Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Looking for an opponent to play the French side in RBR.
Kaiserlautern. Ostrach. 1st Stockach. Hohenlinden.
The great option of so de luxe dishes for your fanciful treat.
Make your choice, my friend.

I always play with R&H House Rules.
At least, this minimum:

1) No unit stacks on the road march, the exception: Art.battery/Train + Inf.Co./Cav.Sqn. as escort;
2) Cavalry Regiment may move along ways by Squadrons only, and by divisions (2-3 Sqns) elsewhere;
3) no more than 1,300 infantrymen or 250 horsemen in one open space hex (this is the physical limits for a hex space of 100mX100m) ;
4) Infantry may attack with fire on ANY Cavalry from the maximal range only, if the cavalry persist and do not leave their position then Infantry may attack from the minimal range, the exceptions: skirmishers in orchards, woods and towns, and surprise encounters; (we ought to give our Cav. the chance: using its mobility and speed, they could brake contact with the enemy's Inf. and leave its fire zone - just as it could happen in reality)
5) disordered unit may attack/advance with presence of a leader only (Disordered unit is just a mob, and they have not the common will for advancing) .

Or rather use the common sense and 'the golden rule': not to do things that could not happen physically in the realities of the Napoleonic wars' battlefield.

Salute you,

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General-Feldmarshal Prince Vladimir N. Repnin
Imperial Russian Corps Commander
Prince Braine-Le Comte & The Adjutant-General of His Imperial Majesty
Chevalier Guards Regiment

I could follow that logic (to the total exception of all previously stated house rules). ;]
Perhaps someone else would be more willing to accept those house requirements though so, let's give it time. I'm currently suffering from skirmisher phobia in my games.

I've sent you a BTE for Kaiserlauntern. Please review the ORs (which you didn't specify). All designer suggested ORs except OMR were used.
I'll try to follow your house ruleset. A few questions/comments though:
"Inf.Co./Cav.Sqn. as escort", do you mean Cav.Plt as escort or an entire squadron?
Is it a 3 sqn limit elsewhere even if 4 sqn might have less than 250 horsemen?
Can infantry fire at cavalry that move into their ZOCs? Is it just a limitation of infantry movement and firing on the attack?
I think playing the game as a chess match but, restricting oneself to regimental level ordering and cohesion cancels alot of the gamey min/maxing exploits. It helps to not look at the PDT, calculate combat results or, movement limitations. Purposefully making mistakes is actually fun to recover from. I understand your road march allowance but, perhaps a singular 750 or 1 unit limitation might cover it. With 1500 as the general stacking limitation. If cavalry don't want to get shot then they shouldn't ride towards infantrymen and withdraw when they see them filing closer (thinking of turns as simulataneous but dislocated events).

I wouldn't be adverse to an edited PDT according to your houserule set. Suggest a negative cavalry target value to simulate their manueverability under fire (including artillery fire that needs to zero in for attacks). Buffing cavalry will be imbalancing the series towards Allied favor in most scenarios. Not a problem in this case since Kaiserlauntern is a French major defeat from start to finish.

Come to find out it is really all about manipulation and not realism. More rules were applied after play began. He starts editing his parameter file to split his Prussian guns. Then, I come to find he's made his foot artillery into horse artillery.. Game over.

It is all about the super-light Regimental/Battalion Artillery and its ability to march and fight with the regiment/battalion together.
In my games, I always keep on the rule: do only things that could happen physically in the historical reality of the Napoleonic wars' battlefield.
At the time of the French Revolutionary Wars, the Coalition troops' Regimental/Battalion Artillery did not fight yet as converged batteries; 3- and 4-pdr guns, still like at the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War, were distributed by 2 pieces to Line Inf. battalions for their fire power intensification, and usually positioned on both flanks of the regimental battle array for to get the enemy under cross-fire.
So, the fact of splitting the Prussian 3-pdr batteries between Inf. battalions in the game not eventuates as a some kind of cheating.
Next, the super-light Regimental/Battalion Artillery was overburden with neither heavy and slow Art. caissons nor even limbers. The regimental ammo train had 2-3 caissons of Art.ammo, on a battlefield they usually stayed behind the regimental array, and artillerymen brought loads to cannon in big leather bugs. The Regimental Art. crews constantly used the help of their battalions' men on broken terrains; therefore, they always could follow the infantry maneuvers but could not act independently. Plus, on battlefield, the regimental guns were supposed to move with a load in mouth, for to be ready at any moment to open fire. The Friedrich II's Prussian cannoniers were trained to fire the first salvo in 20-30 seconds after taking a new position. G.Rottenberg - the famous scholar and historian of 18-19 century Hapsburg's army tells about the Austrian record after one of the artillery inspections - 10 seconds.
So, the Light Regimental Art. cannon could be ready for firing as soon as the Horse Art. cannon - that is why they have the same capability on the Prussian side in the game, but they not acting independently like their Horse brothers-in-arms; on march and in battle - only with their regiment's Inf. battalion together. Where is cheating there? The historical realism only. When 3-pdr guns have the same parameters for maneuvering as 12-pdr guns, is that not a nonsense?
About rules. Any additional rule that could improve game process may get a chance of debating over. Why not? The game process is our alive association, interchange of knowledge and emotions but not a frozen paradigm . Isn't it?

