Slitherine

I mentioned this briefly in another thread but it's so important I wanted to start a separate one for it.

There needs to be some random elements in scenario design for a couple of reasons.

1. It will extend the life of every scenario indefinitely.

2. Scenario designers will be able to play their own. Otherwise they know where all the units are. Not much fun.

Just a few things will help immensely.

1. Each unit can have up to five starting positions to be chosen randomly at scenario start.

2. Each victory location can have up to three starting positions to be chosen randomly at scenario start.

That would do it. There are other things like unit choice etc but just 1 and 2 would improve replayability of each scenario.

I agree completely. I'd also like to see who goes first in a scenario to be random as well.

Most of the time what ends up happening with these type of games is that there are maybe a dozen or so popular maps and anyone that been playing pretty much knows the layout and units by heart, but it doesn't seem to matter because there are so many ways to fight the same battle over and over again. I think force selection would be nice, but random starting points would be a little crazy. Maybe there should be a force deployment turn at the start, but you should be limited to your starting area.

This wouldn't work as well in single player. Most wargamers only play solo. And I agree with the other suggestion about making start turns random.

Try as I might, I have not been able to fully get a perfect start for any of the maps as of yet.

I've gotten a feel to some of the spots that seem to be good first grabs, but sometimes it's so obvious a good grab, that the opponent has already taken it into account.
So the trick becomes how to meta game the opening moves so as to appear smarter than you can be

I've had no small number of planes shot down, so you can't really expect them to be there precisely on time as they might not get that needed opening hit.

Now mortars, in this game they rock. I've won a few shooting contests all because of mortar support. Losing your indirect is like losing your Queen.