Ok, my two cents. First of all, I really think the discussion here has become a bit too heated, with some pretty harsh critisism and accusations of lying happening. I really think many of us would benefit from just calming down a bit, remembering that this is a game, it's supposed to be fun. Also, it is good to remember that no plan is perfect, almost any formation or plan has weaknesses. We can always imagine and wargame scenarios where the enemy has perfect knowledge of our plans and troop positions, and comes up with the perfect counter. At some point, we have to accept that there is counterplay to our plans, it would not really be fun at all if the battle was over at Turn 0 and there was no real decision making involved after this vote, would it?

But let's ignore those problems for a moment and ask: What happens if the enemy tries to position superior artillery firepower without screening infantry? Nschwerte gives us the response that the cavalry will take care of it. This seems plausible at first, but the cavalry needs to take care of the entirety of the enemy artillery force. Reliably, until the entire enemy is slowly eliminated via long-ranged fire. This inherently requires the cavalry to act separately.

So, in this scenario the artillery commences long range fire without an infantry screen and without additional cover, just to assume the most optimistic case, and the cavalry has to be sent out against that battery. Our own front forces will not take much in the way of damage due to the breastwork (-90); at least the ones in cover rather than standing in open field (-50, easily overcome after a long enough bombardment), but an artillery-> artillery fire shoots at -100, meaning we loose the exchange over a long enough time, especially with vulnerable infantry at the side. You wouldn't even necessarily need to expose your own artillery to counterbattery fire, considering the infantry screen is one tile before the artillery, meaning you can shoot 12, while the Klinzberg position is 13 tiles away. Since, long range is 12 tiles long, with the cavalry only being able to charge 9. Any such assault would take 2 turns over open terrain, even if forgo to place the artillery in cover. The infantry and cavalry screens could be placed 13 tiles away from our forces, swooping in one the following turn, where the cavalry is 3 tiles away and the infantry only needs to to move 2 tiles to cover.
That said, I have to admit that I agree with this criticism for Plan Fortress Kingzberg. I have long been worried about this secnario, where pushes forward his artillery only, with no screening infantry we can target. This could force us to go after said "vulnerable" artillery with cavalry, which is risky as he also has significant cavalry troops available to interecept. However, the problem is that I fail to see how plan Fortress Rotholz is not vulnerable to this same plan as well? Is it because the smaller amount of screening troops is better protected? As discussed before, even shooting at -80, he can deal significant damage to our troops over time. If I was him and I had plenty of munitions, this is honestly the tactic I would use against both plans: send artillery forward without visible screening, keep cavalry hidden behind and use Ready Charges to intercept enemy charges on the "vulnerable" cannons.

This is why I currently prefer @Chimeraguard's plan, since the forward positions at least put some pressure on his troops, forcing him to be careful with how he manouvers.

So, while I appreciate the effort to do something other than let Trotha slowly advance towards us, the cornerstone of this plan revolves around controlling the eastern basin with the horse artillery. This a decent enough goal. The problem comes in the execution. Valley outpost leaves the Fortress Rotholz completely uncontested, meaning the enemy horse artillery will likely occupy it and be given a fire position into the basin. Rotholz provides further cover for screening Infantry of Trotha, so we are unlikely to win that exchange. This makes control over the eastern basin tough, but still possible. The problem comes with the lack of forces committed to this flank. With nothing contesting control over the central corridor, Trotha just needs to place one artillery position on the northern hill range and bombard our forces until they retreat.
Ok, with this I'll make a final attempt to come up with a compromise plan that might satisfy many here. What if we actually do as you kind of suggest here, place our main line in the Valley, with Fortress Rotholz guarding our Western flank and controlling the road? Like this:

View: https://imgur.com/a/uu7iwr5

If I have not misunderstood, this plan actually takes care of most of the critisisms for all the current plans. We take and hold Rotholz, so it cannot be called a purely passive idea. If Rotholz is lost, we still can retreat on the left flank to the hills behind it in good order, so it is not completely static. A infantry assault against Rotholz through the forest can be countered by our artillery, as well as by a charge of our infantry through the valley if needed. And finally, while the units in the valley look vulnerable to artillery, the forest prevents Von Trotha's artillery from firing on them unless they are on hills. There are only three hilltops from which he can safely fire over the forest into the valley (marked in red), thus he cannot efficiently use all his 7 artillery pieces.

The hill in yellow could be a good position for him, but as long as we hold Rotholz him bringing troops there would be very risky. If we want to attack him at some point, this hill could be a good starting point. In general, due to our more aggresive formation and us holding Rotholz, I think Von Trotha would have to screen his artillery with infantry, thus providing us better targets for our artillery.
 
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Quick thoughts.
The topic of mid-battle turn automation was suggested and discussed before.
Frankly, if we are discussing rule changes, the thing that came to my mind during this battle was that it could be nice to be able to give conditional orders and then outright skip or automate turns where few things of interest happen. Basically have Durand say "our position is rock solid, so I'm gonna take a nap. Keep the artillery firing on targets at will, tell the frontline troops to keep current positions and fire if the enemy moves into range. Wake me up if the enemy frontline moves forward or their cavalry shows itself, or if there is some other crisis".

From a player's and QM's perspective, this coulda make the less exciting parts of the battles shorter and smoother. From a historical and story perspective, this is definitely a thing that happened, generals had to know when to delegate things and when to take command themselves (especially as real battles could last for hours).

Was there not even a famous case where some general manouvered his army into a superior position, saw that the enemy was about to attack and told his suborbinates "my job is done, the battle is won, you handle it from here", after which he promptly went to sleep while the battle raged on?
The QM replied with this after the Turn 14 of Brutet
I can see this sounding good in theory, but it's a recipe for disaster in practice. We already have enough situations where my interpretation of some orders is not the questers' interpretation. I'm not gonna volunteer to be put into a position where I fuck up your plans because the battle has been put on autopilot. I also don't think it'd be very good for the core gameplay of this Quest.

The fifteen rounds of Brutet really tested the patience of the questbase and took two real life months to complete. However, any round covers roughly 10 minutes and so Brutet took over the course of roughly 2.5 hours in-game. The rest of VI. Army is expected to arrive on the 24th the next day if the weather holds out.

Unlike Wachenheim who was given a losing hand from the start, Von Trotha has probably enough artillery and options to theoretically beat any given plan of ours. But he is not a mindreading supergenius either.
 
