Being Articles From The first 10 Years - 1968-1978
Almost everyone I know has at one time or another tried their hand at designing a campaign game. The strategic possibilities of the campaign, with the chance to win a war off the battlefield, and the elimination of delicate "point-balance" systems, is indisputably intriguing. Unfortunately, our results have been unsatisfactory at best. The rules become either too complicated to be played without a rule book and an umpire, or so simple that the campaign becomes a tactical slugging match.
From past experience, I notice four extremes in formulating campaign rules, extremes due to a particular mentality in the rules makers themselves. The first is the mentality of the "Sergeant" rule maker. His rules are so simple as to be non-existent the only concern is the tactical map board, which is a set often to twelve standard maps selected by a throw of the die. The basic tenet of this set of rules is that a battle is never won save by the men at the battlefield at push and pike. Supply rules are rudimentary, often not even penalizing troops completely surrounded by the enemy. The second way of looking at campaign games is that of the "Alexander the Great..." This gentleman's map board stretches from Italy to India, and is the medium whereby he traces the move-ment of dozens of miniature armies all over the known world. The game is polycentric, of course, with half-a-dozen heads of state all involved in shifting alliances and international intrigue.
A third mentality is that of the "Boardgame Veteran". In his rules, Roman legionaries are moved at a rate of speed proper for Panzergrenadiers, while isolated cavalry squadrons break through the enemy's lines to wreak havoc in his rear.
A fourth and final peculiarity of campaign rules is shown by those of the "Mad Mapmaker". This fanatic sits down to a Hannibal based campaign and makes a strategic map that has every single river, creek, house and cow path between New Carthage and Cannae represented on it -- painted with an eye-lash.
In general, four principles must, from the first, be kept in mind; one, the campaign map must be limited to a definite and fairly small area; two, the rules must reflect the strategic capability of the troops involved; three, the effects of supply and strategic maneuver should be allowed scope in the strategic part of the game; and four, setting up of the tactical board should be as simple as possible without becoming repetitious. Having established then a general set of guidelines, we come to a partial solution: a set of rules that I am fairly happy with, and would like to present for your review.
THE STRATEGIC MAP BOARD
In my campaign, the strategic map is drawn on one or two sheets of quarter-inch ruled graph paper. On it are shown seas, rivers, major roads and cities and classes of terrain according to the following code:
| Type | Color | Effects on Movement |
|---|---|---|
| Plain | White | None |
| Arid | Yellow | None |
| Rough | Orange | -1 space |
| Hilly | Brown | -2 spaces |
| Mountains | Purple | Not allowed |
| Seas, Lakes, Rivers | Blue | N.A. (exc. Rivers) |
| Roads | Red line | Plus 1 space |
| Cities | Black | Plus 1 space |
Each square represents a possible battleground. For the sake of illustration, let us suppose we are setting up a campaign between Byzantine and Persian forces of about 600 A.D. (This is a favorite period of mine.) the map would show on it Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, Palestine, and part of Cappadocia, Anatolia, and Persia. Major cities would be those such as Damascus, Edessa, Antioch, and Babylon. Major rivers would be the Euphrates, Tigris, Jordan, and Taurus. Mountain ranges would be marked mostly in purple with mountain passes running through them in the proper places. The scale would be approximately fifteen miles per square. Furthermore, the map is marked off into the provinces such as those named above. In addition, the squares in each province are numbered; thus every square on the board has a name, such as Cappadocia-64 (alternate: C-64).
Now, each player makes a tactical map of each of his major cities and of three other squares anywhere within his own provinces. Each city is supplied with a determined number of houses by the mapmaker. Secondly, a quantity of fortifications is allowed for each house at the following ratio: one house - 1" of stone city wall - 2" earthen wall - 1/3 tower. The fortification allowance need not be used in its own city; thus, by building a completely earthen wall around one city, enough fortification is conserved to finish a stone wall with towers around another. In addition, the equivalent of two feet of stone fortification is allowed for each of the three non-city squares, and is added to the fortification pool.
Movement on the strategic board is quite simple - infantry moves one space per day, cavalry two. In rough hilly terrain, one and two spaces respectively must be subtracted before entering another space. Thus, in rough terrain, cavalry proceeds at a rare of one space per day, infantry and train one space every other day. A major road adds one space per day to a units movement as long as it travels on the road.
