Late Jan 1757: An important job interview takes place
Here's a couple of the set-up options I've chosen and how they affect game play:
This makes my forces very unlikely to move if inactive and gives the AI an attrition advantage (which I think just compensates for the AI being a bit less careful about avoiding attrition)
This shows I've given the AI more time, and the effect of 'hard'.
Charles of Lorraine has appeared ...
we'll come back to him later on
I've also got various formations pilling up in Prag, so need to raise some more Corps:
I'll stop doing much detail on raising new forces and re-organising armies for now. Suffice it to say that one feature of the game is spending quite a while on those tasks, so even turns with no active movement take a fair bit of time. I'm flying a bit blind as to whether I'm making a good selection in this respect, & at some stage need to think seriously about force allocation for the 1757 campaigning season.
But before we go on, lets have a closer look at my two senior commanders (you can open this screen for any commander or unit ... the unit portraits can only be described as beautiful in the level of detail)
So, the inert Browne:
as you can see, in addition to poor basic stats, he has two, rather negative, character traits ... no wonder the more heroic Daun scuttled off to take over Picolomini's snow-averse corps:
Now that is much better ... good basic stats and two pretty useful traits, though in the true Austrian tradition he is rather cautious.
So back to the game, as you all want to know what happened at the end of last turn?
Well very little, except that the Saxons surrendered with no more fighting and I lose some National Morale as a result.
Elsewhere, the only movement was by von Preussen, I think looking for an unblocked route back to Chemnitz:
All those replacements I ordered up last turn are now available:
Some people have appeared:
Russians ...
Swedes ....
Oh and Browne disappeared ... obviously the loss of Prina was too much for his over-stressed liver:
Now I have an army with no commander ... and 2 candidates, so in the spirit of modern HR practice, we need an interview process:
So Lorraine thinks it should be his (but he's actually worse than Browne), Daun is on other criteria the obvious person - but there is a small hit on my morale due to ignoring the proper hierachy. Well the Austrian Empire didn't get here by ignoring the hierachy (no it got here by sleeping with 80% of Europe) ... Daun, you're the man ... now go back to Prag and take charge:
So what with the loss of Prina and putting Daun in charge, my national morale has dipped a little:
Since one was forced on me and the other not a hard choice, I think I can cope with that.