How do you go to battle?

[Narwan]

I agree with you that forces should be bought depending on the overall plan. I learned that by trial and error; purchase the forces first then go for the plan later, soon I found that my forces isn't sufficient to cover the best plan...

Now, one thing I'm curious about: do you all also need to draw a battlefield plan on a paper (if playing multiple PBeM games, maybe, so that you don't forget the plan you drafted)????

One way to go is to make a plan and buy forces accordingly but the other way around is just as valid; buy forces and make a plan that makes optimal use of the forces you do have. As I sometimes buy actual historical forces or according to historical TO&E's (usually not the same thing!) with little room to tweak I have to go the second route for those games. That probably gives even more satisfaction when it works.

I used to make very crude paper sketches of my battleplan when I started playing the game. It helped speed up the learning curve of the game itself and to get a better feel for force dispositions and possible contingencies. Now I only do so rarely, maybe if faced with a serious challenge or in very large games on a big map (I used to play max size games for a while with one opponent, with up to 500 units a sketch on paper can be very useful).

Narwan