OK DaP, good topic to philosophise on.
Examples:
A. Philippine-American War 1899-1902, the "boy general" defends a pass against the American Juggernaut, in order for the leader of the resistance -Emilio Aguinaldo- to have time to escape. Victory was that Aguinaldo survived and so the resistance continued.
B. Thermopylae (hot gates in Greek), the 300 Spartans plus 700 Fokaeans all died, but caused heavy casualties to the Persian army and awe to all. The Persian king, had his dead burried in the night, in order to avoid his army seeing the number of casualties in the morning and lose their nerve. The Greeks, had their will strengthened to repel the invaders.
C. Greek Revolution 1821-1828: a warrior-priest called Papaflessas, stood at Maniaki in the Peloponese with 300 Greeks, against the onslought of Ibrahim Pasha from Egypt.
Their sacrifice, moved the quareling Greeks and they united once more to repel the invaders. This event, also helped with European public opinion, and so the big powers sent their combined fleet that ended Egyptian help to the Ottoman Turks, thus making the Greek Revolution to achieve victory, and Greece to be free.
D. On the matter of "expending yourself" in an attack to hurt the enemy (like the Japanese kamikaze, Vietkong vs the French, or even nowadays suicide bombers), I agree that it's a matter of perspective.
I admit to have been indoctrinated during my obligatory military service in the Greek Special Forces, to accept to sacrifice myself for my country...
Still, there's many different cultures in the world, and in many of them individuals perceive their survival of lesser importance to that of their nation. This is due to political (like in communism), religious (like in Islam), or nationalistic (like in WWII Japan) reasons.
In any case, these "solo assymetrical attacks", do create a "headache" to the forces receiving them. Just look at the problem caused by fanatic Islamists and their terrorist attacks to the western world. Since they cannot defend against the American invasions and aerial bombing campaigns on their lands, they've carried the war to the enemy lands, causing many problems and the expenditure of huge amounts of money and resources for homeland security, not to mention the limitations to personal freedoms by certain laws enforced. Isn't that a "small victory" for them?For the game, I say this argument: I've seen and done myself the sacrifice of an army, in order to achieve another goal, such as building that TC, Fortress, or whatever.
So to close this long post, battle sacrifice against impossible odds, is valuable and can achieve victory in some other respect.
ehmmm, that's all I guess...
regards
the Elder
"imagination is more important than knowledge."
Albert Einstein