Games with "Lingering" Combats

[McLaddie]

I really can’t see the relevance of this information you are missing. When I play a battle with the BP rules, use historical tactics and the battle evolves in ways I would expect it to given my knowledge of these tactics and their effects in reality, the rule set works for me and it seems to have been written well. I care little for the information that has gone into it, but very much for the experience that I get out of it.

Pijlie:

IF you are looking for a ‘perfect wargame’, then it depends on what you see a wargame doing to be *perfect*.   From the sounds of it, for you the wargame has to allow for historical tactics,   and conform to your ‘knowledge of these tactics and their effects in reality.’    That is what a simulation game does too, based on history, combat and their ‘effects in reality’, but not necessarily your knowledge or mine, regardless of what that might be. Its based on the designer’s knowledge, whatever that might be compared to the history that he used as a template for the rules.

So there is the relevance of information to play: It tells you what is being represented compared to the historical tactics and their effects in reality.

This is just a very small example what I mean that could be multiplied a hundred-fold with just the Black Powder rules. [but most any current rules]

In the rules about orders and command, the designers say “We assume orders are relayed by couriers, aide-de-camps [ADCs] or the equivalent…”  At the brigade level, the brigadiers of most all European armies didn’t have any of those equivalents. They had an Adjutant and Brigade Major, both with different responsibilities than just running orders down the line. Any couriers had to be provided from within the brigade structure.  The reason for this is that such couriers weren’t necessary for the primary method of command control.  So, I don’t know why the designers  assumed they were..

Then there is the ‘Enemy Close By’ rule: “When enemy are this close [12″], troops are less concerned with orders and more likely to behave instinctively as described later.”  I haven’t found where it is described later, but this seems to be really unrealistic when it comes to European armies of the 18th and 19th Centuries.  Troops were usually told what they would be doing in the advance or to repel the enemy long before contact and seldom were new orders issued because of the difficulty of issuing new orders in the midst of combat–so usually they weren’t.  Lots of examples of that, but that isn’t in and of itself have much to do with battalions acting ‘instinctively’ instead of following orders unless in complete retreat or rout from combat.  See Keegan’s Face of Battle for some great examples of just that set of relationships. There are instances of battalion commander’s making decisions based on their officially allowed latitude during battle that could be seen as contrary to overall orders, but that has nothing to do with troops’ ‘instinct.’  What why do the designers assume  all troops in the close presence of the enemy threaten to ignore orders outside of combat?  I don’t know.

And then there are the types of orders, particularly the “Follow Me Order”.  They say that “This is a very useful rule on occasions. Its true value will only become apparent in the heat of battle, so those eager to press on may with to skip this… The basic notion is that the commander dispenses with the formality of issuing an order and instead gallops up to a battalion shouting “Follow me!….Commanders can only give a Follow Me Order to a single unit.”

In ‘reality’, this ‘follow me order’ is far more like the primary method of controlling a brigade than anything like the primary methods given in the rules.  This is particularly true for 18th Century battle, but certainly the main method of brigade during the 19th Century, through the 1870 war.  The brigadier controlled the movement of the brigade through ONE battalion, the regulating unit.  He gave it an order, which was shouted down the line of battalions very quickly [its efficiency had little relationship to how far away the brigadier was from the other end of the battle line]  Entire divisions were controlled and maneuvered this way.  That’s why you see so few ‘staff’ and ADC-type officers assigned to brigades and divisions. [A British Division Commander had one.]  Which means that the example situation at the end of a move shown in the rule book on page 27 would rarely happen for a whole lot of reasons… but primarily because the regulating method gave the commander ways of avoiding that kind of dislocation while moving. In combat, it could be different.

So, according to my knowledge of history, tactics etc., what I see doesn’t strike me as either providing the effects of reality or historical tactics.  However, I don’t know why the designers did what they did, what historic dynamics they think they are recreating with the rules, or whether those particular rules were actually  ‘just a game’ and some other part of the rules is their “representation of real combat.”   They may have chosen different sources of history to use as their template than I know of, or they could be flat-out wrong in their assumptions in how things were done…  or that wasn’t even an issue for those particular rules and it was just simplicity and an interesting game they were going for, not history at all.

