Thomas Moore wrote:
In regards to stacking limits my basic concern is that historical research into actual battle conditions shows that the deploying of 1800- 2000 infantry or 600 - 1000 cavalry in a 100m x 100m was wholly unrealistic. I believe this fact is born out by a fine article written by the H & R boys for their H & R scenarios. If you have not seen this article I will be glad to send you a copy.
This brings us to what I believe is one of the basic ideas of our games which is to create as closely as possible a realistic simulation of the Napoleonic battlefield.
Also, I'm not sure by what you mean by the " golden ratio of 2:1". In my experience in battles is that many melees are successful with far less than a 2:1 superiority. Leadership, quality of troops and angle of attack are equally important.
Furthermore, reduced stacking limits enables brigades and divisions greater frontages they can successfully defend and allows the creation of more defense in depth.
Lastly, since you are the major creator of our games for which we are all very great full. I am appealing to you to consider reducing stacking limits in future games.
Tell that d'Erlon, there is a nice picture of Marcognet’s 3rd Division In Column of Battalions in the Waterloo Companion were roughly 4000 men were in an area of 120 to 75 meters, so stacking limits are even too low for the Waterloo game.
I mentioned it before, you can't simply take one idea from the H&R total conversion of the game and bring it here to fix something that can easily be solved by a houserule, especially when the idea brings up many other problems and goes way beyond what is intended to be fixed, it's simply like shooting a sparrow with a canon.
And I also mentioned that you need manual defensive fire or else it's highly likely that battalions simply move up without much interference and melee you, MDF is conducted at 100% while the AI fires only at 50% what has beyond the casualty numbers also a big impact on triggering moral checks that can stop an assault in its tracks.
Thinking all this can be solved by simply reducing the stacking limit is simply wrong, it may work out for H&R but in their scenario everything seems to be changed what is simply not the case in a stock scenario.