A sample of the Optio pregame

[Justin Swanton]

The pregame is used to determine terrain for the battlefield. It has fog of war and requires operational skill - essential for a real general before drones and satellites. It lasts between about 5 and 15 minutes.

Report here.

[dwkay57]

It is an interesting technique and for me beats the terra forming mechanisms as well as adding some extra command challenges.

I used a slightly modified version of them for my solo battles a couple of years back before going on to develop my own much more complicated pre-battle prelude mechanisms.

I recommend giving it a try and see what you think.

[Justin Swanton]

It is an interesting technique and for me beats the terra forming mechanisms as well as adding some extra command challenges.

I used a slightly modified version of them for my solo battles a couple of years back before going on to develop my own much more complicated pre-battle prelude mechanisms.

I recommend giving it a try and see what you think.

Tell me more about your complicated pre-battle prelude mechanisms. 👦

[dwkay57]

Oh no they cry  don't give the old duffer another chance to bore for England!

Essentially it takes your mechanism a step further back in time with the armies starting about 25-30 miles apart. Using the Martin Smith method, each commander chooses a march strategy. When the sides get within a reasonable distance (about 5 miles of each other), the dice then choose each sides "approach to battle" strategy and commands march forth ready for battle (i.e. without spare underwear, food rations etc). At some point, one commander will "decide" he is close enough and start deploying for battle. This marks the edge of the battlefield and play moves from the computer to the tabletop with commanders having the potential to revise their battlefield tactics based on what they now know.

Most of my battles since early 2025 have featured this and it is recorded in detail as "the Prelude" to the battles or in summary in the short reports on my website. You will see  where I started off by using your technique Justin.

[Justin Swanton]

Sounds interesting. So the player initially decides in which direction his army will go. After that everything is decided by the dice. Is that right?

[dwkay57]

Not quite Justin. Remember it is a solo battle so there is only one player (i.e. me acting on behalf of both generals). I did have an article - Solo Tactics - published in Slingshot a couple of years back which outlined the process at a "battle about to start" time. It is similar for this pre-battle jostling.

For General A I devise 3 or more strategies based on him knowing that General B is about 25 miles north-east to north-west of him. These could be something like: a) take all the army up the western route; b) take all the army up the eastern route; c) send a corps up the western route and everybody else up the eastern route with me. I will weight the strategies as to which I think General A would choose (e.g. option a) 1, option b) 2 or 3, option c) 4 or 5 or 6).

I will then do the same for General B.

I roll the dice for both generals simultaneously and set their armies off in accordance with the chosen strategies until they make contact usually via scouts and then sort of repeat the process but to a more "lets prepare for battle" thinking.

So the dice just helps to avoid second guessing.

[Jim Webster]

So the dice just helps to avoid second guessing.

I think that's one way in which an element of chance is needed. Technically it doesn't have to be dice, you could write the options on cards and draw cards randomly, but in all candour dice is quicker and easier and can give the same result 

[Martin Smith]

Using the Martin Smith method, each commander chooses a march strategy. When the sides get within a reasonable distance (about 5 miles of each other), the dice then choose each sides "approach".
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Flattered,😳, but NB I stole the idea from someone else- might have been William Silvester's solo wargaming book, or Joy of Wargaming's youtoobs.

Enjoying following this discussion, though 👍👍.