The Official IH War Academy

[Dave Strider]

(If a mod could please sticky this?)

Welcome, Cadets! The purpose of this thread is to remedy something which I have noticed happens quite often in IH - a total lack of Strategic planning and forethought during Unit movements. Simple errors such as this have often times led entire armies to be destroyed, entire nations conquered easily. It ought not be this way. I won't go around blaming people on their actions, and I am not attacking the less experienced players for them; in fact, some of the players who have been here a long time still occasionally make drastic errors when moving troops. What I am hoping to accomplish with this is simple; to offer to the players of IH a chance to better themselves in terms of strategy, in the hopes of making future games more intriguing, thought-provoking, and to some, frustrating.

Allow me to post an example. Several major examples were prominent in Clash of Eagles. And these problems ranged from Troop dispositions, to Marching routes, to choices of whom and whom not to attack, to where to move troops and where not to move them. I shall start with, perhaps the biggest of all, Troop Dispositions, coming in my next post.

[Kip]

I think the consensus is to keep stickies limited. If you keep this updated successfully I'll merge it into one of the current ones and edit the thread title

[Dave Strider]

Troop Dispositions

Now, the term Troop Dispositions refers to what troops, in how large a number, are stationed where on the map. This can range from what Brigades are in line along what Ridge on what Flank of a battle, to what Armies are in what Territory in a continent-wide blitzkrieg. It's generally a good idea to have a fairly even spread of troops on all fronts, with maybe a couple more units in special places where you want to make the big push. However, you do not do that to the extent that other areas are completely undefended, which happened in Clash of Eagles; specifically, when Aggy decided to make his Army of the Potomac three times the size of Dan's counterpart army, and compensated for it by leaving a massive force of Militia in Kentucky, and the equivalent of a Cavalry Division to defend the entire western half of the Kingdom of America.

Aggy's Unit Count...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- in the East: 53
- in the West: 10
- in the Trans-Mississippi: 5

And although it may seem like a good idea for him to have done this (seeing as one of the conditions of the war was for his forces to capture Philadelphia), it actually wound up hurting him in the fact that, not only were his lower-quality troops dealt heavier losses, but his Western army was crushed due to all of his best troops being in the East, and his Trans-Mississippi Army was simply ordered to abandon all territory it was supposed to protect, to run away. He could have prevented this fate by transferring perhaps one Corps to the Western theater, and the Conscripts going to the Trans-Mississippi theater...at least that way, in the East, he still would have heavily outnumbered Dan, in the West, he could have had a much larger chance against the Rebel Army of the Mississippi, and he could have had much-needed Infantry support for his beleaguered Cavalry going up against the New Mexico Military Outpost.

Furthermore, his placement of 5/6s of his army in the East gave his opponent, Dan, a perfect idea as to what he was doing the entire time. Dan spread his troops out evenly, having good support elements for each Army (Cavalry, Infantry, Light Infantry, and Artillery were present in all, if memory serves, as well as his Militia forces being nearby in case he needed backup). Agg concentrated the majority of all of his good troops - ranging from Zouaves and Riflemen, to Cavaliers, to heavy Artillery support - in his Eastern army, allowing his Western armies to be crushed even easier. Think of it as if he were a warrior in battle. His Eastern army, as his Sword, was swung North, to defeat the Rebels, but it was blunted and rebuffed if only temporarily. When one swings a sword, he ought to have a shield to protect himself against the enemy's offensive actions on another side of his body. However, Aggy put what weight could have been in his Shield into his Sword, and instead allowed himself to be strucken in the side and defeated before he could deal a decisive blow to his enemy.

Another incident which caught my attention was in the Second War of Italian Unification, where my ally, The Stig, sent the majority of his forces...actually, now that I think about, literally all of his forces, to attack the Papal States, whose army was about 1/3rd the size of the two wings combined, and perhaps 3/4s the size of one of the two individual Corps within the Italian army. Furthermore, Stig chose to combine his forces...and then send them all on one path, on a slow, one-province-at-a-time trek through Italy, all the while biding his time while Perry mobilized thousands of troops to invade the Italian League from the North. Now, I attempted to warn Stig about this very possibility on Steam, but he was adamant that he did not want to provoke the Noricese into an offensive action; to his credit, this is a sound idea, but a disorganized army under attack is still better than no army at all.

