Matrix Games Forums

I have been playing Southern Storm for 30 days now. You guys are to be congratulated. You took an excellent system (that I had played a great deal) and you substantially improved it. That is a rare accomplishment in wargaming, trust me, I know from decades of experience. Great work.

The one hangover from the older system is that, in my view, Relocation just does not work. I dread having my units Relocate because, in my experience, they tend to make bad choices - many times choosing to Relocate onto a clear hex when a forest hex is the obvious choice. Rarely and only as a matter of pure chance do they Relocate to a position that helps the overall strategy, even when the Relocation occurs without having received enemy fire.

Let me suggest a possible solution - don't know how much work is involved on the software coding side.

Let the player choose "fall back" positions which direct the Relocation move. I think this could be done in either the orders or in the SOP. There have been many times in which I would have loved to tell a recon unit "when you see the enemy four hexes away, fall back to hex 3456 and, after that, once you see the enemy again, fall back to hex 5678". Also, I'd love to tell a unit, "after you take a loss, go to hex 6789". In other words, allow the player to establish "fall back waypoints" by which the Relocation decision can be partially or totally controlled as a matter of prior orders to the unit.

There is nothing unrealistic about this as far as the role of the player as a higher level commander. It is standard procedure to tell a unit how, when and where to fall back to. As it stands now, the commander merely controls the "when" and has no way to influence the "where". You might even consider allowing orders relating to the "how" - 'hasty' or 'deliberate' Fall Back.

As it currently stands, I find myself issuing "Never" Relocation orders because I have a high expectation that when the unit falls back it will do so in a manner that makes little sense and simply be eliminated. Better to stand and die. That is a situation that I think can and should be fixed.

Just a thought. Keep up the good work.

Thanks, John for your comments. I personally don't think that there is anything like FPC. I have found no other wargame that makes me feel like I'm back in the battalion/brigade TOC like this game.

Your criticism on relocation/scooting is valid and we are aware of its shortcomings. It is definitely better than what it was in Red Storm, but it does need some work. We were working on a better system, but we didn't have time to perfect it before the release of Southern Storm. If we put everything into the game that we wanted to, you would still be waiting on its release. I don't know when the programmers will go back and revisit this, but it is something on our list.

Your comments about placing your units on "never" relocate is understandable and is in reality, but all that unrealistic. Many players don't realize that once you are engaged with the enemy, falling back is almost a death sentence. There are players who would like to wait until the enemy is breathing down their neck about to overrun their forces and then have them fall back. You just can't do that in real life. The weapon systems are just too deadly, especially at close range. If you are going to fall back, you have to do it before they are in range to engage you effectively. If I want my units to fall back, I give them a very large standoff range.

"There is nothing unrealistic about this as far as the role of the player as a higher level commander."

First, I am taking this to be about survivability moves, as opposed to trying to execute a Delay.

I disagree. a Battalion/Brigade/Regiment Commander (and that is your player role) is not concerned with the locations of survivability moves. That is Platoon Leader, subject possibly to Company Commander approval, which is below Player direct control. That is by design, according to our Team's decision on Player Experience.

I'll say that having worked in many command posts, i have seen many bin-headed displacements resulting from enemy contact. And, in my experience, battalion command and above did not get into the weeds of company and platoon contingencies with regard to survivability moves.

So, speaking as a designer, I can't get behind the Player picking locations for this. It is a thorny problem. If you have ideas as to better rules, I am all ears. Apart from that, it's a real part for friction of the battlefield and I very much want to retain that.

Think about it. Think about span of control. A battalion has what, 9-12 platoons? A brigade or regiment has 27-48 platoons. That is beyond human capacity (even with a staff) to micro-manage to extent you propose, so I summarily dismiss it. A command post is saturated with a span of control to 4 maneuver elements, fire support, and recon. Yes, the doctrine says two levels down (battalion to platoon), but that is at the level of telling a Company Commander things like "put a platoon here", not all the contingencies that are the purview of Company and Platoon level command.

