Playing by E-mail

Quick question, does anyone play 'normal' Glory by e-mail and if so, are there any differences between it and playing by post?

My reason for asking was I had been told that the supply rules were slightly different when played by e-mail, in that even stationary armies and navies need to have supplies from a magazine.

There is no difference other than speed... I get my turns at least a day or so ahead of the guys playing by post.

The supply rule applies to Game VII only (For post and email players)

Thanks for that, whne I was told what I was told, I was a bit surprised but the player in question (in game 6) was quite sure this was the case.

Magazines needed even for stationary troops? this sounds a waste of time and mc orders. Campaigning will be very difficult and money will be in much more, short supply. If you have to keep paying for a great number of magazines every year. Surely game seven players do not prefer this new rule, do they? It sounds like alot of waste to me.

some games hae slightly different rules regarding troops and supplies/movements Richard can clarify this if he reads this post...

I am in both Game 6 (old supply rules) and Game 7 (new game rules). I must admit the new rules look a real pain in the backside for campaigning, although more realistic to the period. I think alot of rulers in Game 7 are perhaps waiting for the first war to kick off so we can judge the impact...I know I am.

I am aware of the rule changes in game 7 but for instance in game 2 the way armies are run created is different to game 3. This i suspect is to the way the game has developed over the years and Richard has kept the rules the same for these games to ensure the playrs can keep a track of what is going....

Certainly a very different set of rules in game seven. Without question the game seven rules are more realistic of the period, but i am sure, the rules will hurt enjoyment. From a player perspective, there has to be a certain speed with which you can plan and attack. I think the speed of this is slow enough, without game seven changes.
The chance of planning a successful campaign where you do not already have a town in an area, would be unbelivevbly difficult, surely this will hurt player excitement? It will be interesting to hear from game seven players once a major war takes place, but i would not be interested in such rules.

I do think the Game 7 rules will require far more planning on the campaign front. Having supplies routes (for food), magazines (ammunition) and a strong recruit pool to cover attrition losses is going to be really important.

I guess it will even things up a bit as well, so the smaller nations can take a defensive stance and still take on the larger nations (such as France).

The first war will see many mistakes made Im sure !

I think major nations Like Russia and France with large recruit bases will be able to keep fully formed units. Also as time goes on Russia if played properly gets a lot more money rolling in. BUT as I said if they are managed propely if not opps!

Hi all. The game 7 logistics debate is interesting. Hold on to your hats, but Agema is considering (I put it no more strongly than that) introducing a variant of the new supply rules to all the running games (including game 7 of course).

Now if you want to howl protests at us, now is the time to do it!!!

The idea is that basically the L7 rules are far more realistic but in some ways make life more difficult for players. The new rules would be based on them, but with certain helpful workarounds - for example, introducing camp followers which basically are recruits allocated to an army in the field off which attrition losses can be taken rather than directly from the military units themselves. Hey presto, having a large camp following suddenly makes sense! Another rule we're tinkering with is an ability to form a logistics corps which allows 2 stores to be purchased per change order than just one (that will only makes sense to current L7 players).

The great plus for the L7 rules is not only their realism in regard to supply, but also in regard to battle losses (men are lost, rather than automatically entire units). The other plus is that when things get dire you don't lose entire units, but lose recruits meaning the units can be reconstituted before they completely collapse from want of men, which has a better period feel than having destroyed annihilated and then new units have to be raised.

The older system has the advantage of being simpler, of course, but loses something of the grittiness of the new system.

Anyway, if you have any helpful comments, feel free to shout them out here, thanks!

Richard,
I totally agree that Game 7 rules are far more realistic to the period. At the moment they still 'scare' me slightly as I havent put them into practise and are clearly going to be more of a factor. Sometimes simple is good (especially for me).

Another positive of the new rules is savings on raising costs of course. If a unit loses men, they can be replaced with recruits rather than having to completely raise a new unit.

I think the new rules do require more planning and offers more help to smaller nations adopting a defensive position against a larger nation. I would be in favour of the rules being introduced across all games.

If the new rules are introduced into all other games could I make one recommendation/request ? That all players are given one turns grace to re-assign (locations) their military assets - or somekind of movement orders in one turn that would NOT suffer attrition during that particular movement order due to lack of supplies (as long as they continue to use the magazine order)

Finally all magazines in versions other than game 7 are deemed to provde "x" number (5?) stores which can be placed in any held town.

These two suggestions are so that any military/movement plans in place can continue without having to stop for several months to re-align planning to the new rules.

