Siege and Honor of war

[Florent]

I would like a new rule for Honor of War in RoP for what often happened at the time, i mean a withdraw of your troops to your or ennemies closest fortress (depending the side).
Basically it means after a second or third breach to ask for honor of war or asked by the ennemy. The ennemy or yourselves accept and after heroic resistance you keep your force or withdraw to the closest fortress allowing you to lose (prisonner of war) your troops. By the way exchange of prisonners should be done too..
If not possible by event or by asking or be asked by the ennemy, the Honor of War should be integrated in the calculation of Siege Resolution after 2 or 3 breaches.
What do you think ?

[Sol Invictus]

Good idea! I would also like to see the ability to incorporate captured prisoners into the player's or AI's forces. The forced soldiers would be less than reliable of course with low morale and cohesion.

[Rooster]

The old Frederic the Great game by Avalon Hill had a nice take on this.

Once you made a breach, the defender had to request honors of war. The attacking player could grant or deny. If the attacker denied HoW, then the defender could surrender or fight a battle. If you are the attacker in this situation, you must gamble a little bit because the winner of the battle was the side with more force points. Fog of War prevented you from knowing the force points inside the fortress, so you could easily underestimate your enemy. Choose wrong and your entire force is eliminated.

[tc237]

The old Frederic the Great game by Avalon Hill had a nice take on this.

Anyone have a copy of the rules for this game?

[Sol Invictus]

I had a copy of that about 30 years ago. I had forgotten about that one. I have no idea what happened to it. Never did get a chance to play it.

[Fatboy]

I found my old copy of the Frederick the Great game. (I really must clean out those old board games).
The rules relating to sieges are as follows:
13.33 If a breach occurs, the non-phasing player must immediately request that the garrison be granted the honours of war. The phasing player must then choose either one of the two following options:
1) Grant the honours of war. In this case, the entire garrison is automatically transferred to join the nearest friendly garrison of the same nationality. The phasing player may then take possession of a fortress by garrisonning in it with any friendly units in that hex.
2) Deny the honours of war and request the garrison’s surrender. If this option is chosen in the non-phasing player must now choose either of the following alternatives:
A) Surrender. In this case the entire garrison is removed from the map and held by the enemy as prisoners of war. The phasing player immediately takes possession of the fortress by Garrison in it with any friendly units in the annex.
B) Refuse. In this case, the phasing player must attempt to take the fortress by storm. This is executed in the following manner. Both players reveal the strength of their forces. The force containing fewer combat strength points is completely eliminated. The leaders of this force are automatically captured. The opposing force then removes an equal number of strength points...

[Sol Invictus]

Yeah, something like that would be nice for ROP, except that the Storming resolution would need to be more complex than simply granting victory to the larger force of course.

If the garrison surrenders it would also be a nice feature if the victor could recruit a variable amount of the prisoners into his own ranks. To form an entirely new unit from the prisoners would produce a rather weak and unreliable unit and to incorporate them into already formed units as replacements would reduce the morale, cohesion, and general reliability of the unit into which they were added depending on the numbers that were added.

Prisoner exchanges would also be nice, especially for Officers. If one side has a more valuable Officer to repatriate it would cost the gaining side some money.

[TiFlo]

The idea sounds great!
But I fail to see the point, as far as gameplay is concerned, of most of the options left to the besieged player (let alone that of getting the honours of war).

I don't have much time now, but I have a few ideas on that. I'll try to post them later today.

[Hok]

We're studying a "Honours of war" system.

Basis will be :

- Honor of war will be ask by defender
- Creation of an Honorable attribute/ability (only honorable leaders can grant it)
- If honours are granted, the entire defender stack is transfered in a friendly garrison.
- The stack will keep experience but will be have 50% hit and will need time for full replenishment (and replacements).

[TiFlo]

I was thinking to something along those lines.

Offering honours of war should be traits related, as you plan to do it. But the ability to accept them should also be trait related (or any other way, but linked to the officer). For example, if A is besieging B. A has the 'honourable' trait, and so is able to offer surrender with honours of war to B. He does it. B is 'short tempered', or 'aggressive', or 'reckless', and despite being outnumbered 10 to 1 refuses them. On the other hand, B is 'light-hearted', and even though the forces are almost equal, he accepts.

Also, would there be a possibility of tying the probability of B accepting surrender to the length of the siege? The longer it lasts, the bigger the moral drop inside the fortress, and the likelier is B to surrender.

The 50% hit to the garrison seems a good idea.

[Florent]

Thanks Hok

[Sol Invictus]

Sunds good and interesting.