Dobrantihs Crossroads: A GCM Introduction to Napoleonic HITS

In the GCM mod, Garnier has drastically reduced the speed at which regiments move when within 300 yards of the enemy: column being the slowest.

As well, there's a severe fatigue penalty for running your troops. And a very severe fatigue penalty for regiments in melee.

Of course these changes were made to reduce the amount of melee in our Civil War battles, and they work. In GCM games, it's pretty easy to get away and avoid melee when one side decides to attack en mass. And the mass charge isn't nearly as effective as it once was because a regiment that has been in melee becomes exhausted quickly and must rest before taking further action.

Given that we're playing Napoleonic battles, I don't think there's any need to mess with melee fatigue rates, but I've noticed that in the ks mod, battalions move very quickly and don't fatigue very fast while running. Thus, I've been able to overrun gun batteries without taking horrible canister casualties.

And as more and more GCM players start playing in ks hits games, I think we will see a lot more running regiments closing with the enemy as quickly as possible.

Perhaps, Kevin, you should consider slowing battalions movement speed while close to the enemy and maybe even increasing the fatigue penalty for running.

That would cause players to be more methodical while making assaults.

Assaulting columns were very common as a basic Napoleonic tactic, but they advanced at the walk, not the run, so that cohesion could be maintained.

They also tended to only be successful against an enemy line already worn down by artillery bombardment and skirmisher harassment.

Throwing in a heavier fatigue penalty for running could be one way to represent a unit's effectiveness reduced by lowered cohesion. I'm pretty sure though, we had this conversation a very long time ago during the KS Mods gestation.

We could also increase a unit's fatigue level if it's under artillery fire, though I don't know if such is possible, but it's one way to soften up a defensive position and would encourage more use of bombardments - a very common feature of Nap battlefields and not so frequently seen in SoW games.

Chucking columns in against fresh lines... thinking aloud here at various options... could we lower the column's melee power?

Could we beef up skirmisher effectiveness some more?

I'm open to anything that will reward a player for using more options that feel Napoleonic and fewer options that succeed just because the game software has its rinky-dinks.

Reducing the battalions' speed when within 200 yards of the enemy would solve the problem, I think.

It would make players think twice about trying to overrun a line or a battery as they would take severe casualties while closing.

It would be great if Kevin could make it where battalions can't run while within 200 yards of the enemy, but I'm not sure that's possible.

I can make running more fatiguing, that's not difficult. But attack columns were heavily used in this time period. The goal was to get the men quickly to the enemy lines before the artillery could tear them to shreds.

Looking at the battle results, the French arty inflicted 7% of the Russian casualties, while the Russian arty did 13% of the damage to the French. That's pretty low. It may reflect the nature of the battlefield, or more likely the fact that the arty was never well placed. The attack came on very quickly so it's likely neither side had time to set up the arty where it could do proper work. But even if 12 guns were well sighted on that hill, that wouldn't be enough to hold off a two division steamroller.

Personally, I think the battle looked very Napoleonic for 1813-14 when bringing masses of troops to bear without much maneuvering wasn't unusual given their quality. I view it as the final scene in a longer fight. Had the Russian 2nd division been free to attack the French flank early in the battle, the outcome would have been different. I think the real lesson of this fight is the enormous power cavalry has to shape a battle. 870 light cavalry slowed up a division several times its size. CinCs need to consider this when deploying their troops.

The CinCs in Saturday's game should to take the results of this fight to heart when drawing up with their plans. Pity Digby and Ron. The saps don't know what's going to hit them.

A few thoughts here.

1. GCM players tend to play more aggressively than perhaps the KS Players do and will exploit things such as double timing not really affecting the troops or the fact that Melee doesn't wear them out.   We had the overwhelming column charge issue in GCM for a long time and rectified it by making the process of engaging in Melee very tiring.   So while you might group 3 regiments on one and wipe it out in Melee, the melee times were greatly increased and the fatigue increased which results in 3 very tired regiments who require rest before additional offensive action.   It also prevents those same three regiments from wiping out unit after unit because of such short melee times.  I actually like this change and think the KS hits mod could benefit from it, though perhaps with results not so severe.

2.  The issue with the game yesterday was that the Russians had to march around a woods to get to their deployment area so were never fully positioned before the French came on.    The guns in particular didn't arrive and deploy until pretty much after the French attack had closed.   I vote for far more maneuver in future Wednesday games.  It will give new players a far easier indoctrination to slow the pace of the battle down and get them familiar with just basic things like movement and formations in the KS Nap Mods.   The action was simply too fast and furious in this particular game.

