Matrix Games Forums

Moopere,
 
This debate has peeked my curiosity. [:)] So I going to give another try at solving your problem.
The first one is the issue of troop type and the fact that the coarse scale of EiA loose them. You mention the fact that the main issue is one that would entice you to over use your elite due to the fact that they would reappear. It is the classical - no fear of tomorrow- of the typical tabletop wargame. That is that you do not have to worry about tomorrow. Only a campaign system can allow this, which I believe is what you are trying to do by using EiA as a strategic background. But EiA does not allow you to keep track of that. So the only way is to mini campaign the battle.
If the EiA battle is in fact a succession of fights and minor combats then this is what you need to do, do all those fights. At this point you can keep track of the finer details. Then you can abstract for the next month.
 
Another way that might work is to keep the players from micromanaging and to force them to engage larger units. Instead of deciding at the batallion level, have them decide at the divional level. Those divisions are rather standard in most armies.
 
But in the end, you have no choice but to take the detail loss.
 
The other issue is the one of casualties in a game. I think to remember that miniature casualties take into effect the following:
1. Casualties (dead and wounded)
2. Soldiers that left the field for whatever reason and soldier.
3. The loss in combativity not associated to direct loss of men, but an eery loss of moral.
 
For casualties themselves the ratio is roughly 1/5 to 1/4 dead an 4/5 to 3/4 wounded (if my memory serves me right). Out of those wounded probably half of those would be lightly wounded and be back under arms quickly. And another 25% would be back under arms within a reasonable time. The rest would probably not die but remain maimed and incapable iof further fighting. So from actual casualties, only 2/5 would never come back, while the other 3/5 would eventually return under arms within a month. I should finally read the memoirs of Charles Boutflower (that I bought too long ago and never got around to reading). If I remember too, those numbers would be different in line units and guard units.
 
Now of course the mount of casualties of miniature games that correspond to combativity loss and men just going behind and not coming back is dependent on the model used by the rule set. But a wild guess is that it represent around 10-20%.
 
So really the permanent loss of men in  battle would be around 25-30% of the actual miniatures casualties on the time scale of EiA which is 1 month turns.
 
As far as the NB conversion I think to remember that it was 1 factor = 1,000 men.
 
In any case, it is an interesting problem.
Good luck
Jerome

ORIGINAL: lavisj

Moopere,

This debate has peeked my curiosity. [:)] So I going to give another try at solving your problem.

Very interesting reply. The more I think about it the more I like the idea proposed here of transferring EiA to the tactical field not as a single battle but as a multi battle series.

Lots of details to think about in there, so I'll go away now and see if something interesting can be worked out.

Regards,
Moopere

Gents,

I think the NB paradigm is likely the least best option from a practical sense. Not only is it, IMHO, uber complex, but you absolutely have to have the original rules to make sense of it. Finding the blue supplement book will be a bear, as will the original rules while NB II was evidently a quality control disaster.

I checked and the EIA board game indicated that each strengthpoint was between 1000 and 2000 men, or an average of 1500 men. For my own rules, which are brigade level, that means that every four infantry stands or every eight cavalry stands = 1 strength point. Further, as has been said, a grand tactical game where every maneuver unit is a brigade (and the two in vogue right now are my own Age of Eagles and Sam Mustafe's Grande Armee), is by far the best choice of scales. Not only will it actually allow you to play a big battle and finish it, but the granularity of detail is much more appropriate for the way EIA is designed to work.

By here I mean that a line brigade of 1806 Prussians could well have two stands out of 10 as grenadiers because that's the way they organized, but it would still only count as a regular infantry brigade. Have guard points available? Assume that the Garde zu Fus regiment is on station AND/OR the grenadier stands have been stripped away from from the regular infantry formations to form a converged unit. Also, rather than set a generic size for a brigade, I see no reason why you can't just take the number of SPs x 1500, then let that be your guide as to how many stands to deploy, organizing them as historically as possible. I simply don't see that you will need a set of complex schema for translation with most groups of players.

