I'm sitting in the GMT Booth at GENCON, catching more than a few uninterrupted moments of slumber, when that "rarest" of all "aves" at GENCON, a wargamer, shakes me awake to discuss some of the trends of the day. He was most enthusiastic about The Gamers' foray into Napoleonics, Austerlitz, and especially the "marvelous" command system. Struggling to maintain some semblance of awakedness - it was apparent that conversation, not consumerism, was on his mind - I ventured a question.
"Ever play the old SPI game, Bloody April?"
"Sure," he said, "a pretty good game. I liked it."
Sensing the usual hesitation when I bring up this Oldie But Mouldy, I continued. "I sense a 'but' lingering somewhere in there."
"Yeah, you're right. Now that you mention it, it was sort of a drag playing it, having to keep track of all those Stragglers and all that fatigue stuff with a pencil."
"Isn't that what you're doing with Austerlitz, though, writing down a whole bunch of Orders, marking off losses on a sheet, straggling and un-straggling to a fare-thee-well?" I ventured … futilely, as I well knew.
"Well, that's different … "
Ah, Perceived Reality! The Zeus of the gamers' pantheon of immutable laws. It's a Good Thing to take five minutes to write out a whole bunch of Orders, but it's a drag to check off a box on a Shiloh Roster Sheet. How can you argue with that sort of "insight"?
I bring all this up not to disparage Dave Powell's Austerlitz - one of 1993's better games - but to show that gamers will often overlook barriers to their enjoyment if they perceive that such "barriers" are actually part of the enjoyment. What you get out of a game is what you want to put into it, much like anything in life. Today's, "sophisticated" players are more willing to put up with what they pooh-poohed fifteen years ago because they are used to it. However, first impressions are the strongest, and the reluctance to do the same in an "old" game remains. Complexity and Difficulty is in the Eye of the Beholder. It is, thus, easy to say that for those willing to wade through its somewhat overlong rules and overwrought procedures, Austerlitz can be a very rewarding experience, and a lot of fun to boot.
Regardless of how you view The Gamers' very stylized graphics … Dean Essig is the Erte of wargaming … you will still be impressed by this package. The two maps are, once again, handsome and readable, with the trademark combination of warm reddish-browns with cool gray-greens. The villages look somewhat more like EastCoast suburbia than East European peasant hovels (the blue "houses" tend to look like all those pools you see as your plane goes into its approach high above Miami), but there's no denying the map's attractive effect. I'm somewhat less enthusiastic about the counters which, while certainly well done, are missing something, something which I can't exactly put my finger on. (No pun intended.) I think that it's Icon Overdose, plus the fact that while they are colorful, they are not colorful in a Napoleonic way. The rest is first class, if you don't mind another trademark: dense-print rules. I think my ophthalmologist has a 10% interest in The Gamers.
I have waxed fairly unenthusiastic about the basic system herein before. (See BROG #7's review of Bloody Roads South.) What is most interesting, though, is how much better it applies to the Napoleonic era than to the Civil War. The "Napoleonic Brigade Series" is obviously a very close relative of the "Civil War Brigade Series", and several gamers have commented on the fact that the NBS seems to be nothing more than the CWBS with some cross-outs and add-ins, mostly with the cavalry. In the general design-scheme of things that may be true … and I don't see it as a deficiency at all. Interestingly enough, though, if one didn't know differently, one would think the opposite were true, that the CWBS is an adaptation of the NBS! The rather rigid formalities of the general system seem to be much more at home in the Napoleonic era than they do with Bobby and Sam, so much so that one of my playtesters felt the system would find its true home with Frederick the Great.
For those of you who come to the system uninitiated as to its mysteries, this is brigade-level grand tactics at 200 yards per hex and 30 minutes a turn. Units are "rated" not so much for their manpower but for how much of it they can bring to bear at any one time. Individual strength point losses, therefore, usually do not have an immediate effect as they do in most SP-oriented games, a key strength of this system. There are five levels of Morale, and the system's application of Morale is omnipresent, pervasive, and effective. The combination of a relatively gradual strength attrition with a wide variety of morale-oriented unit reactions produces a very Napoleonic-flavored style of combat, even at this level of play (brigade) … something the CWBS seemed to have, to its detriment. (Unless you were Paddy Griffith.)