3.  The French had a huge advantage in organization with their cavalry.   Their two brigades one on each flank made it impossible for our cavalry to match them with a single player in control of ours unfortunately.   Our division being held up in the south however was much more the result of improper deployment by that divisional commander than it was due to the cavalry difference.  Had the commander deployed where specified, it wouldn't have mattered nearly as much.  Sorry Digby!  

4. I actually think this particular game was lost by the Russians on a tactical level.  You just can't let entire brigades get wiped out because they don't form square in the face of cavalry.   Driving off cavalry that has NO infantry support should be a relatively easy exercise for infantry.  If a division has 3 Brigades, the brigade closest to the cavalry can form square as a shield while the other two brigades behind have freedom of movement.  If it's a regiment or two of cavalry against one brigade, a single infantry regiment with the commander can advance on the cavalry and shoot it forcing it to back off because they know the brigade commander is there to form square rendering the cavalry harmless.   The fact is that cavalry in this situation without any infantry support should not have been successful in inflicting as much pain as it did. Sure, it could slow things down a bit, but shouldn't wipe out entire brigades.   Admittedly, this is much more difficult to achieve with 3 players each with a brigade in the same division, but the general principles apply.

5.  I wish there was a way to obsfuscate the OOB better so that it only showed the commander names.  This way you could select your commander without knowing what was infantry, cavalry, etc...   Spoom, you should make a development request in the upcoming game so that each player in a multiplayer game first has to select what side they are and only then do they see the OOB.  This shouldn't be difficult.   In that example, one side would have no idea what the other side had at all.....

6.  I'm still trying to figure out how soldier (i think!) managed to cheese a regiment through 3 lines of Allied troops to charge the guns behind the woods without turning the trees off.   Speculation to "Treegate" begins.  

That's it for now.  Go Pats!

Matt

I think it may help to balance the number of manouver units of cavalry each side has. If one side has only 1 brigade, don't give the other side 2, or if you do, artificially restrict it by saying both must be commanded by the 1 player (a division command) rather than 2 players (division CO and a brigade commander). It was the flexibility the French possessed with 2 independent cavalry brigades that gave them an advantage. In line with this we should stop having cavalry brigades attached to infantry divisions. Except in some armies and circumstances it was almost always the organisation of separate cavalry divisions that was normal.

As an example of an unhistorical behaviour, in the Vimerio refight the French had a cav div and a cav bde commander and the two formations operated on the two farthest flanks. This is anachronistic; it's a division, so it should operate as a division, the player-brigade should stay with its parent division. If we have an inf div we rarely see this as an opportunity to split that div into two widely separated parts. Why do this with cavalry? We should try to keep our historical hats on when designing our battle plans and think like an army commander of the period rather than a modern wargamer.

I have felt for a long time that SoW doesn't allow a defensive line to pour out nearly enough firepower in the time it takes an advancing enemy to close from just outside musket range into melee. Our lack of a volley firing mechanic means a defender can't hold fire until 20 or 30 yards to blast an attacker decisively, which was so commonly done.

I'd be in support of testing any gameplay change that allowed any of these, or a combination:

1) slowed movement speed. I think our units move too fast in relation to the ROF of muskets and cannon.
2) fatigue incurred by running or being under fire - question, can we event cause being under fire to incur fatigue? Question2, if we make running more tiring would this blanket effect all troops - cav as well as inf?
3) increased ROF and/or musket effectiveness.

I have felt for a long time that SoW doesn't allow a defensive line to pour out nearly enough firepower in the time it takes an advancing enemy to close from just outside musket range into melee. Our lack of a volley firing mechanic means a defender can't hold fire until 20 or 30 yards to blast an attacker decisively, which was so commonly done.

This has always been and remains a huge problem. Fatigue increases for double time and charging helps facilitate this a bit because even though the defending unit won't dish out more punishment, it will at least have an advantage in the ensuing melee which pretty much represents the same thing.

I did go into the bathroom for ninety seconds while that battalion made it through the Russians without auto-charging.

I wish there was a way to obsfuscate the OOB better so that it only showed the commander names. This way you could select your commander without knowing what was infantry, cavalry, etc... Spoom, you should make a development request in the upcoming game so that each player in a multiplayer game first has to select what side they are and only then do they see the OOB. This shouldn't be difficult. In that example, one side would have no idea what the other side had at all.

