AI Scripting
We're constantly trying to make sure the scenario's
do not force you to play them then one specific way, as in solving a puzzle. This is the reason why the briefings and objectives are fairly broad, assuming that players can take their own approach in how to achieve the overal strategic objective. What worked in reality would generally work in the scenario.
In Blitzkrieg scenarios, we've specifically scripted the AI armies to respond to outflanking and bypassing. For example in Dunkirk, if you ignore and bypass the Lille army (French First Army) completely they will indeed counter-attack toward your (most likely undefended) rear area. If you let this happen its most likely game-over because resolving the ensueing mess would seriously screw up the time table
You have to put some sort of pressure on the force you are trying to envelop or they will not just sit still and let it happen!
To quote Wikipedia about Lille:
Meanwhile, Erwin Rommel had surrounded five divisions of the French First Army near Lille. Although completely cut off, the French fought on for four days under General Molinié, thereby keeping seven German divisions from the assault on Dunkirk and saving an estimated 100,000 Allied troops.
I also wonder if you guys are expecting to win every scenario on the first playthrough. I would expect part of the fun in these kind of strategy games is to try various different approaching and see what works best. If you want to win every time, that's what difficulty levels are for? And this also includes restarting when things go wrong. In the example above, when the Lille army attacks your rear, you can attempt to turn back and deal with that but in all honestly you have failed the objective already at that point.
I do agree the "kill all" objective is a dangerous one. I don't think it's really an issue at Dunkirk because the Allies will retreat to Dunkirk on their own if you handle it right. For Kiev however we'll change it to "kill X out of Y" instead of "kill all". Mopping up the pocket took significant effort in reality so that is intentionally part of the scenario, but searching for individual units should not become a burden.
Garrison Unit
That's an interesting idea. We'd have to make sure this unit is useless in (offensive) combat however, even as a cheap way to absorb attacks by enemy units. A couple of ideas come to mind: unable to launch attacks, unable to repair, slow movement (stick to roads & rails), possibly never retreat (get killed off more easily), highly vulnerable to artillery fire. I feel even with all this players are going to end up using them to soak up attacks however, so we'll have to see if it works in practice.
Scenarios usually have a number of basic infantry units for this purpose at the moment. It's also strongly encouraged to include some (unmotorised) in your core force rather than only buying "cool stuff". The CP system is there to force a balanced core force, the right mix of quantity and quality.
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