Movement penalty for large stacks?

[aryaman]

The strategy of the day was "march divided, fight united", because a large army on a single road would bottle it up, that was something I missed in NCP, where moving large stacks togather had no penalty, would something like that be implemented in ROP?

[Sol Invictus]

I thought that the "march divided" doctrine didn't become common until the Napoleonic Corps system was adopted. From my understanding, the armies during the SYW would advance along a single axis for the most part. They certainly didn't like to spread out any more than they had to for fear of being attacked piecemeal.

[aryaman]

I thought that the "march divided" doctrine didn't become common until the Napoleonic Corps system was adopted. From my understanding, the armies during the SYW would advance along a single axis for the most part. They certainly didn't like to spread out any more than they had to for fear of being attacked piecemeal.

No, it was also common in this period, armies of 50k were more than enough to create a traffic jam. Check, for instance, the Prussian invasion of Boheme in 1757 with 4 diferent columns using three diferent routes.

http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=1757_-_Prussian_invasion_of_Bohemia

[Sol Invictus]

I guess with the smaller regions of ROP that this could be relevent. If the regions were larger like in NC, it would not really matter since even though the armies didn't march in one big column they would many times still be in the same region. I guess it depends on just how large the average region is in ROP.

[Hok]

Movement penalty is already existing in all Ageod games ... with command penalty.

Command penalty affect units efficiency and movement, and biger is an army, harder is to command it.

A "monster stack" will certainly have a 35% command penalty and move
slowly with a poor combat efficiency

A monster stack will have a lot of supply difficulty too

[Hok]

I guess with the smaller regions of ROP that this could be relevent. If the regions were larger like in NC, it would not really matter since even though the armies didn't march in one big column they would many times still be in the same region. I guess it depends on just how large the average region is in ROP.

You can consider that 1 region from NCP = 3 to 5 regions from ROP

[Florent]

I like the idea of a more operationnal game .

[Sol Invictus]

You can consider that 1 region from NCP = 3 to 5 regions from ROP

Ah, I like this very much. More operational maneuver is always good. I didn't realize that regions were so much smaller. I guess this does bring up the possibility of advancing with seperate Columns in different regions and the possible problem of a "traffic jam" in a single region.

[Pocus]

And aside from WIA, all games features a Command Cap, which, if overcome, will provoke a command penalty and thus movement and combat penalties.

[Hohenlohe]

And aside from WIA, all games features a Command Cap, which, if overcome, will provoke a command penalty and thus movement and combat penalties.

As I know the armies of that time experimented the first time with the formation of ad-hoc divisions.Usually the regiments were formed in columns for marching and manouvring due to the fact that a column later on forms a line on the battlefield or the usual stacks like center, right and left flank without cavalry which formed their own columns for each side of the main body of the army.
I do not know whether the French were the first which formed ad-hoc divisions the first time during the SYW or later.

greetings

Hohenlohe

[aryaman]

Well, in NCP and AACW there was rarely the case of stacks with not enough command points, especially in NCP there were so many slots free within divisions that even the Russians could be organized in stacks with no command penalty, maybe is that different in RoP?
Another issue is inactive leaders, they could penalized movement, but for small stacks there is an easy trick to avoid that, you separate the leader from the stack and send them separately to the destination, i have done it many times in AACW.
BTW it has been something that has struck me as non logical in Ageod games that units with no leader attached are by default always activated, wouldn´t be the logical thing the other way around? especially in a game so focused on leadership, it would be more logical to have units with no leader attached inactive by default, it would also encourage the use of more leaders without having them sleeping in garrison duties.

[arsan]

Another issue is inactive leaders, they could penalized movement, but for small stacks there is an easy trick to avoid that, you separate the leader from the stack and send them separately to the destination, i have done it many times in AACW.

You can use the hardened activation option and remove this gamey tactic. Certainly it makes things harder and more frustrating for the player, so it's kind of "grognardish" and probably not used by many... but it's already there

The "units without leaders activation/no activation" issue has been discussed since BoA for what i remember. Its a difficult design decision with both pros and cons.
But really, as the game is now i think it works pretty well: stacks without leaders can't be used for anything "serious" because of CP penalties, frontage penalties, lack of leaders bonus/abilities... "Real" fighting and campaigning with them its not a good idea.
They are useful just for moving reinforcements around, low priority garrisons, scouting and some little raiding.
Regards

[PhilThib]

+1

[Pocus]

Bottomline about this long running debate (and good summary of Arsan): if we were to prevent stacks without leaders to be active, then we will need even more leaders, many being used only to ferry forces between two points. That would be also more tedious.