Finally, I can see why a battle in EIA could represent a series of engagements, but it could also represent the decisive battle of a campaign. Likewise, a good set of miniature rules should represent the loss of stands of figures as not only KIA/WIA, but also cohesion as well. The building of strengthpoints also might well depict WIA returning to duty as well as new recruits; there are just so many variables at play here. With that in mind I'd like to see how close the two systems come prior to saying only count 50% losses on the miniatures table as EIA strengthpoints and go from there.

And BTW, the concept of command interest no more than two echelons lower than your own is spot on, and actually standard US Army and NATO doctrine per the old FM 100-1 Operations.

Regards, Bill Gray

I have tried to search for information about Russian/Turkish OOB's and organisation but it seems very hard to find reliable information especially regarding late 1700 and the first years of 1800. Is there anyone in the miniature hobby who has information or at least can point me in the right direction?  

ORIGINAL: hmgs1
I think the NB paradigm is likely the least best option from a practical sense. Not only is it, IMHO, uber complex, but you absolutely have to have the original rules to make sense of it. Finding the blue supplement book will be a bear, as will the original rules while NB II was evidently a quality control disaster.

I've been looking around and there does not appear to be a lot of hope in finding the original rules with the supplement. These original rules must be just about to drop out of copyright by now .... I'm quite surprised that selected parts have not been copied up to a web site anywhere obvious. Pieces of the original EiA rules are everywhere, but of Napoleons Battles there is almost nothing.

ORIGINAL: hmgs1

I see no reason why you can't just take the number of SPs x 1500, then let that be your guide as to how many stands to deploy, organizing them as historically as possible. I simply don't see that you will need a set of complex schema for translation with most groups of players.

Theres something to be said for simplicity as you describe. I assume we're talking about something like:

1) 4000 men = all line, no arty, no cav

2) 6000 men = line + some light regiments, no arty, no cav

3) 8000 men = line + light + a bit of arty, no cav

4) 10000 men = line + light + arty + a regiment or so of light/militia cavalry

and so on and so forth (dependant on national organisations of the time). Allowing, for gaming sanity reasons, some of the elite sub units to be converged in order to arrive at usable unit sizes in the actual miniatures battle.

This sounds quite reasonable, particularly so if a series of battles are fought rather than a single encounter.

Any ideas on how to account for the only other useful bit of information tracked by EiA which is morale? I suppose a direct injection via some sort of modifier to the miniatures rules own morale system would be enough.

ORIGINAL: hmgs1
Finally, I can see why a battle in EIA could represent a series of engagements, but it could also represent the decisive battle of a campaign.

Yep, it could, thats a fair cop.

I like the idea of multiple battles I think mainly because I hope it might encourage better play. As Lavisj rightly points out in his post above, we need to promote a "fear of tomorrow" and use our troops carefully. The problem I see in most one-off battles is commanders carelessness with the lives of their men. In Napoleonic Total War2 battles, for instance, its common for all fielded cavalry to get killed (almost to the man!) within the first 30 minutes of the first shots being fired. Tell someone that because of their rashness the next 5 battles will see them without cavalry at all and my suspicion is that they will try and use their cavalry arm more reasonably.

Regards,
Moopere

Not exactly. Tell you what, it might be better to explain it with an example. Why don't you come up with an army, any country, any year, and let me know what type and how many strength points comprise it and I'll show you how I would convert that to pewter using AOE.
 
BTW, copyright in this country is life of the author plus 75 years IIRC, so don't get your hopes up with NB .
 
Regards, Bill Gray

"I like the idea of multiple battles I think mainly because I hope it might encourage better play. As Lavisj rightly points out in his post above, we need to promote a "fear of tomorrow" and use our troops carefully. The problem I see in most one-off battles is commanders carelessness with the lives of their men. In Napoleonic Total War2 battles, for instance, its common for all fielded cavalry to get killed (almost to the man!) within the first 30 minutes of the first shots being fired. Tell someone that because of their rashness the next 5 battles will see them without cavalry at all and my suspicion is that they will try and use their cavalry arm more reasonably."

You wont get multiple battles, what you will get is players withdrawing all the time, to a stronger army.  This is looking at things in the small picture really, you are still looking at the smaller type battles.
Moopre with respect you seem to be going around circles with this issue. The fear of tommorrow only comes at the last battle, to see whether you can get better peace terms.

