Miko's mini campaign 2.0 - France vs Austria

Another update of the rules and reminder.

Update to the rules: as it looks it will be quite easy for attacker to take control of 2 red dots it wouldn't make much sense that the defender (current map owner) will get economical punishment if attacker just holds the 2 red dots - so that will be increased to half the number of red dots on the map rounded down (IF 7 then 3 are sufficient). So on our current map Austrians need to control 4 red dots by the end of the day 3 in order for French to get economic income penalty.

so to recap what are possible outcomes by the end of day 3 (if either side doesn't withdraw)

1) Attacker fails to hold 2 red dots = Defender won the map and remains the owner of it
2) Attacker holds 2 red dots but less than 4 = Attacker remains on the map however French still receive full economy income from the map
3) Attacker holds 4 or more red dots but Defender still holds at least 2 = Attacker remains on the map and French receive only half of the map's income
4) Defender fails to hold at least 2 red dots = Attacker won the map

reminder - as this will be quite important during 2nd day
red dots are controlled only if:
a) it's been taken by at least 3 infantry battalions
b) there is connection with the entry zone by the road visible on the map and the road has been claimed by infantry walking on it
c) it's uncontested (both the red dot and the road is cleared of the enemy within reasonable radius of about 200y)

There will be penalties for units that are cut off from the entry zones - if it's totally cut off by the end of the day then the most severe penalty is that routed units will be lost

If an army is surrounded at the end of a battle, does it surrender?

I think it should, as this would be an "Ulm" scenario (no pun intended). By my assessment good part of our armies routed during the day - not having them returned means Game Over...

Good. Operation Anaconda is being prepared.

Anaconda

So. Old “fuss and feathers” now commands the Austrians. See you at Vienna when we accept your surrender terms.

Who do you think Scott got the idea from? If he implements it only half as well as we Austrians, he will achieve a great success.

Well it was a good fight, though I think in retrospect we could probably suggest the deciding fight was on the second map Day 1. The battle first map was an unfortunate mistake, but spontaneous catastrophes happen in real war too, so we soldiered on. We weren't meant to lose much in that first day, but fate had other plans. Afterwards though the terrain was just too good for the Austrians and pushing them off the hill didn't seem very probable. Perhaps we could have fell back and held Swecko and Pryznent and the crossroads north, but we'll never know. It certainly seemed after the first day on the first map the only way we'd win the map is if Kevin blundered spectacularly, which wasn't something I was willing to bet on. Otherwise it seemed like it'd probably just draw out into a stalemate at best, or we'd take more losses over a map we probably weren't going to win anyway, so we chose to withdraw. There was one short moment in the beginning of the first map where I could have delivered a rapid attack upon Kevin's Austrians still climbing the hill. It would have certainly been reckless, but Miko was coming up on my right. It's possible, even if I didn't completely destroy Kevin I may have been able to push him back to a point where he couldn't so easily set up on the hill. Of course Pat wasn't going to be available to cover my right flank for a while and I wasn't sure how many divisions were on the other side of the hill.

The second map faced me with essentially a 50-50 coin toss. Will Kevin go North or South? It was fairly certain that he wouldn't split up his army so drastically as to do both. In the end I couldn't decide and chose one, choosing wrong. We responded as quickly as humanly possible to the first notion of troops in the north, but at that point it seemed obvious to me there was no way we were going to ultimately stop the west flank from being exposed. With our advantages starting to snowball away from us (the element of surprise mostly gone, the element of position denied, and we had already lost the equality of force strength from the previous battle, though by the second map we were probably not too far apart) I felt pressured to make something happen before I lost the opportunity to act with at least a little bit of surprise. When I saw what seemed like both cavalry regiments of the division North of Pat flee (who's left I was forming up on) I saw it as the last bit of good news we'd get.

