HANNIBAL: THE SECOND PUNIC WAR
A REPLY TO GARY HLADIK
by Keith R. Schlesinger
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Gary Hladik's extensive critique and revisions of HANNIBAL: THE
SECOND PUNIC WAR (Strategy & Tactics # 141, March 1991) published
in SIMULATIONS ONLINE #4 deserves the close attention of every
serious student of ancient history and simulation hobbyist. While
I do not agree with all of Hladik's arguments and rules revisions,
there is definitely a great deal worth preserving and testing.
Back in May I posted my own "Tournament Rules" for HANNIBAL on the
GEnie Games Roundtable software library (library #7, file 3177),
along with the official errata file from which formed the basis for
the errata sheet published by Decision Games. I regret Hladik found
some of the errata unhelpful and even "pesky," and this article will
provide some commentary on his criticisms. Despite these occasional
disagreements, I find that much of Hladik's and my work blends
together quite well. The result could be a very thorough and
satisfying Tournament version, if the two of us can arrive at a
meeting of the minds. Others are welcome to make further suggestions
as well. My GEnie address is K.SCHLESING1.
I believe HANNIBAL has attracted such extensive revisions from
Hladik, at least one other GEnie gamer whose e-mail I have lost
track of, and myself not because it is a bad game, but because it is
a good, simple game that readily lends itself to additions and
changes. Nothing could be more inviting to those with ideas and
theories about ancient warfare they wish to put to the test. From
the player's point of view, much can be added without turning the
game into an unplayable "monster." You can really "dress up"
HANNIBAL because the basic movement and combat systems are nicely
abstracted and essentially straightforward. I agree with Hladik's
assessment that it will take some time and effort to "wade through"
the large number of changes that must make up any significant
revision of the game. If these changes are carefully weighed
against playability as well as historical realism, the results should
be well worth the effort.
Hladik wisely provides a list of criticisms near the beginning of
his article. These seven criticisms are briefly summarized as
follows:
1) Single Diplomacy Phase causes play imbalance
2) Diplomatic Tables not sufficiently responsive
to current game conditions
3) Too much activity in a single turn, without
any opponent interception/reaction on land
4) Battle Board combat needs to be more simultaneous
5) Retreat Before Combat is too unlikely, especially
for the Romans
6) Promotions come too easily, particularly
from Siege Assault, which in turn allows
too many units to enter play too quickly
7) Attrition is too severe, especially for armies
in Mountain Passes and fleets at sea.
With the partial exception of the last point, I would agree with all
of Hladik's basic concerns and assumptions. He has hit the
proverbial nail on the head practically every time. The next obvious
step is how to construct rules to cover the needed changes. I will
cover Hladik's proposals point by point, with references to my own
Tournament Rules as needed.
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3.3 Set-up -- The idea of placing so many Roman units in play in type
II cities at the start goes against Hladik's reasonable
concern that there will be too many units in play too early in the
game. Besides, he already wants to toughen the intrinsic city
garrisons to make them very hard to crack. I would avoid this change
in the set-up, although it would be worthwhile examining as an
alternative scenario that saw Rome fully mobilized and prepared for
Hannibal.
3.4 Set-up -- So how many elephants did Hannibal have really? The
numbers are in dispute, but in game terms giving him
two elephant units seems reasonable. Starting at Saguntum still
seems reasonable, given the year-long turn length.
3.5 Neutrals -- Setting up Macedon and Syracuse as fully armed
neutrals not requiring recruitment in the early going
seems very reasonable.
6.0 Diplomacy -- Hladik provides an extensive and sensible
replacement for the standard game system that
eliminates the structural bias of Carthage always reacting to events
before Rome each turn, and provides die roll modifiers in place of
multiple tables. I highly recommend the revision, especially for
solitaire play. For those seeking greater control over diplomacy,
try the bidding system in my own Tournament Rules, 31.0 (Diplomacy &
Politics). Either way, the results will be more realistic and more
interesting.
8.2 Action Point Costs -- I, too, was tempted to create the kind of
complicated table Hladik does. I gave up
most of it, because in a year long turn things like foraging and
battles would be factored into movement costs. I still think Siege
Assault should cost 3 APs, not 1 or 2 as Hladik does; even minor
sieges were costly, time-consuming affairs. Variable AP costs for
Blockading different size cities makes sense, and I would add that
to my short list of AP costs in Tournament Rules, 33.0 (New Action
Point Costs).
