Bonaparte in Italy: Why a Redesign Now?

 

Since 1979 when the first edition of OSG's Bonaparte in Italy was published, knowledge about the campaign has increased exponentially. I didn't know much about the campaign when I started the first edition, so I got my introduction by relying on two great sources, the Elting-Esposito Atlas and Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon. The first thing I usually do, to begin a new project, is to write a short article for my own study, to help me understand the campaign and what the game has to do. A few important works on the campaign came out later, including Castiglione 1796, by Bernhard Voykowitsch (1998), The Road to Rivoli, by Martin Boycott-Brown (2001), and Napoleon in Italy, by Phillip R. Cuccia (2014). In addition, the French regimental histories lately became available for every regiment in the Army of Italy in an online archive.

More important than any historical source, however, was the help of Italian friends who participated in several tours over the battlefields of Piedmont, the Po Valley and the Dolomites. On these tours, I met Nicola Contardi, Sergio Laliscia, Nicola Prandoni, Enrico Acerbi, Alessandro Massignani, Riccardo Rinaldi (in red jacket), Paolo Scannapieco, Bernhard Voykowitsch, and many others, who were already steeped in the history and knew the battlefields from growing up in the vicinity. From them I learned the real story, far more than one could read in any book. Walking on the battlefields with them allowed for a kind of understanding of events that cannot be obtained by study. I conducted three tours in 1992, in 2000 and 2010; by then I knew my way around the hills and could navigate by memory.

 

However, the research reached a new level when it was time to start on Bonaparte in the Quad and Bonaparte Invades Piedmont (two TLNB titles). A strategic gloss was no longer adequate, for these battles were conducted at the regiment and brigade level. There are always new details to be discovered, and the focus on the regiments and even battalions for our latest research has given us a basis for a complete revision of Bonaparte in Italy: new counter mixes, new scenario information, and most importantly, new maps. The maps are in need of major revision; they won't be merely revised, but all new maps. Once we have up-to-date maps, then we will be able to transpose the voluminous research we have developed.

"As much as updated maps and revised scenarios would be most welcomed by the Old Guard, the inclusion of updated counters as was done with the NAB update would be even more excellent and would see people who don't own edition 1 or 2 purchase in my opinion." —Stephen Groves

Bonaparte in Italy was designed 46 years ago, when I did not have the design experience of over 30 titles. I have since learned that if you are going to make something very complicated, there better be a payoff for the player—either in fun or in terms of a tangible benefit moving Victory somewhat closer.

The original BiI had a lot of things that were very difficult conundrums that only told you what you could not do or set limitations that didn't help your chances for victory. This new edition will actually give new life to a design that probably doesn’t get played much anymore, by making the game much easier to play, yet without losing anything important.

"Just the idea to touch the NaB system leaves me astonished ...to get rid of Movement Commands and APs which are the basis of the system and of so many other games is impressive. But innovation springs from the very idea of getting rid of the old, working ideas. Chapeau!"—Nicola Contardi

APs and Forage Value are no longer part of the design. At different stages of the war the French and Austrians will use different columns which will abstractly represent the Admin Level. The length of the LOC won't play into it. You still have the LOC, but it is only for determining Supply and will run through Baggage trains (ported over from Days).

My main goal is to produce a game that people can play. I know that it is not uncommon for people to buy a game, open it once—do a private viewing, so to speak—and then never look at it again. That is why I migrated to the TLNB series 15 years ago. I love to hear from guys who have played Four Lost Battles 30 times! 

I want to produce games that get worn out from overuse; maps tearing along the folds, ink worn off the Napoleon counter. Not an unpunched game pristine in its grave.
OSG does no advertising—other than the website, the newsletter, and the magazine, which are preaching to the choir. Our games are our marketing strategy. I want people to see the games in play, see people having fun with them, the beauty of the maps. If we want to keep on producing games, we have to sell the games. We cannot just produce boxes of components that no one plays. That is not viable.

Chris Moeller visited Front Royal recently, and during our talks it came to me what I wanted to do with Bonaparte. After our conversation at the coffee house, after "percolating" through my brain for a couple of days, I figured out a way to get rid of "Dispatch Distance" (and even worse, "Supply Distance"). This will take great burdens off the players. Having a conversation with another game designer helps dredge-up good new ideas. It is the opposite of just rehashing the old.

"...Absolute identification with the "known" necessarily comes to replace all opportunity for identification with the process that "comes to know." ... It is only constant admission of error and capacity for error that allows for recognition of the unknown, then for updating knowledge and adaptation ... The devil is in the desire to be right, to be right once and for all and finally, rather than to constantly admit to insufficiency and ignorance, and to therefore partake in the process of creation itself." —Maps of Meaning, p. 316

It is the encounter with the unknown that sets the creative challenge a game designer thrives on. I began to see that problems are opportunities. The only time I get to be a designer is when encountering the unknown! To solve those conundrums gives me a chance to develop as a designer. In 1979, I was still learning my craft, and there is nothing wrong with letting things evolve. If you don't start that way, you won't be able to encapsulate it later. "To compress something, you must first let it fully expand" (Richard Wilhelm). So we are compressing and filtering the original game through what has been learned in the last 46 years. I have learned to take account of "player overhead," instead of just letting rules run their course. At this stage I would not release a game with 148 turns of complex heavy overhead like the original edition of Bonaparte.

The reason for the new edition of Bonaparte is to redeem a great design hidden under layers of complexity. Many things were carried over from Napoleon at Bay. In Bonaparte in Italy, these mechanisms are not as important as they are in 1813 or 1812. In Italy, the French are always moving fast and the Austrians are always moving slower. Italy is its own thing... The Armies are tiny... You don't have a million men on the land. Only armies of 40,000 men contesting the most fertile region of Europe...