Are Delay battle really Delays? *DELETED* *DELETED*
 

Post deleted by baggypants

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays?
 

To make the mission more like a real delaying action you can adjust the value and position of all of the victory hexes during your support units purchase by going into the view map screen.

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays?
 

thats a great feature of SPMBT and WW2, that it allows you to edit victory hexes.

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays?
 

I played some WBW scens in SPWAW with VHs that had points based on turns held. You had to decide between losing troops to hold the hex and losing the points per turn.
Great stuff.
Is this possible with MBT/WW2?

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays? *DELETED*
 

Post deleted by baggypants

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays?
 

I think of advance vs delay battles as hasty attacks vs hasty defense battles.
A hasty defense requires the defender to balance losses, terrain and time. As time (nr of turns) is fixed for a battle, that leaves balancing losses and terrain. Seems like you gave away too much terrain too soon...

Narwan

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays? *DELETED*
 

Post deleted by baggypants

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays?
 

You may be reading too much into the word 'delay' used for the battle type in the game. Look at it this way, there are only two types of defense missions, defends and delays. One gives you a prepared position with the option of bunkers, mines, wire, trenches, obstacles etc. The other gives you a 'hasty' position without the fixed defenses. I think that gamewise that's all there's to it, well almost all.
A defense allows you to fight from postions and with little need to relocate (if you plan your defense right) while the other needs you to conduct a more fluid defense using movement (and not just back but counterattacks too).

I don't agree that the delay is not a 'defense' or that it isn't about terrain. You have to delay the enemy to prevent him going somewhere. That somewhere means a vulnerable location (which can be considered to be off map) somewhere. It will be vulnerable for a certain amount of time which translates into the time needed to delay the enemy. In other words, you need to delay for the full duration of the game. If you exit or retreat from the flags before games end, you gave away the vital terrain that gives access to the vulnerable location too soon; it's still vulnerable. Infliciting losses isn't enough, enemy follow up troops could be present to take over or even the remains of the enemy troops on the battlefield could be enough to wreak havoc (like a hospital area being evacuated off map, or an fuel depot being emptied, etc).

Tactics must always serve an end. If they don't they're wasted. You can shoot and scoot, inflict heavy casualties while you keep falling back and have a 'tactical victory', based on respective losses. But you may have lost all of the vital ground and suffered a strategic defeat. For example, your falling back caused a much larger friendly formation off map to be cut off and forced to surrender...

The flags in the game, especially in delays, symbolise these abstract factors (which may often be considered to be off map) even if the actual location of a flag seems arbitrary or non-sensical. Consider for example that this ground must be held because if you don't it'll allow the enemy to advance his long range artillery to within striking distance of an extremely vital location. Now these flags are sensical despite how they are dispersed.

Narwan

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays?
 

It would be nice if in delay missions the deploy line for the delaying party would be farther away from their hexes, and hexes farther away from the center of the map (by default, I know it can be edited by hand).

In delay one must usually hold and area until condition X is met, so victory hexes are OK, but there is (in random battles) insufficent space to manouvre and actually delay for the defender. Also the enemy could have smaller space to deploy his forces - this way the delaying party would have enough space to fire and manouvre, withdraw to next lines of delay, shoot and scoot and ambush.

Zip

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays?
 

That's true, the flags for delays do tend to be too forwardly deployed. Most (sometimes all) in the second quarter of the map and few or none in the first quarter.

Narwan

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays?
 

the "delay/advance" pair is SSI's original naming, which we have stuck with, but in reality it is actially a Hasty attack/hasty defence mission.

A delay would be best done in the tabletop wargaming way - no terrain objetives, and points awarded for kills (to both sides), and extra points for the advancing force when it exits ground (not helos etc) elements over the delayers baseline. Naturally - that does not fit in with the code base, and would need a new game engine.

Similarily, as with tabletop games, the artificial "objective hexes" are not really needed especially in a meeting engagement. So for a human/human game you could turn them off (or make them 0 value) since a meeting engagement is really about destroying the enemy forces.

In reality (bar things like the Arnhem bridge etc), terrain is only of value if it gives you an advantage over the opposition.

(The AI - and newbie human players - do need artificial terrain objectives to give them a "clue" about where to go on the battlefield. I would hate to think about programming an AI to "search and destroy the enemy while minimising your losses" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif! )

For a human plays human (or if you are playing the AI and are player 1) then for a "realistic" delay (as opposed to a hasty attack/defence mission) then player 1 should use any or all of the following strategies during game setup -
1) Choose a bigger than average map (especially deeper, but wider also can be good)
2) And/or manually move the objective hexes towards/at the enemy baseline (perhaps at/near the exit road(s) if any?)
3) And/or make sure the advancing force does not have too much time in turns, in order to make it more "time critical" for the attacker to press on. (This will vary - e.g. if using WW2 style marching grunts, or post war APC borne mobile forces and that also affects map size (depth) chosen in stage 1, and with the openess of the terrain. Discuss with your opponent, and fine tune it over a few games by experience)
4) (possibly) at game end, add X points per surviving attacker tank, APC, truck or rifle section in the rear 5 hexes of the delayers zone and add X points per such element. (Ignore any para drops and heliborne insertions done in the final 10(say) moves of the game, this avoids gamey desants in the final minutes of the game to "win" it.)

Cheers
Andy

Re: Are Delay battle really Delays?
 

I setup Delay actions vs AI as follows.
Most features are the same as Mobhack has mentioned.

-Large and/or linear map
-spread v-hexes along linear features
-make v-hexes low values except for the ones on your baseline
-shorten game length
-setup my forces in blocking positions along linear features

v-hex values should be low enough that if you only retain your baseline v-hexes without inflicting damage on the enemy you will draw or lose. If you reatain only the baseline v-hexes and cause great damage you should be able to get a marginal victory. I don't ever expect a decisive victory in these scenarios. I play them for variety within a long campaign.