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Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/1/2009 4:36:51 PM

Jimmer

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I'm not going to open a Mantis case on this unless some willingness to be reasonable appears from the posts of the Matrix guys here.

A few months back (and, apparently, when the game was being designed), there was an argument about the absurdity of having losing land forces retreat INLAND after losing an amphibious assault combat. Logic lost and the rule stands.

Well, last night the absurdity of this rule hit me really hard. I was playing an AI game, starting in January of 1805. Typically, GB finds some way to fritter away her starting "army", usually attacking multiple places, each with insufficient force to even survive, let alone win.

Well, under 1.06, GB finally does it right (although, the profit in using your entire starting "army" on one "doomed to fail" attack can be questioned, at least she brought the WHOLE army): GB attacked (across the channel) the corps I had sitting in the Lille area. Naturally, she lost.

However, her retreat was west along the coast.

Now, yes, I remember the argument, but this just isn't right. If Eisenhower had known for certain he could have retreated along the coast instead of the more likely capture or slaughter, D-Day would have occured years earlier. This becomes very clear now that I have a British "army" sitting two spaces from Paris.

Now, if GB had built a depot at sea, one could make an argument for retreating along the coast. But, the possibility of retreating INTO hostile territory is absolutely absurd.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/2/2009 2:32:17 PM

Marshall Ellis

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Jimmer:

What would be your alternative because retreat across a crossing arrow is clearly illegal??
Force surrender was an option we did early but it did not make it past our testers (Large majority nixed this).
This still happens in the case of Denmark for example where this is no retreat option at all.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/2/2009 4:33:24 PM

AresMars

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I am with Jimmer on this one...

The word "retreat" suggests, that the loser should not gain an advantage by losing...

Suggestions re: amphibious assault;

A) No Supply Depot at SEA: Retreating Army is Captured
B) Supply Depot at Sea; Retreat along coast in a random direction (or chosen by Victor)....as long as it stays adjacent to the sea supply; otherwise captured
C) Crossing Arrow retreat; LOST: Captured, Captured, Captured! This IS the 1800's after all.....amphibious assault was perfected much later...WWII Pacific Theather?

My 2 Gold on the subject...

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/2/2009 6:55:53 PM

Dancing Bear

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I am in total agreement with Mr. A. Mars on this one.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/2/2009 9:06:45 PM

Marshall Ellis

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Ok guys, tell me what the board game would have done?

< Message edited by Marshall Ellis -- 5/2/2009 9:07:09 PM >

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/3/2009 2:19:32 AM

AresMars

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Marshall, why would that matter anymore?

This is EIANW, not EIA or EIH.....

If you ask players of the above (EIA/EIH), you will get too many points of view....nature of the game.....

My comments above are my thoughts (also, this is how we played) and it is up to you to decide how you would program....

Once you commit YOUR ideas to forum, then you can see how the various camps argue.....

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/3/2009 3:33:37 AM

Thresh

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I can give you about four or five different rulings...

Todd

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Ok guys, tell me what the board game would have done?

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/3/2009 4:43:41 AM

ndrose

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quote:

ORIGINAL: AresMars

I am with Jimmer on this one...

The word "retreat" suggests, that the loser should not gain an advantage by losing...

Suggestions re: amphibious assault;

A) No Supply Depot at SEA: Retreating Army is Captured
B) Supply Depot at Sea; Retreat along coast in a random direction (or chosen by Victor)....as long as it stays adjacent to the sea supply; otherwise captured
C) Crossing Arrow retreat;��LOST:� Captured, Captured, Captured!� This IS the 1800's after all.....amphibious assault was perfected much later...WWII Pacific Theather?

My 2 Gold on the subject...

True, they didn't have amphibious assault, but, did they need it? The giganto-armies of WWII were able to defend entire coastlines, so that if you wanted to land you had to do it under fire. But in earlier periods, wouldn't an invasion by sea really have meant finding a nice, quiet place to get ashore and then meeting the enemy probably somewhere else? That is, it wasn't really fighting on the beaches, was it? In which case, why couldn't you retreat if you lost? You'd be in hostile territory, out of supply, unable to get reinforcements, and so on; but all that seems to be reflected adequately.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/3/2009 5:36:00 AM

AresMars

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Ndrose, You point is very valid....and I agree with it.

