A question regarding sequence

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Empires in Arms the Napoleonic Wars of 1805 - 1815 >> A question regarding sequence

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A question regarding sequence - 10/24/2002 6:35:04 PM

msvknight

Posts: 85
Joined: 6/9/2001
From: Adelaide, Australia
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With this recreation of EiA you are changing all movement so that it is sequential. Are you proposing to give the English and the French any compensation for this loss of one of their great advantages ie the ability to move where they wish during the turn.

My second concern about this is that with opponents having to plot movement, we will constantly have people lashing out at air. This ignores a couple of things:

Firstly that cavalry was used to keep tabs on the enemy and cause battles to occur. How are you going to simulate this?

Secondly that each turn is a month and it was rare for armies to miss each other merely due to unlucky manouvres. In fact in EiA combat is entirely deliberate and there are many times when both sides seek battle.

To be honest, I think a lot of flavour will be lost with the simultaneous move. The fear factor of the French will be diminished and the flexibility of the English navy will be reduced. The sequence provided a marvellous way of giving a country its position within the pecking order of Europe without having to deal with fractional differences between troop qualities.

I know it is probably too late to alter this decision, and I can see much logic in simultaneous movement for ships, but the land sequence fulfils a very important purpose.:p

Post #: 1

- 10/24/2002 10:09:04 PM

sol_invictus

Posts: 1961
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Kentucky
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Marshall, I think, has said that they are looking into ways to compensate the French and British with some sort of an initiative rating for movement. They are thinking about it in any event. I dont think your second concern will be a major problem as long as both opposing armies have a large cavalry component. If two armies enter the same province and have a similar cavalry contingent, a battle will ensue. If one side has a large cavalry advantage and doesn't want a battle, there should be a chance that they can avoid a battle I would guess. The way I think it will be is going to really put a premium on guessing correctly what your opponent is up to and where he is going. Putting your entire army in a single province and barrelling toward your foe would probably mean he will sidestep you and continue about his business and probably cut your line of communications. Hopefully there will be a large degree of maneuver decisions and some tense times when trying to gain that positional edge prior to the actual clash of arms. I must confess that this is all just my thoughts because I have never even had the opportunity to play the boardgame. With the talent being used in this project; I have very high hopes that the final game will be to vast majority of players satisfaction.

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Post #: 2

I hope... - 10/25/2002 3:16:55 AM

YohanTM2

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Joined: 10/7/2002
From: Toronto
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I really hope simaltaneous movement does not become a guess which province, sneak troops around behind to cut supply game. This game is far to excellent to let that happen.

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Post #: 3

- 10/25/2002 3:37:46 AM

sol_invictus

Posts: 1961
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Kentucky
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From what little I know about the game, that would be a reason to advance with several Corps spread out over several provinces until you find the opposing army. After fighting him and pinning him in place you would hopefully be able to reinforce the battle with your other outlying Corps. That might not be feasible at the scale of the game but I think that is how the original game generally worked because there are several phases with combat and after the initial phase you have the opportunity to reinforce the battle with other friendly forces. You could also use small cavalry forces to locate the enemy and then concentrate for the battle. I agree that just blindly serching for your foe would be frustrating and would often result in you being cut off from your base but I'm sure the game mechanics will provide a sensible way to conduct military operations that take some skill and not leave everything to just dumb luck. It would also be less fun if all a person had to do was mass his whole army in a province and just move toward the general area that he thinks the enemy is in. I'm just hoping for some element of maneuver and a little cat and mouse element.

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Post #: 4

Leadership Key - 10/25/2002 10:44:08 AM

denisonh

Posts: 2194
Joined: 12/21/2001
From: Upstate SC
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As one of the four elements of combat power, leadership was a key factor in outcomes of napoleonic campaigns.

I would hope the game would wrap unit leader factors (competence, aggressiveness, inspiration, etc..), the nationality, and the corps/army commanders orders into account when determining when, where, and under what circumstances battle is joined.

The fact is that with a computer game, many more details that were germain to the outcome of campaigns and battles can be modeled. Certainly restricting ourselves to a pure EiA format will stifle any attempt to better model combat/campaign manuever of the period.

Looking at the way Napoleon conducted his campaigns, the judgement of the lead corps commander played a key role in where and when the batttle is fought (for example, Lannes at Friedland).

I would hope that this game would take some of these factors into account in a more robust way than simply "the French move first"....

_____________________________

"Life is tough, it's even tougher when you're stupid" -SGT John M. Stryker, USMC

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Post #: 5

- 10/25/2002 11:04:19 AM

sol_invictus

Posts: 1961
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Kentucky
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Denisohn, I agree wholeheartedly. I don't think Matrix is going to limit themselves. At the least they are going to make options available to expand the gameplay beyond what the boardgame allows. Time will tell.

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Post #: 6

Simultaneous? - 10/26/2002 8:30:37 AM

VictorH

Posts: 309
Joined: 9/3/2000
From: Georgetown, Texas, U.S.
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Simultaneous movement would ruin what is a good game. I would really need to see this game before purchase. Right now, I am leaning towards a no way decision.

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Post #: 7

- 10/26/2002 1:03:24 PM

msvknight

Posts: 85
Joined: 6/9/2001
From: Adelaide, Australia
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I agree. As EiA exists, you cannot afford to stick your neck out with a small army as it can be chopped out. SImmultaneous moves lends itself to the "berserker" method of randomly moving on the premise that it would take a lucky guess for the enemy to find them. You could capture a lot of small countries in the Rhein region with simultaneous movement that would be suicidal against a larger enemy force. What everybody seems to be forgetting is that each turn is a month. Napoleonic armies moved slowly and it was rare for even a single Corps location not to be known in general terms for a period of much longer than a week at a time. To suggest that the Grand Armee (which in EiA terms moved within mutual support of itself ie no more than one area apart) could lose track of an army for an entire month is laughable.

I have gamed with people who in this situation would roll a dice to decide where to go; just so they were impossible to predict. In reality, the light cavalry would find them and keep track of them. Local farmers who got looted by that army would readily give out information and even if the specifics weren't known, there would be enough information to place your army accurately.

There is a mechanism to avoid combat in the game. It's called the withdrawal battle. And if you haven't got the Strategic ability to withdrawal; well then you just take your lumps.

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Post #: 8

- 10/29/2002 11:06:33 AM

mars

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From: Australia
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yes simultaneous movement would potentially be interesting but would certainly change the way that the game plays.
If each group of units - I guess corp size formations still had a reaction range based upon the commander.

The you go - my go option takes away that problem however in an internet type of game you would want to avoid situations where players are waiting on others to have a turn.

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Post #: 9

- 10/30/2002 4:08:20 AM

msvknight

Posts: 85
Joined: 6/9/2001
From: Adelaide, Australia
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Possibly the solution would be to build in both simultaneous and sequential movement options?

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Post #: 10