"Spring in Munich" -- Game time is...

[panzerde]

Game time is 0430 16 October 1809!If you have forces on the map at this point, please submit your orders for the day. Should circumstances dictate a need to issue new orders later in the day you of course may do so, but the first set of orders for the day is generally your corps' marching orders.
I already have orders from Davout, thank you sir!
If you are not on the map at this point, you are assumed to be marching toward your designated entry point.

[billcoop4]

I'm in.

[panzerde]

I'm in.

[Troina1943]

Me too!

[panzerde]

Gentlemen,


If I may beg you indulgence. Thanks everyone that has sent in orders so far. If I may, here are a couple of things that would make my life as umpire much, much easier:

• Please keep orders as plain text emails. If you want for role-playing purposes to make up a particularly elaborate handwritten looking order on a parchment background, and send that as a PDF, for a "special" or very important order, be my guest. But if we could refrain from sending me PDFs otherwise that's very helpful. I need to edit each order to add things like time received, and I need to keep track of all of these to know when they should be delivered. half a terabyte of PDFs is going to end up being a problem!
• Brevity is to be valued! Again, role-play all you would like. On the other hand, this is 1809, not 1989. Six part warning orders and five part operations orders may be what a modern commander would write. It isn't what Davout or Bellgarde would have written. Reviewing the examples of collected dispatches from the 1806 Kriegsspiel might provide some examples. I'm getting some really, really, long orders!
• If you are sending the same information to multiple recipients, it's perfectly fine to write a single order and direct it to all of them. No need to generate separate orders for each.
• What I do need to know are things like what time you sent the order, who you're sending it to, what time you sent it, if to your own corps, where your HQ will be if you are planning on moving (otherwise I might assume you're staying where you are, and your message delay times will get longer and longer and longer...), and what you need from the recipient or what you're wanting them to do. In terms of structure, please see above.
• Please try and avoid micro-managing your subordinates or throwing in a lot of conditionals. Again, this is 1809. The roads are dirt tracks. The dirt tracks are almost non-existent. People tell time using inaccurate devices or by looking at the position of the sun. You aren't going to be able to specify exact timetables for operations. The more exacting you are in ordering your subordinates the more likely it will be that your orders don't make sense in light of the actual situation on the ground, and they don't have radios to ask you for a clarification. What they may well do is just stop and do nothing while a courier rides all the way back to you with a question about a situation you don't have eyes on yourself!

Please, please, please, DO engage in role-playing and do what you need to do to have fun and enjoy the game. If that means you're going to write really long orders, and they're all going to be scans to PDF of a document you wrote with a feather quill on actual parchment, in French or German, so be it. I'll find some way to adapt! For my own mental well-being, however, and speed of turns, the more we can follow the above guidelines the better!

[panzerde]

All morning orders are in and dispatches have been...dispatched. Messengers are riding their horses at breakneck speed across the damp fields and roads of Bavaria in the misty dawn light!

The clock will tick tomorrow for the next game turn.

[Iconoclast]

Do you have a template for orders, to make life easier on you?

[panzerde]

Here's a good basic template that should cover everything. I believe this originally came from Jim Lacey.



ATTENTION TO ORDERS!
Sender:
Time Sent: (UMPIRE)
Recipient:
Time Received: (UMPIRE)
Unit Marching:
Route of March:
Time to Spend Marching:
Expected Objective:
Rules of Engagement:
Dispatches:

[Iconoclast]

So should time sent be filled out by the umpire (see template) or by us?


BTW: I would like to hand in my orders for the last 6 months since we seem to have been moving at lightning speed 

Game time is 0430 16 October 1809!

[panzerde]

So should time sent be filled out by the umpire (see template) or by us?


BTW: I would like to hand in my orders for the last 6 months since we seem to have been moving at lightning speed 

Game time is 0430 16 October 1809!

I labeled a dispatch earlier today as 1806, so we've actually swung back three years in time.
Apparently after writing dispatches for 18 months during the last game, I can't get my head around not being in October 1806 yet.
Anyway, you can fill in the "Time sent" field if you'd like. There's a chance if I get your dispatch after I've moved the game clock forward I'll move it into the next hour, but if so that won't happen all that often.

[panzerde]

Game time is 0530 April 16 1809
If you have orders or messages you would like to send this hour, please get them to me before tomorrow evening.

[JasonPratt]

Note that it can be quite important for OTHER PLAYERS, when you're dispatching them courier messages, to know when (in game time) you sent the message forth. PD will tell you when you're receiving it, but unless the player has told you when he sent it then PD might not (perhaps inadvertently) tell you that.

This is a point I plan to emphasize over in our game, too. But I'm following this game with interest, of course. 

[panzerde]

Note that it can be quite important for OTHER PLAYERS, when you're dispatching them courier messages, to know when (in game time) you sent the message forth. PD will tell you when you're receiving it, but unless the player has told you when he sent it then PD might not (perhaps inadvertently) tell you that.

This is a point I plan to emphasize over in our game, too. But I'm following this game with interest, of course. 

QFT

[panzerde]

Moving right along...
Game time is 0630 April 16 1809I'm going to give everyone until Friday to get settled in and adjusted to the dispatches moving around before I advance the clock again. If we're moving too quickly, please let me know. I'm going a bit more quickly that Cyrano is with his game, and I don't want to overwhelm anyone. Send up a rocket or something if this is too much, too fast!

Also, Thursdays are my weekly gaming night, so we'll probably always have a little extra time between a turns on Wednesday and then Friday.

[OJsDad]

Looks like I picked a good weekend to go camping.