Unity of Command Forums

I am on 4th Cassino and want to report these issues:

1 i took Rome and Monte Cassino on the Monte Cassino level but am faced with having to retake them in 4th Cassino. Were these towns lost and so this situation reflects the historical facts? Why am I having to retake what I just took?

2 more importantly, and this questions a basic game mechanic, why can't I stack or place two units on the same hex? At the start of 4th Cassino we have units literally two rows deep and it becomes a game of musical chairs to attack a German position, find a parking spot for that unit in order to allow another unit to move in and follow-up the attack. Is it not possible to find some way to stack units or have them share a hex so as to deal with this undue amount of movement management and its attendant frustrations. I realize that the game has never allowed stacking but it seems to have become a definite impediment at least on this level. Perhaps I am missing something here and hope that is the case.

thanks, Slip

Totally agree

"Musical chairs" has been a part of UoC since the beginning. It's annoying, but it's part of the game's limitations and it does in a way simulate how claustrophobic and difficult it was to attack with multiple units in this sort of mountainous terrain.

That said, I do maintain that the game needs to recognize the taking of Cassino and Monte Cassino in earlier scenarios and reflect it later, which would make the nastiness around Cassino less of a chore.

RE: 1

We are planning to add a third choice for when you take Monte Cassino and/or Rome in "1st Monte Cassino" and don't wish to go down the a-historical path. 3rd choice being to skip "4th Monte Cassino" and jump straight to "Roads from Rome". But implementing this is not as simple as it might sound from a technical standpoint. In this third option you will be granted score and prestige as if you had played a perfect "4th Cassino". There is also the matter of it being a detriment to unit and HQ XP gains - and it's very unlikely that we'll be fiddling with this.

RE: 2

Just to get it out of the way: this wont change. From a realism perspective it was limited how many division could be brought into the line and still fight effectively. In essence this is what the system is simulating. From a gameplay perspective UoC already favors the attacker to a very large degree and the only thing that keeps this in check is ZoCs and unit rotation. Having said that, Italy was never a great theater of operations for games because of its constrained nature. "Volturno -> 1st Cassino -> 4th Cassino" was always my least favorite part of the game because it can get monotonous. Hopefully the 3rd option mentioned above will be enough to alleviate this (on top of the already existing a-historical path).

Cheers

RE 1: In case the player only gets one of the bonus objectives, would it also work to play the 4th Cassino scenario (obligatorily, since you haven't achieved both bonus objectives to give you the ahistorical option) but with yet another starting variant: with either objective already captured and the other still to go? Logically that makes most sense to me.