Here is an old list I made up see how well the cut and paste works:
HPS Optional Rules
Here's a list of them based on Gettysburg Version 1.04: 1.Manual Defense Fire - Selects whether play will be Phased or Turn based. 2.Optional Fire Results - Averages two random die rolls to determine casualties. 3.Optional Melee Results - Averages two random die rolls to determine casualties. 4.Quality Fire Modifiers - Unit quality used to modify Fire values. 5.Higher Fatigue Recovery Rates - Increases Fatigue recovery by 5x, 3x, and 1x default levels. 6.Victory points for Leader Casualties -VPs for killing/wounding/capture of leaders based on ratings. 7.Rout Limiting - reduces routing odds for units by their distance from initial routing unit 8.Density Fire Modifier - Increases fire value against large stacks. 9.Night Movement Fatigue - Units moving at night acquire additional fatigue. 10.Mounted Cavalry Skirmishers - Mounted cavalry exerts a skirmisher ZOC. 11.Higher Disrupted Movement - Changes disrupted unit movement from 1/2 to 3/4. 12.Optional Melee Resolution - Melee resolved in separate phase in Turn based play. 13.Alternate Fixed Unit Release - Fixed units released when enemy comes within 5 hexes. 14.Quality Melee Modifiers - Unit quality is used to modify melee values. 15.Isolation Rules - Reduces melee strength of isolated defenders by 1/4. 16.Weak Zone-of-Control - Units may move or retreat through one hex of enemy zoc. 17.Partial Retreats - Allow some units to retreat from hex when total is over stacking limits. 18.Automated Defensive Fire - AI conducts defensive fire in Phased play game. 19.Flank Morale Modifier - Morale increased by one for units with friendly units on flanks. 20.Full Melee Defensive Fire - AI Defensive fire at full strength against meleeing enemy units (Turn play). 21.Bridge Limit and Repair - Allows bridge repair with limited movement across until fully repaired 22.Artillery Capture - Allows capture of guns and using them against the enemy. 23.Artillery Retire by Prolonge - Allows unlimbered gun to move back one hex. 24.Artillery Ammo by Cannon - Uses ammo at rate of one ammo factor per gun. 25.Proportional Opportunity Fire – Manpower factors of stack figured in triggering of opportunity fire.
I am going to discuss the optional rules in groups because most rules need to be paired with others to work properly. These groupings help to balance out the game because some rules favor the defender and some the attacker.
Some optional rules were added to fix very real problems and should be default or standard programming.
Turn versus Phased Play First are the options concerning "Turn based” play versus "Phased" play. "Phased" play is pretty straight forward since it is the type used in Battleground series games and hasn't changed much. In "Phased" play you have part of the turn separated into distinct phases consisting of movement, defensive fire, offensive fire and melee. "Turn" based play was introduced with the HPS games and consists of a single player phase in which all movement, fire and melees are conducted by the active player while the game’s AI conducts the defensive player's response fire as a type of opportunity fire. The first optional rule, the poorly named "Manual Defensive Fire", selects this when checked. Manual Defensive Fire(1)- If checked, the game is played in phases. If unchecked, the game is Turn based. When you play "Phased" with option 1 on there is one of rule that works in conjunction with it. Automated Defensive Fire(18), will let the AI handle the opponent's defensive fire. It only works in "Phased" play because in "Turn" based play, this is how all Defensive Fire is handled regardless of the setting. The main reason for using it is that in PBEM it cuts out a whole set of emails halving the time it takes to play a game. In other words it is a necessary evil when playing by mail, so use it. In "Turn" based play the connected optional rules (12, 20, and 25) were added to correct very serious problems with this game system. I highly recommend you use all three. First an explanation of the problem with "Turn" play. Because of the combined combat and movement in "Turn" play regiments became virtual tanks able to make breakthroughs, surrounds, overruns, and highly coordinated attacks that for all