Reinforcement phase improvement

Empires in Arms is the computer version of Australian Design Group classic board game. Empires in Arms is a seven player game of grand strategy set during the Napoleonic period of 1805-1815. The unit scale is corps level with full diplomatic options

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Mardonius
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RE: Reinforcement phase improvement

Post by Mardonius »

Right on Dancing Bear!
"Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant" -- James Madison
"Yes, you will win most battles, but if you loose to me you will loose oh so badly that it causes me pain (chortle) just to think of it" - P. Khan
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Marshall Ellis
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RE: Reinforcement phase improvement

Post by Marshall Ellis »

What would be the ordering?
Would a French player agree to this? French player would get to see garrison/fleet placements, new corps, new leaders, etc???
I'm VERY hesitant to do this because it leaps so far from EiA and when I do that I get slammed!
Thank you

Marshall Ellis
Outflank Strategy War Games


Skanvak
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Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2005 4:57 pm

RE: Reinforcement phase improvement

Post by Skanvak »

Marshall I think you will less get slammed if you implement a TCP/IP game really true to EIA, FIRST.

Then all modification for PBEM will seem more legitimate (by the way don't forget to make it optional).

As for the order.

Everyone does the simultaneous reinforcement phase,

Add a simultenous French/England move order decision (again England and France can decide simultaneously)

goes to the move order.

But again, implement a true EiA with all the correct phase for TCP/IP first then revise the PBEM, not the otherway round. Doing the PBEM stuff AFTER will give a lot legitimacy to all simplification. If you begin by the PBEM you might angry some players and most will be afraisd the TCP/IP will be like the PBEM, therefore limiting all attempt to simplify the PBEM routine.

Best regards

Skanvak
larrywrose
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Joined: Sun May 01, 2005 5:19 am

RE: Reinforcement phase improvement

Post by larrywrose »

Guys we are about to do 1.08 which will have simultaneous Diplomacy Phases. Here is how we can deal with the combined Diplomacy/Reinforcement Phase.

Reinforcement Phase
Placement of Reinforcements Can be moved to the Diplomacy Phase with little game impact.
Placement of Leaders Can be moved to the Land Phase with little game impact.
Loaning of Corps to allies Can be moved to the Diplomacy Phase. Game impact could be medium with a suprise DOW.
GB chooses when to move in the Naval Phase
France chooses when to move in the Land Phase

Move GB to last in the Diplomacy Phase. Now they can see the diplomacy phase results and then do their reinforcement phase. This will effectively remove the phase. Only France now has a reinforcement phase, and the only decision is when to move in the Land phase.

I consider a suprise DOW when Austria/Prussia or Russia go to war with each other. Eveyone expects to go to war with France at some time. But the one turn of not loaning of corps could make for a criticle strike on one of these nations.

Anyway this is one way to get there.

Larry W. Rose
Dancing Bear
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RE: Reinforcement phase improvement

Post by Dancing Bear »

Hi Larry
you can't really merge the dip and reinforcement phases, because you need to know the results of diplomacy (DOW's on minors), so you know if you need to place minor state reinforcements. So the minimum is a seperate reinforcement phase. The is no real loss in game speed for a seperate sim rein phase, they would be very quick.
ORIGINAL: larrywrose

Guys we are about to do 1.08 which will have simultaneous Diplomacy Phases. Here is how we can deal with the combined Diplomacy/Reinforcement Phase.

Reinforcement Phase
Placement of Reinforcements Can be moved to the Diplomacy Phase with little game impact.
Placement of Leaders Can be moved to the Land Phase with little game impact.
Loaning of Corps to allies Can be moved to the Diplomacy Phase. Game impact could be medium with a suprise DOW.
GB chooses when to move in the Naval Phase
France chooses when to move in the Land Phase

Move GB to last in the Diplomacy Phase. Now they can see the diplomacy phase results and then do their reinforcement phase. This will effectively remove the phase. Only France now has a reinforcement phase, and the only decision is when to move in the Land phase.

I consider a suprise DOW when Austria/Prussia or Russia go to war with each other. Eveyone expects to go to war with France at some time. But the one turn of not loaning of corps could make for a criticle strike on one of these nations.

Anyway this is one way to get there.

Larry W. Rose
Dancing Bear
Posts: 1003
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:16 pm

RE: Reinforcement phase improvement

Post by Dancing Bear »

Skanvak, this is the way to go. Most of the time GB/Fr could skip their declaration of movement phase, so this seperate select when to move phase would not be a factor 95% of the time (likely best to let GB and France determine when they move both during their regular reinforcement phase and during a seperate phase, so there would be no need for a move declaration phase 98% of the time).

There would also have to be a few minor limitations with sim reinforcement to prevent two players from adding corps or garrisons to the same location and going over the corps per space or garrison limits. These might be, 1) you can place anything, anywhere you want in your home nation/free states and conquoured states. But 2) outside of that, you could only add factors to existing corps and depots, or add new corps counters to areas where you have depots, or under your "control", as only one player can control one area at a time (of course this assumes the above areas are in supply). Not a big limitation.

Marshall, I think many PBEM's have learned that to have a good PBEM, we don't need to exactly replicate EIA rules to the letter. Anyways in the old board game, almost all groups treated reinforcement as simultaneous anyways, except for the announcement of who moved when. It might not have been the rules, but it was the way the game was played.
ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Marshall I think you will less get slammed if you implement a TCP/IP game really true to EIA, FIRST.

Then all modification for PBEM will seem more legitimate (by the way don't forget to make it optional).

As for the order.

Everyone does the simultaneous reinforcement phase,

Add a simultenous French/England move order decision (again England and France can decide simultaneously)

goes to the move order.

But again, implement a true EiA with all the correct phase for TCP/IP first then revise the PBEM, not the otherway round. Doing the PBEM stuff AFTER will give a lot legitimacy to all simplification. If you begin by the PBEM you might angry some players and most will be afraisd the TCP/IP will be like the PBEM, therefore limiting all attempt to simplify the PBEM routine.
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