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edit: Switching to Entente, since nobody seems to want to play as them. Applying for the position of the supreme commander.
my dad fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Feb 8, 2017 |
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Feb 8, 2017 15:01
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steinrokkan posted:All I remember about this game from a PDF of the manual that circulated behind the scenes is a bunch of nebulous rules interpreted seemingly at random, so this should be fun. And in the spirit of the Great War! As it should be!
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Feb 8, 2017 15:48
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When will you be answering the rules questions in the faction thread(s)?
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Feb 9, 2017 21:13
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Green Intern posted:So if Mon Pere is dead, is My Dad the player disqualified from giving orders? Yes. Hi guys. Feel free to ask any questions.
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Mar 4, 2017 02:41
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Lazyfire posted:Was it worth personally entering the fray? In the gameplay sense? Of course not. It was a straight up malus to our team without a single benefit as result of it. But I hope it provided some entertainment for everyone. After all, I was both a player and a public performer.  Besides, I never liked how most of the lovely generals who sent entire towns to die in the meatgrinder never faced danger themselves, and I figured at least one should put the money where the mouth is and take an actual, almost certainly lethal risk. If you're asking about the final charge, I had a dim hope that the enemy was doing some pointless busywork reorganizing themselves in the middle of the night, and that it might give me a chance to do something other than just being vaporized by concentrated firepower. Notahippie posted:Welcome to the first of many French officers that the legend of Xthetenth is going to get killed. I actually drew the orders before xthetenth's charge, although I didn't post them in the thread until they became relevant. You could have seen Trin's cryptic comment in roll20 about someone's thunder being stolen before the turn result was posted. This is what it was about. e: Well, minor correction. I planned the orders. I expected the deployment to be near la Crepe, and had to make adjustments when Trin posted the deployment zone on roll20. my dad fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Mar 4, 2017 |
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Mar 4, 2017 03:06
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Terrifying Effigies posted:Since death has freed you from the confines of time and space, what do you think was your biggest missed opportunity in the battle? None, really, considering the fog of war and the uncertainties of the scenario. Not counting the initial brigadier lazyness in setting up basic alternative orders in case things don't go as planned, there's a lot of things we could have done better in small ways, but nothing that stand out too much. Had we known everything you guys did? Of course. There's probably a perfect set of orders that wins us the game within the first 12 turns or so via casualties, or just having the cavalry swing around to our main objective while the rest of the army digs in in just the right places. Still, looking at the full scenario, it was a German game to lose rather than a French game to win, and unfortunately for us, the German team only shot themselves in the foot, followed by shooting themselves in the dick, rather than straight up comitting suicide. I'm absolutely proud of my team for what they did and how they worked together, and would feel confident in any team position if it involved working with them again. (late edit: Well, on account that they'd all actually follow orders this time, instead of the commander needing to explain later that yes, this order you disobeyed was important, and no, you can't go back and change it, that ship has sailed) I feel a bit lovely for loving them up with my insane personal charge, but again, looks like it didn't really change anything. Flanking the Germans right now is a pipe dream if you aren't reading the German thread and don't have a way of knowing what they intend to do with their brigades. I'm glancing over the German thread, and I have to give my props to Hey Gail for the general sense of chivalry. Would gladly get killed by your pixelmans again in another game. As an aside, I'm sort of weirded out by all you guys saying that we weren't aware of the German team taking Quatreprouts. We figured what was about to happen when the Germans attacked the hill. We just didn't worry about it too much, because what exactly could we do to stop it? It's not like DOOOM AND GLOOOM would have helped us. We instead planned to retake it, and did so successfully. Sucks that we didn't fully understand the nature of the objectives, but c'est la guerre. e: Made an edit, put it at the wrong place, lmao, fixed that my dad fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Mar 4, 2017 |
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Mar 4, 2017 03:43
