From: Francois Charton Subject: Re: SPI Compendium - Con't D.H. wrote: > > Jena-Auerstadt (Napoleon at War Quad) > Thomas Walczyk > A small minigame picturing the twin battles of October 1806, about 100 counters (a little less in fact), one half regular size map, representing the two battlefieds, connected by a series of off-map movement boxes, (which IMO are useless, see below), takes about 10 minutes to learn and 1-2 hours to play, high solitaire playability. I am a long lasting fan of the Napoleon at War system, since my first encounter with it in S&T (Dresden and Eylau, my first copy of S&T...). It is extremely simple, plays fast and fun, yields itself to moderate chromage, but results in battles which look right (at least given the scale). The rules are as simple as possible. Units have Zones of control, which cannot be exited. When in enemy ZOC, combat is mandatory. Units may advance after combat. Retreats through ZOCs are forbidden, so you need to surround the enemy to eliminate him. Artillery may fire two hexes away (and not suffer from adverse results). Cavalry units are just faster and weaker infantry units (good for occupying terrain, outflanking the enemy, etc...). The miracle is that these simple rules make you act historically. Another good thing is that the games play very fast. You can try strategies again and again. Now, this is something I often feel uncomfortable about with longer games. I usually end up with many questions about better strategies, what ifs... with big games, the answers are usually so many hours away, that you lose something about the strategic options good systems provide. Anyway I love the system, what do you guys think? Now back to Jena-Auerstaedt (a battle named after a bridge). There are in fact two scenarios (the rules present them as reinforcement options, but they are decided before the game begins). The historical one pictures Napoleon in Jena, outnumbering the Prussians, and Davout in Auerstadt, outnumbered by other Prussians. In theory, Napoleon may send reinforcement to Davout through the off map boxes, but in practice, such reinforcements arrive much too late, and are easily blocked by the Prussians. In this scenario, both players are attacking on one field and defending on the other, and have to make good use of the scarce terrain features of the region (especially in Jena). To win, you have to eliminate as many enemy units as possible at the end of the game (thus demoralising the enemy). In Iena, the Prussians only have one good defensive line. To take it, the French may try several strategies, and both a maneuver battle, flanking the Prussians on either or both sides can give results, or a central crush, with a grand Guard battery, may give good results. On the opposite, the Prussian player learns what anchoring one's flank is all about (the only criticism I got there is that the map could extend a few more hexes North: although I never experienced them, "mapedge" effects may happen there...). In Auerstaedt, Davout is incredibly overwhelmed, but the prussians are stuck in a terrible traffic jam, which makes it hard to attack on good defensive terrain. Also, I was never able to reproduce the double flanking attack this battle is famed for, against an able prussian opponent at least (maybe it is just hindsight?). Play balance is good. In my first solo games, I sort of had found a winning strategy for the French, then found a winning counterstrategy for the Prussians, then another for the French, and so on... Altogether I'd say the game favours the French, but it may be chauvinism. The second "what-if" scenario assumes that all the Prussians have been sent to Jena, for the decisive battle. Davout will enter as reinforcement, on the flank/back of the Prussians, but in the end of the game. This makes for a very interesting situation: if Napoleon can push the Prussians towards Davout, the Prussian army will be surrounded in the end of the game. But decision will come very late, a lot of suspense there (many of the gmaes I played were decided on the two last game turns). Once again, I believe play balance to be pretty good, with maybe again a slight plus to the French. Francois Return-Path: X-Sender: jlbest@mail.tuscola.net Newsgroups: bit.listserv.consim-l Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 23:00:06 -0500 Reply-To: Conflict simulation Games Sender: Conflict simulation Games From: John Best Subject: Jena/Auerstadt (off of SPI Compendium) To: Multiple recipients of list CONSIM-L I think I deleted the last installment of the SPI Compendium, which was unfortunate for me, cuz there were some I really wanted to tee off on. Oh well, this one will do: >> >> Jena-Auerstadt (Napoleon at War Quad) >> Thomas Walczyk >> And Francois really liked it: > >I am a long lasting fan of the Napoleon at War system, since my first >encounter with it in S&T (Dresden and Eylau, my first copy of S&T...). It >is extremely simple, plays fast and fun, yields itself to moderate >chromage, but results in battles which look right (at least given the >scale). > [snipping] > >Anyway I love the system, what do you guys think? > The system is ok for what it is and does. But it doesn't do much, because it can't. For example, as I'm sure you know, Nap. artillery was a very "phasic" weapon; it had its own combat phase in a very really sense. Simply getting arty and infantry factors to summate (even in one hour turns) leads to a picture of the Nap. battlefield that is misleading at best. I admit there are some games using the NAW system that I love (the old Borodino has never been beat imo), but in general, it's just too limited. To adopt a metaphor from linguistics: We can code any thought we have onto language. The question is, can we "code" anything that