France '14 - Driving the Wedge Feedback & Discussion

[BigDuke66]

Hi
Having played this scenario(1914_0818_01s: Driving the Wedge) now a few times I want to put my collected observations up for discussion.
Main source is the official German history of the First World War "Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918" more precisely Volume 1 "Die Grenzschlachten im Westen" from 1925.


- Placement of Victory Objectives could be reconsidered because the Belgian Army except in Tirlemont did not put up much resistance but fell back and withdrew to Antwerp. Currently the Belgian Player seems to think he is forced to hold the frontline he starts in, but the real target should be to extract as much of the Belgian Army as possible, also because delivering a deceive blow to the Belgian Army was the goal of the German Army and an escape to Antwerp was not wanted.
Also on the 19th August II. Korps and 2. KD faced heavier resistance near and West of Aarschot but the rest of the 1. Armee faced only rearguards and reached a line that was running north-south several kilometers West of Louvain by the evening.
So in light of these two points maybe some victory objectives should be placed not only further West but also more between Louvain and Antwerp to simulate the importance of an open way to Antwerp for the Belgian Army.
What surely should be done is to add some clues to the notes so the Belgian player knows what options he has, just like in the Liege scenario.

- In conjunction with the above I recommend to extend the scenario by 1 turn to give more time for the Belgian player to escape to Antwerp.

- Let the 2. KD come in on the 19th as it was doing recon far North and West(Off map) on the 18th, it was ordered at 10.00 in the morning to advance in the direction of Aarschot and Brüssel but because of the great efforts and the heat of that day it stayed around Osterloo what is about 2km North-West of Eindhout what itself is just 1 hex off map to the north.
This will also make room to allow one division of the II. Korps to move along the North edge to Aarschot like it was historically ordered.

- Extend map 1 hex north so that a main road movement is possible to Aarschot to make it likely that the German player follows the historical order to move over Veerle to Aarschot.

- Overall II. Korps should be moved slightly back, and III. & IV. Korps even further this will allow the Belgiums on1 turns out of sight of the German forces to withdraw or optimise the defense.

- Place one division of II. Korps into a North-West march direction(Tessendorf) to make the German player follow the historical order to move over Veerle to Aarschot, because the II. Korps was ordered to advance north of the Demer.

- Although the 2. Armee didn't take part in this action it was marching in the direction of the southern end of the Belgian army, its forward corps reach Opheylissem(VII. Korps), Wasin(X. Reserve-Korps) and Branchon(X. Korps) on the 18th what is about 10-15km East of the southern part of the Belgian Gette line, adding these forces on the map will very likely bring the Belgian player to save the Belgian army rather than holding the ground to fight a futile fight.


Discussion of the above points is welcome, especially if someone could dig up a good source for the Belgians and their actions in this scenario.

[jonnymacbrown]

"adding these forces on the map will very likely bring the Belgian player to save the Belgian army rather than holding the ground to fight a futile fight."

Isn't it always like that in short scenarios? I was just playing Vitebsk as the Germans in June 1944. I held the town and won the scenario but had it been part of a larger campaign I would have been annihilated. You have to play with the cards that are dealt you, right Big Duke? jonny

[BigDuke66]

Sure but if such a short and small part of the campaign is strongly influenced by an difficlut strategic situation than that should be depicted mirrored in this battle even if its short & small.
Basically the Belgian players think they have to stay to win because of the placement victory hexes and there values, and that they get away with this because it's "just" one German army.
Neither of this is true on a strategic perspective, the 1st German Army is jumping on them and any Belgians south of Tirlemont would have to take on parts of the German 2nd Army that prepares to swing around north of Namur to face South-West against a possible French advance while also cover Namur itself.
On a strategic perspective anyone who wants to hold the Belgian position instead of falling back to Antwerp would be fit for the nuthouse, but this is all but clear in the current scenario.

[Volcano Man]

Well, not really. The thing is, the scenario is only 13 turns long. IIRC, the scenario is so short because the Belgians are conducting a delaying action here, which is about as long as they resisted before retreating to Antwerp. The exit hexes exist so that the Belgian player can pull back unused forces for points at the same time that they delay. So yes, IIRC the Belgians can hold out for as long as they can here, or they can give up objectives and go to the exit quicker with other forces, because either way it is rationalized that on the 14th turn they will cut and run and abandon all terrain in this area. Basically, the more objectives they can hold before that point, or the more they can exit the map in exchange, then the more effective their delaying action has been. And in all actuality, if the Belgian commander can take a leap of faith then he can actually score more points by withdrawing to Antwerp than by attempting to hold/delay in forward positions. The attempt here is to create a dilemma because both choices carry risk. The optimal choice IMO would be a mix between the two, hold forward and fall back under pressure, but also move to protect Aarschot and withdraw the bulk of our forces to Antwerp.

Simple, yes, but it is the only real way to get the intended point across as far as a measurement of success in such a situation with off/on type objectives, without just putting no or very few objectives on the map and having just exit hexes. Usually the "run for the exit hexes!" makes for very dull scenario so I wanted to provide an either/or option.

Another problem you run into is that objectives must be provided so that the Germans are "scored" based on progress. As you say, Tirlemont was not held heavily. Maybe it shouldn't be worth as many points, but the Germans should be rewarded for advancing on it in force. It is not really my concern that defenders typically cannot figure out that they are able to give up objectives in some scenarios, and instead choose to hold to the last man. I am trying to make both a historically accurate scenario and a "fun" scenario, and sometimes these do conflict with each other (usually not though). Of course the other issue is that it is often difficult to find hard accurate data on what the Belgians did during the early invasion so a lot of assumptions have to be made as well.

Other than that, although I might incorporate some of the suggestions into an update -- all I can say is that I really don't have the luxury to go back and make major changes to all the old scenarios unless there is a serious problem, because it requires checking, rechecking and re-balancing/testing. At least I cannot go back and revisit every old scenario anytime soon if we want the next title in the series to come in our lifetime.

In other words, feel free to modify the scenario as you see fit as a mod.