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JacquesDeLalaing
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Sat Jan 02, 2016 1:28 pm

ROEs

Another very important thing to register for the future: The retreat-will-modifications of ROEs (stances) only apply if there is a C-in-C (any leader-unit; I've not tested what happens if there is but a leader-element) present. If there is no leader unit/element present in the region, then the faction has an unmodified (100%) retreat will (regardless of the ROE of individual stacks). I've not checked yet if the same is true for retreat-chances.



------------------------

Crossing 101 in "Silesia Inrupta"

So, how to defend/delay a crossing in "Silesia Inrupta" when outnumbered?

1) Set your defending units to "offensive" or "defensive" (there are advantages and disadvantages for both) and - most importantly - to "never retreat". This means that your units will recognize that they're defending a strong point and won't retreat when facing overwhelming forces.
2) The opponent crosses and - since he's most likely in offensive stance - attacks. The crossing severely limits his frontage and his firepower. Thus, your outnumbered units will be relatively safe while fighting the enemy according to their modifications in their terrain.
3) The battle continues for 2 rounds each day (2 rounds per battle is my current setting) with the crossing-malus for the crosser active. Depending on troop-numbers and cohesion, the crossing might last several "days" of fighting with the malus still active. Unless the defender manages to rout the attacker (which is highly unlikely), or vice versa (even more unlikely), these battles will result in a draw. Once the fighting ceases due to lack of cohesion on one side - if the defender has a defensive stance, then once the attacker is out of cohesion, the fighting ceases (therefore, setting the defender to "offensive" might be the better choice here, in order to let the defender continue the advantageous fight until he himself - not the crosser - runs out of cohesion/power) - then the crossing is made. Since retreats are unlikely, the attacker is now positioned in the target region and has successfully crossed.
4) In your next turn, since the attacker has already crossed and will not suffer the frontage- and battle-mali for the crossing anymore, you'll need to slip away. Set your force to defensive and give them a very cautious retreat-setting (retreat if engaged) which should work very, very, very reliably in my mod. However, given the scale, you need to watch out not to be cut off from your retreat path and/or getting engaged by a small detachment that binds you in battle. Moreover, you should prepare your retreat. The direction of a retreat cannot be chosen by you, but you can modify the chance to retreat into your desired region by having positioned some troops there in advance (some hussars come in handy for this!). This is actually pretty realistic!

The result is that you've delayed the opposing force (for the rest of the turn)* without suffering many casualties. Of course, if the forces of the defender and the crosser are about equal, then decisive outcomes (not just delays), plus pursuits are possible.

* Of course this is a bit arbitrary. If the crosser crosses late in the turn, on day 6 of 7, then the delay is not as effective as if the crosser crosses early in the turn. There is nothing I can do against that though. With longer turn-intervalls, the problem would be even more severe. However, this is countered a little bit by cohesion loss for movement. Since there is no order to wait for x days, the only way to cross late in a turn is to move (and loose cohesion) until late in the turn.
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JacquesDeLalaing
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Sat Jan 02, 2016 3:27 pm

Command in "Silesia Inrupta"

Command aspects in Silesia Inrupta work on two levels:


1. Sub-general-level command


This level uses low level (one star) leader-models of the vanilla game with all their implications. Leaders of this kind always represent colonels in Silesia Inrupta. They work just like in the vanilla game, generating Command Points for troops and using their strategic/offensive/defensive skill. They generate enough command points to lead a regiment (made up of 2 battalions, each of 5 elements). I don't think that there will be brigades (combined units) in Silesia Inrupta. Instead, a single stack represents a brigade. The command-point-limit per stack will be set accordingly (to allow ca. 4 battalions per stack at maximum). Note that the number of leaders determines how many operational detachments you can form. Only forces that are in a region with a leader have their retreat-will modified by the ROE/stance of the leader.

2. General-level command


Here, Silesia Inrupta differs a lot. The general-level of command is not represented by leader-modifications on movement and combat, but rather via information. In Silesia Inrupta, you won't be able to spot enemy stacks UNLESS 1) they are fighting your troops (in which case you can see the opposing force in the battle report) or 2) your general have gathered information. The general-level works via general-models (always 1 general for each faction in a scenario; the general-unit represents the player himself) that spawn couriers/information:

1. General model: a model that is able to detect enemy stacks (but even here, only low information quality is given). Note that the general model does not generate any command points. Moreover, a general model has two qualities:
  • The skill of the general is represented by his spawn-skill of couriers. The higher the skill of a general, the more likely he is to spawn 1 (or perhaps even 2?) courier units in a turn.
  • The rank of the general (i.e. how many subordinate generals he commands) is represented by the speed of the couriers that the general spawns. A high rank general spawns faster couriers, a low rank courier spawns slower couriers. For example, a general-courier could have a reach of 4-5 regions per turn, whereas a general-major-courier only has a reach of 2 regions per turn.


The courier-models themselves can spot enemy stacks just like the general-model BUT they only have a reach of 1 turn (destroyed at the start of the turn if not in the region of the parent-general).

To sum it up: information is very precious. Ordinary units and even colonels do not spot enemy stacks. You need to have generals (either your general model or couriers) to spot enemy stacks. You have to decide "where" to gather information and what conclusions you draw from the chunks of information that you receive. It's totally possible that a whole army marches by just 1-2 regions away without you taking note of it, if you mess things up. ;) Note that this will not make light troops less precious. The way they work, they can give you a lot of information. For example, as they have an easy time to engage superior forces and skirmish with them, you can gather a lot of information by looking at battle-reports (unless of course the oppoenent keeps up a skirmisher-screen to make it harder for you to spot the position of his "main army"). The art of the general is to draw the correct conclusions from perceived movements (of screening troops).

Note that the detection-value of generals (regardless of skill/rank) will only ever provide you with very low level information quality. The information that you receive from stacks is this (e.g.):

Prussian Force (Juterborg)
Led by Major General **

Regular **
Leader **
Regular *
Regular *
Regular*
Cavalry
Regular
Regular
Artillery
Supply
Supply


UPDATE: Since SpawnKillNoRegion works instantly (as soon as the courier leaves the region of the general, he dies; he doesn't stay alive for one turn as I initially thought), it needs to work a bit differently. New idea: the couriers spawn with very high cohesion. However, they also have a very, very high "CohMove" value which means that they will be slowed down a lot (50% - I need to make sure that this resembles a crawl by setting the movement coefficient of the element right) once they've "outreached" the commando-range that I had in mind.
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Sat Jan 02, 2016 4:52 pm

Orders of battle for the demo scenario

A medium-sized habsburg raiding detachment will try to infiltrate the Prussian cordons, destroy a one of both of two depots and get out unharmed. The habsburg raiding forces' composition is very typical for this task. The Prussians will be more numbersome and have more regular troops (very strong in dispersing the austrian troops if they manage to engage them), but start with a delay and their outposts are isolated. Plus, whereas the habsburg force knows where its target is, the Prussian player will first need to spot the habsburg troops in order to destroy them. Screening will be very important. Estimated scenario-duration: 20 - 30 turns.

The habsburg force

general: Andreas (András) Hadik auf Futak [in 1757 still Freiherr?, Feldmarschall-Lieutenant] seniority: 30

Infantry regiment Neipperg
leader: Heinrich Gottlob Voith von Salzburg [Freiherr, Obrist? became Generalfeldwachtmeister in June 1757] seniority: 60
I. battalion Neipperg (1 unit à 5 elements/companies)
battalion guns (1 unit à 4 elements: 2 gun-elements, 2 ammo-wagon elements)
II. battalion Neipperg (1 unit à 5 elements/companies)
battalion guns (1 unit à 4 elements: 2 gun-elements, 2 ammo-wagon elements)
baggage (2 units à 5 elements each)

Hussar regiment Nádasdy
leader: Philipp von Sinzendorf [Graf, Obrist] seniority: 45
5 squadrons=10 companies of Nadasdy hussars (= 10 units à 1 element)

Varaždin-Creuz-grenzer regiment
leader: Michael Benno Mikassinovich von Schlangenfeld [Freiherr, Obrist] seniority: 55
2 battalions = 10 companies of grenzers (10 or 5 units à 1/2 elements - not sure yet)
2 grenzer-grenadier-companies (2 units à 1 element)

converged forces
2 companies of Neipperg grenadiers (2 units à 1 element)
2 companies of Puebla grenadiers (2 units à 1 element)
1 company of Porporati horse grenadiers (1 unit à 1 element) [=Zweibrücken Birkenfeld dragoons]
1 company of Prinz Savoyen horse grenadiers (1 unit à 1 element)

I'm not sure about reserve-colonels and baggage for the light regiments yet.

Note that leader-models (colonels) serve primarily to generate command points and to give their troops an actual retreat-will-ROE/stance-modification. If there is no leader in a region, then the stacks always have a retreat will of 100%. So, basically speaking, a colonel is able to command (exert his retreat-will-modification) over a whole region (ca. 1 km), but he is not able to actually lead all the troops that can be deployed over 1 km (in clear terrain, a region/1 km² offers frontage for ca. 1 brigade = 4 battlalions). So, if you have only one colonel and more than an infantry regiment, you will suffer from the lack of command points.

The prussian force

general: Christoph Hermann von Manstein [Freiherr?, General-Major]

Infantry regiment Bornstedt
leader: August Gottlieb von Bornstedt [Freiherr?, General-Major] (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Gottlieb_von_Bornstedt)
I. battalion Bornstedt (1 unit à 5 elements)
battalion guns (1 unit à 4 elements: 2 gun-elements, 2 ammo-wagon elements)
II. battalion Bornstedt (1 unit à 5 elements)
battalion guns (1 unit à 4 elements: 2 gun-elements, 2 ammo-wagon elements)
baggage

Infantry regiment Manteuffel
leader: Gerd Heinrich von Manteuffel [Freiherr, General-Major] (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_von_Manteuffel_(Generalleutnant))
I. battalion Manteuffel (1 unit à 5 elements)
battalion guns (1 unit à 4 elements: 2 gun-elements, 2 ammo-wagon elements)
II. battalion Manteuffel (1 unit à 5 elements)
battalion guns (1 unit à 4 elements: 2 gun-elements, 2 ammo-wagon elements)
baggage

converged grenadier battalion Finck
leader: Friedrich August von Finck [Freiherr?, Oberst-Lieutenant or lower] (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_August_von_Finck)
2 companies Meyernick grenadiers (2 units à 1 element)
2 companies Itzenplitz grenadiers (2 units à 1 element)
baggage

converged grenadier battalion Wangenheim
leader: Friedrich Nikolaus von Wangenheim [Freiherr?, Oberst-Lieutenant] (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nikolaus_von_Wangenheim)
2 companies Garrisson-Regiment VII grenadiers (2 units à 1 element)
2 companies Wietersheim grenadiers (2 units à 1 element)
baggage

hussar regiment Puttkamer
leader: Georg Ludwig von Puttkamer [Freiherr, General-Major] (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Ludwig_von_Puttkamer)
10 squadrons Puttkamer hussars (10 units à 1 element)

dragoon regiment Stechow
leader: Christoph Ludwig von Stechow [Freiherr?, General-Major] (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_Ludwig_von_Stechow)
5 squadrons= 10 companies Stechow dragoons (5 units à 2 elements)


Archive/discarded forces (not used for this scenario)

AUS: Infantry regiment Puebla
leader: Karl von Würzburg [Freiherr, ?]
I. battalion Puebla (1 unit à 5 elements/companies)
II. battalion Puebla (1 unit à 5 elements/companies)
battalion guns (2 units à 2 elements/guns)
baggage (2 units à 5 elements each)
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JacquesDeLalaing
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Sat Jan 02, 2016 11:48 pm

Oh wow. While experimenting with cohesion and movement, I discovered that cohesion loss for movement was basically turned off in vanilla RoP. Most elements had a base "CohMove" of 55, which means that they lose less (effect of roads and military!) than 0.5 points of cohesion for each day of movement (unless in bad weather). Given that units often arrive at their target-region early in the turn and stay stationary for the rest of the turn (which lets them recover ca. 1-1.5 points of cohesion per day) the effects must have been trifling.

