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Morale falls under Command and Control, does it not?

It seems like morale and C&C would be relevant even to pre modern skirmish shenanigans; lets say we have a game where some heroesque warrior/wizard/whatever leads a band to explore, rescue, loot, etc. as appropriate. It seems that while balancing the needs of using Sir Errol to swashbuckler with villains with the needs of keeping ye olde recruited mercenaries from running away would be a legitimate issue. Likewise, the black clad kingsmen will probably start high tailing once a few go down unless sufficiently "motivated" by Sheriff Cruelingsmirk. And that's before the literal monsters show up! Red tabard grunt #4 might not be overly eager to close in with the dread Rabbit of Caerbannog.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Morale falls under Command and Control, does it not?

IMO it is a part of C3 but in some ways it's not a function but a result of C3.

What I mean is that C3 lets you find out an enemy tank unit is approaching from the east. You decide to alert your AT units on that flank to expect an attack, and support them with unit Y of infantry. Then you send out signals to accomplish this.

Hopefully, as a result of your careful preparations, the AT units will feel well informed and supported and this will cause them to have good morale. and they will more easily resist the attack.

But you can't simply order a unit to have good morale or send it a new supply of morale, you have to influence it. Sometimes that influencing can be done directly by a commander visiting the unit to buck it up.

That's what I mean and why I think it would be wrong to focus on Morale while ignoring other aspects of C3.

Flip side of the coin, IMO. If Morale has an effect, it is expressed via C3.

All of this could be expressed in the rules section dealing with C3 and morale. You would see a morale reaction via C3 and have to try to use C3 to do something about it.

E.g. you see cavalry threatening your infantry who are starting to fall back in response, so you order your own cavalry to counter-charge the enemy units. This will hopefully relieve the pressure on your infantry and give them time to re-order their formation.

Does the order get through in time?
Do the cavalry charge the right enemy?
Do your infantry recognise the difference between friendly and enemy cavalry?
Do your cavalry beat the enemy or get thrown back in disorder?
Do your cavalry pursue too far, get blown and then disastrously counter-attacked in their turn?
What is the effect of this on your infantry?

So basically you want to look a C3 as the way the game development includes these elements?

EG
Strategic command choices.
Force Composition and deployment.

Tactical command choices.
Orders given to units, or the action sets the units may take.

Units battlefield effectiveness
Units tactical reactions to enemy actions.

Strategic command choices
Force Composition and deployment.

Tactical command choices.
Orders given to units, or the action sets the units may take.

Units battlefield effectiveness
Units tactical reactions to enemy actions.

I don't think strategic choices come under battlefield C3 which is what we normally are depicting in a tabletop game. I think there is fun in selecting forces but the super-wide selection system found in modern 40K IMO spoils the game as a tactical game. The win/loss ratio is too biased by prior army list building. This is GW's fault, of course, and I would't have a problem with it if the choices were less wide-open. Many war-games allow a degree of choice within limits and this seems to work okay, so does a random choice or a set scenario without a choice. Strategic choices make a lot more sense in the context of an ongoing campaign.

Deployment of course is an important element because it defines the relative positions of units before the start of the battle, and this will nearly always have an important effect on the outcome. Deployment is a tactical decision.

Tactical Command Choices are what it's all about, in my view. When you play a tabletop game, the mechanics of movement and combat (dice-rolling and so on) are things you have to do to find out the results of your tactical choices, not particularly enjoyable in themselves. That said, a lot of people do enjoy rolling dice to see what happens, and I would never claim that there is only one best way to write a game.

The problem with command choices IRL is that they don't happen automatically, and I think games are more interesting if your ability as a commander is restricted by things like fog of war and difficulty in transmitting orders.

Unit's tactical reactions.
This is where it gets tricky. It isn't the top level commander's job to tell a unit being charged that it should counter-charge, form square, retreat, or fire canister shot (as appropriate for the period and unit type, etc.) These points come into the mechanics of resolution.

The unit's reaction may be affected by morale, which in turn may be influenced by the top level commander through the deployment and tactical orders he has previously given and of course the local tactical situation.

So the player should be able to influence this in the same way as he can influence the result of movement and combat by placing the right units in the correct deployment, and so on, but he doesn't have direct control.

This is where my "simulationist" leanings come into competition with JohnHwangDD's "gamerist" leanings since he is correct that players often like to control what happens.

The solution of course is to have a wide spectrum of rules mechanisms that can be selected and rejected to put together a game system that works the way you want it to.

@Kilkrazy.
I was referring to the more general ability of players to chose the 'reliability ' of units in force selection.
Some players want more 'elite' reliable units, that can be depended upon, where as other prefer less reliable units ,but have the quality of quantity instead.

As the general distribution of reliability of units in the force and their relative deployment position, does impact the tactical decisions.
I agree this is not a major factor , but it is worth considering in the general discussion perhaps?

I agree that tactical command choices are where the meat and potatoes of the tactical game play is generated.These choices should be intuitive and part of the fabric of the game play.
Just half a dozen orders/action sets can generate quite a lot of tactical depth..