(The post in question, dictating his movement orders)

There are two major problems with this, and I shall outline them both. The first is, disposition of troops to one front. Yes, the Noricese were still organizing forces, but they would take less time to organize than Italian Conscripts, and if the Noricese invaded him the same day that he launched this offensive, the former would have been able to reach his Capital quicker, as well as have been able to take over roughly 1/3 of his territory before he could have brought any forces North...assuming Stig even did so. Had Stig placed one of his Corps here - both Corps were ~40,000 men - he could have not only deflected the blow via battle, he could have attacked first, taken maybe 3/4 provinces, and then fought a battle against a disorganized Noricese force. Even if he had lost that battle, had he fought a fighting withdrawal, he could have had Reserves mobilized by the time the Noricese had invaded his territory; he would have gotten fresh reinforcements, and been fighting on his own ground, against a disorganized, exhausted, battered Noricese army, and easily could have pushed them out at that point.

The second major problem he made is route of advance. The movement into the Papal States would have been much less dismissible had he split his two Corps up - considering, as previously mentioned, they were both larger than the Papal forces separately, not to mention together - and attempted to halve the time it would have taken to conquer the Papal states. In three days, he still could have forces outside Rome, but he also could have secured his Northeastern flank by moving along the Adriatic, as well as making it harder for possible Noricese forces in Venice to move South, cut him off from the Adriatic, and link up with the Papal forces. He could have sent his Cavalry, with their faster movement speeds, to the East and then South, to attempt to capture Papal territory even faster. Hell, he could even have used his Cavalry and Light Infantry as an offensive screen to skirmish with the main Papal army while his Infantry body skirted around it and hit Rome from another side.

This concludes the first post in the War Academy thread. In summation; Disposition of troops across an even front is heavily necessary. Concentration may sound like a good thing, but in Strategic movement, not only does it hinder your chances of success, it takes away your ability to react from outside factors, it weakens you on other fronts, and if you do not split your forces on the Strategic scale, the enemy is free to operate around your flanks, and then move their forces back together to hit you hard in the Tactical scale.

[Dave Strider]

Strategic Planning, Movement, and Offensives/Defensives

This follows nicely with Troop Composition. As I'm sure all of you know, strategic planning is very important. But what does this mean? Strategic Planning is plotting out what you want to accomplish with an Offensive or Defensive movement. These have to be realistic goals. I stress this HEAVILY, because if you attack along a three-province front with the intention of pushing the enemy back to their capital...this is a bad idea. However, an attack along a large front, with the goal of pushing the enemy back maybe 1-2 provinces, is a much more manageable goal. You don't want to overstretch your forces, you don't want to have men cut off. You want to be able to say that you bested the enemy with as much a favorable outcome as possible. But probably one of the most antithetical things I have ever seen with this concept was done in CoE's ACW, where Aggy made his Cavalry in the West ride out on three different raids that would have taken ten days combined. Such looping offensives are not smart, are not strategically sound, and will not work. However, this was a less important theater anyway, and as such it likely didn't really matter what he did and what he didn't do.

Although, I should probably explain why this is bad. You see, my friends, the Offensive is a double-edged sword; it can penetrate, harm, and destroy the defender, however it can overextend, exhaust, and disorganize the attacker. Limited goals must be set for the Attacker, gains must be able to be easily held in the face of a counterattack. Troops must remain concentrated so as to present a larger threat to the Defender, especially as the Defender withdraws. If the Attacker spreads out too much, he is vulnerable to being counterattacked; and being counterattacked, when in the process of an Attack yourself, can be disastrous, as the Attacker typically has not moved up Supporting forces such as Artillery, Field Hospitals, Encampment supplies, etc. Also, if the Attacker is too spread out, he has less forces to deal with attacks over a greater front. And if the original Attacker is forced back...where can he go, but back to his starting position?

A map of Attacks and Counterattacks

As this Map can show, the Attacker (Blue), in the face of enemy Army (Pink circle), is moving forces away to other locations where the Enemy is weaker, leaving a Reserve force (Cyan circle) behind to defend the front. The Red Army, however, notices this, and launches a pre-emptive strike in an attempt to destroy the Blue forces while they are disorganized. The Blue Reserves, however, manage to steady the line, and the Blue launch their attack. The Red troops fall back in the face of the onslaught, however they reorganize quickly and counterattack, (Pink arrows) aiming their blows at the Blue Army's weak points. These points are weak because they have a lack of concentration and defensive positions, and can be used to exploit the Attacker's flanks. Heavy enough blows in these areas could push in deep and cut off the Attacking forces from supplies, allowing them to be surrounded and defeated.

