Matrix Games Forums

Hi all,

Some thoughts about SOP. Re: What is best for playability and what may be right historically.

With flexible SOP advantage can be taken of battlefield oppurtunity. For instance with changeable SOP units can switch to any posture suitable to a given situation.

However from what I have read concering cold war officer corps posture, it is usually Nato forces that get higher ratings as their officer corps training stressed battlefield initiative and flexibility with-in a larger plan. By comparision Soviet and Warsaw pact forces stressed each part operating with little flexibility as part of a "master plan". As I understand it the Soviets would have to go much, much further up the command line to have changes authorized.

This would tend to indicate that for a closer simulation Soviets should not be able to change SOP but Nato should be able to.

However for "playability" it may be more fun for both to be able to change SOP.

I wonder what it would be like to have a SOP sliding scale for scenario development. For instance a unit with higher morale and initiative would be more able to change SOP. This ability to adjust SOP would change along with the units experience in battle.

Just some thoughts I have. As an aside one of the things I like very much about this game is its ability to be as easy or difficult as you may like. A lot of the difficulty resides in the amount of thinking you are willing to do. I like that very much.
Also the maps are large enough to allow for good manouver tactics which I also like very much.


Regards John

I wonder what it would be like to have a SOP sliding scale for scenario development. For instance a unit with higher morale and initiative would be more able to change SOP. This ability to adjust SOP would change along with the units experience in battle.

From what I understand, this is modeled. A unit with lower moral and/or under barrage/ far from HQ, will take a lot longer to acknowledge a change in SOP. I'm not sure however if that is true or whether that only applies to orders such as assault, hold, screen, etc.

The unit further from command will take longer to execute orders (assault, move, screen, hold, etc) from the HQ but I don't beleive this is modeled in the SOP system. A change of SOP is instant so to speak. That being said; just because you give a unit an order to hold and an SOP of close to 500 M. doesn't mean the unit will obey the orders if the morale etc is bad...

ORIGINAL: Mike_w

I wonder what it would be like to have a SOP sliding scale for scenario development. For instance a unit with higher morale and initiative would be more able to change SOP. This ability to adjust SOP would change along with the units experience in battle.

From what I understand, this is modeled. A unit with lower moral and/or under barrage/ far from HQ, will take a lot longer to acknowledge a change in SOP. I'm not sure however if that is true or whether that only applies to orders such as assault, hold, screen, etc.

ORIGINAL: Belphegor

The unit further from command will take longer to execute orders (assault, move, screen, hold, etc) from the HQ but I don't beleive this is modeled in the SOP system.

Hi Belphegor,

why do you think that the reaction time to order changes decreases with increasing distance from HQ?

Cheers,

CM