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Lazyfire posted:Well, you got to have fun with it. I don't really think you were going to be able to change the nature of the game no matter what by the time you got into the fray, but the Charge of the Light Brigade re-enactment was still probably not what you had anticipated here. No, it was obviously one of the possible outcomes. Even if I had failed to take it into account myself, I had Bacarruda repeatedly telling the likeliest result of charging St. Croissant head on, namely a bunch of dead cavalry. I gambled, and I lost. As simple as that. I just made sure that there's something to make the failure worth it, even if it's outside the game. Much of the decisionmaking process wasn't about certainties, it was about weighing the odds and the risks, making a plan, and hoping for the best. I chewed out my Chief of Staff for constantly assuming that the German team can somehow simultaneously perform several contradictory worst case scenarious for us without making any mistakes in the process. No. You need to leave room in your plans for enemy fuckups and a way for you to try to exploit them. For example, the German team may be able to exploit one of our team's mistakes if they send someone the long way to Quatreprouts, even though the rational thing for us to do is to garrison it. Whether they do so or not is up to them. There seems to be a massive misunderstanding about the nature of our plans here. I understand why this thread makes it, since most of that discussion was on roll20, but it's weird that Trin seems to have missed it completely, considering he was reading it as it was discussed. We had a completely different interpretation of the mission objectives than what they actually were. As given, the scenario is about the massive armies of Germany and France clashing... somewhere, for something. We were sent to seize a critical objective in an important part of the front, as a part of this larger battle. So, on the map, we're told to take and hold Saint Croissant and Faibleimpot, with the information that seizing Faibleimpot will send a messenger who will start a countdown until the main force of the French Army arrives and the battle ends, with the note that the army will be pissed off if we don't actually hold the objective. Putting the above together, our assumption was that taking the objective, getting the runner through and notifying command, and then failing to hold it, was actually worse than never getting to it in the first place. We've told our army to commit a huge force to a place that isn't properly prepared to support their advance, and have hosed up the whole army's effort to win the greater fight. If you want proof, consider Operation Guillotione. Instead of sneaking in a cavalry unit to our main objective as fast as possible, we were setting up an artillery line capable of holding off a desperate final attack by the entire German force. We were going to have the reinforcements set up a killzone, and then take the place with the BEF to ensure that there's almost no chance for Faibleimpot to be taken back by the enemy. When we figured out that the enemy objective was Quatreprouts, we were actually glad that they're making a desperate push for it. Knowing that we had incoming reinforcements, we knew that we'll have enough of a force to recapture it relatively quickly, and that the enemy corps was semi-paralyzed by our forces on Clemenceau. So we'd kick them out, and then send someone to take Faibleimpot since the enemy just wasted most of their force on this attack and voila! The Germans army commits to a place where they not only fail to control the main objective, we're in control of our main objective, and the French army is coming to kick them in the nuts hard. In short, we weren't even playing the same game as the German team. my dad fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Mar 4, 2017 |
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Mar 4, 2017 05:22
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ViggyNash posted:So now that you have access to the German thread and Observer thread discussions, what is your impression of the forever ignored CrazyCryoDude? A lot of us here seem baffled that despite being correct over and over again, the rest of his team never listen to him. I haven't really read the German thread beyond a casual glance. If you're asking me if I think he's cheating, no, I'm assuming that everyone is playing fair, since cheating in a game like this is a ridiculously petty, and ultimately meaningless thing to do, and from what I've seen of him elsewhere, he doesn't seem like that kind of person. I'd like to congratulate on for being so good at guessing our plans that well. If you're asking me what I think about the clusterfuck... Hm... CCD's failure is that of communication. He needs to learn how to present his views without pissing people off too much, it's a rather important skill for working in teams. As for his team, some goddamn growing up is in order for some of them, holy loving poo poo. For a counterpart on our side, I disagreed with some of Loel's ideas, but his assumptions were pretty much constantly on the money, and we learned to pay close attention to them. Jesus Christ, acknowledging that someone on your team is on to something is not supposed to be that hard of an achievement.
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Mar 4, 2017 06:20
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Flesnolk posted:Will you be returning in round 2? Would you be allowed to? That's up to Trin, although I'd certainly love to. Even with some of the difficulties we had, I really like my team, and would enjoy tackling another challenge with them, as a leader or a subordinate, doesn't matter.Although before that, there's some anvils that I need to drop on Trin's foot with regards to this scenario, and his opinion may change after that. I'll wait for him to show up here before doing that, though.
