initiative

[Broadsword]

Setting up MP games with anything other than even forces will be very hard to do.......if side A has more troops than side B, many will say it's not a "fair" fight.

MP gaming is nothing like SP gaming, no where near the same, unless there is some very clever agreed structure to make unbalanced games I can see all MP games being the same size Army on both sides, if I set up a 3v3 MP game and have my side 25% more powerfull than yours, who is most likely to win and who would want to be on the weaker side - not many I suggest.

Well, I'll admit I'm probably in the minority. But I always enjoy a more exciting battle experience against a challenging opponent (even if I lose or I'm the underdog) than winning for winning's sake. Being on a numerically inferior side really shows you what a general is made of, and it forces you to be more clever. If you use the terrain to its best advantage, and embrace the Napoleonic concepts of maneuver on interior lines, and local superiority at the decisive point, you don't necessarily need superior overall numbers to win.

[Gunfreak]

It denpends on the battle,

Auerstad isn't realy a fair fight, but when you concider that almost all of davout soldier should be rated elite, while all of the prussians line or less, and the prussians had major command and control issus(don't know how to simulate that, mabye having much longer time from units to deploy)

A 2 to 1 battles ends in major victory for the 1

[Gunner24]

Being on a numerically inferior side really shows you what a general is made of, and it forces you to be more clever. If you use the terrain to its best advantage, and embrace the Napoleonic concepts of maneuver on interior lines, and local superiority at the decisive point, you don't necessarily need superior overall numbers to win.

I understand this, but what if the Army that is 25% stronger than you, does what you say above better than you ?.  What then ?.

A MP game with UNeven sides will be interesting, I agree with that, I have played many MP games with smaller forces than the other side, but not many people like this type of game, where you know you will lose before you start, if you set up a game with UNeven numbers there is no getting away from the fact that the side with less troops has less chance to win, the Commander with the most troops might be the better Commander, so making things even worse.

If people are sure they can win with smaller armies then I would be all for those people setting up MP games so that they have a smaller Army........out of 100 people how many will do this, giving the "enemy" a numicial advantage......I don't think there will be very many who will want to fight against a larger Army - only to lose. 

If it's hard to win with even forces, it has to be harder to win with less.

I still think when it comes to the host setting up a MP game, what will they do ?.....set it up so they have less troops than the other side ?......I think not.

[englishoo7]

I suppose a straight battle with one side with fewer troops would not be that interesting... But what if one side has poor quality troops and the other has more elites?... What if one side has to hang on despite the odds for reinforcements that are on the way?... Or perhaps have the victory condition for the numerically inferior side to maintain his lines of communication after 6 hours of battle or reach an objective?
We can be creative with this game I think? 

[Broadsword]

Yes, this is exactly my point. We can have excellent battles with armies of unequal strength/quality, if we simply agree beforehand on what constitutes appropriate victory conditions for each side (not just who scores the higher "body count").

[Gunner24]

Yes, this is exactly my point. We can have excellent battles with armies of unequal strength/quality, if we simply agree beforehand on what constitutes appropriate victory conditions for each side (not just who scores the higher "body count").

In that instance I agree completely, they will make very interesting battles, now the thing is to work out a way to make an UNbalanced games "fair" so that either side may win achieving the appropriate victory conditions by doing certain things, like the defender to hold for x hours or the attacker must win within x hours.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

I suppose a straight battle with one side with fewer troops would not be that interesting... But what if one side has poor quality troops and the other has more elites?

That's what CEH is for.

[CBR]

That's what CEH is for.

And CEH value is questionable IMO with:

So a Guard soldier is worth 1.3, while a simple infantryman is worth 1. In the game,
that means that if two regiments confront each other – one defending, the other on the
frontline – the latter incurs losses 30% superior to the former.

It seems its based purely on a unit's ability to produce casualties and not how much a unit can take before it is finished.

[Darsh]

The unit value is rely both on the ability to produce casualties and the loss it can take before to rout.

1.3 CEH in comparison to 1 CEH means that a guard unit is 30% superior to a normal unit.

[CBR]

Then take a look at page 9 in Book 2. Guard can take twice the losses compared to Line infantry and more than twice compared to Militia. That does not look like just 30% better, especially when you then add the higher kills the Guard unit apparently will produce.

[englishoo7]

True, it does state that a Guard unit can take more losses before it has to route and therefore dish out more casualties, but it also states what a disastrous affect a routing guard unit has on the rest of the Army! Perhaps this might negate some of their affectiveness and perhaps make "Generals" wary about when to 'comit' their most elite of units.

(Some historians have argued that the huge amount spent on the French Imperial Guard, equiping and maintaining units that often never even fought, was a waste of resources best spent elseware?? )

I wonder, would it be better to have one or even two more poor quality Corps up your sleeves than an Imperial Guard Corps you fear to use??  Food for thought.

[CBR]

That is true although I don't hope this "La Garde recule!" effect has been overblown in the game. They should be used as a reserve anyway.

The problem is that you won't have the option "to have one or even two more poor quality Corps up your sleeves than an Imperial Guard Corps you fear to use" because it will be more like having 5000 guardsmen instead of 6500 militia.

Although its limited to something like 5% max of the total points, I don't see why anyone would not want to spend all he can on the guard units. They are simply so cheap that is it not worth buying lower quality units instead.

[Gunner24]

I'm sure everyone will take their full allowamce of Guard troops but I'm also sure that the game won't be UNbalanced by that.......you have to expect that JMM has made full allowance in the game to make the Guard very good, powerfull troops, without "messing" everything up.

If you play Empire (or any of the decent mods) you will see that powerfull, high moral rated troops, can be beaten by sheer numbers......5,000 Elite v 15,000 Line and Militia will not be a walk in the park for the Guard.

[CBR]

As long as both sides can have the same percentage for Guard/Elite then yes that alone will not be unbalanced. What I am pointing out is that players basically have to spend all they can or they will be at a disadvantage. That leaves less choice than if costs were higher for the good quality units.

5,000 Elite v 15,000 Line and Militia will not be a walk in the park for the Guard.

I'm sure that is true but the 15,000 Line will cost a lot more than the 5,000 Guards.

If we use the numbers from this thread: http://www.histwar.com/forum/index.php/topic,751.0.html then 5,000 Guards cost the same as around 5,900 Line and, although I obviously don't know much about the combat system, based on the morale numbers in the manual I'd say it will be a walkover for the Guards.

And that is going to be a problem if people think any scenario is fair as long as the CEH is same for both sides.

[Gunner24]

And that is going to be a problem if people think any scenario is fair as long as the CEH is same for both sides.

Hmmm, this is getting very interesting.....I saw the English translation in the topic you refered to above but I'm for one not clear how this will work in practice.......You would think that a 500 v 500 CEH would have to give both sides a "fair" and "equal" combat ability but this Elite/Guard thing might cause some problems if one side has 5% and the other side 10% Guard - can that happen ?.

Not long to wait now, I'm sure it will be ok and we need not worry to much about the Guard over running everything else on the battlefield, I don't think that will happen, well, I hope not anyway......we don't want a repeat of ntw2 where the OG cost a lot of money but made everything else rout as soon as they got near the action.....that would spoil things.