New Rules Introduced in Seven Days of 1809

[kzucker]

In addition to numerous slight changes throughout the rules, here are the rules sections that are new or completely revised in the new game:
Line of Sight 1.51
Thunderstorm Game-Turn
Ad Hoc 5.17
Archduke Charles 5.4
Recovery 6.13
March Orders 7.4
Applying Combat Results 11.4
Tracing Supply Lines 14.1
Corps Baggage Train units 14.22
Baggage Trains 14.3
Fortified Towns 14.4
Terrain Effects on Combined Arms 16.12
Heavy Cavalry 16.3
Mixed Unit Type 16.4
Brigade Breakdown Units 16.5

[Jason Roach]

Just a note, I think the Heavy Cav rules are an easy and fun aspect of the game. It is great to see a simple twist that gives the players some extra tools and options, without creating a ton more rules.

-Jason

[kzucker]

Hi!
Download the finished rules to the game http://www.napoleongames.com/Rules/7D09%20Rules_3.27.pdf

(The cover isn't included.)

I hope you will find them of interest. I invite comments and questions on the rules (give paragraph references to help me answer more quickly).

[kzucker]

Starting with the rules to 1806, my first task was to reduce the rules to the bones—for one example, I removed the word "thus" every time it appears, as it is useless. In this way, I was able to reduce the length of the rules by three and a half pages overall.

A player may have to read some rules again and again, in order to comprehend exactly what he should do in a given circumstance. I do not want to encumber this process by having three or four words to read over which add no meaning. So first, I wanted to make a rules set that was absolutely tight, in the sense that the efficiency of signal-to-noise ratio was as high as I could make it, and the rules were as brief as I could make them without a loss of clarity.

Then began the actual re-development of the game system. Now that this game system had been through several iterations, it was easier to "see" the game more clearly. Nothing lends clarity like having your ideas committed to print and placed inside a box. Suddenly everything looks a lot different from how you imagined it! This is why, on the first weekend after all the components of the game arrived here, I took a whole day to look at everything, to see it all again for the first time, and observe what came to my mind, and write that on the "highlights" page.

I guess we all want to look into the box and be able to "see" the game. And yet, until we actually play, all we can see are pieces — the game components. Once we play the game, and play it right the second time, and only then, do we see.