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Mar 4, 2017 07:39
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Alright, Trin, before I start, I just want to make it clear that I greatly enjoyed this game, and would like to play another round. Thank you for running it and for taking your time to come up with these scenarios and do the hours of work needed for it all to go on. If I was being salty, I would have dispensed a few platitudes and bowed out with dignity instead of spending hours writing up this analysis of the scenario. That all having been said, What the bloody, bloody, bloody hell were you smoking when you thought that this scenario was balanced or fair in any way, shape, or form? I am going to have to write A LOT of words about this whole thing. So, let's go from the very start. Here's the map, just to make reference easier.  First of all, something that isn't unfair on its own, but needs to be taken into account for later. The enemy team starts with more artillery. Furthermore, they start with a lot more of heavy artillery which can actually hit targets inside towns. In addition, they start with 3 times the number of machine guns we have. In return, we get 2 extra green infantry brigades, a mounted brigadier chit instead of a regular one for our mini-brigade, and field artillery that can be manhandled. OK, this is an assymetrical starting situation which may or may not be balanced depending on the scenario it is being used in. I can see situations in which it works out better for either side. So, let's take a gander at the scenario, shall we? Ooooooh, boy, the scenario. There's a bunch of things that are wrong with it. Let's take them slowly, one by one. First of all, you permanently handed St. Croissant to the German team. Let's start from the French perspective. Remember my initial plan, rushing the cavalry into Saint Croissant as quickly as possible, not matter what's standing in the way? It was the fastest possible option for us to establish a presence there before the Germans arrive. I imagine this is the initial cavalry charge Trin was hoping for. However, my team, rightly, pointed out that, of all the starting scenarios we could possibly consider, only the one with the German team starting in the NW ends with them being able to arrive to St Croissant at the same time as we do. All the others not only let them beat us to it, they let them get infantry in there in time to overrun any cavalry presence we establish before we can provide any support to them. We also have a very mobile brigadier, and no way of knowing that the enemy doesn't have one. Our cavalry is contained in a single brigade, and if they fail a morale check, we lose them all, including our best source of mobile artillery. Now let's start from the German perspective. Due to how the map is laid out, the only way for us to beat them to St Croissant is for us to start from center South, and even that depends on the initiative roll. They don't know about our mobile brigadier, and their cavalry assets are attached to other brigades, so they can count on them fighting to the last man and the last horse without morale problems. Bonus points for not having to worry about losing artillery in the fight. So, they have no real reason to be overly cautious with the specific part of the force tasked with occupying St. Croissant. Now let's lift the fog of war. Consider the mobile assets the German team has, then consider the mobile assets the French team has. The German team can concentrate a potent cavalry force that can fight for longer due to a lack of morale issues, has more mobile machine guns,, and sending them there isn't a risk but a reasonable precaution measure. In addition, it doesn't tie up their mini brigade from heading for the main objective. The French team has to explicitly make a choice to send their most mobile brigade into extreme danger, with little guarantee that it'll succeed, and no real way to capitalize on this. Not only does the scenario incentivize a German capture of St. Croissant and early deter a French attempt to do the same, the only way for the French to seize it in the opening moments is for A) The German team to make gargantuan cockup and fail to send anyone to Croissant and B) predict that the enemy is going to make that specific cockup. #1 for "All the German team needs to do is not gently caress up completely and they'll be in an advantageous position". We'll be seeing this one a lot. Now, think of a way for the French team to take Saint Croissant. With your new rules for orders, it's not impossible, it requires a couple of hours or setting up, some surrounding, good heavy artillery placement, and a simultaneous attack from several brigades, but not impossible by any means. Except, oh, look, there's a couple of problems with this. First off all, we had to make our plan to take St. Croissant with the assumption that making coordinated plans outside of the initial planning phase in nigh-impossible, due to how the rules for runners carrying orders worked. Also, you just randomly took away all our heavy artillery in the most decisive moments of the battle. Third, even if we were to take St. Croissant, there was no chance in hell we were to be able to hold it. The enemy had a metric fucton of artillery capable of shooting into the town, and we lacked the amount of machine guns needed to break infantry charges. All our artillerymen would have been able to do in such a situation is to wank off into the tubes while listening to the screams, because between the terrain and the game mechanics, there's nothing they'd be able to do to help. #2 for "All the German team needs to do is not gently caress up completely and they'll be in an advantageous position". Notice the "completely". We had barbed wires up before the German team did, for gently caress's sake. They have no excuse for not placing one in front of Saint Croissant as soon as their engineers got there, making any French ideas about taking Croissant a pipe dream. Second, the deployment zones favored the German team. Now, considering the decisive disaster of the disciplined Deutsch, this claim may seem like complete bollocks. However, it's just an extension of the "All the German team needs to do is not gently caress up completely and they'll be in an advantageous position" situation. Look at the map. They have a perfect place to set up a flank guard near La Cote. They can have 3 machine guns that can hit anyone who tries to cross the hill, the hill itself protects them from French artillery coming from that direction, and they have a precious free turn to set up their artillery before anything French can show up from the South. Had they done that, if would have be game, set, and match for the German team from the get go. I jokingly told Bacarruda that I suspect the optimal strategy for the map might just be forming up a big blue napoleonic blob and marching in battle formation diagonally across the map, flanks be damned, map features be damned, and hoping to just grind down anything encountered under the sheer number of your chits, and never issuing an order for the entire duration of the game. I am sad that the