happened on the Nap. battlefield onto a (hypothetical) game? And the answer is, theoretically, yes. But not in the NAW system. As a "grammar", the system is just too impoverished to capture very much of the reality of Nap. battle. Apart from theory, there has been some recent discussion on this list about ranking the quads, with the Desert War quad coming in last place. I don't know the DW quad, but I would say the Nap. at War quad basically sucked rocks. Sure there was Wagram (a fun game, and not too bad on historicity, all things considered). But then, the Marengo game? Pulleze. It's the ultimate design for effect game. Since the system has no way to express any interesting reasons for the success of Desaix's (sp?) counterattack, the designer fudged it by just letting the French player declare that for several successive turns, all his attacks are doubled or something like that. My eight year old can do better--well actually, he can't. That's the problem--it's a solution that an eight year old would approve of. The Leipzig game has got no flavor at all (imo). And then there's J-A: >Now back to Jena-Auerstaedt (a battle named after a bridge). There are in >fact two scenarios (the rules present them as reinforcement options, but >they are decided before the game begins). [some more snipping here I think] > >In Auerstaedt, Davout is incredibly overwhelmed, but the prussians are >stuck in a terrible traffic jam, which makes it hard to attack on good >defensive terrain. Also, I was never able to reproduce the double >flanking attack this battle is famed for, against an able prussian >opponent at least (maybe it is just hindsight?). > Or maybe because the sytem can just can't duplicate the historical effects. This action was immortalized in one of the most famous diagrams in the whole Nap. canon, and that is the one in Chandler showing the five evolutions that Davout's divisions accomplished in making their approach march and attack at Auerstadt. Of course, you don't have anything like that here; the game just doesn't have enough in its lexicon to do what Davout did. One time I watched a very experienced wargamer play an almost total novice in this game (the novice was the grognard's girlfriend). Can't remember who was who, but that's not the point: The French destroyed every Prussian unit at Jena, and the Prussians destroyed every French unit at Auerstadt! I went home and solitaired it and found that, even "trying real hard as the Prussian", my French still destroyed all my guys at Jena. I'm happy you had fun with it Francois, and I appreciate your comments. I agree that it plays fast, and that enables you to try out lots of strategies. But, I'll stick with my story: This system is just in over its head in trying to duplicate the action at Auerstadt. And the battle at Jena is a kludge too: just take one movement point off the French movement allowance and give it the Prussians. It's just a guess, but I betcha the Prussians would now win, leading to the completely wrongheaded conclusion that they would have won the historical battle if they just hadn't marched so slowly. I've kept this game in my inventory, but I doubt I'll ever take it out again. Thanks for reading. John Best jlbest@tuscola.net From: Francois Charton Subject: Re: Jena/Auerstadt (off of SPI Compendium) John Best wrote (on the Nap@War system in general): > > The question is, can we "code" anything that happened on the Nap. > battlefield onto a (hypothetical) game? And the answer is, > theoretically, yes. But not in the NAW system. As a "grammar", the > system is just too > impoverished to capture very much of the reality of Nap. battle. > I agree on your last point: a lot of interesting effects are abstracted, and if you want to have a more detailed picture of the Napoleonian battlefield, you must try more complex systems (such as NBS or La Bataille). It will be a much richer experience than NAW, but take much more of your time, which might mean that many questions on alternate strategies would be left unresolved. NAW has a different "parti pris", it strives at being simple, and so it abstracts a lot. One could expect that this would result in badly unhistorical games, but the great thing in this system is that it still portrays accurate battles (though not all the subtleties involved can be modelled). In my opinion, this is a big achievement: making something simple is usually much harder than making it complex. ... then about Auerstaedt: > > This action was immortalized in one of the most famous diagrams in the whole > Nap. canon, and that is the one in Chandler showing the five evolutions that > Davout's divisions accomplished in making their approach march and attack at > Auerstadt. Of course, you don't have anything like that here; the game just > doesn't have enough in its lexicon to do what Davout did. The system clearly cannot model Davout's action in detail. However, the question is: can it model its effect, and is such a result likely in games between two players, or does it suppose a blunder on one side, and excellent intuition on the other? Anyway, I basically agree with you on this, Auerstaedt is small enough a battle to be worth tried with a more complex system. ... and finally on Jena > > And the battle at Jena is a kludge too: just take one > movement point off the French movement allowance and give it the Prussians. > It's just a guess, but I betcha the Prussians would now win, leading to the > completely wrongheaded conclusion that they would have won the historical > battle if they just hadn't marched so slowly. You are unfair with the system here: when units have only two ratings (combat and movement allowance), MA means a lot more than how fast units march. It includes many other effects such as