The Campaigns of Napoleon system attempts to nail down certain aspects of Napoleonic campaigning (most can be applied to any war of the beginning industrialization period). To achieve this goal, Kevin uses an abstraction of supply, staff skills, field hospitals, and commander abilities all rolled into Administration Points (APs). APs are used to determine the amount of attrition armies suffer (attrition increases the more an army moves) and for issuing movement commands. The more movement commands issued, the fewer APs an army has in its AP pool and therefore more attrition occurs. Additionally, a force (a term used to represent on board units organized under a leader) must have a line of communications established to benefit from his side's AP pool. Each army has its own center of operations which establishes its line of communications. W/o an established LOC, a force may not receive movement commands (and must therefore move by initiative which is not a sure thing) and a force is required to forage for its supplies, usually with negative effects. Game play will often focus on protecting your own lines of communication while at the same time an effort is made to disrupt your opponent's line of communication. The above factors all come together in an almost mystical way so that when one plays a game in the Campaigns of Napoleon system, one gets the sense of participating in one of David Chandler's chapters from his monumental work, 'The Campaigns of Napoleon.' OSG's upcoming Sun of Austerlitz is going to be a great introductory game into the system. It is one map with few units on board. The armies haven't grown to Leipzig size. Back to OSG News April 2003 Table of Contents Back to OSG News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by Operational Studies Group This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com