How does wilderness movement work?

[soundmana]

A question for all the wilderness masters:

p16 of Volume 3 has a chart for # of hexes per day for movement.  A hex=5 miles.  A man on foot travels 3 hexes=15 miles.


Where it gets confusing for me is using Outdoor Survival (OS), you would have 6 movement points for a fresh man.  I'm not taking into effect fatigue factors according to OS.

So if a man on foot has 6 movement points and can move 3 hexes, i'm going to make the assumption each Hex is worth 2 movement points.  IF that's the case, a normal hex is considered a woods/rough or desert hex.  A man on foot could then walk 15 miles in wooded terrain, or 30 miles in clear terrain, because each clear terrain only cost 1 point.

I've worked out a system for different movement rates based on the assumption above and I wrote out what the movement rates would be for Foot, draft horse, raft, and boat, just to give a little example on what the mileage would be like.

The formula I used was: (# of hexes) x 2 = # of movement points per day.  # of hexes coming straight from the table on p16.

I can't figure out how to upload a picture on here so i'll type it out:

On Foot	Clear	6 points	6 Hexes	30 miles
	Desert/Wooded	6 points	3 hexes	15 miles
	Mountains/Rivers	6 points	2 hexes	10 miles
	Swamps	6 points	1 hexes	5 miles

 

Draft Horse	Clear	10 points	10 hexes	50 miles
	Desert/Wooded	10 points	5 hexes	25 miles
	Mountains/Rivers	10 points	3 hexes	15 miles
	Swamps	10 points	2 hexes	10 miles

Raft	River	20 points (only if floating 24 hrs  straight)	20 hexes	100 miles
	Swamp	6 points	3 hexes	15 miles

Boat	River	30 points (as a sailboat w/ wind)	30 hexes	150 miles
	Swamp	10 points	10 hexes	50 miles

I kept the OS 4 movement point cost for swamps.
For trails I would allow wooded/mountain/swamp or fords for rivers hexes to subtract 1 from movement point cost to travel over that hex.

-------------------------------------------------------

I was wondering if this made sense, or am I doing it wrong?

Taking the movement chart on p16 at face value, a man on foot could travel 3 hexes per day which would equal 3 points.  He could travel 1 wooded hex, or one mountainous hex a day.  Optionally one swamp hex a day just to be fair.  According to this, travel would be much slower and would take a lot longer as one hex=5 miles.
Maybe that's what they wanted, to keep travel slow so you wouldn't have to create such a large wilderness area ahead of time.

What's your thoughts?

[rsdean]

So how much camping/hiking have you done? Historically, 12 miles a day was a decent pace for an army on foot, by the time they broke camp, packed up, walked, and made camp again. So 15 miles in clear terrain for a party in the wilderness doesn’t seem unreasonable.

The Outdoor Survival movement factor of 6 seems optimistic, and to, some extent, represents someone without a lot of gear, and by himself.

Personally, I used to use 3mp per day, back in the day. The rule says use the terrain mp costs from OS, not to use the movement rates and mp costs from OS...

[Red Baron]

Forget mp, the system in TU&WA supersedes outdoor survival.

Base movement on foot is 3 hex per day.
Base movement by horse is 5 hex per day (4 if pulling a cart).

This speed is modified by -1 for companies over 100.
This speed is modified by -2 for companies over 1000.

Movement is full speed in plains.
Movement is 1/2 speed in woods and hills.
Movement is 1/3 speed in swamps and mountains.

Examples:
A company of 20 horsemen could move 5 hexes per day on plains.
A company of 20 footmen could move 3 hex per 2 days through woods.
A company of 200 footmen could move 1 hex per day through woods.

[delta]

Mar 1, 2020 16:28:01 GMT -6 soundmana said:

A question for all the wilderness masters:

p16 of Volume 3 has a chart for # of hexes per day for movement.  A hex=5 miles.  A man on foot travels 3 hexes=15 miles.

Where it gets confusing for me is using Outdoor Survival (OS), you would have 6 movement points for a fresh man.  I'm not taking into effect fatigue factors according to OS.

Vol-3 and OS presume different map scales.

While not explicitly stated in the OS rules, we can deduce that game's hex scale from the information in the section on "The Mapboard": "The mapboard is a representation of approximately 13,200 square miles of wilderness...". The OS map is 43 x 33 hexes. That's a total of about 1400 hexes, each one about 13,200/1400 = 9 square miles. Taking the square root gives about 3 miles length in one direction.

So the altered move rates in Vol-3 are just a reflection of the modified hex scale -- roughly twice the size of OS, so about half the hexes covered per day.

[rustic313]

Mar 1, 2020 20:02:05 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Forget mp, the system in TU&WA supersedes outdoor survival.

Base movement on foot is 3 hex per day.
Base movement by horse is 5 hex per day (4 if pulling a cart).

This speed is modified by -1 for companies over 100.
This speed is modified by -2 for companies over 1000.

Movement is full speed in plains.
Movement is 1/2 speed in woods and hills.
Movement is 1/3 speed in swamps and mountains.

