Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

The overview shows the final disposition of Imperial forces and what is known of the Leftist deployments. The Leftist found their position untenable and elected to concede the war. A few days later a new war broke out, and that will be documented in a separate AA.

quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

It seems though that the Leftists had pretty bad luck, in that the majority of their forces were confined to offshore islands, but by random event the sealift didn't activate during the critical early phase of the scenario, so they were unable to use them. Was there something that the Leftists could have done differently to avoid a defeat based on these conditions? Was it a mistake for the Leftists to launch an early escalation by activating all of their allies on turn 1?

quote:

ORIGINAL: rhinobones


Lots of questions. I’ll try to answer and provide a bit of analysis.

Bad Luck. The Leftists (Larry) could have had a better roll of the dice. Leftist had three allies on the continent (Geita was occupied by the Empire and unable to deploy) which were never in a position to provide mutual assistance. Tszaq is next door to the Empire’s capital and was on the verge of being overrun.

Sea Lift. Whenever Chunya or Pangani start as a capital they start with enough sealift to transport two small units per turn. Used aggressively, the player can quickly occupy offshore resources and capital cities. A continental based player does not have that capacity. Bottom line, Chunya could have done quite a bit of damage before the major sealift deployed.

Turn 1 Allies. House rule is that a PBM game is only valid when the Empire starts with three or four allied Theater Options. For myself, I’ll typically use all first turn TOs. Also, note that once a TO is used, a delay of up to eight turns is possible before city allegiance is determined. As the game progresses you may get TOs for cities located in positions where you really do not want an enemy to appear. In that case the player can hold off using the TO until after the city’s deployment hexes have been occupied. Do this just in case the city turns against you.

Learning Curve. Give the Leftist (Larry) credit for being a gamer and not giving up on the scenario. Could the Leftist had played differently? Absolutely. This is not a scenario where the objectives are designated and points awarded. Players make their own objectives based on the forces at hand and beat the other player on the head. We are in game #3 and Larry is not the same player as in game #1.

Larry may want to offer some comments on the scenario. In the meantime, we’re enjoying the competition and another AAR is in the works. The next AAR will make it evident how then use of random force deployments makes this scenario a bit different.

Regards

quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Thanks again- that's very illuminating. I've got a lot on my TOAW wishlist at the moment and very little time, but I've always wanted to try this scenario out. I like anything where players need to work out what to do from first principles rather than based on doing or not doing whatever worked for someone else.