So what relationship to ‘reality’ did the designers have in mind?  Going by the brief comments in the rule book, I’d say they got it dead wrong,  if those rules are more than just a game, but a wargame  representing something based on actual historical sources,  they may still be ‘Okay’. The point is, ‘I don’t know’.   So, how can I say with any certainty that they got it wrong–or right?  You are now probably thinking back to the history you’ve read that led you to think Black Powder does a good job reflecting that reality.  That is to be expected. That is what wargames do, among other things.

So the information that went into the rules, is what the rules represent, and that in turn determines whether there is any history or reality replicated in playing the wargame … not my ‘impression’ based on what I’ve read–whenever I read them or how I am feeling that day, or whatever formed my impressions during play.  My friends and a beer?

The real authorities of 18th and 19th Century battle are the participants, so any understanding of tactics and their effects in reality have to be linked to those military men, representing their history.  To say that my interpretation of history is different than yours or the designers of Black Powder and it’s all just different, equally valid opinions is to throw any concept of a separate historical reality being portrayed in some fashion out the window.  You might as well just say you enjoy the game and leave it at that–there is no reality represented than that if you don’t know what it is.

So I look at Black Powder and don’t see the connections to history that the designers oh so briefly describe.  I don’t know what connections they base their conclusions on or what exactly the rules represent historically.  I play the game uncritically, because there is no firm basis to form any meaningful critique of the tactics and effects compared to history other than little snippets that suggest things, but no more.

 

[Pijlie]

McLaddie wrote:

Why would they have to be firefights? For centuries soldiers have relied mainly upon close combat weapons and there are examples of long melees dating from ancient times until modern ones.
Pijlie:

Well, I am saying that from an 18th and 19th Century view point, most all commanders saw it that way.

That seems a rather limited approach, given the scope of the OP. I can imagine that to have been the case as soon as firearms became moderately efficient, but not before that.

However, I, like Tempest pointed out, also believe that the span of time men can fight at their maximum efficiency is limited. However, in combats involving units instead of groups of individuals a unit may hold out much longer than any individual, either because the men fighting at the front mutually support each other (like in a phalanx), rotate out of the front line (like in a manipel) or die and get replaced by the rear ranks (that’s why the front line was a place of honour and high risk). The disproportionate losses on the losing side were usually caused (as far as sources go to tell us) once the losing formation broke and was scattered, pursued and cut to pieces. Proportionate losses were usually the result of a successful retreat by the losing side.

McLaddie wrote:

I really can’t see the relevance of this information you are missing. When I play a battle with the BP rules, use historical tactics and the battle evolves in ways I would expect it to given my knowledge of these tactics and their effects in reality, the rule set works for me and it seems to have been written well. I care little for the information that has gone into it, but very much for the experience that I get out of it.
Pijlie:

I wasn’t attempting to pose BP as the perfect wargame, but as a ruleset that portrays prolonged combats rather well, which is the context of this quote. BP certainly has it quirks, like you point out, but these have little to do with the topic of the OP. And might warrant a thread all of their own…

http://pijlieblog.blogspot.nl

[McLaddie]

I wasn’t attempting to pose BP as the perfect wargame, but as a ruleset that portrays prolonged combats rather well, which is the context of this quote. BP certainly has it quirks, like you point out, but these have little to do with the topic of the OP. And might warrant a thread all of their own…

Pijlie:

Understood. I was simply using BP as an example of how and why the information does have relevance concerning the play of the game and a player’s response/enjoyment of it, not that it was a perfect game, or even a bad one. Your ‘criteria’ mentioned as important was also a guide.  I don’t want to derail the OP here.

The ‘unit’ can be in close contact for quite a while, but the actual ‘melees’ / hand-to-hand combat didn’t or couldn’t take hours or even an hour, but rather pulses of action and inaction. That suggests that the scale of game determines how–and if–lingering combat is something to be portrayed.

