Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

Yes, another of my rather chaotic musings, so feel free to ignore me.


Reading over the discussion over the VC in some of the F&I scenarios, has gotten me thinking a bit.

Is there a better model for victory conditions than we have now? The way they are now, one of the big holes is that they don't take proper account into relative casualities. To wit:

Imagine a battle with about 2500 men per side.

Imagine 2 people play it through, and in one game, the final results are Colonial losses of 450, and English losses of about 150. That would be considred a rather striking victory for the English player, even if the level of overall losses is rather low.

Now, on the other hand, 2 other people play, and it ends up that the Colonial Player lost about 1550, and the British player lost 1250. The same "margin" of victory, but you can argue that it is a much less notable victory than the first.

This has actually been a running problem in the Jutland/Tsu games, as there are battles where the running joke has been that the winner was the US Navy as both the RN and KM are gone, but one side or the other gets a "technical" major. However, it's really not limited to Jut/Tsu, but to all of the series, and really to most other series.

I mean really, ideally, there should be at least 2 other factors considered besides the 2 that are currently used (absolute losses, and victory hexes). First, is a modifier based on the loss RATIO, and second is a negative modifier based on your losses compared to your base force.

I realize this is all just a pipe dream, so not worth paying attention too, but I thought I'd throw it out.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled sinus headache... no more turns out of me tonight [V]

Gary,

That is why I have tried to set Victory Levels at points where one side really does have to get the stuffing knocked out of them to suffer a major defeat. This is in stand alone battles.

In campaigns it is very possible to have forces suffer only minor losses yet dramatically lose a campaign.

You are right it is a murky area.

Of course, another part of this is that basing victory or defeat on losses tends to excerbate the problem of ahistorical play. The fastest way to rack up losses is mass ZOC's.

I suppose some form of "army morale" system would be useful, though again, we are looking at a whole new kettle of fish (trout I think).

Gary - I did a very thorough study of this for creating scenarios in the Napoleonic series. I came up with a method that I thought was rather historical. Let me know if you want to read the material. It goes into values of men, locations etc.

What would be nice and has been talked about for years would be to have different troop morale types be worth differing amounts of points. Thus for the British to lose his Lights in a game of 1812 would be more detrimental to his cause than to lose some Indians.

Here is another oddity - I played a game of 1812: scenario was one of the fort situations. The British were attacking the fort (I think it was Fort Erie but am not sure - Marco Riveldt and I just played it) from two sides. I merely marched all of my men, less some cannon and a few units to delay the British Left, over to beat up the British Right, lost the fort but held on for a Draw. So to sum that one up, the British gained the fort but at too high of a cost I would gather. The Americans fell back to some other location (like starving in the woods) after losing a few cannons and part of a brigade of men. In the end I thought that the loss of the fort should have cost the Americans more but again I played Fort Detroit, gave up the fort and pounded British units (beat up on the Indians this time) and won that fight. Very interesting but in most of the fort games you can win by picking a British force to beat up. And often the Americans have the interior lines and can pick and choose who they attack.

Lundy's Lane is a bit different in that regard. For some reason the largest VP location is not the fort but a hex on the British side of the board. Taking and holding that hex is very hard to do. In my game with Ernie he retook the fort and won the game. He also held the 200 point objective. I guess that location is where the British pies were being held! Ok - just funning but I think that Lundy's could be fixed in that regard. The fort doesnt have to be the focal point but on the other hand the 200 point VP objective is too much of a draw in the game. The Americans really have no equivalent VP location where their reinforcements arrive - which by the way is easily guarded by the British player I would think and could be interdicted for some time thus delaying the reinforcements from retaking the bridge if the British so desired. An early attack by the Americans can lead to utter destruction.