It's also important to note that the cohesion bar does not begin to empty as soon as your units loose cohesion. Rather it starts to appear "unfilled" only once the element has already reached a certain, combat- relevant threshold of cohesion(loss).

I'm not sure yet what to do with cohesion. I'm tempted to use it as a kind of short term mechanism, rather than as longer term fatigue. A brigade on the march will be low on cohesion, representing that it is in march-column. This also means that before you start an attack, you'll need to rest a turn, which represents that your brigade deploys in battle order. I think that this might be an interesting mechanism. It also gives skirmishers and the advance guard a new role, especially if you use the "historically accurate" units as your advance guard: cavalry, grenadiers, grenzers - all these units suffer less cohesion loss on the move than ordinary infantry. They can deploy in battle order very fast, thus they're always combat-ready. It's just a pitty that the cohesion-recovery rates are not open for modding. However, you can use passive posture as a marching-formation-button. As long as it is switched on, your units hardly suffer any cohesion loss while moving. However, if attacked while in marching order=passive posture, you should have to bear the consequences. For this reason, I would even consider it to be okay to reserve the "retreat if engaged"-posture (which is automatically active when passive) for marching-order. I'd give it an increased will to retreat, but low chances to retreat successfully. I want them to suffer pursuit casualties! Doesn't happen if retreat succeeds prior to combat round 1.

On this scale, you can create interesting scenarios. For example, the result of the battle of Rossbach could be recreated very well with ageods' engine and the settings described.
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Sun Jan 03, 2016 11:53 am

Battle mechanism (as opposed to "skirmish")

  • In order to achieve an decisive result against regular troops of your opponent in one region, you need to 1. break their resistance (force them to retreat) and 2. pursue them.
  • The all-deciding factor in battles will be cohesion, not casualties. Since cohesion is linked to movement (large cohesion loss if moving in non-passive stance) and time (cohesion recovery), it is the link where your operational actions influence effective combat power.
  • Apart from the "operational" factors, the quality of your units plays a role for their performance on the battle field. The fire-hitchances and the cohesion loss caused by your units will make your enemy loose more or less cohesion. Also good quality troops can stay in battle longer without being forced to retreat (as the test takes into account the average current cohesion left expressed as % of maximum cohesion).
  • Also, the time that a battle lasts plays a role. Units loose cohesion every round they're in battle.
  • So, a battle is decided once one faction chooses to retreat. The retreat decision can be modified by the ROE (stance) of the commander-in-general. However, I work primarily with auto-retreat here, which works independently of ROE-stances. A side will retreat if it suffers 20% * average current cohesion/100 casualties (loss of hits) in battle. This means that a force consisting of 350 hits with an average cohesion of only 50% will automatically retreat once it suffers 10% (0.2*0.5 = 0.1) casualties, which, for 350 hits equals 35 hits. If the force had been at 100% cohesion, then it would only retreat after having suffered 70 casualties. As you can see, the effect of cohesion is very large. Units that are engaged in battle and are suddenly suprised by a fresh enemy will crumble and retreat. Likewise, units that have been moving in non-passive stance will be unfit for battle.
  • Note that "battle" works in the fire-phase and that units that are good in battle inflict huge cohesion damage in fire-combat. Skirmisher units, on the other hand, have good assault values and inflict assault damage, which translates into only very small cohesion damage. Skirmishing won't force a faction to retreat (at least not on the tactical level), unless the opponent is in total disorder (low cohesion).
  • Forcing the opponent to retreat via auto-retreat is just one step. The second step is to pursue the opponent. Here, light and medium cavalry will be essential because only they have the disruptor (and screener) attribute, which multiplies (/reduces) the damage that they inflict in a pursuit (/the damage their stacks suffer when retreating). Cuirassiers, on the other hand, will be a very good shock force (very high cohesion, extreme cohesion damage in fire combat), but not that good in pursuit. Apart from the "tactical" short-term retreat that is represented via pursuit-casualties, you can also go for a grand-tactical longer term pursuit, i.e. moving your stack to further engage the opponents' retreated stacks. This might trigger another day of combat (retreat chances prior to round 1 will be very, very small!) and another pursuit, but also, the movement will reduce your stacks' cohesion (since you have to carry it out in non-passive stance in order to engage the opponent). So beware of pursuing too boldly!
  • An entirely different way to decide battles is to force the opponent to retreat without even resisting too much. This works very well if you can surprise the opponent, that is: bring a much larger combat pwr to a battle than your opponent. This will make the opponents' C-in-C sound the retreat voluntarily, and since the retreat chances prior to round 1 are reduced, the retreat will happen after round 2 or 3, which means that there will be a pursuit. However, it will be tricky to pull of a large advantage in combat power as you'll need to screen the movement of your force, which will be a chapter of its own.


Note that the "retreat if engaged" button will be given a new tooltip and design. Basically it says: "Don't use me!". It will decrease the retreat-parameters prior to round 1, since it is there to punish stacks that are not combat-ready: If you want to move without loosing cohesion, you need to use the passive-stance which automatically uses the "retreat if engaged" posture. Thus, a force that is engaged in this status is considered to be in marching column. If engaged, it will be unable to retreat prior to battle (retreat will high, retreat chance very low) and very likely to retreat after round 1 (retreat will very high, retreat chance very high). This setting makes sure that a pursuit happens and one-sided casualties are inflicted if a force is caught in marching order. The same is true for stacks that have been switched to "passive" after they've lost a battle. They should also be prone to further pursuit and casualties.

Unlike in vanilla RoP, retreat in Silesia Inrupta is always a bad thing that results in high pursuit casualties. Orderly retreats are represented by the player moving his stacks out of a region with enemy presence (while being engaged, the battles ending in draws, not in retreats).
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JacquesDeLalaing
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Sun Jan 03, 2016 4:46 pm

Here is a mini-AAR to show you how all mechanics (except for the command/reconnaissance-system described in post #59 and supply) come together. I'm going to cover one turn per post.

Briefing

[ATTACH]36713[/ATTACH]

I'm in command of a brigade positioned in the little village called "Chottaun". My brigade consists of infantry regiment Neipperg (2 battalions + 2 companies of grenadiers), a regiment of grenzers (light infantry) and a regiment of hussars. 3 colonels (leaders) are available to me.

The opponent is reported to be located very close to my position, in the small village of Chrastian, about 1,5 kilometers to the west.

My task is simple: Drive out the enemy from Chrastian within 5 turns (never mind now how much time a turn is meant to represent; perhaps 1/6 day) and keep possession over Chottaun while doing so.

The terrain between the two villages is clear. On the route directly leading from Chrastian to Chottaun, there is a small rivulet which represents an obstacle to any attacker (r60-->r90: crossing of difficulty 3 as indicated by the white 3). However, this crossing can be circumvented easily to the south (r62-->r90)

Turn 1 - planning

Schlangenfelds' light detachment
My plan is simple: First, I will send forward my light troops towards Chrastian to skirmish with the enemy. This will not only reduce his cohesion over time (if he is not screened by his own light troops, which the AI is unlikely to do), but also it would provide me with information about his strength (if the reconnaissance-mechanism was turned on). So, I first select a colonel to lead this "light" detachment. Since all colonels are the same for now, it doesn't really matter which one I pick. I chose Michael Mikassinovich Freiherr von Schlangenfeld for historically he was the commander of the grenzer regiment. He is able to command the whole grenzer regiment (10 companies) without problems. However, in case that something goes horribly wrong and my light detachment would be forced to retreat while in contact with the enemy, I also add the whole Nadasdy hussar-regiment (10 companies) to this detachment. Since hussars don't need command points, Schlangenfeld can easily deal with them. Hussars will reduce pursuit casualties and, at the same time, they're also good at skirmishing. A total of 20 companies of skirmishers will make things quite uncomfortable for the opponent in Chrastian! Now for the ROE/stance of this detachment. I want to make Schlangenfeld skirmish with the opponent, so I set him to aggressive / standard retreat (in fact, the retreat-settings for both offense and defence hardly matter at all in my mod, unless you choose "retreat if engaged" - which you should never do!). Next, I have to decide how fast the detachment will move to Chrastian. Since the detachment consists of light troops, I can make them move really fast. Light troops like grenzer and hussars can move in battle (aggressive/defensive) stance with only minor cohesion loss. Unlike regular troops, light troops don't need to "deploy" before they attack and they keep their full combat (=skirmishing) power for the whole duration of their journey. Detachments of regular troops would suffer a lot of cohesion loss if moving in non-passive stance, so that you need to choose where to deploy (start moving in offensive/defensive stance). Therefore, I decide to make Schlangenfeld move on to Chrastian this very turn. This will give my skirmishers more time to harrass the opponent. The detachment is supposed to reach region 60 on day 3 (even though they represent much shorter intervalls, I will continute to call them "days"), and Chrastian on day 5, where they will have two days time to skirmish with the enemy (a turn has 7 days).

Neipperg regular detachment
While Schlangenfels marches on Chrastian, my regular troops - two battalions of regular infantry and two grenadier companies - will stay at Chottaun. Should the opponent move on Chottaun on an indirect route, he might reach the village without bumping into my light detachment. Thus, I leave my regular troops here to defend Chottaun (and to provide a point of retreat should my light troops get into severe trouble). I set them to aggressive / never retreat. Only in the next turn will the regulars start their movement on Chrastian. A single company of hussars and myself (the general-unit, which is not needed if reconnaissance is switched off) set up headquarters in the village of Chottaun itself.

Turn 1 - execution

Schlangenfelds' detachment did not meet any opposition on its way from Chottaun to Chrastian. Therefore, on day 5, he started to engage the opposing forces around Chrastian in a skirmish. Being all light troops, Schlangenfelds' units had lost only a bit of cohesion on the march. The skirmishing on day 5 lasted for the full three rounds of combat. Schlangenfelds' detachment of 2160 men engaged the Prussians who had 2760 men around Chrastian. The two forces were almost large enough (19 vs. 24 elements) to fill the whole frontage of the region. In round 1, Schlangenheims' detachment suffered 2 hits and 20 cohesion-loss, while inflicting 0 hits and 0 cohesion-loss. The big chunk of cohesion loss was inflicted by a company of Wietersheim grenadiers who successfully engaged the 4th company of Nadasdy hussars in shock action (rare, but happens! especially since the battle took place in clear+buildings-terrain). The second round was a bit better for Schlangenheim, he lost 4 hits and 10 cohesion while inflicting 2 hits and 6 cohesion-loss. This round consisted purely of skirmishing without any shock-action. In round 3, the grenzers were very effective. Schlangenfeld inflicted a loss of 7 (!) hits and 35 cohesion, while suffering only 1 hit and 17 cohesion. The 3rd and 4th company of Grenzers successfully engaged Zastrow infantry companies in shock action. The fourth company of Nadasdy hussars, however, still got battered by Wietersheim grenadiers. Here are the total results of the skirmish around Chrastian:

Suffered damage/cohesion: 7 (=53 men, 24 horses) / 47
Inflicted damage/cohesion: 10 (65 men, 12 horses) / 41

Of the 10 hits suffered, 4 hits were inflicted by prussian hussars who are on equal level with my light troops in skirmish-engagements. Without these hussars, the results would have been more in favour of Schlangenfelds' detachement.