 

[Sparker]

I await an example of the use of time in a recreational wargame that is accurate, internally consistent to any degree finer than the oft used 15 minutes, half hour, or hour thrown in as a sop to our need for an illusion of time elapsed. Name the rules that do this.

 

As hinted at above, ‘Empire V’ paid very close attention to precisely this, with the ‘hourly round’ subdivided into varying 20 minute tactical bounds, according to the intensity of the combat and tactical prowess of the army concerned.

 

First of all, Sparker did not answer the issue at hand,  EVERY set of rules proposes certain time intervals, and the only sets that don’t end up looking too foolish are those that opt for rather broad and unspecific parameters of 15/30/ 1 hour intervals.

 

Reponqique I find you confusing! You asked for an example of a set of rules that used time in a way that is internally consistent. I gave you one. When prompted by our friend McLaddie to have the courtesy to respond to my answer to your question, you dismiss by saying that all rules do this! Fine – but why ask the question in the first place?

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
Matthew 5:9

[Bandit]

Sparker wrote:

Reponqique I find you confusing! You asked for an example of a set of rules that used time in a way that is internally consistent. I gave you one. When prompted by our friend McLaddie to have the courtesy to respond to my answer to your question, you dismiss by saying that all rules do this! Fine – but why ask the question in the first place?

I’m with you Sparker, I’m honestly interested in Bob’s perspective but I struggle to understand his posts. When I inquire he tends to get a bit short or non-responsive. Thus they often they read to me like “daddy drinks because you cry,” when of course the child is crying because daddy drinks.

[repiqueone]

Sparker said: “the ‘hourly round’ subdivided into VARYING 20 minute tactical bounds, according to the intensity of the combat and tactical prowess of the army concerned.”

That seems to me to argue that, by his own admission, no consistent internal time was used, but that it was varying and internally inconsistent in duration as I contended all rule sets are.

I’m afraid the English language is being a bit tortured on this thread.

Bandit, your metaphor is labored, but I agree you’d drive most adults to drink with your seeming inability to understand anything beyond a certain Tarzan level of discourse. So…..

Tarzan think man with big hook nose speak good words when he say,

“The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance. ”

Letter to John Croker (8 August 1815), as quoted in The History of England from the Accession of James II (1848) by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Volume I Chapter 5; and in The Waterloo Letters(1891) edited by H. T. Sibome

One thing is sure, I will never make the mistake of hitting the “notify me” button again! How do you turn it off?!

Back to the holidays.

[Bandit]

repiqueone wrote:

Bandit, your metaphor is labored, but I agree you’d drive most adults to drink with your seeming inability to understand anything beyond a certain Tarzan level of discourse.

 

Well Bob if all you have to offer is to call me stupid it’d seem that anything I could post would likely trump your contribution.

[matakishi]

repiqueone wrote:

you’d drive most adults to drink with your seeming inability to understand anything beyond a certain Tarzan level of discourse. So….. Tarzan think man with big hook nose speak good words

Really?

John Clayton, Lord Greystoke was a very intelligent  man by all accounts. If you want to insult someone you shouldn’t do it by waving your own ignorance on a big flagpole.

Regarding the original question, I have a set of colonial rules (the Natives are Restless Tonight) that covers lingering melees efficiently but it was designed to do so from the start as the uncertainty of when troops in melee would be free to do other things was pivotal. Adding such concerns into an existing or more ‘standard’ set of rules may be more troublesome, especially if the battles being represented are taking place over several hours. The larger the scope of the rules, the less benefit to enjoyment and ease of play will be achieved as I see it.

If time is used as a factor in determining who can do what and how many times they can attempt it then any turn, phase, whatever that lasts 15+ minutes should probably allow for a melee resolution. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a conclusive result but ‘keep fighting’ should be at the very end of a bell curve.

[McLaddie]

“The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.”

