Rating of Frederick in the game

[aryaman]

I would hate to see a 6-6-6, that would not only non historical, it would probably kill the game as happened with NCP, where almost every campaign is heavily biased in favour of the French (I have only lost the 1814 campaign as French in PBEM).
I would rate Frederick as 6-5-1. No doubt he was a very active and energetic leader, so the 6 for leadership. He was an offensive general, to the point of madness, so I rate him 5 offensive but only 1 defensive, since he never fought a single major battle on the defensive. That way also Prussian players will be pushed to take the offensive even with unfavourable odds, as was historically the case.

[lodilefty]

I would hate to see a 6-6-6, that would not only non historical, it would probably kill the game as happened with NCP, where almost every campaign is heavily biased in favour of the French (I have only lost the 1814 campaign as French in PBEM).
I would rate Frederick as 6-5-1. No doubt he was a very active and energetic leader, so the 6 for leadership. He was an offensive general, to the point of madness, so I rate him 5 offensive but only 1 defensive, since he never fought a single major battle on the defensive. That way also Prussian players will be pushed to take the offensive even with unfavourable odds, as was historically the case.

Excellent inputs!

[Sol Invictus]

I consider Hochkirch to be a Prussian defensive battle even though it wasn't intended. Frederick was severly mauled by Daun in this surprise attack, but I would still rank Frederick higher than 1. I agree that he was certainly a very aggressive commander but I wouldn't rate him low as a defender just because he preferred to take the offensive. He always tried to turn every situation into a Prussian offensive effort so you could consider some of his offensives as active and aggressive defense. Rossbach is an example where he was on the defense and responded to the enemy's offensive move with an attack of his own. I would rank him at least with a 4 on defense. Maybe a 6-5-4 would be fair.

[aryaman]

I consider Hochkirch to be a Prussian defensive battle even though it wasn't intended. Frederick was severly mauled by Daun in this surprise attack, but I would still rank Frederick higher than 1. I agree that he was certainly a very aggressive commander but I wouldn't rate him low as a defender just because he preferred to take the offensive. He always tried to turn every situation into a Prussian offensive effort so you could consider some of his offensives as active and aggressive defense. Rossbach is an example where he was on the defense and responded to the enemy's offensive move with an attack of his own. I would rank him at least with a 4 on defense. Maybe a 6-5-4 would be fair.

If you rank him 6-5-4 the Prussian player has no real incentive to go on the offensive as Fredrick himslef did, remember that in ROP Rossbach would be an offensive battle, since he was campaigning in "enemy" territory. Besides, you rank him 4 despite his inability to play defensive even in situations in which common sense would tell that, like Kolin for instance.

[Sol Invictus]

I agree to a certain extent but can't go as far as you have. Maybe you consider him aggressive to a fault and that case can certainly be made with some justification. Having said this, I still wouldn't rate him lower than a 3 for defense. That would still leave enough incentive to encourage aggressive play when Frederick is in command. I think rating him lower than 2 for defense would be extreme. I would be happy with a 6-5-3 and could barely live with a 6-5-2. I do think that the strategic situation would also encourage the Prussian player to assume the offensive on most occaisions for the same reasons that Frederick did. The Prussians simply can't give their enemies the initiative or they will be swarmed.

Kolin was certainly a debacle but the attack was flawed because of incorrect intelligence about Austrian dispositions. It certainly could have turned out better under different circumstances. I guess you could make the point that once the mistake was discovered, a reversion to a defensive posture would have been warranted. Frederick certainly didn't show any desire to halt an ongoing offensive action. Of course he did loose control of the situation to some extent and possibly couldn't get it back under control. I imagine that once forces were put in motion they were very difficult to pull back.

[Generalisimo]

Well, I really think that a 2 on defensive is not entirely a "bad" or "poor" number... it is still a bonus to your troops!!
Of course, a lower bonus than a 5 or 6 obviously...

[Adlertag]

Well, I really think that a 2 on defensive is not entirely a "bad" or "poor" number... it is still a bonus to your troops!!

I agree, it is our line of tought for VGN where a 0 rating isn't good or bad, just neutral in its effects (even so a very bad leader doesn't have a negative rating).
Furthermore, considering abilities can indirectly increase the effect of those ratings, some ponderation is necessary.

[tc237]

Very tough decision here.
It could be said that Frederick's rating determines the entire game, too low and an out numbered Prussian get's crushed, too high and he steam rolls everyone.