The points I was trying to�make�are;

a) Without supply, armies of the period would not remain an army long and thus GAME�capture...

b) with Supply;
�� 1) the Victor should choose the path along the coast (so the loser does not gain a position�advantage);
�� 2) a random direction is choosen as the Army moves and supply is re-established up or down the coast...

c) there is no supply source, and no fleet�to recover the troops (or eyes to find a beach, or supply train), so they cannot all get back across the "arrow"... thus, no more army...prisoners....

There has to be SOME risk to crossing arrows into Battle, esp. the Lille one....and the Denmark ones....

Not saying I am 100% correct, however, Armies of the 1800's are not the same as those found in WWII....� <grin>

I'll be intrested in Thresh's comments.....[added] related to the various rulings....

< Message edited by AresMars -- 5/3/2009 5:38:07 AM >

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/3/2009 2:32:58 PM

pzgndr

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quote:

The word "retreat" suggests, that the loser should not gain an advantage by losing...

How was this an advantage? GB lost a battle and retreated out of supply. So it takes another round or two to hunt down the blimeys and destroy them. No different than if France loses a battle in central Europe and "retreats" eastward out of supply.

quote:

Typically, GB finds some way to fritter away her starting "army", usually attacking multiple places, each with insufficient force to even survive, let alone win.

THIS appears to be the more significant issue to fix.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/3/2009 2:54:18 PM

Thresh

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They all have to do with the supply and retreat rules as written, and which ones you think takes priority in this situation.

7.5.2.10.3 Retreat After Losing A Combat: The loser is retreated one area by the victor. This occurs after pursuit (if any). 7.5.2.10.3.1: All retreats must be into an adjacent land area that is closest (any closest area, if several qualify equally) to the nearest depot of any nationality in force, or if none is on the map, towards that force's nearest controlled national capital city. 7.5.2.10.3.2: A retreating force may never be split up. 7.5.2.10.3.3: If the area retreated to contains an unbesieged enemy corps, cossack, freikorps or depot garrison, the force is retreated one more area (same rules as 7.5.2.10.3. 1), etc., until an open area is reached. 7.5.2.10.3.4: Retreat across a crossing arrow or onto ships is not permitted. 7.5.2.10.3.5: A force may not retreat into the same area twice in the same retreat. 7.5.2.10.3.6: A force must surrender (A army factors and leaders in the force become prisoners) if no retreat route is available.

So. lets say its early 1805, and I as the Brits am going to force the French Fleet, bottled up in Toulon, to come out and fight. I land my Infantry Corps there, expecting to wipe out the small french Corps in the Toulon area, but to my shoch its not a small Corps, its the full I Corps. The battle commences, I have a poor chit pull, and lose.

By the rules, I cannot retreat to the ships. But If I have a depot in Gibraltar, I can retreat towards that area, or a depot in Portsmouth I can retreat towards that.
Furthermore, lets say that I didn't build a depot for Invasion supply, I am going to land my Corps, forage, then live of the land or whatnot (which doesn't make sense but still)...If I lose, I can retreat towards London. Or If I had conquered Naples I could retreat that direction, as its the closest capital ccontrolled city.

Thats my interpretation of the rules as written. While the results may not make common sense, they do follow the rules.

Todd

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/3/2009 3:41:16 PM

easterner

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Historically most failed amphibs returned to their boats and left i.e. Tanga, Dieppe, Gallipoli. A few were destroyed on the beaches as at Cartagena de Indias 1741 still survivors evac'd by boat. Syracuse amphib & siege by Athens was repulsed when Athenian navy defeated, the army did march inland but was lost as no where to go.

Choices:

Destruction if defeated: (My memory of original, probably wrong though) is too tough on AI. In original it served as brake on Amphibs.

Capture if defeated: The fate of many cut-off armies. Not un-historical and you might get troops returned if peace breaks out.