This is how I am currently looking at Fortress Kinzberg Deployment:



These units will then move into these positions:

From Left to Right:

Guillorys Hussars will be looking at what they can see and move north, focusing on making sure we have full vision in the west and that they dont get hit. They will then be a dangerous threat in von Trothas flanks he either spends inordinate amounts of stuff to chase away, spends troops to screen against them or accepts that they can move into his flanks if opportune.

Addiitonally, they will be in great position to cut off enemy escape in the pursuit phase, though the exact way that works depends on how the enemy moves - if he goes through Rotholz we wouldnt need them because he voluntarily trapped himself but otherwise they can cut off avenues and possibly even capture cavalry.

The Halflings in the west are currently hidden and will act as an very unwelcome surprise if the enemy attacks or harass and skirmish stuff going through the west. They depend a lot on what the enemy does, maybe they shoot charging enemies in the flank, ambush cavalry trying ambush in rough forests or move north too to act as a threat in conjunction with Guilllorys detachment.

The central position is our big strongpoint, a hard place von Trotha needs to remove if he wants to win, with no way to bypass it, from which our artillery harasses von Trothas movement.

In the east, the 5th, 16th and 45th act as a detached forward position to skirmish and strike the enemy if they try to play games in the Rotholz valley.the 45th acts as spotter, being able to see every enemy unit even in the forest with the +1 from the hill. If the Infantry gets threathened they slowly withdraw to get shielded by hills and if the 5th gets threathened by cavalry it withdraws to Kinzberg itself where it is safe.

Our 3 cavalry units are in the East, where they react to whatever the enemy does, its very open here. They may screen the 5th with ready charges, do a cavalry battle in the Rotholz, flank the enemies from the east, flank the enemy charging, hold a dance party, they are ready to fight and will be our deatsquad to mess with von Trothas day if he isnt careful.





What is our response to the enemy doing different Plans?

Von Trotha does not move into our artillery range

If von Trotha actually wants to defeat us, he needs to move into artillery range, because he cannot damage us while fully hidden. So him not moving into artillery range would mean that he does not attack us, at which point we would skip forward to something changing, namely us getting our reinforcements, as shown in Brutet, where von Wachenheim declining battle allowed us to decline too and skip forward.

Von Trotha bombards us from Long Range.

von Trotha would be bombarding our units for -90 cover, which is generally accepted as something he would not actually do and we could easily rest the bombarded unit and restore more cohesion than we lose,

von Trotha moves into medium range to bombard us

while von Trotha moves into medium range, the 10th shoots and destroys one his proffessional field artillery while the other unit bombard his slow infantry cover.

Then, once he is set up he shoots at us with -60, while we shoot his screens with -20. The 10th destroys the horse artillery, which has less range and needs to go into its range and gets shot at with just -40+ advantage.

During all of this we do our very best to get some cavalry and maybe even infantry past him, who are able to set up at the pass in the north and prevent his retreat by blocking the road.

Von Trotha moves through the Rotholz.

The 45th scouts to see it. We already harass with the 5th, get our cavalry squad up to harass, get the halflings up to set up in the Gerberholz to cut off his retreat and decide whether we should just assault his army while they are moving through a forest and his artillery is not set up or if we welcome them in the south and still defeat them.

Von Trotha moves through the west

He doesnt gain anything from that, thats the same as going through central.

Von Trotha charges us immedeately

We defend, have all cavalry, the halflings and the 45th fall upon their flanks while they get blasted by artillery.

Unfortunately we wont be able to capture his cannons here unless we are confident that we can send guillorys cavalry forward instead of nuking more enemy units in the defense.

Von Trotha takes Rotholz Turm and Sarnscheid Schloss

We shrug and laugh at him, Sarnscheid doesnt have the range to reach us and Rotholz is even cut off by hills to defend against us.

Von Trotha sets up to shell our units in the East

We withdraw into positions that cant be shelled while shelling the stuff that is setting up against our forward position and out of position after that. If he moves them away from their useless positions we could just move back after that, though all that stuff really depends on what von Trotha does.

Von Trotha instakill one of our units

we draw on one of our flanking unit to fill the empty spot while everything else moves up

Von Trotha actually has a hidden Elite Cavalry riding on pegasi

We draw back the halflings in the west to the Fort to prevent them from getting charged and have our artillery try to shoot them down if they are in range

Depending on the situation the Halflings would join the 5th in the east, where there is a concentration of units large enough to prevent a divebomb.

Guillory would also be drawn back closer to us but still in the west and charge the pegasi if they attack us

Guillorys Cavalry betrays us in the battle

The hallfings disengage in the direction of the Hochschloss, where our artillery cover can make sure they are safe. Or they just stay in forests with good cover against cavalry and brace, depends on where the cavalry actually is

Some other unexpected event happens

we would react to what happens organically, unexpected events can by definition not be planned for
 
However, the problem is that I fail to see how plan Fortress Rotholz is not vulnerable to this same plan as well? Is it because the smaller amount of screening troops is better protected?
So, the major difference is that having a forward position at Rotholz allows us to post cavalry closer to the front, since half of the map is inacessible to the enemy without taking artillery fire. Since the enemy is less free to go forward and secure a position with infantry, putting up a close enough artillery position to erode the second line becomes really difficult. There are 3 major ways to move artillery forward: Trough the central corridor, where the escorting cavalry would take attrition from the sidefire at Rotholz, trough the Rotholz (not feasible if we have forces close by, so he needs to take Rotholz first) and trough the Räuberwald. I have discussed the last one more extensively before, but to summarize: The artillery cover over much of the central battlefields allows us to bombard the hills and the sides, making any set-up difficult.

By comparison, the static position at Kinzberg doesn't give us control beyond the hills, meaning we can only put cavalry behind them. Trotha could leap-frog, setting up one battery while the second ones moves forward,. then switches until he's just about in range. Since we don't get any flanking fire from Rotholz, we can only disrupt this via cavalry charge.
Ok, with this I'll make a final attempt to come up with a compromise plan that might satisfy many here. What if we actually do as you kind of suggest here, place our main line in the Valley, with Fortress Rotholz guarding our Western flank and controlling the road? Like this:
I appreciate the effort. With this said, the compromise takes out a central element of the plan. I set up my artillery battery very deliberatly, supporting flanking fire against a central assault. This combintation creates a killzone in the central pass, where you first pass by fire from Rotholz and run into fire from that battery. Just entrenching behind the hill makes holding Rotholz not that viable due to a lack of firepower.
 