Frederick went on the offense more often than not because he had to.
He could not allow his smaller army to get backed into a defensive position and swallowed up by a larger enemy force.
In his mind the best solution was to march to a flank and used the total weight of his army to attack a smaller portion of the enemy army.

It wasn't so much an over-aggressive trait as it was, to him, logical.
He also wanted to keep his men motivated by moving forward in the attack rather than standing on the defense and risk a rout.

Something else to consider is that in this period there wasn't much battlefield maneuvering once the fighting started.
Most movement was pre-battle positioning, once the long battle lines were drawn there wasn't much that Frederick or any other General could do but move a few reserves.

I love Fred but don't think his stats should be so much greater than the better Generals of the day.
Remember he has the Prussian Infantry too.

Will be interested to see how it all turns out

[aryaman]

I love Fred but don't think his stats should be so much greater than the better Generals of the day.
Remember he has the Prussian Infantry too.

That is a very important point also to judge Frederick as a general, what would have done commanding a Russian army? That is why i rate Saxe as a better general than Frederick. Saxe defeated at Fontenoy an army superior both in numbers and quality, while Frederick always had quality on his side.

[Sol Invictus]

That is a very important point also to judge Frederick as a general, what would have done commanding a Russian army? That is why i rate Saxe as a better general than Frederick. Saxe defeated at Fontenoy an army superior both in numbers and quality, while Frederick always had quality on his side.

Saxe certainly was an excellent commander but at Fontenoy he was defending a relatively strong position; which of course he created. The British attack was also mishandled. Cumberland certainly wasn't the brightest light of the British commanders.

The Prussian qualitative advantage definately decreased as the war continued. The Russian soldier was certainly no slouch at determined combat throughout the war. No doubt that the Austrians were consistantly inferior, but Daun was able to use them to very good effect.

I guess it come down to a gameplay decision. Are the ratings intended to depict the historical competency of the actual commanders or to drive the progress of the war toward a historical pattern? I wouldn't want Frederick to have a low defensive rating simply to encourage the Player to play offensively. I think if a Prussian Player assumes a defensive strategic/operational posture, that will probably put him at enough of a penalty. This discussion is really getting me excited about this sure gem.

[Rooster]

I wouldn't want Frederick to have a low defensive rating simply to encourage the Player to play offensively.

Excellent point. It's like making the French army low-level troops in the HPS France 1940 game so that it produces historical outcomes. Gimmicky.

Frederick fought offensively because he was outnumbered and needed to smash the armies he faced. He couldn't survive/win a defensive war.

[Jamescott]

Just curious as to where the rating number comes from? I obviously recognize what the values are for - leadership, offense, defense.

Are these ratings common to other Ageod games? Everyone seems to be reffering to thme as such

[Generalisimo]

Just curious as to where the rating number comes from? I obviously recognize what the values are for - leadership, offense, defense.

Are these ratings common to other Ageod games? Everyone seems to be reffering to thme as such

The values are for the strategic/offensive/defensive leaders values, that are common to every AGE engine game.

[Generalisimo]

Excellent point. It's like making the French army low-level troops in the HPS France 1940 game so that it produces historical outcomes. Gimmicky.

Frederick fought offensively because he was outnumbered and needed to smash the armies he faced. He couldn't survive/win a defensive war.

Exactly... but if Frederick couldn't survive a defensive war... why should he give a big bonus (4, 5 or even 6 are quite big bonuses) to his troops on defensive battles?
If you rate him 5-5-5 (an example, of course ), you are giving the change to the player to set to defensive operations with Frederick on command... something that didn't happened.

[Rooster]

Exactly... but if Frederick couldn't survive a defensive war... why should he give a big bonus (4, 5 or even 6 are quite big bonuses) to his troops on defensive battles?
If you rate him 5-5-5 (an example, of course ), you are giving the change to the player to set to defensive operations with Frederick on command... something that didn't happened.

I think you should give the player enough rope (reality) to hang himself. If the player chooses to play defensively, then he should suffer because he ties himself down while the wolves run about elsewhere in his empire.

The player's style should arrive at the offensive posture the way Frederick did. Not because he didn't have the ability, but because it was strategic suicide to do so. I'm sure he could have been brilliant defensively, if that was the kind of war he wanted to fight.

