Surprise, Activation, and the Solo Wargamer

What is "solo gaming"? Well, clearly it is "playing a game by oneself", but it has to be more than that. To some people, however, it is not. Anyone who says "I just play both sides to the best of my ability" sees the definition of solo gaming as being just that and no more. Others believe that there has to be some "surprise" element added to the game because the player has "perfect knowledge". Even Stuart Asquith agrees with that idea, to a great extent.

A frequent comment made regarding solo war gaming is "What's the point? The player controls both sides and thus always knows what the opposition is going to do and thus there is no element of surprise." A not unreasonable statement, so irrespective of the period in which the solo player intends to war game, or the manner in which the games are to be conducted, various solo play mechanisms and techniques will be needed so that the soloist can introduce a random element into the unfolding situation.

- Stuart Asquith, "The Partizan Press Guide to Solo Wargaming"

I am on a forum for solo wargaming and there are a stream of questions like "what rules should I to wargame solo?" or "how can I play rule set X solo?" The responses generally fall along these lines, like:

• "Rule set X uses a card activation method, so you are halfway there."
• "You should choose rule set X because it uses cards to determine which side acts next. Solo rules should do that."
• "You should first determine how the player side is going to deploy, then randomly determine how the opposing side should deploy its units."

Actually, those comments also come from authors of books and articles on solo wargaming so they are in good company. All that said, I think the comments miss the mark. Let me explain why.

Surprise in Wargaming

Let me ask you a question, and be honest now: how many times were you truly "surprised" in a wargame by your opponent's move and because it was a really good move? The last one I can think of - and it did not happen to me - was when AlphaGo made move 37 in game 2 against Lee Sedol. That move so astounded Go players around the world that the Go community was abuzz about how it came up with the move. Lee Sedol took a full 15 minutes to recover from the shock before he could make his next move. Have you ever had such a game? I have not; not even close.

I can remember all of the times I was "surprised" (and the move was good) and they were always when I was playing a new game and did not know all of the rules. It is a game that has a fairly straightforward core set of rules, but with too many "special abilities" that were constantly being added as new supplements came out for you to buy. Essentially, a unit made a move that was illegal, according to the core rules, but perfectly legal according to the special rule in the supplement that I had not yet purchased. You know that kind of game. There are plenty of them out there.

Now, there have been some moves where I was surprised that the player made them, but only because it was either a bad move or a risky one. On the latter, some worked and some didn't. I made a few of those "you're a hero if it works, zero if it doesn't" type moves myself. But at the end of the day, playing the game is about exploiting the missteps your opponent makes while minimizing your own. The last thing you want to do is introduce a random element to force you to misstep.

Does that mean I don't agree with adding in random chance elements into the game? Of course not. The thing is, the games already have them. Is adding another element really to facilitate solo play?

Card Activation

Let's take card activation as an example. Is adding card activation for units conducive to solo play?

First, there are three types of card activation mechanisms. The first use cards to determine which side activates next. When a red card is drawn, the red side acts with all of its units. A variation of that is that the card indicates that one unit on that side activates next. The last type of card activation - and one used infrequently - is assigning a card to a specific unit. When the card is drawn, that specific unit then acts.

Let's think about this in terms of decisions. Unless you are in the "play both sides" camp, what you are looking for in a solo system is a means for answering the questions every time a decision point comes up. So, what are some of the basic questions?

• Which side gets to act next?
• Which unit gets to act next?
• Which action(s) will the acting unit take?
• How will the unit execute that action(s)?

If your system is not answering these questions then it is not helping you as much as it could. You, the player, are making decisions for the non-player that allows you to let your bias creep in.

Which Side Gets to Act Next?

As you can see in the table below, all activation methods, including the traditional IGO-UGO method, takes away the decision of "which side acts next" from the player.

Activation Type	Result
Card to determine side	Yes
Card to determine side that chooses a unit	Yes
Card to determine a unit	Yes
IGO-UGO	Yes

Which Unit Gets to Act Next?

Unless you are using a mechanism that assigns a unit (or sub-command) to a card, card activation does not answer the question of which unit you should act with next. If you provide no mechanism for making this decision, you leave it up to the player to make the choice.

Activation Type	Result
Card to determine side	No
Card to determine side that chooses a unit	No
Card to determine a unit	Yes
IGO-UGO	No

Which Action Will the Unit Take?

Activation Type	Result
Card to determine side	No
Card to determine side that chooses a unit	No
Card to determine a unit	No
IGO-UGO	No

How Will the Unit Execute Its Action?

Activation Type	Result
Card to determine side	No
Card to determine side that chooses a unit	No
Card to determine a unit	No
IGO-UGO	No

As you can see above, none of the activation methods answer the remaining two questions that pertain to the unit acting. That is because activation methods stop providing use once you get past the decision on which side or unit activates next. Put another way, card activation is not a solo gaming mechanic unless you use it for unit assignment. It answers no more questions than IGO-UGO does (again, with unit assignment by card as being the sole exception).

What card activation does is create "surprise" to the player as to which side will get to do something. It is a command-and-control mechanic, not a solo mechanic. However, it has side effects that you need to consider.

Variable Activation

Whether variable activation - activation where the order of the side acting varies from turn to turn - comes into play the most is where each activation only allows a very granular action. For example, if a unit can only move or fire in a single activation then moving into the weapon range of the enemy becomes a significant decision. In IGO-UGO games when a unit moves into range the enemy is guaranteed the chance to fire first. Changing this to variable activation does not provide that guarantee any more. A unit could activate at the end of one turn, move into range, and then in the next turn draw first, allowing it to fire before the enemy can respond. It is actually these sort of "double activations" that players attempt to set up and exploit as they are so effective.