joke in question may have been correct, since it's literally the only counterplay to this which I can think of being actually played by someone without observer vision. Obviously, the decisive disaster of the disciplined Deutsch did happen, and was such a spectacular fuckup that I was tempted to send Tevery Best a message calling him Bochecar Poletyorek. We wiped out an entire German division in the opening hours of the battle. All that was required for this massive blow to be avoided is for the senior German commanders to not be complete idiots. #3 for "All the German team needs to do is not gently caress up completely and they'll be in an advantageous position" Look at the road network of the roads in the West of the map and the two hills there. Considering that the German team is pretty much guaranteeed control of St. Croissant, and the French guaranteed a position on the Southern hill (Clemenceau), look at how accessible the NW hill (La Sanglant Femme) is for both sides. Now look at the SW hill (Dejeneur) and how accessible it is for both sides. The NW is pretty much a gimme for the German team, and allows for an easy setup to deter any attack that way, and not very useful for the French to hold, while Dejeneur itself can be contested by both sides, with roughly even odds of taking it, and gives the German team a commanding position should they take it, and it's impossible for the French to really bypass it. However, the forest means it's actually really bloody easy for the German team to bypass it if they want to go to Quatreprouts. In addition, notice that the distance between Clemenceau and Dejeneur is greater than the distance between Dejeneur and Croissant. Holding both Croissant and Dejeneur means that the German team effectively locks down the entire West of the map off from the French, in a way that the French simply can't copy in any way on any segment of the map. Sure, our courageous cuirassiers crushed cowardly Kraut cannon crews, but just consider the sheer scale of the German fuckup required for this to happen in the first place. Like, holy loving poo poo, with the most basic of commons sense conditional orders by the German commander, there would have been no way whatsoever for our team to beat back that artillery cluster. 3 cavalry chits routing a brigade was a fluke. Sure, I'm glad I noticed the opportunity to do it, and I'm proud of my team for doing the job right, but let's not kid ourselves, it was absolutely not a likely course of events. #4 for "All the German team needs to do is not gently caress up completely and they'll be in an advantageous position" Third, the reinforcements favored the German team Before I start writing this part, just let me make it clear, that yes, I understand that I called for our reinforcements relatively late. I made a faulty assumption about how long we'll need to be given access to reinforcements. Grumbling done? Good. They got two veteran brigades of choice to deploy in the time we were allowed to get a single green one. 1 German reinforcement and 2 Entente reinforcements arrived too late to have an effect on the outcome of the game. By far the biggest Boche blunder, bigger than even the brutal Baguende-Baguette Boche brigade bash, was deploying their reserves in the East. If they deployed 2 veteran cavalry brigades in the far West, and used them to get to Quatreprouts and then to escort the runner back to St. Croissant, there would have been no way whatsoever for us to counter this. What, deploy a green infantry brigade in Quatreprouts to hold them off with wet farts if we somehow saw them coming? They literally threw an easy win out of the window because of panic. Ultimately, you can argue that I made a similar mistake with the artillery reserve. True, but I've already told you the issues with our perception of the objectives. Not to mention what would have happened to them in presence of two veteran cavalry brigades. #5 for "All the German team needs to do is not gently caress up completely and they'll be in an advantageous position" **Break** OK, I'll change the topic for a moment with a seemingly unrelated anecdote that may explain why I'm listing all these separate issues. I used to play World of Warships. It's a naval warfare game with 2 teams of ~10 players each (if I remember right), each controlling a ship. You'd have two ways to win - achieve the objective, like holding a particular area of the map, or sink a sufficient portion of the enemy fleet. I liked using the lowest tier US carrier. It was an incredibly slow ship, and really drat vulnerable to just about anything. But it could carry a large amount of bombers. The traditional way to play a carrier is to stay far away and let your team screen you, while you plot the best trajectories for your aircraft to do their mission while taking minimal AA fire. As a result, even carriers on the losing side would have good chances to survive until the end of the battle, having done a relatively large amount of damage to the enemy team over the duration of the whole game, unless a destroyer managed to sneak past and torpedo them to death, or the enemy carrier managed to find them and alpha strike them. I had a very different playstyle. I'd get as close as possible to the enemy without being shot at, and rapid cycle my bombers at the nearest enemy as fast possible, until all my aircraft get shot down, and then kamikaze in and draw fire from enemies who see a carrier and think "priority target" without considering why I'm willingly being that suicidal. I had fairly low total damage statistics for a carrier player. My survival rate was <20% compared to the 50% rate those carriers usually had. My team win rate? 75%. In a game of 20 players, I alone was turning defeat into victory half the time. This isn't said to brag, because lol, but to point your attention at an important fact. Having good enough firepower now, beats having perfect firepower later. For every enemy removed, you don't just damage their force, you protect yourself from the damage inflicted to you by that enemy for the duration of the battle. Now compare this to being hammered by so many different circumstances that favored the German team from the get go. /Break Final word: My team utterly outplayed the German team. They made ridiculously stupid blunders on a map that favored them heavily, while my team made the best of what they had, and even got a close shot at winning this. So, to the rest of the French Team: You guys absolutely rock. We had our issues, and mistakes, but I'm glad I was able to play this game with you. To the German team: You had individual players who were way better than what your higher ranking generals deserved, considering their blunders. That having been said, congratulations on your win. Ready for round 2? To Trin: With the same people on the opposite teams, this battle would have ended with a crushing German victory. Please consider balancing your future scenarios better. I don't mind being the underdog (in fact, I like the challenge), but I fear the possibility of ending up on the overly favored team, and then feeling like poo poo when I see what really ended up causing the victory.
