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evan said:
Thanks Mobhack for the tactics lesson.
Can a unit be provented from opertunity fire at certain targets.
i.e. an 88 opens up on a Tin can of some sort; gets hammered by return fire and then the T34 comes over the hill last of all and the 88's are at 99 surpression and can neither be moved or fired at the target I need it for.
Related to this is how the AI decides on Arty targets as some things (88's for example) attract every piece of Arty the AI can lay it's hands on while another unit thats actually doing more harm is ignored?
And thanks Charles22 as well; much bigger map than I;ve being using. I'll now refer to the manual to see if it tell's me how large a map can be made. BTW did you have to alter settings for game length?
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I have the cd version, but I think all versions let you change the map dimensions on the setup screen.
I haven't personally found a need to alter the length any, but sometimes I at least consider altering the visibility. Again, I can't be sure the non-cd version allows all that altering, but whatever lengths the game has given me for those larger battles, it still seems to work quite well for me and the AI. The reason that may be so is that while my map is much taller than the default, the width is somewhat narrower. That may also be another reason why I decreased the width to what I specified (though come to think of it, that may be wider still than the default) because there might not had been enough turns to really flesh out the battles and capture everything. I think what actually happened was I went with maximum height and width, and ended up finding that only the maximum height was desireable. It would be pretty radical to make the width more narrow still, with that much height, but I thin 130-140 wide is pretty comfortable for how long it takes most of the mobility to reach the front. Another thing to think about, as far as the AI is concerned with width, is the more width you have, the more time it gives for the AI to separate it's foot units from it's mobile ones while with an attack mission. The AI does tend to load a good portion of infantry so it's not a total disaster with a much wider scope, but it does make it easier than it should be to defends against. It also gives me less time to react.
If I advance a recon unit up 20 hexes from a defensive front, and thereby spot a column, with a narrower map I have less hexes that I would dare to do such reconning, thereby giving me less reaction time.
One other thing about a very tall map like that one, and that is that is gives you some sense of having an area so tall that you "have to" have some separation of forces in order to hope to hold the map on the defensive. This in turn gives you the rather unique feeling that you're commanding more companies than you really are, simply because to render aid to the other is going to take time. I can't help but feel that when on the defensive, I am playing mobile defense as so often the Germans had to do in the USSR in the later years. It is a rather interesting way to play, as opposed to the big blob force that can almost hit any unit from any spot of the map. Ranges and speed matter a great deal when there is so much real estate. I played SPWAW for so long where I could never get a map over 80 hexes high, and often was forced to play only 20-40 hexes high. Now how ridiculous is that? I have typically anywhere from 100-130 units, and I have only 20 hexes in height? 80 hexes wasn't too bad for that size of a force, but I never had a problem where a middle force couldn't wipe out the map with open desert ranges for example, and 200 hexes will give you that flexibility in spades (no tank gun range over 80 I think). You play with a defensive blob on that map, and you will have the AI eating your lunch on some flank quite easily. I do try to play a game where I try to keep the AI from taking any objectives, as I'm reasoning that it saves civilian lives, but ultimately if I do have to back off, it's something of a consolation if I retake them later and therefore liberate them. Attacking with such a tall map isn't quite as interesting, but defense is a world of fun.