Even if you are using rules that allows units to move and fire, variable activation can have an impact. You could move in and fire on one turn and then fire again on the next turn with a lucky draw.

So, you might be thinking, what is wrong with that? Some games are rather delicately balanced regarding the volume of fire in relation to distance moved and the passage of time. Changing that affects the core balance that the rules author put into their rules.

The main point is that these sort of mechanics are attributed as being "solo friendly" and my point is that they have nothing to do with solo gaming. These are ways to add additional random chance elements into the game, often in the name of modeling "the fog of war", "chaos", or "friction". A player will either like such a mechanic or not, but do not attribute it to facilitating solo game play. If a mechanic does not take away a decision from the player when acting with a unit for the non-player side then it is not a "solo gaming" mechanic.

Injecting Chance into Non-Player Decision-Making

Another response I see in forums regarding "how to game solo" is to use random chance elements to answer the type of questions above. Donald Featherstone calls that 'instant' solo wargaming.

But even the most volatile spontaneity can be dampened in the case of the solo-wargamer if he has to waste a large part of his precious few hours in so organizing the battle as to give him the enjoyable interplay of tactics that comes from dividing himself down the middle and being two generals at once. Briefly, this means that he requires some ready-made method of 'instant' solo-wargaming that enables him to set up armies and get on with the battle in a manner that allows for a realistic demonstration of both tactics and the fluctuations of the fortunes of war. He need not despair because, if his inventive mind has not already though up a system of his own, then there are a number of other methods that he can utilize or adapt to suit his own requirements.

- Donald Featherstone, "Donald Featherstone's Solo Wargaming"

I admit to using some of these mechanisms myself, on occasion, but for me the goal is that it is a fallback for when you want to game, but don't care as much about the quality of the result. That typically occurs when I am testing out a new set of rules. I tend to push the boundaries in such games to see if the rules allow "crazy" results and whether or not it punishes "bad" tactics. More often than not though I simply play both sides without regard to "being surprised". I tend to have less bias (or at least I like to think so) when I am simply testing than when I am gaming for fun.

The simple fact is, a random die roll that includes a chance to select a sub-optimal option will always be, at best, on par with the decision that a thinking human would make, given all of the factors present. A far greater portion of the time it will produce an inferior decision. Multiply that over all the decisions that will have to be made and it is not hard to see why the more you inject random chance to make decisions for your non-player forces, the dumber and more erratic the opponent will be.

Baron Babbage Beats Me

If you have been following along lately you know that I have been speculating about how to make programmed opponents work by starting with a look at the solo mechanics called Playing Against Mr Babbage which are included in the The Men Who Would Be Kings rules, making my own programmed opponent Baron Babbage for the Medieval variant of the rules One-Hour Wargames (OHW), making another programmed opponent Warlord Babbage for the Dark Ages variant of the rules One-Hour Wargames, and finally Shawn's test of Warlord Babbage. I finally took a breath and decided to try out my original Baron Babbage in order to see what refinements needed to be made. I suspected that there was a bad hole in my logic for units that were not the closest to a triggering condition, i.e. they had no orders whatsoever, and that there might be a lot of edge cases.

Let me start by saying that this will not be a typical battle report. My goal is not to report how the battle went, nor give a blow-by-blow, but to review the Red (programmed) turns specifically, state the decision that I took, and discuss what refinements need to be made.

Scenario #8: Melee (One-Hour Wargames)

Red (Defender): Programmed

Just as a reminder, here is what the scenario's terrain looks like.

The scenario has two Red units on the hill at the start of the game. All other forces on both sides come in at various turns. There are six units in each army. The army composition is random for both sides. The scenario lasts 15 turns with Red taking the first turn.

Red Turn 1

I now believe this is a bad deployment as it anticipates Blue moving around the left flank. Better that it deploy in D4 and D5 facing South (the Blue baseline) and move on Red Turn 2, based on Blue's actual move.

Also, I realize that I did not think the deployment orders through. My order of preference in units to deploy here are Men-at-Arms then Knights. It is possible to have zero, one, or two Men-at-Arms units. What if you only had one? Should it deploy on the left or the right? (It should deploy on the right as the left is the position of maneuver and a Knight is more maneuverable.)

Red Turn 2

I brought on three Knight units as my move, using one to try and flank the hill from the East. The other two units will assault the hill frontally.
So, this is where the first rule refinement comes from.
Rule #1 says once you are on the hill, you stay on the hill. So that rule does not apply.
Rule #2 states that if there is an empty position on the hill, the closest unit to that position moves to occupy that position. It needs a qualifier that states that if you are already on the hill you may ignore the rule under some circumstances. Without the qualifier, a programmed unit would simply move back and forth between two empty positions on the hill. We do not want that.
That said, if a unit on a hill could make a move to block a Blue unit from gaining the hill, without risking its current position being take by a Blue unit, shouldn't it move to block? We will consider that rule later. For now we are just going to add the qualifier that if a unit is already on the hill it is not forced to obey Rule #2, nor will it count as the "closest unit".

Red Turn 3

During Blue's turn the Knight unit flanking the hill could not yet make a charge from the road. (Charging only allows a 45º pivot at the beginning of the turn and it was adjudged that the unit would clip the woods, so it had to move farther down the road to charge.) Now that Red reinforcements are coming on that really looks like a bad move. Nonetheless, let's review Red's decisions.

The two Red Knights on the hill have no decision to make. They are defending the hill, so they solemnly wait the charge from the Blue Knights.

