Vae Victis II - First Punic War: Concluded

[batesmotel]

The battle with TGM completed with Carthage beating Rome 65-38.

Chris

[kronenblatt]

Many thanks for battle reports.



The battle resolution phase is now concluded and while winning armies remain in their current hexes, losing armies are removed from the map and will be placed as part of step 6 in this Administration phase. (Aetius39 and TheGrayMouser: please consider where to resurface and advise to me ASAP by way of PM.)



Now we're at part 3. navies' debarkation of armies into land hexes of phase 4. Administration:

Carthaginian armies 1 (deeter) and 8 (Challenge1) and Roman armies 10 (dim30) and 15 (kronenblatt): please advise ASAP through replying to my PM on the topic whether you'd like to debark into a land hex and if yes in which direction. I will not open the PMs of the Carthaginian players until I've published the decisions of the Roman players.

[kronenblatt]

Debarking

None of Roman armies 10 (dim30) and 15 (kronenblatt) debark.

Neither does Carthaginian army 1 (deeter). However, army 8 (Challenge1) debarks (direction 6).

[deeter]

Any chance of seeing a current situation map?

Deeter

[kronenblatt]

Any chance of seeing a current situation map?

Deeter

The latest is in the first post of this thread. I'm awaiting final word on where the two losing Roman armies will be be placed and then I'll update again.

[deeter]

Got it. Thanks.

Deeter

[kronenblatt]

I haven't heard from TheGrayMouser on where to place his losing Roman army, so I make the decision that it's placed in Tauromenium. Aetius39's losing Roman army is (as per his request) placed in Rhegium.

[kronenblatt]

The map after navies have debarked, control over structures have changed, and losing armies resurfaced.

[kronenblatt]

Discuss within your factions and among your team members how to allocate your 8 Initiative points (1 for each army), and then submit, each one of you, the allocation of Initiative points for your armies through replying to my PM by Monday, May 3, at the latest.

I won't open any of your PMs (other than my team members') until I have received from everyone and until I have published those of myself and all my team members in a PM to all participants or in the campaign thread. (Your PM's will thus stay in your Outbox until I open them, and to my knowledge that should be safe from me secretly reading it.)

And... don't worry: we'll all hold each other's hands to get to know and understand the rules, etc., together. This is for fun, after all!

Questions? Ask them here, in the campaign thread, for everyone to see question and answer.


From the rules (Initiative points and Navies)

Initiative points serve the purpose of allowing the factions a certain focus that round. Armies possess one Initiative point each, which can be assigned to two different uses:

1. Increase its strength by 40 FP, up to but not exceeding 1600 FP, in all the army's engagements that round.
2. Improve the faction's naval dominance in a particular sea zone, allowing for more and longer naval movements of its faction's navies that round (for details and limitations, see Naval superiority under the Navies section).

If no explicit instruction is given for an army during the order giving phase of a round, the army is assumed to have selected option 1 above for that round.

Please note that: A faction can in total not assign more Influence points to a sea zone than its number of controlled Towns and Cities adjacent to a Coast hex in that sea zone. Thus, if a faction controls no such Coast Towns or Cities in a sea zone, it cannot assign any Influence points at all to that sea zone.

The faction's Naval Superiority level in each sea zone equals 2; plus the faction's number of assigned Influence points to the sea zone; minus the highest number of Influence points that another faction has assigned to that sea zone, the sum always subject to a floor of zero.

Each Naval Superiority point of a faction in a sea zone gives the faction 24 naval movement points (NMP) to be shared by all navies of a faction moving in that sea zone.

[batesmotel]

As a question, does using an initiative point to recuperate up to 40 points upto 1600 points permanently recover those points or only apply for the current turn? (I assume the latter but wanted to be sure.).

Chris

[kronenblatt]

As a question, does using an initiative point to recuperate up to 40 points upto 1600 points permanently recover those points or only apply for the current turn? (I assume the latter but wanted to be sure.).

Chris

Only for the current turn.

EDIT: Please also note that I've clarified the rules in that the up to +40 FP from Initiative points are added last, after army strength and effects from Towns, Cities, and Rivers, as follows:

Number of FP used in engagements

• Each army will participate in engagements with a number of FP as follows:
  • Current army strength (1600 FP minus reductions plus reinforcements plus/minus transfers),
  • +30 or +60 FP, if adjustment from controlled Towns and Cities,
  • -40 FP, if adjustment from River, and.
  • +40 FP from assigning Initiative point to this use, added after all the above up to but not exceeding 1600 FP.

