Historical Boardgames sponsored BATTLE OF THE AGES Tournament

SIGNUPS:
1. Veqryn
2. Ajmdemen
3. SantaClaus2
4. lalapalooza
5. ErnieBommel
6. soulfein
7. ice
8. Wassmuss
9. alexgreat
10. Dimax
11. Narushima
12. Hepps01
13. pug6000
14. KBG
15. Gekkepop
16. Make_It_Round
17. U-505
18. P@nther
19. Gargantua
20. Noll
21. wirkey
22. Odonis
23. DeadTom
24. Eskander
25. Funcioneta
26. Randmacts
27. Most Holy
28. AmorphousCube
29. kabloom
30. invictus
31. Nothing to see here
32. Admetus

Looks like we can begin.

I’ll post the round 1 matchups later this week.

everyone should register on HBG now
http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/register.asp?cg=0

randomizing order and matchups:

Rolling 1d32:
(7)  
Rolling 1d31:
(14)  
Rolling 1d30:
(30)  
Rolling 1d29:
(22)  
Rolling 1d28:
(25)  
Rolling 1d27:
(24)  
Rolling 1d26:
(4)  
Rolling 1d25:
(23)  
Rolling 1d24:
(8)  
Rolling 1d23:
(11)  
Rolling 1d22:
(13)  
Rolling 1d21:
(21)  
Rolling 1d20:
(14)  
Rolling 1d19:
(9)  
Rolling 1d18:
(2)  
Rolling 1d17:
(8)  
Rolling 1d16:
(10)  
Rolling 1d15:
(3)  
Rolling 1d14:
(10)  
Rolling 1d13:
(10)  
Rolling 1d12:
(8)  
Rolling 1d11:
(6)  
Rolling 1d10:
(7)  
Rolling 1d9:
(9)  
Rolling 1d8:
(7)  
Rolling 1d7:
(2)  
Rolling 1d6:
(2)  
Rolling 1d5:
(3)  
Rolling 1d4:
(2)  
Rolling 1d3:
(2)  
Rolling 1d2:
(1)

First off, here everyone please make sure to register at HBG website, so that you can receive your prizes when this is over.
http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/register.asp?cg=0

Now, for the round 1 matchups (for Napoleonic Empires [the 1v1 version])

Nothing to see here
vs
Gekkepop

Randmacts
vs
ice

P@nther
vs
Most Holy

Veqryn
vs
kabloom

AmorphousCube
vs
alexgreat

Odonis
vs
KBG

Make_It_Round
vs
Dimax

Ajmdemen
vs
Funcioneta

wirkey
vs
Narushima

U-505
vs
pug6000

DeadTom
vs
Gargantua

Noll
vs
lalapalooza

invictus
vs
Eskander

soulfein
vs
ErnieBommel

Wassmuss
vs
Admetus

Hepps01
vs
SantaClaus2

seththenewb
vs
Bacala ??? (<– Bacala says he is trying to register here but is blocked… we should sort this out shortly)

HBG_BotA_tournament_triplea_2012_sept_6.xls

Some quick help on HOW TO PLAY Napoleonic Empires

1. Convoy zones are extra income in sea zones that can only be collected by their “original owner”.  If the enemy conquers your convoy zone, you stop getting that income, but the enemy does not get any income from it at all.

2. The “green bottom” boats are transports (barques).  All ships except for “cutters” can carry 1 marine (barques can carry up to 3 marines).

3. Battleships do not repair.  Corvettes act sort of like submarines: they get first strike, and they can retreat separately.

4. The game has been balanced over the course of 2-3 years.  Both sides are evenly matched, so no need for bidding.  The victory cities are marked in orange writing.

5. If you are having trouble seeing who owns what territory, then you should change your “Map Skin”.
First, load up triplea and load the savegame or start Napoleonic.
Now go to the top of the screen, click the “VIEW” menu.
Then go to “MAP SKINS”, and select “POLITICAL MAP SKIN”

Napoleonic Empires

The empires of europe are at war.

The upstart French republic has followed in the footsteps of their American compatriots across the sea
and cast off the trappings of monarchy.
Can this new light in europe survive against a host of squabbling adversaries?
Or will it fall victim to its own aspirations for empire…
Will the russians be forced to sing La Marseillaise?
Will the English see the Guillotine raised in Piccadilly?
Or will the rule of the monarchs be insured by the restoration of Louis XVIII to the Parisian throne?

