The strange thing is that the very first game I ever played was back in about 1980 agaist Captain Smithers. It was a Napoleonic game of encounter where a Prussian Corps marching down one Mountain pass debouched into a plain just as French units began to arrive from another valley of the mountain range at about only 15 degrees from the Prussian mounted scouts, the French scouts having already pressed on into the plane. Working out how to deploy the main body of troops out from a column into a fighting position in such circumstances took up most of the game, and most of the heavy units never even got into play.
The strange thing was that because we were both new to wargaming, we spent most of the evening discussing what we thought both of the suprised Generals would have done historically, rather than trying to outsmart each other. This rather set the tone of further battles, so it was no real hardship for us to transfer this approach towards playing against an AI led enemy force.

Rob.