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Operational level? - 12/19/2005 12:26:27 AM   
Real and Simulated Wars

 

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Given the stelar reviews and higher praise from the forums posters here, I am having a hard time resisting to buy this game.
I'm more or less ignorant in Napoleonic warfare. But I have read that Napoleon exceled at the operational maneuver and that he was more or less predictable at the tactical level. I don't know if these last statements are true, but I am amazed at how Napoleon maneuvered his armies/corps separated and confluenced just in time for the battle.
As far as I can see from this forums, operational maneuvers are not modelled. Is that true? You just march into a province and if the enemy is in there a battle ensues?
Your feedback is appreciated.

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RE: Operational level? - 12/19/2005 2:48:20 AM   
jimwinsor


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Well...when a good sized town is only 3-4 hexes big, fog-of-war horizon of 6 hexes away, rivers one hexside wide, and your basic manuever unit is the 10,000 man division...I ponder whether the "tactical" battles might better be termed "operational" battles in this game.

Matter of semantics really. You do get a good operational feel in the "tactical" battles though I must say.

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RE: Operational level? - 12/19/2005 3:07:33 AM   
Real and Simulated Wars

 

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Hi Jim,
That's a clever response. Thank you!


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RE: Operational level? - 12/19/2005 7:35:37 PM   
Real and Simulated Wars

 

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Hi Jim,
I have been thinking about this. Your feedback sounds spot on. However, I have seen screenies of battles in which artillery units (I suspect each one represents an entire battery) fires and eliminates an entire infantry div at ranges up to 4 hexes. The scale becomes then a bit confusing: artillery droping effective fire at 4 hexes range, when actually the field of view extends to 6 hexes. In addition, it looks like these artillery units cannot be stacked along with infantry, cavalry or even with other artillery units. That disorients me a bit on what exactly is the detailed battle is showing.


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RE: Operational level? - 12/19/2005 8:43:41 PM   
TexHorns

 

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Chelco,

Those incidents of artillery obliterating an infantry division occur later in the game after artillery upgrades have been selected. So if a country chooses other upgrades than artillery then the effect of the artillery will be limited. The effect of artillery "stacking" with infantry or cavalry is achieved by the rule that artillery, nor supply for that matter, can be charged from a hex that is adjacent to an ordered infantry or cavalry division.

The scale is not truly tactical, but is more tactical in feel than operational to me. Casualties for charge and artillery fire seem excessively high. But I beleive that it is done to achieve a shorter battle time. Large battles can extend to an hour. In my current game as France in 1802 and in the lead in Glory, Sweden, Austria, and Russia all deemed it necessary to DOW me at the same time. So in any given turn I have 5 or 6 battles occuring. Sometimes more. I quick battle those I can and detail battle those that are most important. So as you can see in this instance, playing a single turn is taking a long time.

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RE: Operational level? - 12/19/2005 8:54:30 PM   
jimwinsor


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You know I'm not really sure what the hex scale is supposed to be. I know that day turns in combat are 40 minutes long, and that an inf div in column can march about 6 hexes in one turn over clear terrain, so...?

Full strength artillery has 3000 men (maybe more with Massed Artillery upgrades), so thats 300 guns (?).

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RE: Operational level? - 12/19/2005 11:30:04 PM   
Real and Simulated Wars

 

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Thanks Tom and Jim,
So, if each artillery unit has 300 guns, I can now understand the heavy infantry casualties. I also understand now why the artillery units cannot be stacked with other units.
The great asymetry in battle casualties for winner and looser is a bit worrying for me, but that could be just my ignorance. My only experience with linear warfare is from the American Civil War, with its frequent phyrric victories. Do the casualties figures include casualties during pursuit?
As for the scale of the hexes, I don't know how fast troops in formation could march. But I guess not faster than 5km per hour and not slower than 2 km per hour. I'm just guessing in the dark, more accurate info from the grogs would be great. According to the two previous guesses, hex center to hex center distance can be from around 200m to around 500m. And, assuming those values as right (a thing I doubt) the battlefield is from 10X10km to 25X25km. These last values suggest there is plenty of room for operational maneuver.
Cheers,



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RE: Operational level? - 12/20/2005 3:05:03 AM   
ericbabe


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I have a few long posts about the scale of detailed combat on other threads, but will try to give a quick summary:

We had to do some abstraction with the scale since with 10,000 men / division a division might easily span several hexes or be bunched into a single hex depending on how it was deployed. Similarly, with a more literal representation of a division standing in the hex, at that scale all weapons would only have an effective range of one hex -- and this is how early beta versions of detailed combat actually worked. However, none of the early testers (or members of the development team) liked that single-hex range very much, and so we decided to think of the hex more as representing the base of operations for the division and so justified increasing the ranges a bit.

We approximated about 250-350 yards per hex for most of our calculations, and got this number from looking at battlefield densities as reported in the appendix of Chandler's book.




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RE: Operational level? - 12/20/2005 7:09:33 AM   
Real and Simulated Wars

 

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Thanks Eric,


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