"How Much Detail Is Too Much?" Topic

I was looking at my lovingly painted French voltigeurs the other day and reflecting that, in many rulesets, their battlefield contribution is largely abstracted away. They end up as little more than yellow-plumed eye candy decorating the front of a battalion.

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Now, I understand the trade-off. Giving skirmishers a meaningful tabletop role usually comes at the cost of extra time, extra mechanisms, and extra complexity. Every detail we choose to model has a price.

Which got me wondering about granularity in Napoleonic wargaming generally.

One of the fascinating things about the period is the sheer range of detail available in different rulesets.

At one end are games where a battalion is essentially a combat value with a frontage. At the other are rules that track ammunition expenditure, formation changes, skirmisher screens, gun types, fatigue, staff officers, and a host of other factors.

Most of us probably draw the line somewhere in between.

So what level of granularity do you enjoy, and where do you think diminishing returns set in?

Are there details that genuinely improve your games by creating better historical decisions? Conversely, are there mechanisms that add complexity without adding much insight or enjoyment?

Examples might include:

Ammunition tracking
Casualty accounting
Brigade and divisional command systems
Detailed artillery procedures
Formation changes
Skirmisher management
Morale and fatigue states
Weather and terrain effects
National characteristics

Do you prefer rules that model these factors explicitly, or rules that assume they are already baked into combat and command outcomes?

And has your preference changed over time? Many gamers seem to migrate either toward greater detail in pursuit of historical flavour, or toward simpler systems that let them fight larger battles and actually finish a game in an evening.

Where do you sit on the granularity spectrum?

Surely it depends on the command level being represented? One thing that mystified me about Bowden's "Chef de Battalion" rules was the lack of ammunition tracking and casualties to subordinate leaders. In a game where a player would likely only command a single battalion, or at most a regiment, these seemed to me essential things to model. But conversely at the army level where my chief interest lies, many of your listed details must be abstracted if the game is to be finished in a reasonable time (not to mention being the sort of factors that an army or corps commander could not monitor, at least until after nightfall when the unit returns start to come in).

12 layers of morale class is … dumb.
Veteran vs regular vs crack bs elite???
Nope.
Oh, and conscript vs Landwehr vs militia?
Again, nope.

Except for the "detailed artillery procedures" our rules have them all. Only the ammo supply is a paper tick off system….10 RS and two case bombardments for most nations. They rest is all tracked by specific miniature placement or movements or colored chits under the commander base.

I'm with Eumelus. You track different things commanding a brigade than commanding an army. That said, I try hard to avoid bookkeeping (meaning largely ammo rules) and I dislike more than three quality levels for a troop type.

As to quality level, 12 is entirely too many. But for me, three is too little (Militia, Trained, Regular, Veteran, Elite). YMMV

Maybe every wargame has two simulations running simultaneously: one of the battle, using the chosen rule set, and one of the period's appearance. The voltigeurs, for example, may contribute little to the mechanics, but they contribute a great deal to the table's Napoleonic character.

My preferred quality level is 3. From The Sword and the aflame.
"British" includes "good regulars". I am not convinced that Highlanders, Guards or Grenadiers were significantly better. If not convinced, tweak it.
"Egyptian" includes lower quality Regulars.
"Boers" includes militia.
For Natives, I use "Shooty", "Chargers" and a mix. They aren't differentiated to morale quality.