1868 "La Fierté des Empires"

The Pride of Empires.

A PBEM Kriegspiel set in the period of Germany's expansion. A game of political one-upmanship, honour, statesmanship and military prowess.

Today, while playing a Napoleonic face to face Kriegspiel at Little Gaddesden I was struck by how easily the game we were playing would translate to a PBEM game since the maps were almost nodal point-to-point style in which road junctions, river crossings, mountain passes and fortresses were the key points and the corps-level setting made for extremely simple, fast and abstract battle resolution. The players mostly wrote letters to each other and written orders to their forces were also hand drafted and went by courier.

As the game gave me a little downtime between turns I began to doodle out some thoughts about running a PBEM (or PBFPM - play by forum private message) campaign. I took a look at the Seven Years War in Germany as one idea, and parts of Napoleon's campaigns as well but finally decided on a game set in the late 1860s and balancing a belligerent, expansionist Prussia with designs on unifying Germany, against France, Austria and a host of minor German states which latter might be future allies or enemies.

I was thinking of setting the game after the historically correct War of Schleswig-Holstein in which Prussia and Austria defeated Denmark in 1864 and a fictional, failed 1866 Seven Weeks War in which Prussia and her lesser German allies had attacked Austria, Bavaria and Hanover, but failed to defeat Austria at the Battle of Konniggratz (or Sadowa depending on whether Berlin or Vienna is your home nation's capital) which had resulted in a bloody draw and the exhaustion of both sides.

The Prussians withdrew to lick their wounds, gaining a two-year peace treaty with Austria.

The game is therefore set in 1868 when the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck is once again politically manouvering to create a situation in which Prussia and her allies have an excuse to make war and this time successfully bring their enemies to heel and impose a treaty that recognises a unified German nation. Austria is again one possible target, though France is equally a likely enemy.

I plan to broadly use the French and Prussian armies of 1870 and the Austrian army of 1866, with probably the lesser German states such as Bavaria, Saxony, Baden, Wurttemberg, Hesse and Hanover as they were in either 1866 or 1870 depending on which period gives them the most interesting force.

I may include the Italian States to mostly act as a distraction to Austria, or I may simply reduce Austria's army and say that a certain portion of it is watching the southern front.

There may or may not be a Danish presence as well. It depends if a player is interested in playing it. This nation would be sore from its defeat of four years ago and keen to recover its lost province of Schleswig-Holstein, if not to actually expand against a weakend Prussia.

I chose the 1860s because unlike Napoleon's or Frederick the Great's time we have telegrams and telegraphs and the ability of Princes to send instant communications which would be represented by e-mails or forum PMs (I'm leaning towards the latter so everything occurs under the auspices of the KS group), both to each other, and to their generals in the field. Railways too make for fast communications.

There would be two games in one. First a period of uneasy peace and military tension and preparation in which a political game would be played. For this I would give each nation broadly historical objectives (with a little twist here and there to spice things up) and if a nation achieves these it will win PPs (Political Points). There will be great scope for role-playing, promisies made, treaties offered, deceptions cast, twisted truths told and outright lies... lied.

Secondly, and if it comes to it, some or all of the nations might go to war. This would be a high-level (probably corps level) game of strategic manoeuver with extremely simple game mechanics played out on a nodal or point-to-point map.

I'm looking first of all for general interest so if this idea appeals, please say so here and we'll see how much interest there is. Right now I'm thinking of one player per nation but if we get a lot of interest the three main nations could become small teams (representing ruler, minister of war and perhaps a top general).

Players will be entirely free, during the political phase at least, to play at their own pace. Messages will represent telegrams and can be assumed to be sent in real time, so if you are busy and need a few days off, it can be assumed that your Duke, King, Prince or Emperor is away at his summer hunting lodge or taking the waters at some spa town or attending some balls and dinners in his capital. You can then respond at a time convenient to you.

The military game if we get that far will probably be done at the pace of no more than one turn per week, and each turn may be one week, or possibly two weeks of campaign time. Battles will clearly be resolved well within one turn with sieges lasting from several weeks (for your average border fortress) to several months (for capital cities).

By all means the political side of things can overlap the military events.

This would be ridiculously cool.

Let me know when sign ups open.

-Neal

Digby, you might want to present this to a wider community? This is too awesome not to do.

I want to present it to the Kriegspiel group. We briefly discussed it after the face-to-face game yesterday. I'm sure the KS gang will find this and comment if they're interested. I dug out everything in my 'Victorian European Wars' section last night. 1859-1864-1866-1870 (I only excluded the Crimea and the Colonial stuff as being not relevant). Have been looking through books for orders of battle, rulers and generals names and political motivations, loyalties and emnities. It'll take a fair bit of planning to get this right. Also been working on a very basic battle system with a dice roll in combination with an overall combat effectiveness rating which will be a combination of strength of troops, quality of troops, ability and inspiration of C-in-C, tactical position (defence/attack) and combat doctrine. Army corps, cavalry divisions and garrisons will be either "effective", "tired" or "exhausted". There won't be casualties as such, just effective combat forces and ineffective ones depending on victories, defeats and the supply and motivational situation.

Sounds like fun. I'd be willing to take one of the minor countries like Bavaria or Denmark if there is room.

Yes me too. I rather fancy playing Bavaria.

Martin

I would like a large country. One with nukes! Barring that, Russia or France maybe.

Russia isn't in this - she was too far away and dealing with her own internal problems and the Turks(!) at the time.

Sounds interesting. I would also be ready to play some minor state.

I'm going to offer first refusal to the members of the forums who play kriegspiels face-to-face since I originally discussed this idea with them. I am hoping for some response! Any places left over can be taken by the SoW players, or the SoW players can partner up into teams to run the big three states.

In the meantime I found this site to be a fantastic resource of who was the leader of our various nations at this time (and indeed over all time! Its an amazingly exghaustive resource). The long. long lists of minor German states and Imperial polities is incredible.

Mr. Digby wrote:I'm going to offer first refusal to the members of the forums who play kriegspiels face-to-face since I originally discussed this idea with them. I am hoping for some response! Any places left over can be taken by the SoW players, or the SoW players can partner up into teams to run the big three states.

Would you like me to send out a newsletter on this to all members, Diggers? It may reach folks that a normal post does not.

If so, let me know what you would like it to say. The obvious thing would be to just include your original post.

Martin

Hi,

Good idea, for me, I will pass this time as not enough time to give to it, but I can set up forum(s) etc... to help you in the process... Should you need them?

Were you not running another campaign? Richard mentioned something about playing something you were running?

If after passing the option around to face face you still have vacancies I would be very keen to take part if there is room.

regards

Barry

Martin (the other)

Count me in fella. Its a period that I know little about but sounds very interesting.

Also, very close to the Kriegsspiel beginnings which adds a little authenticity and a apt starter to us new KS players.

Mike (the one)

If there's still room, I'd be happy to snag up a spot. Preferably a minor German state.

Wittmann wrote:If there's still room, I'd be happy to snag up a spot. Preferably a minor German state.

Me too. I quite fancy playing Bavaria. Is it worth setting up a doodle for this?

Martin

Me too please: my top 5 preferences (updated since my email) are
1 saxony
2 wurrtemberg
3 hanover
4 denmark
5 austrian