Matrix Games Forums

Is this a cheat, exploit, or good tactic?

With mechanized/motorized units and roads you can cover a lot of ground quickly. Now, during the first 59 minutes of the scenario or for the first 59 minutes that units are new reinforcements, you may give orders with no delays.

Okay, so here I am with my varied units and a couple of AC units. Instead of giving my orders immediately to all my units, I send the two AC units racing down two roads which provide good axis of attack to my first scenario objective. I have 59 minutes to see what type of resistance is encountered. After I gather this intel, I then order my attack bypassing enemy strength and hitting the objective where it is weakly defended. Responsiveness for all this is quite quick, since I come in under the wire for order delays.

Thoughts?

Quite reasonable. The absence of orders delays in the first hour after a unit enters the game simply reflects the presence of planning that would have been conducted prior to that unit's arrival.

Reconning during this period doesn't seem gamey to me since recon generally commences on receipt of a warning order, well in advance of the start of the action.

Regards
33

I think that Mark was thinking about using the no delay during for fast reco (which is good tactic), and using the gathered information for the planning of the rest of the force.
Provided you're still within the first hour, well, this is at the edge.

I'm not a specialist in gameyness, to each its own.

The "no delay" rule for reinforcement is important, as it shows some kind of preplanning of the incoming force. Now, exploiting it in the way Mark explained cannot be considered as historical.
Especially if you play with painfully realistic order delays (as Mark always do !).

But I'd note it as good tactic. I use it alot (or at least I try).
If you want to play 100% realitically, don't use it. But, hey ! AA is only a game.

JeF.

I still don't think it's 'gamey'. I don't really see a difference between reinforcements and your scenario start locations, some pre-planning would have taken place in either case.

There are a few scenarios - like Heartbreak Ridge - where your recce units start in the same place as your main force units. I don't know what the doctrine of the time was, but I would expect today to see much greater gap before recce and main force. I think where things look a bit 'gamey' is just because recce and main force start in the same place instead of recce being well out in front.

I try to leave a gap of a few kilometers - or around 30 minutes if forces are coming from the map edge - between recce and main force elements in my scenarios. This simulates the earlier tasking of recce and thus the absence of orders delay in the main force is less obvious, since you can see they are responding to information sent back by recce before the scenario starts.

Cheers
33

I might be slightly 'hijacking' this thread here but in reading the debate on the use of recce units it struck me that there a further 'tweak' that could be incorporated in the new game (All at Panther groan in despair 'not another one;) ). This might be incorporated into the editing tools rather than the game interface, but we could be allowed options as to the formations adopted by different units according to their composition and orders - e.g. KG Harder to attack - infantry to the front, tanks support from the rear - useful in town say - but then an alternative in more open terrain. A move order - Recce units to the front etc. I know this is feasible with AA at present but is somewhat fiddly and should be dealt with by the AI. Comments anyone? (as if I need to ask:D )

Golf33,

Historically, Recce units were forward of the main body, when the main body was on the move or when there was an extensive "no-mans land" between sides. However, when forces were in direct contact with only a small distance between forward edges, then Recce units were placed either in reserve, behind the lines, or as a screen off to a flank.

Commanders tried to give these units some rest time as well as they were at the sharp end more than most. Further, when a force was about to "breakout" or "breakthrough" Recce units were often Not in the lead. This was the job of the main force units. As soon as the breach was achieved, however, the recce dogs would be let off the leash.

Kevin,

Good suggestion about the formation setting.

At present Recce units will be favoured to be allocated to the Advance Guard of a Move formation. But if they are too far away, or have suffered a lot of casualties or their combat effectiveness is not good ( eg too tired or disorganised ) then they might not get allocated to the Advance Guard.

Similarly, there is code in the Attack which if the terrain is covered, will push Infantry to the front and armour to the rear. But these are automatic. Yes it would be nice to give the user that control. Game 3 maybe.

Interesting, useful to know. I guess there was a little less 'recon pull' and a bit more 'command push' in those days

In light of this info, possibly for scenarios like Heartbreak Ridge where forces are in position to launch a breakthrough attack, it would be more realistic to keep the recce units well back in the starting order?

Regards
33