The battle for Normandy
This thread is to resolve the player vs player battle in Normandy between Hummel and von Salva.
It will be played out in a similar, but simplified, style to that used in the Will of the Senate PBM Civil War. There are two examples:
Battle for Rome:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75664
Battle for Ancrya
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74303
How the battle will be played:
1. I will umpire the battle. Ignoramus will control Wolfgang Hummel and his Swabian Household Army 1; Warluster will control Athalwolf von Salza and his Swabian Household Army 2. No other players should advise them or communicate with them during the battle.
2. I have cut and paste all the icons of the units onto a word document.
http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/pbm/normandy.zip
3. The terrain is that visible in the Lombary custom battle map for M2TW. I have sketched a simplified representation in SHA_field.jpg. Basically, the field has a half a large hill running from the north edge through the centre of the map. There is a lesser hill in the south edge. Both east and west slopes of the hill have woods that provide cover.
4. The battle will have three phases.
(i) deployment and advance to contact.
(ii) morning
(iii) afternoon
If the battle is inconclusive, there may be evening, night and even second day phases.
At the start of each turn, each player will use Paint to mark his planned maneouvres and send me any accompanying in character orders.
5. Phase I In the battle, both players arrive through the woods and thus their deployment is hidden to each other. Hummel arrives from the west (left) and von Salza from the east (right). The first phase of the game will see both armies giving movement orders from their hidden starting points. By the end of the phase, units will be able to advance up to the halfway point of the map. No melee combat will be possible, although some skirmishing fire from crossbowmen can be expected.
Each player should copy the icons of their units onto SHA_field,jpg and arrange them in the positions they would like to be at the end of the opening move phase. They will then save the file, zip it and e-mail it to me. I will put the two together to show the intial battle deployment and upload it.
They should also submit written orders for the phase to each formation.
Units still in woods, or hidden behind hills, will not be visible to the enemy at the start of the next phase.
6. Players should act like historical army commanders and not try to micro-manage too much. Orders may get lost and things may slip up. The position of the general will be particularly important in determining the outcome of any fine maneouvring - if he is far away or locked in combat, he may not be able to control events. (Best avoid the bad habit of using your general as a spearhead.)
7. I will put the orders together. Execution of movement will be simultaneous, so I will work out the result of any clashes arising based on my judgement - informed by common sense, unit stats, history and experience of M2tW. I will upload an end-turn file showing the state of play together with a brief gamesmaster narrative.
Further notes:
Depict the facing of your units by drawing a coloured line for the front side of each unit icon. Units may be able to change their facing autonomously so if you want a flank attack, make sure you pin the enemy first. Units next to a general may be able to do even more in reaction to an enemy move so make sure you place your general where he needs to be to control things.
Please don't ask me to align unit x to fight unit y - I don't think a real medieval general would get into such a level of micromanagement (unless he was adjacent to unit x). Orders should be given at a formation level.
On the realism of fog of war - a general can only see through line of sight. He does not have a helicopter or interactive total war style map laid out. Once the lines have met in combat, I doubt he could see much - particularly on level ground. He would have to use riders to keep in touch with his divisons, but riders can be lost, reports garbled and orders can be misunderstood (think Balaclava).
Divisional structure and giving orders
To simplify this, please give orders only to groups (“division”) of your army. You may have a maximum of 6 “divisions” in your army.
I have currently assigned units to division based on function (a cavalry division, an archer division etc). You may regroup your units into different divisions before the battle. If you do, please upload a zipped word file with the new groupings. You may also regroup units into new formations during the battle, but there is a risk this will cause disorganisation and unit paralysis.
Please draft your orders in character, as if given by a real general. They should be clear and simple. The more confused or complicated, the more likely the divisional commander will mess up. Ideally, I would like to publish these orders in a battle report (after the battle is concluded – so they will be confidential until then).
You should allow for some contingencies, but if the orders are too complex, the divisional commander may become confused or feel constrained from acting on his own initiative. You can trust your divisional commanders to execute their orders in a competent way (you don’t need to micromanage them and tell them how to fight – I may let the AI control them to see how a division vs division fight would play out). But they will have limited initiative to respond to new developments.
What orders should cover:
- where to move, inc. facing
- which formation to engage or screen (this will help me determine facing)
- for missiles: whether to fire at will or who to target
- for melee units: whether to charge or prepare to receive a charge
- whether to pursue or hold ground once in place
- issues of sequencing (e.g. do you soften up the enemy with missiles before charging? do you wait till the enemy are committed before executing a flank charge etc)
DEADLINE for orders for Turn 1: 24 hours hence.