8.4 SPQR -- Hladik's most elegant new rule, and certainly one of the
most important for providing historicity and more
excitement on the Battle Board. The choice of leader should be left
entirely up to the Roman player, however. (The people may clamor,
but it is the Senate that must decide!) If the leader fails to
fulfill the conditions of SPQR for any reason, Rome must keep
choosing leaders until one is found who can do so, or until all
leaders in play have given it their "best shot" during the Action
Segment.
12.1 Land Combat Battles -- Hladik identifies the problem of leaders
being able to do too much too easily, but
offers no solution beyond creating a long list of expensive Actions.
My Tournament Rules 37.0 (Interception) offer a system that limits
the ability of an active leader to have combat. Hladik's thinking
convinces me that enemy leaders in adjacent spaces connected by
roads and overland should also have a chance to intercept a moving
leader. Friendly leaders in the same space as the enemy leader would
in turn check to see if they could join adjacent friendly leader
being intercepted. Any enemy units still in the space would have to
retreat or be defeated before this could occur. The rules could get
quite complex, but would create a much more interactive game with
considerably more decision making by both players. The key would be
to have every leader use the same Interception Table and procedure,
but with different die roll modifiers.
13.3 Retreat Before Combat -- The real solution Hladik seeks involves
the famous Roman army camps, to which
cautious fellows like Fabius could count on retreating when things
got hot. Instead of additional numerical calculations, allow a
Roman Army to encamp automatically unless the dreaded SPQR takes
effect. See my Tournament Rules, 42.0 (Roman Army Camps).
13.3 Retreat Before Combat -- Retreat paths should be kept pretty
much as is. Units that cannot or will
not enter a city should be free to go to an adjacent area, but that
area should not be enemy-controlled. The reason for this is that an
army whose preferred line of communication had been cut would
generally have to fight to restore it. The Retreat by Sea found in
the errata is accurate for the game scale, since units must enter a
friendly-controlled city/Naval Base and embark on ships in order to
perform the retreat. The garrison would provide the necessary
"cover" for such a retreat.
13.7 Melee -- The idea of alternating units is both cumbersome and
gives too little weight to Tactical Superiority.
However, Hladik's concern about the overly rigid combat procedure
is valid. I suggest the following: Determine Tactical Superiority
(TS) normally, per my Tournament Rules 44.0. Subtract the TS
commander's Battle Factor from the opponent commander's Battle
Factor. The result is the number of zones per round in which the
TS side's units attack first, before the opponent's (always a minimum
of one zone, regardless of the outcome). Players should note this
number down. The TS player can select a zone prior to combat
resolution in that zone. Unused options are not carried over from
round to round. In all zones not selected for TS, combat is
considered simultaneous, although all attackers always fight first
followed by all defenders. Units that become disorganized but have
not yet attacked during a round are moved below the bottom edge of
the position they occupy in a box to indicate that they are still
eligible to attack during the round.
13.11 Rally -- good ideas for distinguishing between leader
capabilities in this vital area.
13.12 Flight -- Giving cavalry immunity from attacks by infantry or
elephants makes sense, given the relative speed of
fleeing cavalry. Modifying flight to take into account pursuer's
exhaustion is a good idea, but the same +1 modifier should be added
to the pursuer's die roll for each organized cavalry unit on the
Battle Board. A fleeing leader's position on the battlefield at
the moment of flight ought to influence his chances for survival.
There were many instances where leaders died while thousands of
troops escaped destruction. See my Tournament Rules, 38.0 (Leader
Battle Casualties).
13.14 Draw -- Let the battle go the standard 10 rounds, or end by
mutual player consent after five or more rounds.
14.1 Siege Assault -- Hladik's idea for strengthening the intrinsic
garrisons makes sense, but only if the same
special benefits are not available to units located in cities. That
would render Siege Assault virtually impossible under any
circumstances, and would actually encourage players to tie up their
mobile forces in cities. Better to assume that the garrisons now
"fill up" the city's defenses. Units inside a city have NO EFFECT on
Siege Assault, and suffer elimination if the garrison is eliminated.
Units have the option to sortie (move outside the city) prior to or
at any point during the Siege Assault, and fight a Battle with all
enemy units located in the space. The enemy has the option to
retreat before combat.
