Campaign Map Movement

Campaign Map

The campaign was designed to be simple and easy to administer. This is particularly so for the map movement.

A corps can move one square per campaign move, or three squares per campaign day. Each square on the map represents one square on the wargames table. So one days march on the map is the same as the width of the wargames table. Nice and easy.

Movement is restricted to roads. This made sense when it was a solo campaign. But the change from solo to PBEM has resulted in a reasonable request from the players for off road movement Many dislike the road grid system, which makes movement very predictable. To be honest I agree, but it has to remain if the map is to represent the wargames table. And I am finding it difficult to devise a simple, yet effective, rule for off road movement.

Obviously off road movement would have to be slower than on roads. If one move off road were one square for a corps, then it would need to be two for a cavalry brigade. So far so good. But then road movement would have to be at least two squares per move for the corps, and three or four for cavalry. This would mean an increase from 15 miles per day for a corps to 30. And from 30 to 45 or 60 miles for cavalry. Worse still, it would effectively reduce the campaign area, as everyone would move around the map twice as quickly.

The present rate of 15 miles per day for infantry and artillery, and 30 for cavalry, is about right. Better still the one square per campaign move is very easy to keep track.

I would like to keep the present on road movement rate. So I am looking for a simple way to half it for off road movement. It would mean that a corps would move half a square per campaign move, which would require additional paper work to keep track of the half square moves.

The temperatures are too high at present for these complicated calculations, and they are not helped by the cold glass of beer, or two, required to get me through the hottest part of the day.