The end of the solitaire game presented in my article last time came almost as an anti-climax. Bragg had all his ducks in line by the morning of the second day. Longstreet's attack kicked off at 6:00 am sharp. It went through the apex of the Union line like the proverbial "hot knife through butter." It was over and I decided that further play would be meaningless.

I decided it was time for Rosecrans to panic and ended the game right there--a Confederate major victory, if I ever saw one. Confederate losses 6,300, Union losses 8,200.

With the game over, I want to devote the rest of this article to how does one play these games solitaire, anyway?

To do so, a player must accept his own orders and follow them to the hilt as he believes the commander on the ground would. They must also be followed as they were originally intended- which may or may not be the best way for "right now." Initiative must be limited to occurrences where opportunity presents itself within the "knowledge radius" of the game's leaders. What's a knowledge radius? It is a guess by the player of where and what he feels the leaders should be aware of.

Some may say this is within the LOS of the leader, I don't think sothat's too restrictive. The leaders must be assumed to be getting some reports from their subordinates, adjacent commands and even from higher headquarters. While no where near 100% effective (15% is a better number), this information still allows commanders to take advantage of things they may or may not actually be able to see. Is there a right or wrong answer? Sure, but in a solitaire game if this subjective radius (which should never be viewed as a hex distance) is applied consistently between commands and sides, the disparity between the game and real life becomes fairly meaningless-unless the player's conception of what can be "seen" is either so permissive or restrictive as to be ridiculous. The player who allows his leaders to know all about that flank march coming down the secluded forest trail miles away from any friendly unit is pushing it. The opposite error, being too restrictive, actually will not inhibit good play. It only makes the leaders slightly less effective than reality. If you are not sure about where to draw the line (as it's a decision based on gut reaction anyway) it is far better to err on the side of caution.

Certain gamey situations can easily be avoided in solitaire play of this sort. For instance if a historical commander set up his HQ and didn't move from that spot for the entire battle (commanding from afar) it is easy to bolt the guy to the ground so as to simulate this manner of command. Leaders who showed a particular lack of ability or willingness to take risks can have their historical peculiarities forced upon them. Likewise, those who showed unusual willingness to make bold moves can be given a benefit of a doubt. "Sure," you can say, "Jackson sent some scouts to find that open flank..."

In order to fully enjoy this style of solitaire play, one must use the formal command system. It is easy to write the orders that seem good at the time and to enforce their original meaning to the letter if you know both sides are doing this and that. You generally don't care who wins since you are playing both sides to win.

And, you should allow mistakes to happen. When an order you sent a while back shows up, follow it to the letter no matter how stupid it may look now. The interaction of these orders coming due at different times while the situation keeps changing is half the fun of playing this way. I could never have predicted the sequence of events in my Barren Victory game I played both sides as I got them and let the chips fall where they may. Often you'll be presented with strange mistakes which can be "fixed" if you are on the look out for them. I say, let them stand and see what happens.

I generally don't bother with the Status and Panic systems when playing solitaire. While they add an interesting level of suspense in two player games as well as the possibility of army collapse, I find that if I see a side pressed against the wall (as the Union above) I'll let them panic just to end the game if I have little hope of getting them out of whatever mess they are in.

In the end, all I can offer as advice on how to play this way is to play both sides to win, use the orders system to help mix things up, and allow "imperfect" play to occur. If you fight the system in order to make one side win, instead of taking both sides and just seeing what happens, you'll break the system. But of course, if that is how you like to play solitaire, go right aheadyou'll have fun your way, and I'll have fun mine. And that, after all, is the point of all of this!

Defensive Orders for Barren Victory