morale, command, fatigue... I don't know whether it was true or not historically, but it is a good design for effect rule (ie one not like the one in Marengo). There, the effect of lower MA is that the prussians have to stay on a line, and cannot fight a slow delaying retreat. As soon as their front is broken or flanked, the French can easily surround and finish them. Francois From: John Best Subject: Re: Jena/Auerstadt (off of SPI Compendium) Francois Charton and I have been talking about the Nap@War system, and Jena-Auerstadt in particular: >John Best wrote (on the Nap@War system in general): >> >> The question is, can we "code" anything that happened on the Nap. >> battlefield onto a (hypothetical) game? And the answer is, >> theoretically, yes. But not in the NAW system. As a "grammar", the >> system is just too >> impoverished to capture very much of the reality of Nap. battle. >> > >I agree on your last point: a lot of interesting effects are abstracted, >and if you want to have a more detailed picture of the Napoleonian >battlefield, you must try more complex systems (such as NBS or La >Bataille). It will be a much richer experience than NAW, but take much >more of your time, which might mean that many questions on alternate >strategies would be left unresolved. > [snipping] >In my opinion, this is a big achievement: making something simple is >usually much harder than making it complex. I take your point about seeing the effect of different strategies--a more detailed game will just soak up so much time, that most of us just can't take the time to "run the experiment" again with a different strategy. Your point about making something simple is very interesting. We know that we could keep on reducing, and reducing, in the name of simplicity. The absurd terminal point would be let's say, in a Waterloo game, a map with three hexes, a counter for the Anglo-Allied army, one for the French and one for the Prussians. Given that even after the Prussians began to arrive Napoleon still thought he had a 60% chance of winning, we could fight the battle by just rolling a single D10 one time: 1 through 6, Nap. wins, 7-10, the Allies win. I'm sure we would agree that just about every interesting explanatory variable has been trashed in this silly example. The question is (at least for me) on a continuum of "how many interesting explanatory variables have been bleached out of the system", the Nap at Waterloo system is below my threshold of interest (too much has been bleached out). I gather you see it differently, and that's fine; there's no right answer (to *that*), because humans are different from each other. BUT.... What I just said is not the same as saying that there is no set of "right" variables or "better" variables--and that's why we need an empirical historical approach. Ok, even I've had enough on that issue. [snipping] > >... and finally on Jena >> >> And the battle at Jena is a kludge too: just take one >> movement point off the French movement allowance and give it the Prussians. >> It's just a guess, but I betcha the Prussians would now win, leading to the >> completely wrongheaded conclusion that they would have won the historical >> battle if they just hadn't marched so slowly. > >You are unfair with the system here: when units have only two ratings >(combat and movement allowance), MA means a lot more than how fast units >march. It includes many other effects such as morale, command, fatigue... >I don't know whether it was true or not historically, but it is a good >design for effect rule (ie one not like the one in Marengo). > Regarding my being unfair to the system: good point. But I still have a problem with the system. Here's the deal: We can agree that MA means more than how fast units march (in fact, MA might not even mean that at all). You list several possibilities, such as morale, command, fatigue, and I buy it. But, with all respect to you, why stop there? There were all sorts of "sub-counter" effects that could have something to do with MA, like doctrinal effects, or different procedures in each army for moving from one formation to another. If a number of different variables are smashed together into one quantification that symbolizes them, then if my original inference about marching rates being a causative variable about the Prussians' defeat is unfair, or wrong, then every other such inference would be unfair or wrong too, because I can't recover from the game play, any legitimate inference about why the Prussians lost at Jena. I think there are some interesting implications of this, and if anybody is still awake at this point, I'll lay them out. First, maybe the designer's task is to "shrink down" the number of putative causative variables into the fewest set that maintain the greatest explanatory power. So instead of keying on the number of variables as a design consideration, key on the amount of explanatory power the model has. If it requires that four numbers be put on the counters to arrive at some threshold amount of explanatory power, then, while that's too bad in some sense, in another sense, who said this hobby was supposed to be easy--especially if that means wrong? From this standpoint, the NaW system is just the same old thing--combat and movement. As far as who determines the threshold amount of explanatory power, I would put out as a first pass, that the game as a model permits an empirically good inference to be made about outcome. I have a second point that I think might be illustrated by a thought experiment, but heck, I'm just too tired to write any more now, and I think I'd actually like to go play a game, so I'm going to sign off. Thanks for thinking about it Francois, and thanks for making me think. Thanks for reading. John Best jlbest@tuscola.net