Richard,
I would not like the new rules to be spread across all LGDR games. Two stores purchased per mc order? This will slow the game down alot. As for camp followers, how realistic is this? could the enemy attack such unguarded camp followers? if not, why not? would camp followers not desert?they are after all, only citizens, not soldiars, at present. If they replace units drilled to x. What happens to them? surely they cannot suddenly become drilled to x? but if not, that would prove a dilema.
Although the new rules are without doubt more realistic. The number one issue, should be enjoyment. I think the new rules would slow the game down too much. A good idea, would be to wait for a few battles in game seven, then ask those players their thoughts.
As for being more realistic. How realistic is it that smaller nations , say the size of a Genoa, will suddenly be more on a par with the bigger nations? It could end up, with some startling victorys for smaller nations, so perhaps the new rules are not as realistic as first thought.

Clearly if introduced the new rules would have to include a period of time to enable players to adjust - perhaps the way forward would be to simplify them compared to L7's rules, but make them more realistic than the older supply rules. Not sure about that, just mulling it over.

In the L7 rules the magazines still exist and have a benefit supplying gunpowder rather than food, which is more realistic.

Ideally Agema would eventually like all the games to have the logistics rules.

Two stores per mc order should not slow down the game if you accept that attrition will happen to the troops: this may be the same sticking point for players enjoyment. In real life men were lost in droves on the march, but players probably don't like the idea of that happening just because of moving from A to B! In real life Marlborough's famous march to the Danube, which was meticulously planned, lost him 900 men by half-way through!

We consider camp followers to have their place. They were present in virtually every army in real life, and so yes an attack on camp followers for example by hussars would make sense in-game and provide another angle. The point about using them would be that they represent the impact of attrition upon an army column - if you have less, then your army is more vulnerable (and in real life not having any would be detrimental to the soldiers, since they included officers servants, soldiers wives, and so on). Certainly they might desert, but that is precisely the point - they could take the attrition under proposed rules rather than the soldiers. They would not replace excellently drilled soldiers - that would only happen even under the current L7 rules if the order 'reform' was issued to a unit and is a separate issue to camp followers (whose function is to prevent the units suffering attrition losses in the first place, although naturally they can't prevent battle losses which units would take directly). Hence there is no dilemma!

Perhaps the new rules would slow the action down too much, but the pay off is those players who establish their military in a better manner will have success precisely because they did that - which is just another factor similar to ensuring your troops have better muskets, or artillery, or are drilled better, or use better tactics? Perhaps it's just that logistics are a less 'sexy' topic?!

Certainly the proposed rules would not make Genoa as powerful as say France, but what they do is cause armies which have to march far to suffer more attrition, is seems to us at Agema entirely appropriate and very realistic (Napoleon recognised this and called into something like the strategy of the central position). This is a fact of military theory (to take an in-period example, Marshal Tallard's army prior to the battle of Blenheim ended up in a right mess simply because of such factors, whereas Marlborough's was in a better state despite losses - Tallard's men had marched toward Bavaria from France and that was the reason they were in a poor condition).

So, I still affirm that the new ideas would make the game more realistic by far, but whether players want more realism is a moot point! Please keep the ideas and objections flowing. It might be best to start looking at a simplified version of the L7 rules to replace those in all games, but rules which are not so detailed as those presently used in L7?

Thanks for the responses so far!

With regard to camp followers.If they are attacked, this will cause more supply problems, thus slowing the game down even more.Although the thought of camp followers is for more realism, it should be remembered that ones ruler, or King, did not have the nightmare of ordering recruits and stores to take care of camp followers. It would have been arranged by the Generals, so perhaps uneccesary workload for the individual nations?
A campaign will take much longer to plan and execute under the new rules.A lot more detail will be required. So the big debate is, do players want to carry on with the current game speed, or slow game speed down, by a far margin? I would be surprised if the majority wanted a far slower game.

I fully concur with JamesBond007 that the game, will initially slow down in terms of military campaigining, but that in itself doesnt deter me from a move to Game 7 logistic rules.

I actually like the idea of a well organised, planned army gaining an upperhand on campaign, directly as a result of preparation.

I may not be speaking for others, but while accepting that attrition DID happen and IS more realistic to real history, recruits are precious. Maybe more precious than money in the game. While it hasnt been raised in Game 7 I would like to see Agema review its policy towards recruits. If this was slightly eased, the upside would (I hope) counter any concerns from players.

Money comes from investments, and to be more successful you need recruits. If the army places a greater demand on recruits it will knock the money side, which in turn would ruin enjoyment just as much as plans are put on ice.

The rules for example (well a version I have) say annual recruits are 0.5% of the population. I have NEVER received 0.5% of the population - there is always some other reason, namely "serfs" as to why we dont get 0.5%.

So in my ramblings, I am in favour of the more realistic rules and more benefit to those who plan carefully BUT there needs to be a sweetner for the players...be it a period of grace to move units freely, or more access to recruits.

I also strongly feel that Agema go the whole hog and adopt Game 7 across the board, or stay as we are. No half-way house, that I think would be the worst scenario.

