tactical movement in phase 5
There is something about the way tactical movement in phase 5 works that bugs me and I was wondering if it bothered anyone else. I am beginning to think that there should not be any tactical movement after the last strategic movement phase. Wherever troops enter, that would be where they stay until the next turn.
I will use an example in my current game. I am part of the force defending my home city. I know approximately where the enemy will arrive and I know where they are going to go once they arrive. So I place a substancial force in a position that would be between the enemy's entry area and the city with orders to engage the enemy expecting that if the enemy moved into the square in the first strategic move, I would be able to hit some of the units in tac phase 3 and 4 just after they arrived to take advantage of the fact that they are entering the square blindly.
Naturally, my opponents are too smart for this and instead they enter the square at the end of the strategic phase. Arriving from three sides, their forces are somewhat spread thinner and cover a much wider area because they didn't know where the city and fords would be located.
The few troops that entered where I expected to enter march right up to my defensive line but there is no combat as it was tac phase 5. Now, they will be able to see where my troops are located and use fast units to try to pin my troops and get their spread out forces to concentrate instead of getting kicked in the teeth during tac phase 3 and 4 for entering spread out in front of a concentrated force. It seems to me that they are being rewarded for coming in late.
Another case where I could see this working in favor of an attacker is if a unit entered and had orders to march to a city. The defender of the city anticipates there arrival and due to terrain, knows that the enemy has to approach the city from a certain direction and plans to bombard the square with his artillery within the fort. If the attacker enters at the end of the turn and marches up to the fortress walls, the guns will never get to fire their bombardment because at the start of the next turn, the attacker will be storming the walls before a bombardment is ever fired.
Does this bother anyone else?
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tac move turn 5
I thought the idea of arriving late was to simulate arriving at dusk and avoiding combat until the next day. Which is why we arrived late, worked well for us. We worried a lot that there would be a blocking agent left to slow us down and keep us from the square.
There is a great degree of luck and timing in this game and I suspect in the real McCoy.
What did I learn at school today?
I learned that tac 5 has it's offensive and defensive uses.
Yes we had some good luck too.
Sam
it is a useful lesson
Your team's troop movements at the end of turn 3 couldn't have been better. This is one reason why I plan to post an account of the turn for other players to see.
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No TP5 will make combat just a slugfest
If two armies meet and can't move on TP5 they will start 8 squares apart (assuming the enter on col 11 and 3), so on TP1 of the battle not even the fast units will be able to get in contact and pin anybody. Nobody will actually be able to execute any thought out maneuvers and everybody will basically just have to rush each other with engage orders. That will make one heck of a boring game in my opinion.
In your example you seem to be saying is the any enemy that approached their objective methodically should not be more prepared than one that hurried? That doesn't seem right.
The bombard example would be a one in a million shot anyways, since the enemy would have to stop adjacent to the city on the TP you anticipated. They would most likely move right into the city.
If you want to keep the enemy from approaching your city on TP5 then put in some intercept orders to slow them down.
-nick
foot cavalry
"If two armies meet and can't move on TP5 they will start 8 squares apart (assuming the enter on col 11 and 3), so on TP1 of the battle not even the fast units will be able to get in contact and pin anybody."
If one side arrives on the square first after only moving 1 strategic phase, it would be able to move in tac phase 3 and 4 to get into position before the other side arrives. If both sides arrived in the last strategic phase, they would have to march towards each other before combat. This would be exactly the same thing that would happen if both side arrived in a square after one strategic phase of movement. This seems more realistic than allowing one side to arrive late and then march up to point blank range while the defender, who has been waiting for 2 or 4 tactical phases, just sits and watches as the enemy collectively forms up. Having comabt in tac phase 5 would allow a smaller defending force a chance to hit and repulse one group as it enters and then turn to face another entering unit at the beginning of the next turn.
Perhaps the idea was that units that arrive after tac phase 4 are arriving at night and night combat was rare. I can understand this logic but then it would seem to me that no units should then move tactically at night because of the difficulties involved in trying to carry out deployment in unknown territory at not. Not allowing movement after the last strategic move would still allow a smaller force to defend one corner and hit an enemy there before enemy entering a different part of the square could engage.
What happens now is that a defending unit can be between one to four miles away from an enemy and cannot fight while another enemy infantry unit can move as many as 12 squares, cavalry even further, before combat occurs.
For example, an IN is sitting at 3-7. An enemy infantry unit arrives in strategic phase 4 at 2-7. At the same time another enemy light infantry unit arrives on the opposite side of the map at 11-7 (it got 4 "free" squares of movement upon entry (column 14,13,12,11). It then moves 4 more squares in tac phase 5 and therefore moves to 7-7. At the beginning of the next turn, the light infantry, being a fast unit, moves first to 3-7, pinning the defending unit which is then also hit from the west by the other infantry brigade. This in effect makes the light infantry move 11 miles before the normal infantry unit can move one. I think this is a bit much.
