fixing the blitzkrieg problem w/ HPS Nap & ACW

[TheGrayMouser]

Interesting discussion, and although I agree that "blitz tactics" can be an issue in the game system, I disagree that the cause is do to the moral system and the ratings of units. Bill Peters was involved in a long and at time rather heated discussion with the History and realism team regarding morale ratings, and his opinion was that reducing moral across the board was detrimental to how the game system works(Gamesquad). Also, the H&R team made many other major changes and to compensate for the overall reduced moral added massive amounts of leaders to the oob's. I haven't played the scenarios made by that team and I am not saying it doesn't work or isn't a viable alternative, but after really looking into the details of what they changed, I don't think the play style suits me.
Anyways, it seems to me that the cause of blitzing has more to due with unrealistic stacking limits with no real drawbacks, considering the all important combat factor in the engines are the # of men in a hex.
Ideally , JT would allow a new rule with settings in the PDT files that allows designers to not only set the max # of men in a hex but ALSO the max # of men in a hex that can actually FIGHT in a melee, ie a cap so to speak. I don't see any major changes like this forthcoming, and as Al pointed out, a melee resolution phase like the Civil War titles is not practical in the Nap or MP games due to cavalry charge(unless MORE phases were added LOL )
So what could be done with what we have? I think the answer is in the PDT files, ie max # of men plus the counter limits. Theres no one simple # though and would have to adjust on a title by title, scenario basis. However, if say in the NAp engine you reduced the max # of men in a hex to say 1500 and reduced counters to 3, it would be a lot more difficult to mass troops in an ahistoric manner. I believe reduced counters would be the better option though, because the # of men in hex carries significant crossover effects of almost every aspect of the game.
The problem is , what to do about scenarios say, vs the Austrians whom have battalions around a 1000 men. Doesnt seem quite fair that the French player could combine 2-3 smaller bat.'s and get max stacking whereas the Austrian could never really do the same, and hence any changes would really need be at a title/scenario basis.
Of Course the blitz issue isn't as a big deal for me as I play hotseat or vs the AI exclusively and I have long ago learned the best way of enjoy these games as such is to play historically, go slow in your maneuvering with a eye for what a LOCAL commander on the scene would take the situation to be, and the AI can actually put up a reasonable game.