Even though that might sound harsh, the result is pretty good for Schlangenfels. What the result-screen does not show is that all elements loose cohesion for being engaged in combat. Thus, the cohesion damage inflicted on the prussian force is larger than the battle-log shows. Regular troops (rate of fire: 2) suffer more from these skirmishes than light troops (Rate of fire: 1).

[ATTACH]36714[/ATTACH][ATTACH]36715[/ATTACH]
[Note that in this mod, assault casualties represent casualties in skirmish, whereas fire-casualties represent casualties in shock action)

Moreover, the skirmish going according to plan, Schlangenfeld was not forced to retreat but remained around Chrastian with his detachment. However, since his troops were now exhausted, he did not continue the battle on day 6. Rather, he auto-switched to "defensive stance" and let his troops recover cohesion. If engaging with very fatigued troops, their combat power is reduced a lot which means that they might retreat (and be pursued) even without having suffered heavy losses in battle. I think that the loss of cohesion for the light detachment has been a bit too extreme. However, light troops also recover cohesion faster then regular troops. In this situation, Schlangenheim is supposed to keep constant pressure on the Prussians in Chrastian to inflict cohesion loss and prevent cohesion recovery and thereby prepare them for the arrival of my regular detachment which is supposed to dislodge the Prussians from Chrastian. Pauses in battle defeat the purpose of the skirmish. It's also worth noting that Schlangenfeld had no chance at all to dislodge the Prussians from Chrastian, even if he had inflicted many more casualties. To make the enemy retreat and give way, you need regular troops that engage in shock action, not skirmishers.

In any case, if the reconnaissance-mechanism was turned on, I would now know the exact strength of the Prussians (at day 5). A human player would be better off using a skirmish/outpost-screen. But even then, I guess that such a large detachment would have swept aside any screen with only slight delay (and potentially high pursuit-casualties for the screeners unless they have hussars with them).

The Neipperg regular-detachment (ca. 1300 men) kept its position around Chottaun. Nothing happened here, no movements by the enemy.


A little gimmick:
Image of an assualt of Grenzers on Tetschen, 1756. You can see only a few grenzers on the right hand side in the sdistance at the riverbank, other than that, there are smoke-puffs all over the town.
http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/images/8/84/Storming_of_Tetschen%2C_October_18_1756.jpg

PS: I have no clue at all why many regions are named "Ostsee" and "Oder". That's something to work on in the final stages. ;)
Attachments
turn 1 skirmish Chrastian summary.png
turn 1 skirmish Chrastian round 1 part 1.png
ausgangslage.png
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JacquesDeLalaing
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Sun Jan 03, 2016 7:43 pm

Turn 2 - planning

Neipperg detachment

So now it's time to let the Neipperg regulars advance. If you're wondering why I didn't simply send it off together with the skirmisher detachment: Fighting an enemy who has his cohesion already reduced gives you much higher chances to force him to retreat (and pursue him). The upper hand in cohesion equals an upper hand in chances for a decisive victory. And since skirmishers can inflict cohesion loss without forcing decisions, it's a good idea to let skirmishers do their job before risking a decision by sending in regular troops.

It might sound funny, but given the depth of the engine, there are three options to let regiment Neipperg advance:

option 1: The detachment builds a march-column (=switches to passive stance) and moves across the rivulet to region 60, which till take 3 days (2+1 for the river crossing). It will rest in region 60 for the remaining 4 days of the turn. The next turn, it deploys (=switches to aggressive stance) and moves to region 59 to attack the Prussians around Chrastian.
  • advantages: This is the method with the smallest cohesion loss.
  • disadvantages: If attacked by considerable enemy forces while in marching order, the detachment can be beaten and pursued easily. This is highly unlikely in the current situation, as Schlangenfelds' corps (Zone of control) does not allow larger forces to move to region 60. Another disadvantage is that this is a slow way to advance.

option 2: The detachment remains deployed (in defensive or offensive stance) and moves across the rivulet to region 60, where it will rest the remaining 4 days of the turn. Like in option 1, it will attack in region 59 on the next turn.
  • advantages: the cohesion loss from advancing in battle order is countered by the 4 days of resting/cohesion recovery in region 60. The cohesion/combat power of the detachment remains high all the time.
  • disadvantages: it is a slow way to advance

option 3: The detachment remains deployed and attacks Chrastian in the very same turn. It will arrive in region 60 on day 3, and in region 59/Chrastian on day 5.
  • advantages: fastest method; cohesion/combat power will be still okay in region 60
  • disadvantages: cohesion/combat power will be very, very low when arriving in region 59/Chrastian. The detachment will be easily beaten and pursued. So this is not a real option (only if the enemy was already crumbling, which isn't the case.


Taking all advantages and disadvantages into consideration, I go for option 2. Neipperg regiment will advance in battle order, suffer the cohesion loss inflicted by the rivulet (I hope it works; I've defined the jump-link/crossing-terrain as "harsh weather" which should inflict extra cohesion loss), but recover ("dress their ranks") for 4 days in region 60. So, unless I'm attacked on day 3 in region 60, which is very unlikely, I'll be safe and ready in region 60 to strike in the next turn with high cohesion and flying banners! Neippergs' detachment is set to offensive/never retreat and moved to region 60.

Schlangenfelds' detachment
Schlangenfelds' corps' cohesion is about 50%. I think he still has enough power to keep the engagement alive for 1-2 turns (without retreating, that is!). The chance to retreat is set to 10% (defensive) or 5% (offensive) of the difference in combat power. From the battle report, I know that the opponent was ca. 40% stronger than me. Given that grenzers have low base cohesion (my power was 450 before the skirmish, now it is 290 after the skirmish + a few days of rest) compared to the Prussian regulars, the gap in combat power might have increased from 40% to ca. 50%-60%. So, in offensive posture, there will be a chance of 2,5% to 3% before each round of combat (except for the first) that Schlangenfeld retreats. I think that this can be ignored! There is also a chance that Schlangenfeld retreats not because of the overall evaluation of combat power, but because of losses. At ca. 50% cohesion, Schlangenfelds' force will auto-retreat as soon as he suffers 10% losses. With ca. 600 hits in the detachment, this means 60 hits. It's practically impossible to suffer that many casualties in a skirmish. However, cohesion might drop further during the battle, reducing the losses needed for autoretreat to 48 at 40% cohesion and 36 at 30% cohesion. That's also very unlikely.

Therefore, it should be safe to keep up the skirmish and keep the prussians busy. Remember that I don't want them to recover fatigue by letting days pass by without skirmish. However, I fear that Schlangenfeld ceases offensive actions due to his low cohesion on day 2 or 3, which lets the Prussian recover fatigue from day 3-7. For this reason, I try something special. Not sure yet whether it will work out. I will send off elements that are low on cohesion to a different region/to the rear in order to increase the average cohesion of Schlangenfelds command in Chrastian. They will take part in the battle on day 1, but from day 2 on, they should be gone. So, two grenzer companies and one hussar company are sent off to the rear/region 60. Unfortunately, due to their low cohesion, they suffer a big movement penalty, which means that they will stay in region 59 for 4 days instead of 1! But let's just see how it turns out. Ideally, Schlangenfeld keeps the Prussians busy 7 days. IN fact, however, 1 or 2 days might be closer to reality. I hope Schlangenfelds 1-2 days of skirmishing inflict more loss of cohesion than the Prussians can recover during the rest of the turn. Schlangenfeld remains stationary around Chrastian and is set to offensive/never retreat.

Since my goal in this scenario is to dislodge the Prussians from Chrastian, not to destroy them, I'm not even thinking about sending hussars to the rear of Chrastian.

Turn 2 - execution

[ATTACH]36716[/ATTACH]

Oh my, Schlangenfelds detachment stopped the skirmish and switched to defensive posture after just one day. The skirmish itself was quite effective (hits inflicted: 10, cohesion-loss inflicted: 51; hits suffered: 6, cohesion-loss suffered: 43). But all these men died in vain because the Prussians had an easy time to recover their lost cohesion during the remaining 6 days of the turn, when Schlangenfelds grenzers were sitting around doing nothing! In fact I think I need to increase the base cohesion of light troops to make them keep up skirmishes for a longer time.

Neippergs regiment arrived in region 60 on day 3 as planned. Cohesion at the end of the turn is fine. However, the detachment is not strong enough to force the high-cohesion Prussians (1 reg of hussars, 4 coys of grenadiers, 2 infantry battalions) out of Chrastian. Without the effective use of grenzers, I don't see how I can win this scenario anymore. This is going to be a very, very bold and probably bloody attempt!

PS: Actually, the grenzers seem to be more effective than I've thought. When comparing the initial cohesion of the Prussian units before the skirmish on turn 1 with that before the skirmish on turn 2, it turns out that most have a considerably lower cohesion. This means that they had not been able to recover all the cohesion lost in between the two skirmishes.
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Sun Jan 03, 2016 8:29 pm

Turn 3 - planning

The question is whether I should wait for one more turn before regiment Neipperg tries to force the Prussians' position. On the one hand, Schlangenfelds' corps could try to inflict some more cohesion loss. On the other hand, it might take a few turns to get a decision once Neippergs' force has joined the battle.

Therefore, I stick to my plan and order Neipperg infantry to Chrastian. Meanwhile, Schlangenfeld continues to skirmish. Moreover, some Nadasdy hussars join infantry regiment Neipperg. As now regular troops are going to crash, there can be a decision. Hussars help to keep casualties low both on the pursuit and on the retreat.

Turn 3 - execution

Okay, so that was quite bad. On day 1, Schlangenfeld skirmished against the prussians (inflicted: 8/31; suffered 8/63). He stopped offensive action thereafter. On day 3, infantry regiment Neipperg launched the attack on the Prussian positions around Chrastian. Here is the result:

[ATTACH]36720[/ATTACH]

During the shock action, infantry regiment Neipperg failed horribly. The casualties only tell half the story. Cohesion loss is more important than casualties in Silesia Inrupta. In round 1, regiment Neipperg inflicted 2 hits and 34 cohesion loss, while suffering 9 hits and 109 (!) cohesion loss. During round 2, it inflicted 0/0 while suffering 5/69. The last round, in which Schlangenfelds' corps re-entered the battle (in round 1 & 2 it did not take part), shifted the balance: 5/51 inflicted, 2/3 lost. Having completely been stopped and fragmented by the Prussian line, Neipperg infantry ceased all offensive actions for the rest of the turn. In fact I was lucky that the Prussians were not in offensive stance, in which case they would have engaged Neipperg infantry the next day, with a high chance to rout them.

The results are a bit strange. I think that some adjustments need to be made: 1. to protection (I totally forgot about entrechnments when I set the protection levels and effect of protection). This favoured the Prussians in this battle and led to them hardly suffering any losses. 2. to the combat signature of grenzers. On round 3, when the grenzers re-entered the battle, too many of them were targeted in vain (due to the grenzers' high protection) by prussian elements. 3. Actually, after looking at the battle log, it was the extreme difference in offensive and defensive fire that I have set up for regular troops that made the Prussians win this so easily. Values will be corrected.