Letter to John Croker (8 August 1815), as quoted in The History of England from the Accession of James II (1848) by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Volume I Chapter 5; and in The Waterloo Letters(1891) edited by H. T. Sibome

This is a wonderful quote about remembering the events of a battle. [The same thing happens when gamers sit down after a game and try to recollect all the events during play or the battle-winning moves. Different players remember different things as significant.]  However, in the context of of this thread, it misses the point as well as overstates the issue.  I have never read a history of the battle of Waterloo where the great French cavalry assault happened before the I Corps debacle, or that the Prussians arrived on the French flank after the Guard’s attack.  There are those things we know for certain with no disagreement or contrary memories.  And then there are things that do remain ‘unordered.’

Napoleonic military men were very concerned with time and timing in combat.  Whether they all recollected the events the same way afterwards is another matter.  From Bob’s comments, it would seem that he considers  a ‘consistent’ use of time as something very rigid  required of its representation rather than simply a consistent sequence of events within the rules.  In other words, Empire isn’t consistent because the representation of time within a tactical bound isn’t 20 minutes–period, while having a varying 20 minute tactical bound is used in a consistent manner within the rules.  Consistent is representational, the other is consistent game mechanics.

IF Sparker dropped the word ‘varying’, would that then make it consistent, simply a 20 minute bound?  Doesn’t change the mechanics at all.

 

 

[Bandit]

matakishi wrote:

If time is used as a factor in determining who can do what and how many times they can attempt it then any turn, phase, whatever that lasts 15+ minutes should probably allow for a melee resolution. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a conclusive result but ‘keep fighting’ should be at the very end of a bell curve.

Bandit wrote:

The longer the turn represents or the more linked to time the turn is, the less sensical it is to provide for “lingering combats”.

Completely agreed.

Referring back to my original post to this thread, I think most all the problems Sam noted have to be addressed even without lingering combats. I believe there are options for implementation of each issue that address the concerns without stacking a ton of additional special case rules. Whether those solutions are acceptable depends on the intent of the design.

[McLaddie]

So, we are still with the question about lingering combats, but it involves more than a single question about game mechanics:

1. What period are we talking about?

2. What scale of game are we talking about?

3. How does the historical evidence portray or establish such ‘lingering’ if it is going to be represented in a wargame?

Once we have those answers, we can get to the different ways game mechanics might mimic lingering combat.

Regarding the original question, I have a set of colonial rules (the Natives are Restless Tonight) that covers lingering melees efficiently but it was designed to do so from the start as the uncertainty of when troops in melee would be free to do other things was pivotal.

Matakishi:

I haven’t seen those rules, but agree that it is far better to design it from the start than try to inject the mechanic into an existing set of rules.  How does The Natives are Restless Tonight cover lingering melees?

 

[matakishi]

McLaddie wrote:

How does The Natives are Restless Tonight cover lingering melees?

Effortlessly.

Unfortunately the mechanic is central to the rules design and does not/will not translate across into a turn based wargame so there’s no point going into details here. I merely mentioned it could be done because that was one of the original questions.

The rules are only £2.62 in Wargame Vault’s sale if you’d like to read them, they’re not very lengthy as they’re only designed to play Rorke’s Drift (or similar sieges).

http://www.wargamevault.com/product/108127/The-Natives-Are-Restless-Tonight

[Sparker]

repiqueone wrote:

Sparker said: “the ‘hourly round’ subdivided into VARYING 20 minute tactical bounds, according to the intensity of the combat and tactical prowess of the army concerned.”That seems to me to argue that, by his own admission, no consistent internal time was used, but that it was varying and internally inconsistent in duration as I contended all rule sets are.

In other words, Empire isn’t consistent because the representation of time within a tactical bound isn’t 20 minutes–period, while having a varying 20 minute tactical bound is used in a consistent manner within the rules.  Consistent is representational, the other is consistent game mechanics.

IF Sparker dropped the word ‘varying’, would that then make it consistent, simply a 20 minute bound?  Doesn’t change the mechanics at all.

