I have been meaning to put a post on the War College addressing how to use the Optional rules and my recommendations on so here is my first attempt:
Optional Rules
Here's a list of them based on Gettysburg Version 1.04:
1.Manual Defense Fire - Actually selects whether play is Turn or Phased.
2.Optional Fire Results - Averages two die rolls to get casualties.
3.Optional Melee Results - Averages two die rolls to get 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 - Awards VP for killing leaders based on their ratings.
7.Route Limiting - reduces odds of routing the further units are from one that initiated.
8.Density Fire Modifier - Increases fire value against large stacks.
9.Night Movement Fatigue - Units moving at night acquire fatigue.
10.Mounted Cavalry Skirmishers - Mounted cavalry exerts a skirmish 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 within 5 hexes.
14.Quality Melee Modifiers - Unit quality 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 even if not enough room.
18.Automated Defensive Fire - AI conducts defensive fire in Phased play game.
19.Flank Morale Modifier - Morale increased one if friendly unit on flanks.
20.Full Melee Defensive Fire - AI Defensive fire against units meleeing at full strength (Turn play).
21.Bridge Limit and Repair - Allows bridge repaired and limits 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 per gun that fires.
25.Proportional Opportunity Fire - Size of stack figured in triggering of opportunity fire.
I am going to discuss them as groups since most rules need to be paired with others to work properly. Also this helps balance out how they affect the game since some rules favor the defender and some the attacker. Also some rules while optional were added to fix very real problems and should not be optional.
First are the ones involved with "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 just a single player phase in which all movement, fire and melees were executed by the current player while the games AI handled the other player's defensive fire as a type of opportunity fire. The very first optional rule, the poorly named "Manual Defensive Fire", is the one that selects this. If on the game is played in phases, if off it is played Turn based.
When you play "Phased" with option 1 on there is one of rule that works in conjunction with it. Rule 18, Automated Defensive Fire, will let the AI handle the opponent's defensive fire. It only works in "Phased" play since in "Turn" 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, <font color="yellow">so use it</font id="yellow">.
In "Turn" based play the connected optional rules (12, 20, and 25) were added to fixed very serious problems with this game system. I <font color="yellow">highly recommend you use all three</font id="yellow">. 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.
So the first one, 12 Optional Melee Resolution, 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 and 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.
Optional rule 20, Full Defensive Fire, 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.
Optional rule 25, Proportional Opportunity Fire, 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 randomist out of combat by using the average of two die rolls to come up with the casualties instead of one. <font color="yellow">This one is a personal choice.</font id="yellow"> If you are one of those players that swears he rolls snake eyes every time when things are critical you might want this one on. My preference is using it since on the level of this games fire resolution, 20 minutes, you wouldn't see as much variation as occurs.
The next group (4, 6, and 14) <font color="yellow">I recommend using together </font id="yellow">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 since the side with the better leaders will benefit from 4 and 14 while risking giving the other side VP for killing them, rule 6.
Optional rule 5, Higher Fatigue Recovery Rates, is a much more controversial one. <font color="yellow">I highly recommend it,</font id="yellow"> 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. The alternating defensive line where huge stacks are placed in every other hex making an indestructible wall. And, the raider who can't be killed. Using them together helps moderate some of the new gamey tactics they introduce. <font color="yellow">So I recommend the use of them together.</font id="yellow">
16, Weak ZOC, 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 some new problems. One of the things the alternating defense line fixed was the tendency of continuous lines to route in mass because of the adjacent route check rules. So to compensate for this you need rule 7 to allow the defender to form lines without risking having his whole army route off the field due to one route check starting a domino effect. A related one is that the defender can no longer create this huge stacks that can't be taken by melee but the attacker has no such limitation. So we need to throw in rule 8, Density Fire Modifier, to punish the attacker for over stacking his attack forces. Rule 17, Partial Retreats, 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. Rule 19, the Flank Modifier, also helps reward the use of continuous lines by giving a morale boost to units in one.
And finally you have the really nasty one, 15 (Isolation Rules). Once you have weak ZOC you need somewhat to kill units that have become separated from the rest and are acting like tanks with radios. Hard zones made them easy to kill but now it takes a whole brigade to surround and kill one 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 are going to be forced to surrender so the player learns to keep his 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 lead to three new options (22,23,24) that tried to improve things with mixed results. <font color="yellow">I recommend them with some reservations.</font id="yellow">
Artillery Capture(22) - This one is nice but has problems in many situations. It addressed a universal complaint that you could do like in the CW and capture a gun and turn it on the enemy. So they added this rule that allows you too. The problem was it threw off the Victory Points gained for the capture. If you destroyed a gun by fire you got VP for it and never had to worry again. But if you captured it you had to garrison the gun forever if you wanted those VP. You could spike the guns so the other side could get them back but if you wanted full VP you had to sit a regiment on top of them and hold 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 where there is an ebb and flow of the battle this 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 nice flavor but I haven't used it enough to know if it has any adverse affects. Only one that has gotten me is forgetting an unlimbered battery can move and have it accidently retreat when I used the Alt key to send some other guns by it.
Artillery Ammo By Cannon(24) - <font color="red">this one I consider a must have rule.</font id="red"> 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.
Now for a bunch of rules that just fixed flaws in the game system. <font color="yellow">I recommend all of these be used </font id="yellow">but keep in mind some may cause game balance problems for some scenarios.
Night Movement Fatigue(9) - this one was created to address the unhistoric problem of our troops making all night marches after fighting all day with no apparent affect. This option adds fatigue, usually 50 per turn, to discourage this.
Mounted Cavalry Skirmishers(10) - was created so cavalry wouldn't run into enemy units blindly and not be able to disengage. It allows cavalry to act better in its role of scouts and delayers.
Higher Disrupted Movement(11) - was added to help the defender retreat. HPS games heavily favored the attacker and it was almost impossible of even a relatively large force to make a fighting withdrawal since once a few units took disrupts they were reduced to half movement to keep their line intact. This was added to fix this.
Alternate Fixed Unit Release(13) - was added to keep players from gaming the fix units by moving around them in such a way as to not release them even though they were in plain sight at times. Also players could check the scenario and find where fixed units were so they could avoid them until they were surrounded. The five hex rule makes this much harder.
Bridge Limit and Repairing(21) - is another enhancement of the game giving the player ability to repair destroyed bridges. It also limits the type of units that can cross until the bridge is fully repaired. This is one of those realism rules that can cause problems in scnearios that were designed to prevent crossing creeks and rivers once a bridge was destroyed.
LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)
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