AGEOD Forums

What's the thinking behind this setting. Control aggressiveness ? It seems to reduce the chances of combat by decreasing the dice roll required to commit to battle. I did a small test on the Tannenberg scenario with Rennenkamf and his 1st army (attack posture) marching into Gumminben which had a small German corps.

The following is from the battle log.

Small Delay setting
12:49:33 (Reporting) Battle in 211 Gumbinnen Day: 6 Round: 0
12:49:33 (Reporting) Commit Chance 1001183 1-ya Armeskii 30 %, Rolled: 73 Not commited
12:49:33 (Reporting) Commit Chance 1001183 1-ya Armeskii 30 %, Rolled: 55 Not commited

Large delay setting
13:28:52 (Reporting) Battle in 211 Gumbinnen Day: 6 Round: 0
13:28:52 (Reporting) Commit Chance 1001183 1-ya Armeskii 10 %, Rolled: 44 Not commited
13:28:52 (Reporting) Commit Chance 1001183 1-ya Armeskii 10 %, Rolled: 1 Commited

How is the commit chance arrived at and why do you get two rolls ?

By design. I think a higher delayed commitment makes march-to-the-sound-of-guns maneuvers more difficult to coordinate. In essence, you will have fewer chances to see them engaging.

Kensai wrote:By design. I think a higher delayed commitment makes march-to-the-sound-of-guns maneuvers more difficult to coordinate. In essence, you will have fewer chances to see them engaging.

That's generally been my experience across two games.

Is there any consensus as to the best option for realism/playability? I typically use medium or long delay, but would a shorter delay better replicate the difficulty of achieving a breakthrough against a defensive line in this period?

In my opinion, the longer the delay the greater the unpredictability of the system, and that encompasses the majority of commitment function. At least for me, the short delay has resulted in a system where I tend towards spoiling attacks that generally don't result in much more than a constant stream of casualties, mostly in the 5,000-10,000 range.

John Sedgwick wrote:Is there any consensus as to the best option for realism/playability? I typically use medium or long delay, but would a shorter delay better replicate the difficulty of achieving a breakthrough against a defensive line in this period?

I always play no delay, to mimic the carnage of the war. And when other stacks jump in to help, each battle becomes an entire operation.

Delayed commitment actually helped me once. I had several units attacking and they were due to get to the target region in 6 days, and then I had more formations coming from somewhere else and they were due to get there at 7 days. Well, with delayed commitment, the battle started on something like the 11th day and by that time all my formations were in the region and could attack all at once.

WHEW!!! I was a little afraid about that one, let me tell you.

I think Medium is the ideal setting regarding realism. Not too high, not too low probability. But it's up to the player, I guess. In AJE I could set it to Large because I want to abstract the ancient armies' worse communication lines. Perhaps in a post-WW1 title we could set it to Small. A modern or fantasy title, potentially None.

From what I am seeing I think I prefer the large delay. Battles develop more slowly and re-enforcements take time to arrive, also it seems the better the Generals strategic rating the more likely he is to send his corps as a re-enforcement.