"Rethinking Ancient Game Mechanics" Topic

Have been away from the whole competitive 15mm rule set ancient / medieval thing for a long time, like 15 years, I'd say.

Rreturned to my forlorn 15mm Rome v. Gauls and Pelopponesian War Greeks recently, thanks to my group starting up Age of Hannibal.

While AoH has several unspecified issues with movement [mostly around being vague sometimes, and specific other times] the most striking thing for me is that it does demonstrate that with just a few rules you can dodge the entire DBx / Barker pages of explanations thing for movement.

At first I thought it would be too loose and there'd be too much freedom of movement for my take on large ancient battles. I was partially right. However, with just a couple of little tweaks, problem is solved.

This got me re-thinking the DBA / ZOC mechanism, overall. Basically, if you are within a square the width of the front side of an enemy unit, your options are to attack one of those units, or move directly backwards.

I was fond of DBA and played loads of it in the 1990s… I have the winning plaques to prove I got competent at it.

Now, I am thinking that the whole ZOC / Barkering thing is not really an historically accurate model, and perhaps just moving more slowly and cautiously in general near the enemy is a better way to do it.

I do think that the presence of an enemy unit within its threat distance impacts the maneuvering of a friendly unit.

How to model that in a game effectively I'm uncertain about.

ChipCO / Age of Hannibal basically just slows down movement / maneuvering to where it isn't a big deal.

The DBx games use a frontal ZOC.

What are your thoughts?

Check out Triumph for an interesting take on the DBX ZOC concept. I enjoy playing it.

There is no shortage of rulesets with different mechanisms that reflect the difficult of manoeuvring close to an enemy. Check out Mortem et Gloriam or Strength and Honour for two very different approaches. I enjoy both games despite (or perhaps because of) their considerable differences.

I have Triumph. Same thing, perhaps better explained and written is the main difference, far as I can tell. Lots of diagrams to make sure we understand what they're saying.

What about M&G or S&H make their approach interesting?

Strength and Honour uses a grid system. Units occupy two squares (side by side). The exert a zone of the four squares in front (diagonal left, two in front and diagonal right). Attempting to move out of this zone requires a manoeuvre test.

Mortem et Gloriam uses an alternate movement system. Because of this, the main restriction is that if a unit enters the ZoC (called Close Proximity Zone) of an enemy unit, then it cannot move beyond the extended front edge of the enemy unit. There are also restrictions on the type of manoeuvres you can perform when close to an enemy unit.

Grid systems are very good for ancient rules. No measurement ambiguity.
To the Strongest plays well and gives a great game if you want to go that way

I have Triumph. Same thing, perhaps better explained and written is the main difference, far as I can tell. Lots of diagrams to make sure we understand what they're saying.

Not exactly, ZOC in Triumph is handled quite a bit differently both in when it is applied and what your options are when in ZOC. For example you can move at slower movement rate or cautiously when in enemy ZOC in any direction, the ZOC just slows you down and limits who you can attack. you can turn back to enemy and move away at full movement or back away after aligning with the threat. Also ZOC is blocked by combat.

The old SPI Prestages and to a greater extend Sabin's Lost Battle, achieves this lack of flexibility by limiting the number of game turns and creating robust victory conditions. I have converted prestages into a hex less figure gaming format and while both armies do manoeuvre towards each other, once you are close you are locked into your positioning. If you try and pull back and redeploy you have probably lost the game because of victory conditions. Prestages does use ZOC's, but its only a factor once you have engaged.
youtu.be/4kECry2lM9Q

I suspect part of the whole "ZoC" thing in all rulesets is that it is there to speed up the game by (pretty much) forcing units to fight when they get really close.

"Moving slowly and cautiously when near the enemy" may or may not be more historical, but as a game mechanic you really do want to be forcing troops to fight and get on with the game, rather than giving them any sort of easy option to just drift apart again.

I'm sure that in real life Soldiers get more cautious when the enemy is near, especially if they are uncertain about the whole situation.

How much maneuvering you can do and how close to the enemy you can do it, is definitely a variable, and I'm sure sometimes people got away with a lot, and other times they were surprised when the enemy suddenly acted.

The ZoC isn't dead, so much as I'm thinking that using it as a "locked in" mechanic may be too aggressive.

Sounds like Triumph is heading in that direction – I'll have to read 1.1 more closely when I print it out.