"2 Vs 1, well led versus poorly led, big Vs small" Topic

Tonight we will play a two player versus one player scenario where the one player has a smaller well led force versus a larger allied army with a poor overall commander.

These things can be quite difficult to balance but the first time the battle was fought it was a belter with lots of manoeuvring and localised heavy fighting. Tonight it will be fought again.

Details of the set up here:

link

The scenario is set late in the SYW and is Prussians Vs Austro-Russians. Last time, Graham took the Prussians and won. Tonight it's my turn to be the Prussians.

Should be interesting. As you say, tricky to balance numbers against quality.
Though I still disagree philosophically with attempting to bake the differences between player-level commanders into the scenario or rules. They keep boiling down to "he's stupid so he can't do as much or as fast." Contemplate Gates at Camden, or that committee at Bladensburg. They're doing as much as the opposing commanders, and often doing it faster: they're just doing the wrong things.

That's an interesting point, and true. In Piquet, what players wish to do, the larger tactical decisions they make, is the most important thing.

What the sequence deck does, with the addition of Brilliant Leader and Command Indecision cards, is to make changing a plan midstream much more difficult for 'bad' commanders in comparison to ones that are better. I find that it is often too easy in games to change a plan to fit the ever changing circumstances, and the bigger tactical decisions that are poorly made have little impact because units have too much free reign, move by move, to rectify the situation. Changing a plan isn't easy in a Piquet game. A commander rated skilled or superior will find it easier, a poor or abysmal commander will find it more difficult.

They're doing as much as the opposing commanders, and often doing it faster: they're just doing the wrong things.

Still in a historical scenario, or even a fictional one without extensive fog of war, players are not going to make those same mistakes due to hindsight and a better coup d'oeil ability that the historical commander lacked.

Putting handicaps on a commander say in PIP generation does a lot to recreate that narrative. A really good chaotic random events table can do it too.

I am with Robert here, but because I don't need a rule mechanic to mess up a deployment/battle plan. My own mistakes will do that for me.

I find the logic of rating the CinC when it is the organization that the player is operating with, what it is being modelled. For instance, if playing the invasion of Bavaria in 1809, I find sensible that the French commander has an advantage issuing orders to his formations, because French staff system was more efficient than the Austrian staff. In this case it wouldn't be Charles being classified as Tardy, but the work of Austrian staff -who was beyond the ability of Charles to influence, in the course of a campaign-.

Besides that limit, I firmly believe that players should be left alone to make their own mistakes, without impossing an artificial narrative upon them. Narrative that, by the way, it only reflects given wisdom, in other words, a partial truth -if you don't believe me, see how many different accounts exist of the Battle of Waterloo-.

Perhaps that's it. I certainly make enough mistakes on my own.

People keep saying "we're modelling bad staff" but the problem is bad staff is usually a campaign and not a battlefield problem, or shows up in other ways than "command radius" or number of orders given. Try giving the "bad staff" commander in a campaign worse maps, make his orders suffer more delays or misinterpretations, or let him suffer more strategic attrition.

On a battlefield, a historical battle already has the bad staff, and sometimes even the stupid commander, baked in: he already has the ammunition shortage because the staff sent out the wrong cannonballs and the missing and late units because he gave late or unclear orders or misread the situation. In fact, the whole choice of battlefield reflects the poor maps or bad judgement of the bad commander. (Wrede at Hanau, anyone?) So I'm generally in favor of leaving the actual wargamer alone: we've done enough for him already.

+1 for Robert (again)
I suppose it all depends upon the level of play. The narrative should be about what is happening above the players level of responsibility. On the table the player makes his/her own mistakes. The 'poor/ competent / superior commander' selection should be part of how the player got to where they were. Make that part of the force selection and game objectives.

The poor higher command gives you not enough troops or the wrong types of troops to go with the game objective. Or the objective is either nonsensical (Ah, the light Brigade) or badly conceived/ made with poor intelligence (first take the lightly defended bridge, there's nobody home). The competant higher command allows the player slight change of force or modification of objectives. Superior high command allows the player a free hand in force selection, objectives and choice of pizza or hot pockets…

But this is a case where a battle is being fought with uneven numbers. The strategists have done their part. To make it an even game (without measuring how long the smaller side can hold out) you need some mechanism to aid the smaller side. In DBA this would be by giving both sides the same 1d6 pips per turn, so the smaller side can move proportionally more bases – because it's harder to manoeuvre bigger armies. Other rules need other mechanisms because often that is not taken into account.

+2 for the august Mr. Piepenbrink. In the words of a semi-famous game designer, I prefer to "Let the Bazaines be Bazaine".

I think the ‘why' mistakes occur is what is being compensated for because in a game those factors such as fog of war about what is on the ground, poor communication skills, poor interpretation skills of the receiver, poor maps,shot up or overweight riders & AdC not delivering orders in time should all be modeled into the game. Dealing with Friction is the art of generalship both in tactics and strategy. War is not chess, planning for bad luck is what makes a general good. You'll still have a chance to make your own mistakes. You might not like it in a game, but you need it for it to be a better simulation. Command radii, pip modifiers, card draws, random events are just the best tools we have to compensate for the birds eye view and omniscience, perfect interpetation of orders and communications that the tabletopgame gives us.

I like the randomness of events occurring: it gives me a way to rationalize my failures!

Mick

It's not randomness what I dislike. Actually, it is the opposite: to be assigned a characteristic that defines my CinC as Stupid or Brilliant. I like to deal with lack of perfect control in a game. Some of the most interesting designs model that kind randomness without recurring to artificialities such as assigning abilities to the CinC.

Are you upset that your subordinates are characterized as mediocre or elite? Call it your staff and Don't worry about it. If it is a historical scenario you are going to need I different quality leaders. For a fictional game I would just say my army was was less efficient in responding to orders. Really no need to get caught up in semantics over wether it is efficiency of the leadership vs poor strategic/tactical choices.

It's not like if you can really be as good as Wellington in designing a strategy in a novel situation.

No, no the subordinates, but the CinC. That is not a subordinate. That is my representation in miniature.

It's reallyjust semantics, whether it is the leader who is stupid or with a weak staff or other institutional forms of friction, when the piece representing the CinC is labeled "stupid". There are not many cases where you are required to actively make the same directional/tactical mistakes beyond the historical initial setup in a game. If you want to be more aggressive or not then was the historical plan or take a different route, it is usually up to the player. That is the only measurement of stupidity for the leader, his actual plan. . Other Attributes are all about efficiency. An intelligent leader might well understand his staff is not as efficient and compensate in his plans, the stupid one doesn't. You will get to make your own mistakes.

One could see this dichotomy with Napoleon using Berthier as his chief of staff vs Soult in the 100 days. Both were commanded by the same military genius (or not) but one was clearly more efficient at the role. On the tactical level, it would be more along the efficiency or lack of riders and communications in general.

Mick

Lets agree to disagree. I don't like the mechanics. You do. Nothing that you say will convince me to like it, nor vice versa.

Best

Well, I could come over to your house and flog you into submission!