Rambling thoughts on a new campaign

Our Peninsular campaign has been running a while now and is well established and I hope is providing a lot of fun for the map commanders. The asymmetry of the two sides is still a cause for concern however when it comes to the battles. Given the arrival of Jeanathan's excellent Swedish sprites my brain has been turning to other ideas. I cannot run a second campaign of the complexity of the Peninsular one but I can run something a little simpler and more abstract. The Swedes of course means 1813. My thinking goes like this. We scale the 1813 campaign down by one level so that armies become corps, corps become divisions and divisions become brigades. An army on the map might comprise 3 or 4 corps, and on our SOW battlefields this would translate to 3 or 4 divisions. You could have a cavalry corps in an army giving you a cavalry division and each infantry corps on the map would have its attached cavalry division giving you a cavalry brigade in each infantry division on the battlefield.

We'd need to work on things to ensure battles remained manageable with limits on how many "corps" can move down a road to a node or region, and I'd begin setting shorter scenario lengths - maybe 90 minutes or two hours as game length has become a show-stopping issue for some of our members. The sides would start closer together - we'd eliminate the 20 to 30 minutes of march-to-contact.

The Coalition would be Austrians, Russians (hi Kevin ), Prussians and Swedes. Napoleon would have French, Poles, Bavarians, Saxons, Italians and a selection of German states' armies, some of which would just form brigades. There would be a "Saxon division" for example and I think two "Bavarian divisions", etc.

The map side of things would be simplified with maybe one player per nationality and an overall C-in-C per side. I need to find a suitable map and may go for a nodal structure or a zonal map where armies just move between regions and when two opposing armies occupy the same region a battle is fought (or someone blinks first and they fall back).

I need to do a lot of work on OOBs of course but since the "bathtubbing" concept (as the Americans call it) is a bit novel for Napoleonics I am testing the water first.

Who would be interested in such a concept?

Who has any thoughts on what would make a good map?

Is there a preference for map type - traditional hexes -vs- lines and nodes -vs- regions/zones?

Other input?

I'm on my phone so I'll just have to make this short, I think it's an interesting idea. I had an idea of doing a russo-swedish war of Finland 1808-1809.

All for it would love to be on the Russian side!

Yes this would be a fine idea. Needless to say, I'll have to be Russian. I'll start working on the OOB creation program again. It will make the that part of the task much easier.

A node based map would probably be much simpler for you to run. Malcolm's maps lurk here: http://web.archive.org/web/20140622040853/http://www.murat.ca/maps.htm

Handily, they have major and minor roads, which could help adjust the amount of troops that flow down them. In is own game, bridges halved the amount of troops that could move along either in a unit of time.

Dave

I'd thought of Malcolm's maps but not looked at them for a long time. I had this idea they were open maps, non-nodal but looking again I see they are nodal with the roads between towns being the movement lines. I like the idea of a minor road allowing fewer troops along it in a given time rather than making troops move slower, same with bridges. This simplifies book-keeping.

Certainly both sides can have the exact same maps. After 20 years of war all army staffs will know this region of Europe very well and all have had the opportunity to plunder enemy baggage many times over and secure any better maps drawn by that sides engineers, so unlike Spain where one side may have better local knowledge that doesn't apply here.

Likewise everyone is at the pinnacle of their craft now and Coalition generals and staffs are as competent as their French counterparts so march distances will be similar as would LoC rules. Having different march distances for the Peninsular campaign is a detail we don't need here.

My preference is to play the spring campaign to allow the maximum creativity, I think many people know the autumn campaign much better so this would be fresher and allow more surprises. It also means the Bavarians begin on the French side.

I will have to think about a loyalty check for some of the Confederation states.

I will probably go for some simple naming procedure like this:

MAP

Army = MA
Corps = MC
Division = MD

The division being the smallest unit a player can issue orders to for independent action on the map.

BATTLEFIELD

Army (now Corps) = BC
Corps (now Division) = BD
Division (now Brigade) = BB

The brigade being the smallest unit a player can commit to battle in an SoW MP game, or issue independent orders to to make a move across the battlefield map in a battle plan.