I made this request in the Waterloo game suggestions thread a few months back. Little Powell agreed it was a good idea and said it had been added to the list. Fingers crossed.

If it turns out to be a simple change maybe if we ask nicely NSD will patch SoW.

"The issue with the game yesterday was that the Russians had to march around a woods to get to their deployment area so were never fully positioned before the French came on. The guns in particular didn't arrive and deploy until pretty much after the French attack had closed."

Watching the replay on the sow replay player, the Russians did not go around the woods. The infantry and guns went right through the middle of the woods to the objective and were there and set up well before my division arrived.

Well Mr Helper, one division went around the woods which no doubt played a part in how far south they deployed while perhaps the 2nd division went through the woods (which didn't slow them down at all, right?). There is a huge difference between being physically on the hill and being properly deployed for battle. Further, the artillery took 2 days to get there so the French advanced without being fired at very much.

I stand by what i said. Armies too close for an attack/defend type game and the woods between our starting locations and the objectives delayed us considerably and was a big disadvantage to our opening.

I think it's better to keep your guns well behind your lines in ks hits, especially with the long canister ranges. My hope was to grab the Russians by the belt so their big guns would have a hard time hitting us with canister. Of course, there was some magic canister fired through the Russian lines, but for the most part, we weren't destroyed by the canister, and the Russian guns being so close allowed me to get into them and capture quite a few of them, but I couldn't get a second or third battalion up there to help hold them.

One benefit though was that Josh wasted a whole squadron of cavalry retaking the guns. Those 15 man crews eat up the cavalry quickly.

But it's also true on that map, the way the battle developed, there wasn't a great place for either sides' artillery.

I never got mine in good position.

I too have always thought it's too easy to close with the enemy in sow.  There should be a heavy price paid for marching up to an enemy line deployed and firing the whole time you're closing.

Come to GCM ts Matt.

Well the issue is one of fire and maneuver; if a unit begins firing its ability to move and redeploy, unless a unit of exceptional caliber became extremely limited. Essentially, the longer the firefight, the less apt to maneuver and redeploy a unit became, the more disordered it would become. Also, the same applies with the faster the rate of fire the more disorder.

The only gameplay mechanism in sow would be to increase musket damage or decrease movement within so many yards of an enemy formation. Or both.

I think too much is being made of a single battle. ROF and musketry effectiveness are well balanced to deliver reasonable casualties. We cannot simulate volley fire, so there is no point in discussing that. We can argue the merits of having one or two cavalry commanders, but had I been the only one on the field in command of all the squadrons, it is doubtful the 2nd division would have been able to send more than one brigade to the main battle. Having twice the number of cavalry would have given me more than twice the advantage. I don't think having the cavalry operate on both wings was non-historic especially for a small corps-sized battle. If we want to replicate large army tactics with appropriate cavalry concentrations, we'd have to start fighting multi-corps battles with 100,000 men in each army. Unfortunately we don't have computers of sufficient horsepower to do that.

I also disagree with the statement that it was not often that divisions had their own cavalry arm. The OOBs I created for the mod are exactly how the men were apportioned according to the historic record. If you scan through them you'll find that cavalry was attached to individual divisions and very often to individual infantry corps. Where our games do part company with history is that the cavalry arm is underrepresented in most of our battles. This is also true of the artillery.

I can't agree Kevin. If both sides had had only 1 player controlled cavalry command 1 then it would have been more equal, regardless of strengths (to at least a degree). If you'd had double the cavalry in your command with none elsewhere you'd have been in the same position we were. On the northern flank there would have been the same and opposite effect - a Russian cav brigade and no French. A very different situation.

Apart from the Prussian tactic of attaching a cavalry brigade to its infantry divisions from 1813 onwards (in actual fact a cavalry regt to an inf brigade), what other armies and locations commonly saw cavalry attached integral to an infantry division? (not a corps; that was standard).

In 1815 and also in 1813-14 the Prussians were fond of forming 'kampfgruppen' style columns with a battery or half-battery, some inf battalions and some cav and used these as semi-independent formations.

I know the early Spanish had all kinds of ad-hoc arrangements.

The British usually functioned with one big cavalry 'division' per army which was little more than an administrative function - it had brigades which operated semi-autonomously in different areas of the battlefield but none could be said to be attached directly to an infantry formation. Brigades were sometimes grouped together under a more senior cavalry officer just for a battle - this would be a cav div in SOW terms.

