Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Malcolm Cumberlidge in another thread</i>
<br />Be careful gentlemen.

Remember, horses get tired as well. I have not gone into the details but do not forget that a horse carrying a fully armed cuirassier and equipment cannot sustain higher speeds for long. After many days on the march with the best forage not always available, horses will not be in the best condition on the day of battle. Also, to retain order, pauses must be made in any movement to correct the dressing/alignment of the formation. So whilst in theory horses can travel at higher speeds than the game allows, in reality the average speed that can be maintained will be lower than you might think. As, I say, I have not researched this but I would offer a word of caution before you make rule changes.

Général de Brigade Malcolm Cumberlidge
"Vigueur et Honneur"
Chef d'Etat-Major
1er Corps de Réserve de Cavalerie
Armée du Nord

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

(I post this here in its own thread so as to not take away from the discussion of house rules.)

Well said General Malcolm. As a former horse owner and trainer for endurance (ie. distance) racing, I found this out first hand.

This could all be solved, IMHO, if the <font color="orange"><b>distance</b></font id="orange"> men and horses travel were tied to their fatigue level. I don't care what anyone has been smoking. A horse or man that is fatigued cannot travel as <font color="orange"><b>far</b></font id="orange"> (in 15 minutes) as a horse or man that is fresh. (I know that I cannot.)

Maybe movement should be shortened by one hex for men and horses if their fatigue level number is yellow ---and their movement should be two or three if it is red.

-----

Lastly, why doesn't simple movement contribute to fatigue levels? We now have <font color="red"><b>HUGE</b></font id="red"> maps. You can have a battalion march all day for a distance of 56 kilometers and not even get tired?

That is a glaring omission if there ever was one. (Just think of how you would feel if you walked 56 kilometers in one day. Think of it even if you were somewhat used to doing it. Either way, you'd be beat.)

To keep things simple, I suggest a .5 addition to the fatigue levels for every hex moved at any time. Let's dispense with greater fractions for going uphill or on muddy/ soft ground. A .5 addition will give our battalion a fatigue level of 150 if it marched 30 kilometers and a fatigue level of 280 if it went the entire 56 kilometers. A break every so often was common by all armies and this would cause our players to have them.

Having fatigue for marching will make our games more historical and real IMHO.

Cheers,
Rick

<center>Lieutenant Rick Motko
1er Bataillon, 33° Régiment d'Infanterie de Ligne
2eme Brigade, 11eme division
IIIe corps, Armée du Nord</center>

I couldn't agree more.

At the very least, there should be <u>night fatigue</u>, i.e. fatigue acquired by being active in night turns. There already is in the HPS Panzer Campaigns series.

The standard answer to all request for marching fatigue or night fatigue was always that the concept of fatigue in the games is "combat fatigue" not physical exhaustion but a mental state of not being able to bear it any longer. Yet for one thing, does not extrem physical exhaustion affect one's endurance in combat just as well as being under fire? For another, the principle has already been breached in the HPS games, for instance in the battle of Pea Ridge from Campaign Ozark (ACW), the Reb flanking column starts the scenario with 600+ fatigue as a consequence of their night march. And finally, as has been pointed out, huge maps and multi-day scenarios simply <u>need</u> something that discourages the players from force-marching their troops day and night many days on end. Personally I employ house rules that rule out night action. But the game engine should take care of that.

<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant de la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant l'Ecole de Mars, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant de la Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

Indeed I agree. HPS Eckmuhl, over 500 turns. Yet units can march all the time with no fatigue. That's just not right.

Generalissimo
Opolchenie Korpus
Russian Army

I don't know that we need to start having a sliding scale on movement rates (though, as an oddball idea, start adding a % chance of getting D status on movement if you are at yellow or red fatigue... almost like LMD, regardless of formation). However, I do highly agree that there should be some sort of penalty for prolonged night movement. Scenarios like Lundy's Lane in 1812 are one thing, where you had an actual night battle. On the other hand, marching the Prussians all through the night in Waterloo is a bit much.

Of course, lets put a historical example on this. What "fatigue" level would be appropriate for Davout's troops at Austerlitz, after their forced march from Vienna?

FML Gary McClellan
Generalissimus
Imperial Austrian Army

I agree with Rick;s idea on increasing fatigue as you march.

