Cavalry, Guard, Army restructuring

[shanebosky]

It probably can't be squeezed in now, but maybe for an upgrade...
In the manner of subdividing the fleet designations, how about dividing up the cavalry into Light and Heavy? Light would be a bit cheaper and quicker to build, and more useful during battle follow-up (both offensive and defensive), while Heavy would be best during the actual battle. Also, (with the French), how about a Young Guard corp, not available from 1805, but introduced somewhere in mid-game.
Are you guys doing army restructuring for Austria, Prussia, Russia, Gr.Br. as per EIH??

[pfnognoff]

Light cavalry sounds like an interesting idea but the one that needs some further thought because it could unbalance the game. If you introduce a cheaper version of cavalry how would you calculate cavalry advantage in battles?

As for the Young guard, what morale and cost would you give them?

[fjbn]

I´m not very sure, but it seems that OOB is based on EIH. So, there will be Guard Cavalry, with 5.0 morale. It means that probably there will be two kinds of cavalry, but not in the direction of shanebosky proposal.

[Roads]

ORIGINAL: pfnognoff
As for the Young guard, what morale and cost would you give them?

Presumably he'd halve the size of the French guard corps, and then add the YGuard Corps in the middle of the game. Both would then take guard factors.

Would allow guard commitment in two battles in the same turn which might not be such a good thing.

[shanebosky]

Young guard commitment could be limited to a level one shift I suppose, leaving Old Guard for the level 2 shift.

[pfnognoff]

Adding young guards as a corps would open up the entire "Why are corps sizes fixed in EiA" can of worms. The ethernal question of all EiA players: "But my economy and planning is much better then they had IRL" [:D] So why can't I create Austrian corps with 20 Inf and 5 Cav? Same goes for France, I can produce 40 Guards why can't I place them? IRL if Napoleon had enough "Old guards" available to him we would never see a "Young guards" divisions...

In EiA terms the answer to my "Why(s)" above is allways, game balance, isn't it?

[fjbn]

I agree with you. Game balance is very important. Who was a guard?. In fact, a good soldier with years of experience, so it´s very difficult to achieve a huge Guard Corp, you need many time and victories. If you use EiA rules, you need only 6 months to create a guard factor with 5.0 morale, which is unrealistic.
If you allow France to create a second guard corp, you will unbalance the game. I mean. Armies use to carry about 100 factors. If you carry Old Guard (25) and Young Guard (maybe 10) you will join a tremendous army size with a high morale, and you will be very difficult (nearly impossible) to beat. Maybe I´m wrong, but I think that Guard never represented more than 20% of the whole army. If you want to create a Young Guard, maybe you will have to divide the Guard Corps in two Corps. It has an advantage. many times France has to fight in two fronts, and in this case every French army will have a Guard Corp, like Austria.

[mattbirra]

I think we are loosing the feeling of the game in this topic ... i mean, when someone build guard, it is because that country have soldiers with the war experience needed to make that kind of units and France is that kind of country, and, for example, Spain was not ... in fact, we cound build as many diferent units as we could imagine, and change battles to choose among a hundred next tactics and everything we can imagine ... but remember, this is a strategic game, not a tactic one.. I think troops and tactics are enough for playability and enjoiment without getting lost into a tactic game. We have others games to play tactic Napoleonic Era.

And the most inportant thing ... games must be playables ...