User Friendly Ideas
Part 2
by Kevin Zucker
and various gamers
Illustration by C. Moeller
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From: mjb@crow.crippslaw.com User friendly ideas Part 2:
Combat idea I forgot--at end of a round adjacent leaders can roll against initative to join in a combat. Reserve box Players can swap one unit from reserve to battle plus vice versa if they pass initiative (up to the max SP they can control). Units in reserve take no loss in SP or morale but gain 1 morale point. Command values If you went from a D6 system to a D10 then you could grade leaders finer and have wider results on attrition/combat eg MGi could be 4, Napoleon 9, Sacken a 5 (I do think a 2s a bit mean) etc We need errata on accumulated replacement points at each Scen start. Scen 1: Leval arrives with Oudinot? What about Russian Tschernis? How about changing the 2nd Player force march rule so that they can move up to 2 MPs after scen set up? This way Blucher can move towards Napoleon. From: Sjakos@aol.com
I've thought about this some more since the posts appeared on Kranz's website. Ed's idea works for the Austrian armies, which rarely failed to meet expectations because both Karl and Schwarzenberg set their expectations so low. But for the French, it means that you'd never get a good day out of a Bernadotte. Napoleon gloried in the chaos of high expectations, and Blucher in 1813 and 1814 didn't give a damn whether Bernadotte or Scwarzenberg kept up or not. Perhaps an Initiative roll equal to the rating should yield a die roll's worth of MPs. Or perhaps an Initiative roll higher than the rating yields a die roll minus the difference--though this might be a little over-engineered here. I'm with you on hesitating to add another die roll, but the key to a variable distance initiative move is that it's just plain fun to roll up movement points, and the 1-to-6 spread adds excitement. You might even require a force to roll its attrition based on the MPs it gets, whether or not it uses them all. If you really wanted to blow it out of proportion, you could give each leader his own personal 1d6 initiative table next to his portrait on the displays. But using the pips as points is still the most simple and elegant. To: Sjakos@aol.com
The problem I have righ there is that the player has already had to roll to see if his forces move. If we let players roll their own Movement Allowance, we could get rid of the regular Initiative die roll. In other words, if your Initiative Rating was 2 and you rolled a four, you'd roll again for your Movement Allowance, subtract two, and the result would be your maximum move. You'd have to change the definition of what an Initiative Die Roll represents -- no longer whether General Smedley is awake, alive and engagé, but rather how awake. I'm with you on hesitating to add another die roll, but the key to a variable distance initiative move is that it's just plain fun to roll up movement points, and the 1-to-6 spread adds excitement. I see this as good gaming, but should apply only to the Austrians and the odd Leader who got beat up once too often. When Napoleon sent orders to his guys to get to point 'y,' they got there if they had to march all night. Normally, though, he set his map dividers to 20 miles. From: Sjakos@aol.com Instead of (or in addition to) portraying the difference in armies by Initiative mix and Attrition column, what if each army had a fundamentally different MO? Could be just Too Much, but worth a quick look. Rough Draft: French: Pay to move full MA --OR-- roll up MPs at no AP cost (applied to all "initiative" situations, including force march). If the MPs rolled are less than the leader's initiative, the player may roll again for more. If he DOES take the second roll option, he MUST take attrition based on the MPs gained even if not used (the intent here being to prevent the player from micro-managing his attrition once he has made the decision to push on). Austrian: Pay to roll up MPs --OR-- roll against initiative at no AP cost, but a roll greater than initiative means they sit, while less than or equal yields an MP die roll (again, option 2 applies to all "initiative" situations). Stealing another trick from Ed, you might give them an Army of Bohemia Objective Marker (or a real one and a dummy)--place it on the map, and an AP payment allows them to march to it at basic MP speed. Perhaps costs an AP to place/move the Marker. This MO would apply to Karl, Scwarzenberg, Bernadotte (when wearing the Swedish crown), and such armies. Prussian/Russian: Probably the same as the French MO by 1813/1814, or maybe there's another twist on the above I haven't thought of. But make the Coalition player play all his Army of Silesia forces before his Bohemia forces so that, if Blucher's going for it, he'll have to decide to do so without knowing whether Schwarzenberg (or Bernadotte) is going to come along for the ride. Could be too much, but sounds simple on paper, and gives you very different armies. Well, you've sent me searching the garage. I have the AH version--used to have the OSG. (And the big Italian Campaigns box too--at the time, we had no idea what to do with those half dozen counters on that huge map, and gave it up. Later, the little Arcola game made it clear what was going on, but Italy was gone by then and I kicked myself hard.) To: Sjakos@aol.com
I would have a hard time doubling the number of movement die rolls. There may be folks that wouldn't enjoy that much rolling, Kos. It has to be either "roll to see if you move" or "roll to see how far you move," but not both. My problem with the latter, is that it means people will want to move their maximum when the opportunity arises, rather than for any strategic reasoning. A lot of control slips away from the player. From: "Painter, Robert W A-136" I would be very interested to learn of any sources you may have or use for the game maps- Are there any published cartographic sources of the period that might be sought out? Museums that might be queried? I could really use your input on this one...