Gentleman what you have mentioned is all theory, and nothing pragmatic is coming of this discussion.
Untill you decide what third party battle system you are going to use this all above is all academic, we have a system and its very flexable, it is a copy and the details of the NB we have it in place but until, that battlefield system is available theres no point in wasting your energy too much opn this issue.
Moopre I have already gone a few rounds with you on this discussion, you seem to like debates.

ORIGINAL: gazfun
You wont get multiple battles, what you will get is players withdrawing all the time, to a stronger army.

Tempting to agree here but I'm not so sure. Gunner and I have been fighting a system which is a sort of a linked battle / campaign hybrid within a small operational theatre. So long as you provide meaningful terrain objectives it does provide a mechanism for several tactical conflicts though of course there is also quite a bit of manoeuvre to gain advantage as well.

ORIGINAL: gazfun
This is looking at things in the small picture really, you are still looking at the smaller type battles.

Oh sure, thats true. I've got an particular interest in battles that are around 2-3 Corps in size. However, I can't discount my own historical legacy which is fighting miniatures at battalion/regiment/brigade level with any number of different rule sets from Quarrie onwards.

ORIGINAL: gazfun
Moopre with respect you seem to be going around circles with this issue. The fear of tommorrow only comes at the last battle, to see whether you can get better peace terms.

I'm just coming at it from a different angle to you. My primary goal in wanting to use EiA at all is to provide a means to play out interesting and contextual miniatures battles. I'm not that interested in Grand Strategic at the end of the day and won't likely get involved in EiA games that don't place an emphasis on the 3rd party battle system.

I disagree about the "The fear of tommorrow only comes at the last battle". If you've "used up" your cavalry, killed off your veteran troops and lost your artillery, you are going to be in sad shape to try and contest any future battles within the theatre of operations. We shouldn't be fighting battles for no reason, and if theres a reason to fight then there is reason to be disappointed (tactically...probably strategically too) at a loss.

ORIGINAL: gazfun
Gentleman what you have mentioned is all theory, and nothing pragmatic is coming of this discussion.

Geez, I think a lot of decent ground has been covered. Need to plan before launching an operation mate

ORIGINAL: gazfun
Untill you decide what third party battle system you are going to use this all above is all academic

Not really. The engine is just a tool and most miniatures rules (tools) are broadly similar in a way that won't impede getting some theory straight and worked out.

To be as forthright as possible however, I'm specifically looking at a fit for NTW2 (Napoleonic Total War2) as well as my miniatures collection (looking for new rules here...AoE looks promising though)

ORIGINAL: gazfun
we have a system and its very flexable, it is a copy and the details of the NB we have it in place but until, that battlefield system is available theres no point in wasting your energy too much opn this issue.
Moopre I have already gone a few rounds with you on this discussion, you seem to like debates.

With respect Gazfun, we have spoken on this subject before but you are unwilling to share the system you have developed and have taken a 'trust me' approach. You have indicated that your system won't come to light until Histwar:LG is released. This is your right and I have absolutely no objection which is why I did not press you further on this subject during our previous conversation.

I do find it a tad insulting however that you appear to think I'm wasting my time. I'd happily have a look at your system if you'd release it, as you won't (which is ok) I don't see I have any choice but to reinvent the wheel. In any event, there will be more then one way to skin this cat and I'm directing effort towards NTW2/Miniatures which does not appear to be your own focus.

Regards, Moopere.

ORIGINAL: hmgs1

Not exactly. Tell you what, it might be better to explain it with an example. Why don't you come up with an army, any country, any year, and let me know what type and how many strength points comprise it and I'll show you how I would convert that to pewter using AOE.

Righto. Thanks for the offer. How about Russia, 1812, 30 infantry factors, 5 militia factors, 5 regular cavalry factors? No implicit guard factors...but I'll leave it you to see if AoE would spit any out anyway given the numbers/types of troops present.

Best regards,
Moopere.

"I do find it a tad insulting however that you appear to think I'm wasting my time. I'd happily have a look at your system if you'd release it, as you won't (which is ok) I don't see I have any choice but to reinvent the wheel. In any event, there will be more then one way to skin this cat and I'm directing effort towards NTW2/Miniatures which does not appear to be your own focus.

