American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

I believe Kennon's comments about routing defenders vs. disrupting attackers may be one of the biggest things we can change, perhaps the biggest reason that attackers still hold an advantage in these games over defenders in spite of all the other changes intended to reverse that trend. Defenders are unfairly penalized by this rule, suffering routes and adjacent disruptions on a one turn ahead timeframe - meaning that an attacker moves forward and fires and he can only suffer disrupts that turn. The defender, however, can suffer routes that first turn before being allowed to respond in kind, limiting his return fire ability if anyone routes - disrupting nearby units in the process - thus reducing both the number of men on line and also the firepower of those units since disrupted units fire at half strength (1/4 if they have to move to shore up a gap). Giving both sides equal chances of disrupting or routing regardless of phase would greatly even out this disparity.

Speaking of phased play of course, for those of us who dislike turn style for many previously stated reasons - advantages to the attacker being one of the biggest.

Regards,

Lt. Gen. Alan Lynn
Interim CSA CoA
CSA Chief of Staff
3rd Bgde, 3rd Cav Div, II Corps, AoA

God Bless <><

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by gcollins</i>
<br />Kennon:

Those are great suggestions and I whole heartedly support them.

I don't like the idea of breaking down units any more than they are now. I don't want to move a "30th Georgia unit a & b".<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

You can always keep them together in one stack. It's just more flexible and levels the playing field between armies with large regiments versus armies with lots of smaller regiments. In the land of the zoc kill, it matters a lot. It even matters for those using phases. If you move a 800-man regiment to melee a battery, that one regiment takes the defensive fire and may disrupt, preventing the attack. Next turn, they are still standing in front of the enemy guns to take a full fire in the enemy offensive fire phase. But, if you're attacking with three units, 300, 300, 200, only one will take defensive fire and may disrupt. The other two units can still melee. Add in the ability to have multiple facings based on strength, ability to cover more area that reflects the size of the unit. I think it makes a lot of sense. It can dovetail with posible terrain stacking restrictions too.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I didn't even like the idea of sectional guns. Now we have single guns running all over the place and players do not even keep 'battery integrity anymore". Why not mix 1 gun from Crenshaw's battery with a similar gun in the "Fredericksburg battery" for instance? There is no penalty. I'm sorry, but batteries kept their guns together and right now it is more advantageous to group guns by 'type' rather than by battery.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Again, just flexibility that many of us wanted to reflect the true makeup of batteries instead of compromising and making them all the predominant type. I like it. You can always play like-minded opponents who favor realism (keeping batteries intact) instead of "gamers" who move units around willy-nilly disregarding unit integrity. What I don't like is that a three unit battery (3 x2)can't move in column on roads as efficiently as one 6-gun battery. (maybe I'm wrong here, sometimes it seems small artillery sections don't effect column movement of other small artillery sections?)



Lt. General Dirk Gross
XIV Corps/AoC

Dirk: I understand why the batteries were broken up, especially for the confederates where the batteries were not homogenous. I know it was difficult to make a design decision when you had a battery with one howitzer, one long range and maybe two 12 lb napoleons. So the sectional guns fixed that problem.

But that is exactly my point. It fixed one problem and caused a far greater one in my opinion. Guns fought 'in battery'. Now you can scatter individual guns over hell's half acre and it is very 'gamey'. It has nothing to do with history. Heck, I have played players where individual guns are practically used as skirmisher/reconnaissance units.

Given the scale of the game it would be strectching it to even have individual guns several hexes from each other.

As for the 'large' units being able to break down, again, I'm against it. The example was sited of a large unit attacking a battery and then becoming disrupted and not being able to take the battery. Good! This is the kind of thing we want to see. A battery did have the possibility of stopping a regiment.

Now if we break the large regiment down into two or three sub units, capture of the battery is guaranteed. No question. The battery fires and maybe stops one of the sub-units, but the other two are going to get the battery.

Imagine if real life was that easy. "Col, please break down the regiment into three sections and charge that battery". "As you know we were taught at West Point that doing so will insure the capture of those guns".

Even now it is possible to guarantee the capture of a battery by placing two, or even better three regiments adjacent to a single battery where it cannot disrupt three units at a time. Breaking down units will cause even more of this.

Regiments, like batteries fought as regiments not 10 independent companies that scattered all over the place. If we allow break down of regiments you are going to see this carried to the extreme by "gamey" tactics.

"Col. please take 1/2 of the 30th Georgia and move it two miles south to the Round Tops. "Capt. take the other 1/2 of the 30th Georgia and move it to Oak Ridge.

I don't want to see this.