I get the frustration of units doing bone-headed things. Been there, done that, including the execution, in real life. We have some more work to do to prevent what appears to be real stupid, but it's very complicated.

But, are you losing battles because of a platoon being bone-headed? If so, I have to wonder about your plan or its execution. If not, then I am inclined to chalk it up to battlefield friction. It's not intentional by game design. We could roll dice and send your units to places other than what you ordered. Folks do get misoriented in the real world, after all. But we have chosen not to inflict that much friction on you. Having said all this, if the issue amounts to a degree of additional friction, I think adding features to the game is a better use of our team's time.

Interesting response IronMike.

Under the current system, as the Battalion/Regiment/Brigade commander, using the SOP and other commands I can direct each and every platoon as to when it can open fire, the exact range at which can open fire, when it should pull back from contact, how it should move to position (including six individual locations to which it should go during the course of the move) and what it should do when it reaches its position (hold, screen) and a whole assortment of other things — all this not as a general directive from Brigade to the various company commanders but as detailed separate individual directives to each and every platoon leader. Basically, I am the brigadier issuing detailed commands to captains, lieutenants and in cases, probably even sergeants. In doing so, I will issue very detailed and precise directions to no less than 20 and often as many as 50 subunits of platoon or less size. Further, this is not merely a matter of fixing the initial plan because every 20 minutes or so, I can bypass the company commander and tell the lieutenant in great detail exactly what he needs to do next. Under your logic, all of this is ok and entirely appropriate but a line is crossed and I am getting too deeply into the weeds when I tell them where they should retreat to after contact.

I am sure that you feel that there is logic and experience built into your position but I have to say that I just don’t see it.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that it’s just a game. Wargame designers have been trying since 1958 (I’ve been playing since 1960) to mix as much “reality” into the game as they can while recognizing that the goal of ultimate reality is impossible and that compromises must be made along the way for many reasons, often to achieve and maximize player involvement. The current system does a great job of creating a type of “realistic feel” and engaging the players interest but let’s face facts here.

When the designers think it is a bad idea to fix a pretty obvious problem, I can accept that as a designer choice. It happens all the time and for a lot of reasons. When a designer says that it suddenly makes the game “unrealistic”, my reaction is “Wait a minute, let’s look at the rest of the game.”

IronMike -- Maybe it will help if I give a concrete example of my issue. This example works up to a point, but I'll admit that if you look at the terrain details too critically the example falls apart because of a limited LOS issue.

Look at the Scenario "A Tough Nut to Crack." Hit control E and look at the elevations. You will see that in the south there are two dominant features with excellent lines of sight re the approach of Red Army forces. Hex 3526 is elevation 6 with 90% cover and 97% concealment and it is not next to any road by which the enemy will advance. Excellent spot for a French Recon unit with orders not to fire but also (because of the strength/lack of visibility re the position) with orders not to displace.

Now look at hex 3727. It provides a second excellent LOS location for another Recon Unit (in case something happens to the first) and it even sees a few hexes not seen by the first, BUT it has real disadvantages. It is elevation 6, only 10% Cover and 20% concealment and it is next to a road by which the enemy may be advancing. If I want to locate a second (highly trained) recon unit here, I have to be very careful. It will provide a good backup to the first unit and some additional LOS, but it will be very exposed.

What would I like to do? I would like to tell the second recon unit that when an enemy unit gets within 10 hexes it should use its substantial recon training and carefully displace to another excellent LOS location in order to continue its recon activities. I could even tell it where to go in the INITIAL orders because I know (and arguably the recon unit should know) where it should go next so that it will be safe and can continue to add value to the defense. (full disclosure, I am trying to give you an example here but if you look too closely at the hexes I have cited you will easily see that a problem in the second location's LOS is that Soviets moving along the road will be too close before the recon unit sees them and displaces).