In any case, the attack has miserably failed. It's not a disaster (yet) because the Prussians - still in defensive posture - have not exploited the situation, but the attack has effectively been halted. Neipperg-battalion 1 is at 51/110 (46%) cohesion, battalion 2 at 39/110 (35%), and the two grenadier companies at 98/154 (63%).

I'm not sure if I was lucky that Neipperg regiment was not routed/forced to retreat. The problem is that auto-retreat doesn't really trigger correctly as it also considers troops that are in the region but do not take part in the battle (in this case: Schlagnenfelds' detachment). Voluntary retreat is set to 5% of the difference in combat power if in offensive posture (10% if defensive). Here too, troops that do not take part in the battle are considered. This is a bit problematical for the pwr of light troops is set very high right now. I might reduce it (by giving them TQ and protection via terrain, not via element-stats). If you combine the power of Schlangenfelds' detachment and infantry regiment Neipperg, then the power-difference was not big enough to result in a considerable "voluntary retreat" (=rout in Silesia Inrupta) chance.

I stop my mini-AAR here. I will create a new one once I've updated my game files according to my findings. Mini-AARs really help me to spot gameplay-issues. ;)
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Mon Jan 04, 2016 12:25 pm

Another conclusion from my mini-AAR is that I want to use smaller time-intervalls. I don't want the deployment (switching from passive to offensive or defensive, which can only be done in the planning phase) of troops to take too long and to be too variable. Deployment takes from 1-7 "days" (depending on which day during the turn the troops reach their target region). The actual time that 1-7 "days" represent varies according to the average terrain movement-costs and battle decisiveness per day. If a stack can move 3 regions per turn (0,42 regions per day), then deployment takes quite long and is very variable: 1-7 days equal the time it takes a unit to move 0.42 - 3 regions, that is roughly from 500 m to 3km, or a few minutes to almost an hour! There is a huge distortion and variability here. By decreasing time intervalls (in turn, by increasing movement costs for terrain, adapting battle decisiveness, adapting cohesion and frontage to match the new movement costs), this distortion and variety can be decreased.

Since weather and seasons are turned off completely in Silesia Inrupta, I'm free to do whatever I want with time-intervalls. Supply-settings can still be adapted to days (e.g. troops will carry enough supply for two days with them, which needs to be adapted to the time-intervalls; a day might even be represented by 20 turns). Also, the order/command/reconnaissance mechanism needs to be adapted to the time-intervalls used (handled via couriers' speed and reach).

As for the other effects of shorter time-intervalls: Will movements be too predictable if stacks move 1 region per turn instead of 2-3? Certainly not! With the command and reconnaissance system that I plan to implement, things will be far from predictable! Even though you can react instantly to enemy movements (which is unrealistic), you first need to spot enemy movements. Since the command-system in Silesia Inrupta is represented as an armys' chance to spot the opponent, everything is fine and armies should not act as if they had satellite-view. The time it takes orders and information to circulate in the army is represented by the amount and speed of courier/information units which alone can spot enemy troops. Certainly not a perfect solution, but okay as an abstraction.

Note that even though the overall deployment of troops can happen fast with shorter time-intervalls, well drilled troops still have an advantage over other troops here, as they've lost less cohesion on the move and/or have more absolute cohesion. Ordinary troops will be ready for battle (offensive/defensive stance) but will be at lower cohesion than well drilled troops which means that they will be more likely to cause a retreat.

---------------

Note to self: I need to recalibrate cohesion. The movement-malus due to lack of cohesion (malus = (100 - % of current cohesion) / 2) is really bad for my purposes. Units that are forced to retreat usually are very low on cohesion, which - in combination with high movement costs for terrain/detailed time-scale - means that the movement malus often prevents them from retreating out of the region in which they've been beaten. Therefore, I need to keep movement mali for lack of cohesion as low as possible. As the malus is hardcoded, this can only be achieved by keeping cohesion values high. I can do so by setting cohesion loss for movement, battle-actions, and in battle (dmg-stats) lower while at the same time lowering the auto-casualties threshold (which is the prime function for cohesion in my mod). Therefore, units will stay at higher cohesion levels (and suffer a smaller movement-speed malus) without distorting the decisiveness of combats. Rout-calculations (based on cohesion tests) and mali to combat stats due to lack of cohesion can be ignored safely.
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Mon Jan 04, 2016 1:45 pm

After I've tried out shorter time-intervalls, I'm really happy and excited!

If you set everything right, a very precise and deep level of engagement can be created. Much more will be decided by the players' decisions to stay or move, rather than by unit stats. Questions like "can this corps bear that battle one more turn?" or "Will that corps arrive in time? i.e. before the corps that is already engaged routs?" pop up repeatedly, and you often need to move while in contact with the enemy (as there are fewer retreats - for they represent routs - , most battles are draws, which still drain the combat power of your stacks but keep your stack positioned in the same region with the enemy). An orderly retreat in Silesia Inrupta is not handled via the retreat-mechanics, but conducted by the player, who simply moves a stack out of a region. Unless covered by friendly troops, this is a dangerous endeavour: when the stack moves in offensive or defensive stance (i.e. in battle formation), it looses a lot of cohesion for each day of movement. If it takes a stack 4-5 days to move out of a region the loss can be quite influential. And since the stack is forced to fight for five days while moving, a rout is very likely. (Note that passive posture/marching formation is set to make retreats certain after round 1 - so a rout and pursuit casualties would be certain. It's better to try to get away in battle formation/defensive posture) If, on the other hand, friendly troops are present, they will increase the auto-retreat threshold and the combat power, making retreat less likely. You might safely switch to passive posture=marching formation and slip away without being routed. Keeping a reserve makes absolute sense with these settings! And using them is possible (as battles last several days and turns).

Also, Zone of Control will be very interesting. If you set up an advance guard, their ZoC (which increases with the number of elements) will determine whether the opponent can easily push through (all the time fighting!) or not.

Moreover, a smaller time-scale also enables me to make leader (colonels') characteristics stand out more. It's okay if a leader remains inactive for one turn if the turn represents not 1 hour but a few minutes. The effects are not that extreme. So, instead of setting all colonels to strategic rating 6, I might actually give some of them smaller values.

In general, if you use a smaller scale and finer level of time, fewer things have to be handled via the engine (to simulate the "own-initiative" of leaders, units, etc.), and more things depend on the players' decisions. I dare say that the smaller scale will make Silesia Inrupta more transparent than the games set on the larger, more abstract scale. There is still a chance for a leader to screw up completely if he fails several activation checks in a row.

For simulating this level of detail (grand tactical - micro operational; from individual battles up to parts of individual campaigns), the engine is extremely powerfull! An even smaller scale (with regions smaller than 1km² and every unit representing a single company) could be possible, if it wasn't for artillery (it's hard to simulate effects over several regions) and the loss of overview/micromanagement hell. The grand tactical/micro operational level seems perfect.
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Mon Jan 04, 2016 5:06 pm

Holidays will be over tomorrow, so here is one last post.

To decide an engagement, you need to force the opponent in a region to retreat. This will inflict a lot of pursuit casualties and, if the opponent has no reserves nearby, you can further exploit the success with light troops or cavalry, simply by moving into the region to which the opponent has retreated and forcing him into another battle, which should be easily decided (=force a retreat and pursuit casualties again) by (fresh) cavalry at this point because of the low cohesion of the opponent.

To force the opponent to retreat you need to take into account 4 methods: 1. increase the amount of casualties that you inflict in battle; 2. decrease their cohesion; 3. apply overwhelming combat power (=have more and better troops in the region), 4. catch them unaware (when they and - even better - their C-in-C is in passive posture).

@1. Casualties: Retreat is automatically triggered once the opponent has reached a certain threshold of casualties, measured in % of hits suffered of his total hits in this region. The smaller the number of enemy elements in the region and the lower their cohesion, the lower the number of casualties you need to inflict to force a retreat will be.

@2. Cohesion: Based on the formula explained in 1., it's a good idea to reduce the cohesion of your opponent. One way to do it is to engage him with regular troops. Regular troops will inflict a lot of cohesion loss. However, this can backfire. The opponents' regulars will also inflict a lot of cohesion loss on you. The more elegant way to shift the cohesion-balance in your favour is a. by using skirmishers which will inflict small amounts of cohesion-loss over time, and b. by forcing your opponent to manoeuvre. Moving in battle order (defensive or offensive stance) costs a lot of cohesion in Silesia Inrupta. Thus, if you attack an opponent after he has been marching for some distance or after he has crossed a river, your chances to force a retreat (and save your own regulars' cohesion) are increased.

@3. Combat power: Apart from the auto-retreat formula described in 1., there is also voluntary retreat. If you have a lot more combat power (units) in a region than your enemy, the chances that he will be forced to retreat will be increased. Since combat-power is also linked to cohesion, having the advantage in cohesion helps here just as everywhere else.

@4. Surprise: If you manage to engage a stack that is set to passive posture (=marching order), then his fighting power will be much reduced. Unfortunately, I can't make them suffer more casualties. Engaging a stack that is set to passive posture only helps to preserve your own troops. Therefore, the enemy will suffer more cohesion loss than you do, which will finally force him to retreat, but it will take some time.

If you manage to engage an enemy in a region in which the opposing C-in-C is set to "passive" then it's even better. The chances to rout the opponent are much higher. You receive a large bonus for point 3. (the voluntary retreat will of a C-in-C is very, very high).

Effect of combined detachments

With this system in place, using several stacks in one region makes sense.

Let's assume that one stack has been beaten in combat by the opponent and is very low on cohesion and combat power. As a result, as long as this is the only stack present in the region, the chance that it will be forced to retreat (and suffer pursuit casualties) is very high (points 1., 2., 3.). If you move another stack to the region, however, the absolute amount of hits and the average cohesion in the region rises, thereby instantly decreasing the chances of a retreat. This applies even if your battered stack is still engaged in battle. You could even dare to switch the beaten stack to passive, and the "rescue" stack to offensive, so that the chances are high that the resuce stack keeps the opponent at bay while the beaten stack recovers cohesion faster (in passive mode). Offensive stacks are committed first, defensive second, passive stacks third. So, depending on the frontage of the terrain and the size of the rescue stack, this method might be very safe.

Skirmishers/grenadiers and cavalry are of special use here. They're the experts of combined detachments. They will evade ordinary battle (=fire combat, because of their high protection) which means that it will be extremely hard to inflict casualties and cohesion loss on them, which, in turn, makes them experts when it comes to lowering the chance of retreat/rout in a region for all troops present in the region. Stacks made up of regulars greatly benefit from the presence of skirmishers and cavalry: If you attack with a regular stack and the attack fails (the stack is now low on cohesion and switched to defensive psoture), then skirmishers and cavalry are likely to take over. And since the enemy will have a hard time to cause casualties and cohesion loss on them, cavalry and skirmishers build a safe defence as the cohesion-loss rate of the region basically gets "stuck" still above the auto-retreat-threshold and with a small voluntary-retreat-chance. Things change a bit, however, if the opponent brings his own skirmishers and cav, who might also effectively engage the opponents' cav and skirmishers. I'm not 100% through with thinking that through, but I'm positive that most things will be fine.

