model the MP cost based off the detection rating of a hex. If you have a high enough detection rating and see nothing there it could make it cost less. Though then you get into the realm of well if we model that how do we model ambushes for a unit who pushes too far too fast and does not do enough recon. We should let him get ambushed or is that an "exploit" too?
So in closing i suppose i can agree with your thoughts on it but being a game it's a matter of how far down the rabbit hole do you go? How much do you model? Where is the balance of fun and too much micromanagement.
