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Strategic movement

Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:54 pm
by Mickrocks201
[font="Arial"]I would suggest that strategic movement not be allowed for units that are surrounded. In fact it should only be allowed for units that can trace a path that is free of adjacent enemy units regardless of whether the hexes used are friendly.

It tends to piss one off when you surround an enemy only to have it whisked away like magic. [/font]

RE: Strategic movement

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 6:47 am
by doomtrader
I'll try to implement it in the next patch.

RE: Strategic movement

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:01 am
by comrade
ORIGINAL: mickrocks

[font="Arial"]I would suggest that strategic movement not be allowed for units that are surrounded. In fact it should only be allowed for units that can trace a path that is free of adjacent enemy units regardless of whether the hexes used are friendly.

It tends to piss one off when you surround an enemy only to have it whisked away like magic. [/font]


This is because the map 'topography' (i.e. pockets etc) are calculated after all countries finish their turns. This topography is calculated along with the supply.

So if Germans cut off polish unit in turn one and hit end turn, this polish unit won't suffer effectivity penalty until the whole cycle is finished. The same for strategic deployment - it will act as if it had connection to all the cities it had at the beginning of the cycle.

Although this may seem not intuitive at first glance, the reason for this is that this seems the only way to model a simultaneous moves in a turn-based game. Turns are just a simplification - in real life you can imagine polish and german units moving at the same time. So the german unit tries to cut off polish unit but at the same time this unit is strategically re-deployed elsewhere.

RE: Strategic movement

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:19 am
by doomtrader
I did make some additional tests and indeed strategic redeployment works only in the same turn when the unit becomes surrounded.
In the next turn surrounded unit can't be deployed

RE: Strategic movement

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:31 am
by Mickrocks201
ORIGINAL: comrade

ORIGINAL: mickrocks

[font="Arial"]I would suggest that strategic movement not be allowed for units that are surrounded. In fact it should only be allowed for units that can trace a path that is free of adjacent enemy units regardless of whether the hexes used are friendly.

It tends to piss one off when you surround an enemy only to have it whisked away like magic. [/font]


This is because the map 'topography' (i.e. pockets etc) are calculated after all countries finish their turns. This topography is calculated along with the supply.

So if Germans cut off polish unit in turn one and hit end turn, this polish unit won't suffer effectivity penalty until the whole cycle is finished. The same for strategic deployment - it will act as if it had connection to all the cities it had at the beginning of the cycle.

Although this may seem not intuitive at first glance, the reason for this is that this seems the only way to model a simultaneous moves in a turn-based game. Turns are just a simplification - in real life you can imagine polish and german units moving at the same time. So the german unit tries to cut off polish unit but at the same time this unit is strategically re-deployed elsewhere.

[font="Arial"]
While I can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish with "simultaneous move" simulation, it really ends up being very arbitrary since it never benefits the Axis since they move first (i.e. it truly IS a turn based game after all). Seems like there are some holes in the implementation - german units that get cut off are cut off, Russian units are only sort of cut off???? [:@]

In real life the allies always carry enough supplies with them for a breakout attempt when surrounded while the axis always just wither and die?

It is nice that the developers only had to worry about "topography" at the end of the turn but it certainly does not make for a better game.[/font]

RE: Strategic movement

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:35 pm
by comrade
[font="arial"] Seems like there are some holes in the implementation - german units that get cut off are cut off, Russian units are only sort of cut off???? [/font]

Everyone is cut-off, it is just calculated at the end of the cycle. Note that axis countries benefit from initiative. I recall the same problem in a ww1 board game Paths of Glory. Allied had the last move before the supply was calculated so central powers had to play more carefully, they however benefited from having the first move.

In fact the primary reason of such design was performance. It is of course possible to calculate the supply after each country hits end turn but it could make the turns last longer.

I can promise that we will try to test the solution where topography is calculated after each turn.

RE: Strategic movement

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:20 pm
by Mickrocks201
[font="arial"]Performance is performance.. I understand that.   But back to the original gist of this thread, I still would think that SM should only be used if a unit can make the move only thru hexes that are not adjacent to enemy units at any point. I would think a SM would typically be used for a unit that starts and end behind the lines, not as an exploit to save a "cutoff" unit...  While calculating where a SM could be made to would be more time consuming, lets face it, there are only a few SM made each turn.

but that's just my thoughts...[/font]