How much should we know ahead of time?

[Eckerslyke]

Just a thought, ahead of my next battle.

In order to get a realistic insight into what it was like to be the overall commander in one of our re-enactments of a battle which actually took place, how helpful is it for me to know what happened in real life?

For example, most people know the outcome of Waterloo (although where I live, on the anniversary last month I mentioned it in passing, and the 20yr-olds in the group seemed to think it was something which took place in WWII)!

If I accept a challenge to re-fight Waterloo, to what extent is my experience as overall commander affected by knowing that, on that 'Day In History', Nosey prevailed? That alone might not be significant, but if the Allied commander knows that the Prussians will eventually appear (which the 'dog born in a stable' could not be assured of), then his experience is bound to be less authentic.

So, let's say I'm invited to take part in a battle. At one extreme, I could refrain even from checking Wikipedia to see who actually won that battle on the day, before accepting. I suppose that would be the most realistic way to approach it.

But at the opposite extreme, before accepting or declining, I could set up the battle scenario myself, look at the relative strengths of either side, even go as far as seeing the strength and arrival points of reinforcements for both sides.

My (possibly rhetorical) questions to the other battlers here would be, I think:

What level of foreknowledge is it appropriate for an overall commander to have?
Is it the same in every battle? If not, how do we determine what is realistic?

I would like to hear what other battlers think about this.

[Liebchen]

This is a hard one. I would hazard a guess that most Blitzers are passing familiar with the way that these major battles went, although clearly some may not. If you want to know, you can ask your opponent regarding their familiarity with the historical engagement.

If you are really concerned, you might find some kind Blitzer to choose randomly from one of the many variant scenarios that come with each game, so that you do not, necessarily, know what to expect. Of course, it would take a great amount of discipline not to look at the "Units:Scheduled" menu and get some idea.

Even if you're going for total FOW, it would not be, IMHO, improper to have some passing familiarity with the campaign that led up to the engagement, since this would give an idea of the forces involved and their general dispositions (although in Nappy's day even that might be TMI).

[mfriedman421]

Problem is if you try going into a scenario "blind" so to speak, you might be putting yourself at a disadvantage as your opponent might be very familiar with the event or may have even played the scenario in question multiple times already.

Some of the most enjoyable battles I've played in these games over the years were engagements that I was not at all familiar with or had very little knowledge about. On top of that, meeting engagements or some of the large campaign in one scenario type battles have always been more fun to me than the pitched battles.

[Compass Rose]

Yes, I agree that it is hard to beat meeting engagements especially if you have never played that scenario before.

If you have, they normally have really good replay value since no two opponents will do exactly the same thing.

[Liebchen]

And to elaborate further, you can always try some of the hypothetical variants of the scenarios.

[BigDuke66]

Personally I usually read the "prelude" to the battle, that means reading on what led to the campaign, the campaign itself and the battles that were already conducted up to the current engagement.
That is simply to get the feeling of what my and the enemies forces went through, that may even improve gameplay because usually our experience has impact on future decisions and if that was so with the real life commander it may also be so with the "virtual" commander and he may even do the same things out of the same reasons that the real life commander did.
Of course the battle itself isn't in any way touched by me until it is finished.

[Havoc]

You have to assume your opponent is familiar with the battle, if not the scenario. I learned a while ago when I was blindsided by an opponent with a very lopsided game scenario to at least review the scenario for relative strengths, objectives, and starting victory point score. This allows me to determine my real objectives in a game, as going for the victory points is not always the answer. Often I will ignore the assigned victory hexes and go for destroying my opponent's army.

If you want to increase fog of war, play the full campaign scenarios in games like 'Five Days in April'(Eckmuhl) or 'Six Days in October' (Jena-Aurstadt) with extreme FOW settings. Long games (360 and 524 turns respectively), but you won't know where they are and will have to fan out the hussars to find them... just like the real campaigns.

[agmoss99]

I certainly prefer to play a scenario blind. I'm fighting a great Ulm campaign at the moment which is a collection of unexpected meetings and a lot of scouting.

Go for longer games so that initial dispositions if known become irrelevant. Or set up in campaign mode to add to unpredictability in scenarios.

[SnakeEyes]

Ah! But we are not the commanders that were there at the time. To rein act the scenario we would have to move our units as they moved their units. This though is not about rein acting the scenario but using our skill to win in game terms, under game rules.

As a commander you would have a good idea of where the initial forces are in the vicinity of the battle. On this basis there is no harm in looking at the scenario with fog of war off and manual for both sides. This would give you realistic historically available knowledge.

Once you both start moving your troops with fog of war on you will have no idea who is where.

Historically the defender will have chosen his defensive position and the attacker will have formed his troop to attack according to his battle plan. These are the starting positions in the game. Whichever side was the historical loser obviously got something wrong. Even if his error was being there in the first place :-) Our job is to either reverse or reinforce history.

The defender may decide to move his defensive position which would put your carefully planned attack in disarray. The attacker could go off at a completely different tangent and ruin your carefully planned defense.

The fixed number of turns in a scenario is there for a very good reason I suppose. It forces a result in a historical time scale which may have been important at the time. But I wonder if some scenario's could be more fun if the combatants had the opportunity to mutually agree to add a day to the battle. This decision to be made at the end of the natural end of battle. Then if maneuvering had led to the opposing forces not having come to full contact the battle could still be played to a satisfactory conclusion? Just a thought.

Tony