CANALS:
Oresund (Holstein,Sjaelland)(SZ10,SZ11)
Kerch Straight (Crimea,Astrakahn)(SZ97,SZ101)
Strait of Messina (Sicily,Calabria)(SZ70,SZ71)
Neva River (Karelia,Ingria)(SZ2,SZ3)(Russia can build navy in the lake)
Bosphorus (Constantinople,Kiutayeh)(SZ84,SZ92)(connects Turkey, Balkans by land)

UNITS and RULES:
Battleships DO NOT REPAIR at end of turn.
The number of Bombardments allowed is restricted to the number of units making an amphibious assault, however bombardments still kill units without the unit getting to return fire.
Extra Units are available starting on round 2. Un-check the game option ‘Use Triggers’ to turn off these units permanently.
Encampments are permanent, and can be captured.
Generals can move and raise troops in the territory they occupy, IF you owned that territory at the beginning of your turn.
Generals, Encampments, and Capitals are Factories, meaning they follow all normal factory rules.  They can be purchased and placed anywhere you owned at beginning of turn, they can produce anywhere you owned at beginning of turn, and they can be captured
Barques (green transports) are not able to capture convoy zones.
Capturing a Convoy Zone denies the enemy their income, but does not provide you with any income, and can only be done during your Combat Move.

Victory Conditions:
11 vc = Projections of Power
12 vc = Honorable Surrender
13 vc = Total Victory (default)

There are no national objectives in this version (the non-political version).

Actual Alliances in this game:
France …… Carolingians
Spain … Carolingians
Sweden … Carolingians
OttomanEmpire … Carolingians

UnitedKingdom … Coalition
KingdomOfPrussia … Coalition
AustrianEmpire … Coalition
Russia … Coalition

(Light Blue = Neutral Nations, which can be attacked by anyone and everyone)

Unit List:
attack/defense/movement/cost …. special
1/2/1/4 Fusiliers . Supportable
1/3/1/5 Chasseurs . Supportable
3/2/1/6 Grenadiers . Supportable
2/2/1/6 Marines . Amphibious Assault +1 Attack, TransportCost: 1
1/1/1/4 Howitzer . Gives Support (+1 attack)
2/1/1/5 Artillery . Gives Support (+1 attack)
1/1/2/5 Horse Artillery . Blitz, Gives Support (+1 attack)
1/1/2/4 Hussars . Blitz
2/2/2/6 Dragoons . Blitz, Supportable
3/2/2/7 Cuirassiers . Blitz, Supportable
0/1/2/8 Barque . Transport Capacity: 3
1/1/2/6 Cutter . Gives Support (+1 attack)
1/2/2/8 Brigantine . Supportable, TCapacity: 1
2/1/2/9 Corvette . First Strike, Can Retreat (Is Sub), TCapacity: 1
3/2/2/12 Frigate . Supportable, Bombard, TC: 1
4/4/2/21 Battleship . 2 Hit Points (doesn’t repair), Supportable, Bombard, TC: 1
0/0/0/10 Encampment . Can Produce Units, Can be Captured
0/0/1/14 General . Can Produce Units on Territory you owned at beginning of turn, Can be Captured, Can be Transported, TCost=3

Special/Extra Units:
0/2/0/3 Mortella Tower
0/4/0/5 Fortress
5/1/1/8 Mortars . Gives Support (+1 attack)
4/3/3/9 Marshal . Blitz, Supportable
4/3/3/9 Ney/Wellington/Blucher/Charles/Kutusov . Blitz, Supportable

Infantry-type units have TransportCost=2, while Cavalry-type units have TCost=3
Marines have TCost=1 (can fit on any boat), Marshals and Artillery have TCost=2
Corvettes are treated as submarines.  Corvettes can retreat separately from the main force during offense, and can retreat when on the defense to any adjacent friendly/empty sea zone.
Fortresses and Towers are normal units, and as such they must be placed with a factory of some kind (a general, encampment, or capital)

STRATEGY HELP and OPENING MOVES

On Units:
Barques are the Green-Bottom boats, and they are the Transports of this game.
Fusiliers and Howitzers are the most efficient units to buy.  If bought in pairs, they are essentially 3att/3def/1mov/8cost with 2 hit points (Hitpoints matter alot!).
Cutters and Brigantines/Corvettes are the most efficient naval units to buy.  If bought in pairs, they are essentially 3att/3def/2mov/14cost with 2 hit points, (or 4/2/2/15 if cutter + corvette, assuming you have ships for the cutter to support).