Using my example, let's ask what happens in the game. I can't issue any displacement orders. Once this highly trained recon unit sees the enemy it will (read the rules) either move to a point of concealment (which might be a road hex directly in the path of the enemy), or, God forbid, move across clear terrain towards its headquarters. At some point thereafter, this highly trained specialized unit will provide no recon assistance and will simply stop and await further orders from Brigade command, which orders will take somewhere between 30 minutes and one hour to reach it. The game design is such that this highly trained unit will twiddle its thumbs, do nothing useful and wait to be eliminated.

Every wargame has its problems and its design compromises. You guys have a fun and great game, it has a "realistic feel" but let's not kid ourselves too much. (Reality check - the game is in 1989 and I have yet to see a circumstance in which I cannot communicate with a unit because their communications systems have been totally blown out by mechanical issues or enemy fire).

I could go on with a fair number of additional examples. My post was an attempt to point out what I consider the be an obvious issue and a possible solution. Think about it but don't do anything that would ruin a fun game. All the best.

Don't have access to the game at the moment to try this out but I am wondering how a unit would react if it were moved to a penultimate waypoint at the desired OP location with a long delay before a move to a final waypoint at the chosen relocation position. When displaced because of enemy proximity before the end of the orders delay could/would the final waypoint then become active? I can see issues with unit posture - pretty sure the best you can do is Screen while delaying though.

We need some language clarification here as we are mixing different types of actions in these discussions. A planned withdrawal is when you want to set a condition and have a unit(s) fall back to a predesignated location. That is an order setup we would like to get in the game down the road, but it needs a working named location system and some scripting support to make it work as required. This will allow for the second recon case above where you could say, sit here until "X" happens, then move to the new location/area.

The other case is a survival scoot/withdrawal where a unit suffers loses or is at risk of being overwhelmed, and it moves on its own to a new location. The issue is that sometimes the unit moves into a less covered location or toward an enemy instead of away from them. There may be the need for a bit of AI tweaking and even some dice rolling to see how "smart" a move is to be made. Units in good condition (Training, Readiness, and Morale) should make better choices including staying in the hex if local locations offer worse cover/concealment. Units in poor condition may make a "bad" move out of cover or closer to an enemy (unseen or not directly engaging) as a panic-type action. To Jeff's point earlier, the Commander does not control this type of move.

Great discussions and we definitely encourage questions and discourse. Have a good day!

Thanks for all the answers it is very interesting.

One point :
Don't you think there are more and more conflict between the posture (Move/MoveFast/Assault ?) and the SOP ?

For example, with the SOP now, we can perform a recon assault, where the unit abort and scoop away at first contact while in assault posture, and a banzai move order where the unit will move to target to the death while in move posture.

There were simplicity and purpose with the basic orders, and now it is a little more confusing.

Thank you CapnDarwin. You have clarified the issue with an excellent distinction.

My point and concern is that the current system does not allow for a considered engagement and orderly withdrawal. You cannot establish a screening line ahead of the main line of resistance and then order them to fire, delay and fall back to a planned location behind the main line of resistance. Similarly, you cannot have units like a recon unit do the type of orderly withdrawal to another position in the face of the enemy, a type of movement which is the basic part of their training.

You are correct that this is very different from what you refer to as survival scoot/withdrawal. That activity/concern has been a part of gaming since, as I recall, Rich Berg introduced it in 1977 in Terrible Swift Sword. The beauty there is that a system related to receipt of fire, losses, lowered morale and panicked withdrawal can create a type of realistic “Holy Cr-p” experience for the player. Here, I have seen the complaints by players (focusing, for example, in civil war era battles) that when one unit panics, the panic spreads down the line and you have a localized collapse. When players who love control complain as one panicked unit affects other units down the line my thought has always been “Well, now you know how the Union commander felt at the battle of Chickamauga”. The only issue that I would have with your game’s treatment of the survival withdrawal issue is that, as I perceive it, the withdrawal is hard wired and thus a highly trained, experienced unit that has had minimal losses will likely scoot in exactly the same often illogical manner as the raw unit that has taken huge losses and is on the edge of collapse. Here, though, I recognize that the developers would face some pretty complicated issues in trying to fix it because it is understandably a pretty complex issue. There I can well understand a decision to focus on other elements of improvement rather than trying to wrestle with this bear of an issue.

