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Age of Rifles is about structure. In the "big picture" sense of structure, we have the trappings of any wargame: command, supply, combined arms, yadda, yadda, yadda. We all know how to fit armies together. But in the "little picture" sense of structure, Rifles is unique in highlighting the importance of a unit's formation. To paraphrase the three rules of real estate, there are three rules of unit management in the game: formation, formation, formation. The units do not have static values for attack strength or movement. These values are dynamic, and they vary drastically according to the unit's formation. The key to using your forces well is understanding the different formations, and choosing the right one for any given situation. Following is a discussion of the different formations, as well as aspects of the game highlighted by particular formations.

Disordered formation

The term "disordered" may be something of a misnomer. "Relaxed" might be a better term. When green Union armies marched to 1st Manassas to contest the Rebels there, their formations would bottle up and come to a halt at bridges and narrow roads. If they stopped for any length of time, men would get bored and wander off in the hot July sun, looking for water and picking blackberries. This illustrates perfectly the nature of a disordered formation: a soldier in the shade with a pocket full of berries may not be primed for action, but he's probably pretty content.

A disordered unit will do whatever is most convenient at that moment. Disordered troops will use roads for efficient movement, they'll take cover inside towns and forests and trenches, or they'll rest to recover vitality to maximum effect. The name might lead some players to believe that a unit should never be disordered, but this isn't the case. A winded unit which is low on vitality and not likely to come under fire will recover fastest in disordered formation (the healing power of blackberries at work). If a unit has run out of movement points and encounters a situation while it's in a particularly disadvantageous formation (e.g. stumbling into mounted cavalry while you're in column formation, a time-honored no-no), you can always revert to disordered formation, as it costs no movement points. If a unit is ever about to take fire from the rear and you can't spare the movement points to turn around and react with counter fire, revert to disordered formation: there's no firing arc, and it won't rob you of movement points. An added advantage is that a unit in this formation won't suffer the penalties of undergoing a flank or rear attack; there's no rear or flank on a disordered unit.

Marching Column and Attack Column formations

While marching columns are abysmal for any kind of combat situation, you can't beat their mobility. The only formations which enjoy the advantage of roads in rough terrain are disordered and march column (roads in clear terrain don't make a difference for most units). Another benefit of this highly mobile formation comes from the way initiative is determined between turns. Each command has an agility rating listed on the overview in the Info menu. This rating is a measurement of the command's overall mobility: units in march column poised to move as opposed to units spread out in line formation; units near a road as opposed to units wading through a marsh; well-rested units vs. exhausted units. The side with the higher overall agility will win initiative for the turn (assuming the Variable Initiative option is enabled), giving it first crack at the opponent.

If your unit doesn't have the training (650r better) to assume a square formation, an attack column is the best way to maximize its melee strength. It's also a more cautious way to travel through unscouted terrain, far safer than lining up in march column like so many bowling pins. Although both column formations are vulnerable to gunfire, attack columns offer slightly better protection and, more importantly, they can send out skirmishers, dramatically increasing the unit's protection from firepower. Attack columns also have the same mobility as a disordered unit, which is second only to march columns.

Line and Supported Line formations

These formations are obviously best suited for units which find themselves on the business end of any kind of firearm, whether it's a musket or a twelve pounder. They are also the best way to bring as many men as possible forward to point their guns back at the enemy. To understand the efficiency of line formations, the concept of frontage is crucial. A unit only has so much room for men to fan out and aim their weapons while still maintaining integrity. The number of troops that can shoot at the enemy is called "frontage."

The maximum frontage a unit can achieve is a function of 1) the scenario's scale, 2) whether skirmishers are deployed, and 3) if skirmishers aren't deployed, what formation the unit is in. If skirmishers are deployed, then a unit uses skirmisher frontage, plain and simple. If skirmishers aren't deployed, then a unit has reduced protection from fire, but it enjoys parade ground frontage (modified by the formation modifier), which determines how many weapons can be brought to bear (see Frontage Tables).

Note that if two units share a hex, the final frontage figures are halved for each unit. All fire directed at a hex also applies to all units in that hex. So unless you have smaller units which can afford to share frontage and casualties, it's generally a good idea to avoid stacking.

