Proposal for Kriegsspiel Carryover Scenarios

Proposal for Kriegsspiel Carryover Scenarios

Situation
Previous attempts to run KS Campaigns have been very interesting, leading to some of the most memorable battles our group played yet.
Downsides were that the host's administration work was quite heavy, that it was difficult to find suitable dates for all players, and even when each player had to choose a side and character, often players had to switch sides to fill empty player slots.

General Idea
The proposed series of carryover scenarios would not be a full campaign. This means there is no campaign map where players will move their units around.
But the scenarios are inter-linked so that losses of one battle are carried over to the next battle and the achieving of side specific goals of a battle have influence on the next battle.
This should be a massive advantage over standard sandbox games and should further improve immersion and the conservation of troops.
Administration work shall be reduced to a minimum.
The scenarios shall be more flexible regarding attending players.

Umpires
A team of umpires sets the stage for the series, creates an OOB for the whole series, writes a small storyline and discusses the outcome of a battle and setting of the sequal battle.

Scenario Hosting and Players
For each scenario, one host is declared (most probably from among the Umpires) to design the scenario, set side specific goals and brief the CinCs before the game.
While the setting of a scenario is clear (map, starting locations, goals), the number of units are not set in stone and can be adjusted quickly based on the number of available players. This gives us a lot of flexibility to run games.
Of course, early announcements in doodle are helpful, though!
Normally a scenario should be playable with at least 6 players for PVP scenarios. Some scenarios could also work with imbalanced teams. A cooperative series of scenarios would also be possible with fewer players.

Battle Results
Battle Results are recorded with the DataDump feature (# of killed, wounded, deserted men. Also routed or captured units are noted).
By judgement of the umpires, these numbers may be adjusted per side based on achieving of side-specific goals and other factors like the possession of the battlefield in the end, having retreated in dissaray, loosing supply lines, etc.
After the battle, the host applies the battle results to the series OOB to create an after-battle OOB for the next game.

Captured Units
Captured infantry and cavalry are removed from the series.
Captured guns are not transferred to the winner.
This may be over-ruled by the Umpires, like removing captures guns from the series.

Scenario Generator Support
Version 3 of the Scenario Generator will be capable of automating all basic carryover steps. This will drastically reduce administration work.

CinCs
There is no need for fixed CinCs for the whole series. But for each scenario a CinC for each side shall be designated some days before the game, so he can develop a basic strategy even if he doesnt know the detailed strength of his army.

Players
Normally players will be split evenly to the sides, so you can't know before that you'll always play on the same side.

Troops
Veteran KS players are encouraged to play with less-experienced troops, while newcomers should play with more seasoned troops.
It is very possibly that you will play the same units again in a sequal scenario, so you are encouraged to take care of them.
Not all units are present in each battle, but if you encounter the same unit again, it will have its numbers adjusted by previous battles.

Kriegsspiel
Normal KS rules apply, adjustements will be declared by the umpires.

Early ending of scenario
A CinC may decide to end a battle before the time runs out. Possible actions are:
- Full Retreat. Always possible. Extra losses to units are applied.
- Withdraw in order. All remaining troops must be near a border of the map and the units may not be heavily engaged. No or only few extra losses to units are applied.
- Claim Victory and let the enemy withdraw from the field. Enemy resistance remains only in pockets and the overall winner is obvious. No or only few extra losses to enemy units are applied.
- Stalemate. There is no obvious winner. Both CinCs declare a stalemate to end hostilities for this day. No extra losses for any side are apllied.

What do others think? Feedback is welcome!

Before we can start we will need to have some umpires (I thought of 2-4). Who is interested?
And we also need some ideas for the setting of the series.
For example: A cavalry raid operation behind enemy lines by JEB Stuart, Napoleon in Italy, ...

My preference is still for a map campaign. There were players in the Peninsular campaign who were specifically able to participate at the map level but who could not make any of the battles and these players still enjoyed themselves. There was fun to be had in writing letters, orders, and receiving intelligence reports based on a known geographical situation. There was a lot of fun role-playing as well.

Your idea loses all of this.

For me I'd even go so far as to say that the map level aspect of a campaign is more enjoyable than the battles and as an umpire I'd be prepared to skip some battles in order to keep the campaign flowing. In a campaign battles are secondary to the strategic moves. Taking away the map aspect removes a lot of the enjoyment for me personally.

I can see that you idea takes Garnier's GCM a step further but I personally feel I need a campaign map of some kind to enjoy linked scenarios. When I'm fighting a battle I like to know where I am, to be able to visualise the surrounding geography and understand why an enemy's and my supply lines run off the map in the directions they do. I can choose to fight a hopless delaying battle knowing that tomorrow a friendly corps is going to fall on the enemy's supply line 20 miles south of here and render all his gains today of no value. I think you need a campaign map to achieve this kind of immersion.

If you could take the starting point of a map but apply some of these ideas to address the issues of online game timing and online game player numbers that might get us closer to a good set of linked scenarios.

Given how small our pool of players is I would suggest only 1 or at most 2 umpires, or else we won't have any players in the games who do not know exactly what is going on.

On a detailed point I would not remove captured inf and cav from the OOB. I would let them remain at reduced strength. Or let them return at good strength but reduced morale (replacements). It would be extremely rare for an entire unit to surrender unless it was part of a capitulated garrison. Some men would always rally to the colours the next day.

What about adjusting experience/morale values between battles?

As a closing note I have every intention of continuing the Peninsular campaign when my personal situation improves.

