Invading Russia

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Empires in Arms the Napoleonic Wars of 1805 - 1815 >> Invading Russia

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Invading Russia - 3/11/2005 7:08:42 PM

Titi

Posts: 153
Joined: 9/15/2001
From: Montr�al
Status: offline

quote:

invading russia is easy

The harder way to prevent an invasion of Russia while i was playing it, even if it wasn't an 1805 campaign game is when the target was St-Petersburg.

Once conquered, it's a good place to forage and the enemy may even try to use Finland, especially if Russian at start, to supply his invasion force.

The marsh is limiting the choice of chits and made a counter-attack with Russian militia even harder : the morale can be broken in the first round.

With some support of GB, so generally not for the French

,he also has a superior mobility by sea than Russia.

So in this situation, i agree with the above quote from another threat.
But that doesn't mean that Russia will be finished or will want to surrender, just the major part of the job is done.

Post #: 1

RE: Invading Russia - 3/11/2005 7:53:19 PM

NeverMan

Posts: 1722
Joined: 2/24/2004
Status: offline

I guess if we are already supposing that the invading force has taken St. Pete's and has held it and is currently holding it from attack, then yes, invading Russia might be easy.

If I was playing France and somehow managed to take and hold London, then invading England would be easy.

The hard part about invading Russia or England is getting to that point, which is VERY difficult and the English and/or Russian player should never let this happen and has good means at their disposal to that end.

(in reply to Titi)

Post #: 2

RE: Invading Russia - 3/11/2005 8:03:44 PM

Pippin

Posts: 1233
Joined: 11/9/2002
Status: offline

Well I agree about invading England. If you are trying to do this alone, then it is not very likely to ever happen unless Britain makes a mistake. Then suddenly it becomes easy as hell to do... Or, if you end up getting quite a bit of good dice in the waters...

That being said, I do not know why people complain how it is unfair that Britain has so many ships and can go sailing around the world taking over all the little places. Someone who does this is just asking for trouble.

_____________________________

Nelson stood on deck and observed as the last of the Spanish fleets sank below the waves�

(in reply to NeverMan)

Post #: 3

RE: Invading Russia - 3/12/2005 12:50:58 AM

Regeurk

Posts: 24
Joined: 11/17/2004
From: Denver, Colo.
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Pippin

Well I agree about invading England. If you are trying to do this alone, then it is not very likely to ever happen unless Britain makes a mistake...

What would be an example of this mistake. I assume it has to do with not having adequate British fleets able to flood into the channel at a moments' notice. Forgive what appears to be a newbie question, but I've never been in a game where Britain was successfully invaded, so I'm wondering what, specifically, are the mistakes that would make it possible? Thanks, Pippin.

Regeurk

(in reply to Pippin)

Post #: 4

RE: Invading Russia - 3/12/2005 5:15:13 AM

montesaurus

Posts: 489
Joined: 7/27/2003
Status: offline

As the French player one way to invade RU is to be allied with Prussia, and convince him to go to war with RU so you can utilize PR's Depots(providing your ally with plenty of money of course to pay for it!).

The French may also do it by obtaining an unconditional victory against PR, and then claiming one of the most eastern provinces as a supply source, and also unconditional access to PR.

Montesaurus

_____________________________

montesaurus
French Player in Going Again II 1792

(in reply to Titi)

Post #: 5

RE: Invading Russia - 3/12/2005 8:01:39 PM

donkuchi19

Posts: 1062
Joined: 3/14/2004
From: Cleveland, Ohio
Status: offline

I saw once when GB was invaded successfully. The Brits allowed the French to ally with Russia. The combined fleets of Russia, France, Holland, Sweden, and Denmark then caught parts of the British fleet in several separate battles and sunk them in detail. The Brits failed diplomatically and then failed to concentrate their fleet and were defeated piecemeal. France proceeded to invade before GB unconditionally surrendured and lost Ireland to France. The Brits were never allowed to build a big fleet again because if it started to grow, it was attacked by a very powerful French fleet. Needless to say, France won this game.

(in reply to montesaurus)

Post #: 6

RE: Invading Russia - 3/12/2005 10:04:57 PM

NeverMan

Posts: 1722
Joined: 2/24/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Regeurk

quote:

ORIGINAL: Pippin

Well I agree about invading England. If you are trying to do this alone, then it is not very likely to ever happen unless Britain makes a mistake...

What would be an example of this mistake. I assume it has to do with not having adequate British fleets able to flood into the channel at a moments' notice. Forgive what appears to be a newbie question, but I've never been in a game where Britain was successfully invaded, so I'm wondering what, specifically, are the mistakes that would make it possible? Thanks, Pippin.

Regeurk

One bad die roll! LOL. Seriously, this is all it takes. The GB player can be so pre-occupied with what's happening all around the world that sometimes (not very often and it should never really happen) the GB player forgets to keep a fleet in the channel or forgets to blockade a french corp, or just does something thinking the rules are one way, when they are in fact the other way.

An example I saw one time: During Winter the Russian fleets were sitting off of Sweden (in the non-frozen area), the GB took almost all it's fleets to bear on the Russian Navy, well, as luck would have it the Russian player evaded with a roll of a '1' and (in a wierd rule) went thru the GB navy to the other non-frozen spot up there (as he couldn't retreat to the frozen spot), then the Russian player on his turn went to the english channel and barely destroyed the Naples fleet (17 ships) that GB had sitting there. In the Land Phase, the French came across BIG. It was ugly.