Von Trotha bombards us from Long Range.

von Trotha would be bombarding our units for -90 cover, which is generally accepted as something he would not actually do and we could easily rest the bombarded unit and restore more cohesion than we lose,
That depends on the options he has. If his other option is "do nothing" or "try a suicidal medium range assault", he is willing to shoot, especially if we can't shoot back. At the end of the day, he might use a lot of munitions to inflict slight casualties, until the fight ends.

I'm also going to point out that Trotha could set up for a long-ranged bombardment of the hills, who only provide -20+-50 = -70 cover (enables reasonable shots for the experienced artillery at -40), slowly flushing the units out. They can only go toward the open terrain east and west of Klinzberg, which do make for more tempting targets. Your strategy here boils down to "risk a dangerous cavalry charge OR wait until he's sick of the bombardment and goes home. Both of these don't give us much of an advantage during the battle.

We can win a much better victory with a forward position.
 
So we agree that the eastern hill range is untennable if we simply occupy the southern hills. Leaving the horse artillery on it's own also runs into the risk of insufficient screening, which means it will have to withdraw once the screens get to scarce. Ok, good. This does put a hole into the plan for village outpost and your modified plan-

I'm confused however at how the delay is worth it. Both of your plans rely on static defenses that need to be manned, so it's not like this time could be used to reposition forces.

I do not believe that Von Trotha would be able to get his units into position in the east without exposing himself to artillery fire from us.

He would need to move his artillery through 5 tiles of hills to reach his position without getting hit by counterbattery shots by the 10th, which will likely hit at least some of it.

The 5th would also only need to retreat once the enemy actually has cavalry that can threaten it, so that cavalry needs to be at the southern edge of the Rotholz, where it is in range and can be attacked at medium range while moving into position. We could theoretically also have our own cavalry as a mobile screen in front, but I don't want that if he has set up artillery, because 10 of our cavalry is worth like 50 of his.


I'll do the illustrations, we are still misunderstanding each other concerning the western push criticism

I'm sorry, we have "seen" a counterfactual? I don't remember any timeskips happening in Brutet due to both sides staying in place.

At Brutet, Von Wachenheim choose to stay in place and we had the option to stay in place ourselves and would have time skipped forward if we did it.

But tbh @Photomajig , can you clarify what happens if we set up our defenses and Von Trotha decides to set up his defenses and not interact with us? Would we skip forward?


No, my plan has multiple lines of defence. Even if the enemy takes Rotholz, we can now set up another line of artillery south of the hills, protected from enemy fire. This means the enemy bleeds multiple times while trying to take the next position, without having to solely rely on cavalry charges to disrupt long-term bombardment. The theoretical taking of Rotholz neatly leads into the issue of taking the central corridor, after the enemy infantry has heavily bleed and plenty of munitions have been exhausted. And my own cavalry didn't have to be deployed, enabling raids on the enemy if he is weak enough. After all this, the option of a counterattack still remains. The south of Rotholz isn't particularly protected against artillery fire.

See, you claim the second fallback position is an illusion, but that is false. The enemy needs to commit either large amounts of ammunition to storming Rotholz, or significant amounts of manpower. In either case, it weakens him. The second position might be in the open, but it is an artillery position that needs to be overcome with an already weakened force. The enemy artillery can't teleport in there and I don't leave half of the map to the enemy to freely reposition their forces.

How is the second artillery position south of the hills protected by artillery fire? It's screens are on open plains.

How is taking the central corridor difficult for Von Trotha in your plan? Rotholz is gone, he can just crawl his artillery forward literally like in how you criticise my plan.

Raids on the enemy by cavalry aren't a secondary line, they happen in my plan too, their job is literally to be a nuisance and completely open to do whatever.

Once Rotholz is defeated, you do leave half the map open to the enemy?

That's nice, but non applicable. I don't see a river here, and Wachenheim certainly needed a reason to charge us rather than wait out our charge

...it's a metaphor. Sun Tzu didn't literally expect people to just sit by a river.
 
I appreciate the effort. With this said, the compromise takes out a central element of the plan. I set up my artillery battery very deliberatly, supporting flanking fire against a central assault. This combintation creates a killzone in the central pass, where you first pass by fire from Rotholz and run into fire from that battery. Just entrenching behind the hill makes holding Rotholz not that viable due to a lack of firepower.
I don't really see it, to be honest. If worst comes to worst, we can retreat from Rotholz without losing the battle, and a central assault like you envision would bloody him a lot, would it not? Your own plan hinges on the fact that Rotholz is extremely resistant to artillery fire, right? That means he has to try to take it with infantry, which is already a win for us. We want to get into a infantry slugging match where we are defending a fortified poisition, since our infantry is better than his.

And even better, if he really commits to a central assault against Rotholz in response to my plan, we can push foward with our troops through the valley and enter the forest, threatening either his cannons or to outflank his push in the center.

Honestly, I don't really understand why you think a "killzone in the center" would work, since he can choose to attack through the forest instead, right? What is preventing him from coming through the forest where your cannons in the center cannot reach?
 
Holding the Rotholz Basin:
I do not believe that Von Trotha would be able to get his units into position in the east without exposing himself to artillery fire from us.
Really? You don't think he could set up artillery positions on the northern hills, an area separated from cavalry by 2 turns of traversing a forest without posting infantry screens visibly? Intercepting a cavalry charge from the Rotholz is rather trivial, and the open plains west of it aren't exposed to artillery fire.
At Brutet, Von Wachenheim choose to stay in place and we had the option to stay in place ourselves and would have time skipped forward if we did it.
You're actually convinced about this. Ok, why do you think the quest centred around tactical combat is going to offer a skip button?

Second defensive line
How is the second artillery position south of the hills protected by artillery fire? It's screens are on open plains.
It's protected from artillery fire by virtue of being behind the hills. Just to be clear, I'm talking about this:

This leaves 2 counterplay options: Try to set up positions south of Sarnscheid and outflank us OR take the position from the hill. The infantry would be in cover, but also be facing close range artillery support, souring their chances. Outflanking has the issue of putting infantry into the crossfire of the new position, allowing us to erode them for a cavalry charge while the artillery is slowly set up.
...it's a metaphor. Sun Tzu didn't literally expect people to just sit by a river.
I know. It's a metaphor with no relvance to our situation, while pattons quote on static defenses is relevant.
 
