Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Hello,

I find myself playing more and more Napoleon Campaigns (AgeOd), Crown of Glory these days.

Everytime I play a HPS game, the lack of command rules makes the games turn in Panzer routs.

Why can't a command system be built where all units must stay within 4 hexes of Leader, plus extra hexes for passing leader checks for Divison, Corps, Army. Any unit outside this range suffers a penatly on their movemen rates.

So, if with in 4 hexes of leader, noloss to movement, if outside of range, lose say 1/2 movement for being out of command and control.

I just love breaking and then being chased through a forest where enemy just follows with no problems for them, as long as they stay undisrupted they can chase you forever, even if getting so out of command and control it is ridiculous.

I am not saying 4 hexes is perfect, maybe needs to be slightly more, someone who knows the hex size versus units could figure that.

But to me, the historical flare is lost in all the games once the initial collapse as nothing ever stops the rout. Routed units should never be penalized, they are forced away from enemy anyways.
But a breakthrough should only be rewarded to Divsions where Command is maintained, and then once the command is stretched, the units lose the ability to chase, this also would reflect units would also not chase without their leaders. They are on horseback and usually right after a rout still control how far that rout goes. Units would want to pilfer dead for money and loot after they had pushed a ways.

Love to hear what others think on having a tight command and control for these games.

<b><font color="gold">Gén. de Div. </b></font id="gold">Paul Wakeman [url="http://www.acwgc.org/acwgc_members/paw/wakeman-AdR.htm"](OBD)[/url]
<font color="beige">2nd Light Rgt</font id="beige">
<font color="orange">2nd Brigade
22nd Saxon Division
<b>VII Saxon Corps</font id="orange">
<font color="red">Armée du Rhin (ADC)</b></font id="red">

Paul_Wakeman@yahoo.com

I am sorry if I misunderstood you point but in my opinion the recent changes in Austerlitz and introduction of corps and above command range already address this in some way. Anything beyond that would be too heavy micro-management in my opinion.

The historical aspect of restricting battalions /squadrons to command range of a few hexes is also questionable to me. These tactical units were able to receive orders from their operational (divisional / Corps ) HQs at ranges far beyond 500m.
Finally the way I see it when commanding an army in HPS you are not just the commander in chief but also a direct commander of every single squadron / battalion present.

I agree that routed units should not probably be penalized in terms of movement however HPS simulations concentrate on the tactical aspects of the Warfare – pursuit is mostly operational level of warfare beyond the scope of overwhelming majority of HPS scenarios excluding a few large size ones.

I actually was away for a couple of years from the club and tried a few other products. What I found is that others are mostly “gamesâ€

Actually command and control problems are in what you are describing: oftentimes in history it was not that units couldn't move it was that they would pursue too far!

Thus your illustration of units following after a routed unit is exactly what you would see in history: the inability of a commander to stop his forces from following after a defeated foe.

This has been a military problem since the days of the ancient cavalry following defeated cavalry off of the battlefield and never returning.

Every game I have ever played has problems from AH Squad Leader (it took them years to come up with some form of breakdown for the squads) to GMT Games products to computer Empire in Arms. You will never find the perfect game. It doesn't exist.

The command model is dated to be sure but if you are that bent on it being your way just institute a House Rule if you like. May I suggest some sort of die roll you do for brigades out of command? Just roll for each brigade and pick a number range and if the formation fails their test then only move them half of their MP allowance.

I have played board and computer games (miniatures too - oh man, that is its own can of worms) since 1975 and I have yet to see the game that was perfect. I have the old miniature Ship of the Line rules (Wooden Ships and Iron Men is from same designer) and I remember thinking that they were the greatest thing since the ice cream cone but after playing them a bit the squares started bothering me to no end.

In the end we do our best to give you a good product and apart from the usual areas of topic I think we do a very good job!

Colonel Bill Peters, 17th Dragoons, III Corps, French Army
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Swiss-Swedish Army CinC, Musket and Cannon Game Club - Come over and see what we are all about!

I guess it comes down to what kind of wargames you like to play. For me I like the bottom the top style like HPS where you fill the role of BTN commander right up to overall CO.

If you prefer a more command based system perhaps the Les Grognards from histwar may be more to your taste.

Personally I think the HPS games are very historical. But as I say I like the micro control it offers.

As regards command ranges it's important to remember every btn had an officer as did a company. Each was trained to command his men. So to say they must stay within 4 hexes of a brigade commander is not right I don't think.

Also under HPS units that do pass outside the command range will probably not reform so there is plenty of incentive to stay within in the Brigade commanders range. In Austerlitz it's four for the Russians and 5 for the French.