"In your example you seem to be saying is the any enemy that approached their objective methodically should not be more prepared than one that hurried? That doesn't seem right."
It isn't any more methodical for a division to enter after one strategic phase than after two. This is particularly true if the late arriving units traveled more than 1 strategic square because the probably have been moving in a closed column formation in order to cover some much ground on the march.
In NWOL3, over half of my cavalry units were LC. These summer games have definately shown how important fast moving units are so I'm sure in the next NWOL game, I will have an even greater proportion of fast moving units than before.
"The bombard example would be a one in a million shot anyways, since the enemy would have to stop adjacent to the city on the TP you anticipated. They would most likely move right into the city."
If it is enemy infantry, then unless they use a waypoint to alter the distance traveled, it is actually something like a 1 in 8 chance of getting hit by the bombardment. If the unit is between 1 and 4 squares away, it will reach the city before the guns can fire. If it is 5 away, it will stop in the adjacent square and get hit. If it is 6, 7 or 8, it will move 4 and be too far to get hit in the combat phase and will then close the distance before the guns can fire again.
If there was combat in tac phase 5, then the chance goes way up because a defender could be watching a ford and give orders to bombard the ford in tac phase 5. An enemy unit that enters within range of the ford with orders to march immediately to the ford is going to march right into the bombardment.
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I thought I'd point out that
I thought I'd point out that LI are not fast...
Never post drunk...unless that is your norm.
corrrection
Sorry, my mistake. LI are not fast units but this doesn't alter my arguement. As movement for the start of tac phase 1 would be randomly selected, there would be a better chance that the enemy LI and IN would move before the defending IN. Regardless of who attacks whom, the LI would still be able to move to join the battle in tac phase 1. It is still the case that that the defending IN would not be able to engage the enemy IN that was one tac square away on one side of the map before the LI could cross the entire map and hit it from behind as long as both enemy units entered after strategic phase 1.
I think if there is movement in tac phase 5, there should also be combat. If there is no tac phase 5 movement, then no combat. I believe the second choice would make more sense. Otherwise, an infantry unit that had just marched between 30 and 45 miles in a turn (strategic phase 2,3, and 4) could then still move another 4 miles (tac phase 5) and deploy for battle in the same amount of time it took a defending unit to move 4 miles (in tac phase 5).
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No movement or allow comabt on TP5?
I'm confused now, or maybe your position is evolving.
Do you want there to be no movement on TP5 or do you want there to be combat allowed on TP5?
Once we have that sorted out I can pick up the discussion, since my argument will be different depending on what we are debating.
TP5
I think TP5 was included because in the original NWOL units entered in rows / columns 0 and 14. And you did not want to be in row / column 0 or 14 at the start of the next turn. Pinned against the map edge meant certain death. So TP5 was the means to get off the edge.
So perhaps it is no longer necessary or desireable.
Charlie
It depends TP5 movement now
It depends TP5 movement now can be a great way for a smaller or less fast unit army to get some initiative. Engage TP5 won't lead to combat and instead you'll stop adjacent to your opponent. Come next turn you won't be able to get intercepted or blocked from hitting your target (esp. if you're a fast unit).
it lets you redeploy your line better, it offers wider move variations. TP5 mv. is 100% fine in my personal view.
Never post drunk...unless that is your norm.
Initiative for smaller units
I don't think the issue is about small units getting initiative. It is giving units that arrive after strategic phase 1 a chance at getting intiative that they wouldn't have if they arrived in strategic phase 1. If a small force arrives late and is facing a large unit, the large force is still going to have an advantage, although decreased, because they will have more brigades to move and since movement order is randomly selected (not counting fast units moving first), the smaller units are more likely to be contacted before they move.
"8.3. If a unit encounters an enemy unit during its move, either at the destination or prior to the destination, then its movement is halted, as is the movement of the enemy unit or units it encountered, and a combat begins."
What it does is take away the initiative of a defending force that can guess where the enemy will enter. The defending force is in position and ready to attack with orders to engage but because the enemy arrives at 7 pm instead of 5 pm, it does nothing while the enemy marches up to point blank range from multiple points. It just seems illogical. If an enemy unit is one strategic square away and is going to move blindly into a square, it is better off moving on strategic phase 2 than in strategic phase 1 to avoid getting hammered upon entry.
What if the battle of Austerlitz worked in this manner. Napoleon would have had his defending force set up and waiting for the Coalition force to arrive and march up in the fog with Davout marching to arrive in the nick of time to strike the Coalition by surprise. Except the slow moving Coalition forces arrive at the end of the day and then march up to Napoleon's defensive positions and Davout's force without any risk of combat. The next morning, the larger Coalition forces then have the upper hand because they see all of Napoleon's troops, have moved into range and can plan a well coordinated attack, and prematurely end Napoleon's career.
