Waving the white flag

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by scorpio_rocks

Remember when the last few men of a unit "disappear" when the unit disperses they are more than likely captured rather than killed (or at least hiding in that field).

Tbh I imagine it as even more abstract than that: casualties in the game include men that are not participating in the battle anymore. The reasons can be several including:

1-KIA/WIA (of course)
2-POWs
3-Men in a unit that lost cohesion and therefore not knowing what to do
4-Soldiers distracted by other tasks (like carrying the wounded)
5-Soldiers cowering from intense fire
6-Routs (irrecoverable)


There can also be combinations in the above eg casualties of type (5) become casualties from type (2), because the cowering soldiers have been found by an advancing enemy and captured.

In fact with the above method, men can be assumed to be fired upon when they actually aren't physically in the same hex anymore. Believe it or not, this is IMHO more realistic. In reality, there isn't any indicator that the place you fire upon has any enemy on it and many times you fire into an area, rather than point targets. The probability that you actually fire blindly into an area is quite high (and Z fire does not completely cover this case).


Also with the above method, actual battle casualties are probably 1/3 on average of the final tally in a scenario. It probably fluctuates between attacker and defender (attacker probably around 1/2, defender around 1/4, since defender usually has more casualties that couldn't escape and were captured). Around 1/3 should be casualties that can be recovered within a small amount of time (routed soldiers going back to their unit).

[Felix Nephthys]

Originally Posted by scorpio_rocks

Remember when the last few men of a unit "disappear" when the unit disperses they are more than likely captured rather than killed (or at least hiding in that field).

The impression I've got is that he wants a "hard surrender" when the game already handles this, and I think he wants it to happen much more often and alot easier as well. In my opinion the game is already working fine the way it is in this respect and has been since it came out 23 years ago. It's simple, blast away at an enemy unit long enough and it will be pinned and eventually retreat and rout, kill enough and it will disperse and disappear and under the right conditions and depending on the quality of troops it may surrender. Sometimes units will simply fight to the last man also and that's just something you'll have to deal with. I'm sure every player wishes the enemy would sometimes just give up but like real life it's never certain that will happen, just take a look at any campaign against the Japanese during WW2.




Jack Crow "Remember that day we thought they'd just give up?"

[DRG]

FYI..... the original SP2 code counted any loss as a "kill". One of the very first things I did for SP2WW2 where we didn't have access to the code and any change made was done with a Hex Editor was to change "men are KILLED" to CASUALTIES becasue it is more accurate..not every shot kills, quite the opposite and when a unit disperses what that means is that unit is no longer a combat effective unit....what happens after that is not "game related"... what is game related is they are not a factor in yours or your opponents effective fighting force so you could count them deserters, stragglers, shell-shocked survivors or anything you like. Yes the game does not model surrendered troops quite the same way as reality but it's really not that important to 99% of players IMHO. The POINT is they can't hurt your troops any longer. By the time the game gets to the point where an enemy justly defeated would consider large-scale surrender the game will end automatically and you'll get the end game stats screen.

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by DRG

FYI..... the original SP2 code counted any loss as a "kill". One of the very first things I did for SP2WW2 where we didn't have access to the code and any change made was done with a Hex Editor was to change "men are KILLED" to CASUALTIES becasue it is more accurate..not every shot kills, quite the opposite and when a unit disperses what that means is that unit is no longer a combat effective unit....what happens after that is not "game related"... what is game related is they are not a factor in yours or your opponents effective fighting force so you could count them deserters, stragglers, shell-shocked survivors or anything you like. Yes the game does not model surrendered troops quite the same way as reality but it's really not that important to 99% of players IMHO. The POINT is they can't hurt your troops any longer. By the time the game gets to the point where an enemy justly defeated would consider large-scale surrender the game will end automatically and you'll get the end game stats screen.

Btw DRG, is there ANY chance that we have a button in the preferences screen to tweak "global" morale (as in the threshold for mass surrender)? It will be very helpful if we did.

Another thing that will be nice if you ask me is a sort of resign button if you think you lost the battle which will immediately throw you to the stats screen. Will be more useful in a PBEM but you get the idea.

[jp10]

Originally Posted by Wdll

Are you talking about scenarios only or in general?

Scenarios only.

Valid points, all. I consider my Socratic questioning properly answered.

[Imp]

Btw DRG, is there ANY chance that we have a button in the preferences screen to tweak "global" morale (as in the threshold for mass surrender)? It will be very helpful if we did.

Kill the HQ if you want the sides morale to plummet.

If you want them to hang on for longer in a scenario make a custom indestructible unit and give it a very high point value.
Immobile vehicle with 180 armour all over in a corner or possibly off map arty.

Say break point is 30% force left 10K give them 1k unit now 11k so need to lose another 300 points before it happens.