Alternate Naval Combat

[Mardonius]

That fleet strength question always had me wondering too. Why do you always know how big the enemy fleet is?
I'd like to see this changed and make them like corps with hidden values.

[RayKinStL]

Exactly.  Is that what fog of war is, or is that something different and I am using the wrong terms?
 
Regardless, that is the one rule I never understood about EiA.  I should be able to bluff with my stacks (fleet) in the same way MPs can bluff with their stacks (armies) in terms of strength.  Even if it was an optional rule, I think it would be a good one.  If you can scout an enemy fleet strength, then you can do the same with armies, so that arguement does not apply.  I would like to see enemy fleet strength hidden or as an optional rule in a future release.  Me and Mardonius obviously agree.  What is everyone else's feelings on this?  Jimmer, how about you, since you seem to have the same affinity for GB that I do?

[NeverMan]

To Guy: Yes, sorry, got that mixed up. The heavy corps size (30) is ~= to the original.

As far as moving corps: I like the original rules, that 1 fleet counter can move one corps. In the current EiANW I often find fleet counters being useless since they can't move corps. This has happened to me both as Russia and as Turkey now.

[RayKinStL]

Neverman, besides returning to the original rules of just one fleet per corp (regardless of fleet strength) what do you think about hidding the strength of fleets much in the same way the strength of corps is hidden?  This would give countries the option to pull bluffs with their fleet stacks, etc...  I would like as many opinions as possible, especially from EiA fans...not ust EiANW fans!

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

Neverman, besides returning to the original rules of just one fleet per corp (regardless of fleet strength) what do you think about hidding the strength of fleets much in the same way the strength of corps is hidden?  This would give countries the option to pull bluffs with their fleet stacks, etc...  I would like as many opinions as possible, especially from EiA fans...not ust EiANW fans!

Ray, not taking any historical accuracy in mind, I like the idea.

[gwheelock]

ORIGINAL: Mardonius

That fleet strength question always had me wondering too. Why do you always know how big the enemy fleet is?
I'd like to see this changed and make them like corps with hidden values.

I suspect that this is because it has historically (pre-airplane/satalite) been much easier to
track & count ships than it was to track armies (ships take a long time to build and
have to come back to port regularly for resupply). This means that foreign agents
could just hang around & count them (esp those great big VISIBLE sails)

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: gwheelock

ORIGINAL: Mardonius

That fleet strength question always had me wondering too. Why do you always know how big the enemy fleet is?
I'd like to see this changed and make them like corps with hidden values.

I suspect that this is because it has historically (pre-airplane/satalite) been much easier to
track & count ships than it was to track armies (ships take a long time to build and
have to come back to port regularly for resupply). This means that foreign agents
could just hang around & count them (esp those great big VISIBLE sails)

I'm sure it didn't happen that often, but there's not much from stopping a country from changing fleet sizes AT SEA, making it almost impossible to tell what fleets are what when they are AT SEA.

[Marshall Ellis]

Actually, from what I understand fleet size intelligence was quite common. anybody else know any sources to confirm this?
 
 

[Mardonius]

I can confirm that size of location of a fleet was NOT a known thing. Nelson's pursuit of the French to Egypt is a classic example of missing the enemy (composed of a multiple slow transports as well as SOLs) multiple times. Moreover, Nelson had no idea how large the French fleet was until they sighted the mast tops in Aboukir Bay...

I can cite sources and historical documentation if any one is interested...

We really should have lessened chance of interception and evasion rules at sea.

[delatbabel]

The problem with adding fog of war for fleets to the game, regardless of the historical accuracy, is that the game becomes very short and brutal. France loads its ports up with a fleet and a corps each. Britain doesn't know the sizes of those fleets, and so stacks essentially random ships into fleets in the blockade boxes. France tries a blockade run on each port, one or two (the one which France has actually stacked large numbers of ships into the fleets) succeeds and Britain is over-run by French troops in Jan 1805. Rinse, lather, repeat. Game over essentially as the allies on the continent can't fight on without British money. This is obviously a highly ahistorical situation -- it never happened and never really could happen, for various reasons.

Several issues need to be considered:

* The British navy had a pretty good idea of French ship dispositions in the Atlantic ports. Sail a few sloops close enough in to shore and count the masts. Out in the open waters of the mediterranean or the open seas fog of war may well apply (and in those cases the evasion rules pretty much cover it), but in terms of counting the masts in Le Havre or La Rochelle, it was simple enough.

* The game doesn't really allow fleets to "react" to blockade runs as actually happened in period. In reality, the RN didn't have a lot of ships on blockade duty. It had a number of small, fast, light, and easily manouverable frigates, sloops and cutters mostly manning the blockade, and a set of signals that allowed the bulk of the navy, stationed in the channel or at Spithead, to react quickly to any attempted blockade run. The process of a large ship leaving port is a difficult and time consuming one (from the time you start sending monkeys up the mast to cross the yards, which in itself is easily spotted from offshore), and a fleet stationed a few dozen miles away can easily be across the port leads before you actually get underway in any serious numbers.

