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Hobbes
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Marching to the guns

Tue Apr 01, 2008 8:43 am

Hi folks, does anyone know if a unit marching to the sound of the guns gains the fortification benefits of the region it is moving to support? I would have thought this should not be the case but it is quite an important point I think.

Does it pay any penalties such as river crossing? (I have a feeling I asked this before some months ago).
Cheers, Chris

Coregonas
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Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:25 am

I m not sure about this...

But all the corps marching loses his trenches for the next turn, checked this in 1.09. (I dont know in 109e)

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Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:37 pm

When more info about marching to the sound of the guns is revealed, feel free to help keep the wiki article about it updated! http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/Marching_to_the_sound_of_the_guns :)
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Pocus
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Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:47 pm

1. No
2. No
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Hobbes
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Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:24 pm

Pocus wrote:1. No
2. No


That’s quite interesting then so one could deliberately attack a small dug in Corps to try and draw in a large adjacent army which would then be attacked without the benefit of fortification. This seems to go a long way to offset what some of us see as too strong a defence when units support each other and have level 8 entrenchment along a line of regions.

Obviously the defender can put his units into passive mode or toggle evade if they do not wish to march to the guns (as long as they remember :sourcil :) .

I’m coming for you Gene!

Cheers, Chris

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eleven_west
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Tue Apr 01, 2008 5:09 pm

This sounds realistic - an Army marching to the sound of a battle already began, wouldn't be expected to arrive within a few hours, comfortably entrench to 5+ and defend while the attacker is taking a gallant rest - or that sort of chivalry. Nor is expected that a dug in 5000 man army would be required to dig a trench system to accomodate 40.000 just in case they turn up in support.

However, natural terrain attributes such as river crossing should be taken into account.

I know that this might be a silly question but : Do supporting armies generally enjoy the terrain benefits of their original location or the one's that they march to the sound of the guns? River crossing, weather, terrain and and all natural features should be shared by all armies in the same area really

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Hobbes
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Tue Apr 01, 2008 5:46 pm

eleven_west wrote:This sounds realistic - an Army marching to the sound of a battle already began, wouldn't be expected to arrive within a few hours, comfortably entrench to 5+ and defend while the attacker is taking a gallant rest - or that sort of chivalry. Nor is expected that a dug in 5000 man army would be required to dig a trench system to accomodate 40.000 just in case they turn up in support.

However, natural terrain attributes such as river crossing should be taken into account.

I know that this might be a silly question but : Do supporting armies generally enjoy the terrain benefits of their original location or the one's that they march to the sound of the guns? River crossing, weather, terrain and and all natural features should be shared by all armies in the same area really


I would certainly assume they take the terrain benefits of the region they march into to support. I can understand that river crossings are not taken into accont for this as the crossing would probably not be contested (even though I think you can march to the guns in support of an attacking Corps as well in which case I think a river crossing penalty should apply).

Cheers, Chris

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Hobbes
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Wed Apr 02, 2008 7:26 am

One other question on this - if I were to attack an enemy Corps in different adjacent regions to an enemy army stack would that stack be able to come to the aid of both Corps or can it only march to the guns once per turn?

Cheers, Chris

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Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:34 am

A Corps that marching to the sound of the guns, it loses cohesion by the displacement, or fights with the complete cohesion?.

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Hobbes
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Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:51 am

I’m also thinking if a stack can only march to the guns once per turn it might be easy for example to attack a Corps to the north of an enemy army stack with a single cavalry unit to draw the army stack north and then hit an enemy Corps to the south with the main attack in the same turn.

I would hope that an army won’t march to the guns if the unit it is marching to support is already far superior to an attacking enemy force.

It’s nice to be able to make a feint attack to try and draw the enemy to you but to avoid this being gamey you should need a force that should at least be able to trouble the defender.


On the other hand if a stack can march to the guns more than once per turn it would really be in two places at once so I hope this is not the case. The first example leads to more interesting and valid tactics I think.

