American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

As we all know, units can move their full movement allowance, then fire at full effect and then melee too, yet they can't remain stationary and fire two or three times instead, nor can they fire and then fall back. This really doesn't make a lot of sense!

Consequently, the current system heavily favours the attacker, who can rush forward, fire at full effectiveness and then melee, while the defender may (or may not) get in a few ADF volleys, often only at medium to long range.

The current system also heavily penalizes a defending or retreating army, since it's not possible for a static defender to trade unused movement allowance for extra firepower, nor can a unit fire before retreating, but must retreat and then - if still in range - fire at long range.

It makes sense that if a unit isn't spending time moving, it could be using that time for reloading and firing instead ... and of course that's just what a static defending force would be doing.

Similarly, if a unit has already used up its full movement allowance, why has it still got sufficient time to fire and then melee too?

So, while HPS has introduced many other useful new features to the original 1990s engine, surely it's high time to update the old BG combat system and replace it with a more flexible - and more realistic - action point system?

The PzC, modern and squad battles engines use an action point system, so why not the earlier games too? Surely a 20 minute time slot worked in exactly the same way pre-1900 as post 1900, so if a unit wasn't spending that time marching forward toward the enemy, he could be spending it reloading and then firing again, or else falling back after having fired?


Brig. Gen. Rich White
3 Brig. Phantom Cav Div
III Corps ANV

There you go again, trying to eliminate my favorite cavalry tactics - blitzkrieg![:D]


General Jeff Laub
Union Chief of the Army
ACWGC Cabinet Member
http://www.geocities.com/laubster22/UnionHQ/

An interesting proposal though I wouldn't know if the programming requirements would be either applicable, practical or as easy as you say for the ACW games. Funny, I was a playtester for several SB games and don't remember action points per se...I guess it was too long ago to remember.

What this suggestion does remind me of is how most miniature game rules are structured for our era. Move full and cannot fire except in defense at the moment of being meleed. Move half or less and fire at one half strength, do not move at all and fire full if in range. Th Bg system is simmilar but the blitz system isn't.

Unless I am wrong, if so I will be corrected, but I have always thought that in the phased play of BG and HPS games, that a stationary firer always fires at greater strength than a unit that moves and then fires. And I thought that is why you might notice that after moving full or otherwise, that the ADF fire against you (from the defenders who have not moved) always seems to take more casualties than you take in your following offensive fire phase AFTER you have moved (relatively of course...depending on number of units both of you are firing).

It sounds like the example you are using is single phase play i.e. the single phase blitz because that is the only time a unit will fire back while you are moving as in opportunity fire in modern games, when you move into their LOS on the way to your destination and melee...as you say moving, firing and meleeing. That does seem to favor attacking and an aggressive player. So I agree that is the often the case. Unless the player is smart enough to bring along numerous troops so the he can stand off and fire disrupting the target and then move in with additional troops to follow up immediately with melee, he runs the risk of having some of his mounted troops disrupted by the opportunity fire.

So it is the mechanics of the "blitz" one-phased play that the "you move, he shoots, you shoot, you melee" format of multiphase play that moves you to want "action points" or for both formats?

Interesting suggestion though I would think that it would require a whole new engine not just major tweaking but then that is what it sounds like you are proposing. It appears to me it is more than just "adding another new feature or optional rules."


<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Richard</i>
<br />As we all know, units can move their full movement allowance, then fire at full effect and then melee too, yet they can't remain stationary and fire two or three times instead, nor can they fire and then fall back. This really doesn't make a lot of sense!

Consequently, the current system heavily favours the attacker, who can rush forward, fire at full effectiveness and then melee, while the defender may (or may not) get in a few ADF volleys, often only at medium to long range.

The current system also heavily penalizes a defending or retreating army, since it's not possible for a static defender to trade unused movement allowance for extra firepower, nor can a unit fire before retreating, but must retreat and then - if still in range - fire at long range.

It makes sense that if a unit isn't spending time moving, it could be using that time for reloading and firing instead ... and of course that's just what a static defending force would be doing.

Similarly, if a unit has already used up its full movement allowance, why has it still got sufficient time to fire and then melee too?

So, while HPS has introduced many other useful new features to the original 1990s engine, surely it's high time to update the old BG combat system and replace it with a more flexible - and more realistic - action point system?

