"Six Days in October" -- Organizational Post

Started by Cyrano, September 19, 2016, 10:02:42 PM

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JasonPratt

Admittedly, I do that for random enemy officers, too, as I deem appropriate. Rumors that they spring back to life afterward and arrive safely unwounded back home to their wife and newborn child thousands of miles away ARE COMPLETELY UNFOUNDED RUSSIAN RUMORS, besides which, for my enemies they would arrive home in time for their wife to die in childbirth sending them into a hellish depression of selfishness making them irresistible to 16 year old girls, resulting in horrible scandal.

It is not my fault that these rumors get spread, nor that they are so strangely detailed. Russians are weird like this.
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MetalDog

I looked through the OOB.  To me, it seems the more detailed, the more Napoleonic gamers, such as yourselves, like it.  Another thought, do you play games like this to solve the puzzle of getting your troops when, where, how, and why?  Or do you feel like you are effecting history in some way?  Or maybe just enjoying the narrative the unfolding game brings according to the orders you and the others give?  Is it something else altogether?  What say you, gents?
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

Cyrano

@MetalDog:  I learn through these games.  I read the designer notes, read the histories, and discover things that I never would have realized had I not played.  Simple example:  It wasn't until I played LABAT Mt. St. Jean that I realized Napoleon couldn't have seen Hougoumont for much of the battle given where the record indicates he was located.  I was elated when I found this to be true when I visited the first time.

I would also note that I play KS-style games because I love the feeling of groping in the darkness, guessing what's out there, and discovering in the end how horribly wrong I was.  It's like Bind Man's Bluff with cannon.

Sergeant at Arms of La Fraternite des Boutons Carres

One mustachioed, cigar-chomping, bespectacled deity, entirely at your service.

You didn't know? My Corps has already sailed to Berlin. We got there 3 days ago and we've been in the Tiergarten on the piss ever since. -- Marshal Soult, October 1806

Cyrano

#34
Let's march, shall we?

One of the first realities that VdA, erm, inflicts on the player is that armies on the march in this era were really big, covering a lot of ground, and, if marching on a road, were really, really long.

Each day, corps commanders will be expected to lay out their orders for their troops in a format much like this one (stolen wholesale from a helpful link from Doug):

Sender:
Time Sent:
Recipient:
Time Received:(Filled in by umpire)
Unit Marching:
Route of March:
Time to Spend Marching:
Expected Objective:
Rules of Engagement:
Dispatches:

I've not finalized it -- it will look a bit fancier -- but you get the sense of it.  Runners, moving at 10 kph, will have their arrivals calculated and the armies will lurch to life from there.  On the march, they will look like big snakes making their way through Saxony.  How big?  Check this out:



A bit of simple math will tell you Drouet's 6,000 men above cover 3 km on the march.  Were they Prussians, this would be closer to 3.5 km due to the 15% modifier for wagons.  This matters in a number of ways:

1.  It affects the entire corps' order of march as one division cannot leave until another has cleared the area -- unless they're marching side-by-side which can really slow things down for those not on the road.

2.  If affects arrival on the battlefield as will be seen later.

3.  I will consistently ask to know where corps commanders are.  It is quite possible for their corps to be in an action that they cannot see without riding to the spot.

4.  Should enemies chance into one another on the march -- as happened in this campaign -- it can effect where in the "line" the armies meet.

All this said, do not attempt to micromanage your troops. It can't work.

Next time, movement rates and tiring out on the march.
Sergeant at Arms of La Fraternite des Boutons Carres

One mustachioed, cigar-chomping, bespectacled deity, entirely at your service.

You didn't know? My Corps has already sailed to Berlin. We got there 3 days ago and we've been in the Tiergarten on the piss ever since. -- Marshal Soult, October 1806

panzerde

Quote from: MetalDog on September 22, 2016, 10:52:39 PM
I looked through the OOB.  To me, it seems the more detailed, the more Napoleonic gamers, such as yourselves, like it.  Another thought, do you play games like this to solve the puzzle of getting your troops when, where, how, and why?  Or do you feel like you are effecting history in some way?  Or maybe just enjoying the narrative the unfolding game brings according to the orders you and the others give?  Is it something else altogether?  What say you, gents?