We use your game maps for our campaigns now, having developed a unique and nicely realistic way of interfacing between map and tabletop, and we use some interesting recon and movement rules that keep situation and terrain knowledge down to what might be reasonably expected of a period commander that uses the resources that would have been available to him. (I've always felt that the psycological
impact of the fog of war is the essential excitement element in wargaming) We could use more info on the geography and infrastructure of Napoleonic Europe.
davout-hq@cigna.e-mail.com To: "Painter, Robert W A-136" Cartographic science was not very well developed in the early 18th century. The best maps available from the era are the maps made by Napoleon's cartographic section for the districts they traversed. The place to begin is the Institut Geographique National, Cartotheque - 2 Av Pasteur - 94160 Saint-Mande, France. Tel: (16 1) 43 98 80 00. Fax: (16 1) 43 98 84 03.
Get a history of road paving in Europe (key word: Macadam). This is something that's hard to study from this side of the Atlantic. Unlike our
bulldozer mentality, there is a much greater preservationist ethos in Europe. Thus, you see roads tend to retain their alignment to preserve the
living environment that has evolved. You can look at modern maps and subtract the motorways and get a good general starting point. Forests come and go but are never totally obliterated. Often woods are bigger today than they were two hundred years ago.
The New York Public Library Map collection is another place to go. They have antique maps. The American Geographical Society in Texas has a large map collection. The Germans mapped quite extensively in WWII, and these maps are available.
From: Sjakos@aol.com I'm not crazy about rolling dice myself, and almost always agree with "one-roll-does-all" solutions. Another somewhat strange and opportunistic side-effect is that "if I roll 3 MPs, I'm guarding the bridge, but if I roll 6 MPs, I'm heading in the other direction." Fun, yes--but it does dilute the system's message about conducting operations.
To: Sjakos@aol.com The intention is to bring the NAB package up to the 1807 level. That means any applicable rule from 1807 will go into NAB to replace the corresponding rule. According to my estimation, you will need the 1807 Standard and Exclusive Rules as applicable (nothing from the Grand Campaign), as well as the following pages from the AH edition of NAB: 2nd col. on p. 11, top of p. 12, bottom of page 25, through end of p. 27, and the Charts and Tables from NAB.
As far as playtesting, look for anomolous set-ups, weird game-winning opportunities. Study the first turn of each scenario in deatil, then play each scenario through once.
From: "Painter, Robert W A-136" Thumbs up.
Adds flexibility and a dimension for the commander that is not out of line with history.
The use of the Reserves Rule gives the player a way of experiencing the Napoleonic commanders need to maintain fresh troops in reserve and feed them into the fray as needed, as well as limiting the strength that can be committed to battle under certain circumstances (defiles, etc.).
Rear Guard Battle gives a player options in the conduct of a campaign of strategic defence in the face of superior opposition.
