General Questions

[Jagger]

Here are some general questions about the game. I would appreciate any feedback!

1. Is it every worthwhile to use passive posture if you simply want to delay an enemy? I noticed there are combat penalties to the passive posture but your units are more likely to retreat. Is this posture designed for delaying tactics? Or are the combat penalties too great to balance out the greater likelihood of retreat?

2. I noticed some of my commanders have the ranger characteristic. Yet the characteristics list includes only supply ranger and move ranger. Does a ranger receive both benefits or just one? If one, which one?

3. Is there anyway to move Indians through enemy territory without raiding, looting, pillaging, etc? I like to pillage but I imagine the line of smoke and fires give a fairly good idea to my opponents as to the location of my raiding partners.

4. What is the pattern to the color coding of the leader characteristics? I noticed red, greens, yellows, etc. I suspect the colors have a specific meaning.

5. When setting up an ambush, will I receive the same ambush modifier whether I set up my ambush with a defensive or offensive posture? If setting an ambush with defensive posture, will an ambush be triggered if the enemy has a defensive or passive posture?

6. When conducting a siege, my troops must be in the aggressive posture. If an enemy enters the siege region, will my troops attack those relieving forces? Or will they defend with defensive combat bonuses?

7. I assume a defensive posture in the same region with an enemy fort/town will not produce a siege-correct?


Thanks in advance!

[Korrigan]

1. Is it every worthwhile to use passive posture if you simply want to delay an enemy? I noticed there are combat penalties to the passive posture but your units are more likely to retreat. Is this posture designed for delaying tactics? Or are the combat penalties too great to balance out the greater likelihood of retreat?

I personnaly use Defensive stance, as I found Passive to be too dangerous.


3. Is there anyway to move Indians through enemy territory without raiding, looting, pillaging, etc? I like to pillage but I imagine the line of smoke and fires give a fairly good idea to my opponents as to the location of my raiding partners.

For infiltration purpose, set them on Passive stance.

4. What is the pattern to the color coding of the leader characteristics? I noticed red, greens, yellows, etc. I suspect the colors have a specific meaning.

This related to different families of effects, check out AACW Officers room. This board has not been published for BoA.

5. When setting up an ambush, will I receive the same ambush modifier whether I set up my ambush with a defensive or offensive posture? If setting an ambush with defensive posture, will an ambush be triggered if the enemy has a defensive or passive posture?

If an ambush is successfull, you switch automatically to "offensive"

6. When conducting a siege, my troops must be in the aggressive posture. If an enemy enters the siege region, will my troops attack those relieving forces? Or will they defend with defensive combat bonuses?

They will attack.
You have to be in defense to get the terrain and entrenchment bonus.

7. I assume a defensive posture in the same region with an enemy fort/town will not produce a siege-correct?

No, you can be sieging a fort and expecting and an attack or sortie.


Question 2, I leave the answer to Philippe or Philippe

[PhilThib]

For point 2, this is strange. Normally the tooltip indicates which ranger category your leader has. If you really want to make sure, open the detailed panel by clicking on the leader NATO symbol on the bottom right panel...you'll see all abilities described.

Normally, only one applies (or you would have 2 icons if the leader has both).

Who is the said leader BTW ?

[Heldenkaiser]

Thanks to Jagger for asking some questions that I have been wondering about myself, and to Korrigan for the answers.

[Jagger]

6. When conducting a siege, my troops must be in the aggressive posture. If an enemy enters the siege region, will my troops attack those relieving forces? Or will they defend with defensive combat bonuses?

They will attack.
You have to be in defense to get the terrain and entrenchment bonus.

7. I assume a defensive posture in the same region with an enemy fort/town will not produce a siege-correct?

No, you can be sieging a fort and expecting and an attack or sortie.

Thanks Korrigan! Your answers clarified my understanding.

One follow-up on questions 6 and 7.

So I can be in either aggressive or defensive posture when conducting a siege. If in aggressive posture, my troops will attack any relieving force entering the siege region. When in defensive posture, I assume my troops will not attack relieving forces entering the region but will defend with defensive bonuses against an attack by the relieving force.

So how will my troops, in defensive posture, react to trapped troops, in defensive or passive posture, attempting to escape from the besieged fort/city? Will my troops attack them or allow them to escape?

Finally one last question. I started reading the latest version of the BOA manual last night. (BTW, it is very well done. It has much more information than the original.) I noticed a reference to "a list of all leaders is available in a separate document." Where would I find this document?

Thanks for all your feedback!

[Jagger]

For point 2, this is strange. Normally the tooltip indicates which ranger category your leader has. If you really want to make sure, open the detailed panel by clicking on the leader NATO symbol on the bottom right panel...you'll see all abilities described.

Normally, only one applies (or you would have 2 icons if the leader has both).

Who is the said leader BTW ?

The leader is France's De Langade in the Montcalm 1756 scenario.

Interestingly in the same scenario, I noticed that two leaders are listed as #1 in seniority-Chevalier de Levis and De Bouganville. Three leaders are listed as #2 in seniority-De Lotbiniere, De Montcalm and De Bourlamaque.

[nemethand]

I can't exactly recall, but Lévis is a 2 star general, and, I guess, Bougainville is 1 star.
The same applies to the second case: Montcalm is 3 star, Lotbiniére is 1 star, and, again guessing, Bourlamaque is 2 star.

To determine the leader of a stack first comes rank (3, 2 or 1 star) and only then, among leaders of the same rank, comes seniority.

[orca]

7. I assume a defensive posture in the same region with an enemy fort/town will not produce a siege-correct?

No, you can be sieging a fort and expecting and an attack or sortie.

Don't you have to start the siege in offensive posture. For example, as I understand it, if I enter an area with an enemy held fort in defensive posture no siege will occur until I switch one of my armies into an offensive posture. Once the siege is initiated I can switch my army back to defensive posture and they will continue to prosecute the siege.

Is this wrong?

[Jagger]

In a PBEM, I moved troops with defensive posture into the Oswego region. I checked the status of Oswego and it is besieged. So it doesn't matter whether you enter the hex as defensive or offensive posture.

Nemanthal, I see. So there is an independent seniority ranking per each level of star command. That makes sense.

[Jagger]

In the Montcalm 1756 scenario, I am playing one PBEM as the French. I noticed the Miliciens/militia available range from pure militia to line infantry. In looking at the stats, I see no difference between the militia and the line infantry stats. So I am assuming the line infantry is untrained infantry.


I have a training officer available so I want to train up the Milicien/Militia troops. When I train up an untrained line unit will they become the equivalent of a heavy infantry unit or is there a separate trained line unit category? With time, I will find out but I am wondering what to expect when the training is complete.

[Jagger]

Playing the Montcalm 1756 scenario, I noticed the French Indian allies activate in waves. I assume they have an activation number. Will those Indians, which don't activate immediately in the Spring, activate earlier if I move a regular/light infantry unit into their villages.