Re: [eia] battle of Bordeaux: British withdrawal roll, overwhelming odds and trivial combats

[MICHAEL P GORMAN <mpgorman@xxxxxxxx>]

I do not see it as a clear statement that the overwhelming odds should alter the point value of a battle and the more I read, the more it strikes me as a fundamental violation of the game's internal logic that it possibly could mean that.

There is exactly one case where a trivial combat does not grant victory points.  That is when one side has no corps.  The exception to the no victory points covers all cases where both sides have corps present at the battle that are possible in the normal rules.

What is bothering me is that it is possible for both sides to have corps present at a battle without points being granted for that battle.  Siege rules make no consideration to the size of a corps in a city garrison.  If a city has a one factor corps and 24 garrison factors in an unfortified city, that one factor corps makes the whole battle worth a point.  It doesn't matter what the odds are.  100 factors besieging a one factor corps get a victory point since there is a corps present on both sides.

I'm not comfortable with the overwhelming odds rules creating an exception to the case that corps on both sides makes a battle worth points without explicitly stating that exception since it seems like a violation of a fundamental concept of the game.  Corps are what the game is about.  The smallest corps is worth something and the biggest garrison is worth nothing on the point track.  That is consistently true at all points of the rules.  That I should set aside that base concept without it being explicitly stated seems improbable to me and I'm very uncomfortable with it since it feels like I'm breaking a central tenet of the game.

I can understand at some level saying, this battle is so paltry it shouldn't be worth anything.  But why isn't that also the case in sieges then?  Why isn't there a point where a garrison is so big it is worth points?  At a 5 tower city you can have a force bigger than any national corps could possibly hold, but since it's all garrison factors, it doesn't matter, it's worth nothing.  But put 1 factor in a corps in that city and suddenly the battle is worth a point even though the battle went from a real fight, to a walk over.  So the logic that an overwhelming odds battle is too minor to be worth points isn't sustained anywhere else in the game.  It's not treated as a valid argument.  

All that matters anywhere else is was there a corps present.  That's it.  If the answer is yes, it's points.  If it's no, then it's not.  There is only one exception anywhere, a fortified city, the only fight without a corps that you can get points on, it's a big exception and it's explicitly stated.

So I think the overwhelming odds rule has to be read as mandating that the commanders choose to resolve a field or limited field battle by trivial combat and not a standard trivial combat since it does not state that it is an exception to a universal rule of corps = points.
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