Moreover, cavalry and skirmishers are also very usefull as they can move without loosing cohesion. That makes them prime troops for operational pursuits and screening retreats.

Note that skirmishers/cavalry will not interdict movement as they will only generate comparatively few zone of control points. Moreover, I'm thinking of a way to make regular forces "sweep" aside skirmisher screens. I could use troop-quality boni for regular troops in offensive stance in all terrains for that, while at the same time setting assault damage to 0 hits and high cohesion loss. This would make the skirmishers be swept aside sooner or later (depending on the power of the respective forces) without loosing casualties, just giving way - which in turn increases the chance of retreat in the region.

PS: I'm not certain anymore. It seems as if the power of a faction is indeed that of the elements that take part in the battle, not that of all the forces present in the region?
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Tue Jan 05, 2016 5:30 pm

Small glimpse at some of the units, some of them still wip (and please ignore the titles (col., major general) of the leaders):

[ATTACH]36769[/ATTACH]

Note that the amount of game-units that a historical formation has depends on how these troops were used in battle. As a general rule, light troops come in smaller (company-size) but more numerous units, while battle troops come in fewer, larger units (battalion-size). Light troops also function fundamentally different from battle troops in Silesia Inrupta. Grenadiers are a mixture of light and battle troops, excelling in battle, while still performing okay in skirmishes and well drilled/very good movers (lower cohesion loss for movement than ordinary infantry). This is also indicated by their medium unit size (2 elements).

The leaders shown are the names of the commanders of the historical formation in 1757 (Jeetze should be Manteuffel, I need to correct that), plus the colours of the formation (if any). The solution is not optimal, since you can move commander-units totally free at your liking. You can take Sinzendorf, who historically was commander of the Nadasdy-hussars* and use him somewhere else. To be honest, I'm totally fine with that. Names and colours serve the player to identify his operational stacks. And since the leaders at this level will not affect their troops a lot, they're really interchangeable. I only need them to limit the amount of operational units a player can use (troops need a C-in-C in a region to "benefit" from his retreat-will, which is essential in Silesia Inrupta; plus battle troops need command points to function). Probably I'm going to drop the leaders of grenadier-battalions (in this case: Finck) because I go by the rule "1 leader for 1 regiment/2 battalions" and the grenadiers only form one battalion.

I did not go for commanders on the higher, general-level generals, who were leading brigades and divisions, since this level is abstracted into the command and reconnaissance-mechanisms.

* Note that the names of the habsburg regiments stem from the proprietors of the regiment, who, as a general rule, did not lead the regiment in campaigns personally. Thus the strange incoherence of leader- and regiment-names. Sometimes though, the proprietors were busy as generals, like Nadasdy. To my surprise, however, the people in command of a regiment were no no-names either: Sinzendof, Kinsky - these are the names of high aristocratic families of the habsburg monarchy (probably still the younger ones, still learning and getting their share of experience at the medium level? I'd need to take a closer look.). In Prussia, it seems as if the proprietors led their regiments personally.

I'm also going to rename grenzer-coys to I/1-5 (I for the battalion, 1-5 for the companies) and, likewise, the hussar companies I-V/1-2 (squadron/company). Moreover, the grenzers still lack their grenadiers and sharpshooters, and the ordinary infantry battalions lack their battalion guns.

NOTE TO SELF: I need to add seniority to the leader unit- and army-images. Players need to know which leader (and ROE) will be active!
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Wed Jan 06, 2016 2:15 pm

How awesome (and at the same time very strange) is that?

http://www.trakoscan.hr/second-floor.html

Joseph Casimir Graf Draskovic von Trakoscan, General in the habsburg army during the 7 years war, decorated one room of his castle in Croatia with wall-paintings of his troops, and filled the walls of another room with 40 (!!!) portraits of himself! A bit vain, but very interesting for me! :) If you look closely at the troops on the right hand side of the picture, you can see that these are grenzer-grenadiers wearing bear-skin-caps (not sure which regiment, many wore blue/red).

Now I only need to find out whether he was in Dauns army in May/June 1757. If so, he will be the general in command of the habsburg troops in the scenario (since he later on was with Nadasdy leading grenzers and light troops, he would fit perfectly as general in the raiding scenario!). EDIT: Unfortunately, he was in Prague, leading the Grenzer on the Ziska-hill.

Some more details I could find on the internet:

http://www.discoverbaroqueart.org/database_item.php?id=object;BAR;hr;Mus11_A;26;en
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Wed Jan 06, 2016 8:26 pm

One more thing to try out:

Cohesion, Passive=Manoeuvre posture & terrain effects

Benefit of passive posture
Passive Posture in "Silesia Inrupta" represents a march-column, or, seen in a more abstract way, troops in movement or (re-)organisation. It's a "manoevre-posture". What does this mean in game terms? Passive posture decreases the loss of cohesion while moving and while stationary. For certain troop types, primarily regular infantry (cavalry and light troops do not suffer that much), both forms of cohesion-loss are quite extreme in "Silesia Inrupta" compared to the vanilla game. So this will have a large effect on units.

Disadvantage of passive posture
If engaged in combat, units that are in manoevre-posture suffer a big malus on their combat power*. Also, if the C-in-C is set to manoeuvre-posture, he is very likely to sound the retreat, which will bring about disaster (pursuit casualties). Note that this is a difference to the vanilla game. In Silesia Inrupta, a C-in-C in passive posture will have his will to retreat (=rout) prior to combat round 1 decreased a lot/turned off, and his will to retreat after round 1 increased by a lot. This is to make his stacks suffer pursuit casualties (no pursuit casualties are inflicted if a retreat happens prior to round 1).

Interpretation

What this means is that by setting troops to manoevre posture, you 1) can move them without loosing combat power, and 2) you can keep them stationary without loosing combat power. In other words: you trade time of vulnerability for recovering and/or keeping combat and operational power of your troops.

This might sound counter-intuitive at first, so I need to explain it and test in in game. In fact, I think it isn't that bad of an abstraction. Why should you loose cohesion/combat-power for remaining stationary? Because the opponent might outmaneovre your forces on the small tactical-level (which takes place "within" a region, so it is invisible/uncontrollable for the player) and moreover, you can't keep your forces under arms and ready all day long. Ideally, stationary troops should only loose cohesion if there is an enemy presence in adjacent regions, but that simply can't be done. You can circumvent the loss of combat-power by counter-marching within a region, re-ordering and/or preparing your troops, by setting up defences, entrenching, etc. All these tasks are represented by the "manoeuvre" posture. While you counter-march or prepare, however, your troops will be vulnerable. This is represented by the effects of the "manoeuvre-posture". Also note that you can always protect troops who are manoeuvering by setting up a second stack that is not in passive posture. As long as the enemy is not large and/or strong enough to sweep this screening stack away, your troops in "manoevre"-posture are safe and can increase their cohesion/combat power (this will work partly because frontages are much smaller in Silesia Inrupta, so it's not that easy to engage a specific stack, even though you're in the same region). For these guarding- and screening-purposes, light troops are excellent (as the enemy can't hit them in shock combat, which means that they can stay in battle and protect other stacks in the region for quite a long time).

On the march, using manoeuvre posture means that your troops are in marching column while moving on the operational level across regions (not within regions). Battle postures (off./def.) mean that your troops are deployed in line, facing the enemy. Naturally, being attacked in marching column is not the best thing, so here the effects of manoeuvre-posture are plausible as well. Ideally, you have your regulars march in column=manoeuvre-posture under protection of a screen/advance guard of cavalry or light troops (who can move in battle posture without loosing cohesion) and, before attacking, you order your regulars to stop, order their ranks (remain stationary in manoeuvre-posture until you feel you're strong enough) and then have them attack (switch them to offensive posture and cross the region border, or set your battle stack into offensive posture and your advance-guard into defensive or manoevre posture).

From a game-play perspective, this keeps things interesting as it produces moments of vulnerability (=make "surprises" possible**) which require you to make good use of combined forces or at least several stacks. Using regular troops will not be as boring as it might sound - they're the key to victory in a battle situation, but 1) you have to bring them to the enemy and 2) at that time still have them in a good condition. The system guarantees that a force of 2000 men can have any condition, from totally disordered to neatly placed at the right spots in line. The combat power of a single force can vary greatly according to the circumstances. Moreover, the system also helps a lot to differentiate troop types. Cavalry will be a prime asset for operational pursuits of an enemy. It can do so simply by preventing the opponent from switching to passive posture (or exploiting if he does!) and recovering cohesion. If pursued by cavalry, your stacks will not be able to "rally" (=recover cohesion by swithcing to maneouvre-posture). Skirmisher screens, cavalry screens and any kind of rear- or advance guards help you to keep your manoeuvre-level and thus the striking power of your regulars high and prevent operational pursuit or, for the same purpose, being attacked while your regular troops are not ready and deployed. Moreover, the manoeuvre-system could also help to differentiate leaders further (giving them abilities of several levels to let their troops recover cohesion faster - they can really and reorganise and react to enemy movements faster).

The main drawback I can think of is that average cohesion of stacks is not shown at all (you can only get an idea by comparing combat power, but that's bad), and that of units only via tooltip. The tooltips for all postures will be updated accordingly (expect quite some walls of text!).

Terrain effects

If you take this one step further: crossings (river crossings, defiles, etc.) will be declared as "very harsh" weather/terrains which means that crossing them will make troops loose a big chunk of cohesion. Ordinary terrain will be declared as "harsh" weather/terrain (!) which is the normal terrain for cohesion-loss calibration. Normal terrain, however, the terrain that will give you the least cohesion loss while stationary and moving, will be used for very defensible terrain. It's the terrain in which you can't be out-manoevred that easily = do not loose cohesion that fast. If there are a lot of defiles in a region, then your units don't ever need to move as the enemy cannot outflank them "within" the region. Combinations of both crossings and defensible terrain will be very good defensive spots.

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*Note that the average cohesion level does not matter that much in actual combat: the malus on shock action (= fire combat in Silesia INrupta only sets in late and is rather small). But a low average cohesion of many forces in a region will (via combat power) greatly affect the retreat-will of the C-in-C, which in Silesia Inrupta means: it will increase the chance of your forces in a region to rout, be moved against their will, and suffer pursuit casualties.
** Note that, due to the command/reconnaissance system used, you'll have to judge the status of opposing forces by yourself. You don't see their power values (unless your single general-unit is stationed in the very same region with the opposing forces - which, by the way, is perfectly possible). The art of war is also the art of evaluation, and the history of operations is a history of missed and exploited opportunities. ;)

Note to self: Stationary cohesion loss --> Sweet spot for "BaseCohLoss" (in normal weather/harshness though!) for regular troops is 100 (will make them recover cohesion at a reasonable rate while passive and make them loose cohesion at a plausible rate when defensive or, with a larger malus, offensive). All other modifications are ruled out in the GameLogic-file. So it's just the cohesion loss of the model ("BaseCohLoss") versus the mainly hard-coded cohesion recovery. Grenadiers don't need a smaller value than 100 since they have higher absolute cohesion and a better CohMove value.

Note: the effect of crossings works fine. Setting them to very harsh weather means that troops suffer an additional loss of cohesion for crossing them (even if it takes them but one additional day).