Now... If I rest my men for 1 turn, how much do they recover in fatigue ?

If you have a sliding scale to acquire it then you must have something in place to recover fatigue as well.

Marechal John Corbin
Chief of Staff
La Grande Armee

Maybe an idea would be to link fatigue with movement points expended per turn. Something like:

- If you expend up to 49 per cent of your MP, you actually recover fatigue (except at night).
- If you expend 50-74 per cent of your MP, you neither recover nor gain fatigue.
- If you expend upwards of 75 per cent of your MP, you gain fatigue.

That would enable us to go easy on our troops, or use them normally, or force-march them and thus use them up. (Oh btw, force-marching should also cause straggling.)

<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant de la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant l'Ecole de Mars, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant de la Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

Fatigue once more raises its head on the forum.

The original concept of fatigue in the Battleground games was psychological fatigue, (stress, shell-shock, call it what you will). That is why units are fatigued when they are shot at and when they take casualties. This, I am led to believe, is quite stressful. It also explains why the fatigue recovery rates in the Battleground games takes so long to recover and that the units must not be engaged in any action to have a chance of recovering fatigue.

Physical fatigue, arising from prolonged movement is not directly covered in the Battleground games. However, a cross open-country movement rate of 600 metres in 15 minutes, amounts to 2.4km / hour, or 4.8km / hour (or 3 miles / hour) on the road. Both rates are readily maintained. In terms of resting to avoid fatigue, this is done at night. The movement rate here is quartered (night turns have a duration of 1 hour not 15 minutes). Imagine that the other 45 minutes of each night turn was spent resting.

Regarding the HPS series, it seems to me that there has been a change to the meaning of fatigue. Although fatigue is incurred in the same way as in the Battleground games, (through fire and melee), it seems to be recovered at a truly awesome rate. Someone apears to have developed some magic elixir (brandy, gin or vodka??), that allows units that have been shot to buggery and back, to sit down for a couple of turns and then be fit to fight again as if nothing had happened.

For me, if this was intended, it was not a good decision. You don't get tired watching your comrades' heads carried off by a round shot, or the front rank fall from a volley from the enemy. You soil yourself and you get very, very stressed, in spite of the drink. This type of stress takes more than a couple of turns and a cup of Rosie Lee to cure.

Also bear in mind that, unlike we players, commanders would rarely commit units that were in what we class as high fatigue (psychological) to the battle. It would create a weakness in the line. Most of our battles, every unit tends to be committed at one time or another until it is destroyed or routs. This is of course not what really happened at all, as the generals had the continuation of the campaign to consider. Even for the victorious army, the units that had been the most heavily engaged in the battle were generally left behind to recover on (or near) the battlefield for at least a day.

So, to summarise, for me game fatigue should represent psychlogical fatigue, just as was the design and intent of the Battleground games. Physical fatigue is addressed by the movement rate and prolonged duration of the night turns.

Regards

Mark
VII Corps

The problem, Mark, is the huge maps and 3-5 day battles of the HPS games. They really changed things. Marching many miles day and night on end was not a feature in the BG games. It is now.

<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant de la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant l'Ecole de Mars, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant de la Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br />The problem, Mark, is the huge maps and 3-5 day battles of the HPS games. They really changed things. Marching many miles day and night on end was not a feature in the BG games. It is now.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

HPS has changed little in this respect, there have been large maps and multi-day battles as add-ons for the BG series for a long time. The concept of reduced night movement rates (by increased turn duration) has not changed to my knowledge with the release of the HPS series.

Not if the night turns are still one hour long. The figure of 57km presumably comes from a cross-country move of 600 metres / turn, which gives 2.4km / hour and 57 km from a 24 hour day.

If dawn begins at about 4am and dusk ends at 10pm, there are 6 hours of night. Movement for a 24 hour period would therefore be, (18 x 2.4) + (6 x 0.6) = 46.8km (30 miles). Tiring , but by no means unrealistic and actually sustainable.

Also, you need to bear in mind that to be effective, the army needs to move at the pace of its slowest unit. The supply waggon. Their movement rate is about half that of the infantry.

