On Firing
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 10:08 pm
We made the design decision to have regiments determine their own firing targets. This has
confused some players learning the game, who are unsure how to issue firing orders (you don't),
and caused many players to ask us why we made this decision. We feel that the concentration
of fire that would be allowed by permitting the player to micromanage every regiment's firing
orders would be very a-historical. There are some cases in which infantry regiments were
ordered to fire upon enemy units other than the ones that were most threatening before them,
but the record seems to indicate that in almost every case these orders were ignored. Getting
an infantryman to fire on anything but those that were most threatening to him seems to have
been almost an impossibility. This is true to a lesser degree even for artillery, which would
ignore distant infantry in favor of assailing enemy artillery, but only until a certain degree at
which the threat of the infantry proved too menacing. We have tried to model this difficulty of
controlling infantry and artillery fire by removing the absolute targeting decisions from the player
and instead allowing the player's commanders to issue barrage orders to artillery units, and to
designate "combat focus" hexes to attempt to provide some direction to infantry fire. We feel
that this system better reflects the sort of historical semi-control that higher-echelon
commanders had over the firing orders of particular regiments.
I love this aspect of the game. I am so tired of games (like Tillers) that force you micro manage every unit in target selection and fire, over and over every turn. As the commander, I want to manouver my units, not aim and pull the trigger of every gun on the map. So much more time for thought on manouver, less on tedium. And not in the least so much more realistic.
Bravo!
confused some players learning the game, who are unsure how to issue firing orders (you don't),
and caused many players to ask us why we made this decision. We feel that the concentration
of fire that would be allowed by permitting the player to micromanage every regiment's firing
orders would be very a-historical. There are some cases in which infantry regiments were
ordered to fire upon enemy units other than the ones that were most threatening before them,
but the record seems to indicate that in almost every case these orders were ignored. Getting
an infantryman to fire on anything but those that were most threatening to him seems to have
been almost an impossibility. This is true to a lesser degree even for artillery, which would
ignore distant infantry in favor of assailing enemy artillery, but only until a certain degree at
which the threat of the infantry proved too menacing. We have tried to model this difficulty of
controlling infantry and artillery fire by removing the absolute targeting decisions from the player
and instead allowing the player's commanders to issue barrage orders to artillery units, and to
designate "combat focus" hexes to attempt to provide some direction to infantry fire. We feel
that this system better reflects the sort of historical semi-control that higher-echelon
commanders had over the firing orders of particular regiments.
I love this aspect of the game. I am so tired of games (like Tillers) that force you micro manage every unit in target selection and fire, over and over every turn. As the commander, I want to manouver my units, not aim and pull the trigger of every gun on the map. So much more time for thought on manouver, less on tedium. And not in the least so much more realistic.
Bravo!