Good Day Bill,
Thanks for your comments and the 18th-19th Century perspective.
"how often did a marching column run into and suffer from an unknown opposing force"
> well, i agree, not often in principle since there is an "avant-garde" and also cavalry sent ahead to "eclairer" the planned itinerary and the flanks. my point is not especially about running into an unknown opposing force. the points are : I- that if you are more condensed and so more ready for combat, that kind of road order should generate more fatigue for the troops, the march is more difficult. it is sometimes referenced as a disciplinary measure or a punishment when executed far away from the enemy. And II- that if you are less condensed it takes more time to switch from road order to battle order.
those two elements *can* make sense if the battle system has several rounds of combat and if we consider the tempo of operations over a sequence of several days of marching.
the original rules for example do not take account fatigue for example, at least not as an explicit factor. Perhaps it is fudged with the famous APs ? in that case you can avoid fatigue with initiative based movements, which is based on statistics.
You see, in NaB you risk march attrition when moving, but the units are never exposed to "fatigue". you can loose soldiers, but they will never be "tired" after X turns of marching. eventually the astute player will just execute a reverse reading of the march attrition table to determine what is a "safe move" (certainty to have zero or so attrition) and this is what will drive his movement during his turn.
the level of troops fatigue should be linked to the tempo of operations. here's the link to one the books i'm using.
link
still considering movement, you have troops displacement before combat, during combat, after combat with retreat, pursuit, withdrawal, delay, etc.
the idea of "continuity" it is perhaps closer to VLB, i'm not familiar with the other rules you cited. basically you can play in Igo-Ygo mode until units reach a friction zone, say when they are at one day march from each other.
at that point the units are moved in a synchronized fashion, according to their current orders or missions.
the friction zone can be materialized with black cubes 5-7 hexes ahead of a real unit. in theory, the amount of MPs expanded when contact is made for combat give an indication of the time (morning, noon, afternoon, etc.)
there is also a *command clock* which take into account time-distance for command and operational missions/orders.
the point being to have movements executed in a certain "continuity"not in a fractured way like in Igo-Yugo. it is perhaps more like plotted missions than plotted movements.
i must underline that all this is *eventually feasible* because there are very few units on the map in those games, something like 10, 15 or 20 on each side.
you can still have action/reaction and eventual use of "intiative" by sub commanders. if unit A has "orders" to defend city X and block the enemy, there no reason for that unit to move until something new happen.
one of my goals is (a) to change the GUI (general user interface) for the players to make inputs in the system and toward the opposing side.
use terms, notions, ideas, concepts to define units actions or posture during the turn (missions instead of numerical values) and (b) try to implement a different sequence of play where both side is moving and maneuvering againt a living opponent : more about implementing a specific course of action for the sub units than to execute optimized mathematical choices turn after turn.
that idea is perhaps a dead end from the start, and i'd rather to just implement some ideas in the context of a regular Igo-Ygo sequence of play.
we have spent the last 35 years playing all those wargames from the 70s 80s etc
they use Igo Ygo and use a lot of numerical values for inputs .. that make for a specific type of gameplay : (optimization x 2 ) vs (optimization x 2 ) !!
Best regards, Eric
experiments at 11x.
