> Other games have a more complete (but not exhaustive) amount
> of detail about campaigns. I find the following from
> Death before Dishonour to be quite good. It limits/require the
> number of regiments sent on campaign by the hostility level.
> If the level is high (war) then more regiments are sent.
> Victories will reduce this level, thus limiting the number
> of regiments sent if things are going well. This game also
> has extensive province rules for the military governors, and
> the campaign results could be used to gain or loose provinces
> for France.
This would certainly give the Foreign Minister something to do - deciding
which nations are to feel the might of France (unless the MoS steps in, of
course ;-).
Regarding the mechanics of the campaigns themselves, there are effectively
four theatres of operations: the Netherlands (against the Dutch or Spanish),
Franche-Comte (against the Austrians/Germans), Piedmont (against the
Austrians/Piedmontese) and the Pyranees (against Spain). It strikes me that
each of these Frontiers could have a simplified matrix as follows:
f-b-f-b-e-b-e
f-b-F-b-E-b-e
f-b-f-b-e-b-e
Where f = french town, b = battle and e = enemy town. (Appropriate names
could be slotted in depending upon the frontier involved). At the start of
each summer campaign, each army has a base of operations (a French town) and
an initial objective as an enemy town. (The 3 x 7 matrix above allows three
french armies to operate on the same frontier at the same time). Let's say
that in the above example, a single french field army is given F as a base
and E as an objective. In order to assault/besiege E a field battle (field
operations) must first be fought at the intervening 'b' (which could be some
insignificant village such as Crecy or Agincourt) in June. If the French
Army gets a result of 1, then in July they can go on to Assault E (since
cavalry regiments don't take part in assaults, they will engage in field
operations again to ensure that no relief arrives). If the French get a
result of 2, the enemy army manages to withdraw and they have lay Seige to E
in July instead. A result of 3 or 4 means that the battle was inconclusive,
and must be fought again (at some other insignificant village) the in July.
If the French get a result of 5 or 6, however, they are driven back to their
base of operations and will be on Defence in July instead. If this happens,
they need a 1 or 2 to drive the enemy back (and have another shot at the
field battle in August), and if they get a 5 or 6 result they are driven
from the town and have to win a field battle at the 'b' to the left of F
before they can attempt to retake it by Assault or Siege.
Similarly, if the French take an enemy town, this becomes the new base of
operations and the process starts all over again.
In Autumn, Winter and Spring, the same will apply, except that a result of 1
or 2 in a field engagement will be followed by a siege (since there will not
be sufficient troops available to mount an assault). In the following
Summer, the main campaign will begin where the Spring campaign left off (if
taking part in the same theatre of war) - otherwise different bases of
operations on different frontiers will be chosen.
It strikes me that something along the above lines would add considerable
'chrome' in terms of press etc - in fact, Greg seems to have been doing
something similar when game reports appear. Pushing the frontiers forward
and back will be a very slow process, but this seems to have been the nature
of late 17th century warefare.
Cheers,
Paul
> "Joel M. Halpern" wrote:
> >
> > I was truck while reading some of the recent MoS email by a quandry in
the
> > game.
> >
> > In order to permit the game to function, the war(s) actually have no
> > consequences. To get the full consequences of the war(s) would
requiring
> > modelling the whole rest of the world, which is clearly not something
> > interesting for the game.
> >
> > The other side of the coin is that there is no way to actually
accomplish
> > any military or international political objectives. This is because as
the
> > game was designed the appointments were placeholders and role playing
> > hooks, not real activities.
> >
> > However, this leaves it impossible to discuss before or after the fact
> > whether we (France) can liberate the Netherlands, or can persuade the
> > Hapsburgs to be more cooperative, or ... All these things make good
role
> > playing. It would be nice if there were a way to somehow have them have
an
> > effect.
> >
> > It also strikes me that it would be nice if the summer campaign results
> > actually mattered. Other than using them as an excuse to make snide
> > remarks, they don't have any significant long term effect. In practice,
> > losing or gaining territory could have significant impacts.
> >
> > I am not sure that there is anything we can or should do about either of
> > these issues, but I thought I would mention them to the rest of you
since
> > they have been bothering me for some time now. [The obvious solutions
are
> > way to complex to be worth doing.]
> >
> > Yours,
> > Joel
