Slitherine

Hello,

I got to give it back. The current RNG model grows on you.

I can understand why I hated it when I was an inexperienced player. Back then It was frustrating but that was because I wasn't good enough. Now after 130 MP games under my belt, I rarely have a problem. Here are a few observations.

1) On Steamroller against steel units have 100 experience, it seems battles are more fierce. It seems the more XP a unit has, the more damage it does. It never happened to me before but 2 auxiliaries at 12 strenght did a fight. His unit destroyed 12 units to my unit and my unit returned fire killing 7 units!!! It was a WOW effect. Is this a grouping effect? Anyways It is was fun, even on the losing side.
In the paired game, I nearly lost my KT who attacks and lose 5 units of strength because of bad luck but survived next turn of 6 attacks with extreme luck, survived at 1 strength.

2) It really goes down to this : plan your attack. Never use an expensive units just to do damage, even if the odds are good. 20% of the time, it will put the unit in a dire position. For example, in the Frozen North, a KT defends a straight pass. Before ending my turn, I told myself... why not attacking that IS2 just in front of me. Odds are 3-1. I do it. But it is tactically POINTLESS to attack. I do it anyways and result is 1-3 for him. Next turn IS2 attacks and SU-100. But because of snow and KT 7 strength it survives but I smack myself for doing that useless attack in the first place.

3)Here is tactical exercise. In the paired game of Frozen North. JT (JagdTiger) is out of ammo at 5 strength. One su-100 attack. JT down to 4. Another SU-100 at 10 STR moves next to JT at 10. Odds are 2-0. No more units to move afterwards. Do you attack with SU-100?
Possible results:
A)Lucky and JT dies.
B)Less Lucky and JT gets damages but does not retreat (because of suppression)
C)Unlucky : Good Dices but not enough of them. JT is suppressed and retreats. Next turn JT is back to 10 units.

D)If you don't attack JT is in a bad position and must retreat next turn or do 1 reinforcement with little ammo (snow is bad for logistics).

At first sight I don't like the game model for this situation. It does not model reality. Why does the JT gets a free movement point in case of C and not other cases? That is the question

Possible tweak
-A unit that retreated last turn can only reinforce strpoints that would have been given if it didn't retreat. If a unit retreats while being surrounded by 3 units, it won't be able to reinforce next turn, it will have to do something else. (implementation is simple i believe (each unit has an additional field Last_Turn_Retreat_Count and when pressing Reinforce it would act accordingly).

What do you think about that?

Thanks for feedback Mordan!

About this:

Mordan wrote: At first sight I don't like the game model for this situation. It does not model reality. Why does the JT gets a free movement point in case of C and not other cases? That is the question

Possible tweak
-A unit that retreated last turn can only reinforce strpoints that would have been given if it didn't retreat. If a unit retreats while being surrounded by 3 units, it won't be able to reinforce next turn, it will have to do something else. (implementation is simple i believe (each unit has an additional field Last_Turn_Retreat_Count and when pressing Reinforce it would act accordingly).

What do you think about that?

I do agree that the rules are not perfect in this aspect, although on the first glance your suggestion is not very intuitive (you don't know how many units were next to your unit on the opponent's turn, you need to check this parameter somewhere in the UI), and also contradicts common game practice (those units next to retreating unit may not be on the same hexes where they stood when it retreated, they could be moved elsewhere, so why do they continue to affect replacements?). What I'm considering instead is either of these:
- The units spends its move to request replacements, but they arrive only at the beginning of its next turn.
- Replacements arrive instantly, but are suppressed (much like paratroopers get suppressed when they drop)

As for an unfair free move in case of retreat, I have an idea to change the rules like this: if a unit spends N movement points retreating, it has N movement points less on its own turn. E. g. if a tank with 5 movement spends 1 point on a retreat, it will only have 4 movement points next turn.

Note that these changes are unlikely to be made in PzC, these are ideas for the future.

Rudankort wrote:I do agree that the rules are not perfect in this aspect, although on the first glance your suggestion is not very intuitive (you don't know how many units were next to your unit on the opponent's turn, you need to check this parameter somewhere in the UI), and also contradicts common game practice (those units next to retreating unit may not be on the same hexes where they stood when it retreated, they could be moved elsewhere, so why do they continue to affect replacements?). What I'm considering instead is either of these:
- The units spends its move to request replacements, but they arrive only at the beginning of its next turn.
- Replacements arrive instantly, but are suppressed (much like paratroopers get suppressed when they drop)

As for an unfair free move in case of retreat, I have an idea to change the rules like this: if a unit spends N movement points retreating, it has N movement points less on its own turn. E. g. if a tank with 5 movement spends 1 point on a retreat, it will only have 4 movement points next turn.

(1) I like "replacements arrive instantly, but are suppressed"--I think it achieves the goal with greater transparency (i.e., it will be clear from the strength number that the player has pushed the reinforcement button).

(2) I like the idea of deducting retreat from the next term's movement, especially if there were some way to remind the player that this happened on the previous turn (which may have been played days earlier).

(3) Since you raised the topic of paratroop suppression, it seems to me that the same rule should apply to glider landings. In fact, I would go further and argue that glider-landed units should risk damage just as if they were attacked, especially if landing in rough terrain.

Hello here is what I had on mind:

When the algorithm computes that the attacked units must retreats, it looks at hexes around the unit to find the retreating hex or surrenders right?

At this time, you can imagine counting the number of enemy units. Save that number (retreating malus) into the retreating unit so that next turn IF the player wants to reinforce, it will have a malus to it. Set the malus to zero at the end of the turn. The retreating malus is applied to the current state of the unit. If the retreating unit is next to an ennemy unit, apply rule and then add retreating malus.

It does not matter if ennemy units move afterwards, retreating is bad and must not give any advantage to the unit. Retreating gives a malus equal to the number of ennemy units at the time of the retreat. If a unit retreats several times a turn, only the biggest value is kept.

Maybe my idea is too hard on the defending side.

I also I like "replacements arrive instantly, but are suppressed". But in this case, just like in my tweak idea, you need some kind of Flag to tell whether a unit has retreated last turn or not. My flag is not ON/OFF, my flag is just the number of ennemy units at the time of the retreat.

It can be a combination of several factors but something must be done about it because right now I choose solution D to the above tactical exercise.

Rudankort wrote:Thanks for feedback Mordan!

As for an unfair free move in case of retreat, I have an idea to change the rules like this: if a unit spends N movement points retreating, it has N movement points less on its own turn. E. g. if a tank with 5 movement spends 1 point on a retreat, it will only have 4 movement points next turn.

Note that these changes are unlikely to be made in PzC, these are ideas for the future.

I like this idea.