We probably all agree that campaigns with strategic map movements are more interesting than what is being suggested. It's just that from a practical standpoint, they are difficult to complete. Requiring certain people to be available for a given battle just hasn't worked given the real life constraints everyone has. Based on the group's history, I think Stefan's is a more workable idea. It's a way to involve whoever happens to show up for the weekend battles and have some meaningful context for it. It's certainly not meant to discourage you or anyone else from running a more traditional campaign.

Can we have our cake and eat too - at least to a degree - by asking those running the mini-campaign to create a brief background before the campaign starts?  This could included a synopsis of recent events on that front, major objectives which would be known to both sides, broad indications of which side currently holds which real estate, plus LOCs.  To be accompanied by a small scale map of the overall area - say 100 miles along each axis.  The whole not to exceed one page of A4 (including map).

This could be used to advertise the campaign, would hopefully give participants a feel for the situation, and also put individual battles in appropriate context.  For example, if an army was forced to retreat as a result of one battle, everyone could see at a glance where on the overall map the action had shifted.  That would then help to generate new objectives for the next battle, and perhaps more immersion.

Martin (J)

Martin James wrote:Can we have our cake and eat too

I like that saying   

@Digby: I think you miss the subject a bit.
I don't propose to replace our strategic campaigns with the series of carry-over scenarios.
I propose to enhance our ad-hoc scenarios with a background story and carry-over feature.

In the smallest possible way, one can reduce all Umpire and Scenario Host needs to be performed by 1 player (then it is like a GCM campaign played in MP). Even still, such a scenario might be more interesting than a plain ad-hoc MP scenario.

Might we do something mostly automated like the GCM system? I would very much like to experiment along those lines for a Napoleonic linked-scenario game.

We could have 3 separate theatres, Portugal-Spain around 1811 which gives a fair balance of armies, Belgium 1815 and Germany 1813. These 3 theatres give us many options on sides and troops, assuming that each player begins with a brigade and commands more men as he goes up in rank or experience just like the GCM.

The Peninsular would give us British, Portuguese, Spanish on one side vs French, German, Italian and Royal Spanish formations on the other.

Belgium gives us British, Hanoverian, Dutch-Belgian, German (Brunsiwk-Nassau), Prussian vs French.

Germany gives us Russian, Austrian, Prussian, Swedish vs French, Poles, Swiss, Bavarians, Saxons, Wurrtemburg, Baden, etc.

A player's command would be all of one nationality and he'd keep that formation throughout the 'campaign'. I'm pretty sure that mixing Portuguese, Dutch-Belgian and Prussian sprites we can field a passable Swedish-looking army. Depending on which theatre the campaign game was from, the auto-software would limit the selection of maps so that the right language of names appeared on the map.

The very last thing I am interested in doing is emulating GCM.

Hm. I'd hoped I'd made it clear I wasn't suggesting we clone GCM. When I wrote "automated like the GCM system" I meant exactly that. Automated. With sides and maps generated by the campaign module, and armies owned by players carried forward, but not fighting the battles in the way they do. Start locations and objectives would be scenario designer created. We're not a competitive group anyway so a ranking system and such wouldn't apply anyway.

I guess I'm looking at reducing scenario design work for whoever designs scenarios!

For me there's something interesting and appealing in commanding, say, the Brunswick Corps or a Dutch-Belgian division across a number of encounters and having to allocate replacements to weakened units or arrange promotions and such. Army management stuff that would tie hand-in-hand with the strategy management on a map.

I think set up something like Garnier did on the website, it will request much more work that organize 100 campaigns using manual systems. I think he has a db and much code behind the website for manage all online.

I think the more immediate problems are:

1 - categorize and list all the OOBs actually released (mod and no-mod) and check them online
2 - check online all the mods maps actually at disposal for the game for know what of them can be used or not (I suppose the 10 miles map is too big for online game, but I don't know if someone tested it at example).
3 - more people have to try to be CiC or\and play with bigger commands, because we cannot always be linked to the same key people for roles like these one, especially now that some of them will design scenarios.

"The very last thing I am interested in doing is emulating GCM."

Good. Your pacifist, non-competitive composition would have to double its blood pressure medication.

I am up for any of these plans. MAKE IT SO!

DIGBY: "I can see that you idea takes Garnier's GCM a step further but I personally feel I need a campaign map of some kind to enjoy linked scenarios. When I'm fighting a battle I like to know where I am, to be able to visualise the surrounding geography and understand why an enemy's and my supply lines run off the map in the directions they do. I can choose to fight a hopless delaying battle knowing that tomorrow a friendly corps is going to fall on the enemy's supply line 20 miles south of here and render all his gains today of no value. I think you need a campaign map to achieve this kind of immersion."

Ditto, sir, I agree. I love the campaign map aspect of things.

I keep telling myself that I want to continue being part of this group and I want to host another strategic campaign. However, my ability to participate in battles is limited.

BUT I have plenty of room on my computer and on this oversized executive desk I have in my office to maintain a small KS map...

Meaning that I would be willing to umpire a strategic campaign. Perhaps I can get somebody to manage the battles?

Perhaps my favorite part of any KS is the immersion and the storytelling. What happens if I pledge to set the stage for a strategic campaign, manage the map and movements and story? I have done so before. I would ask someone to create the battle scenarios and I might not be able to play in them. Nonetheless, I can regale the group with stories, dilemmas and tough choices as part of a strategic campaign which I am happy to manage.

-Neal