France '14 Historical outcome

[tquinn]

"For example, some have caused a total collapse of the allied line to the point that the allies threw in the towel early, and other games have resulted in the allies fighting off the German advance almost entirely."

Ed, are there results you know about, that we don't, from play-testing for example? The results we do know about, those reported, indicate 4 Allied wins, 2 draws and 1 German win. One of the draws was actually a major win for me at turn 76 as the French, but I gave my opponent a draw because he had to quit and was a nice guy. I asked the fellow who has the lone loss as French what happened and he had to quit early for reasons other than military ones...

Ugh, where to start?

Sorry, but I don't subscribe to the point of view that the Allies are too strong in the defense. Just a week ago (literally) someone notified me that in their view, the Allies cannot hold and that they were brittle, since their MG units can be killed off through assaults, and any fat stacks of guns can be punished in the same way (through assaults). So on the one hand I have someone like you telling me this, and on the other hand I am getting the opposite in my other ear. I have personally played all the starting point scenarios (Mons, Charleroi, Ardennes) against good Allied players and I can say, there is no reason why the Germans wouldn't be able to cause the Allied line to falter and even crumble by the second or third day. The Ardennes was a wash, trading blow for blow equally, as was historical, but Charleroi can result in the total destruction of a French army there. At Mons, what can I say, clearly most people don't know how to deal with the BEF. Despite what I have said in the past, everyone seems to want to avoid them entirely where as the Germans should be throwing themselves at the BEF, grinding them down since they receive no replacements or recovery. However, none of this matters if either user doesn't quite grasp how to attack or defend effectively in FWWC. I think that FWWC is like a game of chess, more than PzC (because in the latter, you can pretty much just move quickly enough to plug any gap or hole that develops). In FWWC you have to plan ahead, and just a subtle difference in players makes a big difference in the outcome.

Other than that, I can't really hold anyone's hand and tell them how to attack or defend. All I can suggest is that both are quite tricky in this series. Might I suggest to you (Johnny MacBrown) should try playing the German side? Clearly, you seem to understand how to play F14 well enough, but from the sound of it you only seem to play the Allied side. Well, if you have a clear perspective on how the Allies defend, then maybe you should try the offense. I am not going to belittle anyone's skill here, but since, as you claim, you and Tom Quinn are the only ones to ever play the campaign out completely, then if that were true, why would anyone jump off the deep end and drastically change anything here? Try swapping sides and see what both of you can do before we start leveling knee jerk criticism -- at the very least. You don't even have to play out the whole campaign either, just play a week of the campaign and see if you notice a difference. Just a suggestion.

The French lost 950,000 men and 3000 guns but the Hun lost 800,000 and 2000 guns and never got anywhere.

This is precisely the point.

If the French can afford to lose 150,000(!) more men than the Germans, and still be allowed to hold everywhere and have no inclination of falling back, then yes, there is a problem with the VP levels and objective levels. This kind of seals the deal for me then, I WILL make adjustments to the levels. The Germans are on the attack here in this campaign, and they are the ones that should suffer more casualties. However, as it stands, the fundamental problem seems to be that the VP levels and objectives are such that the French can disregard losses almost entirely, because the VP levels and objectives are such that only the ownership of the objectives really matter in the end. This is wrong. To put it into perspective, you lost half of a full army of French men, and two armies worth of guns -- I calculated it out to be 11,500 VPs lost. That should count for something in the overall result of the campaign, and it should make up for some of the ground that you decided to dig your heels in and hold to the last man. Your opponent did well to inflict those losses on you in your not-one-step-back defense, and that should probably account for a near draw.

So yes, official changes are in order for the VP levels and objectives and I will go to work on that immediately. In the end, the final result will be one that is a balancing act. The adjustment of objective VPs and VP levels is such that it will be scaled downwards so that losses will actually matter and play a part in decision making, which is historical. In other words, the Allies should be inclined to voluntarily fall back to the south and not do so simply because the whole line is collapsing since this was not historically the case. They should elect to give up objectives and terrain and then look for a spot for a final stand near the end of the campaign for one epic battle -- giving up the objectives between the start and that place, to the moment and spot of their choosing where the losses will pile up. They should choose to do this in a place where the lost VPs are still within their minor victory threshold since too many losses would push them over the edge to a draw or minor defeat. This is the delicate balancing act here. The problem currently is that, as I said, the VP levels and objective values seem to be out of whack to the degree that the Allies have no reason to voluntarily withdraw. Why should they? Just dig in at the start and sacrifice 12,000 or even 24,000 VPs worth of casualties and you will be fine, since it is a drop in a bucket of what the objectives are currently worth. Unacceptable.