My cav was in position to capitalize, so I did, riding up to harry some guns that were only protected by infantry, forcing them to retreat into the squares behind them. I ordered Pat to take this helpless division out. What I didn't appreciate at the time was that though I may have been in the right place at the right time to spot the opening, but Pat wasn't necessarily. I made the calling taking into account how long it would take me to carry out the attack if Pat's men were mine. However I failed to consider that Pat didn't have the same information I had, and that he wasn't in a place to so quickly rush his men up to a front he wasn't exactly well aware of. His attack ended up being understandably just a bit slower than I had anticipated. At this point there was still no sign of Grog, but I knew he'd be around somewhere. Miko had arrived in reserve behind us and I ordered him to the right of Pat and to attack hard, hoping two divisions might be able to significantly punish the one without support, and destroy the other division's cavalry with a 2 to 1 advantage. However, I made this call based purely on the information I had from earlier when harassing the Austrian guns on the hill. I ultimately had no real idea how anything was deploying in the north, I just knew we had a pretty significant cavalry advantage.

And that's where my pulse on the battle disappeared. Grog appeared on my left and I had to focus on that. I lost a good deal of men who were standing around getting shot in a wheat field by Phil's guns, unknown to me for a duration. I flubbed the fighting withdraw from Grog's advance on my left and didn't have enough troops local to the hill I set my guns on to adequately hold it. I also blame wheat fields for that. While fighting Grog though I had no real picture of what was going on in the battle, and was just assuming some kind of success in the NE. The attack was meant to even the casualties up and to threaten the Austrian communications lines, but it ended up being far too costly. I felt that any command decision I made after engaging Grog was largely a mildly informed guess at best. I had no concept of the other force's deployment, strength, or how many casualties they suffered. I didn't know the strength of our position on the right.

On the second day it was impossible to remove the feeling of being too far behind in casualties. I didn't like the idea of withdrawing so close to the enemy. If I was so close to an enemy and he tried to withdraw, I wouldn't hesitate to attack and harry him for every inch. It also seemed like we wouldn't have had enough space between us and the enemy that even if we pulled back, we wouldn't really be able to shift any further west should the Austrians follow our retreat so we'd just be repositioning the same situation a little further south. And that situation is: we can't stop Grog from sending 3 battalions (that he doesn't need) to go and cap every objective in the west. The second day began with one foot in the grave, though I didn't really know it until I saw the relative lack of casualties on the advancing Austrians. Frustratingly I was able to deprive the middle division of their cavalry again, but it was too late to push any advantage for it. Pat and I were supposed to do try something to the west to the isolated Grog, but I was fixed in position from an attack, and Grog was possibly twice the size of Pat's division.

Removing some of my own unfortunate mistakes it could have been a reasonable amount closer. Had I been able to monitor the battle in the NE I may have called off the attack. It puts the other divisions in a very awkward place. I told them to attack aggressively and never specified if there'd be a good point to stop. They'd have to either stop following orders to act on their own (probably correct) initiative. But their job is also to simply focus on fighting, and let the general worry about the big picture. The issue is the general didn't have a big picture image, so things kind of just kept going after the play button was pressed. There were no brakes on the train, and should there have been, there was no brakeman to engage them. Had I properly held or simply came away from the engagement with Grog on Day 1 without as many losses as I did I would have been better off holding in Day 2. Likewise if I had been able to identify the attack in the NE might not have been quite as worth it as I initially expected I might have been able to decide to call it off and save some casualties for Day 2.

In general I think my command style, particularly when I'm also commanding a division myself, wasn't well suited for the meta of the campaign game based around map objectives and winning by attrition. I tend to operate a bit too much on 'fire and forget' cruise missile mode, with rapidly identifying a weak point and attempting to pressure it immediately. I think this is in part of course because this is my first attempt at navigating the campaigns meta, but also because my go-to method of commanding other divisions by pointing them at their target and slapping them on the ass probably isn't a particularly flexible style. I did feel a bit frustrated by the second day though, feeling I was essentially just making decisions largely arbitrarily since I didn't even know the general lay out of the land our right two divisions fought over. While I'm actually quite happy to have information be on the rare and valuable side, this was all information I could have gotten had I been able to be in the local area and observe some of the significant fighting. Each battle could largely be summarized by me holding a mostly minor action and the significant part of the battle occurring largely out of my sight. If we do one thing differently for another campaign I'd suggest we try our best to find a way to get a commander who's not going to be directly in control of men. Though obviously that's not exactly easy to do with our player numbers. I just don't feel like I can adequately do both jobs, and to slack at one of them at an inopportune moment could mean the battle.

