CleverDevils2 AAR

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: gwheelock
The Brits have been attempting to create distractions while killing French fleets.
While this is good for Britain; it hasn't materially helped the Austrians either.

I have to disagree with you. There were several corps and an unknown quantity of troops that were held back in France by this. In fact, they are still there (most likely including the artillery corps, knowing the French player's philosophy that the British troops are the best ones to kill with artillery.

Now, a significant portion of those ran towards Austria last turn, and have now shown up in Nappy's army (part of the reason you had numerical superiority).

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: Soapy Frog
Of course we can ask, where are the Russians and the Turks? In a case like this where Austria has been hung out to dry, then fighting yourself to destruction, militarily and politically, is not the mark of an experienced player.

The Russians are fighting the Turks (see gwheelock's post), and the Turks are a solid French ally. If the Turks were to join at all, they would come in on the side of the French, so I'm somewhat glad they aren't directly involved in that war.

However, fighting to extinction is not a bad tactic, as long as one doesn't fight until the VERY last month. The current player playing France once took Austria down to 3 infantry factors in his entire army before surrendering.

The next war? He won. Had help, obviously, but he won the war.

[Jimmer]

I forgot to mention WHY fighting to extinction isn't always a bad move: There are no hard civil disorder rules. Try playing a game where you MUST occupy every capital just to force a surrender. It's not much fun if ones opponent is being unreasonable. It has a tendency to make surrender terms much easier than they otherwise might be.

[Soapy Frog]

Yes Britian should have shipped at least one corps to boost the morale and numbers of the Austrian army. With the loaned corps rules this would have been fairly easy to do and, as the rules stand, at no poltical risk to GB.
 
Squashing French Fleets is always fun but at this point, France can just run roughshod over europe, setting up some nice rotations for political point generation to insulate against British slashing. France's fleets were actually a liability, without Spanish and Russian commitment to go against Britain.
 
With the Prussian and Austrian armies split and evicerated, there is very little hope they will ever be able to resist the French. In fact it sounds like the Russians will be next on the plate, weakened already by Turkey.

[Soapy Frog]

ORIGINAL: Jimmer
The next war? He won. Had help, obviously, but he won the war.

That's a nice story but there will be no help forthcoming for the Austrians this game.

Forcing France to occupy all your capitals to force a surrender is not the same as throwing away your army hopelessly. Delaying surrender can be a valid tactic (and in this case it sounds like it could have been if the Russians were actually sending help), however committing suicide with your army renders the delay meaningless.

[NeverMan]

I agree, and made a case for at the time, the adding of Britain's corps to either the space my army occupied or the Austrian army. My first choice would have been the Austrian army simply for the morale. This is what happens in most games.

That said, this game is a little different. I think there are some newcomers to EiA, which is great but makes for a different kind of game, particularly if you have an experienced French player.

Needless to say, I have not had the luck of the dice thus far.

A MAJOR PROBLEM THAT I THINK OCCURS WITH PBEM is this: It seems that some players aren't concerned with trying to win the game, they are, instead, more concerned with having fun while they play the game which includes making sure you are on the winning team.

If you aren't playing to win the game then it's OK to come in 2nd or 3rd or even 4th place if you had fun, KNOWING FULL WELL, the game will NEVER get finished because Matrix's PBEM version of the game is too slow.

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
A MAJOR PROBLEM THAT I THINK OCCURS WITH PBEM is this: It seems that some players aren't concerned with trying to win the game, they are, instead, more concerned with having fun while they play the game which includes making sure you are on the winning team.

That certainly hasn't happened in THIS game.

But, there's one thing you may not know about, since you came late: We're playing with the original victory rules, not the computer game's version. The game will declare a winner, and then we will manually add manpower to everybody's VP total, to get the final list of winners. So, coming in second CAN be a goal once first is clearly out of reach.