Oh OK – I see – my bad – I was being lazy in explaining the ‘Telescoping Time Concept’ used in Empire V. For some reason I thought these rules, and this concept, was much more widely known that it is, and just a reminder was all that was needed. I shall attempt to clarify the outline precepts of this extremely internally consistent representation of time.

First a distinction was made between strategic time, and tactical time. Those strategic actions, orders and movements that were the business of the overall Commander elapsed using what they called the ‘Hourly round’- representing exactly an hour of historical, real, time. In  each turn of this, all players made strategic actions consistent with non tactical movement, orders giving, or long range grand battery bombardment consistent with an hour’s elapsed time.

Secondly, within each of these ‘hourly rounds’, after all the strategic issues had been addressed, players got 1, 2 or 2 ‘tactical bounds’, represented the tactical action consistent within an an hour of historical, real time. I got to thinking of these as representing about 20mins – 30 mins, but I don’t think this was specified – it simply represented the amount of tactical action likely from a committed given unit according to its relative level of C2, leadership, training and cohesion. This varied, not because the concept of time was wooly, but because of the reality, as any veteran will know, that time in action stretches or compresses according to what is going on, your level of C2, and so on.

So as a crude example, during the 1805-07 glory years, the units of the ‘Infernal Brigade’ might well score sufficient to get 3 bounds of tactical action, each responded to in a passive fashion by their opponents, whilst Austrian Landwehr would probably score sufficient to only get 1 bound of tactical action. This was an attempt to replicate getting inside a slower moving opponent’s C2 OODA loop.

That’s clearly a pretty lazy summary. But please take my word for it, it was internally consistent, and well thought out. Whether Empire V was a playable set of rules for anyone other than a full-time wargamer is another question!

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
Matthew 5:9

[John D Salt]

repiqueone wrote:

Or….as has been argued many times before, the validity of using time as a constant in a recreational wargame. I have never seen a successful application in a recreational wargame of movement, fire effect, melees, order transmittal, or routs and retreats being represented by accurately “scaled” time or even wholely consistent with each other. We “fool” ourselves into thinking that we are seeing the unicorn, but it turns out it’s a lame horse. I await an example of the use of time in a recreational wargame that is accurate, internally consistent to any degree finer than the oft used 15 minutes, half hour, or hour thrown in as a sop to our need for an illusion of time elapsed. Name the rules that do this.

Can I take it that you don’t do much air or naval wargaming? Since movement is much smoother at sea and in the air than it is in terrestrial combat, the time-and-mtion aspect os much easier to do accurately. Off the top of my head, the only air or naval rules I can think of that do not have a strict timescale are FASA’s “Top Gun” and the WRG’s “Seastrike”.

Terrestrial combat is much jerkier, and the massive variability of movement rates makes the time-and-motion problem a good deal harder. I always make the point that “an army advances as fast as it can think”, so the choice of timescale should be based on the decision tempo, rather than the speed at whch troops are theoretically capable of covering the ground. It seems to me that there are not a lot of signifiant decisions to be made in a pre-cordite formal battle once the opposing forces have been drawn up in their battle formation, which probably explains why the classic toy-soldier battle game has such very limited appeal to me.

All the best,

John.

[McLaddie]

Terrestrial combat is much jerkier, and the massive variability of movement rates makes the time-and-motion problem a good deal harder. I always make the point that “an army advances as fast as it can think”, so the choice of timescale should be based on the decision tempo, rather than the speed at whch troops are theoretically capable of covering the ground.

Hi John:

While I agree that flying through the air or through the water in a machine provides a ‘generally’ more consistent movement rate,  I am not sure that it is all that harder when the men on the ground understood the relationship between the decision-tempo and movement rates… which is one reason they spent so much time working on such things, particularly once troops were on the battlefield.

It seems to me that there are not a lot of significant decisions to be made in a pre-cordite formal battle once the opposing forces have been drawn up in their battle formation, which probably explains why the classic toy-soldier battle game has such very limited appeal to me.