The first unit entering from the road is a Red Knight. It can ignore Rule #1 as it is not on the hill. Rule #2 states that, as the closest unit, it must move towards the (closest) empty position on the hill. As it stands, that is also the position that is threatened by the West-most Blue Knight, so that is a good move. Red Knight #3 moves to occupy D5.

The second unit entering from the road is a Red Archer unit. Rule #1 does not apply. Rule #2 has been applied to Red Knight #3 for square D5, but square D6 is also empty. Normally you would apply Rule #2 to another unit, but Archers are an exception. Rule #3 does not apply as Blue has not occupied the hill. This essentially leaves the Red Archer unit only with Rule #4, which says that it may not move move than 6" from the Red baseline. The rationale for this deployment was listed as: "Archers on the left flank will have more opportunity to engage in shooting as they will be away from the objective. Archers on the baseline have the potential to shoot enemy Knights attacking the left flank of the hill, or those sweeping around. If the enemy engage them, all the better, as that means they are not engaging the units on the objective." With that, it made sense that the order should have been to move 6" off of the baseline to threaten the Blue Knight preparing to charge the East end of the hill.

I need a new rule that covers the condition when a Red Archer unit is not on the hill and does not have a Blue target on the hill.

Red Turn 4

As you can see from the image above, Blue has attacked on the East end of the hill and frontally. One of the Blue Knight units has gained the heights. Before I go on with discussing Red's moves, I ran into an interesting issue with the OHW rules.

Notice the Red Archer unit on the bottom left. It is on the flank of the Blue Knight unit which is engaged in hand-to-hand combat  with the Red Knight unit on the hill. Can the Red Archer unit fire into the Blue Knight unit? I know plenty of rules that would say 'no', or have a rule like one-half of the casualties are allocated to each side, but OHW is absolutely silent on the issue. Further, OHW is incredibly permissive, which lends me to believe a unit can shoot at an enemy unit in hand-to-hand combat. The one applicable rule I thought would apply was that a unit cannot be attacked on more than one face (in hand-to-hand combat) and that aligned nicely with, say, the rule in Dux Bellorum (which allows a missile unit to fire at a unit in close combat as long as the line of fire is completely clear of the enemy unit's base), so I felt I was on solid ground. What do you think?

By the way, the red and yellow die are both there because I misinterpreted the flank attack rule. It applies only to hand-to-hand combat and not to shooting. I sort of rationalized to myself that it would get double hits for flank, but one-half hits for "cover" (being in melee), so I only registered 5 hits. In this case, it worked out...

The Red Archer unit ignores Rules #1 and #2. Rule #3 would have applied if it were not for the Red Knight to the North of the hill being closer and the shot being blocked. So again, no applicable order applies to the Red Archer unit.

This is probably a separate rule from the one indicated above, which would govern firing. Given that you can only move or fire, which new rule should have precedence?

The Red Knight unit to the North of the hill matches Rule #2 and #3. It occurs to me that I may need to switch the order of these – having the unit attack the Blue unit on the hill over first moving onto the hill itself – but I am not sure. I will leave that decision until next turn. As it stands, the move to obey either rule is the same. I also need to add a clause about not exposing your flank to the enemy at the end of your move. (Note that my Red Knight to the North maintained its facing. That was not in the program.

One other note: for some reason I did not bring on Blue's reinforcements on turn 4, but rather turn 5. I did not even realize this until writing this report, in fact. That was a big mistake.

Red Turn 5

This was an interesting turn, in terms of programming. I realized that the Red Knight unit had to obey Rule #2, so rather than attacking uphill against the Blue Knight it moved to the vacant hill position and faced to charge the following turn.

That move, in turn, triggers the option for Rule #3 to apply to the Red Archer unit. Now that the Blue Knight unit is exposed, the Red Archer unit shifted right in order to shoot in future turns.

The other two Red units, being engaged in hand-to-hand combat, can do nothing but continue to fight.

Red Turn 6

The last of the reinforcements enter the board. The Red Levy units enter from the West edge, North of the hill.

As the Knights on the hill are all in hand-to-hand combat, there are no decisions. That leaves the Red Archers and the two Red Levy to consider.

I began to feel that the angle was too sharp for the Red Archers to fire into the Blue Knights that it had shifted right to attack last turn. So, with rules 1 through 3 not in play, they fired at the Blue Knights at the East end of the hill. This was the first instance of where the program went in one direction one turn, then reversed back the next. Basically, I lost one turn of fire due to that 'indecision'. I can live with that result, but it is something to watch for in future games.

The first Red Levy unit acts on Rule #3, which is to attack the Blue Knight unit on the hill. It thus moves towards a position from which it can charges its flank. The second Red Levy unit, however, has no applicable orders.

What happens to a unit when there is no unoccupied hill position and other (closer) units are already engaging enemy units on the hill? I need an order to reinforce the weak link in the line.

The original two Red Knight units on the hill are pretty beat up, so the second Red Levy unit moves left in order to fill any gap that may appear on the East end of the hill.

Red Turn 7

Blue was able to shoot down the weakened Red Knight unit on the East end of the hill, so the second Red Levy unit continues to shift left, as Rule #2 now applies to it.

The first Red Levy unit charges into contact of the flank of the Blue Knight unit on the hill.

The unengaged Red Knight cannot move from the hill and because I indicated earlier that a unit on the hill does not need to move to another unoccupied position on the hill, it simply stays put.

Finally, the Red Archer has no target and Rule #4 does not allow it to move farther off of the baseline. I allow it to do nothing, for now. But if it continues to stay out of the action, I may have to rethink its orders, especially as there is a possibility of having two such units.