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Mar 4, 2017 23:48
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steinrokkan posted:Just for the record, I was being direct about the size of the blunders, not literally calling you guys idiots. 
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Mar 5, 2017 00:50
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In honor of a certain person, you know who you are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edflm7Hh3hs&t=346s
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Mar 5, 2017 03:27
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In honor of another certain person, you know who you are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afhMMcAHlKw
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Mar 5, 2017 03:29
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lenoon posted:Good game all. Not sure it's all that necessary to have perfectly balanced maps or victory conditions, especially if we are aware that's the case. All the objectives were West. Leaving the entire West of the map to the Germans would have lost us the game ridiculously hard.
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Mar 5, 2017 13:22
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steinrokkan posted:Can't hear you over the sound of losing 4/4 brigades before breakfast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGv1VKAybcI
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Mar 5, 2017 14:03
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Random question: How good would this ruleset be (with minor modifications) for a game set in the USA Civil War?
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Mar 6, 2017 07:00
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xthetenth posted:Hey Frenchies, are we keeping the gang together? I'm absolutely for, regardless of the position I get.
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Mar 6, 2017 15:26
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aphid_licker posted:That little hamlet to the northwest of La Dand is clearly Cinqueprouts No, that one is clearly called Courses Coloniales, and the other is Les Guignols.
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Mar 6, 2017 15:32
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JcDent posted:I still don'tw get the rules and I don't want to gently caress up like I did in Grey's game, so, ugh, you can take the glory, guys. Join us as a staff officer, then. It's fun having more people in the roll20 chat, and really, the gently caress ups are part of the fun.
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Mar 6, 2017 16:29
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JcDent posted:Fine, joining the French staff! Is the roll20 link in the entente thread? Here's the link, for your benefit and that of the observers: https://app.roll20.net/join/2004056/9ONgKg Just post your roll20 username in the Entente thread so that I can GM you.
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Mar 6, 2017 16:34
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grassy gnoll posted:Hello, I saw Trin's recruitment post over in Trad Games and would like to expose myself to the horrors of Welcome aboard. Post in the Entente thread to confirm, and make a roll20 account if you don't have one and post the username in the thread while you're at it.
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Mar 6, 2017 18:20
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spectralent posted:Shucks, if you can join in without having to learn the ruleset first I might as well give it a pop. Is either side short? We can always use more people. Consider this an invite to join the Entente.
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Mar 6, 2017 18:48
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LLSix posted:This was a ton of fun when GH ran it, looking forward to seeing how it plays with Trin at the helm. Are there sign up sheets or anything so I can tell which side needs more commanders and join them? 
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Mar 6, 2017 19:59
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spectralent posted:If this is still open I'd be honoured. Absolutely. Welcome aboard. Post in the thread, make a roll20 account, and then post the username in the thread to get GMd.
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Mar 7, 2017 00:42
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poo poo, did someone tell them about the orbital laser?
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Mar 7, 2017 00:44
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Here's a PM I sent to Loel as I relinquished command to him (and for the sake of transparency, I also sent a copy to Trin), I figure it might help clarify a part of how and why things happened the way they did:quote:Congats on winning the vote!
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Jul 21, 2017 12:47
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 08:23 |
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From what I've read in this thread, I have to agree with Splode's criticism, I was stepping on Loel's toes a bit too much. That having been said, I do believe my general approach on the subject of "FOR gently caress'S SAKE, STOP HALF-ASSING THINGS" was a good one. I'd love if Loel and his counterpart(s) on the other side could talk about their reasoning and actions a bit.
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Jul 21, 2017 16:08
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