How to play the opponent in a solo wargame

Several readers have commented over the last couple of  months.  Most are interested in One Hour Wargames as a rule set but regardless of rule set, the problem faced by the solo gamer is how to play the opponent.  The Men Who Would Be Kings, if I remember correctly, has an approach to this in which a mythical player called Mr Babbage provides some rules primarily relevant to the native opponents facing the colonial European powers.  Looking at Babbage's ideas might be helpful. 

However, unless your scenario is colonial, they may not be exactly what you need.  A simple expedient is to place the opponent in a defensive position.  Your army must assault the defenders.  That way no  decisions need to be made for the opponent.  They just shoot at the nearest attacker. 

Another approach is to play a scenario in which your forces are a relief column wending its way across country.  The opponent's forces pop up at random (event cards) on either side, at the rear, or in front.  The event cards might also include natural events such as bad weather, animal attacks, shortages of food or water, and so on.  In this situation, you are playing against nature as well as the random opponent. 

A third approach, if you want a fast game, is to randomly deploy both your forces and the opponent's forces.  The decision rule for the opponent is to attack immediately if he finds himself near enough to your unit to do so.  Otherwise, he will cluster his forces.  I find that making decisions for the opponent is easy because the actions are obvious.  I also find that I have accidentally switched sides sometimes if one side has a run of bad luck. 

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PS  After a while, playing the opponent becomes effortless.  I play both sides to the best of my ability.  If I have a bias, it is in favor of the side that is losing. Does a kid playing army have trouble playing the opponent?  No.  Wargaming is grownup kids playing army.