[PBEM BOARD] La Grande Guerre - gloriously great WW1 game

[PDH]

Jesus Christ, the war is already behind schedule.

[Tamas]

We should start next Monday

[Tamas]

Now, on the subject of Vassal: hardest thing will be establishing a protocol of how to proceed with battles, and general FOW. This is what slowed my old PBEM down initially (it was with Aide de Camp 2), but once we established what was the quickest solution, it started to gain speed.

Now, for battle resolution, I guess we can just log in for Vassal on real time in most cases. That way each battle will just take a few minutes then whoever is doing their turn can resume doing a replay.

Still, even in real time we might face the problem of fog of war: you are not supposed to know which unit your opponent selected for the next round: you are supposed to reveal simultaneously.
What do you think is the best way? Should we just alternate on who selects first in the rounds of a battle, as to create a situation where both sides are equally advantaged/disadvantaged with the blessing of foresight?

As for general FOW: you are not supposed to know exactly what kind of counters are in an on-map stack.
Basically, you have the army sheets for each nation, with holding boxes for the different HQ and "leurre" counters. The "leurre" and HQ counters are placed on the map and they represent the stack which is in their army holding box. So, while playing the board game, the opponent can have an idea about the size of your stacks, but cannot know the exact contents.

Keeping your stack content guaranteedly secret is not possible in the VASSAL module suggested by me, but is possible in the other, non-English one. Translating the window names in the latter to make it English should be easy enough I suppose. On the other hand, in the non-English one, stacks of the opposing side are completely invisible until dragged on the main map, which is more FOW than the board game, and while I would not consider it a problem with you guys, it does offer an extremely easy way for cheating.

Sooo, what I am leaning toward is just using the module I suggested, with the gentlemen's agreement that we shall not peek on enemy stacks, unless granted permission by the other player, or the game rules (eg. I will have all the info on Habs' stacks at the start of the game due to uncoded Russian radio transmissions).
Although this will not eliminate possible bad feelings if I manage to designate my 1915 Grand Offensive against Habbaku's stack full of Russian peasants, it does eliminate the constant bad feeling of having no idea what your opponent does with it's own troops in the hidden comfort of his army windows.

Also this more open way gives an opportunity to possible quick battle resolutions, when there is a very straightforward situation and one side just can give instructions to the other for resolutions.

Which reminds me: do we want to use ACTS's die roller?

[Tamas]

Anyways, to give you some tips while you prepare, a thing for Solmyr and Berkut to note is that the French are required to pretty much massacre themselves on the German border at game start. BUT, although with the odds greatly against them, with a bit of luck and persistence, they CAN force the German defenders to retreat. Highly unlikely, but possible, and if that happens the German player can find himself with dropped trousers.
So, two things regarding the French historical offensive:

-France has the choice to either "fake it" meaning stay as long as the Obstinancy of their generals require, and then give up instantly. Still will probably suffer high losses, but will contain them this way. Or, they can mean business, and try to break through in earnest. Horrible losses are pretty much guaranteed (unless they get freakishly lucky), and I am not sure about their ability to do and maintain a deep penetration (haha) into Germany proper, but even just losing the border forts would be a blow for Germany, not to mention that hole-plugging in the south is not what the Schlieffen Plan is about

-Germany can ill-afford to reinforce the French border, and it does have decent number of high quality troops there. But it is foolish to completely ignore that front and consider it to be on autopilot.

[Tamas]

So how is everyone doing?

[crazy canuck]

All quiet on the western front.

[Habbaku]

Still plodding through the rules.

[PDH]

Great, the war skipped straight to 1915.

[celedhring]

Somebody kill an Archduke!

[Tamas]

I hope you guys are flat out ignoring Booklet II (trench war) for now, and not sweating over Booklet III (Advanced Game) too much. The only thing in the latter we will need before October are the diplomacy rules, so feel free to ignore the rest for now, you will have plenty of time to study it while we soldier on with the extra long turns of August and September.

What you need to be aware of, is that National Will is the key to everything. Unless one of us make a genius maneuver/absolutely horrible blunder, winning the game in a direct military way (ie. get this hex, be happy, you won) will be almost impossible to achieve.
Instead, you win the game by breaking the opposing countries' will to fight. There are political rules to try and optimally manage your own NW (as some of it needs sacrificing for other issues), but that can wait until the first Interphase which will be at the end of 1914. Meanwhile, you have the info on how you can cause and suffer NW loss in the movement war booklet and the country-specific sheets. You want to make the enemy lose it, and you to keep it or gain it. That's all you should care for now.

[Tamas]

 

[Habbaku]

In New York with Berkut. You'll be happy to know we have talked about the game.   

[crazy canuck]

Guns of August?

[PDH]

My God, trench warfare is boring.

[Neil]

I want to play Britian, with the option to enter the war on the CP players side as long as they don't invade Belgium.

That's not a realistic option, unless your game starts prior to 1900.