Retreat if loss: The result in current game and original if on 2nd or later turn of Amphib: As mentioned linear fronts not in use so do able but few would want it as 100% destruction almost a guarantee as usually no where friendly to go. However against weak oppos like Cyrenaica a 2nd assault usually takes objective or if near an ally a chance at retreat there. A mixed bag from this the current rule.

Convert defeated force to INF and arrive next turn as reinforcements. Probably the most historical option as loss of corps markers, CAV, Guards and arty reflect post invasion disorder.

Retreat corps to ship: also historically viable the downside is the losing player could in theory amphib somewhere the next turn which is un-historical.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/3/2009 4:49:28 PM

ndrose

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quote:

Retreat corps to ship: also historically viable the downside is the losing player could in theory amphib somewhere the next turn which is un-historical.

After New Orleans, didn't the Brits take ship and land their army again somewhere down the Gulf Coast and make another attack on someplace?

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/3/2009 6:15:32 PM

easterner

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Invasion: America (in EiA terms)

Brits landed in Wash DC Aug turn, won field battle and siege. Presumably Brit player had blockading fleet that relocated to the port as in Sept troops sailed to Baltimore, failed siege and land battle (as apparently used 1.06 rules) suffered Leader Loss on Ross. Then re-embarked to Bermuda landing in New Orleans in Dec 1814, placing it under siege in Jan (followed the rules good for Packenham)suffered Leader Loss on Packenham. Then somehow re-embarking they bombarded a port (for a week) on the way out (ran the guns? no rules for this).

Twice the Brits cheated re-embarking w/o owning a port!!! Must be special rules for North America Map! Brits had a garrison on Pea Island so that might be port they retreated from NO.

In Wash area multiple amphibs occurred including capture of Alexandria, but it was retaken before Baltimore battle. US ops not on EiA scale so fudging would be needed.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/3/2009 7:27:35 PM

NeverMan

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ndrose

quote:

ORIGINAL: AresMars

I am with Jimmer on this one...

The word "retreat" suggests, that the loser should not gain an advantage by losing...

Suggestions re: amphibious assault;

A) No Supply Depot at SEA: Retreating Army is Captured
B) Supply Depot at Sea; Retreat along coast in a random direction (or chosen by Victor)....as long as it stays adjacent to the sea supply; otherwise captured
C) Crossing Arrow retreat;��LOST:� Captured, Captured, Captured!� This IS the 1800's after all.....amphibious assault was perfected much later...WWII Pacific Theather?

My 2 Gold on the subject...

True, they didn't have amphibious assault, but, did they need it? The giganto-armies of WWII were able to defend entire coastlines, so that if you wanted to land you had to do it under fire. But in earlier periods, wouldn't an invasion by sea really have meant finding a nice, quiet place to get ashore and then meeting the enemy probably somewhere else? That is, it wasn't really fighting on the beaches, was it? In which case, why couldn't you retreat if you lost? You'd be in hostile territory, out of supply, unable to get reinforcements, and so on; but all that seems to be reflected adequately.

I am inclined to agree with ndrose here, I think Jimmer's WWII analogy is not that good. I think it's fine the way it is.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 2:51:36 AM

Mardonius

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Hi Easterner:

Great reference to Syracuse... that was the one I was thinking of.

Retreats after a failed amphib invasion should, indeed, be more punitive than they were in the original EiA boardgame.
To Nathan's point about historical era landings, I would aggree for small sized raids but in no instnace that I can recall in the era was a large army landed on a hostile shore. Egypt maybe excepted, but there was some suprise/neutrality issues there that Napoleon Capitalized on. In Denmark, there was no major opposing land force. Toulon was handed over by royaslists. Or am I missing something here?

I would not only make the retreat rules more severe, I would give a penalty to the landing force in the same month that they land to any attacks or counter attacks . Perhaps -1.0 morale. Landing an army and syncronizing its elements in an amphibious operation is one of the most complex operations in any war. We should reflect this in our game, if possible.

best
Mardonius

< Message edited by Mardonius -- 5/4/2009 3:02:42 AM >

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 2:53:37 AM

Mardonius

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Hi Neverman:

I think the system is fine for smaller raids, but I can not think of any multi corps sized landings on hostile shores. If this is the case (and If I am worng, please correct me) then perhaps we should consider a ammedment option.

best
Mardonius

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 3:04:37 AM

Thresh

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I tend to think of Napoleonic amphib operations are more like Maida than Tarawa....