Regards, Moopere. "

I have given you a basic formula mate, which has been recorded.

We have had our share on playing mods, all of us are over it

Hi,
I haven't finished reading all the posts, but wanted to share an idea I had, which is to use a 3x5 note card for each division, and have some standardized divisions. In 1805, a 5-factor division to represent St. Hilaire's division of 4 line and one legere regiment. Of course, by the time of the battle they were at about half strength...

You can make a standard 4-factor division, and so on. Twenty-six of these division cards could have a legere regiment or factor at the start.

You group the cards into their respective corps. A corps with 3 x 4-factor divisions, and you'd have to limit yourself to a max of 12 factors in the corps, maybe. Or maybe not. Overfilling a corps could just mean more than the usual 2 or 3 battalions per regiment.

Artillery assigned to the divisions can be hand-written on the cards, too.

At any rate, I'm a very old tech guy, and have lots of 3x5 cards laying around...so I though of using them. Your comment that wargamers who push pewter, or as I'd put it, who run on leaded fuel, will know how to set up a competitive game is well taken.

I also want to note that at the beginning of the 1805 game, the Austrians seem to be still mobilizing, as 75 infantry factors is about 2/3 or 3/4 their possible maximum for 62 regiments, some light battalions, and the grenz.

Ah, the anticipation. Get out the paints, where are my brushes? Wish I could make it to cold wars.

ORIGINAL: gazfun
I have given you a basic formula mate, which has been recorded.

Oh? My apologies. I remember having this conversation over at thegeneralshq but I don't remember receiving anything...which is my fault not yours. Can you please remind me was that sent by personal email or on the forums itself? I've just whipped over for a scan of the old posts and I can't see it (could be me again).

ORIGINAL: gazfun
We have had our share on playing mods, all of us are over it

?? Who is 'we'? I'm new to these matrix forums so perhaps I'm now unearthing a well ploughed subject? Certainly within the NTW2 community there is interest in contextual battles as a relief from the monotonous never-ending stream of pointless one off engagements.

There is wider application here for miniatures players as well. The holy grail for all the miniatures groups I've ever been involved with over the decades has been to find a device that allows otherwise separate tabletop battles to be linked in some way - EiANW might be that device.

Regards,
Moopere

http://www.thegeneralshq.org/phpBBForum/viewtopic.php?t=232

This is where I gave you a basic formula, and there are percentage differance for national artillery, skirmishers etc, but what I gave you should be enough to get you on the track.
The best thing this way is that it can be reversable after taking the casualties out of it, to get you back to the EiANW figures
We meaning TGHQ. mulling around with software that doesnt quiet give eveything.  I mean after all this is one period in history where only a few have got it close to bing right.
And you know who is getting it right
Ive had the advantage along with a few people for a long time knew that EiANW is going to be at the heart of this. The rest will follow with LG. I cant be specific unfortunatley, its out of my hands for now.

ORIGINAL: moopere

ORIGINAL: hmgs1

Not exactly. Tell you what, it might be better to explain it with an example. Why don't you come up with an army, any country, any year, and let me know what type and how many strength points comprise it and I'll show you how I would convert that to pewter using AOE.

Righto. Thanks for the offer. How about Russia, 1812, 30 infantry factors, 5 militia factors, 5 regular cavalry factors? No implicit guard factors...but I'll leave it you to see if AoE would spit any out anyway given the numbers/types of troops present.

Best regards,
Moopere.

Too easy. For the Aussie, the Battlefield System will be Age of Eagles (Napoleonic Fire & Fury), where all maneuver units are brigades, all artillery are batteries. Scale is 30 minutes per turn, 120 yards per inch, each infantry stand of four figures = 360 troops, each cavalry stand of two figures = 180 troopers, each Russian artillery stand = a battery of 12 guns.