14.2 Siege Assault -- restricting it to infantry makes sense.
15.3 (e) Call it a Slaughter(!), but 10 or more units eliminated
deserves to be counted as two Major Victories if the 3:1
minimum ratio between defender and attacker losses is also
maintained.
15.5 Promotion: (c) Keeping track of which units eliminated an enemy
unit is too much trouble. Instead, if ANY
opposing unit is eliminated in Siege Assault, one
friendly infantry unit (only) is promoted.
16.0 Naval Combat (and 27.0 Attrition) -- There is a real need for
strong differentiation
between coastal and sea environments for naval movement,
interception, and attrition. Hladik only begins to scratch the
surface of these matters, and for the most part reinforces the
problems of the existing standard game. My Tournament Rules, 35.0
- 37.0 (Naval Mobility, Coastal Movement, Interception) and 46.0
(Naval Attrition) add a good deal of complexity, but provide some
sense of the possibilities and risks involved at sea.
18.3 Recruitment on the March -- keeping track of recruiting limits
would take markers or bookkeeping,
but otherwise it is a good idea.
19.0 Promotion on the March -- Limiting this to Roman infantry and
Carthaginian cavalry, with no
allies
permitted, makes sense based on qualitative differences.
20.3 Syracusa should remain inviolate, but there ought to be an
overland (green) line between Panormos and Messana.
21.4 Victory -- No VPs for Major Victories ignores the (limited)
psychological dimension of the conflict. Not everything came
down to physical occupation! As for the Victory levels, both
the numbers and the explanations of the standard game are
basically sound.
24.1 I believe that the bidirectional siegeworks came later. Caesar
used them at Alesia, of course, but I suspect the practice was
not nearly as common as suggested here. In any case, it is a
rule that could safely be left out.
26.1 Siege Assault -- Infantry only (ignore all other unit types)
makes sense.
26.2 Land Units in Naval Combat -- Instead of Hladik's overly
involved sub-system, try the Roman
Boarding Parties rule in my Tournament Rules, 45.0.
26.3 Leaders could have a major impact on a segment of a naval
battle; leave the standard rule as is.
27.0 Attrition -- This is one of the few major areas where I part
company pretty much completely with Hladik. His concern about
forage is legitimate, but is essentially factored into the
current attrition procedure that requires forces in non-city
and enemy city spaces to check for losses. The losses represent
troops that could not forage and wandered off, were disbanded,
etc. Mountain passes were not usually threats to a large army's
existence, but that did not mean there were not non-combat
related losses. Hladik's complicated attrition tables seem out
of proportion to the problem. A simpler solution would be to
exclude Veteran units when determining attrition losses until
only Veterans are left in a checking force (Tournament Rules,
47.0, Veterans & Land Attrition). Another change could involve
demoting units from Veteran to Regular or Regular to Recruit
when assessing attrition in a Mountain Pass. Recruits would
still suffer outright elimination from attrition in all
instances.
28.2 Blockaded cities (i.e. cities in areas containing an enemy
force with a Blockade marker on it) should not be allowed to
recruit under any circumstances, so the complicated rule
revision provided here is unnecessary.
28.4 Complete surrender of a blockaded city was possible, especially
due to treachery or diplomacy. Leave this rule in the game.
28.5 Naval Bases with friendly fleets should indeed be immune. See
also my Tournament Rules, 48.0 (Coastal Blockade).
30.0 Syracusa garrison's die roll modifier when subject to Siege
Assault remains at +2 (not -2), I assume.
Terrain -- Tarentum in place of Crotona as a Naval Base makes sense.
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There are some areas that Gary Hladik did not cover in his revision
that are contained in my Tournament rules. These include Variable
Roman Leader Elections (32.0); Command Hierarchy (34.0; i.e. picking
up and dropping off leaders); Infantry Flanking (39.0) and Cavalry
Unreliability (40.0) on the Battle Board; and Treasuries and Finance
(49.0). All of these could be merged into a consolidated set of
Tournment Rules, drawing on the best aspects of Hladik's work, my
work, plus any others willing to contribute the time and energy. I
am willing to serve as editor. All the rest of you need to do is
make submissions to K.SCHLESING1 and review the project as it
progresses.
What happens next is up to Gary Hladik and the readers of
SIMULATIONS ONLINE!