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 3:31:45 AM

Mardonius

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I'd probably agree... subject to someone filling me in a bit more on the specific campaign. Do you now the numbers at Maida? The real complications in amphib ops matter when you have lots of moving parts and are landing on a shore where the enemy can form up to meet the landing. If there is a rapid strike (usually only possible with smaller forces) then there are not the same issues. Mosroever, raids -- by their nature of limited timframe and in/out -- do not require major logisitcs buildups, another major complication with amphib ops.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 3:35:34 AM

easterner

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The Egypt invasion was 25,000 strong.

The Cartegena Op in 1741 was 23,600 strong.

Toulon landing force was 13,000 split among 4 nations.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 3:41:04 AM

Mardonius

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I'll have to do some reading on the Cartegena op. Thanks for the reference. Don't know it.

Toulon was handed over by the Roylists to the invaders (Naples/ Sapin/UK and Sardinia?).

Egypt is, I reckon, a case by itself in that the object of the invasion was not at war and was markedly suprised, not to mention the Eastern versus Western ways of war.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 3:56:47 AM

ndrose

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Walcheren was about 40,000--but they just sat in the swamp for a year or two and died of malaria; I don't think the French even bothered to attack them. Still, it was a sizable landing of forces despite the anticlimactic result.

There was also a substantial English force sent to Portugal in 1808. Not sure that could be called a "landing" since they had allies on the ground; but it was moving a lot of troops by sea into a war zone, with the usual problems of timing and supply and unfamiliar territory.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 4:03:09 AM

Mardonius

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Yes, that is the trick Nathan. If it is an unopposed or friendly shore, then the operation is not that tricky... OK it is but not as tricky as a hostile shore by any means. I was pushing for some sort of penalty option for landings/battles during the same month where the defender counter attacks on hostile shores.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 4:45:56 AM

ndrose

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Yes, that's true: in neither case was the landing of troops interfered with by the enemy, so far as I know. But if the question is simply, did they ever land large numbers of troops by sea with the expectation of engaging the enemy, the answer must be yes--at least up to 40,000.

In the case of Portugal, I'm a bit fuzzy on the geography, but it wouldn't be surprising if a French army was somewhere in the same EiA "area". I know they were fighting the French the same month. In Walcheren, Bernadotte was there, but adopted a defensive position, and the British operation more or less sputtered out.

There's an inevitable vagueness in the EiA scale--it can't be a tactical simulation. A corps in the same area where forces land triggers a battle--somewhere in 1,000 square miles over the period of a month. That could represent a lot of very different scenarios. The defender could be many miles inland.

There is one place where the EiA system does sort of reflect the range of possibility: a cordon defense against a landing is treated the same as with a river. There's a certain amount of nonsense here perhaps: I don't think a tactical cordon for battle could possibly stretch the length of a river or a coastline of an EiA area, but I guess we can take it that this is meant to represent a deployment of troops guarding the coast in that area and able to interfere immediately with disembarking troops. In this case, I think it might be reasonable that an invader who loses against "cordon" is captured.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 5:02:44 AM

Mardonius

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Hi Nathan: From a game design perspective, I'd be careful about associating the amphib penalty with a particular chit choice. Cordon is easy to overcome with an assualt/escalated assault, something tricky to do without masssing troops, which is impossible to do in the initial stages of an amphib landing. I would rather associate the bonuis/penalty with something like terrain. Maybe make all amphib landings have to deal with the same penalty as mountainous terrain, but give the bonus to either the defender or a counterattacker against an anphib landing for the first month after the landing.

best
Mardonius

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 4:51:09 PM

Jimmer

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There are a lot of arguments on this one. The original rules are of little help. The original retreat rules would imply surrender in the case above (because the nearest depot is in London or thereabouts). Unless GB happened to have a depot Gibraltar, which brings up an issue:

When a nation retreats, it is supposed to retreat towards it's nearest depot. But, what if that depot is in Gibraltar? This presents an even more absurd situation: A retreat overland to a depot hundreds or thousands of miles away. A Spanish player once suggested that he could retreat east out of Morocco's capital after losing, because, after all, there's a land route to Cadiz -- via Armenia!