This example was able to occur because at the beginning of the month, GB and Russia were not at war and the Russian's were doing something with it's fleets (which is why it didn't have them in St. Pete's for the winter). The Austrian player (GB ally) convinced Spain to carry some of it's corps into the Black Sea to attacked the retreating Turkish army (the Spanish player was somewhat of a newbie). The turkish players strategy to defend against Austria was to suck up the monetary and PP lose of Austria holding Turkey while waiting for France to come back around after enforced peace to attack Austria, then Turkey would come out of hiding and invade Austria with France. Turkey was getting subsidized by France in the meantime. Well, whoever controls Const. controls the strait there, and GB and Austria had a plan to trap Spain's fleets (who was allied with Russia and had a large Navy) in the Black Sea.

It was a good strategy by the GB and AU players, except for the evading die roll of a '1'. That die roll lead to the downfall of GB and AU was left holding the bag in the face of it's allies that it had just pissed off to help give GB an advantage and itself in the long run.

So, you see, a die roll can really screw you in this game.

< Message edited by NeverMan -- 3/12/2005 8:04:04 PM >

(in reply to Regeurk)

Post #: 7

RE: Invading Russia - 3/12/2005 11:18:05 PM

Barbu

Posts: 46
Joined: 10/14/2004
From: Montreal, Canada
Status: offline

It's a common mistake for the russian player to see himself as an essentially land power, usually due to a first glance at geography which would tend to indicate that. However, that's completely false. Defeating Russia by going all the way to Moscow can require a coalition arguably stronger than would be needed to defeat France. Landing at St-Petersburg is the obviously easier (and much faster) solution, a fact that a ton of russian players tend to overlook. I've seen it repeatedly happen, to the point that if I was playing Russia, my #1 priority would be to be absolutely certain that GB would never ever come close to reaching total naval supremacy. Without necessarily being downright hostile toward GB, I'd make sure that I'd have a solid alliance with the spanish player, and that both Denmark and Sweden would end up in my hands. If that doesn't work, jump in bed with France and annihilate GB - but still making sure you will end up with a fleet that can still be competitive with the french one. Or something as close as possible to that scenario.

< Message edited by Barbu -- 3/13/2005 5:38:34 PM >

(in reply to NeverMan)

Post #: 8

RE: Invading Russia - 3/13/2005 12:53:13 AM

Pippin

Posts: 1233
Joined: 11/9/2002
Status: offline

quote:

What would be an example of this mistake. I assume it has to do with not having adequate British fleets able to flood into the channel at a moments' notice. Forgive what appears to be a newbie question, but I've never been in a game where Britain was successfully invaded, so I'm wondering what, specifically, are the mistakes that would make it possible? Thanks, Pippin.

Regeurk

One bad die roll! LOL.

I agree one bad die roll can do it. Though often it takes more. IMHO the most underestimated territory in the entire game is Lille. If there is one center point of balance in the game it is here.

With that arrow system in place, you have the problem of France just waltzing directly into London. More surprisingly, is she does not even need any boats to do it! Nor does anyone else stationed on Lille. I�ve seen stacks of both French and Spanish corps stockpiling on Lille awaiting that coming moment for them to march across.

On the other side, France has to keep it guarded as well because England can just waltz across too and even land a cav unit directly into France. Every unit France leaves behind to watch, is one less unit that she can use to tear up all the other little guys.

That being said� Britain better not make mistakes. Too much self confidence will do it though. Splitting your navy is not often a wise thing to do. A Britain who goes off sailing around the world risks getting repercussions on it later. Even if you do have what appears to be a nice stack of ships at home, is it really strong enough? What happens when France and Spain combine movement. Do you have enough to break that naval stack, even with low dice? What if Russia joins in too? I�ve seen Turkey also send ships all around the world to join in the �beat up Britain� plan.

One misconception is that you NEED to keep ships stationed in the channel. This is not exactly true (depending on house rules!) Naval phase happens BEFORE Land phase so if you suddenly find yourself at war with someone who wants to march across, you can often bring that navy back before the corps get their movement.

WATCH THE TURN ORDER! Just because you can bring ships back up to stop corps from marching across isn�t everything, did you choose to move your navy early, or last? If it is not last, make DOUBLE sure someone else can not sink what you have there so it will be gone the second corps� start marching. You will not have any control if this happens and will be facing an unconditional surrender. Remember, re-blocking the channel AFTER units have marched across, is not going to help much as the enemy has already landed! Unless of course the enemy was planning a weak gambit due to other problems.

Keep in mind this is not even considering the issue of naval transports, which is a whole other problem altogether. Sure, there are may tricks Britain can do to try and counter this, as well as counter transport tricks everyone else can try, (and lots of rules lawyering and bending).

_____________________________

Nelson stood on deck and observed as the last of the Spanish fleets sank below the waves�

(in reply to Barbu)

Post #: 9

RE: Invading Russia - 3/13/2005 2:48:23 AM

NeverMan

Posts: 1722
Joined: 2/24/2004
Status: offline

Yes, if you are GB, you can keep control of the channel while still reaching out and striking people, simply by choosing to go last then first. The same applies to France for land. This works really well for France due to commanders good str. value (can withdraw fairly easily). So France can sit, when attacked has the option to withdraw fairly well and can then go last and first, which is something "The Coalition" needs to always be careful of, cuz he can really reach out and touch someone, particularly with good forage values.

In that example above I used, France did indeed have a full corp sitting there waiting for GB to mess up and also for protection against GB. And if you are GB, it is hard with such a small army (which I think at the time was helping Au morale out by combining corp in stacks against France in Mid-Europe, along with Wellington there so the "coalition" could have three good leaders (Charles, Wellington, Blucher) ) to be everywhere at once, so sometimes you find yourself understocked at home or getting to confident with your navy and strategic plans.

One die roll is all it takes.

< Message edited by NeverMan -- 3/13/2005 12:46:24 AM >

(in reply to Pippin)

Post #: 10