I had always had a concern in this regard when I was making F14. Unfortunately, there are no scientific ways to calculate all this really. The only thing you can do is roll up the sleeves and play the campaign many times until you can release that the balancing act was effective or not. In this case, I believe I miscalculated.

Other than that, I see no reason to jump off the deep end and start thinking that massive PDT changes need to be made. The argument about stacking two French field gun units in a hex and then holding off an entire German division is just, well, faulty. The German attack should be avoiding those hexes entirely, if at all possible, and going around them, cutting off the guns from the rest of their forces. In all honesty too, doing that as the French is really just about the only way they can effectively hold terrain -- if they can't stack two field gun units then they really cannot hold a position. The problem comes if the Germans keep voluntarily impaling themselves on those positions in improper and ineffective attacks. When I play as the Germans I personally love it when someone stacks their French 75s up in fat hexes; disrupt the infantry with them, then draw their fire, and then move in for assault and JACKPOT -- 10 to 15 guns eliminated. Also, aren't you the one that complained about the attacker's ability to draw field gun fire off before assaulting? Well, we can't have our cake and eat it too. ;)

German ID guns aren't too mobile and many of them are 2 gun sections that don't have much impact other than on fortresses.

I don't know what to say about that. Those 2 gun section are ONLY supposed to be used on fortresses. Those are siege guns. I don't think anyone can deny that if the French choose to make a stand, the German have plenty of time (the whole campaign) to move their guns into position and bombard them continuously with their divisional and corps level howitzers. But really all of this is a red herring to the actual problem here: the objective and VP levels that will be adjusted in order to force the Allies to voluntarily fall back instead of holding to the last man.

I think I have the answer and the math now to make improvements here in the next version. I don't believe the Race to the Sea or Flanders/Ypres campaigns would need to be modified like this because in both of those campaigns both sides should be disregarding all losses and throwing themselves at each other in a desperate gambit on both accounts.

Quinn writes:
As the defeated commander in the game with John, I would make one observation and one rules change recommendation.

As background, we played 158 turns over two years "as the leaves fell" so we have (1) proven our admiration for F'14 and (2) lots of experience. I would even say that it is THE BEST wargame I've played - ever - and I started in 1958 with AH's Gettysburg and Tactics II and moved through SPI and S&T, then on to computer games.

In my opinion, I lost the Early Campaign for three reasons:

(1) It took me too many turns to figure out that I had to exercise more discipline in avoiding and outflanking French strongpoints (e.g.: massed artillery and MGs).

(2) I failed to appreciate that the French have an endless supply of cannon fodder so in the hands of an experienced player - they will not break en masse, and

(3) I never figured out a tactic to defeat massed artillery/MGs when stacked adjacent to, but not in, a bridge terminus hex on the other side of an impassable river/canal.

John and I flipped sides after our marathon game and we're now on turn 59 with me playing the French side. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, I can see how he beat me, and now I will beat him.

My observation is this: it is not possible to defeat massed artillery/MGs behind rivers/canals if they are properly deployed (offset from the bridge terminus hex and dug in). Any infantry attackers attempting to advance into the empty hex, in the MGs (but not, curiously, in the artillery's ZOC) must used forced bridge movement in march formation and are slaughtered by defensive fire. There is no way to defeat the stack with artillery or MG fire from friendly units in advance since this fire is marginally effective against non-infantry/cavalry. There is no infantry to "shoot up".

I have tried every tactic I can think of and the only thing that works is outflanking/bypassing the strongpoints but . . . and this is the rub, you can't easliy bypass a river stronpoint. A few times I was able to construct an engineer bridge successfully, but usually, the bridge engineers are disrupted before they can complete their span or the attacking infantry/cavalry is dealt with by the defenders in the same way as with a normal bridge - offset, dig in with artillery/MGs and slaughter.

Sooooooo, here's my suggestion. Don't change the objectives' VP allocations OR Victory Conditions, just make one simple alteration.

Eliminate the ZOC for MG units - using the same rationale as for artillery - you can't hold ground with guns - only infantry/dismounted cavalry can do that. The reason infantry and cavalry have ZOCs is because they also are deemed to occupy more than one hex as well. Not many armies would defend a vital bridge crossing by occupying ground adjacent to the bridge. They would sit at the end and shoot down the enemy while they were crossing. Further, MGs in clear terrain would be "easy meat" for enemy artillery, MGs, or rifle fire. That is not the case in F'14.

Rather than debate the pros and cons of this suggestion - why don't we just try it. I'll volunteer. I'm betting this will improve the game by forcing the French (and BEF) to give ground - aligning the play with history. What do you say?

I would be willing to play another campaign game using this single rule change. I'm betting it would cause the French to retreat, rather than die like John's did in our game and mine are doing now - with little territory/VPs gained by the Huns.

Is this something you can do, Ed?