Not one step back

[Clausewitz]

Am I missing something obvious here, but why are defending forces not allowed to retreat?
Last weekend I tried a game with defender retreats and I would say on the basis of one play it actually makes for a better game.
A longer game perhaps, but I feel that the ability of forces to strategically withdraw is both more realistic and more balanced. For example, there were no more big empty spaces on the map as superstacks no longer fight to the death. I recommend you give it a try – you may be surprised.

Combat Sequence step 7 will now read:
Combat continues automatically until one of the following conditions occur:
a) Defender retreats. Defending subs may submerge.
b) Attacker retreats. Attacking subs may submerge.
c) Defender loses all units.
d) Attacker loses all units.
e) Both lose all units.

The defender must decide on retreats before the attacker. Defenders may retreat to any one friendly neighbouring territory. They may not retreat to a territory “under attack”, so the order in which battles are resolved becomes important. All sea combats involving amphibious assaults must be resolved before any others.

Either side may evacuate units by sea up to the capacity of available transports. “Bridging” transports may return to evacuate more units during subsequent combat cycles. However, all heavy equipment must be left behind, so evacuated tanks and artillery convert to infantry units.

Scene: Stalingrad. General Paulus, commander of the Sixth Army, is on the dog and bone to DocD, propaganda minister.
Paulus: Look, Doc, if we don’t pull out of here soon my entire army is going to be surrounded. Katarina has just launched a massive full-frontal attack on the grain elevator and my men don’t have the strength to hold out. If we withdraw to the Ukraine we can regroup and counterattack next month. To stay here and fight it out is just a senseless waste of human life.
DocD: While I fully appreciate the severe difficulties Sixth Army finds itself in, a careful study of the conduct combat phase section of the operations manual has failed to discover a single reference to the defending side having the option to retreat. While I entirely understand that the horrible sacrifice of a quarter of a million men on a technicality is stupid and obscene, and will in all probability cost us the war, rules are rules, and its more than my job’s worth to allow any breakage and/or bendage of them at this, or indeed at any other time.
Paulus: But, in Larry’s name man, how can the Lord allow this tragedy to occur when a simple retreat could save so many lives?
DocD: The Lord works in mysterious ways, his rulesets to perform. Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die.
Paulus: You’re just a pedantic, pen-pushing, petty minded paper-monkey, aren’t you?
DocD: I am not authorised to answer that question.

[ May 12, 2004, 07:25 AM: Message edited by: Clausewitz ]

[pagan]

I see some problems right away:

1.
The attacking aspect of a 'Kill-Retreat' by the attacker, where the attacker sends in a force specifically in number to calcualte a cetain number of kills on the enemy and then retreat.

IF the defender retreats, the attacker is stuck as the attacker has actually now won the territory.

2.
Defenders should not be allowed to retreat in SeaZones. This makes for some funky mess, and actually allows the defender the ability to 'block' the attacker's NCM moves, or gives them the ability to get an 'Extra-Move' type of thing.

[DY]

I agree with PAGAN.

[Clausewitz]

I see some problems right away:

1.
The attacking aspect of a 'Kill-Retreat' by the attacker, where the attacker sends in a force specifically in number to calcualte a cetain number of kills on the enemy and then retreat.

IF the defender retreats, the attacker is stuck as the attacker has actually now won the territory. Well boo-hoo-hoo! Poor old attacker! I've always thought strafing attacks were unsportsmanlike anyway. If you don't want to get "stuck" with a territory then don't attack it. Or, make sure that when you attack you have sufficient numbers of infantry fodder to survive an enemy counter-attack and withdraw with your precious tanks and fighters in your own turn.

2.
Defenders should not be allowed to retreat in SeaZones. This makes for some funky mess, and actually allows the defender the ability to 'block' the attacker's NCM moves, or gives them the ability to get an 'Extra-Move' type of thing. As regards getting a free movement allowance, the attacker gets this with "leapfrog" retreats, so why not give the defender the same privilage?
Ships can only retreat to friendly or empty sea zones; if the attacker is consequently blocked perhaps he'll have to review his naval strategy before he attacks, i.e. "blocking the blocker" by placing his own naval units in such a way as to cut off retreats. The same thing, of course, applies to land units. Its all part of basic strategy - why not try it before you trash it?

[pagan]

Strafing attacks unsportsman-like.... Well this is war. It is a legitimate real war tactic that i even read about in the Homer history on Hannibal. I can only say that to fight a war is to win a war.

Same thing applies today, If I could win an occupational war against USA by killing brutally as many of the USA military/civilians with massive publicized executions that I can lay my 'terrorist' hands on, then I will. I don't have to defeat their armies. All I have to do is defeat their will. And even though I lose 50-1 in numbers, a victory equates to a victory, and I actually did two things: I won against an unbeatable opponent, I lost the minimum amount of lives necessary to win on my side.

