Ground Rules

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How ground combat works:
This is still the age of battles, usually 1-3 days for the big ones, 1 day or less for the little ones. Campaigns are generally several battles. We don’t have to worry about air power, mechanized units or machine guns. But muskets and massed cannons are murderous, and later on we have rifled muskets, gatling guns, rifled artillery, and bolt action rifles.

Die rolls:
Units must roll their attack strength or less to inflict a hit on the enemy. A hit automatically shatters a unit.  The side with better generals, training or whomever the referee thinks is simply a better army gets a +1 to their attack values (the other side does not get this). Really bad armies get a -1 to their attack values (and yes, that means an attack value of 0 has no chance of inflicting damage). They also get a -1 if attacking TL3 in rugged, fortified or urban terrain.

Shattered units are considered present on the battlefield, but cannot fire back if attacked, and if hit, are eliminated completely.  

How battles work
All attacking units and defending units get a mutual attack phase. At that point the referee determines which side would want to break off the battle (using common sense, sometimes neither would). Surviving attacking units then can launch another attack, and another mutual fire with the defenders occurs.  Generally this is where reserves are committed.  

Special Circumstances:

Cavalry Charges
Cavalry and Lancers can attack a shattered brigade and automatically eliminate it if a defending army has had all of its units shattered. This is called pursuit, and why cavalry are to be feared.  You keep a reserve so that you have something to provide a rear guard in case of pursuit, or a heavy hitting force to maul the enemy if it is shattered.

Up until the mid 1840s, a decisive battle could be fought that eliminated an enemy army. This is why battles are risky and nations built fortifications on their frontiers to slow down the enemy or perhaps even stop him without having to risk the army in battle.  

Fighting Savages
Any TL3 unit attacked by a TL2.5 or lower unit gets a free fire phase prior to the mutual combat phase, but does not get the same benefit if attacking. The same applies if a 2.5 is attacking a TL 2. TL2 or lower units cannot have a firepower rating higher than 1 per brigade.  

Defending entrenchments, fortresses and forts
A fort or fortress unit, or an army that is entrenched, gets to free fire phase if attacked prior to the mutual combat phase.  Which is why attacking a dug in enemy force can be risky.  An entrenched army cannot move that season, which is why armies are often unwilling to entrench and usually only do so if conducting a siege or defending against a siege.

Casualties
Generally a brigade that is shattered takes 1,250  casualties. If a shattered unit is destroyed, it takes another 1,250 casualties, and the referee makes a decision on how many are likely prisoners (usually about 30% of the total, plus most of the wounded become prisoners too).

Marching about
Generally armies in this time period can move about 50 miles a week, half that in bad terrain like wilderness, hills, mountains or swamps. To figure routes, look at an appropriate map of the area and figure out which routes are likely to be taken. Figure that roughly 20,000 men take up an area roughly half days march in area. So a big army can be spread out in an area where it takes 1 or 2 days march to concentrate, sometimes more. Light infantry can ignore the penalties for wilderness, hills, mountains and swamps.

movement ratings for units are for referee purposes and really only relevant on a battlefield

Foraging
All Armies are assumed to be foraging when moving (see supply rules) .

Attrition
Casualties from skirmishing, accidents, and standard camp disease will result in 2 brigades for every 10 getting shattered each month. In high disease areas these effects are tripled.  

Regrouping
Shattered units may be regrouped. If you have 5 shattered brigades out of 12, you can combine 4 brigades to form 2 whole units, with the excess written off as providing replacements for all the other damaged units in the army that aren’t represented but are real nonetheless.

Always assume that generals regroup as soon as the battle is over.

Sieges  
Although less common than the previous centuries, they are still a fixture of 18th Century warfare and not uncommon in the 19th Century.  Sieges are usually lengthy, weeks at least, sometimes months and occasionally years.   Conducting a siege requires that at least one infantry brigade (not light, or horse troops) invest the target.  This requires that unit to entrench.   Each month of the siege, a die is rolled and on a 6 (1d6) the target surrenders (becomes demoralized, or food supplies fail for some reason, or disease is a problem).   On a 1 (1d6), a besieging unit takes a hit (so you might need more than one unit to conduct a siege), representing casualties from disease or poor morale causing desertions etc.   Each season the odds worsen for the besieged, so on the first month of the new season, on a 5 or 6, it surrenders, while they do not worsen for the besieging troops (still only take a loss on a 1).  You can indeed launch your siege in June (technically Spring) and in July (which is technically Summer) get an immediate bonus.  The siege is lifted if the besieging units are all shattered, or no unit is entrenched (and thus the investment is broken).  (a unit beseiged for 3 seasons thus surrenders on a 3,4,5 or 6, and automatically surrenders after 5 seasons)

You can always launch an assault, but this might be costly (or even too costly)  Engineers provide substantial benefits to besieging armies (see units thread).

