So under the above proposal, the defender could always partial retreat (or full retreat) in the first retreat option. If the attacker retreats, the defender can only use the second option to do a full retreat, or no retreat. If the attacker instead does not retreat, can the defender again have the choice of full or partial retreat in his second option?

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - 09:16 pm: Edit

Peter:
Yes -- -You can announce a partial retreat during the defender's first retreat option, see if the attacker retreats, and if they do, the defender can then pursue the retreating attacker with what is left behind.

Kevin:
Once you declare then you can't take it back.

Nick:
The defender could still do a full retreat but if he does he cannot pursue.

Is the proposed clarification consistent with the current wording of (302.723)? If not, CITE how it is not. I want the clarification consistent with the rules and NOT nessassarily how someone has been traditionally doing it.

As a reminder this is not a final FEDS ruling.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - 09:55 pm: Edit

Nick also asked if the attacker didn't retreat, can the defender use (as one of his options for second retreat option) a partial retreat?

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - 10:20 pm: Edit

I would think not as partial retreat is subsequent to the atterker's announcement; see "subsequently" in the rule text. I think it would have to be a full retreat and not another partial retreat.

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, February 12, 2015 - 12:37 pm: Edit

I thought "subsequently" was referring to the option to pursue, i.e. after the attacker chose not to retreat.

My question was really about (in general) whether the defender can ever use partial retreat as their second option, or if that had to be taken as the first option. I thought it could (in general) be done at either point.

By Rob Padilla (Zargan) on Thursday, February 12, 2015 - 01:34 pm: Edit

It might make sense if the Defender could complete the Retreat on the 2nd option.

In other words, if the Partial Retreat was taken on the 1st Option, then the Attacker decided to retreat. If the Defender then decided to take retreat option 2, the Partial Retreat would turn into a Full Retreat (all able units).

Not saying that how it does work, just how I think it *should* work.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Thursday, February 12, 2015 - 05:56 pm: Edit

Rob:

That is sort of how I seeing it from the original text.

5-7A1: Defending Player first option to announce retreat (302.71). (In a a capital hex the defender may declare a partial retreat; defender must specify the units that will retreat (this choice is irrevocable); this is the only opportunity for a defender to declare a partial retreat.)

5-7A2: Attacking Player option to announce retreat (302.71).

5-7A3: Defending Player last option to announce retreat (302.71). (In a capital hex the defender may amend his partial retreat to a full retreat; all eligible defending units in the capital hex must retreat.)

5-7A4: If neither player retreats, return to Phase 5 - Step 2; if both retreat, then the Defending Player conducts his retreat.

Note: The defender may pursue the retreating attacker but with ONLY the units that were not committed to his partial retreat.

As a reminder this is not a final FEDS ruling.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, February 12, 2015 - 05:59 pm: Edit

For what it is worth, in all the rules (other than '86) previous to the 2K edition (i.e. through the '93 rulebook), the only reference to "partial retreating" I can find is a line in (302.72):

"Exception: The defender of a capital hex can retreat some of his units without being required to retreat all of them."

So under all rules previous to the 2K rules (although post '86), there was no mandated sequence of partial retreating, and no reference at all to pursuit. Such that the defender could partially retreat at any point in the retreat sequence, and partial retreat had no effect at all on pursuit (i.e. the defender could "partially retreat" on the second retreat option and then presumably immediately pursue with what was leftover in the hex if the attacker also retreated, as nothing in the rules prevented that).

In the 2K rules, we get the wording we have now.

I'm with Nick on the side of "subsequently" doesn't necessarily mean that the partial retreat *must* happen during the first retreat option to allow a pursuit. I suspect that "subsequently" was just in there as an indicator that "if the attacker retreats, the defender can pursue with whatever is left in the hex after a partial retreat", and "subsequently" is just indicating that the attacker retreats, as opposed to does not retreat. And isn't really paying attention to the two phases of possible defender retreat (which seems to be how the rule was originally written when first introduced).

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Friday, February 13, 2015 - 06:55 am: Edit

Well this issue of exactly where in the SoP does partial retreats occurs needs to be clarified and it seems reasonable for it to occur during the defenders first option to announce retreat. it seems to FEDS that the intent is to be able to partially retreat defending forces during an on-going battle and to not gain an advantage of knowing that the attacker is now retreating so the defender uses his second option to again partial retreat even more units while still being able to pursue the retreating attacker. OR...the attacker announces retreat and the defender gains an advantage knowing the attacker must retreat all unit from the capital battle hex so he partial retreats some uncrippled units during his second option that will NOT be used to pursue the attacker but to gain a tactical maneuver advantage for his next player turn.

In other words it seems that the intent of partial retreats is to EVACUATE ships during a capital assault and not to GAIN a tactical advantage elsewhere knowing that the attacker is leaving.

==============

As a reminder this is not a final FEDS ruling.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, February 13, 2015 - 12:25 pm: Edit

Chuck wrote:
>>In other words it seems that the intent of partial retreats is to EVACUATE ships during a capital assault and not to GAIN a tactical advantage elsewhere knowing that the attacker is leaving.>>

This is certainly a reasonable way to interpret the rule as it currently stands. And I think that certainly *some* sort of interpretation of the current rule is needed, as it is vague and confusing.