I can agree with that to a certain extent. Many of the important decisions were made before the battle which dictated how they were drawn up. Unfortunately, many scenarios, for a variety of reasons,  place units so that the original plan [and organization] has already been deployed.  All the players can do is follow it or not, rather than produce their own plans.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Of course, there are some of those same restrictions in air and sea battles….  Your squadrons come in at a higher altitude and a great deal of who has the advantage and what will happen has already been decided.  The same thing with naval warfare. Meet the enemy with favorable winds and a great deal has been set about how the battle will go.

Cheers,  Bill

 

[McLaddie]

Just some serendipity I happened to be reading:

According to S.  Zuckerman in his article “Judgment and control in modern warfare”,  Foreign Affairs

There was little opportunity for this kind of analysis of field warfare–largely, I think, because it moved too fast for the results, when they became available, to be applied; also, the situations in field warfare were infinitely more varied than either sea or air war.

 

This may highlight a major difference between 19th Century battle and modern warfare: the speed at which things happened.

Best Regards,  McLaddie

 

[McLaddie]

Just to get back to the original issues:

1. It doesn’t look right for cavalry.   Ancient, Napoleonic, 1870?  If it doesn’t ‘look’ right, what’s the problem?

2. It doesn’t work well for flank attacks.  Why should it?

3. It complicates shooting.   So the assumption is that unengaged troops should be able to shoot into an on-going combat?

4. It complicates movement rules.  Only for the non-engaged troops, assuming they would have any opportunity to add to the engagement.

5. It can result in “traffic jam” combats.  And?  If lingering combats did produce those–and the designer wants to replicate them–, what’s the problem?  On the other hand, if such jams didn’t occur, then this is no different than variable movement when a unit in front moves a small distance and blocks the movement of units in the back moving later.

The problems seem to be based on historical conclusions that say that # 1-5 must happen–lingering cavalry attacks, lingering flank attacks, shooting into melees, etc. but it just complicates the rules.

I’d think the answers all depend on the scale, the time-period being portrayed and whether the apparent historical conclusions are true… or actually important to the designer at all.   I can’t tell.

 

[Whirlwind]

Actually Sam provided the answers in the OP: because all the situations outlined require more mechanics in the rules to administer these different things and allow paradoxical outcomes.  What he asked for was examples of actual rulesets which dealt with these issues well.

[McLaddie]

Actually Sam provided the answers in the OP: because all the situations outlined require more mechanics in the rules to administer these different things and allow paradoxical outcomes.  What he asked for was examples of actual rulesets which dealt with these issues well.

Thanks Tempest. I lost the thread with time consistency bird-walks and such.  So let me rephrase this:  The situations are only important if you believe that combat actually ‘lingered’ at times and want to represent them. That means that whatever mechanics are chosen, they should have similar game effects to the historical.  It isn’t clear at what scale or time period Sam is talking about. [He says later that he wasn’t thinking of the Napoleonic period or the 19th Century particularly…]  If it is simply a mechanical issue of a melee lasting more than one turn or phase or bound [see, another question] and/or are we talking about fire combat?

Most wargames handle fire combat as progressing over several turns between the same units. [They cause damage with few retreats]  Most rules have melee combat resolved immediately with one side leaving.  Fire & Fury has the rare continuing melee as does the older On To Richmond.  Ancient rules like Armati and DRM have on-going close combat where units are still locked in hand-to-hand over several turns.  Of the first three, I have never found the ‘lingering’ combats to be all that awkward mechanically… they can be tactically.

However, even a ‘bounce’ where one side retreat and the victorious enemy follows, ending up in combat range for the next turn could be see as a ‘lingering’ combat.  Lots of rules provide for that kind of thing.

 

 

 

[Whirlwind]

McLaddie wrote:

Most wargames handle fire combat as progressing over several turns between the same units. [They cause damage with few retreats] Most rules have melee combat resolved immediately with one side leaving. Fire & Fury has the rare continuing melee as does the older On To Richmond. Ancient rules like Armati and DRM have on-going close combat where units are still locked in hand-to-hand over several turns. Of the first three, I have never found the ‘lingering’ combats to be all that awkward mechanically… they can be tactically.

