Setup phase and game manual

[nukkxx5058]

Hi,

i'm new at EIA. I am trying tio understand the setup phase. There is nearly nothing in the manual and I don'd manage to finish this first simple phase except by choosing an automatic default setup.

I don't understand the difference between counters and factors. Should I place all counters on the map?

Any help and tips will be welcomed.

[Grognot]

Counters represent corps, fleets, depots, leaders, guerillas, Cossacks...

A corps or fleet has a given capacity.  Most infantry corps have either one or two limits -- one that is filled with infantry or militia factors, and a second that represents the capacity for cavalry factors.  Cavalry corps have more movement points, but hold only cavalry.  Fleets hold one type of ship factor -- heavy, light, or transport.  There are a few Spanish corps which oddly can only hold militia factors (not regular infantry), and minor corps never hold militia.

Factors go in the corps and fleets.  They may be placed in garrisons of cities and ports, but to actually -move- they must be in corps or fleets.    Incidentally, EiANW does not allow port defenses to operate unless an actual garrison is there -- a corps in the city does not suffice.

Having more corps and fleets gives you some flexibility, since you move corps and fleets, not fragments thereof, but costs you more in supply, is more difficult to lead (leaders have a tactical maximum rating; exceed this, and the tactical rating is penalized); and offers more political points if you're defeated (because political points are awarded based on corps or fleet count, regardless of how strong the corps or fleets were).   Likewise, when you outflank or reinforce, you outflank with entire corps.   Packing the Grand Armee into as few corps as possible, on the other hand, reduces your flexibility.  Note that while fleets and garrisons are transparent -- strength of them is always known -- corps are opaque; therefore, even a pair of 1-infantry French corps can be slightly scary if nobody's actually figured out that they're weak (either by fighting them, or by noticing your reluctance to fight with them, or by finding out that you've placed what has to be most of your army elsewhere).  On the other hand, you probably shouldn't bother with such stunts as Spain, because nobody really fears the Jan. 1805 Spanish army.

Depots should be placed as needed to provide supply.  As with corps and fleet counters, they're free during setup, but you'll have to pay to place them later.

You should consider whether leaders are particularly helpful and whether they'll be reasonably safe before you place them.  A-level leaders other than Napoleon are not particularly good commanders, for instance, and being A-level, they'll override their more competent underlings.

[nukkxx5058]

Thanks for your very interesting response. I will give a try again to the setup phase with this usefull information.

[Jimmi Magnus]

A counter represents an army corps or fleet and its strength is depending on how many factors it holds.
On the counter overview you can see how many factors of each type a counter can hold.
Be it heavy ships, light ships, transport ships, cavalry, infantery, militia, artillery or guard factors.
Note: Infantery and militia take up the same 'space' in a corps, so if a corps has 0/10 Inf and 0/10 Mil space, it means you can only place a combined total of 10 infantery and militia factors in it.

As a general starting point of advice, is to place as few counters as possible. That means fill your factors into the biggest meanest counters you can.
This is to make supplying the armies cheaper, and making commanding them easier (leaders get a penalty if they try to lead too many counters).

You will want to place a depot counter with your army counters, so they can be supplied. You will also want to place a suitable leader counter with your army, and attach it to a specific corps counter (while only attached to only one counter, he will still lead the intire stack of counters).

You should also at least place a factor into garrison of the capital of every minor country you have, and of every port you have fleet counters in. (select the area, and click the garrison button)

As a starting point I'd suggest that you can start a game as France, and try to setup in a way so Davout and two big corps can attack Genoa (supplied from a depot) and that Napoleon and as big an army as he can get, can attack the minor of Baden (also supplied from a depot). Baden is just north east of France, and Genoa is in the north western part of Italy.
Once you've figured this out, try a few alternate setups, that lets you attack more areas.

Supply note:
If for some reason you don't want to use (move, fight with) an army counter in a given land phase, you should make sure it is placed so it can forage. What this means is that the counter can feed it self, so you don't have to pay for it. If you want a French infantery counter to be able to forage all year round, it should be placed on a french homeland or conquered (not freestated) area, with a forage value of at least 3. With a forage value of at least 4, you can have two counters foraging. And with forage values 5+ you can have as many counters as you want. (for other countries these values are one higher, namely 4, 5 and 6+)
Once you get the hang of setting up, you'll want to look into placing counters so they can auto-forage, as this saves you a lot of money.


Edit: I finally get my act together and make a forum account to post this, and then Grognot beats my slow typing [:'(]

[Bearcat2]

The biggest problem in not being able to exit the setup phase is that all forces must be placed; including the Free State forces of your power. for ex; France has Holland as a free state and those forces must be placed at setup. In your country screen; check to see who your free states are and then make sure you place those forces.
See if that helps.

[nukkxx5058]

ORIGINAL: Termite2

The biggest problem in not being able to exit the setup phase is that all forces must be placed; including the Free State forces of your power. for ex; France has Holland as a free state and those forces must be placed at setup. In your country screen; check to see who your free states are and then make sure you place those forces.
See if that helps.

This is exactly my main problem at this stage. I am still not sure how/where to check if I still have some forces to place...

[Jimmi Magnus]

If you click once anywhere in your home country, the small green text box/line on the lower left hand side of your screen will change to show you what you have left.
It will write something like: 5g51i(FS)8i2c, which will mean: 5 major power guard factors, 51 major power infantery, 8 free state infantery and 2 free state cavalery.
This line will also show ships.

Now you know you have free state troops left unplaced. But where? Rightclick on the minimap, and toggle all options on. Free states will show up as a lighter shade of the major power they are owned by. Holland for instance will show as a light blue field on the mini map.

Now you can see what free states you control. Move the regular map to those, and click once inside their territory, just like you did before to see all forces. Now the line in the green box will write: (area) 8i 2c  ..... if we assume that the free state you clicked did indeed have those forces to be placed.

You can now click back on the home nation area, and it will show: 5g51i   because all the free state forces belonged to that one free state.
If you have the printed manual, page 26-29 will show you the status of the freestates at the start of the game.

[Soapy Frog]

Yeah it took me a long time to figure out the setup phase, too. Not exactly a great intro to the game...

[Grognot]

The manual also doesn't mention that, during setup phase, you can move a counter by selecting it, then double-clicking elsewhere.  Handy if you want to change your mind without going through the 'remove counter, place counter, refill it' bit.

There's also a quirk where fleets are filled using 'add troops', not 'add ships' IIRC -- the latter is used during reinforcement phases with newly constructed ships.