Attrition and Status
Brigades start off at full strength, if shattered, they are reduced in strength to a brigade remnant, and are disrupted (unable to attack) for a few days (in other words, are out of action for the battle they are in). Once no longer disrupted, they either merge with other remnants to reconstitute a full brigade, or are reduced to a regiment.

If shattered again (say, during pursuit) or a regiment is shattered, if there are no other shattered regiments with which to reconstitute, the unit is destroyed.

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Orders and movement
Mobilization
When a nation declares war, it mobilizes. In the age before railroads, steam boats and highways, this took considerable time... months in fact. Thus mobilization requires an entire season, and cannot be conducted during winter.

Formation of armies
Players will organize their ground forces into field armies and departments. A field army can consist of up to 120,000 men (although this is really rare and requires a special logistics unit not available until 1800) and will assemble at a specific town or city or fortress. Field Armies can conduct offensive or defensive operations.

Departments can only conduct defensive operations, and usually consist of fortresses, depots and a few brigades.

Operations
When writing orders for the season, a player indicates which of the following actions he wants his armies and departments to carry out:

Seek Battle (Armies only)- the army will move to where the enemy army is and fight a battle (and hopefully win it)

Seige (Armies only)- the army will advance on a fortress or major city and conduct a seige. A portion of the army actually carries out the seige, while the rest remains nearby to prevent the enemy from breaking the seige with their army.

Conduct scorched earth (armies only)- deliberately stripping an enemy country of anything that is portable and valuable, and burning the rest. Troops are given carte blanche to rape and pillage, and killing civilians and taking their property is not actually encouraged but is ignored. This operation makes the civilians in the area hate not only the invaders, but also the defenders if the defenders don't seek battle to stop it. This should be rarely carried out however, as is only permissible when fighting a nation that is the wrong religion (Islam vs Christian and vice versa), fighting barbarians (like natives), or if the defending nation encourages partisan war by civilians.

Advance to an objective (armies only)- an army moves deliberately on a specific point to occupy it (and the surrounding area). Unlike 'seek battle', if the enemy army does not intercept, than no battle occurs.

Move to winter quarters (armies only)- the army suspends operations and moves to encamp for the winter.

defend an objective (armies or departments)- prevent the enemy from advancing to an objective. Will likely result in battle or seige.

Assault (armies only)- instead of a seige, the army launches a full scale assualt on a fortification or city. The player will need to indicate what percentage of losses he is willing to take before giving up and beginning a seige.

garrison an area (departments or armies)- pacify an area and retain control Defenders will need to specify if 'defend an objective' is included with this (if attacked by an army).

Naming armies
this is not the era when armies are referred to as "the First Army" or "Army group South", but instead have names relating to their location or objective like "Army of the Potomoc" or "Army of Northern Virginia". Sometimes they are simply called by their commanders name ... "Washingtons Army" or "Wellingtons Army". Sometimes an army consisting of multinational forces will be the "Coalition Army" or the "Allied Army".

The Corps structure does not yet exist, and the division is still being developed. An Army over 50,000 men will sometimes have command problems and not be able to use its troops to full effectiveness because of this.

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Mercenary and native troops
Player nations can hire troops from the various European states, either as part of their National Armies (the Swiss providing regiments to the French until the historical French Revolution for example), as separate contingents (the Hessian troops serving in North America during the American War of Independence) or create or expand client state armies (Bavaria is essentially a Spanish client state).  

to build a brigade for a player army, the player simply asks the referee if recruiting can begin (or is informed in the game), and can create one or two brigades (numbers will vary).

The various German states (other than Bavaria and Brandenburg/Prussia) can serve as recruiting centers if allied to a player.  They supply the manpower, but the player must pay for the unit and its upkeep.   At game start none of the German states other than Bavaria, Austria, Saxony, or Prussia have significant standing armies.  They have lots of little units, and some of these states will have a fortress.   Italian Savoy, the Papal States and Swiss Confederation have standing forces, which might be willing to ally with a player nation or remain neutral depending on circumstances.

Colonial and Native levies must be purchased at the location they start in, and can only be light infantry or cavalry.  Their quality will vary... sometimes substantially.

Player nations can also recruit from territories they hold, treat units created in this manner as normal troops.  

Building Troops
In 1700 armies are highly professional but are not mass armies.  Troops are valuable, time consuming to acquire, and equipping them is no easy task.   Each Player nation will have one or more recruitment depots. Levee en masse is a concept that has not yet come, while building cannons and muskets is still the art of a craftsman.  

A Depot conquered or captured by an enemy cannot be replaced until the war is over, so protecting them is vital.

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Great Captains and Warrior Kings

This is the age of fighting monarchs (Napoleon, Charles XII, Frederick the Great) so from time to time, players will be given a Warrior King who has special abilities on the battlefield.

Typically this will mean a +1 to all combat rolls by an army directly under the command of the Warrior King, but negative results can happen (even Warrior Kings are mortal, just ask Gustavus during the 30 Years War).

Great Captains will also be created, who are either generals or admirals. These units are created by the referee only. They have no maintenance costs.