Frederick had real hang ups that be modeled to make the Prussians weak, e.g. he was bad at seige warfare. He fostered too few reliable independent commanders. His loyal commanders got themselves killed too often it seems.

I think this awesome game engine has the capability to model historical realism in more ingenious ways than just lowering his defensive rating, that's all.

[tc237]

he was bad at seige warfare.

Another good point, I think it was that the Prussians as a whole were bad at it, they didn't have many good, trained engineer officers.

I think this awesome game engine has the capability to model historical realism
in more ingenious ways than just lowering his defensive rating, that's all.

Yep, that's why it is going to be fun to play
The SYW was just such crazy war with so many random things happening that a SYW game has to have a way to deal with random events, both large and more subtle, and not try to force a historical outcome.
If ROP has Events they might just have to be more powerful and game changing than AACW type Events.

[aryaman]

The player's style should arrive at the offensive posture the way Frederick did. Not because he didn't have the ability, but because it was strategic suicide to do so. I'm sure he could have been brilliant defensively, if that was the kind of war he wanted to fight.

I am not so sure about that, because even when common sense would dictate a defensive posture he went on to the offensive, for instance at kolin he could have played for time delaying Daun while his army was besieging Prague, yet he went on to attack him on a strong defensive position when there was no strategic need to do that.

[Hok]

Very interesting post

And have any suggestion on Friedrich abilities ???

In my mind :
- Fast Mover
- Siege Expert
- Charismatic
- Fire Discipline
- Superior tactician
- Guard commit

[Florent]

I think that fire discipline is more appropriate for the men leading the infantry like Schwerin, Winterfeldt and when available Ahnalt-Dessau (Old Dessauer).
There is a time where Friedrich imposed shock (and thus cancelling subordinate fire bonus)rather than fire and revert to fire after seing that the result were not so good.
Fire volley was certainly a Prussian advantage but only during the first moments in battle, after the rate of fire decreased somewhat.

[Sol Invictus]

Hok, out of your list I would definately give Frederick:

Fast Mover-He certainly was able to get his army where he wanted it once he had a goal in mind. His march from the fiasco at Kolin to the astounding victory at Rossbach and then on to the masterpiece of Leuthen sealed his claim to "Great".

Charismatic-Without a doubt the most popular monarch Prussia ever produced. He could ask his soldiers for miracles and they almost always produced one for him.

Superior Tactician-Generally the acknowldeged master of his era and one of the Great Captains of history.



Fire Discipline-I feel this should be a sub-commander or unit ability.

Siege Expert-I wouldn't give him this since he didn't display any mastery of this. Again more for a sub-commander.

Guard Commit-Since the Prussian Army didn't have a large Guard Corps, this might not be appropriate. Commiting the Lieb Guarde Regiment didn't quite have the same impact as Napoleon commiting the Old Guard.

[Generalisimo]

I think you should give the player enough rope (reality) to hang himself. If the player chooses to play defensively, then he should suffer because he ties himself down while the wolves run about elsewhere in his empire.

The player's style should arrive at the offensive posture the way Frederick did. Not because he didn't have the ability, but because it was strategic suicide to do so. I'm sure he could have been brilliant defensively, if that was the kind of war he wanted to fight.

Frederick had real hang ups that be modeled to make the Prussians weak, e.g. he was bad at seige warfare. He fostered too few reliable independent commanders. His loyal commanders got themselves killed too often it seems.

I think this awesome game engine has the capability to model historical realism in more ingenious ways than just lowering his defensive rating, that's all.

Nobody can judge Frederick from what-if situations that never happened. If we go that way, we will be able to justify almost all ratings that we want to invent... that's not the idea of this. We need to judge from what they did historically... or actually, in some cases, from what they didn't.
From what you can read from others posters (it doesn't have sense to repeat all that again ), even when the logical decision would be to set up on a defensive posture... he went on to attack.
Remember, the leader stats are BONUSES to the armies... so, a 5-5-5 leader gives an enormous bonus on offensive and defensive postures.
If I am Frederick... then I should play most of the times like he did, on the offensive... or be "forced" by environment to play offensively... and that "environment", includes also his stats in my opinion.
Think it from a gameplay point of view... If I want to defend, I will have others leaders with better defensive capabilities than Frederick... so, if Frederick is on command of an Army stack... I will just have to advance, advance and advance, keeping always the initiative, to be able to use his enormous offensive bonus on my army stack.