Obviously I’m not Sam so take this in that spirit, but:

The difficulty with lingering melee over lingering fire combat is that it your rules for fire combat probably don’t have to be changed – the range of possibilities in round 2 isn’t radically different from round 1.  In melee it is different, because in theory both sides can reinforce the single event from various sides with various additional units i.e. the degree of complexity is much increased compared to a ‘single event’ melee.

And the reason that a game designer may not be able to incorporate a ‘single event’ melee is that the timescale that the designer is forced to choose for other reasons (say the decision tempo John referred to) maybe shorter than a possible period of melee between two (or more) units.

So I guess your answer to the strict OP is actually ‘Armati’…

 

 

 

 

 

[Bandit]

Whirlwind wrote:

Actually Sam provided the answers in the OP: because all the situations outlined require more mechanics in the rules to administer these different things and allow paradoxical outcomes.  What he asked for was examples of actual rulesets which dealt with these issues well.

I’m stuck because I think each of the five issues that Sam brought up either:

A) Have to be addressed anyway regardless of “lingering combats”

or

B) Are likely only an issue to be addressed in certain period / time scale / game type combinations.

Sam Mustafa wrote:

3. It complicates shooting.  Do you allow people to fire into melees?  If so, under what conditions, and with what line of fire?  (Must the shooter not have any portion of a friend in his line of fire or sight… etc.   More Rules.

This is an example of what I mean. Many, many rules address this. The most common rules are:

1) Yes with no risk to friendlies.
2) Yes with X risk to friendlies.
3) No.

So I’d like to better understand from Sam why he feels these objections cause unique problems separate from those that must be addressed typically.

[Whirlwind]

Well,  surely the point isn’t that no game has ever addressed these things before since Sam knows that, but rather which rules do this kind of thing most elegantly – the answer to his question as posed should be the name of a ruleset.

But I feel that I have fallen into the trap of speaking for someone else, so I’ll leave Sam to answer if he feels like it.

[Bandit]

Whirlwind wrote:

Well,  surely the point isn’t that no game has ever addressed these things before since Sam knows that, but rather which rules do this kind of thing most elegantly – the answer to his question as posed should be the name of a ruleset.

Well, my intent isn’t to derail the thread. I guess I just can’t answer because I don’t understand the premise. As described it seems like a non-problem to me but that might well be because I just didn’t understand what he intended to outline.

[McLaddie]

The difficulty with lingering melee over lingering fire combat is that it your rules for fire combat probably don’t have to be changed – the range of possibilities in round 2 isn’t radically different from round 1.  In melee it is different, because in theory both sides can reinforce the single event from various sides with various additional units i.e. the degree of complexity is much increased compared to a ‘single event’ melee.

Tempest:

I guess I’d have to question the theory: In melee it is different, because in theory both sides can reinforce the single event from various sides with various additional units.  

Can they be reinforced?  What’s the historical dynamics to substantiate that theory?   From Ancients to ACW,  if two sides are engaged, how do you reinforce that melee?  Not from the front. The only events that appear to be reinforcements is when one side or the other is hit in flank or rear while engaged.  From what I can tell, 100% of the time, the flanked unit loses the contest at that point, with both cavalry and infantry.  There are replacing lines, but that is a different process and not really a ‘reinforcement’ as much as a replacement of existing forces and nearly impossible to do while engaged, which is why the idea that there were pauses in ancient combat so Roman legions could replace front lines.

And the reason that a game designer may not be able to incorporate a ‘single event’ melee is that the timescale that the designer is forced to choose for other reasons (say the decision tempo John referred to) maybe shorter than a possible period of melee between two (or more) units.

