Ideally, the brain of a solo wargamer should be something of a cross between a computer and a filing cabinet. In an ambitious solo campaign so much information needs to be mentally collated, fed in, stored, and regurgitated at the appropriate moment, that it is no wonder that in practice the majority of us fall short of the ideal, and sooner or later have to ask ourselves why, oh why did we get involved in the first place.

Usually this point of no return is reached when complex problems on both sides, involving logistics, or situations even more dreary, have been neglected and allowed to pile up. If it is decided to abort the project at this late stage, then it will also be necessary to write off all the hard work that has been put into it to date. It is a tragic moment; but rest assured that most soloists have experienced it at least once.

A more subtle, yet no less frustrating, feeling of despondency is felt by the soloist who, for some reason, has had to lay aside for a week or two a complex, but well organised carnpaign. When he decides to take up where he left off, nine times out of ten he cannot for the life of him remember what it was all about.

A filing system is the answer. But as it would be divorced from the garne itself, working such a system would seem to add just one more complexity. All well and good if you have the time and patience to set one up. Because, let's face it, even in an average carnpaign, your overworked soloist will have to handle a multitude of diverse problems that would daunt even a real-life logistics men, such as Monty, or Marlborough.

But enough of self pity, soloists. 'Think Solo' for a moment. Let's assume the real Monty had been confronted with your mountain of paperwork. What would his approach have been? Would not that esteemed gentleman, much against his will perhaps, have passed on to others the handling of the various minor tasks on the fringe of his command?

Odd as it may sound, in a solo ECW campaign a couple of years ago, I solved the problem of work pile-up in a similar way: I delegated responsibility. Like most of the game mechanics used by solo wargamers, 'delegation of responsibility' I just used another trick of fooling one-self that there are others, besides yourself, involved in your campaign. It is also a devious way of incorporating a reliable filing system into the campaign itself while operating it, so that you need never feel that at any time you are standing 'outside the action'.

Basically, the role of staff officers in war is in dealing with the paperwork. Staff officers did not officially exist at the time of the English Civil War, but nonetheless there were, even then numerous military officials who carried out pigeon-hole duties; duties that l was able to borrow in order to separate each wargame function into neat, and easily referred to categories.

My hierarchy of command on each side simply consisted of two sets of eleven large manila envelope files. These were labelled C-in-C; Commissary General; Artillery General; Engineer General, etc. Written messages or requisitions concerning the various branches of each army were passed between 'Staff Officers' merely by slipping them into the appropriate envelope to be consulted and acted upon when indicated on a 'courier time-log', an adjunct to my war diary that was retained in my own C-in-C folder.

The response to the various directives depended upon a). the staff officers grade, (i.e. whether he was a slow coach, whiz-kid, idiot, or just plain average like you and me); b), whether the material, etc., was at his disposal; and c), any personal whims qualms, petty jealousies, briberies, or sentiments concerning the sender and recipient that may affect the issue. This gave a tremendous scope to throw spanners in the works at regimental level, and the personalised approach made the normally mundane factors of supply route-planning, etc., absorbing to the solo player, who acting in the role of 'historian' at such times, would be an interested observer of some fairly juicy scandals. But besides concocting interesting situations in the interior life of an army between battles, that might otherwise have been glossed over or dreamed up, this system kept everything tidy, easily available (for even after a month's abstinence from solo gaming it was still easy to take up where I left off, by referring to my time-log and thence to the appropriate staff-envelope); and above all it helped also to categorise every facet of my campaign rules.

For instance, my Commissary General handled all supplies and logistics problems, so all rules relating to these aspects were numbered and detailed on the front of 'his' file. There was an Artillery General (rules for artillery movement, range charts, fir-effect, etc., jotted on the file cover); a lieutenant General in charge of all cavalry affairs; a Sergeant Major General for infantry, and drawing up troops for action. A Scoutmaster General handled all intelligence, light cavalry patrols, reconnaissance, couriers and map surveying, while the Muster Master General was responsible for recruiting and the problems of desertion etc. During battles it was also the job of the Muster Master General to assess casualties after each move. If this seems rather too efficient a system for that era, it did have a basis in reality in that I, as C-in-C, had properly to consult that general's folder if at any time I wanted an accurate assessment of the troop register. The fact that I had previously diced a personality flaw in that Royalist officer (he was more than slightly addicted to the wine cask), meant that more often than not he was unavailable when I most needed to consult him, which caused many a fracas and ultimately led to his court martial and demotion. Which proves that even though my system could be termed unrealistically efficient in theory, the end result is realistically inefficient!

The file system, plus personalisation, (a necessary ingredient in so10ing) gave me a ready made team. Some proved geniuses, others diabolically inept. Putting the rules on the respective envelopes also allowed me to incorporate each army's individualities, in organisation, tactics, etc., without having to riffle through reams of rules.

In the heat of a battle many more factors were incorporated so that as each bulky envelope was consulted and closed, it's contents were generally forgotten by the time I had opened the next one, which was helpful in that it did not allow me to dwell on unwanted information when 'switching sides'.

There were still several rule factors that defied categorisation in this staff system, so I decided to take on the services of an extra assistant for each side - the army chaplain. My new Chaplain folders (both of which I nicknamed 'Charlie' for obvious reasons) were installed to handle all matters that would not fit into military categories, such as weather estimation. And who better to inform the C-in-C about the thomy problem of morale fluctuation than the Chaplain? To keep things 'in period', (and to save my chaplains from being lynched on suspicion of witchcraft!) I categorised all morale-induced moves, and anything requiring the use of Chance cards etc., as 'Moves of Divine Intervention'. I was sure that not even the mighty Cromwell himself would have quarrelled with that!

But back to more earthly matters. It was the duty of the Sergeant Major General not only to control all the infantry moves on his side, but to draw up the entire army in filed of battle. Easily done, with two sets of cards left in the appropriate files containing all information about respective Royalist and Parliamentarian formations to be drawn at random when required.

Although I, as respective C-in-C, was responsible for all major strategic decisions, there were times when I would call a 'Council of War', and put my motions to the vote by accessing personalities, drawing together the decisions of each Staff Officer, and throwing percentage dice for the outcome.

My campaign, I am glad to say, developed unpredictably yet smoothly, and the running of it seemed largely to have been taken out of my hands, leaving me to concentrate freely upon the problems of high comrnand.In order to remove my own decisions from the more automatic ones of my subordinates I reserved certain periods when I would think as one commander, ruminate upon problems as it were, without reference to rules or files. Yet my 'inferiors' were still able to spring surprises on me. As in the case of the Quartermaster General who became involved in a duel, apparently because he had refused to supply a cart load of new shoes to his rival, the Sergeant Major General, who was preparing to set out on carnpaign. Both men were duly reprimanded and, needless to add, sternly dealt with after reference to my Marshal General's folder. Being somewhat of a compassionate commander (!) I felt there had to be a reason for this curious behaviour, and without having to manipulate the personality charts too much I found one with a single die throw: prior to the duel, the Sergeant Major General had bedded the Quartermaster's wife!

At that moment, I almost convinced myself that I was dealing with real life characters!