Honestly, I don't really understand why you think a "killzone in the center" would work, since he can choose to attack through the forest instead, right? What is preventing him from coming through the forest where your cannons in the center cannot reach?
Give me a moment, I will make an illustration.
 
Killzones in my own plan:


Part of making the attack of Rotholz as bloody as possible is to position our own artillery for flanking fire. The assault in the central plains forces Trotha to march his force into range of 3 of our artillery batteries, making this incredibly bloody. Without that, the assault becomes much less bloody and drawn out, damaging our own infantry. Without this, the forward position is much weaker. It's still possible, but he won't bleed as I expected.
Honestly, I don't really understand why you think a "killzone in the center" would work, since he can choose to attack through the forest instead, right? What is preventing him from coming through the forest where your cannons in the center cannot reach?
So, going through the forest is a slow path , but one that's viable for attack. The forest side however will have fewer artillery positions since it is just a flank AND the artillery will take long to set up. With the 31st at the side, this particular approach faces tough odds while coming down to an artillery melee, one we can win thanks to the off. genius 200th and the highly mobile 19th (they can rapid move, melee and rapid move away before the enemy can attack them.). This is an approach that heavily leans on infantry abilities on it's own, something that Trotha is likely unwilling to commit significant forces too. We still win, it's just a less one-sided win.
 
Ok, my two cents. First of all, I really think the discussion here has become a bit too heated, with some pretty harsh critisism and accusations of lying happening. I really think many of us would benefit from just calming down a bit, remembering that this is a game, it's supposed to be fun. Also, it is good to remember that no plan is perfect, almost any formation or plan has weaknesses. We can always imagine and wargame scenarios where the enemy has perfect knowledge of our plans and troop positions, and comes up with the perfect counter. At some point, we have to accept that there is counterplay to our plans, it would not really be fun at all if the battle was over at Turn 0 and there was no real decision making involved after this vote, would it?

No actually, my plan is perfect :V

But seriously, I just really don't want a plan that does have the perfect counter. Force the enemy to have no perfect answer to us and he cannot do that perfect answer.


That said, I have to admit that I agree with this criticism for Plan Fortress Kingzberg. I have long been worried about this secnario, where pushes forward his artillery only, with no screening infantry we can target. This could force us to go after said "vulnerable" artillery with cavalry, which is risky as he also has significant cavalry troops available to interecept. However, the problem is that I fail to see how plan Fortress Rotholz is not vulnerable to this same plan as well? Is it because the smaller amount of screening troops is better protected? As discussed before, even shooting at -80, he can deal significant damage to our troops over time. If I was him and I had plenty of munitions, this is honestly the tactic I would use against both plans: send artillery forward without visible screening, keep cavalry hidden behind and use Ready Charges to intercept enemy charges on the "vulnerable" cannons.

This is why I currently prefer @Chimeraguard's plan, since the forward positions at least put some pressure on his troops, forcing him to be careful with how he manouvers

Yes, he could do the same to us on Rotholz, but we have generally ignored this because RR doesn't believe Von Trotha will do it and trying to argue Trothas personality doesnt make sense.

The most simple counter to him pushing forward his artillery without screening is imo first, shooting his artillery that is moving and second feinting against the cavalry cover - move close to the artillery and move back once his cavalry moves out to intercept while shooting the intercepting cavalry.

This way, we still can shoot his screens every turn we just need to lure them out first.

Ok, with this I'll make a final attempt to come up with a compromise plan that might satisfy many here. What if we actually do as you kind of suggest here, place our main line in the Valley, with Fortress Rotholz guarding our Western flank and controlling the road? Like this

Is the bottom left artillery supposed to be there? Its blocked in north and east by hills

Unlike Wachenheim who was given a losing hand from the start, Von Trotha has probably enough artillery and options to theoretically beat any given plan of ours. But he is not a mindreading supergenius either.

Not really, we have the superior position, I consider this battle pretty easily won just like Brutet, it's just a matter of the KDA.


So, the major difference is that having a forward position at Rotholz allows us to post cavalry closer to the front, since half of the map is inacessible to the enemy without taking artillery fire. Since the enemy is less free to go forward and secure a position with infantry, putting up a close enough artillery position to erode the second line becomes really difficult. There are 3 major ways to move artillery forward: Trough the central corridor, where the escorting cavalry would take attrition from the sidefire at Rotholz, trough the Rotholz (not feasible if we have forces close by, so he needs to take Rotholz first) and trough the Räuberwald. I have discussed the last one more extensively before, but to summarize: The artillery cover over much of the central battlefields allows us to bombard the hills and the sides, making any set-up difficult.

By comparison, the static position at Kinzberg doesn't give us control beyond the hills, meaning we can only put cavalry behind them. Trotha could leap-frog, setting up one battery while the second ones moves forward,. then switches until he's just about in range. Since we don't get any flanking fire from Rotholz, we can only disrupt this via cavalry charge

You want to cavalry charge his units bombarding the Rotholz???


That depends on the options he has. If his other option is "do nothing" or "try a suicidal medium range assault", he is willing to shoot, especially if we can't shoot back. At the end of the day, he might use a lot of munitions to inflict slight casualties, until the fight ends

Your plan literally hinges on him having the option of "do nothing" or try a suicidal assault.

Wtf?

Like this is an argument against your plan!

it is a big argument against your plan I have brought up a lot!

I'm also going to point out that Trotha could set up for a long-ranged bombardment of the hills, who only provide -20+-50 = -70 cover (enables reasonable shots for the experienced artillery at -40), slowly flushing the units out.

Which hills? If you mean the eastern hills, we can just move the infantry out of their firing lines when he sets up and he'll have sent his artillery on a 15 turn goose chase to oftenburg to get nothing.

Also, didn't you rule such a move out? Because doing that would be an easy way to break Rotholz, with artillery in these mountains firing at the eastern Rotholz screen with -20 for his professional units.


Your strategy here boils down to "risk a dangerous cavalry charge OR wait until he's sick of the bombardment and goes home. Both of these don't give us much of an advantage during the battle.