In my opinion, the retreat rules were broken in the original and they're still broken (only more so). I think we really need to work on a sensible retreat rule.

LOTS of possibilities exist. Obviously, as mentioned above, there are occasions where the army got captured. But, there are others where the army was decimated, but managed to leave (by land, sea or whatever). I would imagine there were even cases that illustrate historically the current implementation. Perhaps we need other choices. See the ones listed above, to which I add:

1) Retreat can be in the direction of a depot or a potential depot site (any place where a depot could be placed at this moment, as if the user were doing land movement). Said supply chain cannot pass through enemy territory unless the depots are already in place. Retreating force must be able to make it from the proposed retreat location to within supply range of this hypothetical or real location in one move, or else the location is not valid. (NOTE: This would apply to more than just amphibious landings, but amphibious landings and the strikebacks to amphibious landings would be the most common use of it.)

2) Corps can retreat as per the current implementation, but only after losing some of its strength to capture and/or death/desertion. Perhaps we could use the forage rules once for desertion and once for capture. Or, perhaps retreating forces would always "forage" on a certain table (perhaps assume the forage value, for this purpose only, is "1".) So, a few factors get captured, a few more get killed, and the rest manage to find a safe haven in a nearby territory ("safe" for one turn, anyhow).

NOTE: Any retreat rule change we might make needs to be balanced. As such, it should be an option, at least until massive play-testing is done.

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 5:06:48 PM

AresMars

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I like the direction of Jimmers ideas...

to them I add;

1) what if they could retreat to the nearest depot within their movement allowance; otherwise
2) I would reduce the listed FORAGE VALUE by (lets say) "-3" to a min of "0"

Agree with the play testing comment - Support this is a BIG BIG way...

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/4/2009 6:04:40 PM

Marshall Ellis

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I think the current method works fine since a retreat inland would mostly put a corps (army) easily cut off from its supply line (IMO).

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/5/2009 11:13:26 AM

Ashtar

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I completely agree with Marshall. Regarding general retreat rules please remember that:

1) After loosing a battle there is already pursuit taking place.
2) Forage happens before battle for attacker and either before or after - according to land movement order - for the defender. So what is the rationale of
forage modifier?
3) Corps should not be surrender if unable to stay in supply. Simply, they are going to suffer heavy losses due to the lack of supply as per rules, as Marshall
correctly pointed out.

Concerning landings, I may agree that amphibious landing are way far too easy for GB, becoming more akin to teleportation that the messy thing should be to shipping 50.000 men to some enemy coastline in Napoleonic era. Mardonius proposal of a -1 to morale could be a reasonable one, as much as an increased supply cost for invasion supply (2 instead of 1). However, this should be tested since they would obviously damage GB.
However, I strongly disagree with automatic capture of the landing and loosing side: as it has been pointed out, EIA is not WWII, there is no radio communications, massive shelling of landing troops and a complete control of the coast by the defending force. Moreover, remember that land areas in EIA are tens of km wide, so you should not necessary picture a fight on the beaches against an encircling force, but rather a corp disembarking in a quit place and hastily preparing for a battle with a force marching from a few km away...

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RE: Retreating inland after amphibious assault - 5/5/2009 2:25:46 PM

Mardonius

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Per the landings, I'd go with your suggestions Ashtar... plus limiting the penalty to multi corps insertions, perhaps as this might allow GB to make those quick snatch and grabs...

After some thought, I'd not penalize the morale of the landing force. I would give them a die roll penalty instead. If anything, troops -- disciplined troops at least -- are likely to fight harder if they know there is no retreat and are therefore harder to break. Forwards or death tends to make this happen.

Your points on the fire support issues are valid, though I woudl emphasize that any landing in any era involving many troops is inherently complicated

best
Mardonius

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