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Buckeye Game Fest will be held May 2-5, 2024, with The War Room opening on 29 April ~~ More Info here

Author Topic: "The Death Ride of Jean Lannes" -- Game Time Is...  (Read 80290 times)

Advocator (Scott)

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Reply #300 on: October 24, 2020, 09:58:54 PM
I wouldn't be too sure of that. I'm currently wondering what I'm going to do with all these (admittedly delicious) tomatoes.



JasonPratt

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Reply #301 on: October 24, 2020, 11:06:51 PM
Our plan has borne fruit! -- the enemy reels in confusion! (....and also some of our allies, but they have good reasons which shall eventually be revealed.)

 >:D

Thus, even if we somehow lose, we can still claim a moral victory. Intellectual. Ecumenical. Paradoxical. Incomprehensible. Unintelligible? Enigmatical.  :applause: 8)



Advocator (Scott)

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Reply #302 on: October 25, 2020, 08:31:43 AM
Tomatoes are a fruit, so I say I won. Regardless of the outcome, the real treasures will be the friends we made along the way. Except the bastard who didn't want to have a nice chat while enjoying lunch with me. I may send him a bad tomato.



Cyrano

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Reply #303 on: October 25, 2020, 05:39:02 PM
1930, 23rd April

THREE!

Sergeant-at-Arms - Fraternite des Boutons Carres

Negotiator of the fragile peace between Ruritania and Strakenz

Weeple Herder to the Emperor


JasonPratt

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Reply #304 on: October 25, 2020, 06:54:26 PM
True story: one of our local restaurants has cursed tomatoes.

Well, kind of true. I've been eating there off and on since they were established, and their tomatoes on the salad bar are notorious for being usually rotten. Don't know why, it makes no sense, they'll bring fresh cold tomatoes out sliced into chunks, and it doesn't matter. The best you can do is sort of pick carefully through the top ones for the ones that look least ripe, and hope for the best. So the running joke is that their tomatoes are cursed.

I mention this to wince in sympathy foreto whomever you're sending a bad tomato.  :vomit:



Advocator (Scott)

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Reply #305 on: October 26, 2020, 04:53:56 PM
Jim assured me in game that my tomatoes were excellent and delicious.

And should we ever manage to get back to having conventions, fresh tomatoes will be delivered to the booth with a note they are for everyone but whoever it is playing the person who turned down my generous in-game offer.



Cyrano

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Reply #306 on: October 27, 2020, 11:01:19 PM
...and we're done.

First article tomorrow.

I embrace you all.

Jim

Sergeant-at-Arms - Fraternite des Boutons Carres

Negotiator of the fragile peace between Ruritania and Strakenz

Weeple Herder to the Emperor


Hatricvs

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Reply #307 on: October 28, 2020, 05:35:40 AM
Exciting! Can't wait to find out what the heck happen, to whom and when....this is the best part of the process seeing it all unfold!

I'll get the popcorn ready....it's going to be quite a ride!



bayonetbrant

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Reply #308 on: October 28, 2020, 12:32:28 PM

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++

Random acts of genius and other inspirations of applied violence.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Six Degrees of Radio for songs you should know by artists you should love


Barthheart

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Reply #309 on: October 28, 2020, 12:41:19 PM
GAH! The French won!?!  :doh:

And there are 22 videos... and you're going to torture us with only 1 per day?!?  :censored:

PETS - People for the Ethical Treatment of Square corners


Cyrano

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Reply #310 on: October 28, 2020, 12:54:17 PM
GAH! The French won!?!  :doh:

And there are 22 videos... and you're going to torture us with only 1 per day?!?  :censored:

Torture was Brant's idea.

One video today with the first article.

Twenty-one tomorrow with the second (final) article, which includes awards.

I was thinking about breaking the videos into qualitative categories given how primitive the early ones feel.


Sergeant-at-Arms - Fraternite des Boutons Carres

Negotiator of the fragile peace between Ruritania and Strakenz

Weeple Herder to the Emperor


bayonetbrant

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Reply #311 on: October 28, 2020, 12:59:31 PM
And there are 22 videos... and you're going to torture us with only 1 per day?!?  :censored:

I was going to go 1/every other day or so, just to keep y'all coming back to check  :biggrin:

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++

Random acts of genius and other inspirations of applied violence.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Six Degrees of Radio for songs you should know by artists you should love


JasonPratt

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Reply #312 on: October 28, 2020, 03:05:21 PM
Alas, can't say I'm overly surprised at the Froggy victory.