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

I agree, and made a case for at the time, the adding of Britain's corps to either the space my army occupied or the Austrian army. My first choice would have been the Austrian army simply for the morale. This is what happens in most games.

It does indeed happen in most games. But, it doesn't typically come until the SECOND war. Britain's total factor count at the start of this war was in the 40s, just as it is in most games, which makes it essentially impossible to do this then. Britain can't make that kind of commitment until the French navy is heavily downgraded as a fighting force, lest Spain take advantage of the situation and invade her homeland.

I actually took a rather large calculated risk in committing as many troops as I did against the French west coast. But, I needed to do SOMETHING to take the heat off of the Austrians. Unfortunately, it worked too well (I was expecting to only win one of them, and keep him fighting against the remaining troops). With all of the French fleets gone, there is no longer a need for a large French land presence inside France. There are only 3 french corps remaining in France, and one of those is known to contain only 6 factors (or, that's what it had when last encountered). Another is likely the artillery, since they haven't shown up elsewhere. I suspect the third is a bluff: Gwheelock is well-known in our gaming circle of friends as an "all or nothing" kind of warrior. If I'm right, he brought nearly everything he had over to Austria, in an effort to eliminate them from the war quickly.

It worked.

[NeverMan]

Jimmer, my responses to your 2 posts:

1. You're wrong, it has indeed happened in THIS game.

2. You're wrong again, it usually happens in the first war since everyone knows that if France wins that one then there's little to do about stopping him for the rest of the game since he can rotate Prussia and Austria.

[Jimmer]

#1  Well, I certainly haven't seen it. Perhaps you should point it out so that I can be enlightened. I can only guess at what you are referring to otherwise.
 
#2  "everyone" does not know that. With soft civil disorder rules being played, it's not even true.

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

#1  Well, I certainly haven't seen it. Perhaps you should point it out so that I can be enlightened. I can only guess at what you are referring to otherwise.

#2  "everyone" does not know that. With soft civil disorder rules being played, it's not even true.

1. Well, maybe that is just how it appears to me. It could also just be newbie play, it's hard to tell.

2. Well maybe "everyone" should know that. We can agree to disagree.

[Soapy Frog]

What is this "soft" civil disorder thing you keep talking about?
 
It is completely true that France becomes very difficult to stop if he is allowed to seperate Austria and Prussia in the first war. A British corps can be a real boon to the Allied war effort. Honestly it is simply not that hard to occupy all a nation's capitals and force the unconditional, and its incredibly painful for the victimized nation who is losing his economy and additional PP for capital occupation every eco. turn.
 
 

[gwheelock]

ORIGINAL: Soapy Frog

What is this "soft" civil disorder thing you keep talking about?

"Soft" civil disorder = occupy all capitols -> player must SURRENDER

"Hard" civil disorder = occupy all capitols -> player is TOTALLY ELIMINATED from the game (this was an option in EIA & doesn't exist in EIANW)

[Soapy Frog]

I suspected as much. We never did play with the total elimination option as games are long and people want to stay involved throughout. For similar reasons we also used the limits on territorial loss optional.

[gwheelock]

Acutally; the group I used to play the board game with almost always played with the
hard rules & it was 1/2 my fault.  (The other 1/2 belonged to a fellow named Dave Gardner
who was playing Turkey).    I was playing Austria.  It was the 3rd war with France & I
was getting tired of being stabbed in the back by the Turks while trying to fight the
French army.  I was allied with Russia & Britain; Prussia had been eliminated & Spain was
neutral.  I decided that I wasn't going to allow the Turks to get any more pp/vps off of me &
that THEY would go down first.  Dave decided the same thing & we had an endurance contest
to see whither the Brits & Russians could take him down before France could finish me off.
I "won" in that he went out 1 turn before I did (this is the case Jimmer was refering to
earlier in that I only had 3I left - he was Britain).  However the intent worked - the Turks
did NOT come into the 4th war - the one that the coalition won.  All of the games after
that; everyone insisted on the "hard" option to prevent someone from fighting to the death
like that.