Red Turn 8

The third Red Knight unit (that reinforced from the road) is gone, but the Red Levy was able to eliminate the Blue Knight unit they were both fighting before it was able to turn to flank. The Red Levy unit will gain the hill position.

The second Red Levy unit continues to shift left to occupy the East end of the hill. Once it gets there, however, I am not sure what it will do...

The Red Archer unit shoots at the advancing Blue Archer unit.

It may not have been a valid shot, considering that the Red Levy unit partially masks the line of sight. However, I generally go from unit center point-to-center point and that is not masked, so I allowed it. Would you have allowed the shot?

Red Turn 9

The first Red Levy unit has another Blue Knight unit to its flank so that means that Rule #3 now comes into play. It will simply face 90º to the right as it cannot charge.

The remaining Red Knight unit is nearly exhausted (as indicated by the arrow showing that it is four hits away from being destroyed).

The Red Archer unit continues to fire at the Blue Archer unit and the Red Levy unit finally gains the position on the East end of the hill. Its flank is exposed to the Blue Archer unit, but as it cannot turn 90º and charge it is relatively safe.

Red Turn 10

No unusual decisions. Red Archer fires. Red Levy holds firm.

Red Turn 11

The Blue Archer unit gets cut down by the Red Archer fire, relieving the last of the threats on the East flank. The Red Levy unit no longer needs to concern itself. Next turn we will look at how its orders should change, along with the Red Archer unit.

Note that the single, remaining Red Knight unit is still hanging on by a thread, with Blue having rolled terribly all of these turns.

Red Turn 12

Amazingly, Red Knight continues to hold on. One more hit and it collapses. This causes me to think about 'threats'. Red Levy cannot contribute to the melee between Red Knight and Blue Men-at-Arms because: a) it cannot come off of the hill (Rule #1); and b) it cannot move through the woods. If Red Levy were to stay facing South and the next turn Red Knight were to collapse, Blue Men-at-Arms would gain the hill (take the defeated Red Knight's position) and Red Levy would not be poised to charge as it could not turn 90º and charge.

I posit that there needs to be an order to allow a unit to change face on the hill which threatened from one side, but not threatened from the other. But I am not sure how to write the rule.

Red Levy faces right in anticipation that Red Knight will collapse next turn.

Red Archer, meeting the conditions of Rule #3, slides to the right to shoot into the flank of Blue Knight on the hill.

Red Turn 13

As expected, Red Knight is eliminated and Blue Men-at-Arms advances to take its position. This triggers Rule #3 for Red Levy, who charges into the flank of the Blue Men-at-Arms. Clearly they were reluctant to do so as they rolled a '2'!

Red Archer finds the Blue Knights closer and shoots into their flank due to Rule #3.

Red Turn 14

The Red Levy finally get their courage up and roll a hefty '6' on the die (which only counts as three hits, despite what the die shows), enough to vanquish the Blue Men-at-Arms (who had been badly mauled by the Red Knights Who Would Not Die).

The Red Archers continue to plink away at the Blue Knights. Don't ask me why the Blue Knights are facing down the hill; they should be facing the Red Levy. Don't ask me why the die says two hits, when the minimum is three. This picture clearly was messed up.

Red Turn 15

The end. The Red Levy and Red Archers pound the Blue Knights, inflicting a total of ten hits in a single round. (Ouch!) Baron Babbage clears the hill, leaving Red the victor.

Decision Review

So, here are the following additions that need to be made to the program:

1. When a unit is already on the hill, it is not required to obey Rule #2. This stops a unit from shifting back and forth between unoccupied positions.
2. When a unit is already on the hill, it may obey Rule #2 if:
1. The direction it is turning towards either allows it to attack an enemy unit on the hill, or allows it to block an enemy unit from getting on the hill.
2. The direction it is turning away from contains no possible threat to gaining a position on the hill.
3. When an Archer unit does not have a Blue target on the hill to shoot at (or move towards), it has no order.
4. When a non-Archer unit does not have an open hill position to move to (Rule #2) and no Blue unit on a hill position (or it cannot reach it), it has no order.

All in all I am very satisfied with the orders as is, and with these additions I think I am happy with it representing a cautious defender.

Shawn Plays Against Warlord Babbage

One of the reasons I wrote Playing Against Warlord Babbage pretty quickly after Playing Against Baron Babbage, without a test between, is because local gaming buddy Shawn wanted to try out the idea, but with his Dark Ages forces. He just finished up his game and sent me his notes, which have been really helpful.

Feedback

Let me start by saying that I do see some holes in the program I wrote already. I view this as a process that will be refined over time. That is why I want to work on a template for how to write these programs up and include some boilerplate rules. But, let me start with Shawn's comments.

Issue: Adaptation. The programmed opponent did not account for army composition adaptation or personal perspective. I initially wanted to use an Early Saxon army for Warlord Babbage with the Warband substitution for Infantry and no Cavalry. [This is an example of the type of adaptation Neil Thomas refers to in his rules.] The programmed opponent was perfectly suited to the rules as written, however, so any issue here was in my not discussing this issue before asking for the Dark Ages opponent. As we discussed, it was simple to just switch Red and Blue. Might be something to account for in a fully developed programmed opponent (probably more of a tie-in to historical flavor)?

Although I do account for varying composition, as allowed by the standard rules, the programmed opponent still depended upon the predominant unit type being Infantry. Simply using a force composed of Warbands and Skirmishers would probably have resulted in a disaster for that program. But who knows until you try it out? My point is that the more adaptable your program is to such a critical component – force composition – either the program will become very complex and conditional – i.e. a bunch of IF-THEN-ELSE statements – or very generic.

