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Help Pocus! Help Captain Orso! Knowledge of the Deep Magic is needed!

Some comments by Gray Fox set me to thinking about the best way to build Southern defensive lines in the East; but there is a key issue I have not been able to untangle.

The AGEWiki states that a force which succeeds in Marching to the Sound of the Guns, will participate in the battle as if it was in the region where the battle takes place; but the force does not actually move there. Forces joining the fight do not suffer river-crossing penalties or profit from any entrenchment levels.

Elsewhere it states that in a battle taking place in a structure, the attacker and defender ignore the actual area terrain and use “clear” terrain frontage for the defender, and “clear minus 25%” for the attacker.

Now the problem - how do forces Marching to the Sound of the Guns, join an ongoing combat where the side they are joining is inside a structure? How are the new arrivals factored into the frontage calculation?

Are there two separate combats, one inside and one outside, which are folded together? Or, do the defenders leave there works and join the new comers in a field battle? Or do the new arrivals take their place alongside the defending forces on the ramparts? If the last possibility is true, interlocking forts, each manned by a corps, have the potential to stop the deadliest, blue clad, steam roller cold.

Straight Arrow, while you requested the advice of greater powers than I, let me give you my take.

Units inside structures do not join a battle by March to the Sound of Guns. They only join by the option to sortie in the region in which they are in the structure. So this means your other forces march into the region to relieve the forces inside. When they reach the area and a battle commences, they sortie and join the battle. The forces inside do not need to be capable to March to the Sound of Guns. They merely need to be 'active' that is not locked, and have the sortie option selected.

Thanks Durk, the knowledge you offer is most welcome; I had forgotten about the sortie order when writing the post.

But I still don't understand who would fight, where they would fight, and when.

I assume an attacking force moving into an area with an enemy structure, would normally have to launch an assault due to the MC 5% rule. I am also assuming the structure’s defenders, if on blue, would normally resist without leaving their works.

The problem arises when adjacent defending forces march to the sound of the gun and appear on the scene. Are they targeted by the original attackers for a battle in the area’s terrain or are the new comers added to the garrison without a field battle?

I guess things would most likely work out as a string of events: Perhaps an initial assault with fighting between the garrison and the attacker, would be followed by a field battle or battles between varies forces marching to the sound of the guns, and then possibly the whole mess could be wrapped up by a renewed assault on the structure’s garrison.

Of course there’s always the chance the attackers will stare at the walls, and lacking a breech, decide to forgo the assault and start a siege. Or maybe the neighboring corps will fail their march and the field battle never materializes.

Ah well, maybe the idea of defending the East with structures instead of entrenchments is too risky; there is the possibility of an eastern Vicksburg on a massive scale.

Is there ever a time when field melees and structure or amphibious assaults are combined into a single battle?

Is this question just hypothetical, or is it based on game experience?

Okay, first an attacking force marches into a region with, lets say a fort. The attacking force must change to OP if they have <5% MC, which is probably the case. A stack in OP does not attack a stack ins a location, be that location a fort or a town. A stack must be in AP (Assault Posture) to attack units inside a location.

If there is a Corps or Army stack outside of the location, a normal field battle takes place, in which MTSG can occur. But the battle is in the field and has nothing to do with the fort, town or whatever.

Now, if there's a Corps inside the fort--that would probably be damn crowded and the defender would suffer some bad penalties--and the attacker assaults, could MTSG take place? Probably... maybe... I've never see it done.

I could guess about this all I want, but it would just be guessing. Guess I'll have to set up an experiment

The idea of defending inside of a fort or other structure rather than from entrenchments is a bit of what as issue. It is fine to have a small force, like a militia unit defend inside a fort. Major forces should never defend from inside a structure for exactly the reason you state. I think of it this way, structures are to hold regions with a small force. Armies belong in the field.

Captain_Orso wrote:Is this question just hypothetical, or is it based on game experience?

A game against Athena - I was trying out using a line of stockades, redoubts and forts instead of entrenchments in the East. It seemed successful; we sat there for five years and she never launched a major assault against my defensives. Unfortunately I can't switch sides and test; the game is corrupted and will no longer load.

Captain_Orso wrote:The attacking force must change to OP if they have <5% MC, which is probably the case. A stack in OP does not attack a stack ins a location, be that location a fort or a town. A stack must be in AP (Assault Posture) to attack units inside a location.

Egg on the face, there's a major flaw in my thinking. Every time I start believing I’m getting a handle on this game, it slips away. I thought an attacking force moving into an area, with a structure, where they had less than 5% MC would be forced to launch an assault. I did not realize that the game only forced OP and that AP remained a choice of the player. Thus the attacker is not forced to launch suicidal charges against fortifications and can initiate the siege process at their leisure.

More and more, a Maginot line is looking like a bad idea.

Edit: At the very least, a structure garrisoned with a division and backed by an interlocking web of corps, would hold an attack for a turn and allow for a concentrated counter attack.

This would allow for a counter attack, however, in this game your forces will be much more powerful in the defense. So get your army commander, Lee perhaps, in the central region with his great lieutenants in each adjacent region to block the approaches to Richmond. In entrenchments!! This will be the key to success.