EDIT: After some tests, I think I will make the cohesion-"loss" for being stationary in combat stance less extreme. It will still be there, but rather it functions as a malus on cohesion recovery. It just feels better this way.
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JacquesDeLalaing
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Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:46 am

Not ideal, but I can't think of a better title. :confused: I'm open for ideas.
[ATTACH]36824[/ATTACH]

damn it just noticed the hole on the lower right side of the painting.
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Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:56 pm

Open questions

I really need to figure out three things before I think I understand almost every aspect of the engines' base mechanics (at least the ones I need; I don't care about regional decisions, recruitment, etc. - also supply will play but a minor role on this level) and all that's left for me to do mechanics-wise will be proper calibration:

[color="#D3D3D3"]1) Pursuit casualties. This is my biggest issue right now. Having read the wiki (http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Pursuit) which seems to be quite detailed on this aspect, I still can't figure it out. I've set all parameters as they should be for them to deliver my desired results according to the wiki, but somehow, it doesn't work. Either I get too high retreat casualties across the bank or too few across the bank, and the differentiation of screeners and disrupters simply doesn't seem to work. I can set the damage that can be prevented by screener very, very high, yet still there are pursuit casualties in the game. The same goes for disrupters. The base coefficient on pursuit casualties seems to work nicely though. [/color]

EDIT: Oh my, checking some RUS-models showed me that the attribute needs to be *disrupt* not *disrupter*. I will change and check. Yay! Works like a charm now! Screener, disrupters, ordinary troops - everything works! :)

2) Stopping combat. So as I could notice, stacks in offensive posture automatically switch to defensive posture once they've reached a certain (low) threshold of average cohesion (% of max. cohesion) of the stack. Obviously, this works on a "stack"-basis. I'd really like to know where exactly the threshold is set and if individual units, all units, or perhaps individual elements are used for the calculation. I believe that this is also the moment when stacks in defensive posture are fed into a combat? So, first, only your offensive stack is engaged. Once your offensive stack has lost a certain amount of cohesion, it switches to defensive posture, which brings in (potentially) all the defensive stacks in the region (selection by chance). Also, there are different kinds of messages in the log (After several failed attempts, ...; Cohesion being low ...; Could not muster enough combat ready men ...) I was not successfull gaining any information from the names to which these sentences were linked in the localisation-file. So I wonder if these three messages are all triggered by the same thing, a lack of average cohesion of a stack?

3) Evade combat. What does the button do? Can it be used to make a stack be less likely to be fed into combat (if other stacks are/are not available?)? And how come sometimes stacks have a chance to evade combat in a region (mostly if set on passive posture)?

These are my three issues before the "completion and polish"-phase of mechanics can be started. Only 1) is a potential game-breaker*, the other two points are not that important.

Unsolvable problems

One issue I can see with my mod (and in general the engine) is that there are hardly any punishments or drawbacks for concentrating overly large amounts of troops in a single region - the only disadvantage would be supply (it would be easier to cut off a concentrated force) - which is inexistent on the micro scale of this mod. The other two "realistic" mali would be 1) flanking (being attacked from outside when already engaged in combat in a region), but this does not exist in the engine and 2) a slow down of movement (e.g. if there are more than 3 stacks in a region - the size of stacks can be controlled via max. command points per stack). Sure, the offensive power of a large concentration of troops can be controlled via frontage, but the defensive power is simply out of bounds (due to the lack of flanking). So I'm afraid that a house rule will be needed for my mod (no more than 3 - even better: 2 - large stacks in a single region). This would make armies require the space that they needed (on the scale of my mod) and thereby make spotting large amounts of troops easier. You can't press 40.000 men on a 1km road-section. Note that the max. size of a stack in my mod is ca. an infantry brigade (25-30 elements=5-6 battalions) which is also the calibration for frontages (and thus also the amount of stack-feeding into combat) in open terrain. So, a region of roughly 1km² can be "filled" with max. 2 brigades.

---------------------
* Well okay, it's not a big disaster. Even with fewer pursuit casualties than I'd like to have, the retreater is at an additional disadvantage after a battle, especially if the battle/retreat happened early in the turn. In this case, the retreating stack will be moving for the rest of the turn (low on cohesion --> movement malus), not able to recover cohesion, while the victorious stack will be able to recover cohesion (unless it fought "on the move" and continued its movement after the battle) for the rest of the turn. IN fact, even if the retreat happened at the end of the turn, the retreater usually needs a few days of the next turn to move to the adjecanet region, which is even worse for it might be engaged by the victorious stack once more! The next turn, the retreat needs to be exploited by cavalry or light/elite troops (if you pursue with regular troops, then your troops loose cohesion on the move, while the retreated enemy recovers (not if offensive, a bit if defensive, quite a lot if passive)). Light troops and cavalry can move without cohesion loss and fast, and thereby prevent a retreated opponent from recovering. So the overall momentum of defeat and victory seems fine, but I'd still prefer if pursuit casualties worked as I intended them to.

Size-boni and mali on hide value

Hide values: boni and mali are given based on number of units in a stack and/or number of command points needed by a stack. The number of elements doesn't matter. Mali/boni for the number of units (leader units do NOT count to this limit, which is nice): 0-4 units +1, 5-10 units 0, 11+ units -1; Mali/boni for the number of CP needed by the stack: +1 at 3,4,or 5 CP (need a different setting to get the exact number), -1 between 9,10,11 CP needed. Probably the same thresholds as for units apply (0-4, 5-10, 11+). Also note that a stack either receives a bonus for being small OR the bonus for being passive. Small passive stacks gain +1 hide, not +2. Stacks in non-passive stance in regions with a structure have their hide value set to 1.

The values that I discovered suggest that the hide-bonus/malus-mechanism is not bound to the definitions in the game logics file, which were, at the time of this test, set at:

cmdSmallUnit = 4 // Estimation of the CP cost of a small unit (average), used mostly for UI only for now
cmdMediumUnit = 14
cmdLargeUnit = 28


They seem to be bound to these values though:

ldrCommandMaximaRank1 = 4 // Nb of CP provided by a rank 1 leader
ldrCommandMaximaRank2 = 14 // Nb of CP provided by a rank 2 leader
ldrCommandMaximaRank3 = 10 // Nb of CP provided by a rank 3 leader


When I set the CP provided by a rank 3 leader to 11, the maximum number of units in a stack not to receive a -1 malus on hide rose from 10 to 11. So, my assumption is:

+1 hide is bound to the number of units (leaders exclusive) in a stack and/or CP needed by a stack compared to the amount of CP a rank 1 leader provides.
-1 hide is bound to the number of units (leaders exclusive) in a stack and/or CP needed by a stack compared to the amount of CP a rank 3 leader provides.



"Screening power"

The lack of military control for anyone at the start of the scenario will make it quite difficult to push through screens and advance-guards (by means of ordinary movement - zone of control doesn't let you through unless you have military control in the target region). So I really need to watch out and calibrate the "staying" power of guards and light troops correctly as forcing them to retreat will be the only way to push through them. I could make light units produce no Zone of Control points at all, but that's suboptimal as anyone could simply move through them. So I rather have them generate Zone of Control points, which means that you can only push through by forcing them to retreat (or having military control in the target region), which, in turn, means that I need to set their staying power right. As retreat-will is independent of troop type, I have to tweak their cohesion. I need to calibrate the skirmish hitchances (=TQ & assault) and damage (=aslt coh dmg) of regular troops if in offensive posture (--> TQ can be modified for each stance via terrain). So, regular troops will be able to inflict more cohesion damage on skirmishers if in offensive posture, which will make the screen more likely to retreat (lower average cohesion means higher retreat will). The down-side, however, is, that by increasing TQ for offensive regular troops, this will also apply if they're fighting against regular troops. This, in turn, could be countered by giving light troops lower cohesion on average, which, in turn, is not optimal since it means they will be more likely to stop offensive actions (due to being low on average cohesion). I will need to find a way around that (tweaking the number of rounds of combat could be a way, but this would require me to recalibrate everything else).
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Thu Jan 07, 2016 6:28 pm

Couriers or how to limit the reach of (relatively slow moving, non-combattant) units

Even though it's an improvisation, here is an idea to restrict the reach of any non-combattant unit (for my purposes couriers who are spawned by generals) to a certain limit:

Generals spawn couriers/information/orders (whatever I may call it). The models of the courier-unit are defined as any movement-type, but have their movement coefficient set comparatively very low. Also, their cohesion base loss and cohesion move loss is set very, very high (so the unit will loose cohesion, even if passive). In combination, this should make the unit get stuck sooner or later: Once it has traveled a certain number of regions, it's cohesion will be spent, which, in turn, leads to a 50% movment malus, which, in turn, makes it almost impossible for the unit (very low movement coefficient) to move on. The range can be fine-tuned by the initial cohesion of the unit. The quality of a general can be defined by his chance to spawn couriers, and by the reach (=cohesion) of the couriers he spawns. Naturally, the reach of the unit will also be modified by the terrain of the regions it moves through (unless you're willing to sacrifice a whole movement-family for this unit).

I'd like to apply the same system to artillery to enable it to "fire" in adjacent regions (by spawning a fire/bombardment unit), but this doesn't work (due to low cohesion, the unit would immediatly sound the retreat - unless accompanied by a leader). Funny idea, letting colonels lead cannonballs into battle. :)
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Field Marshal Hotzendorf
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Fri Jan 08, 2016 10:15 pm

I am impressed as well, keep it up sir!

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JacquesDeLalaing
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Sat Jan 09, 2016 2:50 pm

In-depth game-play example will be coming up here (part 1):

EDIT: I hate youtube, it might still take some while, but I'm getting to it. (Often the processing of the video doesn't work for some unknown reason, so I have to upload it again and again until at some stage, the processing works). I will re-post the link once youtube manages to handle my video.
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Sat Jan 09, 2016 3:45 pm

tada!
[video=youtube;jH6iwQmMkVE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH6iwQmMkVE&feature=youtu.be[/video]
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Sun Jan 10, 2016 1:37 am

It takes too much time to insert the commentary into the video, so I'm going to add my commentary here:

On „day“ 4 of the turn, Sinzendorfs grenzer- and hussar-detachment arrives at Chrastian and starts to skirmish with the Prussian army. The detailed battle report shows that the Prussians had no screening force of any kind (the AI is not able to form one). So the grenzers and hussars were able to penetrate to the regular troops‘ camp, probably triggering an alarm, and harassing them. A human opponent would have been better off by setting up a screening force of cavalry and/or light troops to keep the enemy skirmishers away. The Puttkamer hussars would have been the first choice here (maybe assisted by grenadiers).

Unprotected and for the most part not intended to engage in skirmishes, the Prussian regulars suffered a few hits, with meagre chances for pay back.

Unfortunately, Sinzendorf, leading the habsburg skirmishers, made a bad decision. After the first round of combat on „day“ 5, Sinzendorf decided to retreat his detachment. The chance of this happening was comparatively low (10%, checked in the battle log; it was a „voluntary“ retreat). Note that the Prussians, even though they were accompanied by the whole hussar regiment Puttkamer were not able to exploit this retreat, as the vulnerable grenzers were screened by Nádasdy hussars. In any case, as the message log tells us, Sinzendorfs force would have stopped the skirmish after „day“ 5 anyway for the stack was running low on cohesion and switched back to defensive posture. „Low“ is very relative here. I think that the auto-switch to defensive happens if a few units of a stack are at 75% average cohesion. With a larger force, Sinzendorf could have kept up the skirmish for longer (if he had not decided to fall back on the main army that is!).

So what were the benefit of the short skirmish?