[aryaman]

I have just finished reading Szabo "The SYW in Europe", a reading I very much recommend, even if it is in fact biased against Frederick, bacuse at least part of the criticism is well supported on primary sources.
I wanted to bump up this thread because reading Szabo narrative of campaigns you always find large armies moving in separated columns by diferent routes, and i think the game will lack historical flavour if the players were not encouraged to do the same by the game mechanics.
The historical rational behind that was, of course, that large armies, with their large wagon trains, bottled up roads. The rule of thump was that an army over 30k was too large and needed to be split to speed up movement.
Hok and Pocus pointed that there was already a movement penalty in the from of command penalty, but even if acting (something i doubted because of my past experience with Ageod Games), a large stack well commanded avoid the penalty, while a small stack could be hit. It doesn´t quite represent the historical circunstances.
So, I wonder, since all units have a weight, if a command could be set, looking for stacks over a weight limit, and apply a movement penalty to them. That could represent much better a force bottling up a road, and could encourage the players to split their forces to speed up movement, using the old adage "move separatedly, fight together"

[Sol Invictus]

The problem with including any Army size penalty would be that with the regional movement, it is difficult to distinguish when an Army is marching together or in seperate Columns within a region. Since the Regions will be smaller in ROP this may become relevant but I can understand the difficulties in depicting this. Maybe if an Army is in a Region with a poor road network the weight limits can be reduced or a way can be found to change the commad penalties on the fly as an army moves from region to region depending on the quality of roads.

This also raises the question of whether there will a "March to the Sound of the Guns" function for Columns that are in adjacent Regions that are of the same Army. There really shouldn't be since Armies were almost always united on the days immediately before a battle, but if this isn't included the Player will need to make sure that he combines his Columns well before any possible enemy action and this would need to happen a few regions before the target Region for the entire Army is reached. The need to do this because of any game/engine restrictions would unfairly penalize an advancing Army.

To prevent seperate Columns from getting pounced on while still disunited, I think it should be very easy for Columns/Armies to avoid battle unless they are in some restrictive terrain of some other limiting factor on their mobility. This seems to be the historical case since it was very difficult to force combat under normal circumstances.

[aryaman]

The problem with including any Army size penalty would be that with the regional movement, it is difficult to distinguish when an Army is marching together or in seperate Columns within a region. Since the Regions will be smaller in ROP this may become relevant but I can understand the difficulties in depicting this. Maybe if an Army is in a Region with a poor road network the weight limits can be reduced or a way can be found to change the commad penalties on the fly as an army moves from region to region depending on the quality of roads.

This also raises the question of whether there will a "March to the Sound of the Guns" function for Columns that are in adjacent Regions that are of the same Army. There really shouldn't be since Armies were almost always united on the days immediately before a battle, but if this isn't included the Player will need to make sure that he combines his Columns well before any possible enemy action and this would need to happen a few regions before the target Region for the entire Army is reached. The need to do this because of any game/engine restrictions would unfairly penalize an advancing Army.

To prevent seperate Columns from getting pounced on while still disunited, I think it should be very easy for Columns/Armies to avoid battle unless they are in some restrictive terrain of some other limiting factor on their mobility. This seems to be the historical case since it was very difficult to force combat under normal circumstances.

I share your concerns, and since we don´t have the game to test it, it could be indeed unworkable for the game scale.
However it could work along the following lines. The large stack, being penalized in movement, can´t catch the smaller armies of the opposite player (that already happens in AACW very frequently), while if massed in a defensive position, could be outflanked by the smaller armies without being able to respond fast enough. That will force the defending player, like his opponent, to split his army. Only armies of similar size (that is, those willing to fight) would fight. That is already possible with the menu of orders and postures, and may could be enhanced if required, so that an army in defensive/avoid battle, would indeed avoid battle without problems.

[Sol Invictus]

Yeah we don't know enough about the game to do other than speculate but it is fun to imagine how the game will play in any case. I am sure some compromises to history will need to be made but I am confident that Pkil, Pocus, and Hok will come up with a resonable system that approaches historical outcomes. I am really looking forward to getting a look at the entire map. That should help us to speculate even more.