* The process of leaving port, especially when there is a blockade to run, is actually quite difficult. It's a complex enough procedure in a modern sailing vessel which has a diesel engine down below, but trying same in a 17th / 18th C line of battle warship, with no engine and no oars, takes some serious skill. More importantly, the wind needs to be blowing exactly the right way, and except in the case of the Mediterranean and Baltic ports, tides have to be judged. So in reality a blockading fleet knows pretty much exactly when (time and date) a blockade can potentially be run at various ports, and be standing off at those times, while conserving sail and energy for the times when a blockade run isn't a possibility. In a good number of the French ports depicted on the map, notably those along the Atlantic coast south of Brest, those conditions of favourable wind and tide often didn't eventuate for months at a stretch. The British almost never blockaded La Rochelle -- the Atlantic winds and Bay of Biscay sailing conditions usually did that job for them.

* Finally, even given the right conditions of wind and tide, a fleet leaving port is seriously at a disadvantage to a blockading fleet -- more than the "auto wind gauge" allowed by EiA would suggest. In simple terms, each ship leaving port has to expose itself to a broadside, initially a bow rake and then, assuming the blockading ships have enough windage to come about, secondly up the stern, to pretty much the entire blockading fleet. If you've got even a moderate number of line of battle ships ready on the blockade, only the heaviest of your blockade running ships are going to survive that to actually make it into battle.

In reality it's pretty much impossible for a fleet to run a blockade without getting spotted and then nailed. If you have sufficient wind and weather conditions to disrupt the blockading fleet (which actually did happen quite a bit) then you also have sufficient wind and weather conditions to make leaving port impossible. If you have good wind and clear weather, then you can leave port easily enough, but every ship within any kind of range is going to see you doing so, and they'll be onto you (as we say down here) like a seagull onto a sick prawn. So naval evasion doesn't really apply to ships in or leaving port, and neither does fog of war.

Your example of Nelson's pursuit of the French is not a particularly good example, as it happened at sea not in port, and doesn't really confirm anything about sizes and locations of fleets not being known (certainly not in port). In terms of fleet strength -- both sides were pretty much exactly sure of the other side's naval strength based on counting the ships that had left port (or counting the ships that were there a week ago and subtracting the ones that were still there), and it was for that reason alone Brueys was running and Nelson was chasing.

In game turns the French got a couple of good evasion rolls in, until Aboukir Bay of course at which point they failed the evasion roll, Nelson got the wind gauge, and then the combat dice favoured the British as well.

[Mardonius]

Hello Del:

I can tell you are a sailor. Good show. I, too, come from a naval tradition.

In response to your below quote:

ORIGINAL: delatbabel

In reality it's pretty much impossible for a fleet to run a blockade without getting spotted and then nailed. If you have sufficient wind and weather conditions to disrupt the blockading fleet (which actually did happen quite a bit) then you also have sufficient wind and weather conditions to make leaving port impossible. If you have good wind and clear weather, then you can leave port easily enough, but every ship within any kind of range is going to see you doing so, and they'll be onto you (as we say down here) like a seagull onto a sick prawn. So naval evasion doesn't really apply to ships in or leaving port, and neither does fog of war.

Your example of Nelson's pursuit of the French is not a particularly good example, as it happened at sea not in port, and doesn't really confirm anything about sizes and locations of fleets not being known (certainly not in port). In terms of fleet strength -- both sides were pretty much exactly sure of the other side's naval strength based on counting the ships that had left port (or counting the ships that were there a week ago and subtracting the ones that were still there), and it was for that reason alone Brueys was running and Nelson was chasing.

In game turns the French got a couple of good evasion rolls in, until Aboukir Bay of course at which point they failed the evasion roll, Nelson got the wind gauge, and then the combat dice favoured the British as well.

I suggest you read John Keegan's "Intelligence in War, Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda"
Keegan has a chapter on Nelson's Med campaign that explains that (1) The French did run the British Blockade of Southern France/Coastal Italy and (2) The British had no idea how big the French Fleet was in term sof SOLs, frigates, or transports until they reached Egypt.

Keegan makes it clear that real time intelligence was (and even today, usually is) impossible to get. Yes, you can count those ships or masts in the harbor, but by the time you get news back to the Admiralty or even the squadron flag, things may have changed. Ships may have come or gone, thereby dilluting or negating the value of the intelligence. So even if you have those spies in the harbor, by the time they get the word to you, their information may not yield any real intelligence.

