You have guest access to browse, login, or register.

 Austerlitz - 1973 SPI
Read Today's News | Watch Today's Videos | CSW Brief #7
543 News Items for March [updated 27 Mar.]
I want to: [Join | Subscribe to Forum] | [Receive News | Submit News] | Buy/Sell | Donate | Report Problem Post]
XML RSS feed

Go to:

 [F] CSW Forum  / Boardgaming  / *INDIVIDUAL GAMES AND GAME SERIES Discussion  / Era: Gunpowder  / Napoleonics  / Austerlitz - 1973 SPI

I just picked up a copy of this old classic. NAW push pull with some modifications of zone to zone movement for cavalry and a modified CRT.

 Edit

Older Items Oldest Items Outline (older msg: 57)

Gareth Scott - Feb 23, 2016 1:42 pm (#58 Total: 110)  

 
[Scott, Gareth]
Austerlitz initial set up.



After one turn both sides are yet to come to grip. The Allies (green) are trying to concentrate their forces around the Pratzen Heights, whilst the French (blue) are trying to divide them.

Turn 1 overview



Turn 1 Sokolnitz Castle



Turn 1 Pratzen Heights


Gareth Scott - Feb 23, 2016 1:46 pm (#59 Total: 110)  

 
[Scott, Gareth]
Turn 2 sees some jostling of forces, but no action as yet.


Gareth Scott - Feb 23, 2016 2:11 pm (#60 Total: 110)  

 
[Scott, Gareth]
Turn 3 sees some action at Sokolnitz Castle, where the Allies attack at 2/1 odds (the French defenders are quadrupaled in the castle). The Allies roll a 1, which results in a dr (defender retreat one hex). The advancing Allies occupy the castle in strength (17-3). The French are then forced to attack (sticky zoc in this game) at 10/68 (1/7) which eliminates them giving the Allies 5 victory points.








Rick Barber - Feb 23, 2016 2:29 pm (#61 Total: 110)  

 
[Barber, Rick]
Ummmm... I seem to be having a problem reading your pix, as for some reason there don't seem to be any 'heights' there around Pratze. Or anywhere else for that matter. I've mapped that field now in four different scales, and this is easily the worst map of it I've ever seen, in terms of topography.


The Santon

Attachments:

LB Pratzen.jpg (364 KB) (32 Downloads)


Gareth Scott - Feb 23, 2016 2:38 pm (#62 Total: 110)  

 
[Scott, Gareth]
Yes, it's very much of its time. The Pratzen Heights should be the 'Pratzen Height', just the one 'knoll' hex. Although the town does triple the defenders as well.

Jim Mehl - Feb 23, 2016 3:26 pm (#63 Total: 110)  

[Mehl, Jim]
Ummmm...


I think there's a carpet out in the hallway that you missed shitting on.

Andrew Preziosi - Feb 23, 2016 4:38 pm (#64 Total: 110)  

 
[Preziosi, Andrew]
Wow, what was that for, Jim? :confused:

I wish this game was Cyberboard-er-ized, seems to be one of the only NAW games not to be in electronic format and one of my all time faves.

T. Johnston - Feb 23, 2016 5:20 pm (#65 Total: 110)  

 
[Johnston, T.]
Not Cyberboard but Zun Tzu.


Aus 73 a

Andrew Preziosi - Feb 23, 2016 6:24 pm (#66 Total: 110)  

 
[Preziosi, Andrew]
As easy as CB once you get used to it?

T. Johnston - Feb 23, 2016 8:04 pm (#67 Total: 110)  

 
[Johnston, T.]
Easier and graphically superior.

The main thing it lacks compared to CB is the ability to record the movement of the units. Think of it as closer to a graphical version of the old PBM sheets as far as movement of pieces.

Dan Finnerty - Feb 23, 2016 9:52 pm (#68 Total: 110)  

[Finnerty, Dan]
I've played this game many times - one of the first I ever owned - and enjoyed it thoroughly.

That being said, it has very, very little to do with what happened on December 2, 1805.

Rick Barber - Feb 24, 2016 7:48 am (#69 Total: 110)  

 
[Barber, Rick]
Jim, your personal bag is now on the porch, on fire..... :wink: Be a good boy and go stamp it out.

Geographic vagueness and inaccuracy were pretty common 'back in the day', when such were usually the only game in town on a given subject. And from my own experience, I can attest to the much greater difficulty in getting accurate map sources back there in the pre-internet days. What could take weeks of research work and writing letter, I can now do in an hour or two on the Internet, usually getting multiple map sources, and usually all as free downloads.

To me, the Austerlitz map with the least excuse along that line is the one done by Dave Fox for his regimental scale game with GMT. He had the same sources that I have; namely the excellent British Army maps first sent to Dave Powell by none other than David Chandler himself, which he used in his lectures at Sandhurst. Dave P. used it for his NBS game, and then kindly sent along copies to both Dave F. and me (we map guys are like that!)

Unfortunately, Dave F. (too many Davids involved here!) made one, tiny little mistake in interpreting his data from that map, in that he simply assumed that the map showed altitude in FEET, when it was actually in METERS..... So when DF picked 20' as his contour level to be shown, perfectly adequate for the ground scale of 140/hex, he was actually only showing the ground in 20 meter levels, which is something like 66'. Needless to say, but that 300% error in calculations resulted in one of the hillier Napoleonic battlefields being shown as almost as flat as this earlier SPI version.

The Devil is indeed in such details! :wink: Interesting that the only hills on the SPI map to speak of are the Zurlan (Nappy's HQ) and the top of the Stare Vinohrady, which is about a flat a top to a rise as you'll find anywhere. Hard to like an Austerlitz map if they don't even show the Santon....


