The Mightiest Empires Fall
Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 5:57 pm
This AAR was originally on the Paradox AAR forum but given some uncertainty about the future of that, I've decided to copy it over to here.
This was a MP AAR between myself and Narwhal, using 1.04 and was our second go. From the last game, we've learnt a bit and come up with some modifications that suit us or address problems we encountered. Some of this is house rules, some have been modded. These include:
There may be more but those are the main ones. Not too intrusive on the game, or hard to remember when putting together orders (we discussed more complex things such as limits on multinational forces etc), but they address things we felt were unbalanced one way or another. Thanks to Narwhal both for the research and coding. If the leader loss rate becomes too extreme, we'll mod back to a mid-point between these changes and the default settings.
As may be clear, I'm sticking to the Austrians. As may be equally clear, we both have some new ideas about how to do severe harm to our opponent (in the pregame emails Narwhal told me he'd given up on the 'Prag gambit', well, as we say in Glasgow "aye right")
Oh, and if you're interested, the title is from Robert Burns' poem "To Ruin", he wrote a group of quite gloomy ones at the end of his life and if I'm feeling suitable literary, I'll use lines from them as chapter headings (failing that I can always disinter the Empress of gloom, Emily Dickinson)
Table of Contents
Opening Moves
Reading the Map
The Saxons run away
1757
Jan: The Saxons reach safety
Feb-March: Mostly Quiet
April, organising the Austrian army
May, more marching than fighting
June, watching and waiting
July, waiting and watching
August, still mostly marching and waiting
September, Russian triumph, Austrian disaster
October, Austria moves north
November, Moving against Prussia
December, Dresden liberated, advances in the Rhineland
1758
January, waiting in the snow
February, the battle of Leipzig
March, Kolberg and Minden fall
April, Bremen falls
May, the battle of Wurzen
June, Battle of Freiburg, Hannover falls
July, Slaughter in Saxony
August, Battle of Torgau, Brunswick falls, Berlin left abandoned
September, Capture of Berlin and Magdeburg, defeat at Torgau
October, Austrian defeats in Saxony but the Oder turns green
November-December, the two Empresses invite Louis for tea in Berlin
This was a MP AAR between myself and Narwhal, using 1.04 and was our second go. From the last game, we've learnt a bit and come up with some modifications that suit us or address problems we encountered. Some of this is house rules, some have been modded. These include:
- No bateaux to pass under a fort or through a sea province under blockade
- No using Hussars/Cossacks to take MC (using the attack-retreat on contact orders) unless led by an officer (last time I'd riddled Prussia like a swiss cheese with this stunt)
- No exploitation of the manpower bug
- We've heavily modded the leader death chances. The base die roll is 10 times higher and the individual chance to die for brigadiers is 15, 2/3 star is 5. After a discussion we left Fred & Daun as unkillable (they can be wounded) as loss of either will really unbalance the game. Unlike all the other AGE games, officers are just not a constraint in RoP (indeed from about 1758 onwards you can't even be bothered to promote people), this should cure that.
- Narwhal found that the 'Northerner' trait for the Swedes was acting oddly. It meant that in Pommerania they were hampered but if I put them in say Hannover they got very enthusiastic. We've modded out the trait to remove this, and I've agreed to some restraint as to their deployment.
- Of the game options, we have historical attrition, activation that gives a malus to combat & movement
There may be more but those are the main ones. Not too intrusive on the game, or hard to remember when putting together orders (we discussed more complex things such as limits on multinational forces etc), but they address things we felt were unbalanced one way or another. Thanks to Narwhal both for the research and coding. If the leader loss rate becomes too extreme, we'll mod back to a mid-point between these changes and the default settings.
As may be clear, I'm sticking to the Austrians. As may be equally clear, we both have some new ideas about how to do severe harm to our opponent (in the pregame emails Narwhal told me he'd given up on the 'Prag gambit', well, as we say in Glasgow "aye right")
Oh, and if you're interested, the title is from Robert Burns' poem "To Ruin", he wrote a group of quite gloomy ones at the end of his life and if I'm feeling suitable literary, I'll use lines from them as chapter headings (failing that I can always disinter the Empress of gloom, Emily Dickinson)
Table of Contents
Opening Moves
Reading the Map
The Saxons run away
1757
Jan: The Saxons reach safety
Feb-March: Mostly Quiet
April, organising the Austrian army
May, more marching than fighting
June, watching and waiting
July, waiting and watching
August, still mostly marching and waiting
September, Russian triumph, Austrian disaster
October, Austria moves north
November, Moving against Prussia
December, Dresden liberated, advances in the Rhineland
1758
January, waiting in the snow
February, the battle of Leipzig
March, Kolberg and Minden fall
April, Bremen falls
May, the battle of Wurzen
June, Battle of Freiburg, Hannover falls
July, Slaughter in Saxony
August, Battle of Torgau, Brunswick falls, Berlin left abandoned
September, Capture of Berlin and Magdeburg, defeat at Torgau
October, Austrian defeats in Saxony but the Oder turns green
November-December, the two Empresses invite Louis for tea in Berlin