Wars in America: A 'how-to' AAR

he is indeed very trusting ...

March_April 1759: the calm period

This is one of the years when I was a bit lucky with the length of winter (this unfortunately evens out over the game). More broadly I think a longer winter favours whichever side is on the defensive and hinders the one looking to attack. In effect it takes 2 months to move regular troops across the gap between the English and French positions around Lake Champlain, and as long as there is ice on the St Laurence no invasion can take place - and even from Louisbourg its about 40 days sail to Quebec (it was for me in reverse).

So since I am your host for the next couple of weeks, I fear you will no longer gain any insights into the mechanics and so on. All I can really do is to report what I was trying to do.

The other change is that from now on, the war becomes, perhaps, more serious, it is mostly about clashes between the main armies than the sequence of raids and skirmishes so far. It plays a bit like a quieter front from RoP.

Anyway, here's a good time to reveal something:



Yep those were the Cherokees who so ineptly fought for Narwhal over the last 3 years ... ah ah ... they were French agents all along. Now of course, this puts the south back in play, as I still have some other scattered forces down there. Problem is all the easy targets are ... ahem ... already burnt down but lets see.



reinforcements arrive for both sides. Again given the difficulty of crossing the gap and the need to avoid winter attrition ... buying supply wagons is vital and we both do an awful lot of it (not least after the lost sieges I'm now fully aware how vital they are to sustaining a siege)



I started the year without too much of a strategy, well in the sense that Narwhal now makes the pace. I decided to group my armies into 3 forces. The ones at Quebec (essentially defensive ... the shield of New Canada), with Montcalm at Mont Royal (the sword .. etc), designed to actively contest any English overland incursion - I now need to fight but I'm still going to try to fight on my terms.

And a weaker force around Ontario. I'm gathering a bit of a mixed force together to either contest a small landing, see if I can repeat 1758's antics south of the lake (I doubt it - I'm weaker and the English are stronger), or make up a decent garrison in case of a larger force arriving.

I've also kept some couriers and Indians back as I want to limit Narwhal's spying, but some are also sent out to spy for me.

Stuyvesant said:

My, the southern shore of Lake Ontario is a veritable bonfire! Villages everywhere aflame! Does that patch of scorched earth hinder Narwhal, or is his line of advance further to the east, along Lake Champlain?

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its no better around Champlain. As I understand the only in-game effect is to reduce the amount of supply that a region generates, so it means he is more in need of bringing in supply wagons - but then he has little choice but to do that in any case. I also believe that by now he has 2 generals with a trait that reduces the supply need by 25% - these prove to be a major problem for me as it extends his operational reach considerably and allows him to hang around longer (stealing my food and doing things in my towns)

ANO1453 said:

I see you sent Indians through the snow up there, aren't they affected?

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They are but no where near as badly as a regulars. One of my many mistakes in 55-56 was being too cautious with the Indians and Couriers in the snow - they are quite able to cross snow to reach shelter with no harm (so just ensure they end the turn in a province with some sort of building - even an Indian village will do) and can usually last 1 turn out in the cold with no real ill effects. So in that case I can happily move them from their villages to where I need them even though winter hasn't lifted yet.

May 1759 - moving to contact

Well this was an active turn, in the sense that a lot happened that set things up for the action in June-July.

First Narwhal recruits more 'fake' Indians



This can only be bad news for the Canadian kitten population



And I finally do in the West Indies what I should have done in 1758 - stop using that fleet for pointless raids on merchant ships and pick up the last of my mobile regular battalions and the supply wagon - back to Savannah-Charleston and I'll move those Cherokees down to join them. My hope is that Narwhal has taken both the fleet and his army away.

Over on Lake Eire, something nasty approaches Detroit



well my basic plan is not to be there when they arrive, that battalion in particular will be very useful around Lake Ontario.



At Quebec, an Indian scouting force is hanging around. I'll chase them off with my Indians but my guess is this is a prelude to an invasion.



Which has started on Ontario - with an assault on Fontenac. I'm going to set up a trap - the garrison will fight there way out (thus no danger of surrender), I'll halt those regular bns to the east and set up a courier/indian ambush to the west. Commit my bateaux to contest the lake (I really should have done more of this earlier too).

And gamble on stripping Mont Royal. I'll leave a large enough garrison and Montcalm with the bulk will march to Fontenac and hopefully catch that English corps with nowhere to go ... . My other plan was to send him to Quebec to wait in ambush there but I was less sure of being able to block naval escape.

This is effectively the chance I've been manouvering for over the last campaign season - if it works Narwhal's offensive will be weakened but not fatally. I need to catch one of his 2 main columns to do that. But it will help and will allow (hopefully) a renewal of my activities on the south side of the Lake too.

ANO1453 said:

One advantage you have always seem to have along the game was mobility, but which you didn't use as much as you could.

