Initial Contact, Skirmishing, and Deployment Zones:Part II

Deployment Zones are designated areas on a map where each side is allowed to deploy prior to contact. Otherwise, there is a tendency to want to use the edge of the map as if it were the edge of the world protecting one's flank, while trapping the enemy as soon he enters a map. (This is not realistic. If the edge of the map were not there, the enemy would be able to flank the flankers.))

Deployment Zones allow an advancing force a safe place to deploy as they enter a map. In the previous simulations, a force would enter a map on one turn and stop. Each side would be told that an enemy force "of unknown size and composition" was present on the map. The North Branch Campaign is different in that the advancing force will advance through its deployment zone and attempt to make contact with the defending force in the defender's deployment zone, or between the zones. Zones are located at each entry / exit location from another map for advancing (or withdrawing) forces, with a red "defending zone" in the middle of the map.

SITESVILLE DEPLOYMENT ZONE MAP

Once contact is made by  the advancing force, an engagement has begun and units are free move and deploy out of their zones during the next turn and until the engagement is finished with one side withdrawing from the map.

Deployment Zones are also used for partial withdrawals during an engagement. A partial withdrawal is if part of an army's force remains on a map, while another division or divisions departs to another location. In this case, the departing division(s) must first move to the deployment zone closest to its exit point before being able to leave the map. For example, if an army had three divisions at Sitesville, and one was being sent to Black Horse Tavern, it would have to move into the green shaded Deployment Zone around Amick and Gaskin before being allowed to move from the Sitesville map to the Black Horse Tavern Map.

In the previous simulation (South Branch Campaign), deployment zones were out of range of each other. In the North Branch campaign, some of the deployment zones will be very close to each other. If players deploy at the edge of their zones, they could have an engagement right at the start of a turn.