In real WW2, being flanked or even surrended meant a serious problem:
* At any moment, a soldier can only look into one direction and only fire into one direction. More or less the same accounts for ordnance and vehicles. So if coming from several sides, opponents have a better chance to approach closely before opening fire.
* Building up entrenchment into several directions is way more difficult.
* Most armoured units had less thick armour at the sides and the rear and thus were more vulnerable to opponents from several directions.
* If being surrounded, you couldn't be supplied any more.
* Once surrounded you couldn't retreat any more in case you find out your current position isn't beneficial.
Now my question: Is it from implementation perspective feasible to make a stack know from how many drections (i.e. from how many roads) it is being attacked. If so, I suggest the following:
- Being attacked from 0 or 1 directions: No malus.
- Being attacked from 2 directions: 50% malus on defence values.
- Being attacked from 3 directions: 66% malus on defence values.
And so on.
- Additionally make the stack size limit more strict (for example reduce limit for stacks without stack size malus from 10 to 6), because with the above change, attackers have a new option to circumvent the stack size limit.
You could display the malus where currently the bonuses from fortifications or home country are displayed, so no additional GUI elements would be needed for that.
Benefits from that:
* Players would move their troops way more realistically. This applies to both attacker (as CoW is now, attacking from several directions is the last thing you'd do - if you attack from two directions, you suffer twice the defensive fire compared to attacking with one big stack from one direction, while gaining nothing from that) and defender (your default defensive position would then be with several smaller stacks along a front, like in real WW2, because if the enemy breaks through, you run the risk of being attacked from several sides... in other words, we'd no longer see doomstacks, which would be very good).
* Large scale tactical movements would become much more interesting, diverse and challenging. You could feel like a real field marshal saying "I send army group A to break through in the north, walk a circle and then enclose the enemy together with army group B that attacks straight ahead". Such situations are way more interesting than the current "stack together at least ten melee units, then walk in a straight line towards the province you want to conquer and that's it, see if you win".
* High speed of your stacks becomes more important, as it increases chances for the stack to join a battle from a different direction. This would help to find a clearer distinction between the roles of fast and slow units.
* The game would become less static, because close-combat attacks would then make sense in more situations. Currently, there are often phases (in particular in late game) where moving forward with close-combat ground troops just isn't a good idea, so the game is decided exclusively by planes and/or artillery battles. Close-combat attack and defense values ground vs. ground are almost worthless in late game, which is neither realistic, nor intuitive for beginners, nor satisfying feeling as you can no longer be proud of your close-combat units in late game, nor good gameplay. Above suggestion would reduce this problem a lot.
* At any moment, a soldier can only look into one direction and only fire into one direction. More or less the same accounts for ordnance and vehicles. So if coming from several sides, opponents have a better chance to approach closely before opening fire.
* Building up entrenchment into several directions is way more difficult.
* Most armoured units had less thick armour at the sides and the rear and thus were more vulnerable to opponents from several directions.
* If being surrounded, you couldn't be supplied any more.
* Once surrounded you couldn't retreat any more in case you find out your current position isn't beneficial.
Now my question: Is it from implementation perspective feasible to make a stack know from how many drections (i.e. from how many roads) it is being attacked. If so, I suggest the following:
- Being attacked from 0 or 1 directions: No malus.
- Being attacked from 2 directions: 50% malus on defence values.
- Being attacked from 3 directions: 66% malus on defence values.
And so on.
- Additionally make the stack size limit more strict (for example reduce limit for stacks without stack size malus from 10 to 6), because with the above change, attackers have a new option to circumvent the stack size limit.
You could display the malus where currently the bonuses from fortifications or home country are displayed, so no additional GUI elements would be needed for that.
Benefits from that:
* Players would move their troops way more realistically. This applies to both attacker (as CoW is now, attacking from several directions is the last thing you'd do - if you attack from two directions, you suffer twice the defensive fire compared to attacking with one big stack from one direction, while gaining nothing from that) and defender (your default defensive position would then be with several smaller stacks along a front, like in real WW2, because if the enemy breaks through, you run the risk of being attacked from several sides... in other words, we'd no longer see doomstacks, which would be very good).
* Large scale tactical movements would become much more interesting, diverse and challenging. You could feel like a real field marshal saying "I send army group A to break through in the north, walk a circle and then enclose the enemy together with army group B that attacks straight ahead". Such situations are way more interesting than the current "stack together at least ten melee units, then walk in a straight line towards the province you want to conquer and that's it, see if you win".
* High speed of your stacks becomes more important, as it increases chances for the stack to join a battle from a different direction. This would help to find a clearer distinction between the roles of fast and slow units.
* The game would become less static, because close-combat attacks would then make sense in more situations. Currently, there are often phases (in particular in late game) where moving forward with close-combat ground troops just isn't a good idea, so the game is decided exclusively by planes and/or artillery battles. Close-combat attack and defense values ground vs. ground are almost worthless in late game, which is neither realistic, nor intuitive for beginners, nor satisfying feeling as you can no longer be proud of your close-combat units in late game, nor good gameplay. Above suggestion would reduce this problem a lot.