Impromptu Games

More or less my exact thoughts as I arrived upon the panoramic scene and knowing AI french were coming behind me too

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST.

I can play too. Kevin can you write some code that allows players to mutiny and join the enemy like the Saxons at Leipzig? I think I would find that useful if our present run of tactical finesse continues unabated.

Doubtful for today. Maybe my absence will significantly improve the odds of at least a draw.

Received such a warm and "princely" welcome back from his silicon's friend yesterday...
That made me wake up with a spectacular headache this morning.
She was kind enough to open the dances by shooting a couple bilions LOS raycasts straight in my head to express her special attention against my 7 btns.
And sadly for my guys, I was still taking food and filling a bottle of water while her enemy list began translating into decisions and orders.
Because otherwise, be sure of that, good old Severoli would have certainly remembered how to conduct a skillful, 1812-style, retreat.
Watching the weird Austrian stillness on the east that followed, I'd say she really fired all the ones he had available for the day on me and our corps.  
What an honour, isn't it?
She probably heard I wished to take a brigade's command... and a brigade I promptly had.
Well, I'd been shocked enough, guys. So see you in exactly 198 years from today.
Seriously, sorry for the false start.
Fortunately it had no influence on the battle outcomes.

Yes, the Austrians seemed to have decided that you should be the focus of their attack. I'm not sure what you could have done differently. You did manage to hold them off until our 2nd Corps moved west to help defend the position. And you still had units left at the end of the battle. Well done!

Severoli's division was basically an oversized brigade with guns anyway.  I didn't realize just how small that division was from looking at the OOB. The Austrians seemed to have chosen the smaller force and went for it. They made a novel attack at me and then seemed hell bent on removing Severoli. I should probably have ordered an immediate withdrawal rather than a fighting one.  I wanted to try to get a few shots off with my guns before pulling them back but I ended up losing half of them because of it.  If they hadn't been in the front and I could have held the enemy away from them a little bit I think a fighting retreat could have worked better.  Either way though the enemy cav was going to be a problem so immediately packing up and forming a line with all 3 divisions probably would have been a better choice.

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST.

Hello guys, today was a fun game.

However, as i mentioned, i felt i didnt do much at all. First enemy cavalry caused my regiments to constantly go into Square and avoid moving. On the other hand, i TC my brigade commanders but not the regiments so it became a mess, do you suggest i TC all the units or only the commander?

Those are the issues i had in an otherwise great game.

I often find it wise to keep brigades well back from the enemy until you need them in action. If they get near the commanders get twitchy and begin moving units around. To keep units NEAR the enemy but inactive I find it best to TC the brigade commander but let his battalions or cav regiments maneouvre. I am one of those players who really prefers to even TC battalions once the action gets going. Although the AI is fairly good sometimes, at other times it can get very irritating. When players divisions are in close support of each other its wise to try and keep your troops away from the zones of other players divisions. This means to keep a narrow division frontage and I always keep 1 brigade back in reserve, often for much of the battle, even if I have only a 2-brigade division.

I usually TC artillery battery commanders to tell them to go to the position I want, then un-TC them and select the all out attack order.

About the only times I do not TC a brigade commander is cavalry in a big attack or brigades in towns where you often have no way to control the fight at all.

Other players like to use the AI a lot, we each have our preferences.

Don't be unhappy about what you did or did not do today. You closed the gap on the SW side of the attack perfectly and allowed me to march past unscathed to take Bad Gogging, then swing up to execute attacks on both the other objectives. You did as good a job as anyone else and you got better scores than two of the other division commanders so your score was excellent. Other first time players have done MUCH MUCH worse than you in their first game and almost nobody volunteers to command a division in their first game, so you did brilliantly.

My only concern early on was when your right wing brigades swung wide and went east of me and got so near the Russians off to my right that they "activated" and came down the slope to attack us. I could have slid past them without activating them but it wasn't a big problem and I was able to do a lot of damage to one brigade before moving off. This is a case in point where you could TC your brigade commanders and using the long narrow column formation on the "move" orders tab, park them up exactly where you want them on a narrow frontage.

If you don't have cavalry in your division there's really little you can do against enemy cavalry except try to blast them away with your guns (well behind your infantry) or hide in woods. I make a point of asking my superiors (players) for cavalry support if I get completely held up and am needed to do something. Sometimes being pinned in place by enemy cavalry can be a bonus as his cavalry can stay hovering for a long while and you can shoot big holes in it with your guns.