Yes, armies can abandon their supply and cover considerable distances in a 24 hour period and fight a battle at the end, (think of Friant's march to Austerlitz - 70 miles in under 48 hours). But, at some point, to be effective, they are going to have to wait for their supplies to catch up to them

Regards

Mark
VII Corps

Excluding DYO maps for BG for the moment, there are *no* large maps in any of the BG games, at least nothing that compares to the main map in Eckmuhl, or the main map in Waterloo. Even the main Borodino map in NIR doesn't begin to compare. I'm playing Dierk in Waterloo, and to get some of my Prussian troops into position, they are looking at a full bore day and a half march to get there. Yes, we get radically reduced movement at night, but the simple truth is that you can march your troops full movement, every turn for all 500+ turns of the "big" Eckmuhl game, and they will be just as fresh when the finally make contact as if they'd spent two days in their encampments.

FML Gary McClellan
Generalissimus
Imperial Austrian Army

Night movement fatigue is present in other HPS titles so could be ported over.

Age of Rlfles, although an old game (1996) has a far superior movement & fatigue system - if a player moves his troops as fast as they can march, they build up fatigue and will need to rest before being effective.

Apart from linking movement to fatigue, HPS would do well to get rid of the movement penalty for disrupted units and create a more sophisticated system for disruption, with perhaps 10 levels of disruption and the option of using up movement points to reduce disruption (a feature present in Shrapnel's <i>Dragoon</i> & <i>Horse & Musket</i>)

Capt Rich White
4th Cavalry Brigade
Cavalry Corps
Anglo-Allied Army

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gary McClellan</i>
<br />Excluding DYO maps for BG for the moment, there are *no* large maps in any of the BG games, at least nothing that compares to the main map in Eckmuhl, or the main map in Waterloo. Even the main Borodino map in NIR doesn't begin to compare. I'm playing Dierk in Waterloo, and to get some of my Prussian troops into position, they are looking at a full bore day and a half march to get there. Yes, we get radically reduced movement at night, but the simple truth is that you can march your troops full movement, every turn for all 500+ turns of the "big" Eckmuhl game, and they will be just as fresh when the finally make contact as if they'd spent two days in their encampments.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Gary,

Not sure why you choose to exclude DYO as the principle is the same whether it was a retail product or not?

Anyhow, the units you refer to moving day and night only moved quarter rate at night - which is when they rested and, once the firing starts, when their muskets go click because they are out of balls or powder, they'll wish they had waited on their supplies.

Regards

Mark
VII Corps

Richard

I agree completely. The game would benefit from a separation of physical and psychological fatigue; disruption due to terrain effects and disorder due to morale effects; unit morale and unit quality. The introduction of higher order (brigade / division / army morale would also be a welcome addition.

But, for the time being we have what we have, and it's really not too bad especially in terms of playability [:)]

Regards

Mark
VII Corps

The playability issue is an important one. It's easy for us to always want "moremoremore", but when does the game become utterly unplayable?

FML Gary McClellan
Generalissimus
Imperial Austrian Army

The features I've suggested are pretty logical and increase the level of realism ... and can be found elsewhere in other wargames. I don't think adding in a fatigue penalty for forced marching would make the games unplayable, nor a more sophisticated disruption system.

It's quite possible for players to enjoy a game without necessarily understanding all the mechanics behind it. For instance there must be many players who've never studied the pdt or realized just how much <i>can</i> be altered - eg. movement, weaponry, ranges, fire-factors, ammo depletion probability, etc. It's really good that the BG/HPS engine is as flexible as it is.

But that doesn't mean that (at least some)players aren't hungry for more features and ever greater levels of realism, especially when they've observed something useful elsewhere in a different HPS series (eg. indirect howitzer fire, dragoon type cavalry & points for supply wagons in the EAW series or night movement fatigue in the WW2 series) or perhaps in another wargame.

Anyway, without engine changes, there is one effective means of encouraging reduced movement rates (especially on the large maps) -

1./ Increase ammo depletion levels (to 7% or even as high as 10%)
2./ Keep supply wagon movement rates low, especially off roads.
3./ But increase the number of supply wagons to compensate for 1./
4./ Change the supply wagon size from 300 down to 100 and adjust numbers accordingly - this will help clog up roads with excess baggage!

Capt Rich White
4th Cavalry Brigade
Cavalry Corps
Anglo-Allied Army