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.
(older msg: 57)
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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
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Turn 2 sees some jostling of forces, but no action as yet.
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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
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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.
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Ummmm... I think there's a carpet out in the hallway that you missed shitting on.
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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.
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Not Cyberboard but Zun Tzu.
Aus 73 a
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As easy as CB once you get used to it?
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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.
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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.
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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
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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:
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Be a good boy and go stamp it out. Go have another drink.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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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
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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.
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ZunTzu module
Is the ZunTzu module publicly available or can I ask to someone for it?
Thanks!
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(newer msg: 33)
CSW Forum Boardgaming *INDIVIDUAL GAMES AND GAME SERIES Discussion Era: Gunpowder Napoleonics Austerlitz - 1973 SPI
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