I notice the rules allow the selecting player to have total discretion over the proportion of SP's lost vs. hexes retreated after a (lost) rearguard
battle. Might it be giving that player to much flexibility to allow him to barter troops in exchange for turf on a "one-to -one" basis at will? Perhaps some modifiers here that might cause variance in that ratio? Of course, there is always that detail vs. playability problem.
To: NDanger666@aol.com Need to work out things like maximum size of a rearguard force. In 1807 Bagration had a large rearguard force, probably the biggest I know of, about two divisions in size, so say 16 to 18 SPs as a maximum ...
From: NDanger666@aol.com
My initial reaction is that the Rear Guard allows the defending player too much freedom - is there a limit as to how big a rear guard force can be? If not, this may be trouble for an attacking player. Have to see how it works out.
From: NDanger666@aol.com I think the Reserve and Rear Guard rules are an interesting approach but I am not sure they fit the scale of the game. I think the Rear Guard battle is much too powerful. Why would a player ever fight a Pitched Battle when he can do a Rear Guard instead; it gives him much more flexibility. Unless, of course, you must use the reserve Rule with it.
Second, I could be wrong but it seems like the reserve rule limits players to employing 18 SP's per round. A force of 60 SP's attacking a force of 20 SP's, normally a 3-1 (duh), breaks down to a bunch of 1-1 rounds. This is not an intuitive situation. I can't see how players should be limited to committing only 18 SP's at a time.
Lastly, the rules might work well for a particular campaign but I think they add far too much grit to an elegant system for the amount of benefit you get. I know a lot of guys on the Boards like more detail but, to bring up a salient point Richard Berg has made, the Board inhabitants are grognards and not probably representative of the gaming public as a whole.
To: NDanger666@aol.com Yes, I was thinking of those two rules being linked. However, you make a good point, and it occurs to me we should add a wrinkle here: If a player selects Rear Guard battle, that sets him up on a purely defensive posture, and therefore his force may make no pursuit of the enemy should he win. This is a bit tricky since in all other cases the chit selected by the winning player doesn't count.
This 18 SP limit grew out of something I saw on the Kranz Napoleonic page, the gist of which was a geometrical observation that the frontage between two 3.2 km. hexes is more like 1.8 km (the literal hexside). Now that is fallacious since two forces will spread out onto whatever frontage is appropriate for their size (they obviously couldn't see the hexgrid from down below). The hexgrid is for us only a convenience. We should never think that 48,000 troops are actually "within" the hex. The hex may be taken either as the "center of mass" of the force or, when in motion sometimes, the "head of the column."
Now, however, if you take that line of thinking to its extreme, then nobody is ever nowhere. At some point you have to pin a force down to a location.
Let's look at the Battle of Eylau. The Russians have a four hex frontage: Markow and Tutchkov in 3425; Somow, Dochturow, Essen and Sacken in 3526, Ostermann in 3527, Baggovut in 3627, and Kamenski in 3626. The French had a four hex frontage as well until Davout arrived: Lt. cav. screen in 3326, Leval and Legrand in 3426, Augereau, cavalry and the Guard in 3427, St. Hilaire, Klein and Milhaud in 3528; Davout moved in and took 3627. The largest Russian force in one hex is 3526, for about 30,000, half of that "in reserve." For the French, the largest concentration is 3427, with 21,400, including about 9,000 "in reserve." These concentrations of troops may be taken as fairly typical for a big battle, though they were exceeded at Waterloo, Wagram, Leipzig and Borodino.
Even at Waterloo, with massive assaults by the entire I Corps, for example, you still don't have your entire force attacking in any one "round."
From: mjb@crow.crippslaw.com Rearguard
What happens if you retreat into an enemy zone of control? Should the defender always have to retreat 1 hex? Otherwise it can be
turned into a pitched battle. In general I like this idea.
Reserves
How many SPs can the defender deploy 18 or 18 per attacking hex in which case why should no of hexes make a difference?