The armies are represented by numbered pins (I mount my maps on cork board.). The composition of each army is written on a 3x5" index card, one for each army. To begin, place the armies in the starting positions in the home countries. The first player to move moves all his troops secretly, but recording the positions on paper for up to a week's worth of movement. He now notifies the other players of any crossing of provincial boundaries, whether his own or the enemy's. If his enemy has troops in any province, the first player has moved to, all those troops are placed on the board. If this does not happen, it is the second player's turn to move.
If there are two enemy units in the same province, the board movement goes by days until a week of movement is over.
I realize this sounds complex, but it is actually quite simple. Using the Byzantine-Persian scenario again, the Persian player moves his two armies into Armenia and Byzantine-occupied Syria and ends his turn. Now the Byzantine player moves his army in Syria one day's journey. The Persian player now moves his army in Syria one day's journey. This occurs seven times, completing a week of movement. Now, the Byzantine player moves all his armies outside Syria one week of movement, thus bringing all his movement up to date. Now the Persian player may move all his units outside of Syria, but not the one in Syria, which is a week ahead of the movements of its other armies. Thus, all movement is brought up to date.
When moving inside a province, all units are assumed to have a "zone of control" one space in every direction. If a unit, on its movement turn, finds itself in an enemy ZOC, it has two options: to retreat directly out of that space onto one free of any zone of control before moving anywhere else, or to fight, in which case, it moves into the enemy space as an attacker.
Because supply rules are so often a source of dispute among wargamers, I feel it is probably in order for me to provide some explanation of the thinking behind my rules.
In the first place, there seems to me to he two ways of keeping an army supplied - either by foraging or by supply trains. Ancient armies which foraged to feed themselves were many - Huns, Moors, Gauls, and Tartars. Armies which had supply trains required a certain amount of civilization, Rome, Byzantium, and Persia are examples. Then, of course, there were the armies which either foraged or used supply trains as circumstances dictated -Hannibal's army is possibly the most famous example of this system.
Comparison
Let's briefly compare the two systems, each with their advantages and dis-advantages.
The great advantage of foraging, of course, is being independent of lines of supply. Practically the only way of dealing with an invading foraging army quickly would be to bring it to a battlefield and destroy it. The foraging army, however, cannot stay in one place too long without eating itself out of the area. Secondly, for the same reason, the foraging army cannot be concentrated too much in one place, enabling a more compactly organized army to defeat it in detail. Furthermore, a foraging army takes up quite a bit of time looking for food when it could be soldiering, so it would move more slowly while foraging than an army with supply wagons. An army with supply wagons, however, admittedly tied to its times, is able to be more concentrated and move (proportionally) faster than an army without them. In addition, a formal commissariat would probably do a more efficient job of supplying the army than bands of roaming forages.
This is the rationale behind the rules:
| Terrain Type Supply | Factors per Space |
|---|---|
| Plain | 10 |
| Arid | 2 |
| Rough | 6 |
| Hilly | 4 |
The above table lists the type of terrain which may have supply factors. They may be gathered either by foraging soldiers or a city based commissariat. Each factor will supply fifty infantry figures or twenty-five cavalry figures for one day. (Depending on your own figure/historical man ratio, you may have to modify this. My own scale is 1 figure: 20 men. Each army, furthermore, has a supply organization which corresponds to a formal supply train in a commissariat supplied army, and a central supply stockpile in a foraging army. Supply factors which are collected wither by cities (see commissariat rules below) or forages are stored until used in this supply organization. Once the supply factors of a space have been collected, the space is marked barren on the map, and may produce no more supplies for the rest of the campaign year.
FORAGER
1. To forage a space, a force of 50 infantry figures or 25 cavalry figures are needed, moving at no faster than half speed. The foraged factors must be transferred to a central supply stockpile within a day's march of the foraging unit or else be considered immediately expended. (By the way, the only thing that needs to be done to form one of these central supply units is to day that it exists and attach it to a unit of at least forager strength.) No movement is actually required for such a transfer, the foraging unit must merely be within a day's march of the central stockpile.
2. All stored factors in a stockpiled unit on the march must be used with-in two weeks of collection or considered to be destroyed (food spoilage).
COMMISSARIATS
1. Units with formal supply trains receive their supplies from cities. Supply trains operate in the following manner: as a unit with a supply organization moves, it marks on the strategic map a small circle every two spaces. This indicates the supply line of the army. The army is supplied from the city to which its supply line connects as long as the line is not destroyed by the movement of an enemy unit across it. The army feeds on the supplies stored in the city as long as the city has the factors available. An army may be supplied from a city up to two weeks journey away. If the supply line is cut, the army so separated from its source of supply must forage if it desires to continue to wage war. Alternate lines of supply to second and third cities may be formed by crossing the paths of commissariat units.
