Scouting/Recon

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by PatG

Drifting off topic some more. My understanding is that the main reason SPMBT scenarios are shorter than SPWW2 is that the WWII squaddies get to march into battle while their grandsons (and daughters) get to ride. SPMBT tanks are faster, APCs are faster and helicopters are insanely quick by WW2 standards so it makes sense to use a reduced turn count. The reduced turn count also maintains the tempo of the scenario. An aggressive balls to the wall advance on a high value v-hex cluster might take 20 or 25 turns in WW2. To give the player the the same sense of an all out rush in MBT you have to drop the turn count to 10 or even less.

This is my understanding as well.
Assuming motorized/mech/whatever forces and maueuver vs "assault" warfare I have zero issues with the increased tempo (read - shorter game length) of WinSPMBT.
Some, in fact most, "official" scenarios will take this into account and be designed with a longer game length to give time for infantry warfare. Unfortunately "player vs computer" games do not. The "problem" is the game assumes mobile forces and does not, in fact due to coding probably can not, deal well with foot mobile forces.
This "problem" is, I believe, somewhat exagerated by the fact that infantry mobility/spotting/fire is basically the same in all versions of the game. And there's no real reason it should be different. Basic infantry tactics and mobility really havn't changed much since WW II.

To recap...scenario designers can, and often do allow extra time for infantry scouting, the AI does not.

The real questions are :
Is this a big enough problem to try to come up with a solution?
Is any solution easily enough coded into the game to be worth the effort?