I will take Russian artillery and any other nationality that does not use gold and silver for flatware.

Definitely interested in a campaign. The current one has been a blast

Martin,

I'll try and recollect some memories of how Malcolm used his maps. Gavin might remember bits too. I think he made these maps specifically for his campaign, so there likely is some unified direction between the map set up and his rules.

He was looking to create interesting battles for a table top game called napoleons battles. I think they got tired of playing the same historical scenarios, or roughly even battles, and fighting to the death battles. This created interesting challenges for the players.

Nap's Battles has a maneuver element of brigades, the lowest commander is a division commander. On the campaign level, Malcolm would have a division as a maneuver unit (I think, ~5000 men). Characteristics where: infantry, cavalry, or mixed. Level of experience. Fatigued or Not. And 5 levels (?) of damage: fresh, _____, worn, battered, _____. When the battle happened, a random generation of units for the table would occur based on the experience level fatigue and freshness of each division. I think this was to add to player fog of war, and represent the semi randomness of readiness of troops.

There was a hq unit as well. Artillery (for convenience) was there. It could move the fastest, and represent the player and his point of view. Orders and reports would move to this point. I think in the absence of an hq for a battle, a poor leader would be generated. Chain of command is very important in napoleons battles.

Time passed in days. Infantry moved 1 node a day, cavalry 2. You could force march to add 1 node. This could create fatigue (based on experience). I have no idea what fatigue did (besides prevent you from force marching). Fatigue could also occur with regular movement based on weather (mud/snow more likely).

Messengers moved 3 nodes a day. They could 'see' 3 nodes away to look for their targets. Otherwise they would follow Lines of Communication. Woe to the commander who was not within 3 nodes of a LOC and/or messengers looking for them. They'd be fairly blind. LOC, like units, were bought by the players. They were dropped every 3rd node to trace out a route. Reinforcements would march from a depot and only follow a LOC. Bad things happened if the enemy got on your LOC including your reinforcements getting eaten, and no messages coming through.

Road capacity was by unit. I can't remember if hq units counted or not. major was maybe 8 units. minor 4. bridges halved that. Can't remember if mountains did anything or if that was reflected by minor roads. Probably the latter. Traffic control became a big consideration for this game. March dispersed, fight concentrated was a legitimate challenge. Because the game fired once a day and methodically looked at all your orders, there were times that if you had ordered things wrong, massive traffic snarls would occur. Priority was a trait (0-9) which helped the computer to know who should be moving first/last. Traffic snarls were inevitably worse when near other players, this encouraged you to march with some distance from your friends.

Thanks David. I want to simplify the rules a lot over what we had for the Peninsular. My admin tasks need to be lighter. Two other key goals for this campaign are smaller battles needing fewer players - 2 to 4 a side max. and shorter battles. The 5 and 6 hour lagathons we have had in recent months have got to stop. I will set scenario lengths at about 90 minutes to 120 minutes and with fewer players we should see less lag. There are players leaving our group because games run too long. I also want a light-hearted fun game that is not serious or stressful.

These are my key goals.

Back to ploughing through OOBs!

Can anyone recommend a good general history of the 1813 campaign, preferably including OOBs?

I would definitely be interested in this. 1813 is my favourite Napoleonic campaign.

As for a good general history, including OOBs, I'm not sure there is one. There is a series of Nafziger volumes, which I find heavy going, but do have detailed OOBs.

More recently there's 2 volumes by Michael Leggiere, which I have not read but appear to be uneven in their coverage, with little on the Army of Bohemia. A third volume is supposedly in preparation. Mixed reviews. See here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Napoleon-Struggle-Germany-Set-Franco-Prussian/dp/1107080541/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1455652163&sr=1-1&keywords=1813+germany

But if you are stepping down a level, having corps represented by divisions etc, do you need detailed OOBs? If not, the old F L Petrie book probably has sufficient detail, as it goes done to corps and sometimes below.

