My first big one.

[Jensen76]

I recently posted about a problem I had with Danish troops wandering around my fine Swedish soil without asking permission or even stopping to fight.
While I never really found out whether that was a small bug or not, I decided to take matters in my own hands and solve the problem by invading and crushing the provoking danes.

That should teach them not to violate my neutrality...! [:D]

The events following this decision ended up in my first large battle while playing this game - and I found it all so entertaing that I just had to come here and rave about it.

I crossed the Sund from Sweden into Zealand with my pretty strong army and routed their pathetic same. From there, I went straight through Zealand and Jutland with my main force, starting a siege of Hamburg, while a smaller force trailed behind to take care of the minor garrisons I had bypassed.
But that (for reasons I have yet to discover) somehow got the Turks attention (I'm sure they weren't allied or anything) and 3 or 4 months into my siege of Hamburg they suddenly landed a great, big, ugly, cavalry-heavy, commander-laden, 7.0 level morale, swede-bustin' army right in my sieging army's back. Why the Turks, from way over on the other side of Europe, suddenly decided I was persona non grata in Holstein I will never understand, but there they were. And they were mad. And many.

I was out-numbered nearly 2-1 by an elite army (them 170.000, me 100.000). And they had the advantage of surprise (don't know if that's modeled - perhaps as a boost to initiative or something...?).

Well, to make a long story short, the battle lasted three days !!! (in game time, mind you - in real time two whole evenings!). After having been nearly overwhelmed in the opening onslaught - loosing all my supply-caissons except one - I managed to rally my forces around a hill and hold out untill reinforcements arrived from Jutland. The Turks turned their attention to these for a while (pretty much chewing them up, outnumbered and isolated as they were) and that gave me time to organize a decent line of defence around the hill that eventually would get me through the day and into the night where things calmed down a little bit.
During that first night I was able to move my forces to a nearby town that would form my defence perimeter for the rest of the battle and help supply my tired troops.

From there on and through the next 48 hours I fought what I would call an aggressive defensive battle. Holding the line pretty conservatively around the city but lashing out now and then with guard and jager-units when the Turks got too full of themselves and bared their flanks. After the battle of the supply-caissons in the opening phase, my cavalry never really regained their posture and never got to play a decisive role, so I had to rely heavily on my infantry to do the job.

The initiative shifted several times during the next days' battle (love the night-time sequences - really adds eb and flow to the gameplay), but finally, late on the third day, after I had nearly been routed myself 24 hours earlier, the Turkish forces began to waver. And as night fell the last of them broke and I chased them across the map with my infantry. At this point, most of my cavalry was running around disordered and disorientated at the other end of the map (which I had had them doing most of the battle - they just wouldn't reform...!!) so my weary infantry had to do the mopping up.

But even here, the turks played a few tricks on me as several units (both infantry and cavalry) seemed to lay in wait for me down the road actually managing to inflict some pretty heavy casualties on me with a few well placed volleys and a charge here and there - even as the whole army was retreating. They fought a nice rearguard action, those turks.

But anyway, I won. Finally. With some help from reinforcements from Jutland and a few reloads (not musket-ones[;)]).
And I learned quite a bit. For example, how big a difference a single elite unit can make. Several times, my one elite guard unit seemed to be all that held my lines together, and during the second night of the battle that guard unit and a cunning jager-unit in skirmish-formation held back an (admittedly disorganised) assault from ~50.000 Turkish troops...! [&o] That action really turned the battle as the rest of my troops got a chance to reorganize and resupply in a nearby village (I had only one supply-caisson left, remember) while the elites took the heat.

Another thing I learned was never to leave your flanks open. As the battle started my supply-caissons and artillery were stupidly placed on my flanks (a bit unfair - I would never leave them like that if I had the chance to place my units before battle...) and the Turks made mince-meat of them the first couple of turns.
But even later in the battle, when I should have learned my lesson, cunning Turkish cavalry slipped through my lines and around my flanks at several occasions to inflict heavy losses on my artillery-units or some disorganized cavalry that I hadn't gotten out of the way. Irritating, but challenging. In other words - good.