As a minor side note, remember that Brueys had a mission: Egypt. He was not so much running -- an essentially impossible task unless he got lucky -- as he was caravanning and assembling multiple transport fleets from Southern France and NW Italy.

Anyway, it is a great read. There is an audio version too.

And so I once more put forth that it would be an excellent idea to hide fleet values.
Del has convinced me that values should be known at the start. But enhanced evasion/blockade/ limited interception rules are in order.

Semper Fidelis
Mardonius

[Jimmer]

I respectfully suggest that it is impossible to create a game concerning the naval war of this period (1805-1815) that is both balanced and historical. To be historical, it would have to allow the possibility of a Trafalgar. In game terms, extrapolated out at roughly the same rate of the current tables, this would require a modified roll of 20 (on a six sider) and -1 (also on a six sider). I seriously doubt anybody would want to play game with such a possible variance in outcomes.

Furthermore, the period did not see navies for different nations all working off of the same tables. GB ruled the waves; there's just no other way to put it. Anything that emulates that in a game is going to be either a-historical or lopsided.

[yammahoper]

EiA isn't meant to be a naval simulation.  Additional naval rules are unecessary.
 
Now, I have always wanted to try Flat Top.  Is there a PC version?
 
yamma

[AresMars]

I agree with yammahoper once again....
 
EiA has simple, playable and balanced naval rules (including the options) - why try to reinvent the wheel.
 
 

[Mardonius]

ORIGINAL: yammahoper@yahoo.com

EiA isn't meant to be a naval simulation.  Additional naval rules are unecessary.

Now, I have always wanted to try Flat Top.  Is there a PC version?

yamma

Dear Yamma:

You are right, EiA is not a naval simulation. But neither is it a military (meaning ground forces) simulation.

Empires in Arms is, per the AH book "a strategic and diplomatic game for up to 7 players that covers the Napoleonic wars from 1805 unitl 1815. " Naval power is an intrinsic and essential part of this definition.

Avalon Hill thought it a good idea to refine the naval rules, witness the General Magazine articles that ammended them. So why not consider an OPTION for EiANW? Seems hasty to dismiss it out of hand.

And even without such a refined naval combat system, there should be enhanced evasion and interception rules, to reflect the uncertainty of warfare.

best,
Mardonius

[Mardonius]

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

I respectfully suggest that it is impossible to create a game concerning the naval war of this period (1805-1815) that is both balanced and historical. To be historical, it would have to allow the possibility of a Trafalgar. In game terms, extrapolated out at roughly the same rate of the current tables, this would require a modified roll of 20 (on a six sider) and -1 (also on a six sider). I seriously doubt anybody would want to play game with such a possible variance in outcomes.

Furthermore, the period did not see navies for different nations all working off of the same tables. GB ruled the waves; there's just no other way to put it. Anything that emulates that in a game is going to be either a-historical or lopsided.

Hi Jimmer:

Good points and true. I would ask you to remember that it was not that long before our period that a French Fleet did defeat a British Fleet (Battle of the Virginia Capes off Yorktown). Also, during our period individual French ships in Fleet Engagements did give worse than they got (see http://www.wtj.com/archives/lucas_01.htm ). I have a painting of the Redoubtable on my wall at home.

Designing and playtesting a system would be essential before any implementation.

best,
Mardonius

[RayKinStL]

ORIGINAL: delatbabel

The problem with adding fog of war for fleets to the game, regardless of the historical accuracy, is that the game becomes very short and brutal. France loads its ports up with a fleet and a corps each. Britain doesn't know the sizes of those fleets, and so stacks essentially random ships into fleets in the blockade boxes. France tries a blockade run on each port, one or two (the one which France has actually stacked large numbers of ships into the fleets) succeeds and Britain is over-run by French troops in Jan 1805. Rinse, lather, repeat. Game over essentially as the allies on the continent can't fight on without British money. This is obviously a highly ahistorical situation -- it never happened and never really could happen, for various reasons.

Several issues need to be considered:

* The British navy had a pretty good idea of French ship dispositions in the Atlantic ports. Sail a few sloops close enough in to shore and count the masts. Out in the open waters of the mediterranean or the open seas fog of war may well apply (and in those cases the evasion rules pretty much cover it), but in terms of counting the masts in Le Havre or La Rochelle, it was simple enough.

* The game doesn't really allow fleets to "react" to blockade runs as actually happened in period. In reality, the RN didn't have a lot of ships on blockade duty. It had a number of small, fast, light, and easily manouverable frigates, sloops and cutters mostly manning the blockade, and a set of signals that allowed the bulk of the navy, stationed in the channel or at Spithead, to react quickly to any attempted blockade run. The process of a large ship leaving port is a difficult and time consuming one (from the time you start sending monkeys up the mast to cross the yards, which in itself is easily spotted from offshore), and a fleet stationed a few dozen miles away can easily be across the port leads before you actually get underway in any serious numbers.

