Originally posted by Marshall Ellis
Great input! How much unit control would be good during combat? What kinds of combat interfaces would you look for? Give me some game examples of where there is a good combat interface? Bad examples?
Ahhh, so much to say but so little time!
First, a very brief introduction - as this is my first time posting. I have been wargaming for over 20 years and I am huge fan of this era. I am currently Admin for an EiA campaign and play miniatures (I have five corps of 15mm Russians based upon the Empire ruleset) every chance I get - which unfortunately isn't much these days.... Anyway on to the business at hand.
First of all, Thank You - this game has me more excited than I have been for a long time (over any game). The potential is overwhelming.
I agree with the majority of posts that nix the Tactical combat feature - while I enjoy this aspect, there are other games that I would rather play outside of the Strategic realm. It would just bog this game down.
As an older gamer who has to steal some time away for myself, the PBEM feature is a MUST for me. The EiA campaign that I am involved with has seven players located across the US in every time zone with one member in Turkey right now (Our French player, no doubt shoring up his diplomatic standings), so it isn't feasable to have everyone online simultaneously.
Two aspects of the Napoleonic period that adds alot of color and depth to the Wargames table is leadership and morale. Maybe you have the smallest units in the game be Divisions for infantry, and Brigades for cavalry. These units cannot operate in a combat role by themselves (probably only in Corps, other than garrisons and March units), but allow for experience and losses to be applied during campaigns applied as battles are fought. Napoleon's Old Guard were hand picked from experienced veterans; so maybe within the divisions, the regiments are assigned experience points and you are given the ability to bolster your Guard and Grenadier regiments with these veterans up to a national maximum. A system similar to reinforcement placement Talonsoft's Operational Art of War comes to mind (i.e. I am building a Curassier Brigade this turn as well as three Infantry Divisions, I am shifting the Kexholm Regt. in my 2nd Grenadier Corps, etc.).
Aspects of morale could be affected by operational events - the Austrians in 1805 were demoralized when Napoleon cut off their supply line then offered to do battle with them (Ulm, I believe it was with Mack in Command).
Leaders should gain Strategic and Tactical experience the more that they fight - maybe have a base rating, that improves with victories, etc. A good boardgame model for this is Victory Games's "The Civil War". Death of Leaders should also be a real possibility - this had a profound effect on Napoleon's chain of command throughout the period (We still mourn the loss of Lannes). Maybe assign attributes to leaders at the divisional level (based upon a national average with a random +/- ) that would allow for a pool of replacements to be brought up through the ranks.
PLEASE allow for the naming of units - this little feature (similar to the two Imperialism games) could go a long way to adding some of the pageantry of the period to this game.
Fog of War. This is something that EiA does not handle well. The Russians of the period had vast amounts of light cavalry in the Cossacks that made their Operational intellegence gathering superior to most other nations, however the French had a very professional intelligence organization that made them very effective at the outset of any campaign in gathering Strategic information, Maps, troop dispositions, etc.
Politics and Nation Building. Once again an EiA shortcoming. Many, if not all, of the wars fought in this period had their roots in one simple fact: Napoleon was not "royalty". The Austrian Monarchy stayed adament throughout the period in bringing about his downfall for this reason (among others, including the loss of their Italian holdings). Thus Austria, Russia, Prussia, and England formed much of their foreign policy for this reason - they didn't want to see the revolution spread. Thus alliances were formed to combat this "evil". Maybe a system similar to Europa Universalis could be a simple way to allow flexibilty given to the players in how they want to play the Strategic aspects of their nation. Maybe Austria wants to become THE naval power in the Med...
Combat control. If the PBEM is going to function, I am assuming that the computer will have to resolve combats and give the results at the close of one's turn. I personally agree (somewhat)with an earlier posting I read about issuing orders then waiting for the results. Maybe give your Army leader his orders (i.e. Maneuver to Strasbourgh and Defend) as well as an aggressiveness rating (I am assigning High Aggresiveness to this order until Strasbourgh is reached then it shifts to low), then offer the opportunity for the players to create way points for each corps. Once everyone has placed their orders, then the computer will take into account the following factors:
Fog of War
Leader ratings (modified by operational orders and aggressiveness orders)
Initiative
Operational intelligence ability based upon light cavalry composition.
Army Morale.
Enemy created events (Ouch! my supply depot has just been overrun)
Random events (Luck).
Any combats would be resolved and battle reports would be issued. A good idea with very bad execution was a game put out by 360 Games based upon "Desert Storm" - I don't remember the name but it was terrible (maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance). It used the Harpoon engine for land combat.
One shortcoming in turn based play the real time games (Yuck) have is the fact that armies don't sit and wait for you to move before they do anything. Many battles of the period just "happened" because advance guards ran into each other, and the commanders present just reinforced the skirmish until it became a full scale battle (Gettysburg is a good example - a little later in the century, but hey).
Well, enough. Sorry for the "lengthy" posting. I'm not sure any of this is helpful, it sure feels good to get my ideas off my chest. I certainly would welcome any opinions based upon the above thoughts.
Thanks again.