We have not touched on the subject of new or inexperianced players, regarding the proposed new rule changes.
Bearing in mind, the extra planning and preparation needed for the new rules, and extra complacations, any new player or any player wishing to try a nation not worked on for a long period of time, will be really up against it early on.Especially if they go up against a very experianced player. This is the scenario at the best of times, so the rule changes will only add to these issues.Will this scenario not hurt or put players off, from taking positions in long established games?
I can see what the Count De Monet mentions about recruits.These are hard to come by at the best of times, so useing up extra on the Army side will detract from the money side of recruits, which is more important than anything. Very little can be done without money. Perhaps this is another issue, where enjoyment could be lowered?

I believe that the addition of the new rules would greatly slow matters down and in turn slow enjoyment. I view much of this as happening below the radar in the game. I have struggled with, but accepted the wisdom of having a set number of military change orders per turn. For certain, France wouldn't simply be able to do just four things with the military in a month. However, because their must be limits placed on the game to make matters playable I have no problem with that. My problem lies in the fact that many of things we do are and simply should be placed below the radar and only massive moves or unit formations should be considered a change order.

I would be most interested in looking at what the proposed rules would be, but I don't know how this is going to deal with game play at the moment. Perhaps, waiting to see what happens with the military in Game VII now that war is on the horizon would be prudent.

Thanks for asking our opinion Richard and thanks for running a quality game!

Having positions in 7 and now 6 i actually prefer the system in game 7. Planning the movements in the upcoming war is really interesting when you have to plan and protect your supply routes and think about how to get the supplies there. Having to use mc orders also has made me rethink my strategy and to look realistically at areas i would target. In terms of attrition it is much more realistic to lose some of your troops and have to replace with recruits. I have limited recruits in both of my games but I therefore have to influence in other ways other than huge armies I would not be in favour of increasing to larger numbers. In game 6 I have taken a position in a town that has stockpiled enormous amounts of supplies to the extent that i do not feel there is room for any population in the town !! Sorry I am new but really enjoy the game and thought I would have my say.

James Bond 007 raises another excellent point. I consider myself an experienced player and even so, in Game 7 I still feel like I am trying to come to terms with the full impact of them.

To an inexperienced player they are potentially off-putting (although a counter-argument could be they wouldnt know any different).

Another excellent point is picking up a position that has been inactive for a while - again potentially a real disaster.

My posts to date may imply I am in favour of the introduction of the Game 7 rules....ideally I want to stay with the old rules, and stay simple. If there is further roll out of the Game 7 rules though clearly strong support, incentives or sweetners need to come in to protect the long standing positions and gamers.

Nice can of worms you've opened here Richard

Revvaughan, raises an excellant point.
Like he has England. I have france. So i know how difficult it is to run a big nation with few military change orders.The proposed new rules will make a difficult job alot harder. It will take years to get your forces around the world into a good, military, organised position.
I think it would be sole destroying at times, and you would question if you were coming or going.This would reduce happiness, in a great game.

I have no real view of this as I play in games 2 and 3. Howeer game 3 is a large position Russia, 2 is Spain. In Game 2 it seems i would really suffer if I read this correctly. In game 3 I think I am well enough covered slthough supply lines may be a problem.

However lets wait and see what happens.

With regard to the Kingmaker.
Add your Russian recruits, to your spanish colonies.Then examine the new rule changes.
MC orders are difficult as it is, with a huge position. So imagine what 2 stores per mc order would do to your planning.To set up your armies, navies, town garrisons,building new units,moving units around.fighting battles, ect.
For a huge position, like France or England, it is too difficult now with mc orders, the new rule change would make the situation alot worse. What you gain in realism with the new rule, you lose in the unrealistic situation of huge nations having such a disability of the rule change.
As i think Revvaughan was getting across, the mc situation is perhaps a little unrealistic as it is, for the two above nations in particular. The rule change will really hurt.It takes years as it is to set up a huge nation, now how long will it take?

Playing a position myself that would be considered a "large" nation, even with x4 mc orders I struggle ALOT. I would like to see more mc orders for larger positions.

A few years back mc orders used to be unlimited ! Now I can understand Richard viewing that as a nightmare but it is another part of the game that could do with a review. Possibly the current number stands but is based on location ? So for example if France used an mc order for Paris, it could make as many amendments to its military in Paris as it wanted with that order. This reflects a re-organisation of the army at a locations (more likely?) than single units within that army.

As you can see, i am not in favour of the proposed new rules. As France, here is an example.
If i had ten armies and ten navies, and wanted a years supply of stores for all. It would cost me 120 mc orders. Bearing in mind, that you only get three or four, it would take forty turns to do this alone, nothing else could be done in that time, how boreing.
So with the above in mind, i find it hard to believe that the rule changes make the game more realistic.If anything, mc orders are too low now. Any reduction in this would kill enjoyment.