As for naval combat... there's more things to the funkyness of the defender retreat. Where does it retreat too? So I could send my planes to unoccupied waters in the attack phase (I can send them to attack there becasue they are MINE). I can effectively cut-off any type of retreat except for planes on carriers. Planes on carriers should be hard beasties to kill since they should always be last to die since you can usually fly them off.

A defender's retreat doesn't inhibit him. A retreat is always a hindrence to the retreating army, except with this rule you can throw out mass gourps and retreat to the most optimal counter attack position. I am also thinking this should make the IPM a massively prominant force again.

Length of the game is already longer than the original game. This defender retreat makes it a definate sleeper.

[ May 12, 2004, 09:31 AM: Message edited by: PAGAN ]

[MikhailADvorak]

I fully agree with Clauswitz.

Many times in WW2 the defenders opted to retreat rather than staying and fighting. However, there should be a possibility that units attempting to retreat can be cut of. If this happens the defending units surrender rather than be destroyed.

[Karel Doorman]

I tend to agree with Clausewitz on this subject. The possibility of retreating units is interesting. But, in my opinion there has to be some kind of penalty for the retreating defender. I think Von Paulus would have left some units to watch his back and delay the enemy, wouldn't he? So here are some suggestions:

1. One or two defending units are automatically killed when retreating and have to be taken of the board. But, of course they all get a medal.....
2. You have to leave one ore two units behind. Then battle is resolved and if the defender is lucky he scores a hit or his unit(s) can even survive. If the last is the case, the surviving units may also retreat.

[DocD]

Why do you post these questions Clause when you know I will REBUKE you for it!

Again, you are thinking of AandA in a way it was never intended to be or designed to be. It must be a historical game with similar events and actions, but trying to capture the very essence of the bullet flying through the air is better left to your Civil War mock reenactments on the weekends. Pagan is most right in saying that besides having Defense retreats extend the game to the number of years WWII actually lasted, it gives the defense an unneeded advantage.
The spaces on the gameboard are in hundreds of miles. Very few armies could make an effective retreat over such distances and remain such an effective fighting force as that found in the game. And their mystical counterattack capability that Pagan eluted to, would be a gamebreaker.

I submit to you that in game turns, the lost of the last defensive unit on the combat board is not such much a kill on the battlefield as it is a disarrayed retreat, or a wholesale rout, or a large scale surrender.

[ May 12, 2004, 10:01 PM: Message edited by: DocD ]

[Autarch]

Scalewise, each A&A combat for a territory is more akin to a campaign consisting of numerous battles or "rounds of combat" over a period of time. So retreats from a battle fall below the epic scope of the game.

IF defender retreats were allowed, they would have to announce it prior to the attacker firing in the final round of combat and not be allowed to return fire. That appears to be the easiest and fairest way to do it, but I think anyone would rarely retreat because even then it would be better to stand and fight in order to inflict maximum casualties on the attacker, rather than take additional losses without inflicting any damage on the enemy.

Of course, there would be some exceptions, like 4 bombers defending against two fighters. Anyone in their right mind would want to retreat from that engagement posthaste. But allowing it would only encourage, and reward, poor play.

A.

[Sinister]

I've been working on a tactical componet to the game and our group went round and round on the subject of retreats until we tested it. In many cases it is within "historical" boundries but the game would be slowed to a bloody bloody standstill. I encourage you to play it out, we have done so.

what happens is that a force attacks the defenders and they retreat to pull attacking forces further and further from thier IC, then counter attack, then attackers then do the same thing to the defenders when they counter attack. The result is a battle that never ends between 2 or 3 territories.

Another problem would be that their would never be decisive combat. If I attack you and you can retreat then you attack me and I retreat, where's the desicive combat. If the bloody standstill in the above example didn't take place then at the very least there would be stockpiling of units without any fighting.

In the end, in order to have a victor in any resonable amount of time, the battles have to be decided, allowing defending retreats endlessley protracts the game without adding much significance.

[ May 12, 2004, 11:23 PM: Message edited by: Sinister ]

[Clausewitz]

Well, this just wasn't my experience. Yes, it was only one game and yes, it lasted longer than normal, but I didn't find any of the problems listed above.
The point is that players have to take retreats into account when planning attacks. Lets consider a situation where a front consists of three territories bordering three enemy territories with forces roughly equal.
By using aircraft and armour to reinforce his attacks a player might reasonably attack all three enemy territories with a good chance of taking all of them.
But, with defender retreats enabled, he is certain to lose them next round. So, the better stategy now is to concentrate overwhelming force on one enemy territory with the intention of taking it with sufficient force to hold on to AND to kill off sufficient enemy forces to make retreats insignificant.
This is what happened in the game I played out; There were actually very few retreats in the game because attackers concentrated forces into one key battle on any given front.
Not only is this historically more accurate, but IF YOU PLAN YOUR MOVES WITH RETREATS IN MIND it does not significantly slow down or unbalance the game.

