"An overview of Optio" Topic

Here is an overview of Optio's main mechanisms which should give a general idea of the system in 5 minutes or less. I designed Optio as virtually chanceless (there is some chance generals and commanders get killed) and applied my research from my book Ancient Battle Formations to it. I'm still tidying it up so there'll be a few months' wait before I finally publish the thing.

One thing to note: the army-specific combat tables have for effect to absorb about 80% of modifiers found in most rulesets, leaving a short list that can be memorised.

You lost me at ‘chanceless'.

That's probably unfair. There are plenty of chanceless games with unpredictable results and superb replay value. I never missed the dice in many dozens of WarpWar battles, and I found Napoleon's Triumph to be so challenging I sold it off (more headache than fun).

There's no reason a combat system built on player decisions instead of luck can't be fun, challenging, and unpredictable. It's just really hard to design.

- Ix

looks interesting

Here's an AAR of a small Optio game to give an idea of the rules in action.

I looked at this but to be honest without a command and controll description the rest is not that interesting. I have to agree that chanceless is a viable approach but really its command and control that decides battles. "Getting there the fastest with the Mostest" is the issue.

I looked at this but to be honest without a command and controll description the rest is not that interesting. I have to agree that chanceless is a viable approach but really its command and control that decides battles. "Getting there the fastest with the Mostest" is the issue.

Sure. There are are two mechanisms for C&C:

1. More complicated
Each commander receives orders arrows, up to a maximum depending on his command rating which varies from 1 to 5 or so. At the beginning of the game each player assigns orders arrows to his commander (not to the general). Each arrow is orientated to face forwards, backwards or sideways and has a number, chosen by the player. The arrows and numbers tell the commander which direction he may move and for how many squares. Once he has completed one order arrow he executes the next, and so on.

The orders arrows apply to the commander, not to the units he is commanding. So a battleline may advance diagonally for example whilst the commander advances straight ahead, ending his move with a different unit of that battleline.

Once a commander has completed all his orders an Out-Of-Command counter of the colour of his command is placed in the square his last order took him to. If he is a foot commander he may range a maximum of 2 squares from that square; if he is a mounted commander he may range 4 squares (his units can conceivable range further). This simulates his lack of overall battlefield awareness, limiting his action to his local area.

Commanders may abandon their orders for several reasons, e.g. if one of their commanded units is adjacent to enemy, at which point an OOC counter is placed in his square as described above.

2. Simpler
A square counter with numbers on each side from 1 – 4 on one side and 5 – 8 on the other is placed with the commander's counter, and the counter is set so the number corresponding to his command rating is facing the commander. The command may advance as many squares as he chooses, but each time he changes direction the counter is rotated one number down. When the counter drops below 1 it is removed and the commander is OOC as described above.

This mechanism ensures that the player devises a grand tactical plan for the commander and that he goes somewhere definite. If the player keeps changing his mind in the course of the battle the commander rapidly runs out of command points and ends up tied to a limited movement range.

My overriding consideration with C&C is to give the player as much control as possible whilst staying within historical limits. In Optio he has more control than in, say, DBA, where poor pip dice can immobilise large sections of the army.

I'll post a couple of photos to show how this looks.

Just realised I left out one important aspect of C&C. There are no command ranges in Optio. Command ranges of most rulesets come from WW2, where all the commanders had walkie-talkies, or the Napoleonic era where messengers were used frequently on the battlefield.

In pre-gunpowder warfare messengers were used rarely and never in a way that allowed the general or subcommanders to issue a slew of orders in mid-battle and control the course of events from a distance. Commanders stayed with their men who simply followed them wherever they went. The general himself usually led a portion of the army in person or could move around and take direct control of portions of the army, but he couldn't do much more than that.

I try to simulate this in Optio by obliging units to be physically connected to the general or commanders in order to be in command. To command a unit, the general/commander must be in the same square as that unit, and other units must form a battleline or battle column with that unit in order to fall under command themselves.

Units not part of a commanded battleline or battle column are out of command. They can move very slowly: 1/2 a square per turn for slower units* and 1 square per turn for faster, but they can move up to their full distance when attacking enemy units they can reach in one move. This simulates the very limited battlefield awareness of a unit's captain, who has no idea of what to do other than engage nearby enemy.

*For 1/2 square movement a unit moves up to the edge of a battlefield square in one turn (units are normally positioned in the middle of a battlefield square), then into the square in front in the following turn.

So how much real ground does a square represent?
What timescale even very approximately does a turn represent?

I have three ground scales:

1. Each square represents roughly 100x100 yards. This is for battles involving smaller forces
2. Each square represents roughly 200x200 yards. Used for bigger battles with army numbers in the tens of thousands.
3. Each square represents pretty much what you like. Used for games with few stands per side, say less than 20. Here it's more about gameplay and less about historical accuracy.

For bigger games (i.e. option 1 and 2) I'm aiming for the sweet spot of about 30 stands per side, which seems to be where panorama and playability meet.

Time is a tough one. It's difficult to know precisely how long battles lasted for and in what time segments a battle was divided. Using melee as a benchmark, two infantry lines of, say, hoplites will be able to fight for four or five turns before running out of morale intervals (one will generally get an advantage by then and rout the other). If that represents something like an hour of fighting, maybe more, then a turn represents approximately a quarter of an hour to 20 minutes, but this is very ballpark.