Matrix Games Forums

Hi, really interesting game, trying to get the hang of it.

Basically what I do right now is set up my forces to hold back the enemy, inflict a lot of casualties, but gradually get overrun. My main problem is that my army feels so unresponsive (and I know this is on purpose, but...)

For example the Soviets will attack me, start pushing into a city. Some of my forces are destroyed, but many are intact. Rather than being able to pull the relatively intact forces back ahead of the Soviets to establish a new line, it takes them 40 minutes or more to move - by the time my forces start to redeploy, the Soviets are many hexes behind me.

In other words, once my forces have any kind of contact with the enemy, they essentially become static and left to their fates. This doesn't quite seem right - I'd love to conduct fighting retreats and elastic defenses. I don't see any reason why a platoon of Abrams can't simply reverse down a street to avoid enemy fire...the game makes it seem like they need forty minutes to pack up their tents and displace.

So, what am I missing? I understand the readiness stat, and that it affects unit mobility and responsiveness. But how do you guys manage your armies once the battle actually begins? Or generally are your starting forces supposed to be sacrificed and all die, the trick is buying enough time for the reinforcements?

Any help is appreciated

One suggestion that jumps to my mind is to form reserves. If playing a Bn, try to keep a Coy away from the action, but close enough so they can react. Use them to block breakthroughs, counter-attack, and reinforce other Coys. Reserves are usually your only way to influence an ongoing operation.

I think there will be many different great features to help us with a more "retrograde" defence, once 2.1 is out. SOPs, new smoke screen mechanics etc. I don't know about the orders delay though, I thought that has been taken care of in the patch.....

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Are orders supposed to be instant? Right now I issue an order and most units wait between one to two command cycles to begin moving...so -around- 30 minutes. Is this a bug, or unintended?

Orders delay is intended. I just remember that there was a discussion on how severe the delay should be and that the patch should have tweaked it. Look into the change log of the patch and use the search function here to find more about orders delay. Otherwisen, someone who knows more about the specifics will probably post during the next few hours.

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