So some quick(ish) responses
Quite simply brilliant. I never realized you were so close on Strategic cities. Those two battles made me sure that Narwhal come back with NM so far in his favor.
In a way that was my payback for putting some sustained effort into the Oder campaign. It looks pointless at the start with 3 level 2 forts of no value that you need to clear. But in this case, it meant I could effectively lose the final campaign in Saxony and pull off a win. As it was I was back to losing on VP and NM was very low, so if the war had gone into 1759 I fear I could have lost (even if just as a points defeat in the end)
Congratulations to both of you for an excellent game and an excellent AAR! I've learned a whole lot about the game and had a blast all the while.
glad you enjoyed it and thanks for all the comments - as every very much appreciated - it was though a lot shorter than I imagined, but that seems to be an inevitable outcome of the way we've settled on a 'big army' game, in turn that leads to make or break battles (esp with the Austrians as your slower post-battle recovery potentially makes a bad defeat very destructive)
I have a feeling that the French and Austrians might be a bit annoyed that they've done all the fighting while the Russians have just waltzed across eastern Prussia and taken Berlin for little loss. If nothing else, it would create an interesting post-war political situation.
I'll hold off on wider comments pending your wrap-up post, but those last few battles seemed out of keeping with the more measured pace of the rest of the game.
The end was silly to be honest. Its a flaw in how we've come to play the game and its a flaw in the 'end of the world' mindset. Set in a longer time span, both sides would need their armies for something else, so would preserve rather than fling them away in a bid for total victory. As you allude to, Austria is now very poorly placed to impose its demands at the peace table and Russia is well placed to grab a lot.
My instinct is Austria would get Silesia back (& not be too happy that two brutal wars ended with the situation of 1740 being restored), France might demand some fortresses on the Rhine but would have to largely settle for colonial gains, Russia would claim Memel and Koenigsberg and I guess de facto control over all Poland (to which neither Austria nor Prussia could object). So in many ways you could say that Russia is the only real winner.
I've never seen slaughter like that in this game. It's just appalling.:wacko:
me neither, not in one day. I have seen multi-day fights produce those losses with both sides fresh and fully committed. In purely game terms, I didn't care all I wanted was to force Frederick to battle nowhere near Dresden while I cleaned up the VP cities along the Oder. Its the 'end of the world' mindset I mentioned above and completely out of keeping with the time period when Armies were very expensive and used with great caution
43,000 French casualties in one battle...
Wow.
Good job Loki, and thanks for the comments on stances, Narwhal. The 'convert to offensive' on entering enemy territory is something I hadn't picked up on yet.
I hadn't grasped that point till this game. I saw the message about 'contradictory orders' and just assumed I'd made a mistake (even though I was sure I'd double checked), but it does put a force at some risk if you are not careful.
So, from these comments, I still think there is something wrong with either/or the game or our gameplay strategy. Its a regular problem with PBEM that players find solutions that aren't meant to be there (& can mostly be dealt with by house rules) but that end in Saxony, to me, was a matter of simulation. Whether due to the attitudes of the time or the capacity of the armies, that type of sustained multi-day battle just could not happen. I don't know if the solution is to increase ammunition use or increase organisational loss (maybe especially if you adopt one of the more extreme combat stances) but one or the other would tend to lead to armies breaking off. The bigger alternative is to address the economic side of the game a bit more so that money, manpower and resources all become important as limits on actions.
In the new PoN patch, there is a mechanism to increase ammunition usage in sieges, that applied to RoP might help given the importance of fortresses in this game (not least it would have slowed by Russian siege division if it had needed to wait longer to restock).
Not sure, and its a pity as I still think RoP is my favourite AGEOD game (probably in part as it covers a period I find interesting, it was the first I bought and I actually have a clue what I am doing when playing it).