Should losses come from committed units first?
Transfering reserves to combat-- Can I suggest a leadership die roll ... this will make quality leaders better--would be done on initative.
What is meant by cav & art being excluded? Can 30 SP cav attack? they take up same or more space as infantry. Please clarify. Again I like the idea.
Attack effectiveness
I like the idea a lot I think the Russians are a bit hard done by they were as good as the Prussians in my view.
I think automatic recovery after a battle is to good, as this is an option and its use is complex. Why not make it dependent on leader initative and French morale ie if French morale is low allies get a good DRM French a bad one.
I will set up a few battles later and try it out but I assume that you are using 1807 combat rules and will add in artillery to NAB ?
From: mjb@crow.crippslaw.com 1. Rolling for attack effectiveness at the end of each round is a pain as you need to remember who lost what from the attack after you have done the counterattack, can the roll take place after attack and counter attack
2. It seems the only result of failure is that if all committed? units fail then you must choose pursuit. This seems a lot of effort for not much gain. Perhaps units that fail should be x1/2 ?
3. The chances of failure is very high perhaps a 1 shift right on the table would allow a 3 round battle to occur or are my dice rubbish !
4. You could add in a rule so heavy cavalry committed from reserve (if it applies to them) gets a bonus sort of Eylau type charge
Christopher Moeller For me, (and I think I classify as, at least, a Petit Grognard), the compelling reason to buy the newest releases in the CoN series is
notbecause of changes in the game engine, but because, (1) I already know the rules, and (2) because I'm dying to play the new campaign. For
example, when you released 1807, I'm sure that most people who were aware of the Campaigns series bought it because they were finally going to be able to march the Grande Armee into Poland and fight Bennigsen... on huge maps... not because of the new Hospitalization rules.
Re-release of NAB, which many of us have already played with the AH or OSG rules, will be a completely different game once you institute the changes already in 1807 (particularly the vedettes). I'm not convinced that you need to tweak the quote "standard rules" unquote in order to bring in new players (or old grognards). I'm not against structural changes that you feel will dramatically enhance the play of the game, or bring it into greater accord with historical dynamics (I personally think the vedette rules are revolutionary), but those kinds of changes have their price. I'm often frustrated when I've internalized the rules of a game-system, and find myself having to retrain to play another game in the same series. The thing that makes the old Quads so great is the Standard/Scenario Rule system... all exceptions and changes being relegated to the Scenario Rules. In CoN, campaign specific rules such as changes in set-up, orders of battle, unit & map graphics, weather rules, etc... may
provide a lot of the novelty you're talking about, without requiring that you tinker with the underlying engine.
I have never seen the sort of large, contiguous multiple-hex battle you described at Eylau occur in the game.
You are correct! The system doesn't show how spread out the corps really are. Therefore a lot of the geometry of multi-hex combat is misleading. Troops are spread all over hill and dale, approaching up the road, on adjacent hilltops, guarding bridges in the rear. The hexgrid is for us only a convenience. ...
If you're contemplating any change of the battle system, Might I humbly suggest that it address the question "why don't large battles like Leipzig or Wagram occur naturally in this system?" We tend to get battles that look like "clusters"...
This is the point of the Eylau example. It says, the armies tended to spread out more than the game shows. Most of the time 48,000 men would not concentrate in one hex. The hex represents the "center of mass" and not an open field next to a suddenly dense concentration of men. The optional limit on the number of men who can attack across a given hexside will reward players for spreading their subordinates out into adjacent hexes, and accomplish the two-hex packages you want. This rule is a substitute for two-hex counters...
Marching units sort of "lapping around" the sides of a single target hex, then forced-marching reinforcements curling around those hexes, the whole thing breaking down into several smaller unrelated battles.
True, we can add rules to make the battles relate better. The only change I have made to the Standard Rules is the rule on pursuing through enemy ZOCs. That will help. The other thing that will relate adjacent battles to each other is to resolve all Round One combats, then all Round Twos, etc.
