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Mike Brunton at CA wrote in one of the Gamespot designer diaries recently, "Invasion is strategic; battle is tactical; deciding where the fight happens is operational."
Can someone enlighten me on the last? i.e. what's the difference between "operational" as used here and "strategic"?
Maybe it's just that I'm coming out of the STW/MTW mindset where the fight simply happens in whatever province landscape the game gives you.
Tamur
It's a question of scope, nothing more. Tactics are the means to win a battle. Operational considerations might be more accurately described as the means to win a campaign. Strategic considerations are the ends.
To use a simple analogy, the strategic bomber campaign the Allies unleashed on Germany in WW2 had a strategic objective - crush Nazi war production. The operational considerations included how many planes to send where, on which routes and so on. Tactical considerations would encompass things like formations of the bombers, evasive maneuvers and technical innovations to keep bombers alive.
Since Rome doesn't have provinces with fixed terrain types, rather wherever the two army icons meet on the 3D map is the terrain the battle is fought on, it becomes an operational consideration. Launching an invasion is strategic - seize some economic resources or destroy threatening enemy forces on the border (or whatever). Strategic = objective. Operational = how to meet that objective.
The lines are kind of blurry/subjective anyways, so the terms aren't really all that important.
The terms are a bit subjective, but I think there are clearly 3 levels of strategy/tactics in MTW (and RTW):
Level 1: broad strategy (e.g as Turkish on Early, one strategy is to rush Egypt with horse archers and then use trade income from conquered provinces to prepare against Byzantium).
Level 2: "operational" military strategy. I'll explain later.
Level 3: battlefield tactics. For example as Egyptians fighting turks, use a spear wall with desert archers behind it and move slowly towards enemy horse archers to neutralize them. Or as French fighting HRE, position your urban militia in woods to cut down their cavalry.
OK now to level 2. This refers to how you maneuver your armies in provinces. A common tactic here is to launch simultaneous attacks on the enemy provinces and cut down their line of retreat to capture their entire army. For example as Turks attacking Egypt and you hold Arabia , they hold Palestine and Sinai. Attack with force in BOTH palestine and Sinai. If you force them out of Palestine and have taken Sinai in the same turn, you capture their entire force. Another strategy is to use bridge provinces as a border and wait for the enemy to cross them.
In RTW, these operational tactics become much more important as the landscape from the campaign map is directly transferred to the battle map, and you can alos surround enemy with multiple armies in adjacent squares etc...
yep. I would still consider which provinces to attack as strategic while operational would be how much men in each force and the goal of the battle.
tactical is the carrying out of objective whether to take province at all costs, kill royals, capture royals, or whittle down their forces.
Back from vacation, thanks for the answers. Midnj, nice analogy, that helps me see it pretty clearly. And afrit, I think that level 2 is what I'm lacking in my games! Will have to work on that sort of thinking.
Tactical would encompass individual actions,
Operational would cover things such as an offensive push in an area on a higher level of command
Strategic would be decisions such as global objectives etc.