Solo Wargaming - I may have lost something

Nothing serious, but I have been enjoying Ross's posts over on Battle Game of the Month about refining his solo rules, and I realised (with what must have been a pang, I guess) that I haven't been doing much solo wargaming in recent weeks and - since much of my wargaming is of the solo variety - this means I haven't been doing much wargaming. The reason is not hard to identify. My new, and very enthusiastic, commitment to Commands & Colors:Napoleonics as my miniatures rules of choice has left me a bit stranded, since the solo options for that game that I've seen thus far are not brilliant.

My in-house rules, which use a computer for activation, record keeping and calculation, do have the advantage that they support solo play pretty well. However, the simplicity and logical flow of CCN - which make the in-house game look more than a little turgid - have won me over, and recently my own rules have been unused.

I guess this is easily fixed. This morning I spent a little time fishing around on Google and there is a fair amount out there. The problem with playing CCN solo is that the Command (activation) cards do not work well if you can see both hands. A number of the workarounds I've seen use a dice system to replace the cards - I had already started thinking about that approach. Another places the "ghost" opponent's cards in an unseen stack, two cards are turned over, and the one which suits the ghost's position best is chosen, both cards being subsequently discarded and replaced. Or both players can be ghosts, treated in the same way. I have only just started thinking seriously about this, so I am not pessimistic - something will come up, I'm sure. At the moment it's a bit like "how you gonna get them back on the farm, after they've seen Paree?". The CCN game is so much better than my previous rules that I'm reluctant to use anything else, and CCN with an opponent is so much better than my solo attempts with it to date that there is a strong temptation just to find something else to do in the evenings.

I'll have to get moving on this. I've written a post-it to myself, this very morning - that should get something happening. I could try using Ross's rules, I suppose, but that would mean learning something new (ouch). Or I could try to recruit a new opponent locally, but people tend to take to their heels when they just hear about my soldier collection. Or I could try to get my son up to speed on CCN, but he is only 8, and it feels a bit like exploitation. Hmmm.