For me, I'm primarily interested in the issues of command during the different periods. I run a small company, and the number one challenge is to keep everyone oriented toward the mission and what we're trying to achieve. It's 2016 and I have amazing tools to do that with. No one is shooting at us. The absolute worst thing that could happen to us is that we go out of business. It's still tough. But these guys that were playing as - they had to move tens of thousands of people across terrible roads, with no motorized transport, knowing that they were moving toward people that were going to shoot at them, the men knowing that they might well die - or potentially worse, be wounded! They had no radios, no aircraft, nothing better than guys on horses to go out and find where the enemy was - and yet, somehow they made it all work, got people where they needed to be, and quite frequently, pulled off amazing feats of generalship. The more a game simulates those challenges, the more appealing I find it to be. Very little comes as close as KS to simulating the problems of command during this era.  Beyond that, I actually find the lessons that can be drawn from an experience like this very useful in my work. Doing things like this has given me some pretty useful food for thought.


Those that I've hung out with at Origins will know that the original reason I showed up there was because I wanted to play Command Post Wargaming, which is effectively a modern Kriegsspiel with an AI opponent. Flashpoint Campaigns is a fantastic game; but FPC played as part of a team acting as a brigade staff, in an umpired setting is flat out amazing. It's the same deal, just a different era.


The other thing that draws me in, and this applies to the Napoleonic era more specifically, has to do with learning about the interaction of the technology of the time, the society of the period, and how those things come together to produce a military environment that results in a specific type of armed force. There are specific times historically where those things produced dramatic change in how wars were fought and thus often caused significant changes in the course of nations and the lives of millions of people. The Napoleonic Wars were one of those periods. Napoleon was a product of his times, and the society he developed in, along with some technological changes that he was able to capitalize on. This is a period where a small group of military thinkers - culminating in Napoleon Bonaparte - took a look at how war was being fought and thought something different that dramatically changed how wars were conducted. In playing games like this I'm able to try and replicate that thinking, and to experiment with applying the principles of the era's warfare to many different situations. Adding people into it, and rules that more effectively simulate the conditions of the period only make that more fun and interesting.


Certainly there are a lot of Napoleonic gamers that are primarily interested in the uniforms, or the tactics, or other fascinating minutiae. I find that stuff cool, but not enough to really spend a lot of time on. I like it when the armies I deploy look sharp, but all of the uniforms could be completely wrong for all that I know. I don't care that much about square buttons. I guess that means I can't join the more fashionable Napoleonic gentlemen's clubs?


So, I guess it's a little bit of the puzzle, and a little bit of effecting history. As much as that though, it's just the fun of doing something like this with a group of people that are equally interested, and who will share an experience and story after it's all over and done that we can talk about over beers at Origins next summer.

"This damned Bonaparte is going to get us all killed" - Jean Lannes, 1809

Castellan -  La Fraternite des Boutons Carres

JasonPratt

Quote from: MetalDog on September 22, 2016, 10:52:39 PM
I looked through the OOB.  To me, it seems the more detailed, the more Napoleonic gamers, such as yourselves, like it.  Another thought, do you play games like this to solve the puzzle of getting your troops when, where, how, and why?  Or do you feel like you are effecting history in some way?  Or maybe just enjoying the narrative the unfolding game brings according to the orders you and the others give?  Is it something else altogether?  What say you, gents?

I don't get to play many games like this (and I may pick up the Drago(o)ns in the Fog AAR again just to mess with it in single player for practice in dealing with something like this); but very much yes, I'm going to enjoy the narrative the unfolding game brings according to how persons are each, from different viewpoints, solving the puzzle of getting troops where, when, how, and why.