practical purposes looked like WWII blitzkrieg tactics rather than Civil War combat. This was all compounded by the very thing it was suppose to add, Opportunity Fire, which was hoped to limit units moving in front of enemy lines without any restrictions. The problem was the Opportunity Fire was halved in value to compensate for it being possible to fire more than once, was randomly fired by a very dim witted AI, and fired at ranges that mostly wasted ammo with getting hits. Optional Melee Resolution (12), tries to fix the panzer blitz by separating the Melee resolution out of the combined movement/combat making it a separate phase. This means you can move and shoot to your heart's content but you have to end your movement/combat phase before going to the phase to resolve melees. No longer can you try to melee a couple of critical enemy units in the enemy line hoping they will retreat and open a whole for you to push a division through to surround the units on either side. One problem with this rule, it creates an extra step when playing Multiplayer Games. For MP games I recommend that you turn on this option but instead make a "House" rule saying the players should enforce it on their part of the move. In other words, each player will move and fire the units they control once they start executing the melees they will not move or fire any more of the units they control. Full Defensive Fire (20) , was added to correct the problem with the AI tending to fail to make this critical fire when units moved adjacent or would even trigger if they were already adjacent. This was compounded by the Turn based halving of defensive fire. This optional rule guaranteed that the defender would get at least one full strength shot at the enemy meleeing units before they meleed. Proportional Opportunity Fire (25), was added to correct another problem in Turn play. You couldn't fire small stacks or units because it might trigger massive retaliation by all nearby enemy units. This rule reduces the probability of this happening.
The next group, rules 2 and 3, which are the optional fire and melee results rules, just take some of the randomness out of combat by using the average of two die rolls to come up with the casualties instead of one. This one is a personal choice. If you are one of those players who swears that he rolls snake eyes every time when things are critical, you might want this one on. My preference is using it because during the time period of this game’s fire resolution, 20 minutes, you wouldn't see as much variation as occurs on single rolls.
The next group (4, 6, and 14) I recommend using together because they give leaders a more critical role in the game. 4 and 14 allow the quality of leaders to influence combat and 6 award VP for their loss. These need to be used together because the side with the better leaders will benefit from 4 and 14 while risking giving the other side VP for killing them, rule 6.
Higher Fatigue Recovery Rates (5), is a much more controversial option. I highly recommend it, and here is why. It forces players to plan and manage their unit fatigue. The player that does a better job of pulling regiments out of the line of battle before they hit high fatigue and providing for their resting will beat a player that just fights them until they can't fight any more. This rule generally only affects longer games, more than one day, because night rates are high enough for units to completely recover from fatigue if they haven't been over fought. Without it the rule, there is very little chance of a medium fatigued unit recovering sufficiently to even try, so we tend to fight every man to his last breath rather than rest troops.
The next group isn't strictly related but I put them together but there is a certain synergy from using them together. These are rules 7, 8, 15, 16, 17, and 19 and have to do with the forming of lines and surrounding of units. The reason I put them together is they all address two gamey but effective tactics used in these games; 1. the alternating defensive line where huge stacks are placed in every other hex making an indestructible wall. And, 2. the raider who can't be killed. Using them together helps moderate some of the new gamey tactics they introduce. So I recommend the use of them together.