Except in unusual circumstances the French always had a light cavalry division attached to each infantry corps. Looking at the recent November 1808 Peninsular OOB I worked on there is only 1 corps of the 8 which has cav brigades attached at inf division level and this was a short term expediency which was deleted by the beginning of 1809.

Its not really an argument worth pursuing - by 1809 the mixed corps was the standard formation used by pretty much everyone, consisting of 2 or more inf divs, a light cav div and a reserve arty component. Heavy and medium cavalry tended to form separate cav divs and corps. Anyhow, its of less importance to argue historical details this way and that than it is to talk about how our games play. If we find that cav attached to divisions instead of a separate division on its own gives a 'better' or 'worse' result in-game (whatever that is - very subjective) we should embrace whichever type of formation works best and gives us the best feel of a Nap action.

Changing subject - and picking up what Matt said - I definitely felt in yesterday's game that it seemed to be a case of both sides rushing to the objective and the Russians happening to get their first rather than a Russian defended position attacked by the French. I think this is a cue for scenario designers - if its a defence/offence game, make it very clear that it is and don't risk frustrating players by calling it one thing then dumping them into the middle of a different battle type. Encounter/recon and contact actions were quite rare in Napoleonic times, and if they were they were often small and hovered around the brigade/division size since commanders never liked to get drawn into an escalating fight they could not manage. There would often be contact one day and a mutual pull back for a bigger set piece battle to then take place the following day - or one side would realise it was in a bad position and break contact overnight.

I think it's better to keep your guns well behind your lines in ks hits, especially with the long canister ranges.

I can't agree with this at all. Having been on the receiving end of magic canister a few times I know how frustrating it is, so I always now place my guns in front of my infantry (usually with a btn right on the limber line to give protection if the guns are charged) or I'll leave a gap in my infantry line and step the guns back within that gap by about 50 yds. What I always do now is absolutely try my best to never place infantry in front of my guns unless its a long way in front and downhill of them and I'm chucking roundshot over. Yesterday in the crisis of the battle on the objective hill I gave a battalion orders to keep sidestepping aside left just so my guns behind it were not firing through it. I probably lost men doing that but that's how I play and I think everyone in a KS HITS game should try to be conscientious that way. It kills so many arguments if we all try our best to act in a historical manner.

As for you placing blame on me for deploying too far away Matt Welcome to HITS. I considered I was placed very well, my initial gun position was good and doing a fair bit of damage and my right hand brigade was in close support of your division. All I can say is you should have ridden over and seen the battle from my POV. It looked good from where I was. Bear in mind too that I had no idea what was to my front. There was cavalry (I could not see how much) and a battery. They were on rising ground and behind them anything could be moving. For all I knew our left could have been attacked by infantry at any moment, just as I swung away and marched north. in KS HITS the other player always has valid reasons to do what he does (unless his compass reads E instead of S, that's just incompetence)

As for you placing blame on me for deploying too far away Matt  Very Happy Welcome to HITS. I considered I was placed very well, my initial gun position was good and doing a fair bit of damage and my right hand brigade was in close support of your division. All I can say is you should have ridden over and seen the battle from my POV. It looked good from where I was. Bear in mind too that I had no idea what was to my front. There was cavalry (I could not see how much) and a battery. They were on rising ground and behind them anything could be moving. For all I knew our left could have been attacked by infantry at any moment, just as I swung away and marched north. in KS HITS the other player always has valid reasons to do what he does (unless his compass reads E instead of S, that's just incompetence)

Welcome to HITS indeed.   I am quite sure that from your perspective you were very well placed.   You just weren't where i wanted you to be which was with your right firmly anchored to the objective and tied into Palmer's left.    You were far too south and because of it there was a large gap and our divisions were not able to effectively support one another.  Plus, our cavalry was actually positioned such that it was meant to straddle your right and palmer's left, in support of the center of our line within reach of both divisions.   By deploying so far south it was impossible for the Cavalry to support you.   And finally, from where i was i could see a lot more of what was going on then you could of course and as C-in-C I of course weighed in your messages against knowledge that i had from elsewhere on the field and determined a long time before you did that you weren't going to face any enemy attack.   So while from your perspective, and rightly so, you feared attack from the west.  I tried to make it pretty clear that the main effort was in the north and sort of felt as though i was having to prod you into action.   I'm sure the hill prevented you from seeing anything to the north and I'm also sure that the speed at which their attack developed had a lot to do with this as they seemed fully committed by the time we arrived there.   And of course it goes without saying that you only had command of a Brigade so there is passing of orders down the chain, miscommunication etc, which of course played into this.   But had we another 10 minutes respite before the french onslaught with which to setup a defense all of this could have been easily corrected.  Once the bullets start flying it's another proposition entirely.  