[aryaman]

Very interesting post

And have any suggestion on Friedrich abilities ???

In my mind :
- Fast Mover
- Siege Expert
- Charismatic
- Fire Discipline
- Superior tactician
- Guard commit

Fast Mover, yes, he was adept to forced marches
I would erase siege expert (he was rather poor at sieges) and Guard Commit (Guard was very small at the time, just a couple of Bns or so). Fire discipline wasn´t his favour also, he was more a cold steel leader.
My list would be
-Fast Mover
-Good Subordinates (rather than charismatic, he didn´t inspire much on an army mostly mercenary)
-Superior Tactician
-Hothead (Dogs, do you want to live forever?) Kolin and Kunersdorf would be impossible without that ability.

[aryaman]

Nobody can judge Frederick from what-if situations that never happened. If we go that way, we will be able to justify almost all ratings that we want to invent... that's not the idea of this. We need to judge from what they did historically... or actually, in some cases, from what they didn't.
From what you can read from others posters (it doesn't have sense to repeat all that again ), even when the logical decision would be to set up on a defensive posture... he went on to attack.
Remember, the leader stats are BONUSES to the armies... so, a 5-5-5 leader gives an enormous bonus on offensive and defensive postures.
If I am Frederick... then I should play most of the times like he did, on the offensive... or be "forced" by environment to play offensively... and that "environment", includes also his stats in my opinion.
Think it from a gameplay point of view... If I want to defend, I will have others leaders with better defensive capabilities than Frederick... so, if Frederick is on command of an Army stack... I will just have to advance, advance and advance, keeping always the initiative, to be able to use his enormous offensive bonus on my army stack.

I heartly agree, besides, most enemy leaders would be defensive minded, very few will have better than 1 on the offensive I think, so if you give a 5 to Frederick plus the terrain bonus in defense he would be almost invincible.

[Sol Invictus]

I definately think that Frederick should have a bias toward offensive action, but unless someone can make a compelling case that Frederick was incompetent on the defensive, he should have at least a decent rating. Frederick adopted the offensive because of the historical situation that he was faced with. In the game, Frederick(the Player) may face an entirely different situation that calls for the occaisonal defense. The Player should not be penalized for this and forced into offensive action against his better judgement. I don't think Frederick was mindlessly aggressive and the game should not push the Player to be either. A 3(my preference) or 2 defensive rating seems appropriate to me.

[Generalisimo]

I definately think that Frederick should have a bias toward offensive action, but unless someone can make a compelling case that Frederick was incompetent on the defensive, he should have at least a decent rating. Frederick adopted the offensive because of the historical situation that he was faced with. In the game, Frederick(the Player) may face an entirely different situation that calls for the occaisonal defense. The Player should not be penalized for this and forced into offensive action against his better judgement. I don't think Frederick was mindlessly aggressive and the game should not push the Player to be either. A 3(my preference) or 2 defensive rating seems appropriate to me.

I think this is the other way around actually... can you make a compelling case of him adopting a defensive posture effectively and efficiently?... even when the logical decision would be to defend? ... no, you can't, because he always went on the offensive to keep the initiative.

Remember what we said before, even a "1" is not a "bad" rating... it is just not a bonus as big as "5". If you want a "poor" rating, that's a "0"... and I do not think anyone suggested a "0" for Frederick.

[lodilefty]

I definately think that Frederick should have a bias toward offensive action, but unless someone can make a compelling case that Frederick was incompetent on the defensive, he should have at least a decent rating. Frederick adopted the offensive because of the historical situation that he was faced with. In the game, Frederick(the Player) may face an entirely different situation that calls for the occaisonal defense. The Player should not be penalized for this and forced into offensive action against his better judgement. I don't think Frederick was mindlessly aggressive and the game should not push the Player to be either. A 3(my preference) or 2 defensive rating seems appropriate to me.

Any defense or offense rating greater than 0 gives a bonus.