Examples:
A company of 20 horsemen could move 5 hexes per day on plains.
A company of 20 footmen could move 3 hex per 2 days through woods.
A company of 200 footmen could move 1 hex per day through woods.

To complicate this, U&WA does break out Heavy, Medium and Light Horse and gives movement rates of 6/8/10.

So presumably if all well mounted on medium horse that company of cavalry could cover a whopping 8 hexes on plains (40 miles).  

For historical reference, Custer traveled 704 miles over a 43 expedition (15 miles per day/3 hexes) to chase Pawnee Killer about.  He often complained in his memoirs that the army horses were tactically and operationally slower than the indian ponies, and that the pony express mounts were fastest of all.  So that would imply Pony Express = Light Cav, Indian Ponies = Med Horse, Army Cav = Hvy Horse.  The terrain was sometimes open grassland but often broken "desert" or "hills" type with a higher "move factor."  Even factoring terrain, 6-10 hexes per day seems optimistic for sustained operations.

In the ACW, Stuart rode 150 miles in three days (Peninsula campaign), 126 miles in five days (Oct 10 1862).  Those are rates of 50 miles per day (10 hexes) and 25 miles per day (5 hexes)...  Remarkably the first march has very few stragglers (like one...  from getting drunk on stolen booze...).  The troopers did ride overnight more than once, so perhaps it is best to consider the first ride in particular a forced march where the force just got lucky on attrition saving throws.

Another example of long range mounted movement (and more period) is the Black Prince's chevauchée in 1356.  His mostly mounted force (hobilars, knights, and mounted archers) traveled from Bordeoux to Poitiers in about a month, ravaging the country on the way.  They did have supply wagons so presumably we're on the "4 hex a day plan."  That's 160 miles in 30 days (5 miles per day -- 1 hex).

The year prior the English went from Bourdeoux to Narbonne from 5 Oct to 8 Nov.  That's 245 miles in about 33 days (7.4 miles per day).  The march back (faster, as the force was under threat from French response and had already pillaged their way across France) was 10 Nov to 2 Dec (about 11 miles per day).

 The fastest portion of the expedition was Bordeux to the border of Armigac in a week:  136 miles.  That's 20 miles per day.  The sources report that as a grueling forced march that resulted in many stragglers and dead horses.

Lastly:
There's a modern sporting event called the Mongol Derby.  Riders cover 1000 KM, changing horses every 40 KM.  This is maximum speed across the steppes with modern athletes, surveyed routes, and preplanned horse changes.  The race is typically 10 days for 621 miles (62 miles per day, or 12 hexes).  That's about the same speed as "light horse" but they're changing out horses 2-3 times per day.  The competitors are forced to rest at night for a few hours.  It seems implausible that a light horse could sustain 10 hexes per day for a week on end by itself.

The American Pony Express covered a route of ~1800 miles in 10 days (180 miles per day, or 36 hexes -- incredible!).  That's 180 miles per day as a real world maximum, changing horses out every 15 miles or so.  That is literally burning up a dozen horses a day, riding day and night.  If you factor in the variable that the Express was riding at night, then this is kind of like 20 march-days which reduces the rate to a still impressive but more plausible 90 miles/day (18 hexes).


So I find the 5 hex per day number quite plausible and the longer range light/medium horse numbers in particular to be somewhat suspect, unless you are considering "surge" forced marches of day and night of less than three day's duration (Stuart's ride) or stages with multiple horses (Mongol Derby/Pony Express).

[soundmana]

Thanks Delta, that made sense about the OS and Volume 3 having different map scales. I would have never figured that out.
Rustic 313, thanks for breaking down the real world scenarios, now I have something to base it off of.
Red Baron, thanks for simplifying for me. I'm gonna end up using that as a guide.

[delta]

Mar 3, 2020 0:07:02 GMT -6 rustic313 said:

For historical reference...

Another data point you might want to consider is modern endurance riding, competitions where one rides a single horse for 50 or 100 miles in a single day. Per the article, "Winning riders can complete 100-mile (160 km) rides in 14 to 15 hours." That would be 20 hexes per Vol-3; if the 14-15 hours is a forced march, then maybe halve it for a normal-sustainable day, and get 10 hexes. From the History section:

Though the need to ride long distances has existed since the domestication of the horse, endurance riding as an organized activity was first developed in the United States based on European cavalry (particularly Polish and Russian WWI) and breeding program tests requiring the ability to carry 300 lb (140 kg) over 100 miles (160 km) in one day. Organized endurance riding as a formal sport began in 1955, when Wendell Robie and a group of equestrians rode from the Lake Tahoe area across the Sierra Nevada Range to Auburn in under 24 hours. They followed the historic Western States Trail. This ride soon became known as the Tevis Cup, and it remains the most difficult of any 100-mile ride in the world because of the severe terrain, high altitude, and 100-degree (~37 °C) temperatures. Endurance riding first was brought to Europe in the 1960s.

Don't forget that Vol-3 has the "Large Party Movement" penalty which likely seems reasonable, and looking at historical army movement through that lens, they'd be biased towards the low side, as compared to a solo or small (D&D-sized) party, perhaps?