[Consim-l] Fatigue (was At All Hazards... part 2)

[Markus Stumptner]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2007, Mircea Pauca wrote:
>    Very interesting ! Again, I wonder how ergonomic
> this whole fatigue-marking and taking into decisions is.

I had no problem with it. It works because the game is at divisional 
level, so there is not a lot of units to keep track of, and the chit-based 
activation means you only have to deal with them by corps.  It also speeds 
up play because fatigue often means you're just not going to go after that 
additional attack.  Due to the semi-operational scale you are moving and 
handling fewer units than even with something simple such as Blue & Gray 
or Napoleon at War. It' also that property which makes multi-days 
scenarios really playable (which is again where carrying over fatigue and 
supply becomes more important).

> It would be great if Fatigue were marked visually linked
> to the map - e.g. add-on markers on each Corps HQ counter...

Well, fatigue is tracked by the individual division, so each counter in 
the game would have to carry a marker.  Also, the unit strengths are 
actually visible and the main fog of war in the game comes from not 
knowing how good their standing is in terms of fatigue, supply, and 
stragglers (which are kept track of on tracks).  Keeping that information 
offmap is therefore a good thing. You don't want the other side to know.

My experience is that pretty much every game that has tracks that record 
information for individual units (whether using markers, as here, or with 
pencils) could also be played with numerical markers under the stacks 
instead.  It depends on personal preference, and I am firmly in the camp 
that wants less marker fumbling overall, which here means that the tracks 
are good.

It depends upon degree, of course... I recently played Borodino 1941 by 
Clash of Arms and that was a game where ticking off boxes on a roster 
sheet for lots of small units cross-attached to every regiment was a major 
pain.  Conversely, Command's Budapest '45 and Rommel at Gazala game, with 
fewer units but lots of steps, made great use of roster sheets. Another 
example is keeping track of losses by using individual replacement 
counters for each unit.  That works fine for the Eagles of the Empire 
Napoleonic system (which is also divisional), but it was a painful 
shuffling and counter searching process for 1914: Glory's End in Command 
Magazine.

In this system, although I've made less mention of it, supply and 
stragglers are also recorded on the track (they don't change that much 
since they're not so finely graded), so markers on the map would be fairly 
inconvenient.

>    Are there other games too with Fatigue or a similar concept
> recorded at a higher time scale ? Say days for weeks-long
> operations, not like here, hours for days-long battles...
>    It would strike me as very dubious that '80's NATO
> envisioned weeks of extremely hard day-and-night combat
> without thinking how or managing when soldiers could sleep...
> or should there be Amphetamine and Soporific rules ? ;-)

I think most games at the next higher level up already assume that there 
need to be rest periods and incorporate them into the pace of the game. 
(Zucker's Napoleon at Bay series, which has 2-day turns, gives you higher 
straggler losses the faster you march your troops.)  It's mostly at the 
grand tactical or low operational level where explicit tracking makes the 
most sense - these systems have to capture the fact that an army can carry 
on over the day (because that's the span of a normal game) but eventually 
significantly degrades.

The Gamers' CWB series (brigade level ACW tactical) is a good example - 
these cover battles of 1-3 days normally, but for the Seven Days campaign, 
special fatigue rules were introduced. (And some hard core fans now use 
these rules for all multi-day battles.) The other tactical example I can 
think of was Avalon Hill's Gettysburg 77 Advanced Game (a monstrous pile 
of rules but it was very good at representing the effect that a fresh 
unit, even rather green, could often sweep back a tired veteran unit that 
had just conducted a successful assault).

As Bruce points out, "lulls" at operational or strategic level often have 
to do with supply or replacement troop constraints.

I have only pushed a few counters in the Central Front series that Bruce 
described, but they have this notion of friction which includes fatigue 
and general loss of control over time.  Another game is SPI's Nato 
Division Commander, which was groundbreaking in a number of areas (it's 
the first operational game that I know where units have multiple tactical 
modes) but was quite fiddly.

>    Even the moderately simple Breakout: Normandy has limited
> supply to make units Fresh again, and limited overall impulses.
> So often, if Americans make an all-out effort, the next day they
> have to operate much less and let the British 'work' more...

Yes, one could argue that these effects represent fatigue to some degree 
(as well as ammunition supply and being disorganised after combat).

Markus

Last 3 games played: Air & Armor, At All Hazards, Gates of Richmond
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