[Enigma]

Historical accuracy is a concept that seems to be extremely overblown in these posts. Some thing to consider is that Avalon Hill did not create a historically accurate WWII battle/war simulator. They created a really fun strategy game that happens to use WWII as a background. There are many things that aren't historically accurate that fit within the game dynamics. Since when would a US plane EVER land on a USSR CV? Last I checked Borneo and East Indies did not have even close to as much production possibility as Caucasus. The point is that these things fit with the existing gaming dynamics that make A&A fun. Just because historically fighters could defend against bombers or defending armies could retreat doesn't mean that those types of things work in an A&A environment. Anyone looking for a realistic WWII battle simulator should go elsewhere because A&A is not realistic nor historically accurate. Nor should it be.

[MikhailADvorak]

While it is true that one cannot get fully realistic in A&A, anyone can form whatever house-rules one would like. If you don't like them...state so, and then quit arguing against those that might like to discuss their personal use of them.

Mik

[Zombie]

Well said Enigma!

[Karel Doorman]

Well said Mik:

"If you don't like them...state so, and then quit arguing against those that might like to discuss their personal use of them."
(sorry don't know how to use the quote option)

I only would like to see comments here on how to do it and how not to. If you don't want anybody to change the A&A rules, raise money, run for president, issue laws on the subject, and put us all in jail. Similar open mindedness is what created the story behind this game....

I agree whith Clausewitz that you just have to think different. A Russian player for instance cannot use the retreat option forever or he has to build cities under water. Not opting for that special rule though. But I still would like to see some penalty for retreating. And I would leave that partly to the dice. Think I'm gonna play some games this way and try to find a nice way to play it. I'll keep you informed if you like.

[Sinister]

Whoa,

I don't know if that was pointed in my direction but I've always been a proponet of house rules and individualized play (look at Rogue Commander).

I just think on these boards lately there has been a push for too many "official" changes. If Clausewitz wants to use his retreat rules great, in fact if ever wanted me to play in a game where we use them I'd be up to try it, and I like the debate, but why does everything mentioned on here lately have to be official changes?

Personally I like a bit of tradition and am happy that the game plays basically the same way it has since 84, what's wrong with that? I tweak the game 8 ways from sunday when I play but in a official game of A&A I'd prefer the game to run along the lines of the designers had in mind.

I'm a little concerned at how fiesty people have become about crusading(and not Clausewitz but others in general) for their rules to be cannon.

[ May 13, 2004, 11:21 PM: Message edited by: Sinister ]

[holywolfman]

I agree! :D

This is a great place to meet and share ideas! Granted even if some rules "seem" broken....NO ONE here (or any other thread) will cause Mike or any other Developer to 'Change the rules'! Many will argue (I being one of them) that the NA "Superfortresses" for the USA is too powerful! (especially add HB's and Long-Range techs to it as well!)- Just Remember NA's are NOT part of regular game! They are 'Advanced/Option Rules'.

People have to understand-there are many 'house rules' that can be adopted to work around some issues. But, on the other hand, there are many groups that prefer NOT to use any Option rules all together! It should be up to you and your group to know what works well in your groups!

As for the "written" rules, rules (IMHO) are meant to be "tweaked" from time-to -time! I, too, love house rules and like to try new ideas and Option Rules-then again: That's just me! ;)

Any rate, we have to enjoy our opinions
and ideas for what they are worth! If you don't like those ideas or opinions: DON'T USE THEM in your games!

Over all: Enjoy your game in any way you like:
"Hey, it's your game!"

-Nick- smile.gif

[ May 13, 2004, 11:33 PM: Message edited by: holywolfman ]

[Yoper]

CW- There are other variants/games that allow the defender to retreat but the hierarchy is to allow the attacker the first choice as to whether to retreat or not. As the initiator of the action, the attacker should have the choice of whether to retreat or not before the defender chooses. I have been shifting between games lately and keep having to remember the order of play (can he retreat or not?) for the game I am currently playing.

[DocD]

Originally posted by Clausewitz:
So, the better stategy now is to concentrate overwhelming force on one enemy territory with the intention of taking it with sufficient force to hold on to AND to kill off sufficient enemy forces to make retreats insignificant.That's just the problem! No defensive player is going to stick around and lose sufficient enemy forces! They retreat and attack (with reinforcements) back into the territory. This goes on and on and on....