As France:
You have many options and no required opening moves.
Obviously you should take Flanders, Cologne, and Provence.
Option 1) Go Heavy into Germany and NorthWestern Europe
Option 2) Go Heavy into Italy
Option 3) Atlantic Fleet builds
Option 4) Med Fleet builds
Option 5) Take Egypt and Optionally build an encampment or general down there.
Option 6) Send the Egypt fleet back towards Italy (or up to black sea)
Generally speaking you can probably do 2-3 out of those 6, as trying to do more would spread you too thin.
As England:
You have the most options and no required opening moves.
Try to kill the remains of the english channel french fleet.
You can use the frigate near ireland for shore bombardments into ireland (with the marine), and even help with the northumberland marine too.
Your Majorica fleet can kill the spanish fleet if the french did not support it, and otherwise you can take corsica, sardinia, valencia, or tunisia with the marines there, or you can head for the french convoy zone and steal it.
Your other med fleet can go towards the french med fleet, or try to link up with the majorica fleet, or head to Candia (crete).  You can also build an encampment in either Candia or Majorica, though Candia can usually last longer, and can be used to pressure the ottomons.
England should try to have more fleet than the spanish at all times.
It is generally a good idea to help the Prussians push Sweden out of Jutland.  After that, you can turn your attention to northern france, northwestern europe, or invade norway and sweden.
Get the Swedish and French convoy zones near England as soon as you can.
As Spain:
Take Oporto.
Position Units and choose your build in order to take Lisbon on the second turn, and maybe Andalusia (Gibraltar) on the third turn.
Your general can head for Valencia and build fleet, or La Mancha and build units this turn.
Usually not a good idea to threaten England in the Atlantic the first two turns, though you can and should threaten them later.
You also need to send some guys into North Africa, and can do so on the first turn depending, but at least by the third turn.  Your goal should be to eventually be getting +10 pu’s a turn out of africa.
Option 1) Attempt to rid the Med of the UK
Option 2) Begin a Naval building war against the UK in the atlantic
Option 3) Build all land, sending to either northern france or italy.
As Prussia:
Take Mecklenburg.
You can choose to attack Moldovia if you want.
Generally speaking your goal should be to push Sweden out of Holstein, while keeping the French OR Swedish in check.
Option 1) Go 100% navy.  Assuming Jutland and Finland fall by the end of turn 3, you can win against Sweden’s Navy on turn 6, even if Sweden goes 100% navy also.
Option 2) Go a little navy to start, to hold on to your convoy zone for a few turns, then switch to 100% land.
Option 3) Go 100% land.  You will have to garrison Prussia and your north.  Can pay off quickly if France can be stopped from advancing.

As Sweden:
Consolidate your fleet in SZ9 and move General to Ostra Gotaland.
You should attack St. Petersburg with everything that can make it in Finland and Karelia.  You should retreat to Karelia after 1 round.  You should not win in St. Petersburg.
You can build 1 Battleship and 1 Cutter first turn.
If Prussia builds 100% navy, your choices are 1) to keep up and build 100% navy also, hoping french can pressure prussia, or 2) send your fleet to sz11 or build extremely defensive fleet, or just save your money for multiple turns
If Prussia does not go navy, you should still build navy first turn, but after that you can build a barque or two and begin reinforcing jutland, finland, and invading all the coastal areas around you.  Perhaps even drop off a general somewhere to build on the mainland.
As Austria:
Do not forget to move your troops in Hollande (and each turn after that until they get where you want them to go).
Take Bavaria and Venetia.
You can also take 1 Ottomon territory this turn most likely.
Build cheap units as fodder.
Sit back and build, perpare for french assault eventually.  Play check with French forces.
You can also swing into Italy when the time is right and the French are not prepared to prevent you taking Rome.
Pressuring Ottomons can be done but is risky, as if you get too far away from Vienna the French might decided to take it from you.