Santon in Winter

Kim Meints - Feb 24, 2016 9:37 am (#70 Total: 110)  

 
[Meints, Kim]
Variant

I thought I had posted my variant for this old girl here but had only done so on BGG.

Gives VC conditions for locations that the Allies must go for or try holding to defeat the French and not the ploy of the Bug Out which they can do right off the get go by running away and exiting the east edge without fighting.

I also always use the variant from JP #15 which I gave in post #28

Thanks for the Santon in Winter pic Rich. Hmmm,looks like it came from a certain game I know :wink:

Attachments:

Austerlitz Variant.doc (12 KB) (78 Downloads)


Jim Mehl - Feb 24, 2016 10:05 am (#71 Total: 110)  

[Mehl, Jim]
Be a good boy and go stamp it out.


Go have another drink.

Gareth Scott - Feb 24, 2016 12:36 pm (#72 Total: 110)  

 
[Scott, Gareth]
End of the Allied Turn 4 before combat.



The Allied attack on Sokolnitz Town in detail.



Both results are "dr". The French retreat one hex and the Allies at Sokolnitz advance to force a counter-attack, but the others decline due to their lesser strength and fear of losses.



The French 6-4 is lost attacking Sokolnitz Town at worse than 1/6 odds, but meanwhile other French forces press home some attacks near Pratzen hoping to slow down the Allied movement towards the centre ground.



The attacks have mixed results. A 'dr' and an 'Ex' means that the Allies lose 9 strength points but the French have to lose 10. However, they succeed in pinning the Austrians. Now they must choose whether to fight it out or leave those pinned to their fate and carry on moving.



So far it's been the Allies game. They continue to push towards their exit points in the west and have a lead in the victory points for eliminated units, 21 to 9.


Ed Wimble - Feb 24, 2016 2:54 pm (#73 Total: 110)  

 
[Wimble, Ed]
I can attest to the much greater difficulty in getting accurate map sources back there in the pre-internet days.


Wasn't the fault of the internet at all back then. It had something more to do with the iron-curtain. All the maps were purposefully made incorrect and hard to come by. I discovered this in the former East Germany soon after the wall came down. After driving passed the same insane-asylum for the third time I wondered aloud at the map we were using to navigate by (and if I was in Cthulhuland). Later that night our bar keep explained to me that the government then believed if you didn't already know where you were going, you had no business going there in the first place, and that maps had been purposefully made to mislead since it was common knowledge every tanker in the Bundeswehr, BAOR and 4th Armored Division had been issued one.

This game was a great one to introduce newbies to the hobby back in the day, especially when stuck all night staring at another overqualified person in the guard box. Unfortunately it tended to boil down to attrition on the front until the artillery has to be brought into the line, then the French (who suffered the least from exchanges) would begin lapping the flanks and getting the ol 3 to 1 surrounds, escalating a hard fought victory into a rout.

Rick Barber - Feb 24, 2016 3:34 pm (#74 Total: 110)  

 
[Barber, Rick]
Reminds me of something our mutual friend Charlie Tarbox once told me, back when he was helping me gather research to do the Talonsoft Napoleon in Russia map design. He had a book of photos that he had taken 'when he was last there' (this being before the wall fell,) and he mentioned that no westerner was allowed to go south of the railway embankment that pretty well bisected the Borodino field from West to east. His guess was that there was probably a radar station and likely some SAM batteries crowning the Utisa Mound....... :wink:

David Powell - Feb 24, 2016 5:23 pm (#75 Total: 110)  

[Powell, David]
I had trouble getting a map for Austerlitz, and that was in what, 93? I called the CIA foreign map division, which had topos of most of Europe, and would allow them used for "Scholarly purposes" but the guy on the desk told me he didn't think a wargame would get a pass.

So I wrote to David Chandler, asking him about a source map, and he sent me a xerox of a British Army topo map with his own hand-written troop position notes on it. that was pretty cool of him.

Dave Powell

Dan Finnerty - Feb 24, 2016 6:26 pm (#76 Total: 110)  

[Finnerty, Dan]
Great discussion on map sources guys, thanks.

And thanks, Gareth, for the pics and AAR.

As a variant the last time I played this I imagined Suvarov appearing in a dream to the Emperor Alexander the night before the battle, he reveals that Langeron is a Bonapartist and that his plan to turn the French right flank is a trap. Alexander wakes and orders the attacking columns back to the Pratzen and the battle becomes first a race for the good defensive terrain features and then a slug-fest for their possession. The French army was bled white and defeated, Davout only engaging too late to make a difference. Great fun and I enjoyed having the French lose for once.

Gabriele Callari - Feb 26, 2016 8:15 am (#77 Total: 110)  

[Callari, Gabriele]
ZunTzu module

Is the ZunTzu module publicly available or can I ask to someone for it?

Thanks!


Newer Items Newest Items Outline (newer msg: 33)


Check Messages   SearchPost Message     Email to Sysop  New User Registration  Login

 [F] CSW Forum  / Boardgaming  / *INDIVIDUAL GAMES AND GAME SERIES Discussion  / Era: Gunpowder  / Napoleonics  / Austerlitz - 1973 SPI


Go to:

Who's Here?   [ Stephen F Campbell ] [ Russ Curry ] [ Richie Crowe Jr ] [ Mathew Hinkle ] [ Michael Tapner ] [ Gerard Burton ] [ McKinley Hamby ] [ Tom Kassel ] [ Lance Chesterfield ] [ Stefano Cascarini ] [ Andrew Brazier ] [ Dav Vandenbroucke ] [ Hermann Luttmann ] [ richard eichenlaub ] [ John Pack ] [ Oliver Upshaw ] [ David Bohnenberger ] [ Rob McCracken ] [ Stephen Oliver ] [ Mitch Soivenski ] [ 2 Guests ]

Terms of Use | Forum Guidelines