NAVAL oddities

[bongina]

Situation: Turkey is at war with Spain, but not France. Spain owns Naples. Turkish fleet blockades Naples. Spain loans all of its fleets to France, including the Naples fleet.

During the French Naval turn, France sails the Naples fleet out of port and is intercepted by the Turks. A battle is fought which the Naples fleet wins, so it moves on. Turkey -1 PP, Spain +1 PP

Near Cadiz, it engages another Turkish fleet and loses. Turkey +2 PP, Spain -2 PP, France -2 PP.

Question is, why did France lose the 2 PP at the second battle since the ships belonged to Spain and only being moved by France? And why did it only award Spain in the earlier battle? Which one is correct?

[Murat]

I am Spain, just so everyone knows and doesn't think I am hiding some bias. Bongina is Austria and the GM/host. We have already accepted the results (although I think we are leaning towards France getting a PP adjustment for the 2PP) so the movement issues I am about to mention are moot for our game but important to ponder for the future.

My question is a little longer. As the Naples fleet leaves port it is intercepted by the Turkish, so technically at that point Turkey becomes the attacker. Under the rules, it seems the fleets drop from French control and become Spanish. The battle is fought, Spanish victory, PP exchanged, no points for France. France then continued to have control and moved to Cadiz to engage a 2d Turkish Fleet in the blockade box, again with Turkey intercepting and becoming the attacker with the PP exchange but this time a loss with France getting penalized and the Naples fleets being retreated to Cadiz.

Turkey then had their turn, landed on Cadiz, and faced a garrisoned depot and a garrisoned city. Turkey beseiged the city, broke in, and defeated the garrison but the fleets (Naples and my transport fleet) were not forced out to the blockade box, although in this case that battle may happen after all land moves. There is a concern though that maybe the presence fo the garrisoned depot may be preventing the impalement of the fleet. I am not sure why the rule was changed from garrisoned depots stopping movement and causing a battle between the phasing power and the depot, bad rule change imho but it was done and it may have a flaw still as alreaddy listed.

What I think should have happened is when the Naples fleets left Naples and the Turks intercepted, control should have reverted to Spain and stayed there, with Spain having any remaining move points for their turn, or at worst having no move points but holding the blockade box or port. Once the Naples Fleets got to Cadiz, and lost the battle, the points should have been exchanged between Spain and Turkey only, just as they were at Naples and the Naples fleets should have been retreated to a sea zone or the nearest fortified port that they have access to (Brest) as the rules state, they should not be able to lose a battle but make it into the port basically breaking the blockade. The land battle under the new rules (as I said before I liked the old rule of you have to defeat the garrisoned depot before any other fight so there would have been the month delay allowing a counterattack which was what I counted on since I overlooked the rule [:'(] ) should have forced the transport fleet (the only one that should have been there if retreat was doen correctly) onto the blockading Turkish fleets where they were captured.

[pzgndr]

See also http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2901619 from a month ago.

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

OK so question here may be whether the rule repatriating a loaned corps back to original territory should be reconsidered. What would be the downside to returning control of loaned corps to original owner and just leaving the unit where it is, or retreating it from the combat area? Or not repatriating but just leaving the unit out of combat?

I don't know all the details that went into the loaned units idea way back when, but for lack of simultaneous movement/combat in the PC game it is what it is. For the most part it appears to work OK, just puts some more burden on players to figure out control and supply issues.

this is the opposite of the situation here

Marshall will have to verify the logic here but this is how I would summarize the rule, for either attack or defense. In a situation where the loaned corps' original owner is not at war with the opposing force(s), the loaned corps is repatriated and returned to original territory. Sort of a termination clause for the loan since your friendlies are caught up in someone else's hostile situation. In a situation where the loaned corps is at war with the opposing force(s) but the controlling host is not, then the host releases the loaned corps to fight its own battle. Again, sort of a termination clause where the host is now caught up in a hostile situation, but obviously the host force(s) stays in place and does not return to original territory. So, is there a bug in all this someplace or is the game doing what it's supposed to?

In my opinion this is a classic case of a badly written, unclear and controversial rule.

Probably so. Again, for lack of simultaneous movement/combat what changes should be considered to make the loaned unit feature better?

If the above logic were to hold, then France should have released the Spanish fleet to fight its own battles. Again, Marshall needs to respond here with what the logic is currently and determine if this is a bug or something else. We need some clarity, yes?

[bongina]

Another naval oddity is that, based on how loaned fleets have been acting, we have NO idea whether a Turkish fleet will stop the French from crossing the channel. It is controlled by the Brits, but not at war with France. France thinks it should not, and has already offered surrender terms to England. England thinks it should not. So, obviously we need an answer from Marshall.

[Murat]

England thinks the British controlled Turkish fleet should stop the movement. Of course the problem there is that a French fleet was in the Channel first and the Turks moved in, but since Turkey is not at war with France, they did not trigger a fight (and if there was a possibility of a fight, France would have moved differently navally I am sure).

[bongina]

Marshall, we need you to explain this to us whether this was intentional. How can a Turkish fleet not at war with France (but allied and loaned to Britain, which is) block the French from crossing the channel? it seems odd that the French player could not intercept it on its way to the channel, even though it was moved during the British naval movement phase, but then it ends up blocking the crossing arrows.

We have arrived at a terrible impasse over this and need your help.

 

[Marshall Ellis]

This should not be. This was NOT intentional! We played around with several naval issues in .07 and obvioulsy did not pay enough attention to this scenario. Is this posted on Mantis with a save?

[pzgndr]

boninga, you could add a save to Mantis #836 if you have one?

[bongina]

It's the same file as i uploaded for 837