That being said, I don't know that the current rule specifically intends to prevent use of partial retreat for tactical advantage. The initial writing of the rule was incredibly vague but if taken at face value, allowed the defender to retreat any portion of their fleet from a Capital during any part of the retreat phase, and nothing in the rule had any impact at all on pursuit. The second version of the rule certainly mentions pursuit (in that you specifically can pursue after a partial retreat), but the only reference to different retreat phases are vague, at best.

Like, I'm not at all opposed to what seems like the direction this is going. But I also would in no way be opposed to a more liberal interpretation--i.e. a defender can partially retreat during either retreat step, and if there are ships left behind, they can pursue as well. Which is how the rule worked (presumably, based on how it was written) when it was originally invented ('89).

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Friday, February 13, 2015 - 12:49 pm: Edit

I don't know that I have a preference either way, but I have always gone with the more liberal interpretation as well as Peter described.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Friday, February 13, 2015 - 07:31 pm: Edit

I'd prefer 'partial retreat' to be more of an evacuation (of cripples / important static elements) as their order would be cut while the battle is (technically) still raging ...

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, February 14, 2015 - 09:52 pm: Edit

Stewart wrote:
>>I'd prefer 'partial retreat' to be more of an evacuation (of cripples / important static elements) as their order would be cut while the battle is (technically) still raging …>>

That is certainly an idea, but kind of more "totally change the existing rule to a new rule", rather than "clarify the existing rule".

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Sunday, February 15, 2015 - 07:41 pm: Edit

Peter - not really, more along the lines of explaining 'why' the rule works the way it does...

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, February 15, 2015 - 08:11 pm: Edit

Well, yeah, you can explain rules however makes you happy, but if you change the partial retreat rules to only allow cripples to partially retreat, or whatever, that is a significant change to the existing rules. Which probably isn't necessary.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - 09:29 pm: Edit

OK, 'important static elements' are items that one would want to evacuate for whatever reason. though it is possible to hide such element in the reserve by adding enough mobile elements, however that will 'remove' them from defending other systems...

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Thursday, February 19, 2015 - 08:02 pm: Edit

Ted on (302.76), note that pursuit is under (302.8) so should have nothing to do with retreat priorities, so it should be the flag when the retreat was called that governs where...

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, February 19, 2015 - 08:16 pm: Edit

Stewart, good point. That might indeed resolve the issue.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, February 26, 2015 - 12:24 pm: Edit

Hey--before I post this in the questions forum, I figured someone might know the answer:

Can I move EPs via TG from a capital to a base via operational movement to create a satellite stockpile at that base, and then later on the same turn pick up the EPs from that base and move it somewhere else via strategic movement with a different TG?

The rules for moving EP and satellite stockpiles are pretty vague on the sequencing here (i.e. it isn't totally clear on when EPs show up in a given spot when moved).

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Thursday, February 26, 2015 - 06:56 pm: Edit

Peter, offhand I'd say no - as EP transport is a full turn action, now it could be done as a 2-turn operation (say Lyran sets a stockpile on T1 and delivers to Klingons on T2) or you could just do it with strategic movement [with the same tug]...

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, February 26, 2015 - 07:58 pm: Edit

That might be correct? The rule doesn't say much on the subject--the only thing I can find is (435.24) which says:

"The points are deducted from the sending empire when that ship leaves the capital and added to the receiving empire when that ship leaves their capital."

Which only references capitals and not satellite stockpiles, but if you replace "capital" with "satellite stockpile", it looks like maybe it gets to the stockpile after operational movement is done? At which point it might work?

I mean, at this point, it is mostly academic (I was considering moving some EPs to a stockpile during operational movement so then later a different TG could pick it up during strategic movement, but really, if I'm gonna do that, I might as well just move it all the way with strategic movement and the first TG…)

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Thursday, February 26, 2015 - 08:19 pm: Edit

At a quick glance I suspect that EPs transferred via (435.0) would arrive at a given location under (105.IW) Phase 10B. Which is the same as WYN Trade funds.

NOTE: The above is a player interpretation of the existing rules and nothing else.

By Ken Rotar (Sir_Krotar) on Monday, March 09, 2015 - 07:22 pm: Edit

I have a question regarding the Hydran gambit: let's say the Hydrans reach the Federation during operational movement of turn 6; when does the Federation do its first set up, build, and movement? I'm assuming turn 7 since the game is already into operational movement in the sequence of play.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Monday, March 09, 2015 - 07:28 pm: Edit

Ken,

The Feds can do setup and movement immediately. Build won't be until turn 7.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, March 09, 2015 - 08:38 pm: Edit

Yeah. They get the remainder of their T6 EP (after paying for PWC) and can do operational movement. They can immediately attack the Klingons (if they want to), do strategic movement, send money to the Kzinti, and do field repair (for instance).

It would probably be a bad thing for the Coalition.