Sharing a Prussian AAR ...

[YohanTM2]

ffak,

Yes there are die rolls after both sides pick a chit that reflects how they will fight that battle. Examples are assault and outflank for the attacker and defend and outflank for the defender. The chits for both sides are revealed and the battle is fought on a certain chart. The die roll results in a % loss of troops and a loss of morale that has the potential to break your army.

Yohan

[Titi]

One more question regarding casualties selection :

If a minor country corp is present, can you take all casualties from it or must you respect the proportion between minor/total forces available?

[Forward_March]

Ack! I always hated it when my opponent would let his minors, or only militia, suffer all of the losses. Hopefully this won't be possible. I'm much more in favor of it being a percentage of each arm/nation present.

P.S. What are the icons over the cities that look like beer steins with a square in the upper left hand corner?

[yammahoper]

Well, all casulaties cannot come from a minor nation corp (losses are equal by percentage) and militia cannot be used to suffer any casulties after 2.0 points of morale are lost (i.e. the "2.0 morale rule").

Casualty losses with navies apply the same rule. If the Russian has a fleet with 20 ships and the Swedish fleet with 19 and then loses 7 ships in battle, he would loose 4 russian ships and three swedish ships.

EiA does have some limitations in the casualties area. For example, you cannot duplicate the Battle of Trafalger as the attack table does not allow or provide for an enemy fleet to be wiped out. Likewise, it could be possible only the Russian lost ships and the Swede none, but there is no way to implement that sort of event.

yamma

[Titi]

Thanks for the reminder Yamma but i knew the boardgame rule but i'm just seeking an answer from the marshall about the computer rule. In his answer he just speak of selecting casualties from any unit. I just want to be sure that there is dome restriction about minor unit.

One more point about this subject : You can take all your loses in one of your national corp while leaving other national corps intact . For example it is common for the russian to take loss in one of the high number while leaving the first one at full strengh. How can you justify it appart from an easy to play rule for the boardgame while restricting that same use about a minor force.
Isnt the computer game a good occasion to change this use aka using a percentage loss rule for all infantry corps in a battle?

One last point : when you use percentage loss rule, do you reset the counter each round or do you keep it for each day of battle?

[ardilla]

It is a good question for Marshall, but I guess it has been taken into cosideration, hope!

About the Russian way of getting all his losses from a high numbered corp, it is not a big deal, since you can re-structure your army/fleet after each combat, so it can be proportional to all corps, but you can always take away one corp and spread it all over the rest to cover the losses and saving money from feeding that corp next turn.

And in my boardgame, we take the casualties proportional losses at the end of the battle, not every round, too much work and maybe too difficult to do it right, I mean if you have a proportion of 5:1 russians with swedish, it is difficult to lose more than 5 factors in a tipical battle, in one round of combat, but at the end of the 3 rounds, maybe you have lost 8-10 points so it works better at the end the percentage losses.

About the question you rise about lossing from each corp with percentage, it could be nice and more realistic, IMO, but of course, more complicated to play, I understand that if you do this you will not be able to change factors from one corp to another, think that I found too easy and not logical.

More complicated, not to calculate the % losses from each corp present, but more complicated because if you can not transfer points from one corp to another you may have after a while all your corps almost empty after a couple of years of war.

But, it could be interesting for the future to implement this as an option and to add experience to the corps or higher morale as experience for combat.

[pfnognoff]

Hi guys,

I was away on my summer hollidays, I missed this thread, so I'm a bit late with my comments... It was a good holliday though...

In this situation I would as Prussia turn to Napoleon, seeking alliance, then if he agrees continue eastward, trash Russia, swing down a kick Austrian but on the way back home with a little help from Ottoman... I would probably end up being backstabbed by France, but this kind of oppening move from Russia just begs to be tought a lesson... Also it would be nice to observe the Brittain player loosing hair and bitting nails as his potential allies trash themselves... Bad Russian waging war on his buffer zone!!!

Marshall, maybe you can tell your "mad Russian" AI to pick his enemies more carfully and to be looking for them more to the south (Ottoman).

[MarshallEllis]

This is part of a rare strategy in the AI scripts that I call the "Russian backstab". It is, as I see it, a complete strategic farce for the Russian and invites nothing less than French victory. I've erase the game so I don't have the follow up images BUT Turkey soon after easily invaded Russia!

Thank you

[pfnognoff]

"Russian backstab" is a valid thing to have in your Russian AI, because sooner or later in order to win, Russia will probably need to attack either Prussia or Austria. Just make sure to do that later in the game, preferably after the allies defend themselves against France succesfully... I guess you triggered this "backstab" artifically and AI knows better [:)]

[tbg1955]

I have doubts over AI that has Tsar Alexander in charge of any army.

[NeverMan]

If Turkey "easily invaded Russia" then I would count the AI as not even worth spending the time to write it. No one should be able to "easily invade Russia". If that occurs, it is the result of a VERY POOR Russian player, a "child" if you will. Someone who knows nothing of Russia, the time period, the game, or strategy and tactics.

I also tend to agree with pfnognoff that the backstab is a good thing for Russia if done correctly: late in the game 1812, 1813, and when Au and Pr have just finished a war with France, or are currently at war with France.