The PzC, modern and squad battles engines use an action point system, so why not the earlier games too? Surely a 20 minute time slot worked in exactly the same way pre-1900 as post 1900, so if a unit wasn't spending that time marching forward toward the enemy, he could be spending it reloading and then firing again, or else falling back after having fired?


Brig. Gen. Rich White
3 Brig. Phantom Cav Div
III Corps ANV
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Colonel Tom Ciampa

2nd Bgde,1st Cav
XIV Corps, AoC
Games: TS/BG: AN, BR, CH, GB, SH - HPS: AT, CTH, GB, OZK, SH, VK

I agree with what you are saying Richard. I thought I read that an aveage musket guy could get 2-3 shots off per minute and I'm not sure how many shoots a rifle could be fired in a minute. With that said, wouldn't a guy with a musket remaining stationary be allowed to fire about 40-50 times in that 20 minute turn? Now what would that do to the game?

Brig.Gen. R.E.Daley
1st Corps of the ANV
3rd Calvary Divsion,
3rd Brigade
"We are the Midnight Riders"

I am not sure of how things work in the "Turn" based play since I consider it hopelessly flawed even with recent fixes but in "Phased" play the attacker who has moved is halved for fire.

The action point system you mention does have merit for "Turn" type play. I have seen it implemented as a Movement Point system where a unit has so many MP's. They can expend them on firing full strength and not moving or on moving their full movement allowance distance. They can also expend MP's on other actions like changing formation, partial fire and partial move. If they retained enough MP's at the end of their move they could expend them to melee.

This won't in itself solve the fact that the HPS system favors the attacker over the defender. Other things come into play that cause this as well. The defender is the only one that suffers route which takes a unit completely out while an attacker suffers only Disruption which just reduces its fire power. Then there is the inherent advantage that the moving side controls the concentration of firepower while the defender has to sit and watch.

One thing though you do have to watch in your assumptions about what a unit can and can't do in a turn. Our turns are 20 minutes long in which a real regiment could do a lot of things. But the game is simulating a lot of interactions that can't be represented as part of game play. In theory a regiment could fire 60 volleys in that time or move at double time a full mile. But the game is lumping a whole lot of "other" things that keep that from happening on average.

The regiment really can't blitz like Turn based system allows because the Divisions and Brigades lacked the command control to do this. They were lucky if they could get the troops to march across in line and not have any regiments or brigades wander off in the wrong direction. They could hardly run through gaps and turn around to attack other regiments from the rear. It did happen but not with the precision we can do it in a game.

Regiments could fire 60 rounds per man in 20 minutes but then your entire line would be out of ammo. What they did was pace their firing to the need. If the enemy was closing fast then they would be loading and firing as fast as they could but otherwise they would be saving the ammo and firing at a much slower rate. The game doesn't make that distinction because it doesn't give you that fine of control. The casualty calculation randomizes the fire effect so sometimes you get lucky and kill at a high rate and sometimes you don't. But on average the number of men firing at particular range kill the right number of casualties over the span of a battle.

Or as one the old SPI design articles said on their Civil War Brigade games. While a whole lot of things were going on at the Brigade level for that little piece of cardboard then net result is generated quite accurately by a random die roll on the attack chart. Simulating all the detail doesn't actually change the overal result so why clutter up the game with it.

Now does our little virtual piece of cardboard simulate a regiment sufficiently accurately? The answer I believe is no. I did a simple test to prove it. I lined up a line of 500 man units on one side and moved an equal line adjacent and ran the calculations through a spreadsheet. When the attacker moves adjacent the defender gets full fire but the attacker gets only half. I didn't allow melees, just had them fire away until one side or the other would all be routed away. The HPS system requires the attacker to have about a 5% advantage to break even. 10% advantage will result in a win for the attacker.

If you compare that to the rule of military thumb that you need a 3:1 advantage at the point of contact to win, then the game doesn't stand up.

But there is an additional gotcha in all this. Because of the 500 foot general in our games it is impossible to get 3:1 odds at the point of attack. Any significant shift in the game system to make the defense stronger has to be matched with some other change in the game mechanics to make it possible for the attacker to have a way to win.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)