I would also like to understand if cohesion is lost.
Cheers, Chris

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Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:19 am

Hobbes wrote:I’m also thinking if a stack can only march to the guns once per turn it might be easy for example to attack a Corps to the north of an enemy army stack with a single cavalry unit to draw the army stack north and then hit an enemy Corps to the south with the main attack in the same turn.

I would hope that an army won’t march to the guns if the unit it is marching to support is already far superior to an attacking enemy force.

It’s nice to be able to make a feint attack to try and draw the enemy to you but to avoid this being gamey you should need a force that should at least be able to trouble the defender.


On the other hand if a stack can march to the guns more than once per turn it would really be in two places at once so I hope this is not the case. The first example leads to more interesting and valid tactics I think.

I would also like to understand if cohesion is lost.
Cheers, Chris


As far as i observed, the supporting forces will only march to the sound of guns if battles takes more than a few rounds. I've never seen a force commiting the battle, in case the force attacking (or defending) is encountered with a single cavalry unit or a far inferior force, since they mostly withdraw before, or at the first round of the battle. So the other side has to send a considerable amount of men in order to make the enemy's supporting unit to commit. And it is also harder to make a gamey tactic likedrawing the enemy's supporting corps to another region, since it also depends on the arrival your forces into enemy regions. If you can make them arrive at the same time, this is already called a well coordinated attack, and it is not gamey at all.

I'm not sure if they can march twice in a single turn, but i think i saw that before. I guess it depends on the scale of the battle (so cohesion), and i think they only lose cohesion due to the battle, not moving. But still, i'm not so sure about that.

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Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:38 am

Hobbes wrote:On the other hand if a stack can march to the guns more than once per turn it would really be in two places at once (...)


It's not a terrible stretch of imagination to picture a corps participating in two battles within a fortnight, and do some days of marching in between .... or? :innocent:
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Hobbes
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Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:40 am

Heldenkaiser wrote:It's not a terrible stretch of imagination to picture a corps participating in two battles within a fortnight, and do some days of marching in between .... or? :innocent:


Yes but if both battles take place in different regions on the same day could it march to both in the game?

Cheers, Chris

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Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:48 am

Hobbes wrote:Yes but if both battles take place in different regions on the same day could it march to both in the game?


I hope not!

Sorry, I didn't catch the gist of your argument. :o
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Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:55 am

Now wait a minute ... are you saying that corps marching to the sound of the guns are not actually *marching* into the region where the battle is taking place, but rather add their strength in an abstracted way while staying in place? Because only if that's so could they ever support two battles on the same day. Otherwise, if they are really marching, the time elapsing while they do that would take care of the problem you point out. They could not support a battle in province C while they're en route from A to B or back.
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Hobbes
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Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:29 pm

Heldenkaiser wrote:Now wait a minute ... are you saying that corps marching to the sound of the guns are not actually *marching* into the region where the battle is taking place, but rather add their strength in an abstracted way while staying in place? Because only if that's so could they ever support two battles on the same day. Otherwise, if they are really marching, the time elapsing while they do that would take care of the problem you point out. They could not support a battle in province C while they're en route from A to B or back.


Yes I think it is just abstracted.
Cheers Chris

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Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:24 pm

I seemed to understand the Wiki entry as suggesting the opposite, i.e. they actually march. Among other things, it says

- "-10% for each day of marching (all normal factors affecting the stack's movement apply)" - that sounds like marching is actually taking place;
- "Troops marching to the sound of the guns will not be penalized if they cross a river to reach the region where combat takes place - ditto;
and above all
- "After combat, stacks that have marched to the sound of the guns are put back where they marched from."

No reason to put them back if they never marched in the first place. :)
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Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:16 pm

Heldenkaiser wrote:I seemed to understand the Wiki entry as suggesting the opposite, i.e. they actually march. Among other things, it says

- "-10% for each day of marching (all normal factors affecting the stack's movement apply)" - that sounds like marching is actually taking place;
- "Troops marching to the sound of the guns will not be penalized if they cross a river to reach the region where combat takes place - ditto;
and above all
- "After combat, stacks that have marched to the sound of the guns are put back where they marched from."