Your distinction has really helped in clarifying the issue that I was trying to raise and my own thinking on this point. Again, keep up the good work, it is really appreciated.

CapnDarwin wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 12:59 pm A planned withdrawal is when you want to set a condition and have a unit(s) fall back to a predesignated location. That is an order setup we would like to get in the game down the road, but it needs a working named location system and some scripting support to make it work as required.

This is essential for NATO forces to fight and survive the counter-recon battle. The idea is to shoot & scoot, to force the enemy lead elements to slow down and deploy. It was one of my pet-peeves in Red Storm and should have been resolved by now. The SOPs for withdrawing could address survivability versus withdrawal as options. But not sure how many unit commanders trained their platoons for non-survivable withdrawals? But whatever.

Under SOP there are currently a number of options to relocate after taking fire of losses - would is be plausible to specify a predetermined withdrawal point (hex(es)) once unit has arrived at its destination dependent on the SOP option choosen?

John S wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 2:40 pm You cannot establish a screening line ahead of the main line of resistance and then order them to fire, delay and fall back to a planned location behind the main line of resistance. Similarly, you cannot have units like a recon unit do the type of orderly withdrawal to another position in the face of the enemy, a type of movement which is the basic part of their training.

There is a bit to unpack here,,,

1. "Screening line" is simply for early warning. They should not shoot apart from self protection
2. "Delay" is a complicated mission typically assigned to battalion.
3. A unit in Delay IS the main line of resistance.
4. Withdrawal is a battalion level task, not a section level task

OK, so what to do in game for these...

1. I am assuming a NATO view, based on the above (WP does not Delay)
2. A Screen is for early warning. Nothing more. If you expect them to fight, you're abusing them.
3. "Delay" is an incredible ballet. It is not a section or platoon mission. Companies may delay, but not alone. Companies may delay in sector, but coordinated with Battalion. Platoons o not independently Delay. It's all coordinated. More later...

Screen: Again, these guys are early warning. Set the SOP to Hide Vehicles to reduce signature and Refuse Fire. You don't want these guys picking a fight. You want them in high cover and high concealment. But, you don't want to put them into a farm village surrounded with beet fields with low cover and concealment. Give them an escape.

Delay: This is trading space for time. It really doesn't apply below battalion level and at that level requires a lot of coordination and synchronization to pull off. Our behaviors are currently at the Unit level, so executing a Delay is on the Player. The best advice I can give is to:
1. Have the right forces: NATO forces needmotorized/mechanized troops with ling range anti-armor capability.
2. Put the Unit on Screen. It will displace faster. The trade-off is it's a bit more vulnerable and might not acquire stationary target as fast. Not really a factor in a Delay setting. Attackers will acquire easier than if in Hold. Moving out of Hold is WAY slower than Screen.
3. SOP: You are going order your guys to displace and it would be a sham if enemy fire disrupted that, so set Default SOP for New Orders to:
a. Tactical Initiative: None
b. Acceptable Losses: Do or Die
c. Relocate: Never
These give you the best chance of executing further orders despite friendly casualties.
4. Order a Move Deliberate to your next position. Set the first Waypoint next to the current unit position, If possible (meaning be smart about initial position), break line of sight to where your unit can shoot (back side of a ridge or deeper into a wood line).
5. Finesse: I'll advocate for Military Art here, despite being the software engineer that does modeling for the Dev Team. The reason is you need to know where your enemy is and the path they will take in order to calculate when you'll make contact. And that drives when you displace to your next battle position. But calculation is confounding as there are so many variables an you don't know the actual path enemy units will take. Some things to consider:
a. Each battle position in a Delay is planned as a complete defense. It may very well not be executed as such, but at a moment's notice, it can turn into that. As a bare-bones minimum, that means establishing an anti-armor engagement area (EA).
b. You need eyes forward, This enables you to estimate when the enemy enters your EA.
c. Absent experience, use 20 km per hour as enemy movement rate
d. Use outer third of either ATGM or tank main gun for the range band to kill the enemy
e. Do the math! What you're looking for is answering the question of when the enemy gets to one third of your anti-armor range band. Apply that to Item 4 above to move then of=r before. Don't let WP close to 2000m before moving!
f. Fire Support:
1. Shoot as they approach the outer EA
2. keep eye on the outer EA and shoot to support the initial direct fire
3. Consider smoke for survivability. It messes up WP fire control
4. Continuous observer coverage: Haves eyes on the current, previous, and next EA in the Delay plan. Don't rely only on the delay force to call fires.

