Questions "Marching To Sound of Guns"

[dolphin]

This is obviously one of the more important aspects of mastering PBM games.

There is alot more to it than meets the eye at first and I have some fuzzy areas that are causing me a great deal of consternation in trying to do my turns. Particularly the one I am on. My opponant is obviously more adept at it than I am and it has got me in a bind in my current game. In fact it is fair to say it has been a major cause of a near two day delay in my finishing this turn to send back to him.

Hopefully we can get some clarifications in this thread.


I desperately need to know how things work when your actually planning and counting on a March to occur for a particular offensive to even have a chance at being successful. My opponant clued me in to his experience over me last turn by mentioning he miscalculated his percentage, or would not have even tried his attack. Now that I understand he has been using certain intricate maneuvers on me that I was not even thinking about I am at a point where I am plotting my turn blind without knowing certain things.

I am fully familiar with the formula in the WIKI which is pretty well self explanatory, but my concerns now are what happens if you send in the first stack to attack and he is plotted to arrive on a certain day, but the other eligible stacks who get a chance to join that attack show that it would normally take them twice as long to reach that region even if they make their eligability percentage to participate.

Can I presume elegible stacks which make the percentage roll show up in that battle immediately regardless of the differential in arrival days? A sort of abstract aspect of the preplanning in the coordination. This means a stack that initiates combat first by arriving on day 2 can expect support from elible stacks that would normally take the full 15 days to arrive?


Also I am curious to know if in fact it matters how powerful the initiating stack is in order to trigger its sister corps and army HQ to roll for determining their MTSG eligibility.

In other words will a Corp with just a single element in it triger the MTSG for all eligible stacks?

[dolphin]

Another concern would be how the combat orders work.

I already know that eligible stacks suffer a -10% penalty if they are sitting in defensive mode, but how is the overall combat options for the bigger battle determined when two or more stacks arrive with different combat settings.

Say for instance the first stack initiating combat has Orange Offensive Posture with Green Feint/Probe because it wants to play it safe without knowing for sure its support will arrive, but the sister Corp, or HQ stack has it set on Red Assault with Red All Out Attack because if it does makes its eligability roll it wants to push it and go for broke?

[Cromagnonman]

Stacks that MTSG arrive instantly (within the first few hours of the battle), although they return to their region of origin at normal speed.

[soloswolf]

My experience is that all stacks seem to operate based on their individual postures.

As far as the size of the initiating stack, march at a size you would be willing to fight at. If no one shows up, your single unit could be destroyed and you Corps commander may get laid up for a while.

[dolphin]

What happens when???

1) Say an eligble MTSG stack is itself attacked a day, or sooner than the stack it would want to support is able to launch its attack.

Is the eligible MTSG stack considered pinned down and prevented from MTSG since it was itself engaged by an enemy stack prior to the battle which it could have supported?


2) Lets say an eligable MTSG stack wishes to move from its current region to an adjacent region and both its start and end regions are adjacent to the battle region making it eligble to MTSG to the same battle in either of the regions.

Will its relocation movement interfere in anyway with its eligability to MTSG?

Will its eligability to MTSG interfer with its relocation movement if it is not able to reach the new region before the Battle in the adjacent region takes place causing it to make its roll for MTSG before it reaches its new region?

Will the MTSG eligble stack use the MTSG "negative number of days to reach the battle" modifier of whichever region it is in when the battle starts to determine its percentage to MTSG, or will it have to take a the movement penalty for moving two regions in the MTSG calculation?

Conceivably an MTSG stack might be the same number of days adjacent to the battle in either its start, or end region, but since it got to the new region before the battle started would it need only apply the distance modifier of the region it moved to?


3) Do two Corp Stacks located in the same region defending, or set to move simultaniously to attack even have to make an MTSG eligability roll to support each other, or is it automatic?

[Jim-NC]

1. You can support multiple stacks with MTSG (I have seen Jackson support stacks on each side of his starting location before, and I was the union ). The 2 battles were on different days.

2. Not 100% sure. I have seen stacks not make it back to their original starting location after MTSG to a battle on day 13/14/15 before. They are still in the battle area, with orders to march back to their start point.

3. I believe they must still roll, but at a large bonus (they are "0" days travel apart).

[dolphin]

2. Not 100% sure. I have seen stacks not make it back to their original starting location after MTSG to a battle on day 13/14/15 before. They are still in the battle area, with orders to march back to their start point.

2) Lets say an eligable MTSG stack wishes to move from its current region to an adjacent region and both its start and end regions are adjacent to the battle region making it eligble to MTSG to the same battle in either of the regions.

Will its relocation movement interfere in anyway with its eligability to MTSG?

Will its eligability to MTSG interfer with its relocation movement if it is not able to reach the new region before the Battle in the adjacent region takes place causing it to make its roll for MTSG before it reaches its new region?

Will the MTSG eligble stack use the MTSG "negative number of days to reach the battle" modifier of whichever region it is in when the battle starts to determine its percentage to MTSG, or will it have to take a the movement penalty for moving two regions in the MTSG calculation?

Conceivably an MTSG stack might be the same number of days adjacent to the battle in either its start, or end region, but since it got to the new region before the battle started would it need only apply the distance modifier of the region it moved to?

It is a tough one, but very important to know.