No reason to put them back if they never marched in the first place. :)


I hope you are correct Heldenkaiser, be nice to have it confirmed.
Cheers, Chris

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Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:20 pm

Heldenkaiser wrote:I seemed to understand the Wiki entry as suggesting the opposite, i.e. they actually march. Among other things, it says

- "-10% for each day of marching (all normal factors affecting the stack's movement apply)" - that sounds like marching is actually taking place;
- "Troops marching to the sound of the guns will not be penalized if they cross a river to reach the region where combat takes place - ditto;
and above all
- "After combat, stacks that have marched to the sound of the guns are put back where they marched from."

No reason to put them back if they never marched in the first place. :)



Yes, they DO march, but it doesn't take as long it takes for them to reach a region in the turn phase (for example, when you drag and drop the stack, it will show you that it will take 10 days), it takes much shorter. It depends on some modifiers. I think this is based on the idea that corps will be close to each other in adjacent regions, thus for supporting each other. And i think they are moved back to avoid this exploit. If they stayed in the place, they would've entered the region so faster than they could actually do, and players would use it to march further.

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Wed Apr 02, 2008 4:47 pm

Disclaimer: the wiki article is a collection of the imperfect interpretations done by me based on information found across various posts and threades herein :)
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Wed Apr 02, 2008 4:53 pm

They do not really march, they are placed where the battle happens, with a reduced probability of succeeding for each day of march they are supposed to perform. But this is abstracted. Once the battle is over, they are replaced in their original region (this prevent exploits, aka feints if you want to be positive...) and can react again to another battle. I guess a penalty can perhaps be accrued though.
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Wed Apr 02, 2008 5:06 pm

Pocus wrote:They do not really march, they are placed where the battle happens, with a reduced probability of succeeding for each day of march they are supposed to perform. But this is abstracted. Once the battle is over, they are replaced in their original region (this prevent exploits, aka feints if you want to be positive...) and can react again to another battle. I guess a penalty can perhaps be accrued though.


I ve tested this until 1.08 & 1.09... and marching corps always lost the trenches once they return home...

I ve found a gamey trick to avoid losing 8 level trenches by marching--- leaving a single cavalry in the area fully trenched allows for the full corps to trench next turn again by merging it into the cavalry, then again picking the cavalry and leaving it alone.

I ve been thinking also about the posibility of ask for "trench counter markers" to avoid this (every trench counter shoulk had a "level 1-8" and could keep just level regiments)-> to avoid a single cavalry fully 8 trenched can give these defensive estructures to all the army... but that is the way it is... now!

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Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:14 am

Pocus wrote:They do not really march, they are placed where the battle happens, with a reduced probability of succeeding for each day of march they are supposed to perform. But this is abstracted. Once the battle is over, they are replaced in their original region (this prevent exploits, aka feints if you want to be positive...) and can react again to another battle. I guess a penalty can perhaps be accrued though.


If I understand this correctly then if the enemy has three Corps spread into a line of three regions I could attack all three regions on day 1 and the enemy Corps in the middle region could be involved in three separate battles at the same time?

If this is the case I really don’t like this aspect of the game at all. I also don’t see why faints should be prevented if the march criteria was calculated in the sort of way Evren suggests and only happens after several rounds of combat.

Cheers, Chris

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Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:33 pm

For me, a Corps would only have to be able to march to the sound of the guns once each turn, and of course, the Corps that marching to the sound of the guns would not have to fight with its complete force, must have a penalty either in cohesion or in force battle.

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Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:48 pm

I agree. Because we are a bunch of board game maniacs gone software after all !!

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Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:52 pm

Hobbes wrote:If I understand this correctly then if the enemy has three Corps spread into a line of three regions I could attack all three regions on day 1 and the enemy Corps in the middle region could be involved in three separate battles at the same time?