Not unlike the grand strategic maneuvering of Legends of the Galactic Heroes come to think of it. (But come to think of it, I've made that comparison before. ;) But I mean the specifically narrative component.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Cyrano

Let's move to moving...



These are the movement rates, measured in kph.  Significant here are the much lower rates for off-road movements.   Off-roading too far from the enemy is a recipe for never quite getting to battle.

As units move they accumulate fatigue.  The longer they move -- and particularly if they are moved at night -- the more fatigue they will gain.  Each day, the fatigue accumulated by units will be calculated resulting in the number of effectives under arms and therefore available for battle decreasing.  The rates by which this wastage occurs are laid out here:



These calculations will be made by me, but I wanted you to be aware of this rates.

We're getting very close indeed to campaign launch so, please, if I don't have your e-mail yet, please send it to me as soon as is possible!

The next post will concern the basics of combat -- details will NOT be provided!
Sergeant at Arms of La Fraternite des Boutons Carres

One mustachioed, cigar-chomping, bespectacled deity, entirely at your service.

You didn't know? My Corps has already sailed to Berlin. We got there 3 days ago and we've been in the Tiergarten on the piss ever since. -- Marshal Soult, October 1806

MetalDog

Doug, JP, thanks for the answers.  I have always wanted to like games like this.  It's not that I don't understand the concepts or grasp the rules.  I think it's more that I have never had enthusiasts to hang around.  So I will be following closely the goings on.  And thank you to all the participants for entertaining us.  And most especial thanks to Cyrano for putting this all together.
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

JasonPratt

To all corps commanders: if I receive word you or your divisional or brigade commanders have crossed into Spain during this operation, I shall require a full report. -- Napoleon
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

panzerde

Quote from: JasonPratt on September 24, 2016, 09:19:31 AM
To all corps commanders: if I receive word you or your divisional or brigade commanders have crossed into Spain during this operation, I shall require a full report. -- Napoleon


Wait...I thought we were invading Italy again? I do so love spending a season in Tuscany!

"This damned Bonaparte is going to get us all killed" - Jean Lannes, 1809

Castellan -  La Fraternite des Boutons Carres

Hatricvs

Quote from: Cyrano on September 20, 2016, 04:02:09 PM
@Hatricus:  Many apologies for the exclusion!!  I have assigned you to the reserve, but am working on something else moving forward.   Very much would like to involve you.



Thanks Guys ..looking forward to following this game and possibly getting involved if the opportunity arrives but am more than happy to stay on the subs bench and watch the history unfold! Cheers Andy B

James Sterrett

Quote from: JasonPratt on September 24, 2016, 09:19:31 AM
To all corps commanders: if I receive word you or your divisional or brigade commanders have crossed into Spain during this operation, I shall require a full report. -- Napoleon

And you shall have it!  Now, about my impending invasion of France....

JasonPratt

#43
Quote from: panzerde on September 24, 2016, 10:52:39 AM
Quote from: JasonPratt on September 24, 2016, 09:19:31 AM
To all corps commanders: if I receive word you or your divisional or brigade commanders have crossed into Spain during this operation, I shall require a full report. -- Napoleon


Wait...I thought we were invading Italy again? I do so love spending a season in Tuscany!

Italy is fine, you can vacation invasion there once we fight the Prussians. I will also set aside some French territory on the Swiss border for Davout to liberate ahem I mean practice maneuvers in. Spain is more of a curiosity I would rather not be distracted by at this juncture, but a recon in force might prove instructive. RUSSIA HOWEVER IS RIGHT OUT!
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Pinetree

Quote from: JasonPratt on September 24, 2016, 09:19:31 AM
To all corps commanders: if I receive word you or your divisional or brigade commanders have crossed into Spain during this operation, I shall require a full report. -- Napoleon

I hear Russia is quite nice this time of year...
Gen. Montgomery: "Your men don't salute much."
Gen. Freyberg: "Well, if you wave at them they'll usually wave back."