Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: zaquex


If the commander, in this example I will assume its Charles (or in practical terms the Austrian player), is free to distribute the combat losses as he pleases this problem becomes even more accentuated (hmm I dont like Prussia, really... when the war with France is resolved im going to attack him (as an example), lets make Prussia take all the losses...  ) and another reason to avoid coalitions and in the end making the game much easier for France. In the original EiA game I think there was some rules about relative distribution of losses, but to my knowledge no such rules are in the game at this point ( I can be wrong, havent yet had the opportunity to test battles involving more than two major powers).

I have had cases where I had a minor (Bavaria) mixed with French forces & assigned ALL of the losses to the minor. What you are thinking of are 12.2.5 ("Proportional Naval Losses") and 12.3.6 ("Proportional Land Losses"). Both of these are OPTIONAL rules in
the original EIA (& don't seem to be among the options implimented in EIANW [at least
as of 1.0]).

Will this proportional losses optional available (or on the todo list) for EiaNW? 
They are very interesting optionals.

ORIGINAL: Murat
Option 1 in this example is a zero sum result (risk/reward balanced) and is what I think is the best option because it is already done.

I reject out of hand for reasons that have already been stated. Also "becuase it's done" is not valid, since it's been done wrong. Period.

Option 2 is a -2pp/even result depending on who wins and is the 2d best in my mind because of the exploitation involved with option 4 and this is higher risk -v- reward.

Is that how it works in EiH? Weird. This is even worse than Option 1. It's just silly. However based on AresMars quote from the actual EiH rulebook, I am pretty sure this ISN'T how it works, even in EiH. Edit: Oh I see I am wrong... that is really how it works in EiH. That's simply ...

Option 3 is a +2pp/-2pp result depending on who wins and is acceptable especially over 4 since the risk and reward is balanced

This would be "OK", but still isn't how the game actually works. IMHO this would be the least damaging compromise, if compromise is even required tbh.

Option 4 is a +9pp! result which is a lot on a 40 point row. This is substantial reward compared to risk. I recall an errata eliminating this but I cannot find it. EiH had a good solution, EIANW's is better.

Option 4 is how the rules work. That's how the game was deisgned. That's how we've always played it becuase the game is balanced for this type of interaction.

There are plenty of PP "sinks" in the game that counterbalance PP gains. The games political balance is already compromised by more expensive DoWs, and a myriad of other small changes which individually seem fine but honestly add up dramatically.

PPs are part of the game, to state all battles should be worth 0 is moronic

As is your statement that they should be 0-sum. Your desire that battles should be 0-sum is completely arbitrary, and has no relation to the actual political balance of the game. I guess you are of the opinion that napoleon's bonuses/penalties should also be removed, since they make battles no longer 0-sum, right?

As for your statement about abusing the rule to "generate PP" that's absurd. Completely absurd. In all my years I have never seen such a thing. Hey here's an idea, how about Russia and Turkey DoW, and then not actually fight, taking turns capturing and recapturing the border fortresses to "generate PP" Aiyyeee the game is broken! It sounds to me that this is the mentality with which you approach the game.

Option 4 is the way EiA worked. We already know there are differences. [8|]

All countries involved in a battle should share in the politcal outcome thats obvious

I think the whole system of loaned corps is proplematic

Question:
If I as Russia lend a corp to Prussia to fight against France, since it is basically a Pru corps now does Russia need to bother to DoW onFr for it to fight French forces?

cause if thats is the case, thats a problem

Don't you think that sending combat troops into battle against somebody else constitutes an act of war?

One would imagine; but that is the question, how is it handled in the game?

Lending corps does -not- change diplomatic status, whether or not they'll fight, or access rights.

From reading other threads on the subject I got the impression that loaned corps would not take part in battles against powers that the original owner is not at war with even if the current controller are

And if the current controller is not at war, but the owner is? I conjure up a bizarre image of Austria, having taken a seperate peace with France, controlling Prussian corps on French soil...

It's the owner's status that matters, so it's possible -- but I don't really see it an issue, other than for PP.  If the controller isn't itself at war, of course, there's not that much assistance to the owner he can provide other than access (*), transport (which permits DoW an attack), or money.


(*) 'Disallow access to ---' would have made sense to me as a reasonable peace condition. 

Well this will be useful to me as Prussia then; if I see the French double move coming to crush me, I will just lend all my corps to an ally who is not currently at war with France, thus completely protecting my army from attack. Oops! The law of unintended consequences.

They're still your corps, so the French can still attack them.  Not a problem from France's POV.

One thing that IS omitted in the manual -- a description of how a leader is chosen for an allied stack on defense.  There isn't a phasing player on the defensive side in that case.  EiA had certain rules regarding this (specifically, highest-ranking leader from the defender with the most corps present), but EiANW manual only notes the opposite (that in a multinational attack, it's the phasing player who provides the leader).

Oh, now that is a very good point.  Good catch Grognot!
 
 

Duplication of effort, grog said what I was going to.

well you could get away with it by getting access to a power hes (france in this case) not at war with and march ur armies over the border, its not quite without consequenses though - Unrest and unconditional peace can have harsh consequenses.

Whoops ok sorry you said "owner" and my brain read "controller".
 
Ok if it is owner's status that is important then the problem is reduced to using another power as a PP sponge for you... e.g. there is no way for Austria to REFUSE the loaning of said corps I beleive? So Austria takes the PP hit of getting smashed by the Nap Big Stack Attack...
 
Oh yeah Austria, you don't like it? Go ahead, break the alliance for another 2 PP. Ouch.
 
Naturally this problem would disappear if Prussia always took the political risk/reward for his own corps, regardless of controller.

That would be interesting... of course, in that situation a peeved Austria might instead be inclined to force-march the corps into low-forage areas.   Or to starve them on ships, in the unlikely event he gets any fleet large enough to hold 'em...  (Always, always be sure you trust the person to whom you're lending your army, and bribe or threaten your ferryman more than your enemies do.)

PP for the owner would indeed cut back on that bit of silliness.

I think, it should be vps as in EIA, after all the VP-conditions are those from EIA no ?

Else France is favored more than the rest since he rarely combines with another nation, and wont loose any of the expected vp-gains.

The vp-conditions for EIA is based upon those gained including combined nations combats.

I bet France would love to see the other nations not combining to desperatly try to get vps, which is only to his advantage. Yet the game is balanced in the "old" way.


Regards
Bresh

Another thought regarding combined movement....

Say that we have Wellington who is an excelent commander with his brittish guard borrowing 3 Prussian corps without a commander and 2 Austrian corps under Mack or Charles. Britain is the phasing player so when we attack Wellington is in command, Then its France move and he now attacks our combined stack who is now commanded by an Prussian not named commander due to having the most corps and suddenly we find ourself in a situation where strategic manouvers are impossible and we have a +1 -1 modification stacked against us due to the "inexperienced" and heavily overstacked commander...

I dont know but it seems unreasonable that Wellington or Mack/Charles would let this happen. It might be a silly thing and not very important as you can avoid this by the disposition of the your corps and commanders, but to me it would make more sense if Wellington would retain command of the army or alternativly at least the highest ranked commander of the stack took command (wich sometimes wouldnt be to your advantage as most of the A commanders are the suck). Anyway its mostly a parenthesis but it would be interesting to hear the communitys thoughts about this "dilemma".