fixing the blitzkrieg problem w/ HPS Nap & ACW

[-72-]

"When you read the designers notes for where the inflated morales came from (they go back to the Battleground series in Talonsoft days), you get explanations like the Russians at the fleches standing to get shot up by cannon fire, in favor of morale 8 for line Russian infantry (lol). With morale *10* for their guards or grenadiers (lol). This is flat crazy. The grenadiers held at the fleches by employing the reserve slope aspects of the position, or the dead ground areas ahead of it, for formed battalions or regiments. The positions were not held continually but changed hands repeatedly on every push, precisely because any formation on either side, once disordered by combat, was subject to local morale failure and ran when the pressure got too high. This required a conveyor belt of fresh good order reserves to feed into the position as men gave way."

While I agree that using the limited routing optional rule (and others) creates an unrealistic 'fight to the death' situation, that's what supposedly happened at Borodino (according to Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon). When they took the fleches and the Great Redoubt, very few Russian prisoners were captured. This was attributed to the near hysteric morale of the Russians due to the presence of religious relics and 'defending the motherland' fervor. But this was the exception, not the rule. Many players use house rules such as 'disrupted units cannot melee', or 'units with fatigue of 7 or more cannot melee', to try to put a more realistic feel to the games.

Having melee as a seperate phase put an end to 'blitz' tactics in HPS Gettysburg, and I think restored some of the historical advantage of the defender in the game. They would probably do well to add it to the Napoleonic games as well. For the moment, players wanting less 'blitz' can agree to complete all their melees together, allowing no fire/movement till it's done, and no further melees allowed after fire/movement recommences. Takes a little getting used to, but it's effective.

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"Many players use house rules such as 'disrupted units cannot melee', or 'units with fatigue of 7 or more cannot melee', to try to put a more realistic feel to the games."

To correct myself, in HPS, it would be a fatigue of 700, not 7 (which is Talonsoft Battleground fatigue).

Or simply, if the unit fatigue is 'red'.

Interesting point about the Civil War series, and the separate melee phase... it should also be noted that in the Civil War seres that disrupted units cannot melee.

[BigDuke66]

It seems that this optional rule from the Civil War series seems to be the easiest way to fix Blitzkrieg.

Other ideas seem unlikely to work at at all:
-Manual defensive fire would help but with the much shorter turns in this series would lead to games that maybe never are finished because this would be a very time consuming option.
-Hoping for moral check change to D10 would also lead to the need to rework all OOBs in all titles, a huge effort that makes it very unlikely to ever happen.
Besides that what would you do with units like the Guard, in a D10 system they would have a chance to be effected even when not much happened just by an unlucky dice roll, there is a reason why they are not even in the range for something like that unless the shit really hits the fan.
-Turning off optional rules that effect moral is usually a double-edged sword as it weakens the defender just like the attacker.
Currently I use "Flank Morale Modifier" in the hope that the line can hold better, at least when being bombarded by artillery and shoot by skirmishers, and "Rout Limiting" is OFF in the hope that fire an advancing troops could lead to a rout that spreads over the whole attack column
-Houserules just clutter the game.
-HISTORICITY & REALISM PROJECT is nice but how useful is this to a series of 9 games with thousands of scenarios? Basically no use at all.

Just some words to the combat calculation, if attacker and defender are the same size and we ignore any modifiers the attacker will usually suffer 66,66% higher casualties, that comes alone from the way casualties are calculated in the game.
Now the usual modifiers for attackers are column formation(+25%) and hold fire(+20%) and still the unit needs 27% more men to be even with the defender.
But it's correct that attacking with stacked units is absolutely unrealistic especially in short 10 minutes turns. Against this only the column pass through fire rule might help, but still the attacker could stack if he dares to and that would again lead to higher casualties mounting and mounting till you got a casualty rate that would even Napoleon make scream "STOP!"


Now I wonder if it would be a good idea to ask JTS to add the Civil War rule "Optional Melee Resolution" also to the Napoleonic series, not just by some mails or forum post on SDC but maybe something like a petition or so that makes clear how much support from the players there still is.

[-72-]

You may have mentioned this in your post BD66, but in case you didn't - the one thing that was added to the CWB series regarding 'blitzing' tactics, was adding an optional rule for a distinct melee phase.

I know that NB and MP series' don't have it - not sure if something like a separate phase for melee could be added to these series - only in that I am not sure if it would not conflict with the cavalry melee resolution system (iow - the cavalry charges).

[BigDuke66]

Yes that's the rule my post is related too.
But now that you mention it, the charge could indeed by a problem and I guess also the optional rules for multiple melee.
Would be nice to hear if that is the reason the rule wasn't added to the Napoleonic series.

Well well what could be done instead?
How should I get a player to "take his time" and play out battles like Leipzig that cover several days when they may can very well achieve a decision on the first day?
Maybe the results for the Blitz ladder could be modified by the turns that were actually played, if you only play 25% of a scenario you also only get 25% of the points for it.

[Xaver]

This was one of my obsesions some years ago... i find a serie of improvements in the engine that can fix it.

1-units win fatigue when use action points, this could be an alternate rule.

2-units need a certain % of action points to assault, no more free assaults, you know, arrive with 0 action points near enemy unit and you can assault it... maybe to enter in enemy´s ZOC you need certain number of action points to break it, think you need 50% of action points to enter in enemy´s zoc and assault.