Where the hell did you get that I am risking a cavalry charge??? The cavalry is currently completely unplanned

And your plan literally relies on him doing a suicide charge or waiting until he is sick of Bombardement and goes home?

Like I absolutely do not understand this criticism of my plan from you, whose plan is even more suspectible to Bombardement from Von Trotha, with us having less pieces in range, less cover boni and him needing to do less manouvring to get in position

We can win a much better victory with a forward position.

The absolute best your forward position can achieve is killing like 2000 of his troops for 400 for ours, not exactly a great victory that will shift the frontline.

We want to get into a infantry slugging match where we are defending a fortified poisition, since our infantry is better than his.

No? Why would we want to do that, we want to absolutely slaughter him.

An infantry slugging match reduces our net infantry xp, causes a lot of casualties even when winning and doesn't lead to some great way forward.

Just attritioning him down is viable but like the worst way we can go about this.

Really? You don't think he could set up artillery positions on the northern hills, an area separated from cavalry by 2 turns of traversing a forest without posting infantry screens visibly? Intercepting a cavalry charge from the Rotholz is rather trivial, and the open plains west of it aren't exposed to artillery fire.

He could, he would just get fire from the 10th in the process.

Because the open plains west of it are exposed to artillery fire? We have range to two tiles down from the deployment zone, which includes these plains.

You're actually convinced about this. Ok, why do you think the quest centred around tactical combat is going to offer a skip button?

Because I do not think that photo would actually write 144 updates where nothing happens until we have our reinforcements enter the battle, but we can just wait for him to respond to the question.


This leaves 2 counterplay options: Try to set up positions south of Sarnscheid and outflank us OR take the position from the hill. The infantry would be in cover, but also be facing close range artillery support, souring their chances. Outflanking has the issue of putting infantry into the crossfire of the new position, allowing us to erode them for a cavalry charge while the artillery is slowly set up.

How would him taking positions south of Sarnscheid be a problem? He could just... Do it?

And shoot with 7 artillery while we shoot back with 3.


I know. It's a metaphor with no relvance to our situation, while pattons quote on static defenses is relevant

It's about the value of patience...


I just want everyone to be aware that the 31st does 0.9 cohesion damage per turn in this plan.


they can rapid move, melee and rapid move away before the enemy can attack them.

Well, the enemy could ready attack, but would probably just prefer attacking the 200th anyway.


The forest side however will have fewer artillery positions since it is just a flank AND the artillery will take long to set up.

Seeing as you believe he would spend 15 turns to set up artillery to flush out the valley outpost in my plan, why would you assume that he wouldn't do it to flush out your center of your defense?
 
@Red Rationalist
Räubergame

Alright, the battle has started, you have reached your positions you wanted. von trothas troops that you have seen at the beginning have ducked east and west behind the hills so you do not see any of them. Would you move anything in this situation?

 
I'm not going to respond to this entire sphaghetti post, but let me pick out relevant parts.

Relevant Differences in Planning
Your plan literally hinges on him having the option of "do nothing" or try a suicidal assault.
Yeah, I do intend to force an attack at Rotholz. The reason this works is that only by taking Rotholz can he move forward trough the map, while moving to Klinzberg takes substantially longer and allows him to secure positions along the way. Rotholz is good bait, there is a strong reason to take it because of the desire to move trough the map. There is also a reason to use infantry, since the position is quite resiliant against artillery fire. Sitting in Klinzberg and waiting doesn't offer any such motivation.

The necessity of cavalry charges in Fortress Klinzberg
Where the hell did you get that I am risking a cavalry charge??? The cavalry is currently completely unplanned
The cavalry charge emerges as necessity. So, Klinzberg doesn't allow us to reposition infantry forces, since they are tied to a fixed position. If the enemy send artillery slowly forward and tries to bombard our positions, we can either a) do nothing and wait until he is satisfied or b) Send out the cavalry. This cavalry charge to counter long range bombardment might seem promising at first, but it's a charge over 12 tiles. Meaning the cavalry comes into middling /close range, making this highly dangerous for them.
There isn't another plan for the cavalry, or how to disrupt the long-range bombardment of our positions. Unless your plan is "Sit and let ourselves be bombarded until Wachenheim gets tired", in which case we get the casualties in exchange for his munition loss. This is the problem of centering the plan on one position at the back of the map, you give up every control over the battlefield.

Your argument boils down to "Rotholz is to bloody for him, so he woudl"

Relative losses
The absolute best your forward position can achieve is killing like 2000 of his troops for 400 for ours, not exactly a great victory that will shift the frontline.
I would like to see the math on this. We are talking about 1 close horse artillery + 2 med. ranged artillery firing onto open plains, while the enemy attacks -70 ranged AND we are occupying -30 infantry cover. The best case scenario is a lot bloodier for him.

Rotholz & Plan Critiques
I just want everyone to be aware that the 31st does 0.9 cohesion damage per turn in this plan.
Average against units in forest cover, yes. It does plenty more damage while they enter, which weakens the enemy before.
Seeing as you believe he would spend 15 turns to set up artillery to flush out the valley outpost in my plan, why would you assume that he wouldn't do it to flush out your center of your defense?
Because I'm not giving him 15 turns, and I'm not fixed in one very visible position. If he tries that, I move the artillery up slightly and start slaughtering everything that moves into the cover via cavalry. That is the advantage of controlling the battlefield, you get to contest certain moves.
 
Alright, the battle has started, you have reached your positions you wanted. von trothas troops that you have seen at the beginning have ducked east and west behind the hills so you do not see any of them. Would you move anything in this situation?
There is an issue with the premise: Assuming Trotha moves infantry from the central plains trough the forest, the 108th has a LoS on that. They get 6 spotting, meaning they scout normal infantry. Plus I would order them to search. If I don't see anything, I'm moving the 55th up the hill to get a look on that part.
Unless Trotha deploys behind the eastern parts of the hill as a first choice, he needs to cross the sightline. Meaning I get 3 turns of advanced warning.

Edit: Taking a closer look, I can send forces to occupy the hills in 2 turns, plus use cavalry charges on any infantry that wants to leave the forest. I don't see how you would be able to secure a foothold on the other side.
 
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Yeah, I do intend to force an attack at Rotholz. The reason this works is that only by taking Rotholz can he move forward trough the map, while moving to Klinzberg takes substantially longer and allows him to secure positions along the way. Rotholz is good bait, there is a strong reason to take it because of the desire to move trough the map. There is also a reason to use infantry, since the position is quite resiliant against artillery fire. Sitting in Klinzberg and waiting doesn't offer any such motivation.