I cannot comment on your performance having not seen it, but you ended the game with most of you men, got a good score, and were on or in support of an objective and those are the most important things.  Sometimes even the grognards among us get turned around, lost, disobey orders, get stuck fighting cavalry, or find themselves staring down a bum's rush with no solution.  Had only I saved that stream VOD of the time I was sent on a far left flank without cavalry support only for the enemy to bear down on me with their cavalry supported with infantry.  I lost at least half the division that day.

As a player who is somewhere in the middle of the 'to TC or not to TC' spectrum I most often find myself TCing only a few battalions as I need to.  I will rarely TC a brigade commander with the exception of artillery.  For the most part I will try to have the AI do most of the work, but I do also try to specifically give them jobs that they can handle and avoid giving them tasks that they won't manage well.  For example if there is a river on my right side and I am fighting along its course I will try to give my brigade commander orders that won't put his troops near the water.  The AI struggles to understand why water is bad and tends to walk troops through it in the heat of battle.  I might TC a few battalions closest to the river and personally command them in the fight to keep them out of the water.

I find the Hold At All Costs stance (the furthest on the right) is a good stance for reserve battalions, or for battalions that you do not want to engage the enemy.  The stance typically keeps the brigade where I want it, but still keeps it under AI control and thus will form square (if a bit on the late side) on their own if cavalry arrives.  In today's battle I had a good spot on a hill that I wanted to sit on, but there was a big open field with Russian guns looking at it. Unfortunately I wasn't thinking and left them on Defend instead of Hold At All Costs.  When the Russians came at me my brigades started moving forward to engage and walked into the enemy guns.  I quickly put the brigades on Hold at All Cost and ordered them back to a safe distance where they stayed until they were needed.

However in the situation you were in (attacked by cavalry supported by infantry with no cavalry support of your own) your options are a bit limited.  You can give an unTC'd battalion in square move orders, but depending on how close the cavalry is they will likely only take 1 or 2 steps forward before halting and forming square.  It's possible to cautiously approach cavalry in square this way, but it's not very efficient for attention span and takes a lot of time.  If you absolutely MUST maneuver in the face of cavalry you can TC battalions and move them manually, but of course they won't react on their own to the cav so it can be quite dangerous unless you're paying very close attention to them.  It is also worth noting that cavalry will have a hard time charging in heavy woods (despite their occasional attraction to sitting in such woods) so you can be just a little more casual with TCing infantry in the face of cavalry if you're in woods.

On a strategic stand point as Digby has suggested, there is only so much you can do if you are fighting cavalry with only infantry and calling for help is one of the best solutions.  Finding a good position to shoot the cavalry with your artillery is also an option.  If you cause enough casualties to them they will fall back to try and get away from your guns.  I will often tell my guns to specifically shoot the cavalry if they have a shot so that hopefully they will be shot up, disorganized, and weakened to a state that when I do finally push some squares at them they won't have the strength to attack, or at least will get tired faster.

On a tactical level

You did a great job Zarco, prefectly conducting the attack on Irsing on the back of Russians while I fixed them North of the town. The flanking movement was perfect. With Digby further South, we managed to have a total encirclement of the Russians, probably preventing their commander to order support to the other corps.

For squares issues, what I suggest is you TC the regiments you want to use to conduct your attack and move them slowly one by one keeping in squares if their is cavalry nearby. I find the buttion "move over 50,75,100 yards" very useful in that case. It allows you to move smoothly without exposing too much your troops. You also can use te button "move and fire" to threaten cavarly without risk.

For a very aggressive attack, the other option will be to put neutral stance on brigade commander and order your brigade to march on a point you defined (right click or using the map). The brigade will march and charge automatically when ennemy is very close.
But these should be used with caution. Never do that when there is enemy cavalry, you will be charged and routed. If you have superiority over enemy inf or artillery, it works well. Especially, I find this is the only solution to compel enemy to retreat if you need to seize the place. This is usually not possible with AI control and other stance (aggressive or defensive) because the commander will tend to adopt formations and maneuvers to inflict casualties, rather than forcing the enemy to retreat.

Zarco - you just got a ton of good advice from the other players. All I wanted to do was tell you I experienced the exact same thing facing cavalry as you did yesterday.

There was a big wooded ridge northeast of the first objective and Grog, cav commander, suggested I get on it fast to possibly flank the Russians on it. Early in the battle I do not TC anything. So I immediately gave orders to 2 of my AI brigades to advance side by side along the ridge and rode uphill to check out the situation. Indeed there were Russians. Reverse slope. Lots of them. Some with their flank facing me. Some quite ready to receive me. Grog said the Russian flank was open in my left and sent his cavalry on my left flank.

