ORIGINAL: sillyflower
The ability to do ta task is a combination of knowledge/experience and the right sort of intelligence/talent. The importance of each of those 2 elements to the performance of task A by person X may well be different that for X doing task B, or Y doing task A. Indeed, the relative importance of the 2 factors in how well X does task A may also change over time. At least, these 2 factors are the ones that are relevant to this particular debate about ability ratings. IRL there are many others such as motivation, and probably that is 1 of the factors that plays a part in the morale rating. This difference is because is not an 'ability' or 'skill' but a state of mind and the extent to which X conveys that to others: for good or bad.
I see what you mean. I agree that one’s ability, as well as one’s performance, is dynamic, rather than static. It would be nice if the game could perfectly simulate each leader as good as what he really is, but that is impossible at present. The rating of leader in this game, is therefore a over-simplified version, in which I believe many details of what your mentioned in your comment has been left out. Regardless of the ups and downs of Model’s career, when one answering a simple question: “Is Model a better general than Weiss?” The answer is easy, Model is a super-star in WW2, Weiss is not. So it doesn’t feel right when the two both having inf 8.
Suppose we erase all the names of the leaders and substitute them with X107,x108...the game remains exactly the same, it functions 100% as before. But the game experience of the players would be worse off, because it would offer less historical feeling. To handle a General named 'Model' feels different from handling a General with no name, because by doing so, one recalls all his knowledge and impressions about that particular person, what he did, what he was famous for...That is why the game data needs to be rightly reflecting the historical performance of the particular person, and when we talk about a historical person, most of the time, it is one's talent that matters. We didn't admire Model for his experience, we admire his talent, What he did in MARs and the late WAR gave him exceptional status from others, in talent.
If a inf 9 correctly match the impression and knowledge of the player about Model, then the Inf 8 is not, as to gaming, it doesn't really matter, but the game experience of the player is worse off (there is a mismatch and hence the player doesn't feel he were commanding the historical Model).
We could also examine this example: suppose the game use a dice roll to pop up a random event, in which the designer of the famous Tiger tank happened to be killed by air raid, and the Tiger end up less powerful, this event is possible and reasonable, yet it makes the game less fun, simply because it isn't match our history knowledge (what is the fun if the Tiger could not easily beat T34?). The logic is the same.