2. Cities get their supplies from the surrounding countryside. At the beginning of the first week of the campaign, all cities may gather in all factors within one space of the city. On the second week, all factors within two spaces may be collected and so on up to the seventh week and seventh space. Once inside the city, the number of factors is doubled, a reflection of the efficiency of the commissariat system. Supply factors stored in a city may be stored there indefinitely. If a city is taken by the enemy, he also gets the city's hoarded sup-ply factors. If a city uses up all its supply factors and can no longer feed the army it supplies, that army must forage or pay the consequences.
3. Forts may serve as bases of supply but may not gather supplies.
4. Supplies may be transferred from one city to another or to a fort by a simple convoy of a unit (forager size) and an accompanying commissariat, as long as the journey does not take more than two weeks.
HALF-RATIONS
At any time a general may set his men on half rations. If this is done, the army only consumes supply factors at half the normal rate but are reduced in firepower, melee power, and morale (one pip on the die should be enough). Furthermore, cavalry are reduced to half speed movement. Lastly, the total strength of an army is reduced by 1% on the first day of half-rations, and an additional 1% for each day following.
ISOLATION
Units without supply at all have all the disadvantages of a unit on half-rations, except the units each lose 20% of their strength each day without sup-ply, and all units move only at half speed. After five days of isolation, the army is destroyed.
As I said before, each square of the map board represents a playing board 8' x 8' to be laid out on graph paper before the battle. In making the transition to the tabletop, I decided long ago not to make my maps ahead of time. Instead, I have developed a dicing system which has so far worked pretty well for me.
First mark out the geographical orientation of the map in relation to the strategic map board. Second, lay out any towns, rivers, or roads marked on the strategic map. Third, consult the following table:
| Strategic Map Terrain | Terrain Points | Die Increment |
|---|---|---|
| Plain | 4 | 0 |
| Arid | 6 | 0 |
| Rough | 8 | 1 |
| Hilly | 10 | 2 |
| Major River Space | - | -1 |
For each terrain point, roll two dice (D6-ED), adding or subtracting the appropriate die increment, and consult the following table:
| Die | Terrain Features | Die | Terrain Feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | 5-contour hill | 7 | House |
| 13 | 4-contour hill | 6 | River 3" wide up to 8' long |
| 12 | 3-contour hill | 5 | Stone fence, 12" |
| 11 | 2-contour hill | 4 | Ridge or small fort, 6" x 6" |
| 10 | 1-contour hill | 3 | Swamp |
| 9 | Woods | 2 | Ford 6"x3" |
| 8 | Road, up to 8' long Gully, up to 8' | - | - |
Arid land: ignore all land features save hills, roads and rivers (which become wadis or gullies); Hills, woods and swamps, dice again:
a. 1 contour hills, woods, swamp - Roll 3 die twice, multiplying each total by two to find the dimension of the features in inches.
b. For multi-contour hills, roll two die for each contour and multiply the result by two to get the dimension of one side of the bottom contour of the hill in inches. Repeat the procedure to get the other dimension. The configuration of the upper contours is at the discretion of the player selecting that terrain feature. Having determined what the available terrain will be, place it on the board in the following manner: Defender chooses two terrain features and places them anywhere on the board. Attacker then chooses two terrain features from those left and places them. This procedure is continued until all terrain features are exhausted. Finally, the number of the strategic map terrain space is marked on the map. Save this map, for once the tactical map for a space is determined, it is to be used for all battles fought on that space during the campaign.
In setting on, defender may place his troops anywhere on the board at least three feet from the edge the attacker is entering. The attacker sets on one foot on the side of the board corresponding to the direction by which he is moving on the strategic board. If a battle lasts more than a day, each player may bring in any available reinforcements the following day. One suggestion, since nobody has a table 8' X 8' I suggest that you delete all non-involved terrain when setting up the tabletop game, retaining only as much as is needed to fight the battle.
NOTE: Rivers may not be crossed except at bridges, ferries, fords, or cities without building boats or rafts (at least a week's delay).
Well, there you have it - my rules for ancient campaigns. There is much I have not dealt with, amphibious operations and naval supply for instance, but these are factors which can be introduced by players who require them very easily within the general framework of these rules.
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