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Soapy Frog

I suspected as much. We never did play with the total elimination option as games are long and people want to stay involved throughout. For similar reasons we also used the limits on territorial loss optional.

We played with soft civil disorder, only 3 home provinces could be ceded, for the same reasons.

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: Soapy Frog

What is this "soft" civil disorder thing you keep talking about?

It is completely true that France becomes very difficult to stop if he is allowed to seperate Austria and Prussia in the first war. A British corps can be a real boon to the Allied war effort. Honestly it is simply not that hard to occupy all a nation's capitals and force the unconditional, and its incredibly painful for the victimized nation who is losing his economy and additional PP for capital occupation every eco. turn.

That was our term for using the rule that said if you lost all your manpower, you had to sue for peace. With "hard" civil disorder rules, you were eliminated from the game if ever you got to the point where you collected no manpower. So, under "soft civil disorder", it's nearly impossible to FORCE a player to surrender.

What's the worst that can happen to a player who plays down to the last factor? He has to surrender unconditionally. So, why would anybody surrender earlier, unless it were to get better peace conditions?

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: gwheelock

Acutally; the group I used to play the board game with almost always played with the
hard rules & it was 1/2 my fault.  (The other 1/2 belonged to a fellow named Dave *****
who was playing Turkey).    I was playing Austria.  It was the 3rd war with France & I
was getting tired of being stabbed in the back by the Turks while trying to fight the
French army.  I was allied with Russia & Britain; Prussia had been eliminated & Spain was
neutral.  I decided that I wasn't going to allow the Turks to get any more pp/vps off of me &
that THEY would go down first.  Dave decided the same thing & we had an endurance contest
to see whither the Brits & Russians could take him down before France could finish me off.
I "won" in that he went out 1 turn before I did (this is the case Jimmer was refering to
earlier in that I only had 3I left - he was Britain).  However the intent worked - the Turks
did NOT come into the 4th war - the one that the coalition won.  All of the games after
that; everyone insisted on the "hard" option to prevent someone from fighting to the death
like that.

I remember it fondly. It's the only time I can ever think of where Great Britian, pretty much alone in the south of Turkey, FORCED Turkey to surrender. "It was her finest hour!"

But, yes, from that point on, all of the players had had their fill of "soft civil disorder rules". We never allowed them again.

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
1. Well, maybe that is just how it appears to me. It could also just be newbie play, it's hard to tell.

Here's my problem: You can't be referring to Russia, Prussia, Austria, or Great Britian, because none of us can be remotely considered "on the winning side" or shooting for second place.

But, Turkey and Spain are just honoring their commitments to their ally (France). Unless you are trying to say that winning the game is more important than keeping your word.

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

ORIGINAL: Soapy Frog

What is this "soft" civil disorder thing you keep talking about?

It is completely true that France becomes very difficult to stop if he is allowed to seperate Austria and Prussia in the first war. A British corps can be a real boon to the Allied war effort. Honestly it is simply not that hard to occupy all a nation's capitals and force the unconditional, and its incredibly painful for the victimized nation who is losing his economy and additional PP for capital occupation every eco. turn.

That was our term for using the rule that said if you lost all your manpower, you had to sue for peace. With "hard" civil disorder rules, you were eliminated from the game if ever you got to the point where you collected no manpower. So, under "soft civil disorder", it's nearly impossible to FORCE a player to surrender.

What's the worst that can happen to a player who plays down to the last factor? He has to surrender unconditionally. So, why would anybody surrender earlier, unless it were to get better peace conditions?

So, if it was nearly impossible to FORCE a player to surrender with "soft civil disorder" how was it easier with "hard civil disorder"? Threaten to occupy all capitals? Wouldn't that get you a surrender in both scenarios?

And yes, peace conditions were always a big deal when I played and the winner usually went softer the earlier you surrendered (unless the war just started and say France for instance wanted some PP out of it first).