Heaven-
I've actually got 3 permament ratings and 2 variable ratings so far for all units:
Discipline: Which rates the unit's ability to act cohesively under duress
Quality: How well trained they are.
Spirit: a measure of a unit's esprit de corps, or one's "gung-ho" ness
Morale-
Motivation-

It's possible to have a high Quality unit which is trained in all sorts of warfare and are good shots, but be of relatively low discipline or spirit (a unit of elite troops cobbled together and never having worked together might have High Quality, but medium Discipline). Troops could also be brave and ready to throw down in a fight, but not be very Disciplined (think of Rebel soldiers in the American Civil War). Generally, Discipline and Quality are somewhat linked...the scores there won't be too far off from one another. Spirit on the other hand is a very fleeting thing, and while one can be trained to have it, you will rarely find a high-spirit group of conscripts or draftees. The high Spirit troops will be the volunteers....and in some cases, there will be cultural bonuses here. Ditto for the Discpline aspect, as some cultures are simply more regimented and discplined than others.

Joviex-
Thanks :) I have a simple game design philosophy. I want to produce a game that I want to play. So I don't care about trying to figure out what other people want and like. There's a danger in this attitude I know, but to be frank, I see hobbyist game design as more an art than a business. As a business, you have to worry about many issues that hobbyists or artists don't. So I don't try to pander to "gaming paradigms" or worry that something might be too complex.

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Original post by Dauntless Wavinator- The idea of an R&R button crossed my mind :) But I don't think that'd be practical for a couple of reasons. Firstly, whole units don't go on R&R at the same time. Plus, that just introduces a whole nother level of micromanagement that I'd like to avoid.

Okay, so it sounds like you're relating to these guys as squads. Out of curiosity, what is your role as a player? Do you have absolute power over everything or are you more limited to the functions you would find in an officer of rank at the time? I ask because I just had this idea that squads could request rotations themselves and you would get an overall impression of what this would do to the squad. If the sniper of a squad, for instance, needs a break, you have to look to see if you can replace him, how good any replacement is, and if you can't, whether or not you're willing to have the unit go without. If you're more in the role of a General this may not fit with player expectations; but if you're somewhat omnipotent, then it might be just fine because all you're doing is really viewing a report on how one of your units is going to change.

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I was thinking of some kind of timer that starts and stops depending on if the unit is under fire. If it reaches a certain level compared to its Discipline rating within a certain amount of time, it's Motivation will go down. It will go down more quickly if they also take casualties.

As long as this is explained and you can plan for it in advance, I think this would work. But I am a bit concerned that it may not be visceral enough for the factor you're trying to portray.

How, for instance, is a character who has been wounded in combat and later gets returned to active duty different from a character who gets psychologically burned out. My concern would be that a distinction without a difference would shortchange your player's experience.

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With Motivation, not even good leaders and commanders can really help. Maybe Chaplains of some sort, but the only way to really heal from this is to have time away from combat.

I really like the idea of Chaplains, especially if they can perform a service (like praying for good weather-- sorry, Patton at Bastogne again [smile])

Do you have a choice in areas to capture? It would be interesting if some areas, like those closer to seaside resorts or in pastoral settings, when far enough from the battlelines acted as moral rechargers. Unfortunately I'm seeing this on a Civilization level, not really a Close Combat level.

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Okay, so it sounds like you're relating to these guys as squads. Out of curiosity, what is your role as a player? Do you have absolute power over everything or are you more limited to the functions you would find in an officer of rank at the time? ...

An interesting question. The player will control an avatar who has a variable rank according to his success. In the single player campaign, his rank will increase as he progresses. My initial name for my game engine was STRIKE which stands for Strategic, Tactical and Roleplaying Integrated Kit Engine. The name should give a clue as to what it's supposed to do. It should have a "level of detail" that allows it to scale from the individual level (roleplaying) to the squad/platoon level (tactical) all the way up to about divisional (and hopefully Corps level). So I'd like you to be able to integrate "hero" type units which correspond to roleplaying level individuals attached to various troop levels. This level of adjustable "detail on the fly" (and I'm not talking just graphics, but the level of abstraction of game rules) is something I'd like to do with the game engine.