Martin (J)

You may find imposing tight road restrictions will do much to pull down the size of battles.

The player was considered to be the headquarters, reading reports and courier messages. Because messengers travel 3 nodes a day, you'd only know what was current near you. Your orders would also take time to get to where they needed to be. Because the system fired once a day and processed everything, the convention was that it was early morning and you were reading all the messages that had come in over the last day and night and issuing orders for the day. If you ever happened to be in the same node as another player, you could swap correspondence freely.

Battles happened when two forces impacted each other. The system would inform players a battle was imminent but both players would have a chance to choose battle or withdraw (no matter how far away your troops were). This happened in 'the morning', and you'd still have a chance to issue your orders 'for the day'. This meant you could route more troops to that node. Tabletop wise, the troops would arrive as reinforcements. Similarly, troops who had orders to march to the sound of guns would also arrive as reinforcements. One group would arrive earlier than the other, I can't remember which though.

As a result of the road limits (dispersed forces) and ease of reinforcements, you would see spoiler attacks happen often. You'd send a smaller force to pin the enemy at one node, while you attempted to crush them at the second node. A reinforcing force that was contacted by an enemy would have a battle, without being able to reinforce. If the ratios were big enough, this was often auto-calculated as it wasn't worth while to game out.

Good ideas from you both. Thanks.

I've spent this evening poring over OOBs and crunching numbers and it seems to me that a reduction by 2/3rds is a good way to go. Everything is divided by 3. You still seem to get useful battalions and brigades that bear a resemblance to their actual counterparts. Cavalry regiments become squadrons which is neat. I can merge batteries together and come up with at least a balanced representation of 1/3rd the number of guns having more or less the correct proportion of calibres.

For example, here is the Imperial Garde at 25th April 1813. It grew considerably BTW between this date and 2nd May when it was at Lutzen:

REAL DEAL:

Imperial Guard Corps: Maréchal Mortier 
          (Strength Figures as of 25 April 1813)
     Old Guard Division: Général de division Roguet
               Velites of Turin (15/301)[1]

[1] Numbers are officers and men.

               Velites of Florence (16/173)
               1/1st Grenadier à Pied Regiment (15/421)
               1/1st Chasseur à Pied Regiment  (17/495)
               1/2nd Grenadier à Pied Regiment (15/569) 
               1/2nd Chasseur à Pied Regiment  (18/689)
               3rd Old Guard Foot Battery (6-6pdrs & 2-5.7" howitzers)
     1st Young Guard Division: Général de division Dumoustier
          1st Brigade: Général de brigade Berthezène
               1/Fusilier Chasseur Regiment (14/637)
               1/Fusilier Grenadier Regiment (15/528)
               1/6th Tirailleur Regiment (14/521)
               2/6th Tirailleur Regiment (14/597)
               1/7th Tirailleur Regiment (17/710)
               2/7th Tirailleur Regiment (14/712)
          2nd Brigade: Général de brigade Lanusse
               1/1st Tirailleur Regiment (15/680)
               2/1st Tirailleur Regiment (8/690)
               1/2nd Tirailleur Regiment (11/458)
               2/2nd Tirailleur Reigment (16/650)
          3rd Brigade: Général de brigade Tindal
               1/1st Voltigeur Regiment (15/529)
               2/1st Voltigeur Regiment (12/684)
               1/2nd Voltigeur Regiment  (17/449)
               2/2nd Voltigeur Regiment (16/668)
               1/6th Tirailleur Regiment (14/521)
               2/6th Tirailleur Regiment (14/597)
          Artillery:
               2nd Old Guard Foot Battery (6-12pdrs & 2 5.7" howitzers)
               1st Young Guard Foot Battery (6-6pdrs & 2-5.7" howitzers)
               2nd Young Guard Foot Battery (6-6pdrs & 2-5.7" howitzers)
Guard Cavalry: Maréchal Bessières (2,800)
     Division: Général de division  Walther 
          1st Brigade: Général de Ornano
               Guard Chasseur à Cheval Regiment (28/707/813)[2]
               Chevau-Léger de Berg (18/487/551)
               2nd Guard Lancer Regiment (26/664/750)
               Gendarmes d'élite (11/287/336)
                                                          
[2] Numbers are officers, men and horses.
 
