House Rules

[Rasputitsa]

I have been running an AAR with 'Piercing Fortress Europe' (another Frank Hunter game) and experimenting with house rules to achieve more realism and challenge against the AI.

About to re-start the AAR in CotD and thinking about house rules to achieve the same in this game.

Reading '1809 - Thunder on the Danube : John H. Gill', in three volumes. Vols. 1 and 2 are a bargain on UK Amazon Kindle, Vol. 3 is a more expensive, but I can wait. It will be a while before my campaign gets into Vol. 3 dates.

It's OK if the human is playing as French, as the game historical balance against the Austrians is pretty good. There is still a challenge having a viable strategy, in getting the unit moves co-ordinated and having supply properly distributed, but as Napoleon you are not in great danger unless you mess up big time.

However, the AI, however brilliant the game designer is, will have great difficulty replicating the prowess of Napoleon when the human plays as Austria, which can be offset by realistic house rules.

Archduke Charles had tried to reform the Austrian army after the earlier defeats, but the reforms were not complete and did not go far enough. The Austrians were still 'yesterday's army' and even Charles had not fully embraced the changes needed. The Austrians have introduced the corps system but neither the corps commanders, nor CHARLES himself were used to operating an army in this way.

Whilst Napoleon told his commanders his appreciation of enemy dispositions (often wrong) and his intentions and objectives, then expected the commanders to use initiative to achieve the victory, the Austrians, including Charles, worked on detailed dispositions. Austrian commanders where expected to follow orders and were unwilling to take the initiative.

The problem in 19th century warfare was in finding the enemy, especially in the forested hills of Bavaria. Many lower level Austrian commanders made heroic attacks and forlorn defences against rising odds as Allied troops concentrated against them, whilst the Austrian higher commanders did very little to give support, or even find out if help was needed.

During the build-up to the Battle of Eckmuhl, Liechtenstein took his troops past a crucial action where Austrian troops were desperately tying to hold back Davout's corps, which was unexpectedly attacking, the thunder of cannon, the smoke rising above the trees, was ignored as Liechtenstein stolidly followed his orders marching his corps past this action into an Austrian defeat.

House Rule: When playing as Coalition, no corps commander units will be set to 'To the guns'

Napoleon's forces, including his German allies, consistently made long marches, day after day in terrible weather, to concentrate and gain objectives. Conversely, Austrian movements were slow and often delayed. Only when Austrian commanders realised the desperate situation that they were in, did the march pace quicken, until in their efforts to escape (mostly successful), they managed marching feats which easily matched, or exceeded the French.

House Rule: Coalition units are not ordered to 'force march', unless the corps commander's stress level reaches (10 or more). Exception, this does not apply to detached units.

I need to test this to see how stress levels vary, how much stress should prompt the Austrian commanders to increase their marching pace.