Appreciate your comment. It spurred me to think this through some more.
The farther back the commander, the more strategic his decisions. The closer to the front the commander, the more tactical his decisions.
Strategic orders might be made in the morning and reconsidered at noon. Officers at the front line would make tactical decisions on the spot. In between there might be a Corps commander who would issue new instructions every three hours and a Divisional commander who would issue new instructions every hour.
No one would deny that a commander such as Meade at Gettysburg could not see the whole arena of battle instantly. However, it is likely (in most cases) that he received enough information hour by hour to be able to formulate new strategic army level orders every six hours.
If anyone out there has a historical perspective on the number of times per day army commanders, corps commanders, and division commanders issue new instructions, it would be interesting to know. My impression of a lot of these battles is the strategy was decided in evening conference the night before the fight and there were few opportunities to make strategic decisions on the day of the battle, beyond perhaps committing reserves. If that assumption is correct, then the speed of information travel back to the most senior commander in charge is less relevant. It would also imply local commanders make the most decisions affecting the outcome of the battle and local commanders would be closest to the troops sighting the enemy. If that were the case, the gaming system would reflect the reality of the battle reasonably well.
Open to other insights and opinions on that.
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