As I looked back down behind me I could see both brigades moving forward. A lead battalion soon arrived and I saw it was about to catch a Russian artillery battery in the flank so I adjusted its destination. Halted it and it began shooting Alongside the battery. Seeing the opportunity and wanting to be a little grand about it, I had them charge the battery.

That was when things changed. Fast. First of all the battalion chose to charge Russian infantry off to its left downhill. Then I look back to see my 2 brigades halted and forming square. My brigade commander (Kevin) tells me of Russian heavy cav on our right  flank. And more arrives in the hill.

So out went a call for help to Grog to help out my right flank. And then a long process to get the infantry battalions to advance. I had to TC a couple of battalions to get them up the hill a bit at a time so they would not be too long exposed as long as cav was in the area. Once the cav got cleared out we could advance upon the hill. But at that point there was no longer a Russian flank. More units arrived including artillery in the valley beyond. We got chewed up clearing off the Russians from the hill and going down the valley. Then Ehey asked us to take the southern objectives so we had to pull back then shift way left to get on the road. Just to make that shift even more sporting I had already committed Kevin’s brigade in the opposite direction since the wooded hills seemed to offer a safer attack route then the more open vally of painful russian artillery target practice.

Point is, all it took was a couple Russian cavalry squadrons to disrupt and pin 2 AI infantry brigade commanders. And my artillery batteries would have preferred to go back to Kelheim and stay in a hotel. We never received a charge and it delayed and disrupted our movements for 30 minutes or so

Sounds like you did just fine your first time out. Especially handling a division.

Wow, lots of replies thanks.

I learned quite a bit from watching the other commanders and the issues that cropped up in my case. So next time ill do a bit better taking into account your recommendations, but overall i really enjoyed the match and looking forward to more of it.

See you soon!

Superb battle and brillant encirclement at Irsing yesterday night, generals!
Congratulations to all participants and especially Zarco for his grand debut.

And an excellent contrast to the “reverse Encirclement” that I orchestrated a couple battles ago

I am ready for battle today. Looking forward to whatever mayhem a scenario might have in store for us

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST.

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST.

I am in.

Is it time for an 8v1? Or me and Vince against the world? Lol. I will play anything but just thought I would raise the topic

I'm OK to try a tandem with Pat with multi division control against everyone else, what a challenge . For information, I also have a 4-option scenario ready for 7/8 players against AI.

Vince it was sure fun playing that game!

And YOU executed a great defense

I think it would have been a different dynamic if all 8 French divisions had human players. And even tho we on Russian side had 3 divisions and 25k men not engaged, I am not sure if the play balance was right in terms of overall numbers. I certainly wish it had truly been a sunrise scenario with most of the fist hour in limited visibility a d darkness.

In any event I enjoyed the challenge. Definitely a different change of pace. Enjoyed every minute win or lose.

Yes very great game.

I had no contact during the first hour, so I guessed the attack would mostly fall on western side. After the first contact on the east, I managed to stop Martin's lines and I assumed that they were no other reserve behind. What a mistake, the whole army was there  . I'm not sure we can say it is a great defense since I held the ground but had 60% casualties, more than Borodino  . These Russians are tough, I would say.

Meanwhile, I didn't get scout reports as a corps commander. It is a bit complicated to handle that many troops with no information except what you have in sight. Is there a way to go around this ? The same regarding division commanders, they never sent me any messages regarding the forces they engaged (with number of batallions and guns). I don't know if Pat experienced the same.

It was fun. I'll probably make similar scenario. I'd give some recommendations to Pat in respect of this one that we've played.
So, I'd put a little bit less on the map which would put less stress on our hardware/internet. 2 corps of 3 divisions each on "2 players" side would be enough for you to enjoy corps command and give the other side hard time. Secondly this split between infantry in cavalry corps-es is a bit forced and unnatural... the idea of army corps was that it was small army with own cavalry/artillery... I agree that cavalry within infantry corps should be light/medium... and heavy divisions operating within cavalry corpses... So, for instance in the scenario we played - the weak cavalry corps on French side could be just split between 2 infantry corpses while retaining the large cavalry corps having most heavies in it - that way even with the numbers of players that we had, the French side could have been much more effective.
Shame the "dawn" mechanics didn't work. Anyway, I'm looking forward to more of it - it's nice to relay less on AI as got a little fed up with trying to beat a force that is much larger. With 6-7 players being minimum that we got these days, more PvP or these semi-PvP would be nice