Issue: Rule #1. This rule states “Once a unit is on the hill, it may not move off.” From my understanding of this rule, I had several instances where a Red unit on the hill couldn’t move to flank a Blue unit attacking up the hill, so they remained in place.

So, after discussing this issue with Shawn there were several factors that led to this belief. I had put a statement in my Rationale section that did not appear in my rules: "The unit in D4 must be prepared to shift to the left flank of the hill (D3) if Blue attempts to flank the hill." At the end of Blue's turn 1, the situation was the following:

You can see that Red's units did not move on turn 1 (no reason to) and that Blue's move took one Warband down the road, flanking the hill's East end, while the other Warband threatened the hill frontally. This is exactly the move the Cautious Red Warlord should expect. The counter is the following.

The rightmost Red unit turns to face East and moves to the East end of the hill to block the Warband from gaining the height. This is a situation "in between" Rule #2 and Rule #3.

Rule #2 states: "If there is an empty position on the hill the Red Army unit that can reach the position the quickest – except Skirmishers – must move to occupy that position."

Rule #3 states: "If there is a Blue Army unit occupying a position on the hill the Red Army unit that can reach the position the quickest – except Skirmishers – must move to melee that unit. The closest Skirmisher unit must move to a position where they shoot at the Blue Army unit."

The situation is not really covered by either rule. Rule #2 needs to be refined to say that it does not apply if already on the hill. (If you didn't, then a unit on the hill would be moving back and forth each turn as it would move to an empty location on one turn and then move back on the following turn.) Rule #3 does not apply because Blue is not on the hill; it is poised to gain the hill in its next move. So there needs to be a new rule:

• If there is a Blue Army unit that can occupy a position on the hill in its next move the Red Army unit that can reach the position the quickest – except Skirmishers – must move to block that unit's move. The closest Skirmisher unit must move to a position where they shoot at the Blue Army unit.

What this rule does is create the moves indicated above. The rightmost Red unit moves East, blocking the flanking Blue unit's advance up the hill. That in turn exposes a position where the Blue unit attacking frontally could gain the hill. So the leftmost Red unit must also slide to the East (but still facing the unit down the hill) to block that move.

This brought up an interesting discussion between Shawn and I as it pointed out another reason why generic programmed opponents have a difficult time working. In order for this program to work the rules had to support such a maneuver. The first Red unit has to be able to face 90º and then move 6" along the hill in order to block the Blue flanking unit. The second Red unit has to "sidestep" – be able to move horizontally without changing face, or be able to pivot 90º, move, and then pivot 90º again – in order to execute the program. One-Hours Wargames is that flexible, but many other rules are not.

Even though this program is specifically for OHW it did get me thinking: why those particular starting positions? Why is the easternmost unit not already deployed to D3? Food for thought.

Issue: Rule #3. This rule states “If there is a Blue Army unit occupying a position on the hill the Red Army unit that can reach the position the quickest – except Skirmishers – must move to melee that unit. The closest Skirmisher unit must move to a position where they shoot at the Blue Army unit.” This caused the Red Cavalry unit [entering via the road] to ignore a Blue Skirmisher unit right in front of it and expose its flank in order to move to the hill. Ultimately this Red Cavalry unit was eliminated by skirmisher fire (but not until after the Red Cavalry unit had charged the rear of a Blue Warband unit and destroyed it). I’m not sure this is actually an issue as the hill is the objective. I just wanted to point out that this type of situation occurs.

And it is a good point. This is where I am excited to have someone like Shawn write a different version of the Red Warlord. It sounds like his program might not take that risk of a valuable unit (Cavalry), exchanging it for an enemy Warband. His program might take into account the number of turns remaining and compare it against the average time for the Cavalry to deal with the enemy Skirmisher unit, say "If the turn is less than 8, you can ignore this rule in favor of another rule that could determine your action." Another equally valid method would be to write a rule with higher precedence. This would allow you to put your more specific cases at the top and your more general orders farther down.

Issue: Rule #3. See above for this rule's text, however it is referring to the second clause, which is regarding what a Skirmisher unit should do. No issues here, I just missed this operating rule when I played the game. I ended up largely forgetting about the Red Skirmisher unit until the Cavalry cleared the line of sight. Probably a wash as moving to have line of sight would have prevented shooting that turn.

The other big "hole" in the program is when none of the rules apply to your units. What do you do then? Rule #4 ensures that the Skirmisher unit stays within 6" of the Red baseline, but doesn't tell you any other priorities. Same if two Cavalry units come on the road (the closest is to make for the closest gap on the hill, but what does the farthest Cavalry unit do), and so on. That has to be addressed.

Issue: Historical Flavor. As an option I would recommend adjusting the programmed opponents to reflect increased historical flavor, i.e. using “Mount Badon” instead of “hill,” adjust for certain army types, etc. Not necessary, just my personal preference.

Interesting, as I had not considered that. I view the OHW variant as responsible for providing the proper historical flavor. But if there were a way to add historical flavor to the programmed opponent, I would surely do that. As for the scenario, I view OHW's scenarios as generic, although the author clearly gives a nod to historical battles some have been modeled after. If I were writing a programmed opponent for a specific historical battle I agree it would surely make sense to do so.

Issue: Overall Enjoyment. I very much enjoyed using the programmed opponent and I think it made me focus more on the objectives for both sides than if I had just played without the program. I think the game came in right around one hour. The only downside for me was trying to take notes throughout the battle (I was hand-writing the notes, so it was somewhat painful). The note-taking for feedback also reduced my mental imagery of warbands clashing against shield walls and charging cavalry, etc., but this has nothing to do with the program itself.