SO, here's my tips for executing a Delay. Bear in mind, i really don't think nor have ever trained for a battalion executing a Delay in isolation. Again, the notion of Delay below battalion level was non-existent and it was either part of brigade Delay or an economy of force mission.

IronMikeGolf wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 6:17 am Again, the notion of Delay below battalion level was non-existent and it was either part of brigade Delay or an economy of force mission.

I spoke of the recon and counter-recon fight, which is different than a Screen or Delay mission. Late 80s Iron Star battles at HTC with 1st Armd Div mirrored the NTC with OPFOR and MILES and the rest. We did discuss and train for counter-recon as an actual mission; I speak from personal experience, sorry. It could have been something as simple as infantry anti-tank hunter-killer teams augmenting the scouts, or platoons, or possibly a company. To say that the notion was non-existent is incorrect; perhaps we're just arguing over semantics. See also https://www.globalsecurity.org/military ... _part5.htm or https://www.moore.army.mil/armor/eARMOR ... field.html. Irregardless, game players should be free to experiment with different tactics, perhaps even non-doctrinal tactics (the OPFOR player certainly has a lot of leeway to deviate from Soviet doctrine, since there are no realistic C2 restrictions). Call it whatever you want, but the bottom line is that there should be an SOP in the game to give a unit shoot & scoot orders, for whatever reason, and have a reasonable expectation that the unit will use some common sense to scoot and withdraw in a survivable manner. It should not be a suicide mission because the game unit cannot or will not withdraw under cover. As discussed, we'll wait and see what SOP improvements are made down the line.

pzgndr wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 5:55 pm

IronMikeGolf wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 6:17 am Again, the notion of Delay below battalion level was non-existent and it was either part of brigade Delay or an economy of force mission.

I spoke of the recon and counter-recon fight, which is different than a Screen or Delay mission. Late 80s Iron Star battles at HTC with 1st Armd Div mirrored the NTC with OPFOR and MILES and the rest. We did discuss and train for counter-recon as an actual mission; I speak from personal experience, sorry. It could have been something as simple as infantry anti-tank hunter-killer teams augmenting the scouts, or platoons, or possibly a company. To say that the notion was non-existent is incorrect; perhaps we're just arguing over semantics. See also https://www.globalsecurity.org/military ... _part5.htm or https://www.moore.army.mil/armor/eARMOR ... field.html. Irregardless, game players should be free to experiment with different tactics, perhaps even non-doctrinal tactics (the OPFOR player certainly has a lot of leeway to deviate from Soviet doctrine, since there are no realistic C2 restrictions). Call it whatever you want, but the bottom line is that there should be an SOP in the game to give a unit shoot & scoot orders, for whatever reason, and have a reasonable expectation that the unit will use some common sense to scoot and withdraw in a survivable manner. It should not be a suicide mission because the game unit cannot or will not withdraw under cover. As discussed, we'll wait and see what SOP improvements are made down the line.

pzgndr wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 5:55 pm perhaps we're just arguing over semantics.