As The Ottomons:
Retreat northern forces closer to Constantinople.
Move Brigantine in SZ93 closer to Russian Convoy, take russian convoy on turn 2 with brig.
You use your marines against an enemy in moldovia, or you can move them to use turn 2 or 3 in the med against the neutrals.
If you pick up your general with the barque and drop him off in Sinop, you can build a cavalry there and use it against Armenia.
You can attack Edessa first turn, but if you lose any guys taking Armenia turn 2 gets more painful.  Might be worth waiting and moving all troops closer to Armenia turn 1 without attacking.
Overall, your goal is take significant money out of the middle east, while holding off Russian hordes, Austrian adventuring, and the occasional UK amphibious assault.
Survive long enough while taking neutrals and you become a threat who can push back, but at the beginning you mostly just try to survive. 
If Austria does not send much against you, or Sweden forces Russia to head north, you can go on an early offensive, but don’t get in over your head.
You can also send all your navy to the med and challenge the UK for supremecy there.
As Russia:
Your job is to push Sweden out of Finland, and Push the Ottomons out of Armenia, while threatening and holding down any Ottomons near Constantinople that way they do not pressure Austria.  You can also send a few spare troops to defend Prussia and Austrian capitols.
Pretty simple, you want to send at least 20 units north…. then send everything else south.
If Prussia is not going navy, you will need to send a unit north every turn just to build up a defense up there in case sweden attacks.
Otherwise, send everything you build south every turn.
You can also send a general south and build Navy.  After you take the two neutrals there, your navy can exit the harbor and take back your convoy zone.  The navy builds often force the Ottomons to keep up in navy, which is not something they can easily do.
Mordvins does touch sz101, so you can build navy with a general there.
SZ2 touches SZ3, and a general in Novgorod can build a fleet in sz2 that Sweden can not touch until you are prepared to exit the lake and attack Sweden’s fleet. It is difficult to for Russia to defeat Sweden alone, and it is much better to have UK or Prussia attack Sweden at the same time.

I will post Round 2 matchups after I see that most everyone has started their Round 1 matchups.

Until then, let me begin by repeating some ground rules for the tournament.

Clarifications:

• All the games must be played with TripleA 1.6.1.2 or later versions.  You can download TripleA here:
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/tripleamaps/files/TripleA/stable/

• TripleA already comes with all these games installed (except for 270BC), so no need to download anything else right now.  We will cross that bridge of downloading 270BC when we get to it, but if you can’t wait, here is a tutorial video of how to download maps:
  http://www.desura.com/games/triplea/videos/how-to-download-maps

Rules:
1. Veqryn, Gargantua, and coachofmany, are in charge of this tournament.  If you have questions or need rulings, direct them to us!  If you need help understanding the rules of a map, just post here.

2. No teams.  All games are 1v1.

3. All players who are participating must make an account at Historical Board Game’s website: http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/register.asp?cg=0
This is so that you can receive your prize money at the end of the tourney.

4. The Tourney is Swiss style, noone is eliminated.  Any players who play ALL 5 rounds AND Win at least 2 games, will receive $5 on Historical Board Games.

5. The Grand Winner of the Tournament will receive $40 on Historical Board Games.
(You have to cover your own shipping costs if it goes over your prize amount)

6. Because everyone is new to most of these games, rulings will be based on a “Common Sense” approach, and will not be very strict.

7. Everyone should post regularly, like at least several times per week unless you notify everyone you are on a holiday or something.  Failure to post regularly enough can result in a loss for that game. (minimum 2 posts per week, unless you notify ahead of time)

8. Games will be played in the A&A forum, unless both players agree to play the game live on the lobby, or by email (please post the result save when the game is over).

9. All games will use the DEFAULT rules in TripleA, unless both players agree.  (So for example, Great War is dice, while New World Order is low luck)

10. Both players must find a way to agree on who plays which side.  If they can not agree, then I will roll a dice to determine who plays what side.

So, let me repeat this:

**You and your Opponent must decide on:

1. What dice rules to use (ie: Dice or Low Luck).
and
2. What side each player plays.**

If you can not agree, then:
1. You will use whatever rules are default for that map (ie: Napoleonic is Low Luck, while Great War is dice)
and
2. I will roll a dice to determine who gets what side.

thanks, and everyone may start now!
Please start your threads, and pm the other guy to join them!

usually you just start the thread, and also “private message” the person

to send a private message, go through the first 5 pages here and look for the name of the person you are playing.  then click on their name and then click ‘send private message’, or just click the little “chat” icon by their name on the left side of the screen

also, i should throw this out there:

If players can not agree on how to play the game (forum, lobby, email, etc), then the default method is to play via forum.

@Randmacts:

Put in Seththenewb in for me if you want, he seems pretty keen, I am playing several other games at the moment anyway. Apologies for any hassle.

@seththenewb:

I didn’t want to boot anyone who was interested in playing. Just figured I’d throw my name in the hat in case someone was a no show.

@Bacala:

Hi,
Ok i have an account now, so i will be ready to start this week. Sorry im a little bit late.
Bacala

Seth and Bacala, you 2 are welcome to start your game ASAP

Randmacts, it would be cool if you could stay in the tournament.  Your opponent is ‘ice’, and he has already started a thread for you two:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=28445.0

(if you must drop out, please let me know, but it would be much better if you stay in and have fun!)

@Noll:

I’m waiting for Lala to show up in the forums!

send him a private message, with a link to your new thread

(i’ll also slap him if I see him in the lobby)