Given that the result was a draw, it sounds like it can provide a decent challenge. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Battle Report – Shawn Versus Red Warlord Babbage

Again, this is scenario #8 (Melee) from One-Hour Wargames, playing the Dark Ages variant. The Red forces are the programmed opponent. Shawn has decided to play the Early Saxons, so Infantry and Cavalry units are exchanged for Warband units.

Arthurian British infantry occupy Mount Badon.

Early Saxon warbands move to attack Mount Badon.

The Saxong assault on Mount Badon begins a British reinforcement arrive.

A Saxon warband flanks the British position on Mount Badon and blocks the cavalry movement.
Saxon reinforcements arrive from the road to the South.

A unit of British infantry is eliminated on Mount Badon, but King Arthur and reinforcements are on the way.
The British cavalry on the east flank rout a Saxon warband.
Saxon reinforcements move around the woods to support the assault on Mount Badon.
Saxon skirmishers block the road and take up position in the woods.

The British cavalry on the east flank move to counterattack the Saxons.
Fighting breaks out all along Mount Badon.
Rival skirmishers along the road hurl javelins and bow fire at one another.

The British cavalry on the east flank are destroyed by the combined effects of the melee and follow-on skirmish fire,
but not before destroying another Saxon warband.
King Arthur and his Knights move to flank the Saxon hold on Mount Badon.

Another Saxon warband is destroyed on Mount Badon.
This is followed soon after by a devastating flank attack against the remaining British infantry unit.
King Arthur sweeps across Mount Badon, crashing into and destroying another warband.
The British skirmishers along the road disperse their counterparts with effective bow fire.

The remaining Saxon skirmisher unit pivots to meet Arthur's charge;
both sides survive a round of melee as the battle ends in a draw.

Summary

I knew the system would need some refinement and expansion, but I am pleasantly surprised that it stood up as well as it did on the first test by someone else. I look forward to anyone else giving it a try and providing feedback.

Playing Against Warlord Babbage

Part of my series of posts about programmed opponents, inspired by the Playing Against Mr Babbage rules in The Men Who Would Be Kings, I received a request for a variation of the programmed opponent I posted for a Medieval scenario. Basically it is for the Dark Ages rules in One-Hour Wargames rather than the Medieval rules, but the same scenario and for the Red Army (Defender).

Comparing the Dark Ages and Medieval Rules

The table below outlines the first change we must consider: force composition.

'Equivalent' Forces
Dark Ages	Medieval	Differences
3-4 Infantry	3-4 Knights	Dark Ages combat inflicts fewer hits per turn, takes longer to get into battle.
0-2 Warband	0-2 Archers	Warband are slow Knights and more brittle than Men-at-Arms.
0-2 Skirmishers	0-2 Levies	Skirmishers are worse at shooting than Archers, but can move through Woods.
0-2 Cavalry	0-2 Men-at-Arms	You stand a good chance at getting no Cavalry in your force. They are mediocre, but at least move 12".

In the Medieval force, we could rely upon getting at least three Knight units. This allowed the Red Baron to allocate two of those units to come on as reinforcements on turn 3, standing a reasonable chance to reach the hill before the enemy can fully occupy the empty positions. With a Dark Ages army, the odds are only 16% that you will get two units, while being 33% likely you will get none. The Dark Ages army is slow.

The other key takeaway is that the Knights hit hard (+2 in combat) while taking full casualties whereas the Infantry hit normally (+0) and take 1/2 casualties. In terms of combat momentum, Knights will inflict 5.5 hits per turn on average, grinding another Knight unit down in three turns, while an Infantry unit will inflict 2 hits per turn on average, taking a full eight turns to destroy the enemy Infantry unit. This dynamic translates to giving the defender more time to hold off the enemy (if the Infantry are on the Hill), but also means it will be hard to push off a Blue Infantry if they get on it.

Program for Medieval Red Army, Scenario #8, One-Hour Wargames Rules

The first decision to be made by the Red Warlord is deployment.

All instructions will use the following grid reference system.

Please note that I regulate measurements and unit placement using a square grid. The dots shown on the board indicate the grid I use. The grid size is the width of one unit's frontage. More than one foot unit can fit in a square, but one is in front and one in back. Both units must either face the same direction or be back-to-back. Contact (hand-to-hand combat) is defined as being in the same square, so units must have the necessary movement to enter the enemy's square in order to be considered in contact.

Hill Deployment

Force Selection

The Red Warlord will always select two Infantry units to deploy on the hill.

Force Placement

One unit will be placed at D4 and the other at D5, both facing to the South.

Rationale

The hill forces need to hold as long as possible until reinforcements arrive. Infantry take one-half casualties due to their shieldwall and one-half casualties if they are uphill, so they stand the best chance of survival.

Cavalry are the fastest moving unit, so they are the best choice (in this Warlord's opinion) to enter via the road on turn 3, if you have them. They would then make straight for the hill in order to fill any empty positions, or dislodge any enemy that might have gained a hill position.

The unit in D4 must be prepared to shift to the left flank of the hill (D3) if Blue attempts to flank the hill. It will have its right flank protected by the woods from melee and shooting other than from Skirmishers. If Blue does have Skirmishers, you will just have to bear the risk of flank attacks.

Road Deployment

Force Selection

Choose two units from the Red Army forces using the following order of preference: Cavalry, Skirmishers, Infantry, and Warband.

Force Placement

If available, move first with: Cavalry, Warband, Infantry, then Skirmishers.

Rationale

As you have more distance to cover to reach the hill, your fastest units should be deployed on the road.

Cavalry are at the fore so they are not delayed in reaching the hill by slower units.

