Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

Bill Peters,

Thank you for your own version of a "Wish List" for future
enhancements. You didn't comment on the "Density View",
but I will assume that you would want these other enhancements
first.

I thought I would create a separate thread for general discussion
about your enhancement of officer game mechanics.

First, I would like to point out that if so much is going to
depend on the officers, then I would like to see MORE officers!

I am attempting to repair the disorder of my units on the front
line **AND** un-do the rout status of units in the rear ... all
with the same officer.

In REALITY, there were lots of officers to do all these things.

So, to increase the game's reliance on officers may be a nice
touch.... but only if it comes with OOB modifications giving us
more officers too: line keepers, sergeants, captains.

Secondly, I would like to comment in general about the difference
between "playability" and "historicality".

While the suggestions you make are ABSOLUTELY consistent with
increasing the "historical" and "realistic" nature of the game,
there is the issue of "game play" that needs to be addressed.

I am currently in the midst of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
A very interesting game.... but the amount of time I spend
drilling down into hexes.... trying to figure out which
unit belongs to which officer..... while at the same time
trying to read the fine print to distinguish between the
"18th" and the "16th"... and so on.

Well, frankly, its agonizing. I am spending WAY MORE TIME on
managing the invisible details of a hex than I am FIGHTING.

And while I am a firm believer that LOGISTICS is king....
there really ought to be a better way of reducing the amount
of time FIDDLING within individual hexes.

This is one of the reasons why I am designing a few variant
games that either DRAMATICALLY increases soldier counts in
"counters" (to reduce the focus on stacking).... or to simply
reduce the amount of stacking allowed.

As I have written in prior posts, the fact that we stack at all
is purely a game mechanic "hang over" from the board versions
of strategy games..... where stacking is necessary in order to
have any hope of getting the spatial size of a hex in-line with
the number of troops a hex could support.

I believe one of the reasons CCC games tend to be bloodier than
historical scenarios is because of stacking rules.

If we could increase the average numbers in a counter, or reduce
stacking (or both), there would be more game play, and less hex
management... and maybe battles that were less bloody than we typically have.

But I digress.

Generally speaking, I very much like your "officer" enhancements.
They seem to be very consistent with my approach to a game variant
where I plan a much higher ratio of "officers counters to unit
counters"!

Regards,

George Brooks
Tampa, FL