Bg. General Gilbert Collins
Army of Alabama
III/I/2nd Brigade

I agree with BG. Collins of breaking down infantry but I would like to see this ability done with cav. At this moment I have a meeting engagement in Chickamauga and right off I was given a brigade of cav.(hopefully my opponent isn't reading this)[:D]and with it is a regiment of 632 men. How can I send this amount of men out front to search, get intelligents and Recon. Just seems like a large waste of resources and possibilities.[8D]

LTC. Charles Babb
COLD STEEL!
6th Brigade,3rd Division
XXIII Corps
Army of the Ohio

The ability to breakdown - and recombine - cavalry has been present in the Nappy engine since the BG days, and it's a feature that would be very useful for this engine too.

While I'm against splitting infantry regiments, so that they can operate completely independently, I still feel that skirmisher piquets and allowing some units to deploy Nappy style skirmishers would be useful, especially when attempting to see beyond the edge of a wood, or protecting the flanks of a unit passing through a dense forest. This can always be something set on a unit-by-unit basis in the OOB, so that the number of units actually able to deploy this sort of skirmisher subunit could be restricted according to the requirements of each scenario.


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

How about this for a simpler fix to the "crew killed" issue? How about each time a "crew killed" result is calculated, it instead becomes a "1 gun lost" result? It's not a perfect fix, but seems simpler then calculating gun crews and would prevent the total loss of a artillery unit when under small arm fire.

Also, just to throw another very small idea out there, in games where river boats are used make going upstream cost more MPs then going downstream due to the river current. Makes sense to me, but don't know if it's historically accurate or not.

Regards,

Maj Gen Boyd Denner,
2nd Division Commanding
II Corps
ANV
"God Bless the Alabamians" Gen. Robert E. Lee - The Wilderness 1864

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">From BG Collins
I didn't even like the idea of sectional guns. Now we have single guns running all over the place and players do not even keep 'battery integrity anymore". Why not mix 1 gun from Crenshaw's battery with a similar gun in the "Fredericksburg battery" for instance? There is no penalty. I'm sorry, but batteries kept their guns together and right now it is more advantageous to group guns by 'type' rather than by battery.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">There is a simple way to fix the "battery fighting with mixed types of cannons" problem. [:D] The game designers just keep track and have different fire effects at different ranges for each mixed artillery unit! [:o)]
Aaargh! I can hear them now and I don't blame them.

They have given us the option to keep batteries together if we want to stay historical, or we can combine same cannon types and mix units as we please. Thank you designers. I am all for choices and options. [^]

And I agree that it's a nuisance to have all these little arty units to manage. It's a trade off. I approve of this one.

I am still holding out for disrupted units not being able to move into ZOCs of enemy units to protect flanks of intact attacking units. A simple decision tree of
1. Disrupted unit can only move into hex not interdicted by enemy ZOC.
2. Disrupted unit can always move 1 hex into adjacent available hex (as played now) when no other possibility.

Routed units should be able to move away from the enemy as fast or faster than units in good order. Right now, it is too easy for pursuers to run down and catch units in rout status. That is ahistorical.

I agree with Ken that attacking units should suffer routs as well as disruptions.
The attacker's rout possibility should depend on quality modifiers and percentage of casualties. They might suffer disruption followed by rout during the same fire phase. A lot can happen under fire during 20 minutes, especially when your companions are dropping like flies. Even elite units may disintegrate and run when 15 or 20% have fallen.
We might look up what the "Old Guard" lost at Waterloo and when. "La Garde recule!"

I prefer to keep guns on the map from "Crew Killed," and after spiking, that the guns disappear after awarding points to enemy units when they do the spiking. It would add little to allow unspiking attempts.
If a designer wants to add an option to allow attempts to unspike cannons, similar to building breastworks, it will please some and I have no objection. It would leave spiked cannon cluttering up the battlefield however.

BG Ross McDaniel
2nd Bde, 3rd Div, III Corps, AoG, CSA

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale & undermine the military are saboteurs & should be arrested, exiled, or hanged." - A. Lincoln

The question of having the attackers rout is a fair one and would certainly be a step in the right direction toward a more realistic gaming model. But, as usual this needs to be looked at in context of the game as very little here happens in a vacuum.

The current set up with only the defender routing might seem to give the attacker the edge but there's also the fact that a defending disrupted, 200 man, maxed fatigued, "E" quality unit with a double "E" leader can stop the advance of up to 3000, "A" quality, well lead zero fatigued men due to three hex ZOC.

Right now, with the defender patching up a line, he doesn't know which attacking enemy disrupted units will come back to order but with routed attackers part of the equation, the abilty of a defender cleverly using interlocking ZOC's, some with units that would be beyond disintegration historically, is reinforced (Now, before someone goes ahead and notes an example or two of this actually happening, I'm as well read as most anybody and I'm aware this sometimes occurred. But it was rare. I'm talking here about a defense tactic that occurs in virtually every game I play).

While having only the defender rout favors the attacker, having high fatigue, shot up, low quality units plugging 360 yard gaps favors the defender.

Everything needs to be looked at in contex.