Overall though I thought it was a successful campaign in that it forced us to think and fight in ways we typically don't, which was the goal in the first place. It was nice having something to occasionally ponder on over the in between days and I like the complexity with which we have to approach the plans for the fight.

After every battle against a human opponent, I always replay it in my head and try to decide what I would have done had I been in command of the enemy army.  In the case of this campaign, I don't think my battle plans would have been much different Ehey's.  His approach to a battle is very similar to mine so the fights occurred in the locations I thought they would.

It was obvious that the first battle would be for the large hill south of Smygel.  It was the key to the three eastern objectives.  The elevation is not that great, but the long, open, field of fire is tremendous.  When Ehey's troops arrived a little too late, he wisely decided not to contest the hill via a direct assault.  When Pat arrived on his right I thought that this was the opportunity I was hoping for.  He would attack my left full on.  Had he done so, Grog was waiting just out of sight to pounce and crush him.  Imagine my surprise and heartbreak when Pat only made a weak demonstration and preserved his division.

On my right, Phil had deployed on lower ground.  It was here that the battle was mostly fought.  Miko made a fine effort to pin him and work around his flank.  However, once I released Rexxer's brigade which marched onto Miko's own flank, he wisely withdrew.

I thought the battle went well for both sides.  We kept the hill and the French did not overcommit and preserved their forces.  I guess Miko suffered heavier casualties than I thought because Ehey decided to withdraw from the map.  His withdrawal was good news as I did not see a good way to take the three western objectives except via a slugging match.  I was loathe to enter one of those so early in the campaign.

The ferocity of the second battle was a shock.  Although the Austrians had very limited possibilities for maneuver due to the starting positions of the two armies, we again had the opportunity to fight on a field that was for the most part open.  Ehey correctly assessed the situation that my division was quite vulnerable and my left was exposed.  Pat and Miko made an all out assault and would have swept me from the field if Phil had not moved to me and defended against Pat's division.

When this assault fizzled, I was confident we would keep Bergzabern and could threaten the western objectives.  I didn't have any notion what was happening on Grog's front, but I assumed he and Ehey were merely sparring.  It turned out that there was quite a fight on the right, with Grog pushing Ehey back enough to open a large hole in the French line.

During the brief lull in fighting, I thought, wrongly, that the French would withdraw a few hundred yards to the high ground north of Lauterbourg for the battle on day 2.  When Miko and Pat again made another all out assault, I was really taken aback because I knew their opportunity for a victory like this had already come and gone.  As they reached our lines, Grog made a perfectly timed cavalry attack along the French line and destroyed a good part of the two divisions attacking Phil and myself.

At the end of the battle, I knew the French army had suffered grievous casualties.  It was obvious, I thought, that since we were in the process of enveloping their army despite their attacks, they would withdraw.  When I learned that they were going to stay on the map and fight for another day, I made plans to finish them off either by direct destruction or by envelopment.  Unfortunately, Ehey did not see the same battlefield that I did, else I'm sure his decision to fight a second day would not have occurred.  Clearly the lack of overall battlefield awareness that Ehey mentioned was responsible for a second day battle.

I would comment that the two sides were composed of players with very different dispositions.  The Austrians had three players who by their nature are counterpunchers.  The French had one of those, Ehey, and had two who are extremely aggressive.  As Ehey could not monitor their attacks, it was impossible for him to rein them in when it was necessary.

