For The People Optional Rules (As of April 14, 2000)

by Mark Herman

Philosophy

Some of these rules, those so noted, are likely to make it into a future edition of the For The People Rules.

Army Creation

Design Note: The goal of the Army Commander replacement rule was to cause a side to pay a political price for relieving a political or a poor General. A similar situation arises when one is forming an army. Many Generals of this period were jealous of their seniority and they usually had their political backers. This rule is intended to cause a political cost to be paid when a less senior General is given a prestigious army command over his seniors. Players have the advantage of hindsight to avoid using certain Generals since they can see their ratings. This rule is intended to bolster the reason why a more senior General with inferior ratings might get the Army command or you pay the political cost for ignoring the patronage system of the period.

Rule 4.43 (Addition)
(a) When a general, except McClellan, Grant or Sherman, is promoted to command an army you pay a 1 SW penalty for each general that outranks that general on the board who is not a commanding general or second in command of an army.
(b) If you replace an army commander in an army with a lower ranking general in that army, you pay the P rating of the demoted commanding general in SW points, plus 2 SW for each general with a higher p rating in that army that you jump over.
There is now an additional 1 SW penalty for all other generals on the board that are not a commanding general or second in command of an army that you jump over.
Player note:This solves many problems whereby folks make Jackson an army general when in fact he never was, but is very effective as an independent commander of 6 SPs.
If you use an event card to replace an army commander you would still pay the 2 SW and 1 SW penalties for jumping rank, you only save the SW demotion cost of the commanding general.

Relieving Unsuccessful Generals

Design Note: The rule is intended to capture the benefits the Presidents had in relieving commanding Generals if they had failed in battle. Even the political backers of a General would have to temporarily be more circumspect after an embarrassing defeat.

Rule 4.54 (Addition
A Commanding General can be relieved for one half the SW cost (round up) of his p rating if:
(1) He lost a medium or large battle and
(2) He is relieved during the very next possible strategy round, even if this extends into the next game turn.
Note: You pay the 2 SW penalty for jumping a General in that army over another General in that army with a higher P rating, but you are exempted from the additional 1 SW penalty imposed in rule 4.43, due to the emergency nature of the situation.

Sheridan

Design Note: Sheridan's role during the war evolved from a cavalry commander to a Corps commander. This rule enables players to use Sheridan in a more historical manner.
5.34 Sheridan as a Corps Commander
Sheridan is considered a cavalry commander whenever he is deployed within an army or moves independently with one SP. If Sheridan moves independently with more than one SP he is considered a corps commander for all game purposes.

DC-Manassas Connection Restriction

Design Note: I have decided to abstractly define DC into a smaller area which moves various fords into the Frederick-Manassas connection. The result of this is the DC fords are now all under the guns of the DC forts. This makes DC more secure by forcing the Confederates to cross the river further west which will force players into more historical maneuvers.

RULE:
If Washington DC has a Union fort in the space a Confederate force may not enter the DC space from Manassas, Virginia. The restriction is uni-directional and only effects the Confederate player. A Confederate force in DC can enter the Manassas space if it contains a fort.

Operations Queue

Design Note: This rule enables a player to use multiple operations cards to activate a leader to simulate a logistics buildup.
RULE:
A player can designate a general in a space as an operations queue. Once an operations queue has been established a OPs Cards can be played sequentially into this imaginary queue. When the value of the OPs Cards in the queue is equal to or greater than the Strategy rating of the general, he is activated.
If the player breaks the sequence for any reason (i.e., plays a card during his turn for any other purpose), the queue is lost and all cards in it are discarded. The sequence is broken whether the card played during the players turn was played voluntarily or involuntarily (e.g., Emancipation Proclamation).
At the end of the game turn, all cards in an operatoins queue are automatically discarded and cannot be carried over to the next game turn. Each player is restricted to having one operations queue active at any given time.
The play of a response card during the other players turn, does not break the operations queue sequence.
If the general designated as the operations queue loses a battle, whether from being attacked or due to a battle brought on by a successful interception, the queue is lost. However, the operations queue is not lost if the general retreats before battle, intercepts or wins a battle.