From: Hanno Meier Subject: Re: AH Reviews E-F >Empires in Arms Normally, I have to litte time to write down my experience with some AH games, but I have to comment on EiA. My 2. Wargame. When I got it, and for the first 1-3 games I thought it is and will be the greatest game ever designed. (We usually played for a long weekend - Th-Su - and got to 1808/1809 in the campaign game) Now that we have 7-8 games played, me and my playing group have changed our minds. There are some rules loopholes, which could be exploited by the players. They fell into a grey area, where you couldn't excactly tell if it is rules lawyering or not. Not going too much into detail here but they could be summarized as: Protective War Declaration. (A friendly country declares war on you early and do nothing more, to protect you from harsh victory conditions of a real enemy) Stack Breakup. (A lone 1 SP corps of the Turks, could for example force 50 russian SP out of a hex, when they have enforced peace. This is particular annoying if the French hired the Turks to do so - splitting a coaltion stack of Austrians and Russians in 2 little stacks which could be attacked separately.) Easy retreat for high quality leaders: (Wellington and Napoleon couldn't really be forced to fight. They could escape (nearly) all the time. But (as stated in an earlier post) the biggest problem are the combat rules. They are completely random. Qualitative or quantitative superiority doesn't count much. All depends on the die and the combat chit. And you couldn't choose your combat chit because of the tactical situation, because the enemy will have the perfect counter chit then, which will result in a deveastating defeat. So we also gave up thinking during the combat chit choice, and drew at random. Which really is a bad thing in my opinion. Small story: I only played France two times in this game, and you really have to had good nerves in doing so, because everyone is cautious or against you in this game. Even the Turks, which normally should support you. Maybe I am also a bit too stubborn as a diplomat, but I refused a Turkish diplomatic offensive "Give me 50 Ducats for being friendly to you" - which is quite an amount of money in this game with the answer. "I give you 15, and when you show me some support I will give you more". This resulted in 6 enemies. So I had to fight a lot of wars in this game. The combats are so random, that I only managed to get a draw or defeat in all Battles with Napoleon and qualitative and quantitative superiority. I did remove Napoleon from command later, because I coudn't afford the political loss anymore. You gain 1PP for winning a battle with Napoleon and you loose 2PP for loosing a battle - a function which should normally help the French player. When all minors drop my side I felt so demoralized that I gave command of France to a friend which just joined us the day. Never experienced that before. Summary: Some serious rules and game system flaws, but when you play it, you really feel as the ruler of a Napoleonic Major power. This gaming experience is much more intense than being a World in Flames Major Power. Thanks for listening ------------------------------------------------------------- Hanno Meier Schwachhauser Heerstr. 176 28213 Bremen hmeier@uni-bremen.de Germany ------------------------------------------------------------- Living on earth is expensive but it includes a free trip round the sun. From: "Crowley,Steve,S" Subject: RE: AH Reviews E-F Hano gives an excellent posting on EiA. Felt I had to add to his comments below: > ---------- > From: Hanno Meier[SMTP:hmeier@uni-bremen.de] > Subject: Re: AH Reviews E-F > > >Empires in Arms > > Normally, I have to litte time to write down > my experience with some AH games, but I have > to comment on EiA. > > My 2. Wargame. > > When I got it, and for the first 1-3 games I thought > it is and will be the greatest game ever designed. * It is a very clever design trying to get everything that affected the Napoleonic Wars into the game. This may be it's main problem. > (We usually played for a long weekend - Th-Su - and got > to 1808/1809 in the campaign game) > > Now that we have 7-8 games played, me and my playing > group have changed our minds. > > There are some rules loopholes, which could be exploited > by the players. They fell into a grey area, where you > couldn't excactly tell if it is rules lawyering or not. > Not going too much into detail here but they could be > summarized as: > Protective War Declaration. (A friendly country declares > war on you early and do nothing more, to protect you from > harsh victory conditions of a real enemy) * Yes this is a nasty one and has another application when one of the other powers can become a major power leading to increased effectiveness of the army etc. To gain this status you have to be at peace - annoying when someone DOWs you just to stop you doing this. > Stack Breakup. (A lone 1 SP corps of the Turks, could > for example force 50 russian SP out of a hex, when they > have enforced peace. This is particular annoying if the > French hired the Turks to do so - splitting a coaltion > stack of Austrians and Russians in 2 little stacks which > could be attacked separately.) * Yes, even a 1 SP corps stops an entire army for a turn as well. An expensive tactic but can slow people down. Known as the fortress tactic - some sort of overrun rule is required > Easy retreat for high quality leaders: > (Wellington and Napoleon couldn't really be forced to > fight. They could escape (nearly) all the time. * Yes but I have rolled a 6 for Wellington more times than I can remember !! * This tactic is far too easy too pull off > But (as stated in an earlier post) the biggest problem > are the combat rules. > They are completely random. Qualitative or quantitative > superiority doesn't count much. All depends on the die > and the combat chit. And you couldn't choose your combat > chit because of the tactical situation, because the > enemy will have the perfect counter chit then, which will > result in a deveastating defeat. So we also gave up > thinking during the combat chit choice, and drew at > random. Which really is a bad thing in my opinion. * I started to do this to my firends as well - right p^**d off they were too. * Takes a while for the penny to drop but combat is far more random than * it looks at first glance > Small story: > I only played France two times in this game, and you > really have to had good nerves in doing so, because > everyone is cautious or against you in this game. > Even the Turks, which normally should support you. > Maybe I am also a bit too stubborn as a diplomat, but > I refused a Turkish diplomatic offensive "Give me > 50 Ducats for being friendly to you" - which is quite > an amount of money in this game with the answer. > "I give you 15, and when you show me some support > I will give you more". This resulted in 6 enemies. > So I had to fight a lot of wars in this game. > * Playing France is very tough. Everyone calls you Adolph and treats you like Nazi Germany.i.e. you must be defeated before they can win. This is not the case but it takes a number of games before it dawns on people and this is a very long game ! Crushing France makes it an easy win for Britain more often than not. > The combats are so random, that I only managed to > get a draw or defeat in all Battles with Napoleon > and qualitative and quantitative superiority. > I did remove Napoleon from command later, because > I coudn't afford the political loss anymore. > You gain 1PP for winning a battle with Napoleon > and you loose 2PP for loosing a battle - a function > which should normally help the French player. > When all minors drop my side I felt so demoralized > that I gave command of France to a friend which > just joined us the day. Never experienced that > before. * Later on in the war we relegated him to tax raising in Paris and leading the occasional foray against British coastal raids > Summary: Some serious rules and game system flaws, > but when you play it, you really feel as the > ruler of a Napoleonic Major power. This gaming > experience is much more intense than being a > World in Flames Major Power. * Another problem is the largest race in the world - the British !!!! Because of the supply rules no island or coast can be held against the British. They take lots of the North African coast, recruit the natives and voila, huge army all at morale 4.5. Why didn;t they do it for real eh ? * It is a fantastic game. We ended up having 2 people running France - there is always enough to do as the French. Just calculate how many VPs a turn you need to win. > Thanks for listening * Thanks for the posting > ------------------------------------------------------------- > Hanno Meier Schwachhauser Heerstr. 176 > 28213 Bremen > hmeier@uni-bremen.de Germany > ------------------------------------------------------------- > Living on earth is expensive but it > includes a free trip round the sun.