One of the major complaints I had about the CWBS was the remarkably high number of "losses" a unit took from Stragglers during a battle. Straggling, I felt, was a maneuver problem, rarely a battle result. It struck me, however, during play of Austerlitz, that the problem, once again, arose from a perception, as well as a somewhat skewed use of the word "straggler". Straggler losses in the NBS (and CWBS) systems represent not so much unit attrition from people who "straggle" - i.e., fall behind - but from those soldiers who simply become useless to a unit because of the psychological rigors of battle. Metaphysical Stragglers, as it were. If you look at it from that point of view, it all fits in rather well.
The same approach can be used to resolve - at least in one's mind - another "complaint" I had heard about the NBS: the presence of skirmishers. From a purely design-to-effect point of view, including skirmishers in a brigade level system is Detail Overkill. At 200 yards a hex, skirmishers would be represented by the unit's Zone of Control … and, conversely, it is often why a unit has a ZOC. I think if Dave had used the term "detachments" he would have had a much "easier" time in terms of assuaging players' perceptions. So, call 'em detachments; you'll feel better for it.
The basic system for the NBS is still a rigidly-sequenced, Igo-Hugo format, starting with the infamous Gamers' "Written Orders" Command Phase, followed by a Cavalry Charge Phase that only a La Bataille-er could love, thence into the time-honored Move/Close Combat, Fire and Rally Phases. Note that the Close Combat Phase comes before Fire. This is one of the mechanics that produces that Napoleonic Feel, units forced to move in under fire, withstand the rigors of such maneuver, and only then can they close in.
The Command system hasn't changed an iota from the CWBS. You still write out your orders, and scratching out something like "Przybyczewsky's column to advance, seize and hold Jirzikowitz" becomes less of an exercise in interpretation than a digital tongue-twister. Gives you some insight into why the Allies had command problems; no one could either write or pronounce anyone else's name. (I played "House Rule": I could automatically move Berg's brigade without written orders. My opponent countered with, " … same for Napoleon" and immediately went into Todd Fischer Mode.) The basic Rules book goes to some length to get you to relax about this, something I think comes more with play experience than simply being told "Don't Worry, This Won't Hurt a Bit" . You could avoid all of this by rolling dice for your leaders to see if you can get Instant Initiative, discussions on which continue below. You either like this sort of thing or you don't … and, if you don't, this game is NOT for you, as the Command system is, if not the heart, the soul of the game. Me, I've become sort of immune to it. I don't really "like" it; I accept it for what it is and what Dave is trying to do, and endure its obscurities and inelegance. Some people love it. If you haven't experienced it yet, my suggestion is try to play this with a friend before taking the Financial Dip. It is done well, so that's not the problem.
And then we have the Cavalry Charge Sub-sequence. Any time I see a system with a separate sequence, or a procedural flow-chart (see the Saguntum review), I know we are in The Land of Aficionado Doo-Doo, because such sub-structures are only for those who revel in this sort of "Game-Within-a-Game" mental exercise. Granted, NBS's cavalry system is not the Introduction to Procedural Hell we find for the same thing in the La Bataille games (and see the comments on Tyre, within, about this sort of design work), but it is a mite overwrought, stops the game dead while you figure it out each time, and has that ahistorical anomaly of having charging and countercharging units meeting halfway like two berserk sumo wrestlers. It is my understanding that virtually all countercharges were effected within 100-200 yards of the latter. Why go to all that trouble to move all that distance when you can let the other guy exhaust and disperse himself all over the countryside? In game terms, this means that you can eliminate a whole bunch of rules simply by allowing the counter-charging unit to stay in place. Then again, this is one of those things many players seem to love, so we're back in the Stye in the Beholder's Eye land again.
