Namur

[Fallschirmjager]

Ok newbie question #2
Why are there no forts listed in the hex that should be Namur?
Those forts were almost as extensive as those found at Liege

[SMK-at-work]

Probably because it would unbalance game play - 2 Belgian forts would resist for too long.

the Namur forts didn't last long - only 3 days I think - Liege lasted 2 weeks.

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

Probably because it would unbalance game play - 2 Belgian forts would resist for too long.

the Namur forts didn't last long - only 3 days I think - Liege lasted 2 weeks.

Liege lasted so long because of the German stuborness and pride in trying to take them through land attacks.
And the thousands of bodies piled up like cordwood in front of the forts attests to that.
Once the siege guns were brought to bear the issue was decided quickly.
They were dragged in from Essen and Austria to Liege
For Namur they had alot shorter distance to travel and thus the forts fell quicker

If you do a study of the forts you will find the forts of Namur were almost as extensive and powerful as those at Liege

Liege in the game is listed a fort level of 4
Namur should be a 3

Maybe Frank will see this and give some insight as to why he did it the way he did

[SMK-at-work]

Namur was not nearly as well defended as Liege - Liege had 70,000 troops, Namur 37,000 - and these were short on everything and the non-fort defences were in worse condition and less extensive than at Liege (ie the trenches and wire)

Also in the game you don't have to wait for the siege guns - they are right there, but you only get 1 unit, so you basically only get to take 1 fort.

So to have Liege hold and Namur not hold in T1 you don't put Namur in - game balance.

[Fallschirmjager]

And as long as I am on the topic
Antwerp should probably have a fort level of 1 and perhaps 2

[SMK-at-work]

Antwerp can hold fine if you try hard enough - no fortifications are required.

If you made it a fort it would hold for the whole game as long as the Brits kept a transport on amphib to supply it - so again play balance doesn't allow it IMO.....which of course may mean that forts and supply are not depicted accurately enough, but that's another story......

[Fallschirmjager]

Well the whole of Belgiums defense was tied up in these forts
And they played a huge role in the war
Their delaying of the Germans can be argued is what saved Paris and perhaps the war
I think they need to be added to the map and if it unbalences the game then perhaps forts balence on needs to be looked at

You have obviously played the game much more than I
How does siege artillery work against the forts?

[SMK-at-work]

Siege artillery destroys fort levels as well as killling troops - it kills troops exactly the same as normal artillery does.

You have to consider that each turn is 2 months......the Germans will usually capture Liege on the 2nd or 3rd phase of T1, which is exactly the right delay.

Antwerp can be held almost as long as you like as the TE if you are prepared to put resources into it, but usually you'll need them to hold hte line in northern France ....but it's up to you as hte player.....

[FrankHunter]

I had to leave out a lot of forts or pretty much every border hex on both the eastern and western fronts would have been fortified to some degree.  This simply would have felt wrong.  The alternative would be to change the time and distance scale so you could put every fort on the map without every border hex being fortified but that would have meant an operational type scale.  To keep the scale I wanted other details had to be abstracted.

Same with the subs, at this time and distance scale I wasn't trying to represent what happened to each and every u-boat.