We gained information about the exact strength of our opponents around Chrastian. The battle reports tell us the precise number and strength of Prussian troops.

To prevent this kind of reconnaissance by force, human players are adviced to advance their cordons or advance-guards to adjacent regions. If the skirmishers would have been met one region "earlier", they could not have reached the region of the main army and gathered information about it. Instead, the opponent would have been forced to skirmish with the opposing advance guard only (no getting through due to the zone of control-mechanism).

The battle report tells us that the Prussians have almost the same strength of regulars as we do: 4 battalions of infantry, 4 grenadier companies, 8 battalion guns, 10 companies of hussars. As far as regular troops are concerned, we‘re on even terms with the Prussians. Moreover, experienced players can also get insights into the condition of the Prussians by looking at the cohesion values of their units in the detailed battle report. In this case, cohesion was high, which means that the Prussians were well positioned and in good condition.

Apart from inflicting a few hits, the skirmishers also caused a bit of cohesion loss – the habsburg grenzers and hussars hit Prussian elements and forced them to fire back (which also leads to a loss of cohesion – and, in the long run, a lack of ammunition). For light and elite troops, the loss of cohesion is no big deal. Regular troops, however, have a harder time to recover cohesion. So, if you constantly manage to keep regular troops entangled in skirmishes for a longer time and prevent them from recovering cohesion, they will be easier to crack for your army.

If we take a look at the detailed battle report, we can see that on „day“ 4, round 3, the fifth company of the Nadasdy hussars performed particularly well, inflicting 3 hits for a loss of 3 hits and 75 cohesion on the elements of the first battalion of regiment Manteuffel. This was really an outstanding feat and doesn‘t happen all that often. In total, the skirmishers inflicted a loss of 105 cohesion in 6 rounds of combat. This amount of cohesion cannot be compensated that easily.

Now it‘s a tough call to make. With the information gained from the skirmish, should the habsburg main army attack already? The Prussians are on equal terms in numbers, and they are well positioned around the village of Chrastian. The habsburg regular troops are also in a very good condition as they‘ve been marching in passive/manoeuvre-posture: all units in the army are almost at 100% cohesion. However, if the army was to attack, it would need to switch to offensive posture and march for 4 days to reach Chrastian-region. Therefore, especially the line infantry battalions would start with a small loss of cohesion.

The terrain around Chrastian is clear with some buildings. For infantry, this has no considerable effects, apart for a smaller frontage for the attacker IF the armies were larger. Our main army comprises 2.200 men or 25 combat-elements. This is on the upper limit of frontage but still okay. Without considerable amounts of battle cavalry or medium-heavy artillery on either side, the effects of the terrain on cavalry and artillery can be ignored.

In this case, since we have no incentive to rush and since we have superiority in light troops, time is on our side. In order not to exploit the AI which is not adapted to the mod, I decide to take over the Prussians from now on as well, playing both sides. For the after action report, however, I stay on the habsburg side. So we also have to consider that the Prussian player, having a general-model in Chrastian as we could see in the battle report, knows of the presence of out army. Note that without the general, he would NOT know about the presence of our 2.200 men adajacent to his army. The chances are high that Prussia, seeing our superiority in skirmishers, no help anywhere near soon, and that time is on our side, starts an offensive. The alternative would be that the Prussians stay in Chrastian and at some point, our grenzers will make their presence be felt too much, at which point the Prussians risk a total rout.

The next post will bring the plan for the upcomingn turn and the video of the resolution.
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JacquesDeLalaing
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Sun Jan 10, 2016 2:25 pm

The assessment of the situation of the habsburg forces gives us a lot of options. I opted for a conservative approach: The main army will stay put in defensive posture, while we will again send out skirmishers to remind the Prussians of our main asset. Since the army will now remain in defensive posture - ready for battle - no advance-guard is needed anymore. All light troops (except for three grenzer companies which were very low on cohesion) are committed to the skirmisher-stack. This time, I'm more carefull than in the last turn. It's not Sinzendorf leading the skirmishers but Schlangenfeld who has a lower seniority. If the skirmisher stack would be forced to retreat (which might happen!), then it would be switched to passive stance and moved to the region of the main army. And if the (now passive) leader of the skirmishers would be the one with the highest seniority, then our overall factions' stance in the region would be set to passive, which needs to be prevented. So, Schlangenfeld, the commander of the Warasdin-Creuz grenzer-regiment, is put in command of the grenzer- and hussar-stack. Let the skirmish continue and see what the Prussians are up to!

Here is the resolution of the turn:

[video=youtube;I1NrRzhw7lY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1NrRzhw7lY&feature=youtu.be[/video]

A more detailed commentary will be in the next post. Just note that this time, the habsburg skirmishers were held in check for 9 rounds of combat by hussar-regiment Puttkamer (the Prussian player simply formed a hussar-stack and set it to offensive stance, while setting the main army to defensive). Only in round 10 did the Puttkamer hussars fall back on the Prussian main army. At that stage, however, the habsburg skirmishers were also so low on cohesion that they seized offensive action (no retreat though!).

Here is a wonderfully naive mid 18th century drawing of the current situation, which can be described as the standard situation of Prussia versus Habsburg campaigns in the Seven Years War: the prussian camp is harrased by hussars and grenzers (and chevaux legeres), with Prussian dragoons and hussars trying to drive them off. One more reason for Frederick to seek decisive blows against the Habsburg army (as the base and safe haven for the light troops)

[ATTACH]36895[/ATTACH]
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Guru94
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Sun Feb 14, 2016 1:06 pm

Looks really promising! Keep up the good work :thumbsup:

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JacquesDeLalaing
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Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:52 pm

Just a little note: After a motivation-low, I'm feeling motivated again! A little break in between is always good as you can take a step back and look at your project with a fresh view.

I'm not happy with how my map looks (kind of dirty) and feels. So I'm going to work over it which might take a while though. I want it much fresher, clearer (i.e. more abstract), crispier. Also, even though meandering and winding rivulets they looked very nice and were a hell of a work, I will opt for abstract, straight-linear rivers. Not only is this much easier and faster to do, but also it makes the map more clear and overseeable.
I might also reconsider/adapt some of the rather counter-intuitive concepts (e.g. crossings, information flow) and I also think that the size of the smallest units should be increased a bit (2 companies instead of just 1). Even though in some circumstances the larger amount of tactical units can be very handy for reconaissance, 1-company-units feel like unneccesary micro-management.

If you have any suggestions/feedback of any kind (mechanics, aesthetics, map-design), I'd be very happy. It helps to keep motivation high.
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Fri Apr 22, 2016 2:23 pm

Snapshot of the new, much clearer=more abstract map-design. I'm trying to simulate the look of washed 18th century military maps (many examples can be found in the Wilhelmshöher Kriegskarten).
Please give feedback!

The regions are roughly 2km² large.

PS: Very helpfull relief maps for defning the terrain of regions: http://maps-for-free.com/
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Thu May 05, 2016 11:35 am

The map is not ready yet, but I thought I could some up some reflexions on map design:

Reflexions on the size and shape of regions

Here are some points I came upon when I thought about the pitfalls and coherences when drawing a map for an ageod-game from scratch. I can’t say yet if my map will be calibrated in the way I’d like it to be, but these points help me to show how things are interconnected and what the cogs and wheels are to adjust the whole thing later on. Maybe someone is interested.

The differentiation of regions serves several purposes:

  • 1. Time and space:
    Regions create time and space because they enable troops to move from A to B. For example, regions in oblong shapes distort time and space (e.g. I intentionally use this for the major roads/chaussees in my mod, see picture in the post above). Even though it may sound philosophical, the time-aspect is very important: Map-design has to be closely linked to turn-intervalls: the larger the turn intervalls, the larger the regions have to be, and vice versa. With regions that are too small compared to turn-intervalls, the game becomes too unpredictable (too many “positions” can be moved in a single turn) and forces tend to fail to engage each other (“chaotic chicken dance”) because their reaction is too slow. With regions that are too large compared to turn-intervalls, the game gets too predictable and dull because players will be able to park their whole army in a single regions. They have no incentive to split up their troops which is bad because it’s exactly the splitting up of troops that generates the situations which open up opportunities for tactics and manoeuvering (and, especially, small war). If you set everything right, you can make "outflanking" an army a thing in ageod-games.
  • 2. Terrain types and crossings:
    Regions separate terrain types (which in turn have effects on battle, reconnaissance, movement) and/or border upon positions that are defensible from one direction only (=crossings), usually rivers and defiles.
  • 3. Positional units:
    Linked to point 1: Regions are “positional units”. Any single unit that is positioned in a region is supposed to be able to detect and engage any single enemy unit within that region (and quite instantly so, depending on the delay of engagement). The space of a region, therefore, can always be “covered” by the smallest unit in the game. Because of this, unit-size should consider region-size to a certain degree. There is an evasion-mechanic in the ageod-engine which supposedly tackles this issue, but the details of its working remain unknown. In the same vein, units positioned in a region do not cover a different region (if you disregard “Marching to the sound of the guns” for a moment here). The shape of regions is also very important here. If a single region controls a lot of space/an axis of movement (several other regions bordering to it), then it's a good defensive position (because you don't need to split up your troops that much to control this axis of movement).
  • 4. Suppy:
    Regions separate areas that differ in the amount of supply they provide.
  • 5. Weather units:
    Several regions form a weather-aea. This can be disregarded for my purpose. The mod is limited to summer in central Bohemia.
  • 6. Reconnaissance units: The smaller the regions, the "blinder" units will be for they only see to adjacent regions. The effect of blindness, however, is partly mitigated by shorter reaction times (turn intervalls/how many regions can a force move in one turn?).


In reality, all these items (especially 1 & 2) point to quite different directions - in the game, however, they need to be boiled down to regional borders.

PS: A glimpse of the extent of the map I'm going to use for the Kolín-1757-campaign. Prague is to the left (where the chaussees/oblong regions meet). At the northern rim of the map, the Moldova meets the Elbe (at Melnik), the southern border roughly runs along the Sazawa, and to the east, the map reaches slightly to the east of Czaslau and Kuttenberg / Kutna Hora.

PS: Nice page on the battle of Kolin here. I'm writing up an account of the historical campaign that lead to the battle here (wip).
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[CENTER][color="#A52A2A"] S I L E S I A I N R U P T A[/color]

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JacquesDeLalaing
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Mon May 09, 2016 8:42 pm

OOB Dauns Army May/June 1757

This was a very painstaking task: Here is the list of habsburg generals and troops that took part in the battle of Kolín and therefore will be part of the mod. The force of Daun at Kolín consisted of 3 "parts":

  • SERBELLONI: the corps previously commanded by Serbelloni. During the Prussian invasion of Bohemia, Serbelloni remained stationary around Königgrätz for too long. Daun took over Serbellonis corps on May 6 and continued to move towards Prague, but the corps did not make it to the battle of Prague on May 6. On May 10 (the starting date for the scenario), the corps stood at Planian. Most troops in the list with a [?] are likely to belong to this corps.
  • PRAGUE: these are troops that took part in the battle of Prague and did not escape into the city like the majority of the army, but to the south. The troops - especially parts of the hussar-regiments - were gathered by Bretlach at Beneschau, where they will be positioned at the start of the scenario (May 10). Those who were still fit for campaign (the others are not mentioned here) joined Dauns force.
  • MORAVIA: While Daun was retreating from Beverns' corps, he was reinforced by the moravian corps of Nádásdy (plus several more units) from May 15 on. So, these troops will enter the map as reinforcements from Moravia starting with May 15.


