Author's note: This came up in the May 2nd Debrief and I decided to play with the idea some. This is mainly a lot of rambling, disjointed ideas shoved together into a essay, but I don't edit my own work very well (my failing as an author). So I give it to you like this and hope that it helps you understand our beloved Earl a little better.
Earl is often confusing to us in his responses and actions. We wonder why does he attack so powerfully, but without direction? Why does he defend his areas so poorly, or so fiercely? Why does he not make full use of his abilities? We ask these things because Earl doesn't do what we would do in a similar situation. Yet is he acting stupidly? Is he playing poorly?
We often think of our sometimes worthy opponent, Earl, as the other player, an opponent that knows what is going on and makes plans to thwart our attempts to conquer him. But is that what he's really like? Even the programmer, Andy V, tells us that Earl starts out in every scenario as if it's the first time he's ever played it. Earl doesn't have a history file that says, "Oops, E-Tanks are too slow for this scenario." In fact, I think that Earl doesn't even remember what happened the previous turn. He must begin each turn as if the game just started that way. No continuity.
Some players complain about scenarios that don't have reinforcements, "You can't correct initial purchase errors." Think about poor Earl. Imagine giving your 8 year old sister the game and saying here are the rules you should play by:
Sure, Earl's a little more complex than that, but I would submit that he's not THAT much more complex. So perhaps the human model isn't the one we should be using when judging Earl's actions.
As a Geologist (With a Biology minor!), I suggest we try to look at Earl as an animal. Perhaps a particularly bright animal, but an animal never-the-less. Earl's actions are based on the five rules above which I shall call instinct.
Instinct is a powerful motivator, even in humans. But for Earl, it is the ONLY motivator. He can't think about the results of his actions any more than my cat considers the results of getting in a tree and falling. Earl can calculate a few actions and responses, but the high level thought processes that allow us to make goals, and alter them on the fly just aren't available to him. He just 'knows' that he must occupy this particular hex. He will roll down the road blindly ignoring all the BZs you have in the tree line and get blown into ground chuck. His orders don't say anything about avoiding getting killed. [Rommel, that's something to ask Andy V. Does Earl have any self protection variable? Does Earl ever try to avoid his own casualties? (further note: does this explain Earl's dodging MAs?)]
As I said, he is very bright. He can calculate movement and targeting ranges faster than I could hope to. However, he doesn't know anything about tactics. He doesn't set up ambushes or flank your attacking units. It may look like he does, but we inject our humanity into him (see I call it 'him', I'm injecting some humanity into it right now, mainly to justify my time on this project). When Earl flanks your attack, consider the turns leading up to the event and the terrain. Try playing the game with no hidden units.
I'll bet that you will find Earl just happened to send a lot of extra units to your left to occupy a VP there. You weren't there, so the units didn't have much to do until you made yourself known by attacking. Then those units charged madly across the map to hit you in the flank. Hmmm... (I think I just impressed myself.)
Back to the human/animal comparo:
Think of a human planning to hunt a wild boar. The boar is a fairly dangerous animal when perturbed and is fairly easily perturbed. The human recognizes this fact. The boar is much stronger and faster than the human plus it has some heavy natural weapons. However, the human has intelligence. The human will dress in camouflage. He will prepare himself with strong coffee and bravado talk with his friends. He will load his 30.06 with high velocity penetrating ammunition. Then he will set out into the woods with his rifle, his lunch, and two or three buddies.
The boar is trying to feed itself.
Do we see a discrepancy here? With proper forewarning the human is nigh on unbeatable. The other side of course, is what if the human is unprepared? A single human with no weapons vs. a pack of hyenas... any questions?
Earl can be switched with the animal in either case. When we are properly prepared and informed, Earl is toast. But if we are not prepared, Earl can defeat us with ease. Witness "The Last Convoy" for any of you that would doubt the above. In terms of "The Last Convoy" we might call it human with a .38 revolver vs. a wild boar.
Earl's instincts are pretty good (and deadly) in some situations ("The Last Convoy" for example). In other situations he just can't handle it (the original "Guere du Vin"). Earl's goal is to win. He knows that he must occupy VP hexes to win and your units will try to stop him. When he has a clear goal, he can be deadly. But when designing a scenario, take care not to confuse Earl. He must have a clear goal. He doesn't understand that putting a MT on the forested hill next to the VP hex will help him keep it. He gets confused when presented with too many options for travel routes.
I think that Earl does his best work on small maps, with few VP (and other important) hexes. On a large map, you should consider giving Earl extra units to wander around with. Earl doesn't understand the need for concentration of firepower vs. unit dispersal. He will normally have his units so dispersed that they cannot support each other or he'll have them clumped up for nice rich arty strikes.
Even animals have an advantage over Earl for they can learn. Human animals can even overcome their instincts to some degree. Earl can only do what Andy told him to. This is no fault of Andy's. Earl can be a demanding opponent (I say that to make my own victories seem more important :-) ).
During the last Debrief, Endgame asked what I would most like to see changed about Earl. I mentioned a few things, but all the things I mentioned and more would be taken care of by a history file for Earl. Of course, it would easily become too large to make the game quick (not to mention everyone would have to be running P166s). But say a two game history file for each type of scenario (Set Piece Setup, Island, etc.) If you played the same game a couple of times in a row (like we tend to when we lose) Earl would get better and better. The history file would build on itself. If we switched to a different game, then perhaps some of the information Earl gleaned from the last game of that type would be useful to him.
Perhaps we should have pity on the poor thing... and somebody get the scarecrow a brain.