One side effect of having a Warrior King is however that they tend to get Alliances thrown at them. While Great Captains can fall out of favor in court (just ask Marlborough)

Some fictional ones will be created to account for the butterfly effect of the timeline changes, and don't expect the historical ones just because they existed in real life.

With historical great captains the referee will use historical traits, for fictional characters he will use the NPC dice roll system to try to discern his traits, personality, lifespan, etc.

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Wartime Clarifications

1. The war thread supersedes others

At the end of each campaign season, I post something basically titled "Forces in region at end of turn". It posts armies, their composition, and their location. When writing out ORBATs and making orders, always refer to the war thread first. If you are confused as to why there is a discrepancy, ask me, and I will either explain what happened (your army engaged in a battle close to the end of season and there were no subsequent orders, so..) or acknowledge that its a mistake on my part.

2. Include exact units, armies, and locations involved in orders

I've been getting a lot of orders like "X army moves on Y" with no greater detail. Following on the theme of the War-thread takes precedence, I don't have the time or resources to ensure you're all keeping your ORBATs up to date. I don't have a massive board in my house with pins and notes where I dream about your armies, I rely on you guys to do a lot of that work. To that end, please always send me orders which include A] how many units are in your armies and B] where they are coming from--you can also include a commander, though it's usually just flavor unless you have a Gr8 Captain. It will make gaming out combat all the smoother.

3. No mid-turn orders

Your orders are considered valid for the whole turn, and you can't send additional orders once your forces have engaged in action during a turn--even if they don't engage in combat. This goes hand-in-hand with my previous post on trying to consolidate orders into just one. Generally once a major battle has been fought, and there are no follow-on orders in the orders thread, your army will settle in, reorganize, and get ready for the next campaign season. You can include conditional orders--i.e., if battle is won, move on to x place, is troops not engaged, go on to y, if battle is lost, try to retreat to z--and those are encouraged to ensure players have the maximum control possible over events. Occasionally something absolutely catastrophic might happen that requires the mod to seek your input, but that's the exception.

4. Movement in down seasons

Seasons such as winter in Europe, summer in the desert, monsoon/rainy in particular locales. I will indicate if necessary, but otherwise use common sense.

During the down season, you cannot move armies unless they are commanded by a Great Captain (and even then they'll suffer stupid attrition). What you can do is reinforce, upgrade, etc--figure the Americans at Valley Forge. For naval units it's a little more complicated, but there are usually seasons in which traveling by sea isn't a genius move either; for example, the North Sea is treacherous in winter, the Baltic freezes over, etc.

The safest course of action is assume that your army/navy is frozen in place during the down season, and that if there are special circumstances the mod will tell you. That being said, just because armies can't move during the winter doesn't mean that you force you face in Spring will be the same that left Fall, due to upgrades, resupply, raised forces, etc.

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Rules Update effective 1715

Limits on Colonial Theaters: Infrastructure and manpower in colonial theaters (defined as anything outside of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East) means that it is much more difficult to support European-sized units. Thus, the default unit in these regions remains the regiment. This is reflected in the following limitations placed on colonial theaters:

• Colonial regions/nations can only raise regiment-sized units. They can also only raise 1 regular unit for every 3 militia units.
  
• Trading companies are not bound by the militia restriction, but are bound by the brigade per regiment restriction below.
  
• A colonial region can only support up to 30% of its population in terms of soldiers—units beyond that will cost 2x to maintain (to represent imports of supplies from Europe) and increase the risk of famine. A single regiment-sized unit (fortress or LI regiment) can be posted even in the smallest colonies, however.
  
• Colonial units, if taken out of their home region, will suffer higher attrition. If they are removed from the colonies entirely and brought to Europe, they will suffer even higher attrition or possibly even mutiny.
  
• Colonial units often fight at a disadvantage against regular units, but are still generally better than the militia units they replace.
  
• The metropole can only station 1 brigade for every 5 regiments it has stationed in a region.
  
• Brigades in colonial theaters cost 2x in maintenance and move at ½ speed, to reflect sub-par infrastructure.
  

Guards Units: At mod discretion, this designation gives a +1 to its combat value until it is shattered or peace comes and everyone falls back into lazy peacetime soldiering habits.   This represents units that are particularly effective due to leadership or simply just because they are a particularly tough group of men.  This adds a bit of flavor to the game.  Players should give these units names, even if they don't name any other units, again for color.

TL Difference Modification: Previous rules had it that TL 2 and below units could only hit on a 1. Considering we are now moving to a d10 system, that has been increased to hit on a 2.

Breadth of Combat: Brigades, upon scoring a hit, now shatter 1 brigade or 2 regiments. This is to help counteract the trend I was noticing of large numbers of low-quality regiments being able to overwhelm similar raw manpower armies of higher-quality units (i.e., 4 Inf brigades v 10 inf regiments are both 10,000 men, and the 4 inf brigades should have a real advantage because of their cannons, but they were often just being swarmed by the smaller units. If this doesn’t sufficiently address the problem, I may adjust up to 3 regiments.

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