Whatever we come up with, (A) Rich must be able to implement it and
(B) players must be able to understand it.
I know I suggested this before but I didn't see much comment...
1) Make it so that ATTACKs against stacks in motion (i.e. in the
process of MOVEing to another province) will succeed only some
of the time (e.g. 10%-20% of the time or based on terrain, etc.).
Failed ATTACKs will still take 1 day since you tried to ATTACK so
that repeated ATTACKing will help but not bypass the limitation.
People seem unhappy with the two simplified extremes that you:
(A) can attack any stack until they actually arrive at their destination
or
(B) cannot attack any unit as soon as they issue a move order.
Both have some really bad side effects so I think the solution lies
between the extremes. Allow people to ATTACK stacks in motion but
make it so that such ATTACKs are not a sure thing.
2) Make it so that stacks that break in combat do MOVE to another
province upon breaking but allow the player to control where
they go via a "FLEE" command. The command:
FLEE in north
...means the stack will issue a "MOVE in north" command if it
breaks in combat. The command:
FLEE none
...means the stack will not move if it breaks in combat and would
be the default (since that is the way it is now).
This idea provides a way for the player to control where they go if
they break in combat which is one of the objections of the "auto move"
technique and it would provide the option not to flee at all if that
is what you really want. Normally this could be a "set it and forget
it command" or it could be adjused for each location you enter. In
any event, you should rarely need more than one FLEE command to follow
every MOVE which isn't a lot of overhead for those who have to fiddle
and optimize every detail of their faction. Of course, for this to
work, (1) or something similar needs to be implemented...
John Morrow