_________________
General-Feldmarshal Prince Vladimir N. Repnin
Imperial Russian Corps Commander
Prince Braine-Le Comte & The Adjutant-General of His Imperial Majesty
Chevalier Guards Regiment

Vladimir,
If you change the values during or before the game without telling your opponent how is that fair? Same with changing the rules once you have started--for example, if I spend 5 turns deploying my defense and then you want to discuss a rule that says artillery can't fire over a battalion, well, I just spent 5 turns setting up to play the battle a very different way.

Everyone in this club has their own idea of what is historically accurate and that is why the club rules say to agree on rules BEFORE you start a game.

The club management is discussing this and we will get back to you guys as soon as real life allows us to.

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All rules and PDT changes must be discussed AND be made, before the game is started.

This is a long standing standard of play.

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Ernie Sands
1ère Brigade of 2ème Division de Grosse Cavalerie, Réserve de Cavalerie
de la Grande Armée
President, Colonial Campaigns Club

I agree with Ernie and Jim... upfront discussion before any game files are exchanged is the key to enjoyable gaming...

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I accused you of being manipulative not cheating. Kaiserlauntern as I said is going to be a failed French attack either way. When we agreed upon the values you described you never said there would be PDT or OOB edits. Then you broke your guns down into sections and gave them horse artillery traits. That is uncompetitive behavior in which we are supposed to be playing with a comparable fair system of values. Technically, French artillery could be broken into 2-gun sections and spread hundreds of kilometers along the line. All field foot-artillery could fire at a fraction of a 10 minute turn and would deserve the horse artillery trait if any should. Those considerations should be done before play begins instead of suprising your opponent with the imbalanced effects.
Opponents deserve better than to be used as dummies for experimentation. My counter-claims to the H&R ahistorical and unrealistic evaluations just went ignored. I suggest full disclosure of parameter and OOB changes before they are implemented. We are already on a system of honor values in all of our games due to no program checking and reporting of the multiplay ruleset. Which makes any kind of community competition or tournament impossible except by faith that someone isn't just rerunning turns or switching parameters on you during play.

Geoff, were you provided with any kind of mod or other files that were suggested for use or even stated as mandatory for the game?

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No, it is seriously difficult to get any game going. If it isn't flakey opponents like this then it's weird results during play. Just had my 360 Hussars do 1 casualty against an enemy Dragoon squadron in another game. Despite 14 (360 * 40 / 1000 = 14.4) being the lowest possible value without including attack bonuses. Not very happy with the game system at this point in time.

Well that is really bad in my opinion.
Providing the stuff he used would at least enable one to see that something was changed and what & how it was changed, but this way all you got are strange results that made one suspicious of that something was wrong.
A member who would have payed less attention may have dragged himself through the game to not only fight the opponent but also fight the changes that played out in his favor and only in his part of the turn, there are funny ways to spend time, visit your proctologist for example.

I'm not sure why this is only manipulative and not cheating, also because this isn't the first time, but that is up to the person who suffered from it.

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The cavalry battle results are from a game with someone else. I can ignore what I believe to be buggy programming because both players are stuck with the same game structure. I wouldn't call Vladimir a cheater because he 'hosted' the 'rigged' game with the intention of 'realism' based 'enhancements'. If there were any kind of fair use structure to gameplay than perhaps I could cry wolf. I play spades (card game) on a Polish server and people constantly table talk and multi-account. They're not attempting to 'enhance' the game with rules ignorant of competition but, just cheating. One is low dishonesty and the other is manipulation and insult to the competitor.