Skirmishers on the left flank will have more opportunity to engage in shooting as they will be away from the objective. Skirmishers on the baseline have the potential to shoot enemy attacking the left flank of the hill, or those sweeping around. If the enemy engage them, all the better, as that means they are not engaging the units on the objective.

Right Flank Deployment

The two remaining units will be deployed here.

Operating Rules

These guide your decisions on moving and fighting with Red Army units.

1. Once a unit is on the hill, it may not move off. That is the objective. (Because I am using a square grid that means that units cannot charge off of the hill into units at the base of the hill.)
2. If there is an empty position on the hill the Red Army unit that can reach the position the quickest – except Skirmishers – must move to occupy that position.
3. If there is a Blue Army unit occupying a position on the hill the Red Army unit that can reach the position the quickest – except Skirmishers – must move to melee that unit. The closest Skirmisher unit must move to a position where they shoot at the Blue Army unit.
4. Skirmishers may not move off of the South row of squares/more than 6" from the South edge.

Notes

Neil Thomas allows for some variation in the force selection. For example he mentions swapping Infantry for Warband to represent Viking invaders, or swapping Infantry for Cavalry for Frankish armies. King Arthur might see Cavalry get +2 (making them Medieval Knights in quality, but not force selection), and so on.

What you do with the Blue Army is up to you. It is assumed that for this programmed opponent you are using the Dark Ages force selection and unit statistics as written. If you vary from that you may have to modify the program to reflect your changes.

Summary

This should be an interesting variation from the Medieval battle. It is unlikely you will go to 15 turns in the Medieval variant, but I can definitely see the Dark Ages version going the distance. This will be a slow and steady slog, with force selection luck playing much more of a role than

Playing Against Baron Babbage

In my last blog post I talked about my dream of trading programmed opponents with other solo gamers as a means of varying your gameplay. If a player could embed their 'gaming DNA' into the program, other players could experience that difference. For example, if I tend to play more cautiously and can reflect that caution in a program, and you (the reader) tend towards aggressive play, the idea is that you using my program to drive your opponent may well result in a different gaming experience from your typical "play both sides to the best of your ability" game.

What I have learned over the years, however, is that a generic programmed opponent is a fantasy, at least without a computer running the program. I have thought about that too, as there are plenty of examples out there, but that means I could only trade programmed opponents with other computer programmers. (Talk about a niche within a niche, that would be gamers who frequently game solo and write computer programs.) No, the solution is to scope down the number of decisions and possible answers to a manageable size.

Scenarios from One-Hour Wargames

On my other blog I showed a gameboard that I created for a single scenario in the book One-Hour Wargames. Creating gameboards for scenarios makes it easy to be consistent in terrain placement and makes setup and teardown go faster. In the past I was skeptical about making them, as I figured I would tire of playing the same scenario more than two or three times, but that has not proven true. You can easily create one scenario for each side of the board and they stack neatly, as long as you do not make the terrain permanently three-dimensional. I have quite a collection stacked on end behind a door.

The first way to set boundaries on your programmed opponent is to write it for a specific scenario. This is not a new or unique idea; it is exactly Charles Stewart Grant advocated in his book Programmed Wargames Scenarios. But, if you leave it at the scenario level, there are still very broad variations that you have to consider and account for. Mr. Grant decided that if he got into much more detail into what the programmed opponent would do, he would only have a single scenario writeup, so he kept his programming very generic and high level.

For this experiment I am choosing to write a programmed opponent for scenario #8 (Melee) from One-Hour Wargames. Specifically, I am writing it for the Red Army (Defender) forces.

Rules from One-Hour Wargames

I went down this path before – scoping the program to a game system (Saga in one case and Rally Around the King in another) – and generally speaking, it works. Playing Against Mr Babbage is scoped to the game mechanics of The Men Who Would Be Kings after all.

For my first experiment I decided to use One-Hour Wargames because the rules are very simple. This simplicity makes for little to no nuance in the game mechanics and places it all in the player's tactics. For example, it is an act with any or all system, so you don't have to worry about deciding which units get to act and generally you do not need to decide the order that units act as units are destroyed through slow attrition rather than quickly from a single lucky roll.

For this experiment I am choosing the One-Hour Wargames rules for my programmed opponent.

Genre from One-Hour Wargames

Another aspect of One-Hour Wargames is that its scenarios can be (and are expected to be) played across multiple genres; rules are included for gaming from Ancients through World War II. Neil Thomas does a good job in reflecting how warfare changed over time and that can affect what can and cannot be accomplished in a given scenario. For example, in scenario #8 there is a woods at the base of the hill on the left front side. In the Medieval rules there is no troop type that can enter woods. That is not true of, say, the Ancients or Horse and Musket periods. So that particular terrain piece will play a significantly different role in a Medieval setting, as opposed to a Horse and Musket one. Defining the genre will then help further scope your decisions down.

For this experiment I am writing a programmed opponent to use in the Medieval rules of One-Hour Wargames.

I hope I haven't lost everyone yet. I know. Pretty specific. Nonetheless, hopefully you can use this with a little tweaking for other genres, rules, and maybe even scenarios once I explain my rationale behind my program.

Program for Medieval Red Army, Scenario #8, One-Hour Wargames Rules

The first decision to be made by the Red Baron is deployment. Because army selection is a random roll, I cannot tell you specifically which units will be deployed initially on the hill, which will come on turn 3, and which will come on turn 6. That said, I can tell you the order of precedence for unit selection for those three groups.

All instructions will use the following grid reference system.

