Napoléon I 1805 - 1815 ToTPP and Lua scenario updated to v1.2

I may have a solution for you. I'm 99% sure that I can write an event that forces the human player to unload units either into a city or from a transport that has full movement points if onto a beach. (I've tried similar things for Over the Reich, which may or may not be kept.) So, scrap the kill driven Maritime Supremacy system, and allow the French to build transports from an early stage. Since the first part of the invasion must take place on a beach, the full transports must be exposed to English attack before they can be unloaded. If the French have not adequately thinned out the Royal Navy, then the transports are in serious trouble.

I would also write move unit events that direct nearby English warships to attack tiles with loaded transports, in order to help the AI be dangerous, and events to make the English try to keep "enough" warships in the Channel to challenge the French fleet. Perhaps add a delay for reinforcements after new French construction or victories ("Alarmed by recent losses at sea against the French, the British Admiralty recalls ships deployed outside of Europe. It will take some time for these ships to arrive."), so not only may a victory happen at an unpredictable time, there will be a limited window of opportunity to exploit it, so the troops must be kept near the shore, and not guarding against the Austrians or Prussians.

Even if this works, there is still a problem that a successful invasion of England seems like it would decide the game in ~1808. Maybe it doesn't, and only just seems like it since I haven't played through the game. For all I know, leaving England free or not might be mostly inconsequential compared to the combined might of Russia, Austria, and Prussia.

EDIT:

I wasn't meaning to assert that he did sacrifice allies over Frenchmen (I don't know enough about that either way), just that it would not be surprising if he did.

 

Unfortunately, though that is an interesting idea it's exactly what I don't want to occur, i.e. meaning that I don't want France to have any chance whatsoever of being able to invade England if it hasn't met some prerequisite objective, in this case maritime supremacy. Historically, the odds that Napoléon could have successfully invaded Britain where slim to none.

Even if Admiral Villeneuve had won a glorious victory at Trafalgar in October 1805 the window of opportunity for invading England was very limited, as the British where in the process of mobilizing their reserve naval forces and France being primarily a continental power would be unable to match this level of mobilization. Not to mention the fact that in pure expertise and experience, the French Navy wasn't the equal of the Royal Navy. This was even more problematic due to the fact that, at the time of the naval battle, the Grande Armée was some 1000km away from the English Channel trying to defeat the combined forces of Austria and Russia.

I'm going to need sometime to rethink this, maybe provide the French with naval barges with limited movement factors that would expose them at sea instead of naval transports. I'm not sure.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you had somehow impinged on French national honor and that a dual at dawn was in order ... but merely to remark that though players were following the letter of the law, in terms of L'Élan Napoléonien, they may not have been following the spirit of the event as it was intended. But that is my fault as the designer.

I think instead of adding the Allied minors to the calculation, that it would make more sense to add all the French units instead of just the Régiment de Ligne to this calculation but increase the number of required units to be killed from the current 24 limit. Therefore, it would be impossible for France to be successful in any campaign without committing its own forces.

 

Heads up @techumseh! Today (err, yesterday, actually, is the 210th anniversary of the day Napoleon Bonaparte defeated Archduke Charles (the guy whose given you so much trouble in this scenario, and you've fretted about stats, balance, spawning, and tendency to turtle since this scenario was released) at the Battle of Wagram. If you haven't got him down yet, time for another good whack at him!

 

Which time? Italy in 1797, Abensberg, Landshut and Eckmuhl in 1809 or Wagram 1809? Or by Massena in the Battle of Caldiero in 1805?

Btw, we haven't had a report from you on your progress playing Napoleon. How did you do?

 

I haven't defeated the RL barbarian civ yet. I should have some free time in a couple of weeks to give good, solid, informed, and serious go at the four or five most recent released scenarios.