Truth be told it does my heart good I made Kevin feel a little disappointed that first scenario since did not attack that very first battle . My orders were to stay in reserve. After about an hour or so, Ehey thought the Austrian flank might be in the air and asked me to probe it. It did not take long to find that the flank was not in the air, that Grog was protecting it. My probe was weak because I did not coordinate my force very well. I had no intention of driving Grog off - he was on good ground - but I could have inflicted more casualties than I did. And while I was probing on my right towards Grog, one of my AI commanders on my left decided all on his own that it was a good idea to walk up the open plains towards the muzzles of Kevins cannon.

Overall it was the right move for the French to withdraw that day

The second battle saw a pitched fight for the high ground north of Lauterbourg already described by Ehey and Kevin.

My delay in assaulting Kevin was only to wait until Miko was closer. Miko had 2 miles to march to get to the Austrian flank. Ehey disrupted one battery but I had a second battery in front of me that was inflicting casualties. The terrain was open and undulating, so I merely found a spot for defilade out of line of sight of the guns and waited. Going too early would have meant high casualties and a disjointed attack.

That exact situation happened the week prior when I hit Miko from the flank and rear but did so about 15 minutes too early in concert with Phils attack from the front. Miko was able to direct his full attention upon me in response. And I did not want to repeat that poor timing here. I don’t mind being aggressive but casualties matter in multi day battles.

Once Miko came up even with my front lines I began my attack. And I let fly with most of my command because it was clear to me that Ehey wanted Kevin hurt badly. Hit from 2 directions, Kevin fell back somewhat in disarray.

The pause in battle was merely my troops giving thanks to the KS SoW Gods that Kevin was scurrying away like a frightened child. It is a complex ceremony that requires certain candles and chanting. Our usual ceremony leader had been shot and killed so we had to appoint another one (which is also a mini ceremony)

By the time Phil arrived, my line and Mikos were at right angles and now that the ceremony of thanks was completed, we renewed the attack. And there was every reason to believe we would push the Austrians. I wanted to do all I could to force the Austrians to focus on me.

Battles often turn on the unexpected. A “little” event that cascades into a larger one. Such is the case here. Grog, otherwise engaged with Ehey a mile off my left flank, took advantage of a lull in his fight to foray with a cavalry squadron into my lines. I saw it at extreme distance and monitored it, but thought it to be occupied with Ehey.

Next thing I knew, it exploded out of a tall wheatfield and hit my left flank battalion that was bearing down on an oblique flank Phils battery. That was all she wrote.

It went through 4 battalions, a buzzsaw right across the heart of my lines and into Mikos. The cavalry surrendered but left multiple white flags in its wake. My division was shattered. And Miko would be too exposed in his current position.

Ehey was dual hatted as CinC and division commander, which often happens in our battles. And it is difficult if not impossible to maintain awareness of the field once your own division gets engaged. He can only go by the information provided by his commanders combined with an educated guess of the terrain based on the map, vice an actual look. A dual-hatted CinC can only truly work as a CinC when his division is not engaged.

Overalls I think Ehey made exactly the right call at the start, going after Kevin when the Austrian cavalry (in cowardly fashion) ran away. If he was able to truly operate free of division command he would have been able to direct the division on my flank to prevent things like cavalry sorties.

It was a “near run thing”

We had a number of options available to us on the second day, none of them truly appealing. I hoped that The act of staying after the first day’s battle might have been enough to get the Austrians to think twice. When one is outnumbered it’s important to look everywhere for the slightest advantage, even in mindset. I am often reminded of US Grants memoirs where, in his first engagement as a commander, he realized that the enemy was as scared of him as he was of them. A lesson he never forgot. Its the aspect of PvP game I enjoy the most

I was in an exposed position at the tip of our salient so no matter what our strategy, a common element was me pulling back quickly to allow Miko and Ehey room to operate. I wound up pulling back and then moving to the other side of Eheys line, holding our left flank against Grog. I had an excellent defensive position on a thickly wooded ridge. Grog outnumbered me by a large margin but he did not know that Nd thus was cautious. I tried to show activity all along my 2-brigade frontage.

