From 1805 to 1812, France built armies ceaselessly. Never was France stronger than after Tilsit, but this too great force finally led to the fall of the Empire. A game only based on conquest doesn't present a realistic explanation of the Napoleonic period. The goal must be more a political domination in a period of great change with the rise of nationalism, and the first real economic war. By the way, the 1805 casus belli was not exactly the same as in 1812/1813. Playing Time: I have fixed an objective of 10 minutes per turn. To achieve that the mechanisms must be simple, but neither simplistic nor unrealistic. The entire design must restrict itself to the essential. Through the Naval rules, only sea logistics and naval transport are treated. The battle system is very simple but also decisive. With forces equalized, especially at the beginning of the game, the French will be likely to destroy the opposing army almost completely. On the other hand with the progressive increase in manpower and arrival of the best allied Generals, the battles will become more disputed. Wars must be short and close by, at a risk of general attenuation. Attrition is very high, especialy in Spain and Russia, where Imperial armies melted like snows in the sun in the absence of significant battles. To simulate the political aspect of the game,a card system is the core of the game. Each player has his own deck, and through the cards all events are there - war, peace and reinforcement. We have begun real testing on 17 April, so far more than 20 games, and the results look great. Play tester reactions are unanimous. The system is smooth. The turns are relatively fast. Every historical event is there and plays an important part in the game. There are lots of possibilities and you never know what is going to happen. So far, the game looks very balanced and historical. Now the rules development consists in studying carefully each subsection of the rules, to give as much explanation as necessary. Introductory scenarios are built so the player could learn each part easily. Our goal is to give a great strategic challenge to each player without bothering him with accounting problems. Back to OSG News June 2000 Table of Contents Back to OSG News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Operational Studies Group. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com