          2nd Brigade: Général Letort
               1st Guard Lancer Regiment (42/496/510)
               Guard Dragoon Regiment (27/630/769)
               Guard Grenadier à Cheval Regiment (21/485/583)
Guard Artillery: Général de brigade Dulaloy (later Drouot)
          1st Old Guard Foot Battery (6 12pdrs & 2-6" howitzers)
          4th Old Guard Foot Battery (6 12pdrs & 2-6" howitzers)
          5th Old Guard Foot Battery (6 12pdrs & 2-6" howitzers)
          1st Guard Horse Battery (4 6pdrs & 2-5.7" howitzers)
          2nd Guard Horse Battery (4 6pdrs & 2-5.7" howitzers)

==============================================================

BATHTUB VERSION:

Imperial Guard Division: GdD Mortier 
     Old Guard Brigade: GdB Roguet
               1st Grenadier à Pied Regiment (401)
               2nd Grenadier à Pied Regiment (514) 
     1st Young Guard Brigade: GdB Dumoustier
               1st Fusilier Chasseur Regiment (398)
               6th Tirailleur Regiment (382)
               7th Tirailleur Regiment (484)
               1st Tirailleur Regiment (464)
               2nd Tirailleur Regiment (378)
               1st Voltigeur Regiment (413)
               2nd Voltigeur Regiment  (383)
               6th Voltigeur Regiment (382) [*]
Guard Cavalry Brigade: GdB Walther 
               Guard Chasseur à Cheval Squadron (245)
               Chevau-Léger de Berg Squadron (168)
               2nd Guard Lancer Squadron (230)
               Gendarmes d'élite Squadron (100)
               1st Guard Lancer Squadron (179)
               Empress Dragoon Squadron (219)
               Guard Grenadier à Cheval Squadron (169)
     Artillery:
               1st Old Guard Foot Battery (4 12pdrs & 1 6pdr howitzer)
               2nd Old Guard Foot Battery (4 12pdrs & 1 6pdr howitzer)
               1st Young Guard Foot Battery (4 6pdrs & 2 6pdr howitzers)
               1st Guard Horse Battery (3 6pdrs & 1 6pdr howitzer)

[*] Nafziger's original calls this the 6th Tirailleur Regt which is a duplicate of the 1st Div, so I have assumed he meant Voltigeur. Further investigation needed.

Those map rules sound fearsomely complex David. I'm aiming for something ridiculously simple...! But I like the concepts there. This time around I would quite like to run the campaign comms on these forums and not by e-mail. That has several advantages. 1) We retain the social side of interactions on the KS forums and players will visit frequently, picking up communications within their team and seeing other forum posts. 2) My admin is lighter. 3) Comms are mostly public within each team (I might revert to PMs now and then for some reason I can't yet fathom). Everyone on each team sees and knows everything. I am unsure on this but the plus factors are attractive enough to outweigh the lack of FoW. I can still throw spanners into various works by giving some misinformation anyway so all FoW is not lost.

I like the idea of road capacity limiting troop numbers along them. I forsee a minor road allowing 1 division to pass per move and a major road 2 divisions. I don't yet know how long to make a turn. Malcolm's system had 1 turn = 1 day and a force marched 1 node in that time, with cavalry moving 2 nodes but I don't know if I can handle that much detail. What did happen is a shedload of battles within a very short time frame. I think in the first week of May 1813 there were something like 4 corps sized battles and the multi-corps battle of Lutzen which is astonishing and tells me the distances were very small.