I agree with you Digby about the premise of the scenario and that it didn't feel attack/defense at all, rather a meeting engagement but with the Russians outnumbered.  

Soldier, my intention with the guns wasn't so much to keep them at or near the front lines.  Rather, I was just trying to get them on the hill that held the objective and by the time they arrived there to get deployed, the front line was about 200 yards away.   So it wasn't by design, though I'm glad to see that magic cannister is alive and well.   The guns were captured and recaptured several times and in the end inflicted around 800 casualties.

In regards to cavalry, divisions, etc. in the OOBs, I agree with Kevin that cavalry is too under represented for the most part, i disagree that it should be attached to divisions. Perhaps this is a function of the Penninsula armies. But what i find to be missing in these games are the large swirling battle within the battle of cavalry against cavalry. For the most part, the cavalry is being used in a support role to force infantry to square and beat up "weak targets". Sort of feels to me like the difference between the German panzer division and allied/russian tanks being dispersed in brigades ala early WWII. So to me, I don't think cavalry should be attached to Divisions, certainly not French divisions, but rather should operate in larger bodies of their own divisions with light cavalry attached to infantry corps and separate heavy cavalry corps/divisions. I would like to see more cavalry in our battles and have it play a larger role. To me, this was one of the most interesting parts of the Shevardino scenario I put together - the sheer amount of cavalry on the field. At Borodino the French Army was nearly 20% cavalry. Using this type of ratio, if we have 20,000 men in the field about 4,000 should be cavalry with 16,000 infantry.........................

Anyway, in the end, Kevin is right that we probably shouldn't make too much of this one battle and go changing things. But i predict this: as more GCM players get involved and as the ones who have been playing such as myself, Soldier, and Palmer continue to get more tactically efficient with playing this way, it is inevitable that we'll strike upon a method to consistently gain an upper hand. With literally thousands of games experience between us it's only a matter of getting more experience to how this mod plays before using that experience within the confines of the KS HITS world to strike upon a winning tactic. We've already noticed the speed at which infantry rest and how they can pretty easily double quick. Add to that the quick and decisive melee, and i can already see full on column charges early in games rapidly becoming the norm. While that may be "napoleonic" (on some level) i would much prefer the slow developing battle with prepatory bombardment followed by a well timed assault (which itself may end up being the massed attack).

Anyway, sort of rambling now. Long and short, start the armies further apart to allow more planning, manuever, and bombardment and we can keep a close watch on tactical developments over the coming games and if a trend emerges, we can make changes then.

I must admit I struggled a lot in this game. I was a Russian guard brigade on the far right. I'm the one who marched around the wood.....I was assigned the far right and was concerned that the units would get all snarled up if I didn't cut hard north first. Some sort of weird bug made my troops do a big hairpin march at one point as well.

Once on site there wasn't much time to set up before horrible masses of French were attacking, and wrapping around my right. Including cavalry. I think I managed to get one unit into square at an appropriate enough time to kill the cavalry, but after that the French cav commander would set up to charge, start moving towards me, and manage to cancel just as I was forming square. It was great to watch, but annoying as hell.

I had some trouble keeping track of all my regiments as well. They ended up getting strung out over a wide frontage and I had to race back and forth to issue orders. My skirmishers at one point where lying on their bellies for who knows how long. I certainly didn't mean to order them to do so, maybe a random key hit? Would they do so on their own?

Anyway, it was great fun, but I certainly felt I didn't do a good job representing my side till the end when I was continually nursing a near broken unit back to life to threaten, and even occasionally attack. Hopefully my liability quotient drops quickly.

Dave

No wonder Dave, even when your brigade was half my division, you fought with all of us, intially with some of my battalions then some of Mr. Harper, and later with the brigade of Cpt. Wittman, plus the cavalry, so sooner or later your brigade was going to melt away. I personally think you can be proud of your men.

Your skirmishers were probably taking some grapeshot from French guns, and they try to minimize casualties if are not engaged with enemy units I believe.

Pepe.