Now I'm not sure whether you mean all those SPs in a single corps, or just the total in the area/battle, but given that you are using 1812 with militia, I would pull my Russian OB for Borodino to use as an historical model. Here is what I would field, using 1 SP = 1500 men:

- 1 x Army Command Stand

- Infantry corps with two infantry divisions, each of one division command stand, two line brigades (7 stands each), one Jaeger brigade (6 stands), plus one corps artillery brigade of 2 x 6 lb foot artillery batteries, 1 x 12 lb battery, plus 1 corps command stand.

- Infantry corps with two infantry divisions, each of one division command stand, two line brigades (7 stands each), one Jaeger brigade (6 stands), plus one corps artillery brigade of 2 x 6 lb foot artillery batteries, 1 x 12 lb battery, plus 1 corps command stand.

- Infantry corps with two infantry divisions, each of one division command stand, two line brigades (7 stands each), one Jaeger brigade (6 stands), plus one corps artillery brigade of 2 x 6 lb foot artillery batteries, 1 x 12 lb battery, plus 1 corps command stand.

- Attached Olpochenea Division with one division command stand, three militia infantry brigades of 7 stands each.

- Cavalry corps with two divisions each consisting of one division command stand, one light brigade (5 hussar, 5 lancer stands), two heavy brigades each of five stands dragoons for the first division, each of five stands, cuirassiers for the second division, a single 6 lb horse battery for the entire corps.

See if that doesn't add up (think I did the math right .

Wish I knew what you two chaps were talking about.

Regards, Bill Gray

ORIGINAL: moopere

ORIGINAL: hmgs1
I think the NB paradigm is likely the least best option from a practical sense. Not only is it, IMHO, uber complex, but you absolutely have to have the original rules to make sense of it. Finding the blue supplement book will be a bear, as will the original rules while NB II was evidently a quality control disaster.

I've been looking around and there does not appear to be a lot of hope in finding the original rules with the supplement. These original rules must be just about to drop out of copyright by now .... I'm quite surprised that selected parts have not been copied up to a web site anywhere obvious. Pieces of the original EiA rules are everywhere, but of Napoleons Battles there is almost nothing.

The rules for conversion to Napoleons Battles were contained in the second expansion module (blue book). You can sometimes find copies for sale on e-bay. Search for Napoleons Battles and look through the various response to see if one is for sale.

ORIGINAL: tolstoy1812

Hi,
I haven't finished reading all the posts, but wanted to share an idea I had, which is to use a 3x5 note card for each division, and have some standardized divisions. In 1805, a 5-factor division to represent St. Hilaire's division of 4 line and one legere regiment. Of course, by the time of the battle they were at about half strength...

You can make a standard 4-factor division, and so on. Twenty-six of these division cards could have a legere regiment or factor at the start.

You group the cards into their respective corps. A corps with 3 x 4-factor divisions, and you'd have to limit yourself to a max of 12 factors in the corps, maybe. Or maybe not. Overfilling a corps could just mean more than the usual 2 or 3 battalions per regiment.

Artillery assigned to the divisions can be hand-written on the cards, too.

Despite my lament at the lack of detail available and tracked inside EiA itself, over recent years I've come to dislike creating systems that involve much manual accounting (or tracking) by players. It tends to turn them off..whether its just too hard or folks are getting lazier I'm not entirely sure.

Having said that, your idea has made me think of a similar solution, but with some of hmgs1's idea as well (with a bit of Piquet rules thrown in). What about a deck of cards with prebuilt divisions that are plausible but allow for some variation and have a soldier count at the top? You'd keep pulling cards from the deck until you fulfil the number of men present in any particular battle with some of the divisions being straight 'by the book' and some with attachments of speciality or elite troops...more or less artillery...etc, etc, etc.

Cheers, Moopere

ORIGINAL: hmgs1
- 1 x Army Command Stand

- Infantry corps with two infantry divisions, each of one division command stand, two line brigades (7 stands each), one Jaeger brigade (6 stands), plus one corps artillery brigade of 2 x 6 lb foot artillery batteries, 1 x 12 lb battery, plus 1 corps command stand.

- Infantry corps with two infantry divisions, each of one division command stand, two line brigades (7 stands each), one Jaeger brigade (6 stands), plus one corps artillery brigade of 2 x 6 lb foot artillery batteries, 1 x 12 lb battery, plus 1 corps command stand.