While I may register objections to the various roads Dave has taken to solve several simulation problems, he still travels First Class in terms of how well they work. The game is fare less complex than its rules length would have you believe, and most of the mechanics make sense within the system's universe. I still register disbelief in not charging a unit Movement Points to change facing, but such Black Holes of Design are less annoying in the rolling fields of East Europe than the dense woods of the Wilderness. This is a nicely wrought system. It's the battle that stinks.
Austerlitz is one of the main philosophical pillars of the Custer-Rorke Syndrome of game design, subjects fascinating to read about and discuss which are either so one-sided or dull that they defy the intentions of even the best designers, a group in which Dave Powell assuredly resides. This is a game for Bonapartists, pure and simple. Historically, the Allies, under the dual aegis of the two emperors -- Tsar Alexander I of Russia and that Hapsburgian House of Military Horrors, Francis I of Austria - have such insolvable command problems, ranging from a non-existent hierarchy to inbred ineptness, that they stand around like a boxer whose foot is nailed to the center of the ring while his opponent - here, Napoleon at the height of his military powers -- jabs, hooks, uppercuts and then simply bludgeons him onto, and then through, the mat.
Even if you eschew the historical situation and, as we did, allow the Allies to ignore and replace their original orders, you are simply delaying the fiasco. Once each of the Allied commands carries out his original set of instructions they're, once again, stuck in the mire of their command-system mud. Most Allied corps commanders need a dieroll of '12' to do any original thinking, and that's a 1-in-36 chance. Given the game is only 20+ turns, there's a good chance Original Thought will never even occur to these dolts. One can argue till the serfs come home whether this is an accurate representation of the depths to which Russo-Austrian command had sunk or not. In game terms, it's like playing with dice which your opponent has been given two weeks to shave.
We gave the Allies every chance possible when we played, even going to the laughable lengths of allowing the Allies to see and move during the Fog Turns - the fog rules are pretty much inadequate and unrepresentative of what fog does to a battlefield -- while Napoleon awaited his breakfast. For about 3-4 hours the Allies did rather well, even going so far as to destroy half a French corps. Then reality set in. Having accomplished their initial objectives, our Heros now sat around waiting for further orders - from anyone - orders which, like Godot, never arrived. Of course, this was the trumpet call for Napoleon to move into high gear and start mopping up the Allies corps by corps. As a game system, it was kind of fun; as a competitive battle, it was like being the manager of the Flabby White Hope.
Obviously, the NBS will find better - or more gameable - material in which to sink its fangs, although, personally, I do not feel that the next game in the series - Friedland - will be much better in this area. As a system, NBS is admirable, creative, incisive and fun, if not entirely free of flaws. As a game, Austerlitz is not something I would play for any reason other than historical insight … and that's a one-time shot, mes amis.
CAPSULE COMMENTS:
Graphic Presentation: Excellent, if somewhat stylized.
Playability: Quite good; far easier than rules density would lead you to believe. Limited solitaire access, because Written Orders system is the game's soul.
Replayability: Limited severely by battle's remarkable one-sidedness.
Creativity: High. There's some really great design work herein.
Historicity: Good Napoleonic feel, with some curious system lapses. Excellent recreation of the battle, which is less a plus than a problem.
Comparisons: Not much good Napoleonic stuff out there; this is certainly the best at this level. Far better than both Poulter's and Miranda's systems … and certainly more colorful. I think "La Bataille" fans will shut down over the command restrictions; tant pis.
Overall: Buy it for the system; wait for a better battle in which to use it. Interesting comment from one of my playtesters: "If I want to play Napoleonics, I want to see lots of counters." Hmmmm.
Two 22" x 34" maps; 560 counters; Rules and Scenario Booklets; Charts Folder. Boxed.
The Gamers, 500 W.4th St., Homer IL 61849. $36.
Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 12 Table of Contents
Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1993 by Richard Berg
This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com