Anyway, I guess I'm in the "don't fixit if it ain't broke" camp... but that also is a hip-shot reaction... I haven't had a chance to see how the
rearguard rule actually plays out. Please do. Talking about a rule is a different animal from playing it.
P.S. - I have some "graphics" ideas which I'll be firing your way shortly. Send 'em soon ...
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 97 14:21:13 EDT I have the effectiveness tables. I was not sure that there was a DR for each unit, but evidently you did intend that. I have not done the math, but I would be concerned that a force of many units may remain effective longer than a force of a few units, with the same total size.
Conditioning loss of effectiveness on a comparison of losses to size may deal with this. Actually the tables were constructed on a straight-line % breakdown that I converted to Strength Points, so you should find the same result regardless of unit size.
I like showing the effect explicitly and graphically with counters. I find this reduces the mental load on a player. Achieving the same with rules imposes a linear (one-dimensional) process of language on a reality that is at least 2 dimensional (or 3 with time) and more visual.
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 97 23:17:44 EDT I have the OSG edition. One of my all time favourites. I first decided that communication and cooperation are inherently difficult after watching several sets of allied players in 3 player games screw up, even though they were allowed to talk all they wanted. Most amusing to watch, though it may have been an artifact of the poor quality of play (mine own not excepted).
To: MoellerC@aol.com
Actually, two-hex packages are closer to the correct frontages but three hexes would be more accurate. Not a practical size for a counter though ... Again, the Eylau example is what I take to be a typical frontage.
Date: Sat, 31 May 97 14:12:56 EDT It seems to me that you already solved (largely) this frontage thing with the two hex units from Struggle of Nations. There are a number of games these days that spread units out over more than one hex, from the double counters of the GBOH to the multiple counter approach of The Gamers' CWB and NBS series.
I kind of think that the double counter approach from Struggle worked. It effectively reduced the number of troops that could be deployed on a front without 'excluding' SPs from the combat, it made units take up more road room and made enormous battles fought off the march harder to arrange. The halving of strength for being in column also handled part of the effect of restricted terrain on deployment. I even made up my own double counters for 1809 to try the Struggle system there, but I can't recall what I though of it.
I would like to see a bit more elaborate combat system, primarily things like going to a 1-10 system with more DRMs, mostly for subordinate leaders. This kind of thing adds little complexity but gives a bit more feel.
I've only had a chance to glance at the rules you sent out, but the attack effectiveness rule seems a bit too detailed to the level of the individual unit, which were never the focus of the system. I would prefer to see any effectiveness measure take effect at the level of the force under a leader (roll against a leader determination rating maybe), or a total force (roll on a table modified by the success of the attack).
I'll have a look at it more closely, but thinking about a game like Struggle where there are many nationalities and unit qualities, it would
seem to be a pain to have to figure out effectiveness for all of them. This would be a real bother if the only effect is to force pursuit battle
on a side once every last unit has lost attack effectiveness. I wonder how often it will matter, if the commander's initiative rating is retained as a
limit on the number of rounds he can choose pitched battle.
Of course, only you as designer hold all the threads and can see how the totality of changes may shift the operational focus of the games. It is always easy to tinker with a rule or two, but the trick is in the total assembly.
To: Mike Traynor Effectiveness could be important in that: it could allow a small body of superior troops to hold off a larger body of Austrians, for example.
Normally, I think, the Initiative Rating will expire before all the troops are ineffective. However, you will often reach a point where one side is
reduced below 18 SPs of effective troops, so odds will begin to change and that's the point where one side will begin to choose pursuit battle.
There is a separate table for each nationality or (for the French) unit quality: Depot troops, Provisional Young Guard, Young Guard, Line, and Old Guard. But you could apply the same roll to all the different qualities or nationalities in the battle (most of the time only one or two).
I'll be interested to hear your comments on the reserve rules and the rear-guard battle type. The reserve rules were suggested by something you said: "depth is frontage on the time axis."
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