- Infantry corps with two infantry divisions, each of one division command stand, two line brigades (7 stands each), one Jaeger brigade (6 stands), plus one corps artillery brigade of 2 x 6 lb foot artillery batteries, 1 x 12 lb battery, plus 1 corps command stand.

- Attached Olpochenea Division with one division command stand, three militia infantry brigades of 7 stands each.

- Cavalry corps with two divisions each consisting of one division command stand, one light brigade (5 hussar, 5 lancer stands), two heavy brigades each of five stands dragoons for the first division, each of five stands, cuirassiers for the second division, a single 6 lb horse battery for the entire corps.

See if that doesn't add up (think I did the math right .

Thanks a lot hmgs1. Looks about right to me but is the sort of 'cookie cutter' stuff I was a bit worried about earlier. I don't mean that in a bad way, just a lack of variation way. The Russian Army at this time is a particularly bad example of this 'sameness'. Given the above, when would you be tempted to throw in a Grenadier brigade as some sort of detachment from one of the Grenadier Divisions? EiA calls most infantry simply "infantry" so in there somewhere are the Grenadiers.

ORIGINAL: hmgs1Wish I knew what you two chaps were talking about.

Sorry, thats a leakage from another conversation on a different forums site.

Best regards,
Moopere

This was a single example I pulled from Borodino. Given the number and types of brigades, you could really mix it up and produce a lot of variations. For example, on one side of Borodino they detached all Jaeger brigades and threw them forward under an independent command. Lots of ways you could do it, this is just one.
 
As regards the grenadiers, I'd look at how many Guard SPs the game will let you build. If its a bunch, its likely that the permanent grenadier regiments (like Pavlovski, Moscow and so on) are included in that allotment. I know that they have (or did have) Austrian guards, except historically there were none outside the Trabantine Place Guards (think halbreds) and so on. Thus the points must be the converged grenadier divisions the Austrians fielded from 1809 forward.
 
Bottom line for the Russians, I would not field either guards or grenadiers unless Guard SPs were present.
 
Regards, Bill Gray

ORIGINAL: moopere
Despite my lament at the lack of detail available and tracked inside EiA itself, over recent years I've come to dislike creating systems that involve much manual accounting (or tracking) by players. It tends to turn them off..whether its just too hard or folks are getting lazier I'm not entirely sure.

Having said that, your idea has made me think of a similar solution, but with some of hmgs1's idea as well (with a bit of Piquet rules thrown in). What about a deck of cards with prebuilt divisions that are plausible but allow for some variation and have a soldier count at the top? You'd keep pulling cards from the deck until you fulfil the number of men present in any particular battle with some of the divisions being straight 'by the book' and some with attachments of speciality or elite troops...more or less artillery...etc, etc, etc.

This being the 21st century and all, some clever grognard should be able to come up with a computer program to do all of this--ideally you could use LG to resolve the tactical battles and be able to automatically import/export data b/n LG and AiE. Would be cool, but haven't looked to see how complicated it would be.

ORIGINAL: 76mm
This being the 21st century and all, some clever grognard should be able to come up with a computer program to do all of this--ideally you could use LG to resolve the tactical battles and be able to automatically import/export data b/n LG and AiE. Would be cool, but haven't looked to see how complicated it would be.

I don't think we'll be able to create a bolt on (or glue) piece of software to help much with the recording and tracking of factors inside EiA as EiA is a closed system until a battle actually occurs. Factors can be pretty much freely transferred between corps by players at the EiA level and without meticulous record keeping by interested humans I just can't see how you'd break into this in an automated way.

I'm not saying that tracking factors can't be done, but it would be hard and open to a lot of mistakes by a group of humans with more or less motivation to do it properly.

LG or other tactical system won't help in this regard. The tactical battle engine used will still rely upon the data presented it by the EiA strategic system. In EiA's case that data is very high level and the high on-the-ground detail is not tracked (at the battalion or regimental level).

Having said all that though, if we are all happy enough to live with a bit of force composition "creativity" at the time of the battle(s) then a piece of glue software could certainly be written to take the exported data from EiA and massage it into something useful for import by an existing PC based tactical game or a miniatures rules system.

Regards, Moopere.