Some more questions (this time for Frank Hunter)

[Largus_Means]

First off, gotta say Im really enjoying this game, its a nice change from many grand strategy WW2 games. Thanks.

Now for some design questions.

1) Strategic Movement. Why was the system adopted as it was? Why not only allow units to be strategicly moved along the actual rail lines of WW1. Not much of a change on the Western Front, but a massive change on the East Front and Balkans making setup a whole different ballgame. Moving units back then, though easier then 19th century wars, still wasnt as easy as move this unit from point A to point B.

2) Army Groups. When you decided to go with this system, why didnt you follow the general structure used in WW1 with army groups? New units arrive, get assigned to a HQ, when that HQ is activated that army group goes on the offensive. Units not part of that army group are not affected, even though adjacent. I understand that the system works well now, and this is not a complaint, just a general question as to why the choice was made this way.

Cheers [&o]

[Joel Rauber]

My own guess as to question two is that it works well as you noted, and is easier to implement.

[FrankHunter]

The answer to both questions is to keep it simple.  Both from a player standpoint and for the AI. 

Originally I did have rail lines for tracing "rail movement" and then a separate "strategic movement" for units moving on non-front hexes.  But it was much harder for the AI to coordinate and it seemed to needlessly add extra complexity for little in return.

(Rail lines still sort of exist on the map, I increased the supply ability of hexes where rail lines existed to represent the fact that some hexes were easier to supply than others due to the rail lines being there)

HQ activations are the same, rather than having to keep track of who belonged to what HQ, which I probably would have done in a more detailed game looking at just the western front for example, it just seemed to be additional complexity for nothing in reason.

[FrankHunter]

last word "reason" = "return"  

[SMK-at-work]

Units flitted between army HQ's without much bother in WW1 - IMO "fixing" them to HQ's is spurious accuracy unless you're goign to allow them to shift easilt....in which case why bother fixing them?

[wurger54]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

Units flitted between army HQ's without much bother in WW1 - IMO "fixing" them to HQ's is spurious accuracy unless you're goign to allow them to shift easilt....in which case why bother fixing them?

Agree with this. Reading a book about Verdun right now. Over 100 French divisions cycled in and out of the battle, some 5 times. At least on the German side (they cycled considerably less, I think it was 60 plus) the upper echelon units remained the same. I think the game is fine the way it is.