A unit's fire strength and melee strength are basically determined by multiplying a unit's frontage by its capability (fire strength factors in the lethality of the unit's weapons, while melee strength factors in a modifier for how well-suited the unit's formation is to melee). Therefore, since line formations maximize frontage, they give units the strongest fire strength. A unit requires a training level of 500r greater to assume full line formation.
Square and Defensive formations

Square formation is the best option for a unit engaged in melee, but with the high training requirement, many units will have to settle for attack columns. Defensive formations are the all-around best situation for a unit if a) it doesn't have to move and b) it happens to be in the same hex as a town, a redoubt, trenches, or breastworks. The essentially defensive nature of both these formations call for an understanding of the way Rifles handles reaction fire.

The important thing to remember is that a unit cannot perform reaction fire unless it has movement points available. If you're the first player in a turn, don't use all your movement points: a "volley" of reaction fire requires half of your unit's full movement point potential. Although this should allow a fully rested and unmoved unit to fire twice in a turn, there seems to be a one volley limit placed on units (references in the manual to four volleys of reaction fire notwithstanding). Note also that the maximum range for reaction fire is 400 yards (which works fine when you're talking about Zachary Taylor's men and their muskets in the Mexican-American War, but I seriously doubt a battery of British artillery would politely wait for 3000 Zulu warriors to get within 400 yards before opening fire). It seems that during the game's development period, SSI toned down the original reaction fire routine and gave us the more traditional "I-move-and- fire-then-you- move-and-fire" dance. By limiting the amount and range of reaction fire, SSI may have made the game friendlier to newcomers, but they've taken a crucial element of unit management out of our hands and ultimately made things far less suspenseful.

Thankfully, the original code for reaction fire is still written into the game. By using the command line switch "reactions+" (start the game by typing "rifles reactions+" from a DOS prompt), the full reaction fire scheme is restored. The ranges for reaction fire are now greater, and each volley only requires a quarter of a unit's full movement point potential (although I have yet to see a unit fire more than two volleys of reaction fire). Now you'll have greater control over when and how units will react. This opens up a whole new level of ammo management, as units are liable to fire much more often. The player who puts all his units in line formation and gives them free reign to fire at the slightest provocation will soon find himself with unsupplied troops, who may as well throw rocks. Artillery is also now much more capable of defending itself: it can attack multiple units approaching its position from further ranges, making assaults on artillery positions risky propositions indeed.

Rifles is ultimately like chess, because the side with the more efficient structure will prevail. What this boils down to is having your troops in the right place at the right time and, perhaps most importantly, in the right formation.
Check out this chart of modifiers...

FRONTAGE TABLES
Skirmisher Frontage
100 yard scale
200 yard scale
400 yard scale

Parade Ground Frontage
100 yard scale
200 yard scale
400 yard scale

Formation Modifier
Defensive or Line Formation
Square or Supported Line
Attack Column
Disordered or March Column

MOVEMENT COSTS
Base costs
Marching Columns
Disordered or Attack Columns
Line or Supported Line
Square

Cumulative modifiers
Unit "taking cover" and/or
with skirmishers deployed

Soft ground or heavy rain
Rocks, mud, sand, field
or woods
Fence, wall, or trench
Berm
Abatis, redoubt, or compound
Marsh
Fordable stream
Bridged stream
Elevation change
Escarpment w/elev. change
Hex on fire
Night
Unit includes crewed weapon
Unit includes heavy weapon
Stream w/heavy weapon

Mounted units
As above, except:
Abatis, redoubt, or compound
Rocks, mud, sand, or field
Elevation change
Fence, wall, or trench

Road movement
Marching column
Disordered
Another unit in hex

space
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100 troops
200 troops
400 troops

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250 troops
500 troops
1000 troops

space
all troops
troops/2
troops/4
troops/8

space
space
1/hex
2/hex
3/hex
5/hex

space
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+1

+1
space
+1
+1
+1
+1
+2
+2
+2
+1
X
X
+1
+1
+1
X

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+2
+2
+2
1/3 full movement points

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1/hex
2/hex
+1

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Page Updated Mon Feb 28, 2000 8:25pm EST