I do intend to force an attack at Kinzberg. The reason this works is that only be taking Kinzberg can he win the battle. Kinzberg is good bait, because he must take it. There is also reason to use infantry, since the position is quite resilient against artillery fire.

Explain why von Trotha would be unwilling to bombard Rotholz, but would be willing to bombard Kinzberg.

The cavalry charge emerges as necessity. So, Klinzberg doesn't allow us to reposition infantry forces, since they are tied to a fixed position. If the enemy send artillery slowly forward and tries to bombard our positions, we can either a) do nothing and wait until he is satisfied or b) Send out the cavalry. This cavalry charge to counter long range bombardment might seem promising at first, but it's a charge over 12 tiles. Meaning the cavalry comes into middling /close range, making this highly dangerous for them.
There isn't another plan for the cavalry, or how to disrupt the long-range bombardment of our positions. Unless your plan is "Sit and let ourselves be bombarded until Wachenheim gets tired", in which case we get the casualties in exchange for his munition loss. This is the problem of centering the plan on one position at the back of the map, you give up every control over the battlefield.

Your argument boils down to "Rotholz is to bloody for him, so he woudl"

The first thing we can do is shoot his artillery with the 10th, who kill 8 of them on average, which removes one of his elite artillery during the crawl forward.

Additionally you seem to think that von Trotha can magically screen his artillery with ready charge cavalry without problem. The problem is, what if we charge our cavalry at him, have his ready charge triggered and move back after that, drawing out his cavalry into the open where it can be bombarded by our artillery? You say that cavalry can 100% screen artillery on the move, but have not explained how it deals with feints.

Additionally, cavalry moving into close/medium range isnt really a problem, because von Trotha needs to set up first before shooting.

If he does set up we can just move back and forth, where he is slowed even more while the 10th kills 8 artillery troops every single turn...

Your plan is literally "sit and let ourselves be bombarded until von Trotha gets tired". Like literally, your counter to him bombarding is that he wouldnt waste the munitions to do that. We all have agreed that if he had infinite munitions he could defeat Rotholz just by bombarding it for a day.

I would like to see the math on this. We are talking about 1 close horse artillery + 2 med. ranged artillery firing onto open plains, while the enemy attacks -70 ranged AND we are occupying -30 infantry cover. The best case scenario is a lot bloodier for him.

Its guesses, because the exact numbers wouldnt really matter. it could be 2000-100, the crux of the matter is that we do not achieve a decisive defeat because he loses a ton of infantry and can just do an orderly retreat after that. Well, we do know some stuff, i did calculate 4,5 cohesion damage per turn on a frontal assault, so during 5 turns that would be 250 casualties for us, we would defeat 102 of his cohesion, that would be 1200 casualties for him, so my guess about the ratio wasnt actually that off!

Average against units in forest cover, yes. It does plenty more damage while they enter, which weakens the enemy before.

No it doesnt.

Against units in forest cover its -30 forest, -20 medium, +10 xp = -40, against the open it does -50 long, +10 xp= -40. The 31st only has medium range in the Rotholz forest and shoots at long range beyond it.

Because I'm not giving him 15 turns, and I'm not fixed in one very visible position. If he tries that, I move the artillery up slightly and start slaughtering everything that moves into the cover via cavalry. That is the advantage of controlling the battlefield, you get to contest certain moves.

wait what?

could you expand on this plan??? This is the first time i have heard about it and i currently absolutely do not understand how it is a good one.


There is an issue with the premise: Assuming Trotha moves infantry from the central plains trough the forest, the 108th has a LoS on that. They get 6 spotting, meaning they scout normal infantry. Plus I would order them to search. If I don't see anything, I'm moving the 55th up the hill to get a look on that part.
Unless Trotha deploys behind the eastern parts of the hill as a first choice, he needs to cross the sightline. Meaning I get 3 turns of advanced warning.

Edit: Taking a closer look, I can send forces to occupy the hills in 2 turns, plus use cavalry charges on any infantry that wants to leave the forest. I don't see how you would be able to secure a foothold on the other side.

No, all his units are still in his deployment zone, fully covered by the hills. You would currently be unable to see western Räuberholz tho because the hills block LOS. I just wanted to give you the ability to react to this unexpected development

I can certainly show you how I would occupy the hills :)

So would you occupy the hills now?
 
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Plan discussion
Kinzberg is good bait, because he must take it. There is also reason to use infantry, since the position is quite resilient against artillery fire.

Explain why von Trotha would be unwilling to bombard Rotholz, but would be willing to bombard Kinzberg.
Yeah, I'm sure Trotha has no reason to avoid a direct assault on a position that requires his infantry to go to 2 turns of medium bombardment only to end up without artillery support. Definitely nothing about his character that would make him avoid that. By comparison, Rotholz is in the sweet spot of being just difficult enough to bleed him there, while also not eliminating it is a target altogether. Kinzberg is bad bait because it requires the enemy to commit to a assault that can only be classifed as suicide, you just put to much firepower in one place to make the enemy even consider that.
No it doesnt. [The 31st is useless because it shoots at -50 against forested units and can't target other units]
So, entering the rotholz requires passing trough open terrain or hill terrain. This terrain is in medium range. With a ready fire, any entering unit eats a -30/-10 shot as an opener, which weakens them before getting to the Rotholz. After which they still face 1d100-20 fire from the horse artillery, plus superior infantry. The 31st provides limited protection against entering infantry, but it also provides an opener.

Räuberholz Wargaming

No, all his units are still in his deployment zone, fully covered by the hills. You would currently be unable to see western Räuberholz tho because the hills block LOS
So he positions all of his forces on behind the hill range, without prior knowledge of our positions? His first choice is "let the infantry march trough the forest, where the artillery needs 20 turns to catch up?" Out of all possible plans from both sides? I'm not entertaining that, that is nonsense. I also doesn't change the math, I have LoS on the hills. All you've done is another 1/4 turns for this plan, giving me an extra turn.
could you expand on this plan??? This is the first time i have heard about it and i currently absolutely do not understand how it is a good one.
Could I expand on putting infantry on the hills to deny the position? Not really, if I'm being honest.
To give a bit more of an explanation: The enemy forces need to leave the forest eventually for this plan to work out, since he needs a bridgehead for the arriving forces. This position is in meleeing range, meaning I can make an attack on any leaving unit. Unit in melee can't brace, meaning they eat cavalry charges. And even if they disengage, I just need about 3 cavalry charges to rout them. Rince and repeat, until the force is depleted.
 
