HANNIBAL: THE SECOND PUNIC WAR A REPLY TO GARY HLADIK by Keith R. Schlesinger ================================= 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. --------------- 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. ----------- 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!