This was an excellent campaign. Miko deserves much credit for the effort/energy expended in creating the campaign, adjusting OOBs periodically and setting up the scenarios. I was on the losing side twice (something no doubt Kevin will not soon let me forget) but I enjoyed each experience thoroughly.

Thanks to all for the participation and the feedback.
Sorry about my sudden exit but I totally lost the joy of playing this game. There are number of issues - mainly surrounding the effect of cavalry on the battlefield that I can't take anymore.
I don't see this being fixed even if it was possible, thus I decided to stop playing - this time for good.
If you all wish, I can run campaigns for you - maybe switching sides? Don't know if the costs were unbalanced in both campaigns that gave the non-French faction an upper hand or it was Kevin's superior strategy.

In the first campaign I didn't look much into infantry stats until later stage... the only factor I controlled from the start was experience.
In second campaign I equalised all stats inside the class and made the French infantry superior in both shooting and edged weapons to Austrian... however for 1 gold you could get 100 Austrians and 80 French... that makes for 100 gold spend the difference of 2k line infantry... I was a bit worried that maybe this is not balance right... however until you put Kevin in charge of French you won't know...
The losses difference after the first battle was already quite significant (just couple hundreds short of 2k) - However Ehey made an interesting move during initial phase and improved economy 8 times, which gave him 16 gold more gold income in the next phase... thanks to that he was still able to reinforce his army to a decent level.
Something else about the first battle - I tried to point out that Austrians will be given deployment close enough to the eastern red dots so they can comfortably reach them before the French.
Otherwise it wouldn't be fair for Austrians, yet Ehey decided to try to race for them.
Our test game when Kevin was absent proved to me that western objectives would be hard to take for Austrians too... if the losses were not so significant I would advise Ehey to stay on the map and try to defend(decision would have to be taken based on battle experience rather than data I looked into later on so I wasn't sure how badly Joel's brigade suffered).

2nd battle - as I expected the defender had to gamble - either positioning 1,2,3 or 2,3,4.. and hope for the attacker to spawn in the corner which was closer to defending divisions... alternative would be to keep one division in the centre behind instead of position 1 or 4... or... positioning on far flanks 1 and 4 and in the centre...
for a good part of the first day I thought that I'm on the right flank of Ehey, while Pat would be on the left.. only later into the battle I realised that Ehey swapped with Pat.. this was probably a mistake (along with refusing the flank that was closer to French exit zones) - if there was a chance of establishing good defensive line, it was during the first day...

Second day I advised we need to pull out Pat's division if we want to defend were we were... Ehey finally agreed but I don't think we would have held even if Pat's division was still there, Kevin just overrun my position with artillery, cav and the threat on flank by human controlled brigade - that's where i felt "enough is enough" and left...
So my little advise would be that if you play PvP make sure that number players per side is equal - or if that's impossible then the side with a player more have proper CinC - corps commander and no direct control of units allowed...

After every battle against a human opponent, I always replay it in my head and try to decide what I would have done had I been......Sober!

Firstly, thank you Miko for putting together a great Campaign. I really like a lot of concepts in there and feel that it managed to produce battles that were both interesting and quite balanced, even after 1 or 2 defeats.

I honestly think that each battle and the Campaign as a whole could have gone either way had events or decisions at critical times had been different. There were a few missed opportunities and instances of bad luck that could have swung the balance.

I like the way that we all play differently and that these Campaigns have given us the opportunity to fight against our peers, each one capable of beating the other on a good day.

I'm sorry that you have decided to stop playing the game. Perhaps we can have a debate about some of the issues that are making you feel this way. You might even find that others feel the same way and we might be able to make improvements.