You know how the game ends already, no?

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yes thats fair comment - I'm now more mobile merely as I'm operating on home turf with supplies to be had in a number of places, but earlier on I was much more mobile - my problem at that stage was I found it really hard to read the map and as a result it was very hard to work out what to do with that flexibility

Yes, we played to the very last stage, so the game is over. It remained engaging right up to the last 2 turns as I was still in with a (outside) chance of taking out one of Narhwal's columns and that would have probably handed the advantage back to me.

morningSIDEr said:

Narwhal's moves are very menacing in this last update but I certainly like your plan to deal with his forces. If you can spring your trap it should cause considerable damage. Anyway with Narwhal having left a teaser about the high bodycount of 1759, these promise to be some exciting turns! Oh and best of luck with your coming exams Narwhal.

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Its the first year with a sustained set of clashes between, by WiA standards, large armies and unusually it ends in my favour, but not decisively ... which is a problem.

Stuyvesant said:

Not too bad. It's clear that Narwhal has the initiative in this round, but your efforts to trap his invasion force look promising. I hope your trap works out.

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well stage 1 (ie lose the fort) did perfectly ...

June 1759 - first clashes

So, June 1759 sees things moving to a head, Narwhal ups the pressure at Frontenac and Mont Royal but no activity at Quebec yet.



This is neither here nor there, except that its clear Narwhal has something in the old fort Niagara with a high 'detect' value. So my Indians off to do a bit of scouting get caught and destroyed.



Well 2 can play that game, my Indians arrive at Quebec so I find and drive off that annoying group that has been scouting. No sign of anything more threatening yet.



Ok, stage 1 of the trap - the corps to the east did a very weak probe attack, triggered the garrison to break out (remember this time I used the sortie order properly) and I left the empty fort to Narwhal (too big to burn and I didn't want to in any case).

Now looking at this with hindsight, I wonder if I could have done a more committed attack I might have won - probably not due to the artillery & the number of regulars but it would have in turn allowed me to use Montcalm elsewhere. The advantage of it playing out this way was I had very limited losses - which is good as I want to reduce the imbalance in numbers if I can.



over in Detroit, ... well it'll fall, I can't defend it, so not really that interested.



and here's the wider position around Ontario. As you can see there is a large force moving up to Mont Royal and the smaller English force at Frontenac. My gamble is I can really damage the Frontenac force and still hold Mont Royal.



Here's the garrison. The top force is the one that took a lot of winter attrition. It needs to rest, ideally somewhere else but that'll have to do for now. The lower force is mostly fixed in place and fairly strong.

I sent 1 supply wagon after Montcalm (not with as that would have slowed him down), with hindsight, as we'll see, I should have sent 2.



& I order up some more guns. Another bit of hindsight, I didn't really need/use them. I lost no major city to assault, so I should have concentrated on more supply.

Stuyvesant said:

Hm, the British are definitely on your turf now. I'm sure that gives you some advantages (better supply situation, primarily), but the Redcoats are altogether too close for comfort to, what is that, Montreal?

Well, this is supposed to be a good year for you, so I'll try to shelf the pessimism and watch things unfold.

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My only hope is to use my relative mobility, at this stage I can hold off any feasible siege of Quebec & Mont Royal and equip Montcalm with a mobile force of about 500 power. As long as I can find smaller targets I can sort of inhibit Narwhal from breaking his forces into multiple columns. As it goes on, I need to give Montcalm more to do that job, weakening key defences &/or seeing him increasingly tied in place protecting key cities. It becomes very much like some phases of RoP where its a bit like chess when you both have a strong position, but someone has to move ...

July 1759, Battles and English crimes

Given that Narwhal can't defend his actions, I'll merely stick to relating actual events. But he really did have a thing about killing and wounding my officers, to the point where you have to ... well you really have to wonder.

Anyway, July opens badly with a simultaneous English assault at the north of Lake Champlain, opening the door to Mont Royal.



That was expected, but I'd over-garrisoned given the strength of the English force, so not only do I lose a lot of men, but also a National Morale (NM point). Still my standard trick of burning it down won't make life easier for Narwhal, though its not as disruptive as my stunts over on Lake Eire.

As Narwhal said in an earlier post, NM is less critical in WiA than in RoP - it also doesn't fluctuate much. So the losses/gains are a bit mheh ... whereas in RoP after a couple of bad defeats, low NM would really harm your combat capacity for quite a while.



That was less expected - I presume they came by boat? Note the targetting of one of my noble officers as he led the heroic defense.

In combination, that gives Narwhal Lake Champlain and a real threat to Mont Royal.

But ... all is not lost



hah, that I enjoyed (sorry), Montcalm steamed into the British at Frontenac and gave them a right beating ... they end the turn scuttling off to the wilderness to the north where they will be abandoned by their officers.

