LOP issues

[glaude1955]

Interesting topic... I hope a lot of people will comment on.

Do you have an example where an army lost his Lines of Operation?

That said, the new calculation (patch 01c)  is better than the initial one. Some units can keep the LoP because, in the new process, HW takes account of topology, so it's more difficult to take the control.

JMM

Vandamme à Külm.    But it's a Corps not an Army.

[JMM]

Vandamme à Külm.    But it's a Corps not an Army.

Right... 
Consequence   

JMM

[GrosPaul]

Interesting topic... I hope a lot of people will comment on.

Here is my point of view:
If an army is cut off from its LOP, even if the latter is not captured, the penalty should be the same.
By "cut of its LOP", I mean that a substantial force (not easy to calculate, i concede) is inserted between a LOP and its army.
In fact, always from my point of view, in this case the supply will be intercepted.
===========================================================
Voici mon point de vue :
Si une armée est coupée de sa LOP, même si celle-ci n'est pas capturée, la pénalité devrait être la même.
Par "coupée de sa LOP", je veux dire qu'une force substantielle (pas aisé à calculer, je le concède) s'insére entre une LOP et son armée.
En effet, toujours de mon point de vue, dans ce cas les approvisionnements seront interceptés.

GP.

[glaude1955]

In the case of Külm, it is necessary that the Prussian reinforcements can arrive in the back of Vandamme (what should be possible if one foresees the reinforcement to - 500m of the French map side) and that the French morale doesn't immediately fall (the entrance of the reinforcements cheek on the 2 LOP that only make one). It would be necessary to foresee a delay before the decrease of morale is efficient and permit to Vandamme to immediately react with the intact strengths thus. The delay could be of 30 minutes. 
Prussians arriving, one can think that they are not in order of battle and that they need a little times to organize themselves.

Yves

Dans le cas de Külm, il faut que les renforts prussiens puissent arriver dans le dos de Vandamme (ce qui devrait être possible si on prévoit le renfort à - 500m du bord de carte français) et que le moral français ne chute pas immédiatement (l'entrée des renforts joue sur les 2 LOP qui n'en font qu'une). Il faudrait prévoir un délai avant que la baisse de moral soit effective et permettre ainsi à Vandamme de réagir immédiatement avec des forces intactes. Le délai pourrait être de 30 minutes. 
Les Prussiens arrivant, on peut penser qu'ils ne sont pas en ordre de bataille et qu'il leur faut un peu de temps pour s'organiser.

[Gunner24]

Very interesting topic......I wonder, is the "problem" that there is only two of these points, so if you lose one you are in VERY serious trouble, lose them both and it is of course all over.......if there were say 4 of them, losing one would have an impact, but not so bad.

In the end, if the LOPs are correctly protected, they should not be lost, but it does look very strange to me with one or two units in the rear guarding them.  I look forward to the new system and how that works.

NBC use the VPs for locations to "add" something to the battlefield, if one side digs in over in there deployment zone the other side can take the VPs in the map centre without cost.

[AJ]

I am leaning toward a system where the Army still loses moral but the time factor is extended. What I mean to say is that the troops in the immediate area would lose moral almost instantly but the troops farther away on the front line would lose it after a longer period of time.  This would then have taken into account the longer time for the news to reach them. However this may be difficult to program, I don't know.

When all is said and done, an Army losing it's lines of communication should have a devasting effect because as the research I posted earlier illustrates, that Army has only two choices, "Flee or turn and fight at a disadvantage"

[Marquês de Alorna]

Maybe (MAYBE!!!) the effect on morale should:

1) Not be immediate, but should increase as time passes during which the enemy force has control over the LOP. Regaining the LOP should reverse the process.

2) Depend on the CEH ratio between the force that looses the LOP and the enemy forces that are blocking it.

Regards,
António

[AJ]

1) Not be immediate, but should increase as time passes during which the enemy force has control over the LOP. Regaining the LOP should reverse the process.

Agreed, and as time passes, spread out incrementaly over the army, Regaining your LOP does however reverse the process already.

2) Depend on the CEH ratio between the force that looses the LOP and the enemy forces that are blocking it.

Agreed

[Marquês de Alorna]

And maybe the effect should only be taken into account when all LOP avenues are closed.

António

[AJ]

And maybe the effect should only be taken into account when all LOP avenues are closed.

JMM has already made the effect different for losing one LOP as opposed to two, and I feel that is correct.  There should definately be an effect from losing just one LOP.

[Marquês de Alorna]

JMM has already made the effect different for losing one LOP as opposed to two, and I feel that is correct.  There should definately be an effect from losing just one LOP.

Ok, agreed.

[anvil]

This is an interesting topic,,and very deep.

In my opinion, in many games, not necessarily sims, one uses victory points, or like here LOP, to help determine winners and losers.  However, in reality, the threatening of, or breaking of LOP by maneuver was done to bring an enemy to battle in order to defeat it and bring an end to the war.  lol,, prolly too simply put.

To threaten a flank in a strategic campaign vs in a tactical\grand tactical battle are a bit different,, but perhaps have the same ending.  In the first, the purpose is to maneuver an enemy into a position of our choice, or force the enemy to combat.  In a strategic game, its purpose is to defeat in detail, by maneuver, ones enemy in combat. 

To use LOP and victory points tends to create artificial situations, and is a real problem especially in solo games,,

The Count's example shows this when a single unit or so, can cause so much problems for an whole army... This, I think is what needs be dealt with.. and if a larger force has managed to maneuver to the rear and sit upon ones lines of supply, theoretically, either he has left darned few troops in the line of battle, or the battle has already been decided and its only a matter of finishing the game.  If it becomes a viable tactic to weaken ones main battle line in order to maneuver a large force onto supply lines without combat, then this becomes a nice way for one to perhaps abuse the purpose of a game.  If the AI does this,, it is even worse. 

In a good game, this should only happen against an inexperienced player, who does not know how to use his cav for scouting etc. 

In my mind, this tactic would be good,but risky, if the end results were to truly bring this force into action against the enemy on either his flank or rear,,, not sit on the LOC\LOP and force a morale decision... especially with a truly small force as the Count described.

I recognize that some mechanism must be used to create winners and losers,,especially in solo mode. I imagine JMM has already included many factors in this decision such as troop loses,unit and army morale.  This is an attempt to include army position in this decision, I would guess.  So,,, balance is the key,,and am looking forward to how he deals with this in the next patch.

anvil

 

[Hook]

There is only one rule:  Always guard your LOP.  Even if it's just a single cavalry unit, and even in a solo game, where *currently* the AI orders don't cause the enemy to advance that far, because sometimes you'll get one or more enemy units pursuing one of your units to the rear, and you can end up losing control of your LOPs.

I got caught by this one recently in tutorial 3.  You don't expect the enemy to advance, but this time he did.  Turns out it was a diversionary attack which I saw in the replay.  He actually got a unit past my line of troops, and since the enemy in tutorial 3 never attacks, I didn't have someone guarding my LOP.  It was a mad scramble trying to catch and destroy him, even though it was an infantry unit.

You've been warned.

Hook

[AJ]

I learned this rule the hard way. Not only do I keep a reserve at my LOP, most of our nbc battles have 2 LOP's and it's common over there to see some detached cavalry units between the 2 LOP's