Thanks again to Ehey for Televising the events for our entertainment. It must be much harder to put your Commanding under scrutiny when we play PvP games? Watching your vid of the second to last game, I had to laugh at how you were confused about my deploying a lone brigade in the woods to your flank. You seemed to approach brigade with caution, as if expecting a trap at any moment. The truth was I was pissed and forgot that they were so far south. I was much to happy playing the Merry Hussar, elsewhere

It must be much harder to put your Commanding under scrutiny when we play PvP games?

Actually I think it keeps me a little more honest and critical of myself. I'll look to see what mistakes I made rather than trying to find a scapegoat that I wouldn't be able to control anyway. Though that doesn't stop me from blaming the wheat fields from time to time.

Watching your vid of the second to last game, I had to laugh at how you were confused about my deploying a lone brigade in the woods to your flank. You seemed to approach brigade with caution, as if expecting a trap at any moment.

Initially I wanted to be a lot more aggressive against those guys but it was towards the end of the day and I wasn't fully in a position to launch an effective attack in the amount of time I had. I sent out two battalions to probe just to try to make you think twice about possibly reaching further south around us.

I honestly think that each battle and the Campaign as a whole could have gone either way had events or decisions at critical times had been different. There were a few missed opportunities and instances of bad luck that could have swung the balance.

Yeah you really get a feel for how a decision made 2 hours ago, or even a decision from the previous battle, can significantly impact the battle later.

Miko maybe you can still come in and be in overall command for some games occasionally and just let your cavalry frustrations be someone else's problem. Of course that won't work for your own campaign since you'll have all the inside information, but your efforts in this campaign have turned something over in Pat's mind that he was saying he was going to work on some kind of carry-over series of battles. I think you've really captured our imaginations and shown what's possible and a pretty decent way to do it.

As for continuing the current campaign I'd be up for it, though I guess it might be a little harder for us to reliably get 6 division commanders. I'm also not sure if we've reached the point or not of having taken so many casualties compared to the Austrians that we'll be significantly behind for the rest of the war. It certainly felt a bit that way after the second day lol.

As for continuing the current campaign I'd be up for it, though I guess it might be a little harder for us to reliably get 6 division commanders. I'm also not sure if we've reached the point or not of having taken so many casualties compared to the Austrians that we'll be significantly behind for the rest of the war. It certainly felt a bit that way after the second day lol.

If I stayed in the game my division would have been totally destroyed (it was already at 50% casualties when I left)... yes the campaign mechanics would allow you to recreate the army even after such a heavy defeat... but that would be like one shoot chance - you'd have to extensively use conscript action to make up for lost manpower causing your income to drop dramatically - even then I don't think you'd be able to get anywhere near the strength of Austrians... maybe about 75-80% and hope to win the next battle


What I suggested is to reset this campaign and switch sides (mainly Kevin to be on the French side) - Give Rexer a division and you have 6 players.
also you could create army totally from scratch this time (I'd just use same OOB as the source for units/stats)
and you'd be able to create more or less divisions if you liked... so anything between 2 and 5 divisions... that way you could send small AI division to some area were opposition wouldn't be expecting... or give small division to less experienced player...

Don't take the loss too hard, Miko, the French CinC decided to continue the fight.  At that point you really had very little chance of surviving.  You were fixed in place and had no possibility of receiving any support.  Had our roles been reversed, I'd have been overrun instead.

I'd say the mistake that was made was that Ehey wasn't aware of the casualties you and Pat suffered in the first day.  We should not have decided whether we would continue the battle until we had the loss totals.  If he had that information I'm sure you'd have lived to fight another day.  It was the age old problem in war of incomplete information.

Pat and I are working on a new campaign that will have a strategic element.  We are using the lessons we gained in the first two campaigns and making what will hopefully be a few improvements as to how replacements are allocated.  We'll even be introducing Guard elements into the battles.  We are hoping to have dedicated CinCs that will command no troops but can ride around and issue orders directly to the human division commanders.  If we can get a sixth player to replace you, you could fill one of the CinC slots if you like.