Matt wrote: But i predict this: as more GCM players get involved and as the ones who have been playing such as myself, Soldier, and Palmer continue to get more tactically efficient with playing this way, it is inevitable that we'll strike upon a method to consistently gain an upper hand. With literally thousands of games experience between us it's only a matter of getting more experience to how this mod plays before using that experience within the confines of the KS HITS world to strike upon a winning tactic. We've already noticed the speed at which infantry rest and how they can pretty easily double quick. Add to that the quick and decisive melee, and i can already see full on column charges early in games rapidly becoming the norm. While that may be "napoleonic" (on some level) i would much prefer the slow developing battle with prepatory bombardment followed by a well timed assault (which itself may end up being the massed attack).

I think you misunderstand the purpose of KS play. It is certainly possible to exploit game deficiencies in order to find a consistent winning strategy. KS play accepts those limitations but tries to find period appropriate tactics that don't deliberately exploit them in order to win the battle. In other words, the Vince Lombardi philosophy doesn't have much currency. But this was a GCM game where Vince is held in high regard so finding those exploits is fine. It may not be a bad idea at all to have two different styles of play. We can use the results of the GCM games to try and make improvements to the mod for everyone. I am certainly willing to participate in that style of play just so I can see what weaknesses exist and maybe fix and once again make your lives miserable. That has always been my ultimate goal.

From my position on the field, I didn't think the deployment of the Russian 2nd division was at all bad. It was well positioned to fall on the French flank at the appropriate time. It's just that my cavalry got in the way. Digby was right about not knowing what he was facing. I deliberately hid my meager forces from him to keep him guessing. That's the real beauty of HITS play. The same situation looks completely different based on your position on the battlefield.

I do think something we need to stress as often as possible with the GCM guys is that the ks style of play should be more about the game and less about winning the battles.

A lot of GCM players are very competitive: Matt being the most competitive (and I don't mean in a bad way).  And while I certainly expect everyone to do their best to win battles, we should all avoid "gamey" tactics and exploits for the sake of winning.

GCM games are dog eat dog.  Highly competitive.  And I love that.

But I also love the playing the game for the sake of the game attitude of the ks games.

For us GCM guys, it's sometimes hard to put away that win at all costs mindset.

I think you misunderstand the purpose of KS play.

Actually, i don't think that i misunderstand it at all and I'd like to think that my play in both a command role and in charge of a division or brigade has shown pretty clearly that i get what the KS HITS games are about.   The biggest issue i had with the game on Wednesday was that it was too much like a normal GCM game and not enough like a normal KS HITS game (i.e. "there they are, go and get them").    I'm just pointing out that as the group of folks from GCM start playing HITS more it's inevitable that weaknesses in the system will be exploited and corrections to the system will have to be made.

While no game or simulation is perfect, I've always believed that the measure of a truly outstanding product is one that incentivizes players to act historically for something approaching historical reasons. SoW is one of the best out there, but still has its limitations. And, of course, it is these limitations that command virtually all our attention, disagreement and discussion.

The KS HITS community has enjoyed the advantage of being fairly small, and mostly of one mind, in its approach to the gaming experience. I confess that I REALLY enjoy this style of play. And while both are fun (GCM appeals to something primal inside  ), I find KS HITS a pleasant change of pace from the more purely competitive culture. However, I think we all realize that the more cross-over between KS, GCM & others, the greater the potential for strain. I'd like to think there's enough overlap and commonality that almost everyone will find something to enjoy in this style. But to be practical -- and come full circle to my first point -- whatever adjustments and tweaks can be made in the mod to bring KS HITS game mechanics inline with true historical play will be a very good thing. Down the road it will result in greater harmony and tranquility to minimize reliance on gentlemen's understandings. One hard lesson GCM teaches is that, whenever possible, desirable "house rules" should be built directly into the mod. For that reason, I applaud Kevin's pledge to make the adjustments necessary to make our lives miserable.

I also agree with the sentiment that one sketchily designed scenario is not a very good sampling to base changes upon. Let's keep our eyes open for any unfortunate tendencies and attempted exploits -- and rejoice when these are squashed in game by superior play.

PS: Another round of applause to Matt is in order. Recall that he's the one who forcibly shut down the casual TS chatter Wednesday as interfering with his "immersion." Truly the KS HITS spirit!

It was somehow improvised game with a change of map at the last moment and designed for people to get the flavour, I don't think we should draw a lot of conclusions just with such experience. But there have been a lot of constructive ideas worthy of further consideration.

I don't think anyone is drawing to any conclusions based on that game. I have felt for some time that battalions move too fast while closing with the enemy.