3-from REN we can use block formation as the assault column and the actual column be only to move units... like in EAW, cant fight, very weak to melee... when reinforcements arrive in column you need change their formation to fight... line or assault column.

These could reduce a lot blitzkrieg...

Well, i need add another feature, i dont know if it has impact in blitzkrieg problem... skirmishers... i think they need autoretreat, in Field of Glory you can select postures for this units, they can stand allways, they can stand VS other skirmisher units or they can try break contact allways...

[BigDuke66]

Point 2 sounds good.
The basic rule for melee is already:
"A unit cannot Melee attack a hex they could not legally move into (it is not possible to Melee attack across a Creek hexside for example)."
Of course the movement rates would have to be adjusted, seems to me that the units are usually a bit too slow especially cavalry, if they would have more movement points it's up to them to either use the full turn to move or a part of the turn to melee.

[TheGrayMouser]

Interesting discussion, and although I agree that "blitz tactics" can be an issue in the game system, I disagree that the cause is do to the moral system and the ratings of units. Bill Peters was involved in a long and at time rather heated discussion with the History and realism team regarding morale ratings, and his opinion was that reducing moral across the board was detrimental to how the game system works(Gamesquad). Also, the H&R team made many other major changes and to compensate for the overall reduced moral added massive amounts of leaders to the oob's. I haven't played the scenarios made by that team and I am not saying it doesn't work or isn't a viable alternative, but after really looking into the details of what they changed, I don't think the play style suits me.
Anyways, it seems to me that the cause of blitzing has more to due with unrealistic stacking limits with no real drawbacks, considering the all important combat factor in the engines are the # of men in a hex.
Ideally , JT would allow a new rule with settings in the PDT files that allows designers to not only set the max # of men in a hex but ALSO the max # of men in a hex that can actually FIGHT in a melee, ie a cap so to speak. I don't see any major changes like this forthcoming, and as Al pointed out, a melee resolution phase like the Civil War titles is not practical in the Nap or MP games due to cavalry charge(unless MORE phases were added LOL )
So what could be done with what we have? I think the answer is in the PDT files, ie max # of men plus the counter limits. Theres no one simple # though and would have to adjust on a title by title, scenario basis. However, if say in the NAp engine you reduced the max # of men in a hex to say 1500 and reduced counters to 3, it would be a lot more difficult to mass troops in an ahistoric manner. I believe reduced counters would be the better option though, because the # of men in hex carries significant crossover effects of almost every aspect of the game.
The problem is , what to do about scenarios say, vs the Austrians whom have battalions around a 1000 men. Doesnt seem quite fair that the French player could combine 2-3 smaller bat.'s and get max stacking whereas the Austrian could never really do the same, and hence any changes would really need be at a title/scenario basis.
Of Course the blitz issue isn't as a big deal for me as I play hotseat or vs the AI exclusively and I have long ago learned the best way of enjoy these games as such is to play historically, go slow in your maneuvering with a eye for what a LOCAL commander on the scene would take the situation to be, and the AI can actually put up a reasonable game.

[BigDuke66]

Yea I read that discussion when I entered this series, he was rather "passioned" but well he made most games of the Napoleonic series so no wonder when someone tries a very different approach that he is "a little upset".
I also haven't tried them, overall it may work out as those guys really changed almost everything, not just a bit here and there what can bring the game totally out of balance.
Anyhow it is no real help to the problem as reworking "millions" of scenario is no option.

I think your right about stacking, but the problem here is more complicated, I calculated the area that a 100 meter hex covers and even with 1800 men every men has an area bigger as my bed(and I have a BIG bed) so it's not that there is no room for them.
What the problem is that so many units attack in such a short time and that on the same frontage.
How realistic is it to have 3 battalions of 600 men each march 400 meters and have them all attack from the same direction?
Not realistic at all, sure with some strange formation it might work but like 3 rank line formation it should have a lower value, such a stack should have a lower strength value and not simply 1800 = 1800 attack strength.
Personally I think the target density modifier could help, if that would also be used on the attacker in melee to lower his attack value it might help to make stacks less effect especially when being beyond a specific value.

Currently I use the column pass through fire rule and target density rule, the benefit of stacking units will be much lower with the casualties that a stack would have when taking fire especially artillery.
It just teaches the player that this "bad behavior" is not going to work and that he must learn to fight in a different way or he seldom would get anything done.

[FM WarB]

Stacking limits or other pdt file changes are just fiddling around the edges.

An artillery capture rule, such as in ACW games might help. Right now its just too easy to melee artillery and wipe them out *poof they're gone*

As pointed out, "action points" to melee as in PzC is needed. Right now the fast moving assault with column attack bonus infantry columns are the Blitzkrieg units a Guderian would be proud of.

[BigDuke66]

Well every gun counts as 40 men so with the stacking limit at 14 guns you won't get more than 560 men, most of the time you won't even get that into a hex, and with a big battalion attacking your are obviously out of chance to stand alone but I guess that may be supposed to be so.

Yes capture sounds good but as said the attack column bonus is really needed together with holding fire to get your attack value up and you would still need 27% more men than the defender to make things even because attacker gets much higher casualties.

-What about defensive fire against melee with 100% like the CW series does with an optional rule?
-Or what about defensive fire as stack, I think in the CW series if defensive fire is triggered the whole stack fires, that should give enough UMPF to stop such an attack column.
But both things would simply raise casualties without slowing combat down.

So movement points for conducting melee seems one way but then you might also need to raise movement points for every unit type.