The bad news is the death of one of my generals as I need all the Command Points I can muster to keep Montcalm's mobile force properly led.



So here's the wider position around Lake Ontario. As my bateaux were off-shore, Narwhal's fleet didn't escape so apart from whatever he has at the old Fort Niagara, I now have naval control of the lake.

And I have options - a raid on Fort Oswego seems a good idea as I have a decent sized force that wasn't engaged in the last round of battles. However, I have a problem with Montcalm's force. As you can see its running down on supply and needs to rest before it fights again. It can pick up supply from the wagons I sent earlier but its a bit tense as they need to get back to Mont Royal as the nearest depot.

Now what I should have done was to convert some of those nice English supplied bateaux into a depot at Frontenac, which would have helped an awful lot. Then Montcalm might have been able to operate on Narwhal's line of communication south of Mont Royal.



And heres the position around Lake Champlain. So there are 2 large English armies in the north - my garrison at Mont Royal matches each of them individually so I'm not too worried at this stage (except Montcalm needs access to croissants pretty soon).

I've scouted out the fort garrisons and have a small force of Couriers and Indians at La Presentation. Its a gamble but I give them all out assault orders and send them to attack Fort St Frederick - it it pays off (& the current defense is weak) that will put a real spoke in Narwhal's ability to get all those units north of Champlain home before winter. If I destroy 2 columns this summer then things look very much brighter.



Since Quebec has yet to be threatened, I slightly weaken the defenses and create a garrison at those towns between Mont Royal and Quebec in case Narwhal lunges north and tries to find a bolt hole for winter (he ends up doing this when I remove the garrison ... but not in 1759).



And, war returns to Savannah, a nice group of Couriers and Indians await the arrival of the regulars from the West Indies and its party time again ...

ANO1453 said:

These last few years seem to be going well.
You recover a good position up north, blocking access to Isle au Noix, and you are preparing to bring some action down south!

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wierdly after misplaying 55-56 then 1758-9 were my best years in the game, but then I was in a very narrow gap where I had some flexibility but relatively little choice. Certainly revisiting it to write this up I'm spotting options I missed at the time - which is good for any future replays.

Stuyvesant said:

Ouch. That was a mighty walloping of Narwhal's invasion force there. Very nicely done. And you say you have control of Lake Erie? Good, does that mean we'll see more match-induced incidents on the south shore?

Not to mention that your happy go-lucky friends are bound to put a swath of the South to the torch... It must really suck to live in Savannah in this game.

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I have to decide how to exploit that victory. Looking back, I was too worried at Montcalm's supply problems but if I'd built a depot at Frontesac that would have cured it. I could then have either raided south of the lake or cut Narwhal's overland retreat route back from Mont Royal - but then I have no doubt he could have responded too. I find in 1760 he has a huge mob of militia sunbathing, drinking tea and plotting sedition against the English crown at Albany, so I guess they were there too in 1759.

As to the south, well its just too tempting, all that combustible stuff down there, I mean it just has to burn doesn't it?

Bornego said:

Reading your last couple of updates, I noticed you make one questionable tactical choice over and over again: You leave big armies inside cities.

In my humble opinion that is a bad move. It is justified when your troops need to recuperate or if you only have a small force in a province. On the other hand, seizable armies should stay outside cities:

1) You don't want them trapped inside a city where there supply might run out during a siege (see Louisbourg) and they end up surrendering without a fight.

2) Montreal (surrounded by rivers) is a superb defensive position you are giving that advantage up if you retreat inside the city walls. Quebec offers the same advantage from two sides. Louisbourg is only open to an attack from one land province (if an enemy is dumb enough to stage a naval landing directly into your forces, he has just handed you a major victory).

3) Once trapped, fighting a sortie comes with severe disadvantages (most importantly, you will have to do the attacking, possibly against an enemy that had time to entrench outside the city walls).

My five cents. And thanks for this great AAR.

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I think you're right. At Quebec, I probably had a large enough mobile army to dispute any arrivals by sea. My reasoning was I was afraid of losing and retreating to somewhere badly lacking supply. At Louisbourg, I'm less sure. Narwhal could muster a much larger force than I could put together, & my gamble was I had more than enough supply to outlast the campaign season. Had I realised that I could have mucked up his naval resupply trick, then that may well have stood into 1759.

But I'm very paranoid at having Montcalm trapped in a city - so much so that I opt for the slower regain of org just for being in the province rather than hidiing in the city.

In so far as I had a grand strategy it was cautious (army in being), keyed to holding Quebec & Mont Royal as long as possible, and looking for opportunistic attacks. I take out one more column in 1760, but Narwhal stays too concentrated thereafter for me to find a gap I could exploit. It may well have been as valid to go for a much more active defense with minimal garrisons and look for battle. In purely numeric terms I wasn't that outnumbered - though I think Narwhal left a lot of formations behind his lines.