[batesmotel]

Last turn my army 5 in Sardinia used it's full movement points (I think) getting to the strait between Sardinia and Corsica. Rereading the strait section in the naval movement section, should I at that point would I have still been able to move across the strait since that costs 0 movement points to end my move? (I would have done so but didn't realize it would have been essentially a free teleport.) or is it still required to have sufficient movement points to enter the land hex on the other side of the strait?

Chris

[kronenblatt]

Last turn my army 5 in Sardinia used it's full movement points (I think) getting to the strait between Sardinia and Corsica. Rereading the strait section in the naval movement section, should I at that point would I have still been able to move across the strait since that costs 0 movement points to end my move? (I would have done so but didn't realize it would have been essentially a free teleport.) or is it still required to have sufficient movement points to enter the land hex on the other side of the strait?

Chris

You would have needed to have enough MP left to move into the land hex on the other side of the strait. Did you? In that case, I can move your army to there.

Since the rules say:

Crossing a strait in itself costs no MP but once having crossed the strait and moved into the adjacent land hex (at the MP cost attached to its terrain), the army will be considered to have completed its movement in that land hex and will make no further movement that round.

[batesmotel]

12 mp just got me from Olbia to the northern tip of Sardinia so didn't have points left.

Chris

[kronenblatt]

Please note that the following formal rule (under Movement) has been added to prevent uncertainties concerning bumping of armies in hexes (and to prevent the bumping itself), becoming effective in round 3 (edited to reflect the question by batesmotel):

No army can at any point in time be located in the same hex as another army, whether from the same or from another faction. However, an army can pass through a hex in which another army from the same faction is located, at that hex's normal MP cost for doing so, and as long as the two armies don't end the round in the same hex.

Only one army can move into a specific hex at any given point in time. If two or more armies from different factions are about to simultaneously do so, the army to actually be moving into that hex will (in the priority order below) be the army:
1. having the lowest cost in MP to move into the hex (for this purpose only, without taking into account the floor of 1 MP).
2. having so far spent the fewest MP that round (i.e., before taking into account moving into the hex).
3. having the highest army strength.
4. closest (in hexes) to a controlled structure (after the move into the hex having been made).
5. of the faction with the highest score.
6. farthest to the north.
7. farthest to the west.


It will be applied to Vae Victis I as well, in round 3.

[batesmotel]

May an army move through a friendly army if not stopping in the hex occupied by the friendly army? If they cannot move through a hex occupied by a friendly army, does this also apply in a structure hex?

Chris

[kronenblatt]

May an army move through a friendly army if not stopping in the hex occupied by the friendly army? If they cannot move through a hex occupied by a friendly army, does this also apply in a structure hex?

Chris

Tricky (and good) question: I'm open to suggestions, since not clear cut at all in the rules. What makes general sense, you think?

[batesmotel]

Before your post about two armies moving in to the same hex, I had assumed there was no problem with doing so. I suspect given the scale of the map and the off high off road movement costs that it makes sense to allow armies to move through one another. if it turns out that the army moving through the friendly army is for some reason blocked from doing so then it should bounce back to the hex it entered the friendly army's hex from. I don't think the campaign (or the referee) really should deal with unnecessary traffic jams and resolving them.

From the "game" point of view, the restriction to only having one army occupy hex is realistically to make battles manageable, not really representing any historical limitation is my assumption.

Chris

[deeter]

Given the ground scale, it would make sense to allow allied armies to move through each other.

Deeter

[kronenblatt]

Before your post about two armies moving in to the same hex, I had assumed there was no problem with doing so. I suspect given the scale of the map and the off high off road movement costs that it makes sense to allow armies to move through one another. if it turns out that the army moving through the friendly army is for some reason blocked from doing so then it should bounce back to the hex it entered the friendly army's hex from. I don't think the campaign (or the referee) really should deal with unnecessary traffic jams and resolving them.

From the "game" point of view, the restriction to only having one army occupy hex is realistically to make battles manageable, not really representing any historical limitation is my assumption.

Chris

Given the ground scale, it would make sense to allow allied armies to move through each other.

Deeter

OK, thanks, guys: All fair points, so let's do it that way. Armies from the same faction are allowed to move through each other, paying the hex's normal MP cost for doing so. I'll draft something for the rules in order to reflect that, and also clarify that my change above refers to armies from different factions.