It will also be critical to see how any single leaders' rating compares to other leaders in the game: the ratings themselves are absolute, but the effect of ratings in the game is relative

[arsan]

It will also be critical to see how any single leaders' rating compares to other leaders in the game: the ratings themselves are absolute, but the effect of ratings in the game is relative

Exactly! All is relative.
And besides, we still don't know how the command chain system will work on RoP.
The high French leaders stats on NCP were problematic because

1- They were probably too high in general and with lots of good abilities
2- Their enemies were plagued by bad (3-0-0 or worse) leaders
3- The command chain effect was huge: Napoleon as an Army leader would pass down a bonus could make even the worst Marshal a 5-5-5 leader and the decent ones will have ratings of the 8 or 9.
Add to these lots or 3 or 4+ ratings for divisional leaders and the effect of battle is huge.
Much more than you woudl suppose by looking only at Napoleon stats
Hopefully it was toned down on later patches

Cheers

[Sol Invictus]

Any defense or offense rating greater than 0 gives a bonus.

It will also be critical to see how any single leaders' rating compares to other leaders in the game: the ratings themselves are absolute, but the effect of ratings in the game is relative

Good point, I guess it really depends on what all the other Leaders have for a defensive rating. If the vast majority of Leaders have a 0 defensive rating then that would make a 1 rating for Frederick easier to accept for me; though I think Frederick should have no lower than a 2 defense rating.


Generalissimo, well obviously you are being completely unreasonable. But seriously, in hindsight what seems obviously reasonable to us would have looked much different to Frederick. The attack at Kolin seems like a rash and ill-conceived attack since we know the outcome, but if the attack had not gone off prematurely and struck the heart of the Austrian defense instead of the flank as intended, things could have been very different. It was simply faulty execution.

What if in the game a Prussian Player has numerical superiority or even parity and the strategic situation forces an Austrian opponent to take the offensive and the Prussian assumes the defense? Should we assume that Frederick would have only been average on the defense because he always assumed the offense historically? I think it is safe to extrapolate that Frederick would have been an above average defender based on his military leadership. I guess a case could even be made to give Frederick a penalty for defense based on his historical conduct, but I think that would be faulty. It is certainly very arbitrary to assign a number to a Leader's abilities, but in a game I guess it is unavoidable. But as Lodilefty stated, it really depends on the other Leaders.

[Generalisimo]

Good point, I guess it really depends on what all the other Leaders have for a defensive rating. If the vast majority of Leaders have a 0 defensive rating then that would make a 1 rating for Frederick easier to accept for me; though I think Frederick should have no lower than a 2 defense rating.

You should NOT guess that... all the ratings depends on the "big picture", mostly for gamebalance (you already have arsan explanation on what can go wrong ).

Generalissimo, well obviously you are being completely unreasonable. But seriously, in hindsight what seems obviously reasonable to us would have looked much different to Frederick. The attack at Kolin seems like a rash and ill-conceived attack since we know the outcome, but if the attack had not gone off prematurely and struck the heart of the Austrian defense instead of the flank as intended, things could have been very different. It was simply faulty execution.

What if in the game a Prussian Player has numerical superiority or even parity and the strategic situation forces an Austrian opponent to take the offensive and the Prussian assumes the defense? Should we assume that Frederick would have only been average on the defense because he always assumed the offense historically? I think it is safe to extrapolate that Frederick would have been an above average defender based on his military leadership. I guess a case could even be made to give Frederick a penalty for defense based on his historical conduct, but I think that would be faulty. It is certainly very arbitrary to assign a number to a Leader's abilities, but in a game I guess it is unavoidable. But as Lodilefty stated, it really depends on the other Leaders.

We can go on forever with this if you want... but I do not think this thread was to start assigning adjectives for members of the forum... I thought this thread was about leaders stats.

I will give you a simple example... if for a leader that didn't performed any remarkably defensive operation, that actually "transformed" any "logical" defensive operation into an offensive, you will grant a defensive rating of "3" for posible what-if outcomes that "could help the player on a different non-historical situation"...
What would you assign to a leader that actually managed to be good at defending? ... a level 6 will not be enough I supose?
Then, you must do the same the other way around... all "good" defenders should have a "3" on offensive even if they did not do any offensive operation ... of course, this is in case they were also good in that posture, but just didn't have time to act offensively historically... and it will also be good for the player on what-if or ahistorical situations...

I guess that now you can see the problem of assigning "high" values for what-if situations to please all players that want to have a more "sandbox" game...
Do not forget the basic principle of all this... ANYTHING higher than ZERO is a BONUS.

[Sol Invictus]

True, we could go on forever since it boils down to a gameplay decision and there is no "correct" answer. It also depends on what each person considers a good rating. I will happily leave the decision up to the designers.