So the scale of the encounter does dictate the answer to some degree.  Another thing I have seen in this regard [decision tempo] is that any outflanking maneuver was already planned before units were engaged. For instance, the British Heavy Brigade at Balaclava 1854 took on a Russian cavalry force twice their size, but the move was to engage frontally with some squadrons hitting the flanks. They won the engagement.  The Napoleonic French always planned for an infantry column that broke a enemy line could then deploy 90 degrees left or right to take the enemy line in flank.  So, in some sense, the outflanking the enemy was a prior decision rather than something decided on after the frontal engagement was begun, at least on the brigade level or smaller. In other words, that decision tempo for Ancients to ACW and after may have been slow enough that the real advantages were accomplished through pre-planning and SOP tactics rather than faster reactions at the Division and lower levels…

Just some thoughts on the subject.

Best Regards, McLaddie

 

[McLaddie]

The question was: “Have you ever seen a game that used “lingering combats” well?  Smoothly?  Without major glitches?”   The five points Sam gave appear to be the ‘major glitches’ that he saw.

The problems in answering that question is that 1. the major glitches may be simply historical outcomes, like the ‘traffic jams’ and so not necessarily a glitch at all–if the designer wanted to actually portray that tactical possibility and 2. the assumptions inherent in his listed  problems.  For example:

2. It doesn’t work well for flank attacks.  If you attack somebody in the flank or rear and don’t break him, then you’ve got to introduce rules for how/when he can turn to face you in some subsequent turn or phase.

The assumption is that the flanked troops, if unbroken should be able to face the flanking attacker.  Really?  Are there any historical examples of that, Ancient to 19th Century, where a unit is struck in flank, remains engaged in a ‘lingering combat’, but is still able to turn 90 degrees to face their attacker?   This is linear warfare we are talking about, right?  We are talking about a case where the units remain engaged, not a situation where the losing unit retreats, breaking off combat, freeing the flanked unit to maneuver?

I don’t think that is something that actually ever happened, so it is a non-problem as far as I can see, not a ‘got to’ for the rules.

Happy New Year!

McLaddie

 

[Guy Farrish]

Re the OP : ‘Have you ever seen a game that used “lingering combats” well?  Smoothly?  Without major glitches?’

Well, yes but probably because they were at such a high level of resolution that they effectively ignored many of the problems/events you outline.

You say the mythical beast of VLB addressed it poorly.

Peter Dennis, Cliff Knight in assoc with George Jeffrey addressed the issue in their army level rules for Napoleonic and ACW. They did this of course by regarding the arrival of the enemy within 100m and 400yard as a decision point about what sort of close combat took place (in the ACW they proceed to a 100yd tactical engagement if successful at 4ooyds). The length of the engagement is then decided and a time marker placed and the rest of the battle carries on around them. New troops can be fed in (from flanks only) and this constitutes a change of situation and the length and type of combat is recalculated.

When the time of the combat has elapsed the outcome is decided. This means there is no time period for a bound – there are no bounds as such – so is this a lingering combat in game terms? It is in reality and the game represents more or less instant close combat results – one side instantly routs – through to a 40 minute combat where one side falls back at the end (poor troops rout rather than fall back).

It does leave close combat proceeding while everything else goes on around it. I thought it worked quite well – but it takes the combat to a level of abstraction which probably does not satisfy what you are looking for. People I played these with had some other issues with VLB (and I did a little) of not having that feeling of tension as turns tick over and the battle sways one way and another but that is a different issue.

[ExtraCrispy]

Sam:

 

I’d have to go back and re-read them, but Cold Steel and Cannister, a Napoleonic rules set, had a mechanism that had promise.

The game uses squares to regulate movement and combat so it is a bit “board game ish”. To attack you give a unit an objective. The objective is placed in a square. Every turn the unit must move toward its objective. Now in this game melee did not “linger” as you describe it. But you got just what you wanted to see: Unit A goes in to attack unit B. If neither breaks, A retreats. Melee over. But next turn if B is still in place A will have to move forward again. I played it a few years back and there was a real feel of ebb and flow to local fights (for the village or the hill, for example). Units fell back and then marched back in to the fray. Commanders added more units to the attack or pulled back, etc. While there was much about the game I did not care for, this one mechanism I thought was pretty slick.

[Author]

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