Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: 98locko

Hi...

I'm currently playing EIA with my friends... on the board game... and we all had a technical information to ask you guys.

There was a battle between the Russian and the English. The Russian surrounded the English army of Willington with one big pill and 5 small corps. The English has choose Withdraw and his dice roll was successful. Can the English withdraw even if he is completely surrounded!!??

We taught no... if yes... how does it happed! Where does he retreat???

Tnx a lot.

A major fan of the EIA game

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ORIGINAL: 98locko

So even if the army has been completely surrounded and all the provinces around it have a enemy corps, it withdraws... but instead of backing of one space... it backs from 2!!!

Is that it???

And if the army doesn't have any depots on the map... It have to surrender???

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surrender???

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ORIGINAL: 98locko

And if the army doesn't have any depots on the map... It have to surrender???

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ORIGINAL: donkuchi

The only way I have seen entire armies lost is due to surrendur terms where you lose corps.

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ORIGINAL: Hoche

Can a corps retreat into a neutral minor?

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That is one of the reasons Russia is so powerful, because it is VERY difficult to invade Russia. Using the 1 factor corp army (which is easy for Russia due to the large number of corps in the army) and then using cossacks to burn enemy depots, makes it very difficult to invade Russia, which is the way it should be.

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ORIGINAL: timothy_stone

Some people use the rule that says 5:1 fights get resolved as trivial combats to argue that 5:1 fights are not worth a pp. -- when played that way, the attacker just comes in with a 4-factor corps (with 1 cav factor for the +1) then reinforces to finish the fight - france has plenty of leaders for that.

p.s. personally, i disagree with the interpretation that "resolved as a trivial combat" means that there is no pp involved - to me it simply means that you don't bother with chits - which is an option for *any* field combat. but the pp cost remains.

but that is a different discussion. : )

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ORIGINAL: Titi

7.5.3.5: No political points are gained or lost in trivial combats. EXCEPTION: If both commanders had agreed to resolve what could have been a field or limited field combat by using trivial combat procedures, the normal political point changes are made (see 7.5.2.10.1.3).

I'm unable to find anything in the official rule about 5/1 odds becoming trivial combats so i guess it's a house rule or time has come to buy new glasses. But that doesn't prevent the application of the Exception above.

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ORIGINAL: Titi

You're right, got this from the errata (The General 25/4) :

12.3.10: OVERWHELMING NUMBERS: Field or limited field combats where one side has a 5:1 or better ratio in strength factors _must_ be resolved using trivial combat. EXCEPTION: An outnumbered _defender_ may attempt to withdraw before the trivial combat by rolling the commander's strategic rating or less.

And here we have obviously a rule problem with an errata poorly written. First, you don't know if you have overwhelming numbers until 7.5.2.6 STEP SIX-REVEAL FORCES/MORALE LEVELS: Both players reveal their forces and determine their final morale levels.. That's clearly working in the opposite way that : 7.5.3.1: Trivial combats are resolved similarly to field combats, but the procedure is much simplified. No operational possibilities chits are chosen <cut>.


IMHO if i use this errata, i will only replace step 7 and part of eight aka artillery by the field combat and keep the others, including PP win/loses.

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About your different discussion, I have to tell you that you are right, there are PP involved, even with the 5:1 trivial combat rule. As you said, it is simply to avoid to choose a chit since there is no sense in such a proportion of troops.
And there is always a lost of PP since there are corps involved in the fight, that is the basic rule, corps involved in a combat, PPs won/lost.

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The whole point of that strategy isn't to defeat the invading nation nor to win pps. The point is to stale the invading nation and make the invasion as costly as possible to the invader. If you can deplete the invaders war chest while staling it's movement into your country while losing minimum army factors, then maybe you can find an ally against the invader or test the patience of the invader so much that he/she makes a mistake and puts themselves in a position for you to take advantage of.

If you think it is easy to invade Russia then you have been playing with incompetent Russian players. It is very hard to go "get poland" or to "march onto Moscow". If you declare war on Russia and Russia chooses to fight you on it's borders rather than inside it's country, then the Russian player either has a big upper hand or is incompetent.

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ORIGINAL: timothy_stone


So... how do you leap from my statement that playing the screening game, especially against the french can cost a ton of pps to the conclusion that i must think that invading russia is easy, or that my the folks i play with are imcompetent? Please don't put words into my mouth and then try to score points off of these imagined sayings and insult my friends in response - that's not all that nice.

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ORIGINAL: John Umber

It would be nice if you could post those rules that people were arguing about.

The only way I have fought with "small" corps was when trying to circle the french main army and I got Prussia and Russia with me (playing Austria). It got a lot of minor out from the french army, but cost a lot of PP as you have noticed.

In the end we won when England joined in and we simply outnumbered the French. It was fun though.