Attack or Defend?

[StuccoFresco]

What do you like more? Being on the offensive or to defend?

While I enjoy maneuvering my units forward to score encirclements and secure key positions, I found that I like the most when the AI forces me to fall back. Managing ordered withdrawals and forming new defensive lines, grinding the enemy to an halt, is deeply satisfying to me. The occasional counterattack against vanguardas or the big counteroffensive after the enemy has been worn down are the crowning of a well-played defensive battle.

[terminator]

As with all games, the AI has trouble attacking but defends better. It is therefore more interesting to attack than to defend but it is also interesting to counter-attack.

[StuccoFresco]

As with all games, the AI has trouble attacking but defends better. It is therefore more interesting to attack than to defend but it is also interesting to counter-attack.

Generally, I'd agree, but I think OoB's AI does a very good work at flanking if you give it enough space and mobile units. It has some difficulty in pushing artillery forward enough, so I usually set up a series of "waypoints" to force it to follow the front as the battle goes on.

I find it easier to attack: the nature of turn-based combat allows the player to concentrate an overwhelming amount of fire against one target at the time allowing for easy breakthoughs.

[terminator]

When the AI attacks, it must be given enough resources otherwise the attack runs out quickly.

[bru888]

Leaving AI prowess aside (I can tell you, though, that it is not just game engine performance but scenario design; the word I use is "choreography"), my personal preference is for valiant defense. The worse the odds, the better (up to a point). This reflects the absurdity of a namby-pamby pacifist like me enjoying the heck out of a war game!

[bru888]

One of my favorite war movies is Sahara from 1943. It stars "Humphrey Bogart as an American tank commander in Libya who, along with a handful of Allied soldiers, tries to defend an isolated well with a limited supply of water from a German Afrika Korps battalion during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II." The tank is a U.S. M3 Lee named "Lulubelle." This small band of international brothers (Americans, Brits, Free French, Sudanese, and an Italian prisoner with a good heart) defends the ruins around an oasis from hordes of thirsty German soldiers. Great stuff. Right up my alley!

Sahara - 1943 - -poster.png (129.53 KiB) Viewed 735 times

[cutydt02]

Offensive forces can concentrate their firepower to limited front, but expose themself to flanking counter-attack. So, i like most when playing counter-offensive scenarios.
The most boring is when i must continously fall back, then is to continously penetrate bunkers & minefields.
AI does surprised when they can find a chance to flanking supply when our army is extended. But it's fair to say they're just noob in both offend and defend. They even do no real maneuver when defending and rely too much on scripted counter attack in different frontline.