And one last thing - supply-caissons. Boy, are they important. I'd rather lose 20.000 men than a supply-caisson. I never managed to steal one from the Turks (they had too much cavalry running around) but the importance of resupplying in this game makes controlling and protecting those wagons a whole strategic game in itself. Adds a lot of depth - well, at least fun - in my opinion.

Okay, I'll stop now. It's getting late.
But to summarize, The Battle of Hamburg (70.000 casualties, 28.000 of them my own brave soldiers) was my first large battle. I got 28 glory points, two rich provinces and one arch-enemy out of it. And a truckload of fun.
Can't wait to fire this game up again this weekend.
Good thing the holidays are coming.

Sorry for the endless post - I'm new and enjoying myself.

Have fun!

Jensen

EDIT - just realized this should probably have been posted in the AAR section. Sorry mods... [:)]

[Adam Parker]

No keep it here! This is great advertising and great fun.

Man, I really want to hit those rules. Jensen how long did it take you to learn the game and did you find the need to wade through the whole rule book?

How did you get the courage to take on a full battle rather than hitting auto resolve? [:D]

Thanks for the write-up - I truly enjoyed it,
Adam.

[Reiryc]

Great post...

Nice to see people having fun with the game. It really is a classic imo.

[TexHorns]

Man don't be afraid of the detailed battles. They are a lot of fun, as Jensen found out. You have so much more control of the outcome vs the QB. I played the game and fought many detailed battles, all the while referring back to the rules as needed. The rule book devotes a lot of pages to the detailed battle. Tactical common sense will help also. Never leave your flanks open.[:-] I tend to try and fix my flank on a town, or lake or forest. The AI is pretty adept at using it's cavalry to capture your supply and artillery. Use your cav to protect this at all cost. Also the posts on this forumn have been very helpful.

I agree with Jensen about the excitement of fighting a large long battle where momentum swings. My last battle was France vs the Turks in Galacia. I (France) fixed my right flank on a river ; two hexes from the river was a small lake. I deployed an artillery div and lt inf div behind lake. Not knowing where the Turk was coming from I formed an L shape from the lake and fixed the left flank on a town. The Turk hit my right with inf and cav, disordering a inf div. I had to reinforce from the left to support the right. I also called on reinforecements from Warsaw. The Turks had a line of inf and supply that came across the front of the L between the lake and the town. My art and inf div's ripped them up, advancing in line and firing, while two cav div fixed their position. After routing that force, I swung the left flank, and the reinforecements that began to arrive, like a gate from the left to the right, funneled up a valley across from the lake and totally routed the Turks. I bet I captured more men than I killed. It was very cool.

Thanks for listening.

[1LTRambo]

Thanks for the story. It was great. I'm really excited to get my hands on this.

I just hope the patch will fix the cassion problem. I have read many posts complaining about them showing up on the flanks and hope it is fixed.

[Jensen76]

I'm glad you liked the story - I sure did too!

And no, I hadn't really studied the rules in detail before jumping into the fray. I had skimmed them and was cross-checking the manual as I went along, but otherwise I was kind of fumbling in the dark - just doing what I found logic and sensible (in other words, acting out of panic and desperation). And the game reacted wonderfully to that.

But the best thing is that after the battle you are returned to an engrossing empire-building campaign where the results of the battle you just fought are spelled out in the events of the following turns. This makes for a very involving gaming experience.

The only problem is, that I'm almost afraid to fight another detailed battle as I'm afraid it's going to be a disappointment compared to the first one - which seemed really unique. Which is a pretty idiotic thing to say as it was my first...[8|]
But anyway, my date tomorrow night have just cancelled (lucky me!) so I'll get a chance to test myself further on the battlefield then - and learn, perhaps, to which extent my first victory was a result of strategic prowess or a result of that much, much more crucial ability of a field commander - luck.

Off to bed, now. Have fun everyone!


Jensen

[BossGnome]

no seriously, I spent about 2 hours on the manual (NOTHING for a matrix game), then went right into the game. I don't plan to understand every little thing, but its not too bad once you get the basics down. Just a few things I'm still not 100% clear about (you can make individual provinces better at developping certain things?), but those arent needed to play the game.