[ May 14, 2004, 08:52 AM: Message edited by: DocD ]

[Zombie]

Under those rules, no combat would ever last more than one round. There would never be enough losses to compensate for new units purchased, and the board would get clogged up pretty fast. With more units on the board every turn and no way to kill them other than attack the capital (so they must defend and can't retreat), the game would take forever.

[Enigma]

don't know if that was pointed in my direction but I've always been a proponet of house rules and individualized play (look at Rogue Commander).

I just think on these boards lately there has been a push for too many "official" changes. If Clausewitz wants to use his retreat rules great, in fact if ever wanted me to play in a game where we use them I'd be up to try it, and I like the debate, but why does everything mentioned on here lately have to be official changes?

Personally I like a bit of tradition and am happy that the game plays basically the same way it has since 84, what's wrong with that? I tweak the game 8 ways from sunday when I play but in a official game of A&A I'd prefer the game to run along the lines of the designers had in mind.

I'm a little concerned at how fiesty people have become about crusading(and not Clausewitz but others in general) for their rules to be cannon.
I totally agree with you Sinister. There are too many calls for official rules changes. I'm sorry that people thought that I was against house rules and variants in playing. I love playing with house rules and such. What I was saying was that "historical accuracy" should not be used as a justification for calling for an official rule change. The map itself precludes any kind of grand tactical scheme (see the 1940 Panzer attack that overwhelmed France) that occurred in real life. Historical accuracy and A&A may or may not be compatible. Just because something happened in real life doesn't mean it should be able to happen in the game and visa versa. Besides that, a truly historically accurate game would have the Allies winning everytime because that's what happened, right?

[DocD]

Slow down Doorman. Sinister speaks for the majority of us. We all use, to some extent, our own house rules. It's no big deal if we argue and throw around opinions, it's all in good fun I say.

[Karel Doorman]

Originally posted by DocD:
Slow down Doorman. Sinister speaks for the majority of us. We all use, to some extent, our own house rules. It's no big deal if we argue and throw around opinions, it's all in good fun I say.Point taken. Don't mean to offend anyone here. English is not my native language, so my comment might look harsher than it was ment to be.

[Drax Kramer]

To say that Axis&Allies couldn't have been remade to be more historical, but remain as simple as it is now is wrong.

Take the example of fighters landing on allied carriers and all the rules that accompany that ahistorical rule. If developers took the historical approach (fighters can land only on own carriers), the game would have actually be simpler than it is now.

Now, I agree that ban on defenders' withdrawal is nothing but arbitrary decision on behalf of designers which may or may not be good rules gamewise. Personally, I'd allow defenders to pull back at the price of forfeiting their last round of fire.

The observation how this might lead to one round battles (mandatory in D-day), the answer is simple: limited force pools. They already existed in Nova version of game and guess what: there were no huge stacks of infantry in this game. The game was both, simpler and more historical with limited force pools.

It is my personal experience, that the more a person knows about the war, the more likely is that he will come out with a simple rule to simulate historical event.

Drax

[Clausewitz]

Firstly, I never expect my ideas to become "Official rule changes". A long and bitter experience has taught me that game companies are not receptive to my Genius. :(
I merely offer them for debate, to find out what other people's experiences are when experimenting with the rules.
As I mentioned in a previous post, "Devising house rules is half the fun of playing Axis and Allies."
To go back to retreats, I have now played several games under these rules and have never encountered the problems listed above, mainly by people who seem reluctant even to try the idea.
I say again, if you plan your attacks to reflect retreat rules, you will find that the numbers of units retreating does not unbalance the game. If anything, it actually reduces the number of tedious "trading territories in dead zones" battles because it forces players to devise new strategies.

[Enigma]

I wonder if this retreat idea would work better if it were connected with tanks. For example anyoine could retreat and the non-retreating side gets an extra shot. If there are tanks there, they can screen the retreat and only the opposing tanks can shoot and they can only hit other tanks. Dunno, this makes things way more complex than A&A was meant to be but having some way to screen retreats and such may make things more interesting and gives a reason to buy tanks.

[ChurchillAA]

As I see it, the game has a "retreat" option, but it doesn't occur during the "attacker's" combat phase. It occurs during the "defender's" preceding turn, during the non-combat phase. If you are careless enough to leave a significant number of units in a dead zone, I'd say that you deserve to lose them.

[Drax Kramer]

How about naval units that are attacked from the air the moment they have been built? Where is the non-combat movement previous turn withdrawal option for them?

Drax

[Gearhead]

Clausewitz is right; it does seem strange that there's no chance for the defenders to retreat. Even at this scale, armies did retreat.

This could be house ruled fairly easily. How about the penalty being any retreated units lose their next turn of movement (both combat and non-combat) as they're reforming?