Waving the white flag
While this question applies to both MBT and WW2 I shall post it here because an owl hooted three times this morning.
Surrender. It just does not seem to sim appropriately in the game. While the moral/national characteristics effects seem a good concept the "surrenders if no path to retreat" seems weak to me. The game would feel a 1 hex retreat into a valid hex to be good enough to avoid surrender. It seems that commonly in battle soldiers do not believe the odds of a 50 yard dash while under pressure and already suffering the effects of battle worth the risk and prefer their chances as a POW.
I feel the game is close and granted certain historical venues saw greater or lesser amounts of surrender but does lowering a side's morale suffice or just make one side run away faster as opposed to giving a good fight till being overrun.
I pose these question about the surrender mechanism in WINSP, not so much for designed battles where units can be modified to produce results but more for generated battles and campaigns.
Should a 'prone to surrender' switch be created that modifies a side for a specific battle as opposed to the whole campaign?
Should a WINSP 'leader' being killed increase that units chance of surrender?
Should a unit in 'hand to hand' suffer surrender loses in addition to KIA casualties.
Could surrender losses be tallied separately from KIA totals?
Should the surrender rather than retreat occurrence be greater for urban or fortification hexes?
I apologize if some of these effects are already in the game but have not been encountered or noticed by myself. I am not looking for a weaker enemy but just a greater decision point of "Do I fight, run or give up?" which in reality is a snap decision made hastily in judgement of the outcome of the entire situation rather than "I calculate a clear hex is behind me". Too many times the unit will rout a hex only to be wiped out the next turn.
I now return you to your regular programming.
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