The units tactical reactions , are more varied in modern games where units tactical actions are determined by the unit leader.The general strategic orders, of ' assault /support/defend.'Leave the exact actions to get the order completed open to interpretation of the unit leader.

The units reaction to facing strong head on opposition, or threat of being out flanked ,would be to alter their line of advance /position of defense, for example

Its not just about 'morale', as some form of separate process IMO.
BTW I tend to prefer 'straightforward simulation' to 'complicated gamey rules' too..

I agree that in some games the player can choose or design a force with all elite units, or lots of cheap units for the same cost (or mix as desired.)

If C3 is a part of the game rules, then the elite units should have better C3 and morale factors, for example the elites might receive and execute orders more reliably. This advantage should be factored into the cost of recruiting them.

@Kilkrazy.
That is the thing , C3 elements can be woven into the core rules in an unobtrusive way.If the implementation is intuitive,(simulation,)some times the players are using them without really thinking about it .

BTW, my definition of simulation rules are rules that may abstract the resolution to speed up play/streamline the process.But do not abstract the results .

 Kilkrazy wrote:
This is where my "simulationist" leanings come into competition with JohnHwangDD's "gamerist" leanings since he is correct that players often like to control what happens.

The solution of course is to have a wide spectrum of rules mechanisms that can be selected and rejected to put together a game system that works the way you want it to.

I would suggest that I am simply doing a better job of simulating the elements that really matter from a gaming perspective.

Indeed. The rules should fit the game. For a small futures squad-level skrimish, C3 is different from an ancients armies battle.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
This is where my "simulationist" leanings come into competition with JohnHwangDD's "gamerist" leanings since he is correct that players often like to control what happens.

The solution of course is to have a wide spectrum of rules mechanisms that can be selected and rejected to put together a game system that works the way you want it to.

I would suggest that I am simply doing a better job of simulating the elements that really matter from a gaming perspective.

Indeed. The rules should fit the game. For a small futures squad-level skrimish, C3 is different from an ancients armies battle.

I am sure you're right. The games I've played in that genre -- Star Soldier, Ultrawarrior, Starship Troopers (Avalon Hill), Outpost Gamma, Laser Burn, Battlesuit, Battletech, some Aliens game I cant remember the name of, and WH40K -- pretty much ignore C3.

40k is not a small skirmish, and it does a terrible job of managing C3.

Well a medium size skirmish if you will, and it manages C3 basically by ignoring it.

There used to be a Leadership test to shoot at a target further away from the nearest. I think that's gone.

I think most people class 40k as a battle game now.(As some of the the armies used in 7th ed 40k, are bigger than those I use in Epic Space Marine !)

I totally agree 40k rules are rubbish at representing C3 in the game.
'Here are the rules that apply to C3/ morale in WHFB, they do not work in 40k so here are loads more rules to ignore them!

I have always said the minatures and army composition inspire the players to think the game should work in a certain way.
Rules that follow these expectations are intuitive, easy to learn and are the best to generate the inferred /intended game play.

There used to be tactical command decisions in the movement phase.(Before movement migrated to the other phases.)
There used to be elements of tactical maneuver, before they upped the model count to remove it.

I agree that C3 needs to be scaled to the size and scope of the wargame.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well a medium size skirmish if you will, and it manages C3 basically by ignoring it.

There used to be a Leadership test to shoot at a target further away from the nearest. I think that's gone.

That hasn't been a thing since 4th edition.

For how big 40k has gotten, it would suck if they carried Fear tests over from Fantasy...

Fear was introduced back into 40k 6th edition after being abandoned in 3rd edition. It's ignored by units with Fearless and And They Shall Know No Fear, so people tend to forget it exists.

Extra penalties for the few non-Fearless / No Fear units that hit the board is not a good thing.

Maybe. Harlequins do it to some degree and they're quite an interesting army on the tabletop.

I am one of the weird players who does not always want my little toy men to do exactly what i want them to do when i ask them too.

I think the time period and scale of the game has to be a key feature when deciding on how to model Command and Control. More primitive games need more "friction" for giving and receiving orders than more "modern" games.

To be honest, I quite like Bolt Action. Your command and control is absolute for 'normal circumstances' - you don't have the Warmaster/Black Powder syndrome of leaning over the table, gesturing at the other side of the board, yelling "the bloody enemy is over that way!!!" after failing a command check for the third time in a row.*

That does feel right for medieval and/or large scale games, but as noted, no-one wants their troops to spend the battle sitting there like lemons.

'Pin markers' coming into play as you come under fire and as you take casualties does feel right - you're never making 'a leadership check' and never 'fleeing' per se, but a unit currently in cover and being shot at by three separate enemy units' automatic weapons should have trouble returning aimed fire effectively.

Bolt Action pin markers don't prevent you doing anything, but do make it harder to do everything you wanted them to do. Penalties to hit as you take lots of incoming fire, and being made to chose between moving and shooting instead of doing both, are fair enough.

* Or is that just me?