The necessity of Cavalry Charges in Fortress Klingenberg and Village Outpost (essentially the same plan positioning wise)

(Summary for those unfamiliar)
Those plans lack a strong counterplay against long-ranged bombardments due to a static defence around Klinzburg. Moving infantry is out of the question, forming new fire lines isn't feasible, the cavalry remains. This charges takes at least 2 turns of movement. This can be turned against us, with a long-range artillery position slowly bombarding the line with the breastworks to bait an cavalry, which eats medium fire+ close fire. This is undesireable, resulting in a lack of options other than waiting.
The first thing we can do is shoot his artillery with the 10th, who kill 8 of them on average, which removes one of his elite artillery during the crawl forward.
Putting aside just how insanely inefficient fire at -100 (range + artillery fire) is, this option also fails to work. Infantry is necessarily positioned one space north of the artillery. This means at the edges of range, artillery can shoot the infantry (12), but the other artillery (13) can't shoot back. This proposed counter play fails mechanically.
Additionally you seem to think that von Trotha can magically screen his artillery with ready charge cavalry without problem. The problem is, what if we charge our cavalry at him, have his ready charge triggered and move back after that, drawing out his cavalry into the open where it can be bombarded by our artillery?
I wouldn't call putting a cavalry screen 13 tiles away from our artillery magic. Nor do I think there is any need for occult rituals in order to tell that screen "Ready charge, 400 m". This allows an effective interception of cavalry flanking, even before we run into fire. This is a quite favourable exchange for Trotha, since our cavalry gets medium ranged fire against our long ranged fire deployed against our long ranged one. Oh, and the enemy firing position gets more.
 
Yeah, I'm sure Trotha has no reason to avoid a direct assault on a position that requires his infantry to go to 2 turns of medium bombardment only to end up without artillery support. Definitely nothing about his character that would make him avoid that. By comparison, Rotholz is in the sweet spot of being just difficult enough to bleed him there, while also not eliminating it is a target altogether. Kinzberg is bad bait because it requires the enemy to commit to a assault that can only be classifed as suicide, you just put to much firepower in one place to make the enemy even consider that.

Ok this is just a disagreement about Von Trothas thought process again, where I consider a frontal assault on Rotholz to be suicide too, as we have seen in my calcs where he loses 5 for every 1 he kills and cannot rout a single one of our defending troops.

So, entering the rotholz requires passing trough open terrain or hill terrain. This terrain is in medium range. With a ready fire, any entering unit eats a -30/-10 shot as an opener, which weakens them before getting to the Rotholz. After which they still face 1d100-20 fire from the horse artillery, plus superior infantry. The 31st provides limited protection against entering infantry, but it also provides an opener.

Wait, are you deploying the 13th on the far eastern hill? my assumption was that you are putting them in the middle hill.

Infantry could still enter covered by the hill, but i dont think thats worth it to avoid 1 -10 shot.

The 31st still does tiny bits of damage during the actual melee but if its in the far northeast it has the range to get medium range on one band of plains.

Could I expand on putting infantry on the hills to deny the position? Not really, if I'm being honest.
To give a bit more of an explanation: The enemy forces need to leave the forest eventually for this plan to work out, since he needs a bridgehead for the arriving forces. This position is in meleeing range, meaning I can make an attack on any leaving unit. Unit in melee can't brace, meaning they eat cavalry charges. And even if they disengage, I just need about 3 cavalry charges to rout them. Rince and repeat, until the force is depleted.

This was a question about your plan to move the 5th forward if von Trotha decides to shift his artillery to the Ottenburg hills, it doesnt have anything to do with the wargame.

Summary for those unfamiliar)
Those plans lack a strong counterplay against long-ranged bombardments due to a static defence around Klinzburg. Moving infantry is out of the question, forming new fire lines isn't feasible, the cavalry remains. This charges takes at least 2 turns of movement. This can be turned against us, with a long-range artillery position slowly bombarding the line with the breastworks to bait an cavalry, which eats medium fire+ close fire. This is undesireable, resulting in a lack of options other than waiting.

This summary is wrong.

Putting aside just how insanely inefficient fire at -100 (range + artillery fire) is, this option also fails to work. Infantry is necessarily positioned one space north of the artillery. This means at the edges of range, artillery can shoot the infantry (12), but the artillery can't shoot back. This proposed counter play fails mechanically.
I wouldn't call putting a cavalry screen 13 tiles away from our artillery magic. Nor do I think there is any need for occult rituals in order to tell that screen "Ready charge, 400 m". This allows an effective interception of cavalry flanking, even before we run into fire. This is a quite favourable exchange for Trotha, since our cavalry gets medium ranged fire against our long ranged fire deployed against our long ranged one. Oh, and the enemy firing position gets more.

The counter to him shooting at us in our cover of -90 is the same counter you have to him shooting your cover of -80, wait him out because he likely has less munitions than needed.

Like, this is a silly complaint, if von Trotha is willing to shoot at -90 targets, Fortress Rotholz is a superior target to Fortress Kinzberg, because he can just fire from medium range for -80 at Rotholz and we cant stop him.


Räuberholz Wargaming

So he positions all of his forces on behind the hill range, without prior knowledge of our positions? His first choice is "let the infantry march trough the forest, where the artillery needs 20 turns to catch up?" Out of all possible plans from both sides? I'm not entertaining that, that is nonsense. I also doesn't change the math, I have LoS on the hills. All you've done is another 1/4 turns for this plan, giving me an extra turn.

No, he doesnt marches his infantry through the forest where his artillery needs 20 turns to catch up, as you will see.

Ill be honest the reason he didnt do anything yet is because i wanted to make sure you can do any reaction you want to do, because he doesnt care about his speed here anyway.

You move the 55th on the hill, having vision of the entire Räuberholz and can see that von Trotha moves a large infantry line along the Räuberholz

 
We know if he sets up artillery. He has no screens, so we see his artillery and we can see them stop to set up.

@Photomajig if we see an artillery unit and it begins to set up, do we get that info?