My guess, which I'm recording here now that the game is over and I can speak freely without sending information through chat, is that having punched through our probe/defenses in the middle of the Isar river, the French looped around to the southwest and got into Munich behind the backs of the defenders (who were defending in advance territory north of the city), thus screwing over our win conditions which by the way were to take and hold Munich and Rattisbonne/Regensburg. We accomplished both of those very solidly (Munich very early in the game), but the game didn't end immediately or soon afterward, giving (as is fair) the French time to mess with our win conditions and/or time to achieve their own conditions (which we weren't told about, btw).

My guess extends to the possibility that the French sent a cav division through the breach to hit our supply line source at Passau and sit on that -- which would have been almost the first thing I'd have done in their place once the Isar was breached, it isn't like there were any other options about where our supply line would be based. But I never received any word of supply problems, even once I knew the Isar had been breached, so if this happened it must have lent its effect at the very end of the game before news got to me.

Now I'll see if my main guess is correct... (And no doubt more comments from me to come, plus other players I hope!)



Barthheart

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Reply #313 on: October 28, 2020, 03:29:26 PM
Bohemia is nice this time of year...

PETS - People for the Ethical Treatment of Square corners


JasonPratt

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Reply #314 on: October 28, 2020, 03:42:40 PM
THERE WERE DALEKS AFTER ALL!!!  :biggrin: At least at the start.

Okay, one thing Cyrano forgot to explain, was the Austrian corps offboard (no doubt he'll get to this later tomorrow). That was Barthheart's corps, the 3rd Corps, commanded by Hohenzollen, who's the second best commander on our side for the game -- meaning he grants the next most bonuses to combat after Charles himself (whom I'm playing).

The reason he's offboard, is that this campaign has an option for the Austrians where we can send at least one corps (I don't recall if it was possible to send more, but anyway we didn't) on a safe off-map loop to arrive north of Regensburg (also known as Rattisbonne) after several game days.

Now, as Cyrano may mention in the full set of videos coming tomorrow (but in case he doesn't), since this was a game and I was interested in every player being able to operate as independently with as much responsibility as possible, I synthesized together an operational plan from player suggestions pre-game, which is why you see us spread out across the Isar, and Barth over there offmap. This definitely got almost everyone into the game throughout the game -- except unfortunately poor Barth! I figured the first few days would go by pretty quickly as we got our initial manuevers out of the way (like last time), and so after only a month or two in real time Barth would be warping back onto the map on that hill north of Rattis, where hopefully our main thrust would soon be meeting up with him, advancing along those roads parallel north and south of the Danube. In reality, I'm not sure he got into the game at all until around TWO REAL YEARS LATER!

Incidentally, I named the operation after that factor Cyrano/Jim mentions, where the French move twice as fast as us: Mighty Sheet, as a metaphor for a sheet of glacier ice grinding down upon our foes, thus Maechtiger Panzer. (As I quipped, if we can't win with a name as awesome as that, we deserve to get beaten!) The force groups were named after the pun in German between "mighty" and "tiger", so down by Munich was the Hindclaw Force; at the central Isar crossing was the Lowerjaw (sometimes called the southern jaw) Force; at the confluence of the Isar and Danube were the corps of the Upperjaw Force; and Vance/Barthheart commanded the Frontclaw Force.

Now, the rules for this campaign allowed us the strategic initiative, meaning that we were allowed to assume that we timed things to arrive at simultaneous points on the Isar for starting our crossover. Charles historically was known for preferring to turtle up and let invaders bounce off his indestructable well-supplied fortifications before counterattacking, but we aren't doing that, nor exactly what he did historically although his unexpected offensive did take the French by surprise, reflected in the French setup here which I gather was more restricted in options. (Cyrano may go through the differences in our plan and the historical Austrian plan eventually.)

This is also important because the campaign rules allowed us to shuffle divisions among our corps before we set out for our game-start positions. That's why Cyrano is talking about the elite cream of the Austrian forces down near Munich: those are the two Guard Corps, and we arranged to juice them up a little more by shuffling weaker divisions out and stronger ones in. The same is true about the other corps. Where did we put the weakest infantry divisions? -- over in Barth's 3rd Corps! Our idea was that this way they weren't dragging down our combat capability on the map, BUT they could be relied upon this way to SAFELY arrive in a dangerous position against the French, where they would benefit from Hohenzollen's combat bonus, AND where they would maximize their striking potential for such weak troops: in a supporting flank role spoiling the enemy! How that worked out, I'll leave for future videos.

Bohemia is nice this time of year...

That explanation explains Barth's comment (in retrospect) -- he was off in Bohemia for most of the game, a LOT longer in real time than we were expecting him to be.  :doh:

Also incidentally, since this might come up later/soon and be a little confusing: while each corps had named infantry divisions for their (non-player character) commanders, NONE of our Austria corps had named cav divisions. It's always 6th Corp Cavalry or something like that, not Vincent's Cav Division or whatever.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2020, 03:55:25 PM by JasonPratt »