Many of you have expressed great interest in the Age of Rifles prototype I've been working on (off and on anyway) for an eternity. Months ago (Boy, the Summer went by quickly!), Dave and I played the umpteenth prototype type game using my Valley Campaign mock up.

The rough combat system proved, well, rough. The mechanics of movement seemed workable, but were in dire need of some additional streamlining. Neither logistics nor command existed at all. This all proved the game to be pretty much where I thought it was. The parts I'd been hammering the longest were in the best shape and so on.

What came as a bit of a surprise was the degree to which coordination between different friendly columns would need to be addressed in the final game. As it was, all formations on a side got to move (some faster than others) before resolving combat for the turn. As a result, slowly moving far flung forces led by morons could still act in concert and use their greater numbers to keep a fast force led by the best at bay. Numbers were everything and leader quality couldn't overcome a large disparity.

I'd have to change that in two realms: coordination via command and velocity.

Before this test, I was under the impression that overall command could be "factored out" at the scale I was dealing with (much as I did with the OCS). This turned out to not be the case. What I needed was a system that would allow the best leaders to keep numerous columns coordinated and moving quickly, but at the same time forced poor commanders to keep close and to travel more slowly in order to keep things under control. I believe a system giving each "senior" commander (the army commander, generally) a number of "Activity Points" based on his leader rating will do the job. The idea would be that he would use these points to activate commands for movement and/or combat, but that the point cost of an activation would depend in part on the distance involved between the commander and the force. The more (and further) a commander splits up, the more cumbersome and sluggish the movements he can make. Add to the mix a poor commander and the force might become dramatically unwieldy in the face of a more fleet-of-foot enemy. Beyond that, a player could use more than one of his Activity Points to get a force to move faster than normal. That's the idea anyway.

I'm thinking of velocity as a sort of second cousin to the OCS surprise concept. Basically, if a force appears from "out of nowhere" it carries with it a momentum. If, however, the two sides have been locked in close combat for some time, the chance of being caught off-guard is much less. I have not worked out the details of how this mechanic (a force multiplier to use modern jargon) would be applied. It needs to be related to both the movement of the attacking force and the "assumed safety" felt by the defender because of distance.

The way that might work is to have both deployed and undeployed formations for the combat troops. A force must be undeployed to march and deployed to fight successfully. A force that moves a ways and then deploys against an undeployed enemy will get an advantage in the ensuing fight (for a short time, anyway). With a cost associated with deploying and undeploying, players won't automatically deploy at the end of every move (unless they feel the urge to "dig their way to Corinth" or some such).

As a whole, progress has been slow on the new system due to both obstacles (such as the above) and distractions (other things needing to be done). Many of you have expressed how much you are looking forward to this system and my aim is to exceed those expectations. Be patient with me while I get it all together.