* The process of leaving port, especially when there is a blockade to run, is actually quite difficult. It's a complex enough procedure in a modern sailing vessel which has a diesel engine down below, but trying same in a 17th / 18th C line of battle warship, with no engine and no oars, takes some serious skill. More importantly, the wind needs to be blowing exactly the right way, and except in the case of the Mediterranean and Baltic ports, tides have to be judged. So in reality a blockading fleet knows pretty much exactly when (time and date) a blockade can potentially be run at various ports, and be standing off at those times, while conserving sail and energy for the times when a blockade run isn't a possibility. In a good number of the French ports depicted on the map, notably those along the Atlantic coast south of Brest, those conditions of favourable wind and tide often didn't eventuate for months at a stretch. The British almost never blockaded La Rochelle -- the Atlantic winds and Bay of Biscay sailing conditions usually did that job for them.

* Finally, even given the right conditions of wind and tide, a fleet leaving port is seriously at a disadvantage to a blockading fleet -- more than the "auto wind gauge" allowed by EiA would suggest. In simple terms, each ship leaving port has to expose itself to a broadside, initially a bow rake and then, assuming the blockading ships have enough windage to come about, secondly up the stern, to pretty much the entire blockading fleet. If you've got even a moderate number of line of battle ships ready on the blockade, only the heaviest of your blockade running ships are going to survive that to actually make it into battle.

In reality it's pretty much impossible for a fleet to run a blockade without getting spotted and then nailed. If you have sufficient wind and weather conditions to disrupt the blockading fleet (which actually did happen quite a bit) then you also have sufficient wind and weather conditions to make leaving port impossible. If you have good wind and clear weather, then you can leave port easily enough, but every ship within any kind of range is going to see you doing so, and they'll be onto you (as we say down here) like a seagull onto a sick prawn. So naval evasion doesn't really apply to ships in or leaving port, and neither does fog of war.

Your example of Nelson's pursuit of the French is not a particularly good example, as it happened at sea not in port, and doesn't really confirm anything about sizes and locations of fleets not being known (certainly not in port). In terms of fleet strength -- both sides were pretty much exactly sure of the other side's naval strength based on counting the ships that had left port (or counting the ships that were there a week ago and subtracting the ones that were still there), and it was for that reason alone Brueys was running and Nelson was chasing.

In game turns the French got a couple of good evasion rolls in, until Aboukir Bay of course at which point they failed the evasion roll, Nelson got the wind gauge, and then the combat dice favoured the British as well.

Holy hell, Del. Did you really know this all off the top of your head? If you did, that is quite impressive!

I did like the suggestion of Fleet strength being known off-the-bat and then hidden.

[Soapy Frog]

I think just reverting to the proper EiA OOBs, using heavy ships only (in max 30 ship fleets), and changing heavy ships costs and build times to the proper 10$/12 months.
 
There were Advanced Naval Rules published in the General and those would be cool to have too, but I really think that to START with, just the proper EiA rules/OOBs/costs will do.

[KenClark]

The basic EiA naval rules were, sadly, garbage.  They make naval battles boring, and a numbers exercise.  I have played quite a few EiA games, and no-one ever used the basic rules because of this, either they used the General's advanced naval rules or a similar home-brewed system.  I am not against simplifying some of the more chrome-y HARM aspects (transport fleets are a joke) but that being said the original EiA rules weren't much better, if at all better, than what we have now.

[yammahoper]

ORIGINAL: Mardonius

ORIGINAL: yammahoper@yahoo.com

EiA isn't meant to be a naval simulation.  Additional naval rules are unecessary.

Now, I have always wanted to try Flat Top.  Is there a PC version?

yamma

Dear Yamma:

You are right, EiA is not a naval simulation. But neither is it a military (meaning ground forces) simulation.

Empires in Arms is, per the AH book "a strategic and diplomatic game for up to 7 players that covers the Napoleonic wars from 1805 unitl 1815. " Naval power is an intrinsic and essential part of this definition.

Avalon Hill thought it a good idea to refine the naval rules, witness the General Magazine articles that ammended them. So why not consider an OPTION for EiANW? Seems hasty to dismiss it out of hand.

And even without such a refined naval combat system, there should be enhanced evasion and interception rules, to reflect the uncertainty of warfare.

best,
Mardonius

Options are great, no arguement there. I hope for improved AI and LANability options first before adding a bunch of options.

I never liked that you cannot replicate the battle of Trafalger in EiA. Yet the only nation who really uses naval power is GB, and I have never found not having a powerful navy as limiting when playing the other MP.

For really good battle simulations, you have to go with minatures because as you noted, even EiA is not a good battle simulation game, but a game of strategy and diplomacy...with the option for a little butt kicking thrown in.

yamma