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Good with the bad
Robert,
By its very nature the game is going to need a large amount of abstraction. Ideally we would run a turn that consists of 2 tac phases and one strat phase. This would basically eliminate any unrealistic effects such as those you describe. Unfortunately it would make the game last about a million years or require a turn to run every day to keep pace. Either one would probably kill off the player base.
So we have to accept that some unrealistic things are going to happen for the good of the game. So an enemy unit can move 4 miles unopposed in TP5. Overall is that worse then the effects of adding another round of combat to each turn, potentially increasing the fatigue of every unit involved leading to vastly increased carnage due to shattering units? Or will we no longer be able to have units move into a city or a river ford at the end of a march (or reinforce the defenses)?
end of a march
"Or will we no longer be able to have units move into a city or a river ford at the end of a march."
If there was no movement or combat after strat phase 4, units would just move at the beginning of the next turn instead of the end of the previous one. Both sides would still have the same chance of reaching the city first in tac phase 1 as they would in tac phase 5.
If players didn't want the forces to be too far apart after entry to the square, then perhaps the entry points could be changed to allow sides to enter as far in as 6 squares. This would still leave a small gap between forces but would give them a couple extra squares to move away from the map edges if they so chose.
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Not the same
Replacing a TP5 move with a TP1 move the next turn is not anywhere near the same. Since you only get one move per turn, there would be no way to set up your forces the turn before.
So it would be really difficult to be able to attack across a river, since you would have to use your move to get to the ford, eliminating the chances of flanking or anything else. You need to be able to move to the ford the turn before the attack.
There is also a fatigue issue here, since fatigue is recovered at the end of the turn, so TP5 moves could be erased before the battle, impacting the results.
my point exactly
It should be difficult to attack across a river. An enemy force isn't going to sit idly by (unless it is a poorly led Austrian force facing the French or an equally poorly led U.S. force facing C.S.A troops :) ) and let the enemy march up to the ford and cross. There are plenty of historical examples, especially of instances were a smaller force was able to defeat a larger one by defending the crossing.
The fatigue recovery also bothers me. A unit that just marched 45 miles will be able to drop the fatigue it gained from the march and be just as rested as a unit that has been stationary in the square. All of these things take away advantages that should go to the defender.
If the rules stay as they are, it won't particularly bother me. I am not one to sit around and try to defend a city. I would rather focus on destroying the enemy regardless of where they are located and if I take a city in the process, then it is just a bonus. If it wasn't for the special rules for the summer games regarding cities, we would have fought our games completely differently.
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fatigue recovery
I agree with your concern about the fatigue recovery. A unit being stationary should have some sort of 'edge'. Anyone ever discussed whether a stationary unit could 'entrench' perhaps gain 10 or 20% defensive bonus. Especially in front of a fort. I take the revolutionary war example of Yorktown as evidence entrenchments were used in the era. Just a thought. Would make dragging the SA along make more sense. There are all kinds of options, entrenching could cost some fatigue points, would limited offensive options etc.
Sam
interesting idea
While I believe the entrenchments at Yorktown, the Great and lesser Redoubts at Borodino, and the Lines at Torres Vedras took weeks or months to construct, there might something that could be done to improve a stationary unit's position.
I don't know how complicated it would be in programming but perhaps at the very least, perhaps a unit that remained completely stationary for a full turn (and not under siege) might get a morale improvement because they didn't have to go marching all over the country side.
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Battle Strength Modifier
There are already the following modifiers:
Tactical movement during the same tactical phase as the battle: siege artillery -75%, other artillery -20%, cavalry +25%, militia -33%, in forest terrain -20% (all branches)
movement modifiers
These would apply to any units that moved in the tactical phase but would not account for any prolonged rest or march prior to combat.
Discussing the rules and how they work has helped me as much or more as playing a round of combat. Thanks for everyone's input.
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Some stationary benefits already
Stationary units already get a couple benefits.
1- They don't gain fatigue, which at higher levels decrease your strength.
2- They gain the defensive terrain bonus.
I would support a move to tie in morale, but I'd probably tie it to fatigue rather than lack of movement. Inactivity can have a negative impact on morale as well.
-nick
Out Thought Yourself
Sounds like you out thought yourself and were beat by a better plan. Your situation is no different than any others. You plan for the situation in tac phase 5. Too bad you bombarded dirt. Better luck next time.
sarcastic wank
sarcastic wank
Never post drunk...unless that is your norm.
Dreads
Ah stick it in your dreads and smoke it little one.
Hahaha!
Carl
no dirt was killed
We didn't order a bombardment. That part was hypothetical.
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