Well, I am not sure, if it can be considered as a correct remark, that the allied CiC didnt understand that the battle was initially intended to last 10 hours or there was a misunderstanding. To be precise, I wonder if he even has been informed about this certain condition. It wasnt mentioned in the written allied battle briefing and I dont remember, if it has been communicated in a language I can understand. On the contrary, Biondo wrote in the battle thread about "the scenario for this evening", which I only noticed very briefly before the battle, since I got home 30 min before the starting time and then didnt study anything, but met with Biondo on TS to crearify some common issues about the scenario editor before joining the channel 1 min before 20.00 GMT.
So, something that was previously not communicated to all people or at least clearly stated and additionally does not correspond to the usual procedure, cannot be understood with sufficient certainty at all.
Furthermore, as I got it right, I wasnt the only one who hadnt knowledge about this "detail".
How about our spanish friends - did they know it before the battle and if yes, how? Was there a way of communication that was also accessable to me and the participants in general?
In total we played 2 initially intented multi-evening battles and 1 of them couldnt be resumed due technical issues. Like 98 % of the sessions are one-evening-events. Its actually common that the main objectives can very hardly accomplished. Due lacking of any info (at least I didnt notice) I assumed a giant clash of 2 armies in 3 hours, and thats how I instructed the commanders. To be precise, I told them to seize yet unoccupied space or probe an area to check it out, but not really to alloutattack. Furthermore first I barely saw an OOB with a lot of corps, but didnt checked the composition and the numbers. Only in the battle I got a clue that most corps are more or less according the original structure.
Dont understand me wrong. I could easily continue to play the scenario and accept any result.
Under the given circumstances I estimate the chance for the allies to succeed less than 10 %.
But, the lacking info or misunderstanding isnt the only reason for my conclusion.
In my opinion, the orignal Waterloo OOB, or such mainly basing on it, arent matching with the requirements of our MP sessions at all for 2 major reasons:
1. While most of the french corps have a dedicated cavalry division at their disposal, the allied cavalry was to perhaps like 75 % concentrated in the Uxbridge corps. Therefore 2 allied corps have zero Cav under their control, while another one has less than 1000 men. The reduced prussian corps could support one of them with its horses, but it needed intense coordination between different commanders with a certain delay, while on french side the combined forces are mostly organized under the same HQ.
Considering that the front of the scenario has a width of like 4 miles, its impossible to support more than a limited number of elements with cavalry accurately, since about 6-7 Cav divsions plus the Cav reserve Arty had to be micromanaged by the CiC, who actually has to coordinate the whole army. Making use of the AI without visuals is in many cases inferior to the direct control the opponents could make use of. Even if any other player took Uxbridge, he wasnt able to perform in a required manner under those conditions. At least 3-4 Cav divisions had to be controled by a competent human each.
The disposal of combined forces being correctly micromanaged against Inf divisions without Cav support would nearly always lead to a defeat of the latter one.
All the french CiC had to do, was checking where Wellington Army Commander is moving with Uxbridge´s riders and then order his distant corps to attack their probably unsupported opposing enemies and on the long run most probably he would succeed.
2. The anglo-allied army of Waterloo under Wellington had tons of unexperienced troops (miltia and volunteers under Decken, Stedman, Nassau etc.) who could hardly compete with the french troops, especially if they had to attack. So if using the original OOB, IMO it rather had to be an attack-defend-mission or the allies consequently stay in a defensive deployment.
Assuming it was a quick clash of 3 hours only, I had some ideas to seek some fortune with those troops. But on the long run those arent much worth, to be honest.
Since I realized this problem long ago and seeing it as a permanent handicap in a number of our MP battles, I recently designed a new OOB, intended to avoid the mentioned deficits. In this OOB the british corps have dedicated Cav Divisions and militia has been mostly eleminated. I also created smaller and medium sized corps for better control and flexibility when composing the OOB for our scenarios. There are some more changes from which I believe they could enhance our MP experience, but without causing too aquivalent formations. Although we had to renounce in terms of athenticity, I think the OOB fits much better to the needs according we use to play.