Salute!


General de Brigade Knox
Grand Duc d'Austerlitz et Comte de Argentan



Escadron Mamelouks
Chasseurs a'Cheval
Division de Cavalerie la Vieille Garde.





CO. 1er Brigade, II Heavy Cavalry Division, Reserve Cavalry.
http://www.aspire.co.nz/colinknoxnwc.htm

Colin - yes, staying in command range is what has helped improve my play. Of course in my case I could only go up! [:D]

Someone might say, "well the command range thing only applies to RECOVERING from disorder." Yes, that is true. If you move a good order formation out of command control (say a regiment on its own mission such as the 65th Ligne at Ratisbon.) that they should not be able to pack up and move to another side of the battlefield based on events happening there but I could also say the same for ANY formation in that case that doesn't have LOS.

In our games I note that we react to events that happen out of LOS and command all the time. Especially in the large Jena situations (but I am sure that Waterloo campaigns are seeing this too).

The bottom line is that micromanagement does get tedious. A better FORMATION MOVE would be nice for our series. You would select the formation you want your men to be in (talking about the relative order of battalions) and the AI would move them for you. I personally would enjoy that.

Orders are nice to work with on the grand scale. I think that those are almost mandatory now in the large operational level actions although in my recent Campaign Austerlitz - Moravia campaign I am in we set no boundaries on that. Its something I would like to explore for the future.

Again, its up to the players to patrol that. And frankly restrictions on formations that are out of control may end up turning THEM into the routed unit situation as Paul outlines. I think it would boomerang on us.

Colonel Bill Peters, 17th Dragoons, III Corps, French Army
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Swiss-Swedish Army CinC, Musket and Cannon Game Club - Come over and see what we are all about!

All good points, and some of the problem is the playing style. Each player has his own interpretation.

There are buttons in the game to show the Leader hex range, but nothing easily points this out while playing and moving. It is a kind of check that has to be done manually, by setting the visible range and having the division highlighted. Making the micromanagement too much at times in bigger battles.




<b><font color="gold">Gén. de Div. </b></font id="gold">Paul Wakeman [url="http://www.acwgc.org/acwgc_members/paw/wakeman-AdR.htm"](OBD)[/url]
<font color="beige">2nd Light Rgt</font id="beige">
<font color="orange">2nd Brigade
22nd Saxon Division
<b>VII Saxon Corps</font id="orange">
<font color="red">Armée du Rhin (ADC)</b></font id="red">

Paul_Wakeman@yahoo.com

Hey Bill sounds good if you like that kind of thing. I like synthesising the whole thing. That's just me I like the arty side of it. Like a chess player.

The gods eye view is a problem I agree but it's a shared capability with both sides able to react. So to me this in effect offsets the problem.

It does mean a pure historic game is impossible so the usual result is a sped up situation. But it is sped up for both sides. Hence if you play the large waterloo scenario no fixed the French will win most times as speed (and hindsight) comes onto their side.

The problem with AI is that the 'I' should be a 'D' for dumb. You only have to play against the engines AI to see how dumb it is [:D][:D] not complaining I just find the AI's tactics mindless. Grognards does not sound much better.


General de Brigade Knox
Grand Duc d'Austerlitz et Comte de Argentan



Escadron Mamelouks
Chasseurs a'Cheval
Division de Cavalerie la Vieille Garde.





CO. 1er Brigade, II Heavy Cavalry Division, Reserve Cavalry.
http://www.aspire.co.nz/colinknoxnwc.htm

One thing I would like to see is a severly reduced LOS for units out of command. That would at least introduce an increase in the amount of time it takes to get word back to the main columns when scouts located enemy units and during pursuits.

Lieutenant General
Ed Blackburn
Commanding Second Div, II Corps, AAA
3rd Bn / 1st Regiment of Foot Guards

Something that occurred to me these days is that command ranges should be drastically reduced in obstructed terrain. You simply can't control a larger formation the same way in a village or in woods as in an open field.

BTW I never can recall whether command range crosses creeks and rivers? Of course it shouldn't ...

<center>
[url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_walter/NWC/2nd_Dragoons.htm"][/url]
Maj. Gen. D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
~ 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys) ~
2nd (Union) Brigade, Cavalry Division, Anglo-Allied II Corps
----------
~ 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards ~
[url="http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/AAA/BritGuardHorse.html"][/url]
</center>

Dierk - I was just discussing the reduction of command range in obstructed terrain. It does make sense and its something that also should apply to the other pre-20th Century games as well. The ACW in particular - the fighting in the Wilderness was plagued with the inability of commanders to know what their brigades were doing.