[MarshallEllis]

Neverman:

Easily was probably a bad term! They never made it to Moscow BUT did get a conditional surrender from Russia since two Feudal Cavalry corps did manage to at least endanger Moscow. Prussia did manage to decimate the majority of the Russian army and left Moscow largley unprotected. Didn't say it was smart BUT interesting never-the-less!

Thank you

[jamo262]

There is one rule that Ive never quite been able to get my head around and it really applies to this situation here. THe rule (from memory) goes someting like-

" A major power , already at war with other major powers , cannot declare war on other major powers , if enemy forces are already inside its home territory"

Its not an exact quote but the upshot is that since France is at war with Britain and Russia has troops inside Prussia- one reading of this rule seems to protect Prussia from a French declaration of war as long as those Russian troops are on Prussian soil.

Comments anyone? [&:]

[j-s]

ORIGINAL: jamo262

There is one rule that Ive never quite been able to get my head around and it really applies to this situation here. THe rule (from memory) goes someting like-

" A major power , already at war with other major powers , cannot declare war on other major powers , if enemy forces are already inside its home territory"

Its not an exact quote but the upshot is that since France is at war with Britain and Russia has troops inside Prussia- one reading of this rule seems to protect Prussia from a French declaration of war as long as those Russian troops are on Prussian soil.

Comments anyone? [&:]

As long as Prussia is at war with Russia and Russian troops are inside Prussian borders, Prussia can't declare war. France can declare war to Prussia unless France has his enemy troops inside France borders.

[eg0master]

4.2.2.1 states that a MP cannot declare war on another MP or Minor if the declaring MP does have any ground forces within the "target" country.
4.2.2.2 states that a MP already at war with another MP may not declare war on other MPs if unbesieged enemy infantry corp is already within its home nation.

So there are 2 different things.
As long as France has corps in Prussia - france cannot declare war on prussia regardless of any wars.
And if Prussia and Russia is at war and russia has unbesieged corps in prussia, prussia cannot declare war on any MP.

Actually I remember a few players using 4.2.2.1 in order to enforce a peace. For example russa put one corp in austria and vice versa and hence they could not declare a surprise war without first moving the Corp givving the other player a month's notice on when a war was about to be declared.

[fjbn]

Anyway, that AI strategy surpises me a lot. I mean. If I had seen rightly the map, you have DOW some minors in Germany and Russia has DOW to you. It´s nonsense, because these minors are not the main russian objectives. It´s not Sweden or Poland. These things makes me worry about AI strategic evaluation. Can AI understand that if it doesn´t create a big alliance (GB, Russia, Prussia and Austria), France will win or it only plays with a objective: make the human victory imposible?. Can AI undestand that GB must cover in gold its allies to defeat France?.

Which is the AI base to choose a general to lead an army?, beacuse Tzar election to lead Russian Army is incredible[:-]

[MarshallEllis]

fjbn:

Need to realize that the AI doesn't have the luxury of the historical knowledge that we humans have. What you mention about the Tzar leading the army sounds incredible to you and I BUT the AI simply thinks that their senior leader (not BEST) is leading an invasion. It's a tricky game to program the AI. Sure we hae done some traditional tables so that the AI players know who their traditional enemies are and who are their best allies. This prevents the old best friends ganging up on everybody else in their "Britain Allies with France move". By nature (before we did our tradition tables) the French AI player would almost always seek to ally with Great Britain.

I've said this before and it is worth mentioning again, the AI will be challenging BUT it will not be to the level of human diplomatic intrigue nor will it act as a experienced EiA player but it will be a cold, calculating, pp hungry ally/enemy that will not always be smart or dumb.

Hope this helps...

thank you

[eg0master]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis
[...]
I've said this before and it is worth mentioning again, the AI will be challenging BUT it will not be to the level of human diplomatic intrigue nor will it act as a experienced EiA player but it will be a cold, calculating, pp hungry ally/enemy that will not always be smart or dumb.
[...]

Sounds like a guy I used to play EiA with... [:D]

[pfnognoff]

ORIGINAL: fjbn

Which is the AI base to choose a general to lead an army?, beacuse Tzar election to lead Russian Army is incredible[:-]

Absolutely, if a human player is involved, Tzar would be safely put away somewhere beside the board game area, far from reach to be sure you do not place him by mistake. [:D]

But now, if I understood correctly, this little routine is programmed as "mad Russian" AI, so it's more than appropriate to have Tzar leading his brave troopers inta certain doom. AI must have a personality and after some thought on the subject this is starting to sound like a valid one to me. Marshall just needs to make sure that this AI personality doesn't come to the poor "Mother Russia" to often. [:)]

Also, on the subject of Tzar leading armies, I think EiH had the rule that while Russia is at war, Tzar must be given a field command. Of course in our games involving humans this usally meant he was given one militia corps in and arround Kazahstan or Georgia [:D]

[Titi]

4.2.2.1 says that a major power may not declare war on another major power or neutral minor country if the declaring major power has corps, freikorps, cossacks, garrisson or guerillas within the territory.

So better just leave a step of militia in garrisson rather than a corp in the territory. It's give a longer warning as either you must destroy it in the previous reinforcement phase before declaring a war or move a corp to pick it up an leave the territory. So if it isn't in a border city, it give a one month warning.
Otherwise the french corp inside your border may move last to leave and attack first next turn his former friend.[:-]