Without going mad this game seeks to emphasise the situation at this battle without getting too generic. Victory is earned by holding key terrain and killing, shattering or capturing units. I cannot comment on balance but my reading of many reports on the Internet leads me to believe that this is not only a balanced game, but also one to which gamers return to test different approaches. The game sequence is simple but effective. Initiative can swap each turn with the Initiative player taking his turn first, so room for the old double-move here.
Initiative is morale based and changes as events occur on the field.
The Player moves, rallies, suffers defensive artillery fire, has a mutual rifle-fire phase and finally does close combat. Mike Siggins made the point in our game that Saratoga has many figure rules elements and these help to give a firm game. One thing that does happen in Saratoga is that there are quite a few exceptions, and you may miss a number of these in your early playings. For example, fire is not an important element of the game. The latter has the dramatic effect of preventing the former firing in its ZOC as the naughty riflemen pick off the gunners.