Paul - if you leave the Command Range setting ON during movement then any leader you choose will automatically have its command range pictured. Annoying perhaps to some but I use it frequently.

Ed - I am not sure how accurate that would be as cavalry was sent out to skirmish and find the enemy. Placed on a hill a squadron could watch the enemy advance and then send back the information.

I guess what you would need is some sort of delayed view of the enemy that would not show up in one turn but would in the next. A programmer's nightmare! [:D]

I really enjoyed the Carriers at War computer game. It was about the best for Fog of War. You sent out your air groups, attacked the carriers and never knew if you sunk them or not. Damage reported could be bogus.

Anyway, all interesting items not sure how to implement it without opening up a new can of worms. Pretty much the changes to the series at this point will be minor. My hope is someday to get a new engine going (whether by John or some other programmer) for this level of play that would encompass scouting with misinformation and so on Command control would be based on the leader's mental makeup - Bernadotte hesitating to attack at Austerlitz while Ney would charge Hell with a bucket of water. Murat riding up to an enemy formation and attacking with five squadrons. That sort of thing.

In some ways we are seeking the holy grail or the fountain of youth. Almost impossible to erase the human factor of unit management.

There was an SPI ACW series game (Berg design) called Corinth (it came with Pea Ridge in one box) and in that game one of the divisions on the Reb or USA side (I forget which) used the BCE rule. Usually that rule (a box was marked off for each loss and after so many losses you could no longer melee) was for brigades but the division was so low on stamina at that point of the campaign that it could not hold up well in combat. The entire division would "lose BCE" and thus be pretty much relegated to a defensive role.

Most of us hate to implement player guided rules but in some ways they are enjoyable and harder for a programmer to implement. A referee game is probably the best way to go for realism.

Colonel Bill Peters, 17th Dragoons, III Corps, French Army
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Swiss-Swedish Army CinC, Musket and Cannon Game Club - Come over and see what we are all about!

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
Ed - I am not sure how accurate that would be as cavalry was sent out to skirmish and find the enemy. Placed on a hill a squadron could watch the enemy advance and then send back the information.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Yes, but the sending back takes time. In the game it's instant.

<center>
[url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_walter/NWC/2nd_Dragoons.htm"][/url]
Maj. Gen. D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
~ 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys) ~
2nd (Union) Brigade, Cavalry Division, Anglo-Allied II Corps
----------
~ 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards ~
[url="http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/AAA/BritGuardHorse.html"][/url]
</center>

I agree with Gen Walter this is one of the core problems in big map games. Cavalry scouts have radios!

But like I say it's the same for both sides and I can't really see a way under the HPS engine of changing that without a fundamental rethink.



General de Brigade Knox
Grand Duc d'Austerlitz et Comte de Argentan



Escadron Mamelouks
Chasseurs a'Cheval
Division de Cavalerie la Vieille Garde.





CO. 1er Brigade, II Heavy Cavalry Division, Reserve Cavalry.
http://www.aspire.co.nz/colinknoxnwc.htm

Colin,
you raise a key point about making changes. When we start tweeking around the edges all of a sudden it is a very different sort of game. To me, that sort of tweeking is a bad idea. To implement chanes in c/c, scouting, etc, make a new game engine that is designed with that style of play and that style of simulation in mind. These games are more tactical simulators and do a good job of that.

Feldmarschall Jim 'Prinz' Pfluecke
Commander, Austrian Cavalry Reserve
3 Graf O'Reilly Chevauxleger Rgt
Hahn Grenadier Bn

Perhaps the "skyview" problem and that of "cavalry with radios" could be solved by limiting the ability to "see" to leader units at the division level or higher and to individual units that are in contact with the enemy (then musketry and smoke would alert nearby leaders). This would have units blundering into enemy units that weren't spotted at the command level. Not a totally unrealistic occurrence.

Just an idea that I am sure would cause more problems somewhere else.

FM Sir 'Muddy' Jones, KG
2nd Life Guards, Household Cavalry

LOL about the cavalry scout "radios". I wondered about this too, and decided to use a bit of imagination. The cavalry scouts will establish a line of communication by dispatching one or two of their number back to their lines to report, then return and report back to the scouts. This movement is too small a scale to be represented on our maps.

Overall, even with their flaws, I think the games are pretty damn amazing. These games have added an exciting extra dimension to the study of the Napoleonic era, and given all of us a chance to get together and have some fun.

Lieutenant William Reaves
3ème Division, 1ère Brigade, 17ème Regiment d'Infanterie Legere
V Corps
La Grande Armee