I am starting to think this campaign will be quite unlike the Peninsular one in terms of pacing and mood. The 1/3rd scaling means many battles will be division vs division which 2 players can play and simply advise me of the outcome with a game dump file and a replay. If people want more 'social' battles then 2 to 4 players per side will allow all live brigade commanders under the division commander which will be something fresh. We could possibly grind through 2 to 3 such battles per real week which is appealing and they would all be short games of around 90 minutes to 2 hours duration. Because they are division sized and each army will have a dozen or more divisions a loss will not be that critical so players can let their hair down and be more gung-ho if they wish than was the case with some of the Peninsular battles where a lot hinged on the result and consequently the games could be a bit dry and views on who won and why were sometimes quite warm.

To me these are all big plus points. I actually fell asleep in a co-op game with Steve, Kevin and Captal on Sunday night and I realised I was simply up too late for too many nights playing 4 or 5 hour SoW marathons. If I am feeling this way I am sure others are, so quicker, punchier battles that are less critical is my aim this time around.

Basically I have learned a lot from running the Peninsular campaign and all the negative points that have arisen from it I want to address and correct in this second game.

Sounds pretty awesome!

Very nice to see the big issues with the MP games getting adressed especially when it comes to the length of the games. I believe I live the furthest east geographically of all the players I've played with, so it's even more important to me to have the games end as early in the evening or night, as possible.

I have a bit of a personal affection towards the russians in the Napoleonic era so I guess it would be nice to play as them in this campaign.

Mr. Digby, I am interested in this campaign. I would like to on the Coalition side but if that isn't possible I guess I could be a Frenchie.

Something to consider is paring down the 20-30 minute pre-game discussions to perhaps 5 minutes, maybe 10 minutes max. We have opportunity to do that online during the week and it forces more precision and brevity in the pre-game communication.

Maybe the freedom of the CinC for each battle to contact teammates on the forums or direct email and plan before the actual battle.

Alex and Andrew - welcome to the interest thread! You are both very welcome to join in.

Pat and Mike - yes, I have been bothered by the over-long generals conferences pre-battle for some time. The entire purpose of the battle threads in each sides private forums for the Peninsular campaign was so we didn't need conferences in TS, but players under-used these.

I am simply going to say NO pre-battle conference. I can thus pare down the 20-30 minutes wasted time to a nice tidy 0 minutes. C-in-Cs either use the KS forums and plan before hand or they have to tell their generals what the plan is by courier. That should focus people's attention a little. It will also I hope encourage people to participate fully via the KS forums and not just turn up to battles 10 minutes beforehand with no idea what is going on.

Also no more mod downloads and updates on the day - you will be politely asked to leave and get your mods installed and working before the next battle

I recently had a player quit our group because people arrived late to a game and wasted time, another is not currently playing because our games are too long. All of this is going to change. This is going to be a tight-run ship.

I have put up private forums for the two sides but am unsure if my noob admin skillz have got it right. If you are on one of the teams can you tell me if you can see and post in the appropriate forum (or both... or none!)

Don't worry about making test posts, I can tidy these away later.

Can anyone NOT in one of the two teams see either forum? They are located as sub-forums of the 1813 campaign forum.

Members should be:

FRANCE AND HER ALLIES

Martin J
Jeanathan
Klajdi (Mann77)
Mike (Grog)
Phil (Scauispo)
Mark (Mark87)
Jeff (Taff1943)

SIXTH COALITION

Mike (Morsey)
Alex (AWhite92)
Kevin (Uncle Billy)
Andrew (CaptainAndrew)
Al (Captal)
David (MidgetManifesto)
Pat (Charmead)

Yes, the forums seem correct.  I can see and post in the Sixth Coalition forum.  I cannot see the French forum.

Me too. Everything seems to be working correctly for me.

I can see and post in both. Perhaps I should be the monarch of Sweden? I jest....

You can see and post in both? Hmm, something has gone wrong. I'll delete your membership and reactivate it.

Okay, what do you see now?

I can access the sixth coalition forum, but im playing the other side. Is this normal?

No, it means I've messed it all up. I've sent a PM to a proper admin person to fix my SNAFU.