I don't think we're argue]ing over semantics, but we are discussing. As a developer and modeler, the semantics of doctrine are very helpful in building a decent model, translating that to game code, and then testing the results.

I, too, have executed counter-recon at CMTC in Hohenfels (Mech heavy M2A2 equipped Bn/TF) around '92 and also at NTC in 87 as an anti-armor section leader (6 Dragon teams) in a light infantry rifle company.

So, were talking about Screen, Counter-Recon, and Delay. We haven't said Guard/Cover, but it's part of the discussion. I think using the current framework of TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) can be helpful in sorting this out so we can get to a re-definition of "Relocate" on a unit-by-unit basis. Please walk with me here a few moments.

For the general audience:

Screen: This is a security task to provide early warning. It is not about fighting (save, perhaps, calling artillery support). It is an Economy of Force task, meaning, it's not a picket line of observers. That drives the Screen to be deployed far enough away from the protected force to provide adequate time and space for a response. It's likely not static observers, either (certainly not in the case of a flank screen for a protected force on the move). I see this as a Technique used by a subordinate element as part of a force doing something like Attack, or Advance to Contact, or Defend.

Delay: This is a defensive task and particularly it is a retrograde (never say retreat!!!). So, it is a technique that is part of Defend. It trades space on the battlefield (most often depth) for time and the unit requirements are often expressed as "enemy does not cross this line before 1430 hrs). Delay requires intense commander intervention during execution to have good synchronization. Now, I bolded that because I want to come back to it later.

Guard/Cover:
This is a security task that protects a force from enemy observation and contact. The difference between Guard and Cover (per US doctrine) is the forces doing Guard come from the protected force and all support (Logistics, Fires, Aviation) come from the protected force. With Cover, the Covering force is external to the protected force and all support is also external. On the ground, the main difference is how far forward the security force can be. Covering forces can be multiple 10s of kms forward and guard operating 10 km forward of the protected force is a stressor. For the rest of the discussion, keep this in mind, as I will only refer to Guard.

So, how do you Guard? Advance to Contact, Attack, Defend, or some combination of the above. Ok, mea culpa to pzgndr on a Company conducting a Delay during Guard. My thought is Guard is 12+ hours in duration and a Company delaying that long is a real challenge and is an outlier real world-wise (in my professional experience).

Scoot:
Let's dig into this term as it's central to this discussion. Our view is "Scoot" is a "survivability move", which means "trying to deny the enemy a chance to engage" whether by direct or indirect fire. It is not "maneuver", which we see as moving on the battlefield to gain or maintain positional advantage. I'll argue platoons and companies do not maneuver on a trigger. Below platoon, sure. Otherwise, commanders maneuver subordinates. OPORDs of the era (from my memory) typically would phrase things as "On Order" for expected maneuver with the trigger condition phrased as an expectation/warning order. So, way down the chain of command, I was on the radio with "Hey, they're500 meters from the Phase Line. Do I get my guys ready to move, or not?" The point here is survivability moves are very much a local (meaning Unit level) decision, but maneuver is not, mainly on account of synchronizing maneuver across multiple units.

It's tempting to make very low level "building blocks" via SOP setting with triggers. But a commander will look at the entire picture and as needed, pull the trigger to maneuver a subordinate. Lots of variables at play - environment (illumination, precipitation, smoke), adjacent unit force strength, enemy force strength. What's missing from this is the commander's intervention. What Players want is an automated reaction during turn resolution. I think the response requires a commander decision (see above argument) and that is a conundrum I am working through from a modeling perspective.