However, Offensives in our games have also worked well. In RB1911, the Columbians managed a powerful breakthrough in Canada, splitting the Dominion in half with powerful thrusts supported by plentiful Artillery. At the battle of Winkler, where the Canadians suffered thousands of casualties to Columbian Artillery, their defense was broken due to their own substantial lack of Guns. One of the primary Canadian armies was destroyed and, combined with another's surrender to the Columbians, the Royal Army was thrown into chaos. (The KEY THING here is that the Columbians won due to their better support in the Tactical and Strategic theaters, however their lack of mobility prevented them from taking advantage of this Strategic gain.) However, the situation was stabilized when the Canadian army build massive lines of Fortification and withdrew to them. Now, I know this may sound like it contradicts one of my previous statements - that withdrawing while on the defensive is bad - but there is a key difference which I will highlight in my next post; Strategic and Tactical movements are nowhere near alike.

This concludes our second lesson. In short, always have a simple, effective plan for movements before you make them; always make sure support is available as a safety net; always watch out for flanks; and never overextend yourself to the point that you can be overwhelmed just as easily as the Defenders originally were.

[Dan the Man]

So the goal here is really to school us on how terrible our war strategies are, and on what we should be doing instead?

Somehow I think this isn't going to end well.

[Dave Strider]

No, I'm offering you advice because it annoys me when I see tens of thousands of men traveling in one massive unwieldy blob.

[Dan the Man]

In what sense? On the tactical map our troops kinda have to march in big groups. On the strat map, however, I haven't seen anybody try to march against the enemy in a big jumble without any coherent strategy. At least, not in recent history.

[Dave Strider]

Strat map.

And it happened all the time. The Prussian, Noricese, Italian, Neustrian, Scandinavian, and Royalist American armies all did it.

[Dan the Man]

Aggy was usually pretty good at dispersing his forces, as I recall. We only really saw him fight two battles, remember.

Anyway, as a statement on the thread as a whole, I think what we have to do is let people learn from their mistakes. Nobody gave us any lessons on how to properly conduct a strategy and, eventually, we figured out how. One of the most fun parts of IH, to me, is the way that our playing styles have evolved over time. Why not give other players the chance to experience that for themselves? Besides, remember that, to most IH'ers, these posts are probably very much in the "tl;dr" category. There's probably no need to spend your time typing out long posts like this when the same effect could probably be reached through a few friendly reminders along the way, especially from a battle mod (like you) or somebody else in a position of power. Not to mention the fact that a lot of us are looking at a total remodel of the IH battle system as we know it. For all any of us can tell, this information may be completely irrelevant by the end of the Summer.

[Dave Strider]

Meh. It seemed necessary.

[Darth Roxas]

What Dan said. ^

[jacb547]

Strat map.

And it happened all the time. The Prussian, Noricese, Italian, Neustrian, Scandinavian, and Royalist American armies all did it.

Well in my case, I abandoned some positions because I was fighting a FOUR front war. I couldnt defend every province, my master plan The Hammerschlag involved outrunning the Neustrian and winning the war by destroying the minor German states. Nocrium would automatic lose if I had 4 states at my side, If I took the capital and 25% of a state they would recognize me. Also the 2 Protestants states were about to join me because I enemy provinces (Catholic League). I saw necessary to do a last big stroke which involved abandoning the Rhine and after Nocrium autolost retaking it with fresh troops from their front and later abandoning Scandinavia (Doing so because its player was inactive) and retaking Prussia and later breaking a peace with Poland.

So I saw that in a war with horrible odds after Russia abandoned me I tought that some sacrifices have to be made to win the war aswell as some risky movements.

Well even Aggy had some reason, if he destroyed Dan in the east he could have taken his capital and attacked the rest of his armies using FSA inner territory to flank them.

[Dave Strider]

But you couldn't outrun the Neustrians, they had already reached you.

Besides, you could have at least split your forces up. You had 18 Regular Infantry units, and even more Conscripts, if memory serves...

[jacb547]

But you couldn't outrun the Neustrians, they had already reached you.

Besides, you could have at least split your forces up. You had 18 Regular Infantry units, and even more Conscripts, if memory serves...

Actually 8 regulars and 10 conscripts

[Dave Strider]

Even so, if you had split that force up you could still have destroyed them.

[Dave Strider]

Bleh, I guess this can be deleted.