Gen. Doug Burke

Other hobby: Running 30-40 miles per week. Several races a year from 5K to marathon. Boston marathon 2007.

I like General Boyd's solution for the 'crew killed' problem. Knocking out one gun would simulate better I think the gradual loss of manpower as crews are picked off. It would also alert the battery commander to get the heck out of there!

Charles, as a good ole Reb I sympathize with you when we have those large Reb Cavalry units and sometimes admittedly I would like to be able to break them down. But I think we could really open up a can of worms here if we are not careful. You have to admit, it sure is nice for a change when we DO have those large cavalry regiments. It's not something we often get. I really applaud the HPS fix for the 'cavalry reconnaissance option' at one hex away. It could be refined to make it one hex away regardless of facing or at least make it the front three hexes (presently it is only the hex directly in front) but I would far prefer leaving this alone than being able to break down units even further.

As for the skirmishers PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, don't go the Napoleonic option way with being able to detach individual skirmish units. That system was all well and good for the Napoleonic era where clouds of skirmishers were a feature of the era. But it is not correct for the era of the Rifle musket.

Of course they had skirmishers, but the present method of being able to detect enemy units one hex away works perfectly fine and is completely clean. If you want to make them more effective maybe increase the range to two hexes.

But I don't want the very fine HPS Civil War system reverting to a variant of the Napoleonic game. I eventually abandoned the Napoleonic games because they were just a mess, especially for single turn play.

Let's improve the Civil War system but not make it a clone of the Napoleonic one.

Bg. General Gilbert Collins
Army of Alabama
III/I/2nd Brigade

One thing is certain, and I have said this many times, I will never advocate individual skirmishers.

Antietam does have an OOB and a few stock scns with broken down cav units. Feel free to make your own.

I believe I created a few small skirmish units for Campaign Chickamauga for those wanting to create new scns.

The one gun loss is currently used in the nappy series, and though I would like to explore the already mentioned FA solution, I haven't ruled out the one gun loss concept.

I also haven't ruled out the new disrupted unit tweak, with a few changes. I like to concept, but I need to be sure we aren't creating more problems.

Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"

To the options on the intial thread I am in favour of 3 and 4.

Want to also say thanks to the game designers who give us choices as well as input.

I don't know anything about game design but I agree with the discussion regarding the advantages attackers have. I would be in favour of some sort of rout mechanism in the attackers' phase. Or alternatively would it be possible for a fix that would reduce the movement points of any units that come under fire? Say 1MP each time the unit was fired upon, so long as casualties were caused? Would this not slow or disrupt the cohesion of units advancing to attack and melee a defensive line?

Regards

Col P. Kenney
4th Brigade
1st Division
III Corps
Army of the Mississippi, CSA

Rich, I don't know if anyone's already brought this up in this massive thread, but I'd like to state a few things about the current <b>Quality Fire </b>and <b>Quality Melee Modifiers </b>options.

I agree in principle with the concept behind these options, and have read the excellent designer's notes regarding them. However, I'm of the opinion that the modifiers go way too far in their effects! I tried looking for some additional information concerning how the modifiers are actually implemented and what their values are, but could not find anything. So I'm at a loss as to making a qualitative suggestion. But it does seem to me that the quality gap between an "F" and "A" unit when using these options is too great.

Of course I'm a Union officer and that probably has something to do with my perceptions, but I'm also something a history buff. And when I see what happens upon the game fields when the current <b>Quality Fire </b>and <b>Quality Melee Modifiers </b>are added to the already <i>substantial morale effects</i> upon tendency to DISRUPT and ROUT and the capacity for RALLY in the basic game, I'm amazed at the almost ironclad invulnerability and ferocious combat power of the "A" and "B" units compared to the knee-shaking ineptness and quaking lack of strength in the "E" and "F" units! The so-called elite units become the veritable "hot knives through butter" for all practical purposes. And "C" and "D" units seem to fare little better against them.

So what I'd like to see is a more subtle applicatiom of the <b>Quality Fire</b> and <b>Quality Melee Modifiers</b> options.



Col. Jos. C. Meyer,
4th Brg'd, Cav. Div., 14th Corps, Army of the Cumberland

How about a command rule that allows brigade commanders and division commanders to issue a command so each unit in their respective formations goes into line and/or column formation without having to change formation for each unit? Of course, the manual option would still be available to select formation for each unit individually. This would be another feature like column movement that would help to manage large formations by avoiding the tedium of having to select each unit. If you wanted to get fancy, you could program it so whether every unit successfully changed formation due to a command order was in part dependent on the quality of the officer giving the order.

BG. Brett Kolcun
3/Cav/XX/AOC

Has the possibility of allowing mounted to cavalry to fire at range been discussed? This is a feature in the new Mexican American War game which I really like.

Lt. Gen. Ed Blackburn
I/I/VI/AoS

"Forward Bucktails"

The scale in MAW is much different

Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"