If you want to defend Virginia for the first say 12 months against a Union Player(who is advanced) You can do it easily... You need 3 MTSG Corps in all the vital regions in Virginia.(sprawled out ideally in terrain befitting good defense with low frontage for an attack) Protecting your Naval Flank with an independent Corp or scouts... Spying to see where the Union Navy is or if he intends to launch a naval invasion. IF(!) the Union wants to exert pressure he will land and he will devour Virginia piecemeal by some point in '62...

If you are very aggressive taking the High ground, Behind Rivers is possible with good MTSG links in Virginia. Also posting garrisons in the rear for possible fallbacks but it's an art form to get the high ground which actually requires a CSA offensive if the Union Player is aggressive or you will be knocked up the Hill, and you will end up playing King of the Hill for the rest of the game until the Union has the numbers to smack you off it for good.

Another possibility is to lure the Union into a trap into Virginia...which if he comes will all his numbers is very difficult. Blockade the routes into Richmond and move your Capitol. Micro the game very well and you will not lose much when you do this and then abandon it all. If you want to defend but if you want to win(attack all out into D.C. and push the Union on his heels. Better to take Baltimore and smash up the Union Armies and gather experience. That or if he's too aggressive too early let him bang against your experienced troops/generals.

Only a weaker Union General should lose the fight in the East. I usually look out there after 12 months and the Army of The Potomac is around 2 Xs my size. Tough to decide if Memphis/Nashville/NOLA is more important than Richmond :C but one will have to give eventually. Most player's don't know when to balance this. Make sure to get loyalty up in the Transit positions in Eastern Tennessee so the Union doesn't know you're shifting your weight VERY EARLY... It's instant knowledge for them to shift their weight West rather than East. Or, wait till they're way higher in numbers...

(I have never seen a Union player who know's how to play lose yet including myself but you can buy a lot of time, it's fun)

P.S. In a recent game I found something odd, a very large infantry army early had a lot more power than waiting to get cannons in it. In a game I played a player..who retired twice as the Union showed me how massed infantry kamikaze missions could be quite deadly and that what I usually do is have 2 Infantry Div/1 Artillery Div. Minimum wasn't optimal early. Rather 3 Infantry Div in a Corp and sacrifice the Artillery early gave me a HUGE offensive edge but wore out eventually... as the armies swelled

OK, I yield; the idea of using a line of forts to defend the East goes into the dust bin.

The over crowding rule and the fact that MTTSOTG ends up in a field battles minus entrenchments, makes it a poor defensive strategy. It's far better to pick the ground and make them come to you when you're dug in up to the eyeballs.

It looks like it is back to using an eastern double line of entrenchments.

In all truth, one needs to test these type of ideas out on a human players rather then Athena.

It's time to get back into PBEM.

As I have posted repeatedly, a fort/stockade/redoubt can hold only 25 elements per level before overcrowding occurs. So that would be an infantry Division and a light artillery Division of up to 8 batteries. You could put a 2-star Corps commander with this and it definitely should have a depot and a supply unit. The point is to create a line of strong points that stop enemy penetration with interlocking ZOC.

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For the record, Beau can't enter any of the red regions.

You have a few Divisions forward in structures so that you can have a large reserve of many Divisions right behind them. Putting Lee in a fort (or entrenchments) is like putting a Mustang Mach 5 up on cinder blocks. You want the enemy to assault the defensive structure and waste their strength. I posted a pic of a test I did with Beauregard assaulting a stockade defended by the "military genius" Butler at 2 or 3 to 1 odds...and being stopped cold.

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Then you counter-attack with your main force against an already weakened assault force. If you divide up your strength into neat little Corps and place them on a defensive line, then you can only defend. You give up the initiative. Also, MTSG is not automatic and is not even likely if the Corps are set to defend.

"-10% if the stack that tries to march to the sound of the guns is in a “defensive” command posture." From the Wiki.

A line of strong points with just a reinforced Division married to a large reserve force leaves you with a shield...and a sword.

"If you defend everywhere, then everywhere will be weak." Sun Tsu

So has someone determined from any of this testing that adjacent forces do in fact MTSG to support friendlies in structures? I always thought that the two forces had to be in the field for MTSG to occur. In other words, that the force in a structure will not MTSG to a neighboring region, and that the Corps/Army in the field in the next region would not MTSG to support a Corps/Army inside a structure if it is assaulted. I don't think this was in any of the wikis, just my understanding based on play. I normally use stockades as forward points rather than defensive ones, though, so this hasn't come up in most of my games and I may be mistaken.

According to this, they should MTSG, but this is still a crap game. For the same reason it is difficult to test. The chance to succeed is affected by weather, terrain, leader strat number, and several other factors:

http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Combat_Explained#Commitment_of_stacks

You wouldn't want insurance that worked some of the time or only in a perfect situation. Similarly, if your battle plan works some of the time or only in the perfect situation where all of the adjacent stacks MTSG, then...

An army stack led by a General with a decent strat rating has the best chance to MTSG. A line of strong points (fort types containing entrenched defenders+artillery+depot+supply unit) should hold the enemy by the nose, while your larger, well led main force enters kick mode. Even if you don't MTSG, the fort should hold long enough so that your main force can counter attack against a weakened enemy or cut off their only line of retreat.