The following list provides the information (Serbelloni-corps/from Prague/Moravia + date) for each general/unit if possible. The list is work-in-progress and will be updated. Artillery is still missing. Since there is almost no information available, I simply assume that the special companies (grenadiers, horse grenadiers, carabiniers) were available for Daun too. So I will add some converged specialist units.

GENERALS (their rank in the year 1757; FM = Feldmarschall, GdK = General der Kavallerie, FZM = Feldzeugmeister, FML = Feldmarschall-Lieutenant, GFWM = Generalfeldwachtmeister)

“Feldmarschall”-rank (armies, wings, corps, divisions) [generals]
FM Leopold Joseph Maria Graf Daun, Fürst von Teano [took over Serbellonis corps on May 5]
[ATTACH]38831[/ATTACH]
GdK Franz Leopold Graf Nádásdy (light) {Nádasdy Ferenc Lípot} [MORAVIA, May 15]
[ATTACH]38832[/ATTACH]
GdK Johann Baptist Graf Serbelloni {Giovanni Battista Serbelloni} [SERBELLONI-CORPS]
[ATTACH]38833[/ATTACH]
GdK Georg Karl Graf Kager von Stampach [from PRAGUE]
FZM Ernst Dietrich Graf Marschall von Burgholzhausen [?] [picture]
FZM Anton Graf von Colloredo-Waldsee [?]

“Feldmarschall-lieutenant”-rank (divisions, brigades) [lieutenant-generals]
FML Emerich {Imre} Freiherr von Mórócz (light) [MORAVIA?]
FML Andreas Graf Hadik von Futak (light) {Futaki Hadik András} [from PRAGUE] [picture]
FML Franz Joseph Marinus Freiherr von Andlau-Birseck [?]
FML Don Antonio Conde de la Puebla [SERBELLONI-CORPS]
FML Claudius Freiherr von Sincère [?]
FML Friedrich Georg Heinrich Graf von Wied-Runkel [?]
FML Johann Benedikt Graf von Daun [?]
FML Karl Claudius Graf O’Donnell von Tyrconnel [Irish; from PRAGUE]
FML Emanuel Wenzel Kajetan Graf von Kolowrat-Krakowsky [?]
FML Philipp Gottfried Freiherr von Wöllwarth [?]
FML Joseph Graf von Ariosti [SERBELLONI-CORPS]
FML Emanuel Johann Michael Graf von Starhemberg [?] /// or: Johann Winulf Graf von Starhemberg??] [?]
FML Gustav Adolph Freiherr von Lützow [?]

„Generalfeldwachtmeister“-rank (brigades) [general-majors]
GFWM Anton Graf Erdödy von Monyorókerék (light) {Erdödy Antal} [?]
GFWM Anton Graf Széchényi von Sárvár und Felsö-Videk {Széchényi Antal} [from PRAGUE] [picture]
GFWM Wolfgang Freiherr von Babocsay {Babocsay Farkas} [from Prague]
GFWM Johann Ludwig Adam Graf von Starhemberg [?]
GFWM Johann Freiherr von Beck, Graf von Wydimb (light) [SERBELLONI-CORPS]
GFWM Johann Friedrich Graf von Mayern [?]
GFWM Christian Friedrich Freiherr von Wulffen [?]
GFWM Maximilian Freiherr von Krottendorf [?]
GFWM Reinhard Freiherr von Gemmingen zu Hornberg und Treschklingen [SERBELLONI-CORPS] [picture]
GFWM Johann Christian Ludwig Freiherr von Angern [?]
GFWM Thomas Freiherr von Plunkett (Plonquet/Planquett) [?]
GFWM Eudemio Marquese di Castiglione [?]
? Georg Ludwig Graf von Nostitz [MORAVIA, May 26; leading the Saxon cavalry regiments]
GFWM Joseph Graf Esterházy von Galántha [?] /// or: GFWM Nikolaus Joseph Graf Esterházy von Galántha {Esterházy Miklós József} [?]
GFWM Rudolph (?) Graf von Pálffy ab Eröd [?]
GFWM (Franz von?) Schreger (/Schröger) [?]

Regiment-Level (sometimes leading brigades)
Lieutenant-Colonel Gottlob Abraham Freiherr von Gersdorff [SERBELLONI-CORPS]
Lieutenant-Colonel Naunendorf (Festetics hussaren)
Oberst Baron Georg Luszinsky (Serbelloni/Puebla Vorhut; Festetics Hussaren)


UNITS

"german" infantry regiments [ATTACH]38835[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]38838[/ATTACH]
Deutschmeister (2 btns) [1 btn MORAVIA May 19; 2 btns + grens SERBELLONI-CORPS; only 2 btns present at Kolin?]
Neipperg (3 btns) [?]
Botta (3 btns) [?]
Puebla (3 btns) [1 btn MORAVIA May 19, 2 btns ?]
Moltke (3 btns) [?]
Salm (2 btns) [?]
Arenberg (3 btns) [?]
Starhemberg (1 weakened btn) [from PRAGUE, lead to Daun by O'Donnell]
Piccolomini/Thürheim (3 btns) [?]
Gaisruck (3 btns) [?]
Harsch (?) [?]
Leopold Daun (3 btns) [?]
Los Rios (1 weakened btn) [from PRAGUE, lead to Daun by O'Donnell]
Mercy-Argenteau (1 weakened btn) [from PRAGUE; lead to Daun by O’Donnell]
Haller (2 btns) [?]
Harrach (3 btns) [?]
Baden-Baden (2 btns) [?]
Platz (1 btn) [?]
d’Arberg (1 btn) [?]
Sachsen-Gotha (1 btn) [?]
Prince de Ligne (1 btn) [?]

"hungarian" infantry regiments
Archduke Karl (2 btns) [?]

grenzer regiments [ATTACH]38836[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]38840[/ATTACH]
Slavonia/Gradiška grenzer reg. (2 btns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS]
Slavonia/Brod grenzer reg. (2 btns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS]
Slavonia/Peterwardein {Petrowaradin} grenzer reg. (not mentioned) [2 btns? SERBELLONI-CORPS]
Warasdin {Varaždin}/Creutz {Križevci} grenzer reg. (1 btn) [SERBELLONI-CORPS; the other btn was under siege in Prague]
2nd Banat {Banovina} grenzer reg. (2 btn/930 men) [MORAVIA May 19]
Karlstadt{Karlovac}/Szluin {Slunj} grenzer reg. (2 btns) [from PRAGUE, lead to Daun by Hadik]

cuirassiers [ATTACH]38839[/ATTACH]
Serbelloni (?) [SERBELLONI-CORPS]
O’Donnell (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Kalckreuth (?) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Schmerzing (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Infant von Portugal (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Gelhay (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Alt-Modena (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Birkenfeld (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Saxon Carabiniers (2 sqns) [Saxon, MORAVIA May 19]

dragoons & chevauxleger
Sachsen-Gotha (6 sqns) (with Daun from May 8; so "SERBELLONI-CORPS")
Kolowrat-Krakowski (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Prinz Savoyen drg (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
De Ligne (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Hessen-Darmstadt (4 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Württemberg (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Prinz Albert Chevauxleger (4 sqns) [Saxon; MORAVIA May 19]
Prinz Karl Chevauxleger (4 sqns) [Saxon; MORAVIA May 19]
Graf Brühl Chevauxleger (4 sqns) [Saxon; MORAVIA May 19]
Porporati (5 sqns) [from Prague, led to Daun by O'Donnell]
Jung-Modena (4 sqns) [from Prague, led to Daun by O’Donnell]

hussars [ATTACH]38834[/ATTACH]
Banal grenz-hussars (3 sqns/190 men) [SERBELLONI-CORPS?]
Warasdin grenz-hussars (1 sqn/60 men) [SERBELLONI-CORPS]
Festétics (6 sqns) [SERBELLONI-CORPS]
Kaiser (6 sqns) [MORAVIA May 27]
Kálnoky (6 sqns) [MORAVIA May 19]
Morocz (6 sqns) [MORAVIA May 19]
Nadasdy (5 sqns) [MORAVIA May 15?]
Jazygier & Kumanier (5 sqns) [MORAVIA May 24]
Hadik (2 sqns) [from PRAGUE; lead to Daun by Hadik]
Baranyay (2 sqns) [from PRAGUE; lead to Daun by Hadik]
Paul Anton Esterhazy (2 sqns) [from PRAGUE; lead to Daun by Hadik]
Karlstadt grenz-hussars (2 sqns/150 men) [from PRAGUE; lead to Daun by Hadik]
Desseffwy (1 sqn) [from PRAGUE; lead to Daun by Hadik]
Splenyi (2 sqns) [from PRAGUE; lead to Daun by Hadik]

others
1000 Kommandierte Kavallerie [MORAVIA May 19]
800 kommandierte Infantrie [MORAVIA May 19]
Burghausen elite cavalry reg. (??)
Panovsky elite cavalry reg. (??)

Thank god there is much better information available for the Prussian OOB (Beverns corps).
Attachments
Unit_AUS_Banal_grenzer_gren.png
Unit_AUS_Banal_grenzer_gren.png (8.49 KiB) Viewed 18887 times
Unit_AUS_CuirassiersREAL.png
Unit_AUS_CuirassiersREAL.png (11.65 KiB) Viewed 18894 times
Unit_AUS_Neipperg_grenadiers.png
Unit_AUS_Neipperg_grenadiers.png (8.56 KiB) Viewed 18897 times
Unit_AUS_Banal_grenzer.png
Unit_AUS_Banal_grenzer.png (8.44 KiB) Viewed 18895 times
Unit_AUS_Neipperg_infantry.png
Unit_AUS_Neipperg_infantry.png (8.07 KiB) Viewed 18897 times
Unit_AUS_Kalnoky_hussars.png
Unit_AUS_Kalnoky_hussars.png (11.37 KiB) Viewed 18894 times
AUS_3_Serbelloni.png
AUS_3_Serbelloni.png (9.36 KiB) Viewed 18897 times
AUS_3_Ndasdy.png
AUS_3_Ndasdy.png (9.58 KiB) Viewed 18896 times
AUS_3_Daun.png
AUS_3_Daun.png (10.2 KiB) Viewed 18897 times
[CENTER][color="#A52A2A"] S I L E S I A I N R U P T A[/color]

- a work-in-progress mod for Rise of Prussia - [/CENTER]

Baris
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1945
Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2010 9:50 pm

Re: Silesia Inrupta - work in progress mod

Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:29 pm

You didn't post a while, excellent work. :thumbsup:

I imagine production ROP 2 would be feasible ? :pouet:

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JacquesDeLalaing
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Re: Silesia Inrupta - work in progress mod

Fri Mar 31, 2017 5:18 pm

Well. Unfortunately real life and earning money got in the way :/. Also, I think I just had to make too many compromises and work-arounds to get to the tactical/operational level where I wanted to go, not even to speak of all the workload.

So I'm afraid this project is on hold. I just hope that one happy day AGEOD will adapt their engine (including map-design/terrain, turn intervalls, ideally also information delay, camping) for a smaller scale that covers individual campaigns (and parts of it as smaller scenarios) instead of whole wars.

For any Austrian War of Succession or Seven-Years-War campaign, I'd be very honoured to help out with the research/data.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to the Succession Wars! :fleurs:

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