It's recorded in the summary when they set up, but you won't get warning before they do it, no. Mechanically speaking, they don't know what they're doing before they do it. They can't know when you'll set up before you do it, either.

@Photomajig , if von Trotha moves troops to the southern border, will we have problems?

It's not an auto-lose button, no. He can't really move past you without forcing you to withdraw.

Quick thoughts.
The topic of mid-battle turn automation was suggested and discussed before.

The QM replied with this after the Turn 14 of Brutet


The fifteen rounds of Brutet really tested the patience of the questbase and took two real life months to complete. However, any round covers roughly 10 minutes and so Brutet took over the course of roughly 2.5 hours in-game. The rest of VI. Army is expected to arrive on the 24th the next day if the weather holds out.

Unlike Wachenheim who was given a losing hand from the start, Von Trotha has probably enough artillery and options to theoretically beat any given plan of ours. But he is not a mindreading supergenius either.
But tbh @Photomajig , can you clarify what happens if we set up our defenses and Von Trotha decides to set up his defenses and not interact with us? Would we skip forward?
You're actually convinced about this. Ok, why do you think the quest centred around tactical combat is going to offer a skip button?

I'm not saying it's impossible to ever skip turns in this Quest, but it requires pretty specific circumstances. If you and von Trotha both just dig in and don't move, yeah, we'll skip ahead, "nothing happens for an hour, what do you do?".

Another viable one could be "skip ahead until we spot an enemy Unit", or "skip ahead until a visible enemy Unit is in X range", but I'm leery of allowing this unless there is clear consensus that you really don't want to do anything else. I understand frustration when things go slowly, but skipping also risks salt. But yeah, I'm open to some circumstances where we could skip ahead.
 
It's recorded in the summary when they set up, but you won't get warning before they do it, no. Mechanically speaking, they don't know what they're doing before they do it. They can't know when you'll set up before you do it, either.

To make sure I understand it right, when we see an artillery set up we see it in the combat log, like we would see when they ready fire or even just fire?
 
The counter to him shooting at us in our cover of -90 is the same counter you have to him shooting your cover of -80, wait him out because he likely has less munitions than needed.

Like, this is a silly complaint, if von Trotha is willing to shoot at -90 targets, Fortress Rotholz is a superior target to Fortress Kinzberg, because he can just fire from medium range at Rotholz and we cant stop him.
Ah, so you're going with option b) "Wait until he is uninterested in expending munitions further, while being unable to shoot back". Slim casulties on our side, heavy munition use on his. I have to say, that doesn't sound like a great outcome for the battle or for our career in general. Just sitting in a position and hoping the enemy comes close enough is going to put somewhat of a damper on our reputation in Arne. And I prefer plans that gives us the option to do something if he pulls forward, where the enemy doesn't have an option for solely inflicting casualties against us.
Ok this is just a disagreement about Von Trothas thought process again, where I consider a frontal assault on Rotholz to be suicide too, as we have seen in my calcs where he loses 5 for every 1 he kills and cannot rout a single one of our defending troops.
I can't imagine an artillery focussed general voluntarily marching units to a position where they will be without artillery support for an extended march. Assaulting Rotholz makes some tactical sense, it is literally necessary for deploying forces further.
No, he doesnt marches his infantry through the forest where his artillery needs 20 turns to catch up, as you will see.
Is this a scenario about him setting up fire support along the hillside before trying to cross the forest? If so, that requires him to commit everything to a plan that only has "bypass Rotholz" going for it, while neither trying to secure Sarnscheid or having forknowledge of Rotholz being a forward position. I think we can safely discount this as his first choice.
 
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Ah, so you're going with option b) "Wait until he is uninterested in expending munitions further, while being unable to shoot back". Slim casulties on our side, heavy munition use on his. I have to say, that doesn't sound like a great outcome for the battle or for our career in general. Just sitting in a position and hoping the enemy comes close enough is going to put somewhat of a damper on our reputation in Arne. And I prefer plans that gives us the option to do something if he pulls forward, where the enemy doesn't have an option for solely inflicting casualties against us.

I don't expect him to do that, but both of our plans are vulnerable to that, yeah.


I can't imagine an artillery focussed general voluntarily marching units to a position where they will be without artillery support for an extended march. Assaulting Rotholz makes tactical

You are cut off, but if you are saying that assaulting Rotholz makes tactical sense then it doesn't, it is obviously suicide, as everyone is aware and you are even relying on it being suicide in your planning.

I'm not sure what you mean with him voluntarily marching units where he doesn't have artillery support?


Is this a scenario about him setting up fire support along the hillside before trying to cross the forest? If so, that requires him to commit everything to a plan that only has "bypass Rotholz" going for it, while neither trying to secure Sarnscheid or having forknowledge of Rotholz being a forward position. I think we can safely discount this as his first choice

? Rotholz being a fortress is obvious when he sees the breastworks

And Von Trotha being unable to bypass it is the entire purpose of your plan, it's what forces him to assault it.

Sarnscheid is useless? It's super exposed to our cavalry and doesn't help him attack Rotholz. Why would he want to take it.

So in the end your counter to Von Trotha being able to win going through the Räuberwald is that he is not going to do it?

Especially when this bypass would allow him to apply his preffered strategy of combined artillery+Infantry charges?
 
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I don't expect him to do that, but both of our plans are vulnerable to that, yeah.
Not mine. Assuming he has literally any screening force for artillery on the map, Rotholz can shoot back. Plus there is a chance of long-ranged shots with the 10th (-20 with advantage.). Unless his plan for attack consists of "wait outside of enemy artillery range", which would be weird Fortress Rotholz gives us a guaranteed opportunity to shoot at the enemy.
Sarnscheid is useless? It's super exposed to our cavalry and doesn't help him attack Rotholz. Why would he want to take it.
Why would he want Sarnscheid to move trough the forest? Because it prevents our own horse artillery from flanking this attempt. Crossing the forest doesn't work with persistent flanking fire. This means force for a defense, would even be vulnerable to an assualt.
You are cut off, but if you are saying that assaulting Rotholz makes tactical sense then it doesn't, it is obviously suicide, as everyone is aware and you are even relying on it being suicide in your planning.
Not suicide. Just a very, very one-sides melee with a low chance of success, but importantly one that doesn't have zero chance of winning. A point the enemy has to take if he wants to move further.
 
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