Please note that I regulate measurements and unit placement using a square grid. The dots shown on the board indicate the grid I use. The grid size is the width of one unit's frontage. More than one unit can fit in a square, but one is in front and one in back. Both units must either face the same direction or be back-to-back. Contact (hand-to-hand combat) is defined as being in the same square, so units must have the necessary movement to enter the enemy's square in order to be considered in contact.

Hill Deployment

Force Selection

Choose two units from the Red Army forces using the following order of preference: Men-at-Arms, Knights, Levy, then Archers. Note: if you have exactly three Knight units, only one should be deployed to the hill.

Force Placement

One unit will be placed at D3 facing to the left (East) and the other at D4 facing South.

Rationale

• The hill forces need to hold as long as possible until reinforcements arrive. Men-at-Arms take one-half casualties due to their armor and one-half casualties if they are uphill, so they stand the best chance of survival.
• Knights are the fastest moving unit, so they are the best choice (in this Baron's opinion) to enter via the road on turn 3. However, you can position some on the hill. They would get half casualties if uphill and hit back at their opponent at +2.
• Despite the name Levy are not really that bad. They hit better than Archers in melee (and you will be in melee pretty quickly).
• As the scenario name implies, this is about melee. Archers cannot afford to stand toe-to-toe defending the hill. They need to stay out of melee in order to fire as many shots as possible (where they get the +2). If they try and defend the hill from the start the enemy will only allow them one shot, at best, before the enemy Knights come crashing in, at which time they become -2.
• A unit in D3 will have its right flank protected by the woods from melee and shooting and is positioned to ensure that the hill is not flanked.
• A unit in D4 will have its left flank protected from melee by the unit in D3 and protected from shooting by the woods. As this is the closest point for a frontal assault on the hill, this is the grid selected to secure the right flank.

Road Deployment

Force Selection

Choose two units from the Red Army forces using the following order of preference: Knights, Archers, Levy, and Men-at-Arms. Given that you must have a minimum of three Knights, this will always be two Knight units unless you have disobeyed my orders, you traitorous dog.

Force Placement

If available, move first with: Knights, Levy, Men-at-Arms, then Archers.

Rationale

• As you have more distance to cover to reach the hill, your fastest units should be deployed on the road.
• Knights are at the fore so they are not delayed in reaching the hill by slower units.
• Archers on the left flank will have more opportunity to engage in shooting as they will be away from the objective. Archers on the baseline have the potential to shoot enemy Knights attacking the left flank of the hill, or those sweeping around. If the enemy engage them, all the better, as that means they are not engaging the units on the objective.

Right Flank Deployment

The two remaining units will be deployed here.

Operating Rules

These guide your decisions on moving and fighting with Red Army units. 

1. Once a unit is on the hill, it may not move off. That is the objective. (Because I am using a square grid that means that units cannot charge off of the hill into units at the base of the hill.)
2. If there is an empty position on the hill the Red Army unit that can reach the position the quickest – except Archers – must move to occupy that position.
3. If there is a Blue Army unit occupying a position on the hill the Red Army unit that can reach the position the quickest – except Archers – must move to melee that unit. The closest Archer unit must move to a position where they shoot at the Blue Army unit.
4. Archers may not move off of the South row of squares/more than 6" from the South edge.

My Ask

If you use this programmed opponent, please let me know what worked and what didn't. Was there a hole in the program (something not covered)? Was there a situation where what you were to do, or how you were to do it, ambiguous?

If you have any battle reports using the Red Baron, send me the links, either in the comments, email, or Facebook. If you have a programmed opponent to try, let me know what it is. (Does this format work as a template?) I am especially interested in a Cautious or an Aggressive Blue Baron for this scenario.

Playing Against Mr Babbage

Whenever I read someone's post about Dan Mersey's The Men Who Would Be Kings (TMWWBK) inevitably someone will mention the solo rules Playing Against Mr Babbage (PAMB) that are included in the rules. To be honest, that is the only reason I purchased those rules. So, what are they?

PAMB is essentially a programmed opponent, mixed with some rule changes to TMWWBK to compensate for the fact that the programmed opponent will never be as smart as the player. In general I do not like modifying rules, even for the programmed side. As a solo gamer I acknowledge that gameplay will never be as challenging as a live opponent, so I solo game to try out tactics or strategies, refine lists or decks, or to create an interesting or amusing narrative.

So, how is PAMB programmed? Basically it is a simple rule-based system with priorities identified for each unit type and general actions to take if the unit-based ones do not apply. The first system is for programming the natives, but includes a second system for programming the Imperial forces. Here is a small sampling, to give you an idea. (But not all. You should buy the book.)

1. I like my shooting units to find cover and stay there. Failing that, I like them to advance to short range and fire, avoiding melee.
2. I like my melee units to advance quickly into contact, towards the closest enemy they can see, except as noted in rule 3.
3. ...

Pretty simple, but descriptive enough for the player to reasonably determine what should be done when it comes time to act with a unit. Note, however, that the rules are not written in order of precedence (as indicated by rule 2 stating there is an exception in rule 3). So you have to read through all of the rules to see which one makes the most sense.

As stated previously, PAMB also has rules that modify the TMWWBK rules, such as randomly appearing native units (similar to the Two Hour Wargames' PEF concept), native action modifiers (which include the unit leaving the table), and recycling native units.

My dream has always been for solo gamers to be able to 'trade' programmed opponents. My schemes have always been too complex - essentially requiring other gamers to have computer programming skills to define the rules - and I can see that PAMB's method is a good start towards codifying such rules for programmed opponents. The one change I would make is that rules have to be in order of precedence and that when you hit a rule that applies, you stop evaluating the rules.

I still think that generic opponents would be harder to create than ones for a specific scenario for a specific time period. Maybe that will be my next project.