EP '14 mechanics/balance

[ComradeP]

Hmm, yes, I can see that the siege gun flag would make the guns too good as the redoubts provide only limited defensive bonuses to begin with when it comes to facing hard attack.

The main reason they're good against anything without a reasonable hard attack value is that units in them become hard targets, not that they inflate defensive values like they would in PzC. Infantry defense values are a lot lower than in PzC anyway, so even a 20% increase would normally mean an increase of just 1 instead of something like 4 or 5.

As to digging in: testing the more conservative values to see if they work has my vote, so 2% digging in, with -10/-20 bonuses. There are so many field hexes around in East Prussia for a -10 reduction, and France has a wide variety of natural obstacles so giving a higher bonus would glue the frontline to the ground with too much convenience for the time period.

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After giving the Samsonov situation some additional thought, would it be possible to split the Russian strategy into two parts, like how reinforcements are handled in the Grand Campaign, where you first get to pick if you want to receive the Guards and 1st Rifle Brigade or an improved 2nd Army HQ at the point where the event currently triggers, and then pick where Samsonov would return or pick that he doesn't on the 30th, and just rely on the honesty of the players to pick the matching option.

This would remove what can feel like the artificial mechanic of having to designate where Samsonov will be on the 30th days in advance without a clear picture of where the frontline will be.

To be clear, what I mean is:

First strategy choice:

1) 3rd Guards Division and 1st Rifle Brigade, you have to pick the "no Samsonov" option later.
2) Improved Samsonov (no direct effect).

*Samsonov's D quality HQ withdraws*

Second strategy choice on the 30th:

1) No Samsonov.
2) Samsonov improves and returns somewhere immediately (pick location).