Honestly, I think there is great risk in making an SOP/Order combination of contingency order execution base on a battlefield trigger. My take is a mechanic that looks like "move to that location when the enemy gets to this distance" will be unworkable for many players, causing a lot of dissatisfaction, and us throwing out a lot of work to build that. It's high risk. One solution that comes to mind is

The other aspect is whatever we equip the human player with, we strive very hard to equip the computer player with. And that is an even harder problem to solve. The above challenge with conducting a Delay is not unique. We have a similar problem with Advance to Contact/Attack from the March. The problem is a commander decision is needed on contact with the lead element (typically a maneuver platoon).
1. Attack to destroy and continue movement
2. Attack to fix while the remainder of the lead company maneuvers to attack and destroy or bypasses
3. Lead company attacks to fix while the remainder of the lead battalion bypasses
All of the above has a boatload of METT-T in it and defining that for the computer player is really hard. So for now, you get a ton of mass jammed down your throat, which approximates a violent attack by the lead elements. Follow-on forces will look at the battlefield picture and adjust a bit.

Having said all that, I'll admit the game engine does not provide for Command influence in a timely fashion for those kinds of situations where in the real-world decisions come with minimal delay. There are in-game solutions, but they do result in a slower battle tempo. I need to think on possible solutions (i have some ideas) and put them in the development queue. I will say I am not in favor of either reducing the Command Cycle or using Unit-Level SOP to affect maneuver.

Having started this thread, let me say just a last couple of things and then I’ll drop out.

My description of what I believe is missing in the game did not use the terminology that is currently dominant. I was trying to describe a fairly basic concept in my own words and was largely unsuccessful in doing so and I stand corrected. I am grateful to Capn Darwin for his effort to isolate and describe an important distinction in the issue that I raised. Thanks also to pzgrdr for his August 6 posting which, in about four sentences, summarized the issue better than I was able to in three very long postings.

It is great to see people trying to apply field experience to development steps related to the game and I presume that due consideration is always given to the fact that we are dealing with fictional events taking place in 1989 with all of the limitations regarding communications and command control that were in existence at the time.

Now, having said that, let me state the obvious one more time. This is a game. At the click of a mouse button I can determine the exact losses, ammunition status and morale of each and every unit down to the sad single remaining psychologically damaged tank in the unit that started out with four runners and I can do so no matter where they are - even if it is an infantry unit that is completely surrounded by the enemy and down to a single remaining soldier. As I stated before, every 20 minutes or so I communicate directly with captains, lieutenants and likely even sergeants to give them incredibly precise orders on a wide range of topics and decision points and generally speaking, with a rare exception, those orders will be successfully transmitted, received, understood and then executed by the beleaguered unit.

Over the decades, I can’t count the number of times that players have complained about one thing or another in a pretty good game and generated the appropriate response from the poor hassled developer of “Hey, you have more information about the battlefield, your forces, the enemy and other things than any commander has ever had or will have. We are trying to make the game both realistic and playable and we, as developers, are doing the best we can to balance the two.”

Probably the most fascinating effort that I have ever seen in “realistic” gaming was in a civil war game - I think it was the one done by Sid Meier - where one option was that your role as the division or corps commander was to sit on your horse, the only thing you could see was that which was visible from the horse so you needed to ride around the battlefield and all you could do was receive reports and issue orders based upon what you saw and what you were told. Fascinating idea, unique, I did NOT enjoy playing it that way because to me it was realistic but no fun. It felt like a slow first person shooter with no one to shoot at.

You guys have created a game that feels largely realistic and it is fun to play. That is very hard to do. As you can tell from my communications, I think that there is a problem in the game that just does not feel right and it would be great if you can fix it . Let me say though, respectfully, that talking about span of control and saying that something is never done below battalion level falls somewhat on deaf ears in a game in which I communicate regularly with the sergeant leading the single anti tank unit surrounded by the enemy in the middle of nowhere and tell him to stand and die and check on how high his morale is. Now, when you tell me that the issue that I raised may be hard to program and fix and, by the way, we have to fix it so the AI can do it too, now that resonates.

Good luck, great game, glad you guys have had the dedication to see it through. Keep up the great work.