If this is the case I really don’t like this aspect of the game at all. I also don’t see why faints should be prevented if the march criteria was calculated in the sort of way Evren suggests and only happens after several rounds of combat.

Cheers, Chris


I'm not sure if i understand your post correctly :sourcil: . Do you mean you have three three corps attacking 3 enemy regions at the same time or only one force of yours attacking one of the enemy regions?

Sorry for this, but i would like to understand you better before giving a decent answer.

Regards,

Evren

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Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:09 pm

Evren wrote:I'm not sure if i understand your post correctly :sourcil: . Do you mean you have three three corps attacking 3 enemy regions at the same time or only one force of yours attacking one of the enemy regions?

Sorry for this, but i would like to understand you better before giving a decent answer.

Regards,

Evren


Yes 3 Corps attacking 3 enemy Corps for example. It seems each one of my Corps could be up against 2 or 3 enemy Corps for each battle?

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Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:40 pm

Hobbes wrote:Yes 3 Corps attacking 3 enemy Corps for example. It seems each one of my Corps could be up against 2 or 3 enemy Corps for each battle?


In that case, it all depends. First of all, IMO, it is better to use the synchronized movement of attacking corps into a single region, in case the enemy corps are strong, thus creating a strong blow. If they are weaker, you can spread out your corps and send them to three different regions at the same time. So, if you are dividing your corps and sending them to three different regions against strong odds, you are making a tactical mistake, both gamewise and historically.

Second, let's assume you have issues like Hood and insisted on doing that :niark: . This doesn't necessarily mean that every single one of your corps will be fighting against several corps. The marching to the sound of guns depends on several modifiers, like military control of a region, existence of an army hq, strategic ratings of the commanders etc.. Even if your corps arrive at three different regions at the very same day, and even if the delays took the same time and the battles happened on the same day, the first battle of the day you see on the screen is the first one fought. So, if the adjacent enemy corps react and commit to the battle, their cohesion values will severely go down, so they will have a more difficult time reacting to the other ones. There's also a chance your forces can withdraw from all the three battles after the enemy corps commit to every single battle (their cohesion losses were considerable because your forces withdrew before they could fight, that's how they can manage to reach everywhere) and your generals decide to withdraw seeing the odds. But this is also related to the tactical mistake i mentioned above. March to the sound of guns mostly works for the defending forces, and there's synchronized attack for the attacking force that can compensate this.

For the feints part, it can take several days for one's corps to reach a destination, but if the commiting corps would stay in place where the battle occured, then it it only would've taken a few days (or hours) for them to reach there, thus can lead to exploits for further advances.

Jagger's PBEM Mod has different aspects about the march to the sound of guns. The rates are decreased, so it is difficult for the adjacent corps to commit to battle, but only the forces in the same regions have a real chance of committing.

If i couldn't express myself, or i just got it wrong, please let me know.

Regards,

Evren

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Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:43 pm

Evren wrote:If i couldn't express myself, or i just got it wrong, please let me know.


At least to me you made a lot of sense there. :)
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Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:09 pm

One other note also:

If you were referring to the geographical distances between regions, i can't talk in place of the developers' intention here, but it think they considered that corps were staying close to each other in the war, even in different regions. So moving from a region to another can take several days from a region to another in the turn phase, but like from a city center to another. A single region is still large in geographical terms, and even several corps may not be able to possess every single inch square in a single region. So 3 corps in 3 different regions must still be close to each other, let's say a few hours of way between each other, holding ground and protecting each other. I guess this was the idea in the developers' minds. There are no regions in the real war, the game is just a simulation and the region (aka hex) idea makes it easier for developers to code.

PS: It is not my intention to teach you anything Hobbes. I am well aware of the fact that you are a much more experienced player than i am and i'm sure you already know most of the things i wrote in the previous posts. I'm just trying to express my opinions about this specific feature of the game. I find it a real good and strong side of the game.

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