Weak ZOC (16), is the critical one that triggers the need for the others. The "strong" ZOC that is normal makes the alternating stacks with an empty hex between the best method of defending a line. The enemy can't slip between the stacks and the stacks are so large you can't melee them to drive them back. Turning on rule 16 limits the usefulness of the alternating hex strategy. It can only be used now if the defender is willing to retreat each turn to keep adjacent units from slipping around them. Now the defender has a reason to make continuous lines that look a lot more like what you would see on a Civil War battlefield. Now though, you have created new problems. One of the things the alternating defense line fixed was the tendency of continuous lines to rout in mass because of the rout check rules for adjacent units. So to compensate for this you need rule 7 to allow the defender to form lines without risking having his whole army rout off the field due to one rout check starting a domino effect. A related one is that the defender can no longer create huge stacks which cannot be taken by melee, but the attacker has no such limitation. So we need to throw in rule 8. Density Fire Modifier (8), to punish the attacker for highly concentrating attack forces. Partial Retreats (17), also comes in here to help compensate for the advantages gained by the attacker allowing units losing the melee to not get killed by over stacking problems. Flank Modifier(19), also helps reward the use of continuous lines by giving a morale boost to included units. Isolation Rules (15). And finally you have the really nasty one. Once you have weak ZOCs, you need a method to kill units that have become separated from the rest and are acting like tanks with radios. Hard ZOCs made surrounded units easy to kill, but with weak ZOCs, it takes a whole brigade to surround and kill units, even if it's only 25 men. If left to run wild, they can destroy your rear areas so you need a rule that allows them to be surrounded and removed quickly. That is what the isolation rule does. Units that get separated from their main forces can be forced to surrender so that players learn that they should keep their army together. The rule has a lot of problems but it is a necessary evil.
Artillery has always been a step child in the HPS system handled by a lot of rules that were better made for infantry and cavalry than artillery. This led to three new options (22,23,24) that tried to improve things with mixed results. I recommend them with some reservations. Artillery Capture(22) - This one is nice but has problems in many situations. It addressed a universal complaint that you should be able to do as in the CW, capture a gun and turn it on the enemy. So they added this rule that allows it. The problem resulted that it removed the Victory Points gained for the capture. If you destroyed a gun by fire you got VPs for it and never had to worry again. But if you captured it you had to garrison the gun forever if you wanted those VPs. You could spike the guns so the other side could get them back but if you wanted full VPs, you had to leave a unit in the hex to keep them. If you had enough ammo, you could roll up a battery behind it and shoot it but this favors the side with the most ammo (Union). Some scenarios have an ebb and flow of battle that can be a problem to balance. Artillery Retire by Prolonge(23) - was added because this was a tactic commonly used during the CW. It adds a realistic touch, but I haven't used it enough to know whether it has adverse effects. A problem that rose is forgetting that an unlimbered battery can move and having it accidentally retreat, when I used the Alt key to send some other guns by it. Artillery Ammo By Cannon(24) - this one I consider a must have rule. It fixes probably the worse flaw in the game system and for sure in the artillery handling. It allows the player to use his one gun batteries as effective units rather than ammo wasters. No game should be played without this one on unless you know there is a reason the default doubling of total ammo won't work.
Recommended: Now for a bunch of rules that just fixed flaws in the game system. I recommend all of these be used but keep in mind some may cause game balance problems for some scenarios. Night Movement Fatigue(9) - this one was created to address the unrealistic problem of our troops making all night marches after fighting all day with no apparent effect. This option adds additional fatigue factors, usually 50 per turn, to discourage night activities. Mounted Cavalry Skirmishers(10) - was created so that cavalry wouldn't run into enemy units blindly and not be able to disengage. It allows cavalry to recon better and delay enemy pursuit. Higher Disrupted Movement(11) - was added to help defenders retreat. HPS games heavily favored the attacker and it was almost impossible for even a relatively large force to make a fighting withdrawal. Disrupted units were reduced to half movement to keep their line intact. This was added to correct the problem. Alternate Fixed Unit Release(13) - Players could check the scenario and find where fixed units were so they could avoid them until they were surrounded. The five hex release rule was added to make it more difficult for players to “game” the fixed units, even though they were in plain sight at times. . Bridge Limit and Repairing(21) –allows the repair of destroyed bridges. It also limits the type of units that can cross until the bridge is fully repaired. This is one of those added realism rules that can cause problems in scenarios that were designed to prevent crossing creeks and rivers once a bridge was destroyed.
LG. Kennon Whitehead
_________________ General Kennon Whitehead Chatham Grays AoT II/1/3 (CSA)
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