So the abilities of the player will be variable on two levels. So let's say the player has gotten up to the rank of Major and now controls a whole Battalion of men. He realizes that Able company has been fighting on the frontlines for 50 days straight, and suffered casualties during almost half of those days. One platoon in particular, 3rd platoon has taken the brunt of the abuse and is not just understrength but is exhausted. Now, your AI Company commander will probably notify you of the disposition of the troops if you don't notice it yourself. The AI Company Commander can pull platoons off the frontline, and he will also approve of most R&R rotations. But you as the player can speed up the process if the AI isn't doing it the way you'd like. However, the AI Company Commander can't just take his troops off the front without your permission. In other words, it all follows a chain of command.

As for the timer effect and trying to account for the different types of battle fatigue/casualties, I'm not sure how to handle this either. You're right in that troops can be "wounded" in different ways. There's an age-old military axiom that says it is far easier to break a man's will than his body. Going back to the Band of Brothers episodes, the one where the soldier became blind because of psychological reasons was interesting. In a way, he just "gave up" and psycho-somatically made himself blind.

I've always wanted to include some sort of MASH setup where the wounded have to be transported. One thing that tremendously helped the morale in Vietnam was the level of medical attention that soldiers got. In a few minutes, Huey's could be flying to the extraction zone, pick up the wounded, and be off to the MASH in quite often less than half an hour. This was a tremendous boost to the soldier's morale knowing that if they got hit, help was on the way. And for some elite troops like Marines or the Rangers, they have an unwritten motto that you don't leave the wounded behind. It may cause extra casualties, but it also boosts morale knowing that your buddies are sticking their necks for you. So having lots of medical hospitals and transport teams to get the wounded there will help morale (as well as save your combat veterans to fight for another day).

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I really like the idea of Chaplains, especially if they can perform a service (like praying for good weather-- sorry, Patton at Bastogne again ) Do you have a choice in areas to capture? It would be interesting if some areas, like those closer to seaside resorts or in pastoral settings, when far enough from the battlelines acted as moral rechargers. Unfortunately I'm seeing this on a Civilization level, not really a Close Combat level.

My grandfather told me when I was a little boy that there was no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole (I guess he must have picked that up from one of my other great-uncles, one who served in the Marines and one in the 82nd AA, since my grand-dad was a Lt. Commander in the Navy). At the time I didn't really understand what he meant. Again with the Band of Brothers plug, one of the most emotional-jerking scenes for me was when a Chaplain was attending last rites to the fallen right in the middle of a battle, totally oblivious to the men dropping around him and a telephone pole crashing near him. The more I think about it, the more I really want to give detail to these forgotten heroes of the battlefield; the medics and chaplains. Medics/Hospital Corpsmen and Chaplains have won a disproportionately huge amount of Medals of Honor and Distinguished Service Crosses compared to their numbers in the military.

As for having a choice in the areas to capture, yes you will depending on your rank. The game will be set up more like the Total War series of games in that the entire world will be displayed as a map, and depending on your rank, you will either chose or be assigned a target area to take. Once you get to the Divisional or Corps level the player will have more freedom in choosing what areas to take.

Hmm. I'm not very into war games, but I happened to think of something.

At points in the game where you're lower ranked, will your commanding officer ever give you a goal you believe is immoral, or that makes you think he's going crazy? And if so, how do you structure it so that the game can decide how well you've completed your mission, whether you obey your commander or not?

Just another one of those complex painful aspects of war to think about. :)

onyxflame-
An insightful question :)

For the storyline that's been brewing in my head, one of the factions is put precisely in that quandry. The old oxymoronic statement "we had to kill'em to save'em" comes to mind.

Now, that was a player decision choice as to what to do. In the campaign, this only happens towards the latter end of the campaign, when he has a fairly large force at his disposal. Depending on the choice, it will impact the direction of the last bits of the campaign.

But a more interesting possibility is if you order your AI commanders to do something questionable. For example, you know that snipers and other enemy units are picking you off in a town. Do you order your men to torch some buildings to root them out? On the one hand, some men especially if this is enemy terriroty won't care, but others might object.

What's more interesting is that for my near future sci-fi setting, it's really more of a civil war going on than anything else, and it's hard to tell friend from foe. WWII was unique in that it was the first modern war in which more civillians died than in the military. Some intriguing scenarios involving moral choices could (and probably should) be implemented in wargames.