American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Is their A paper written that explaines the game effects of the diffrent rule setting? How is one able to melee durning the turn or in A seprate phase, or why in some games A unit can't change formation except before it moves? Can the rule setting have diffrent effects in diffrent games or battles?

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Lieutenant General Ernie Fantini

Your question begs an expansive answer, Ernie, and I've sent you a personal e-mail with a number of attachments that should answer most of your questions. But you can also access the HPS User's Manual, which contains a wealth of information, from any one of your HPS games by opening any battle file and pressing the "F4" key on your keyboard or going to the pulldown menu of the "Help" selection on the game screen.

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General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC
Union Army Chief of Staff
Commander, Army of the Shenandoah
Commander, Army of the Tennessee
(2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)

Short answer: Yep.

There are now a whole load of optional rules. Some just add detail to the game play but most of the ones added after the initial game release are for new features or bug fixes. Many need to be implemented in groups or the game may get unbalanced. I usually play with all options on since this puts the game in Phased mode and I find most of the other optional rules balance out nicely between favoring the defender or attacker. There are some exceptions.

In Turn play the separate Melee phase was introduced to fix a serious problem with the ability to use Blitzkrieg tactics more appropriate to armored warfare than Civil War.

The new artillery capture rules can dramatically change the game balance in some scenarios since it requires you to occupy the hex with a captured gun at the end of the scenario in order to get VP for it.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)

To me the optional rules can really be divided into several groups. Here's how I tend to look at them.

1. Quality modifiers: Do you use them or not? I fall into the school of thought that most Rebel units are overrated quality wise to help keep the game balanced because the Union player is generally not going to be near as incompetent as their real life counterpart and with Union numbers that can be a game changer. Personally I will not use them unless forced to as I think that just having the higher quality gives the Confederates an advantage to start with and why pile it on.
2. Rout limiting/Flank Morale modifier: If you use one you should use the other. I tend to think the sight of your neighboring regiment bolting for the rear will make your regiment a bit skittish but the opposite should be true also, if you see your neighbors standing stoutly it should inspire you as well. If you use one you should use the other or not use both in my opinion.
3. Turn style: You could probably start a pretty good debate on which is better, playing in phases or single turn. My personal choice is to play by turns with the Optional Melee Resolution rule checked to force all the melees at the end of the turn. Playing by phases just seems to take forever to me and it is just my personal choice.
4. Artillery rules: I leave the Artillery Capture rules unchecked as it is just a pain in my rear to keep finding units to occupy the captured guns and I hate all those messages popping up about capturing them every time you swap a unit out. I do use the Artillery Ammo by Cannon rule and the Retire by Prolonge rule as I find them to be a bit more realistic.
5. Fatigue rules: This would be the Night Movement fatigue rule and the Higher Fatigue recovery rule. I use both as I think it finally imposes a penalty on the player for marching his troops during the night but not so bad that it precludes doing it and I like using the Higher Fatigue recovery rule as I personally believe units pile up fatigue a bit too fast and I think this counteracts it somewhat. I do think this is another case of if you use one then you should use both.
6. Game Play rules;
A. Victory Points for Leader Casualties - I use this one as I do believe the loss of a leader had an effect on the troops and it makes the player think twice before putting that Corps Commander in a melee. Doesn't preclude it but it does make you think twice, or three or four times hopefully
B. Density Fire Modifier - I tend to use this one as it just makes more sense that the more folks you cram into a given area the better the chance you have of hitting someone
C. Mounted Cavalry Skirmishers - I really like this one as it really gets cavalry back to it's role as scouts without making them find the enemy by running into them. Just remember that you need to move these folks one hex at a time as it doesn't work too well if you're like me and get impatient and whiz them down the road using the ALT-Click movement method
D. Higher Disrupted Movement - I tend to use this one but it is really more of a personal choice
E. Bridge Limit & Repair - I like to use this one as I think it is just more historically correct
F. Full Melee Defensive Fire - I think this is one that is a "must" use as it helps take away the advantage the attacker generally has
7. Isolation/ZoC rules: I like using the isolation rules as I think most ACW troops were pretty skittish about being flanked let alone surrounded. I generally use weak ZoC's as you could hurt a unit as it went by I don't think you could really stop one if there wasn't a unit in front of it. I also use Partial retreats as I think if you didn't have a unit totally surrounded then some of the folks were going to get out with the same reasoning I use for Weak ZoC's

There is my take on the optional rules for what it's worth. Please feel free to point out where I'm wrong.

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General Mark Nelms

3/2/XX/AoC "Blackhawk Brigade"

Union Military Academy Instructor

Very good over-view of the rules.

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General Ernie Sands
President ACWGC -Sept 2015- Dec 2020
7th Brigade, 1st Division, XVI Corps, AoT
ACWGC Records Site Admin

"If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there."

Very good summary.

I recently had an MP game where the suggestion was to use all of the optional rules except for manual def fire. I thought it was wrong to do so and said so. Yet it still was implemented. I can only thing that it is because there is a strong lack of knowledge as to what all the rules do and how they may affect each other.

My question is what is the issues with using all the optional rules together?

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Best Regards,

General Pierre D.

5th Bde, IV Cavalry Corps
Army of Northern Virginia
ACWGC President 1997 - 2006, 2012
ACWGC Forum Administrator

In an MP game where Turn play, Manual Turn option off, greatly simplifies the email situation there are some problems with other optional rules. Particularly the new separate Melee phase option since it will introduce a second email round to implement. Usually the best solution is to not use the separate melee but mutually agree to make a player rule that all melees in the Turn will occur after all movement for each player.

Here is my short explaination of the options:

The following are Turn versus Phase play linked rules:
Manual Defense Fire - Really chooses Turn/Phased Play.
Automatic Defensive Fire - Keeps you from having an extra email step by having AI fire devensive fire.
Optional Melee Resolution - Fixes major flaw in Turn play by separating Melee from Movement.
Proportional Opportunity Fire - tries to fix another problem with the poor AI handling of defensive fire in Turn play.
Full Melee Defensive fire - Helps fix the lousy AI.

Changes the results spread. Makes things a little less of a dice roll. Some people like extreme results, some don't:
Optional Fire Results - Uses two rolls then averages.
Optional Melee Results - Uses two rolls then averages.

Fatigue Related rules - I think these fix a number of problems with fatigue and generally improve the game:
Higher Fatigue Recovery Rates - Makes it possible for units to actually recover from fatigue if you rest them.
Night Movement Fatigue - adds a penalty for all those night marches.

Leader effects - makes leaders a little more important in the game:
Victory Points for Leader Casualties - let get killed and it costs.

Fixes serious problems in the game:
Density Fire Modifier - some penalty for big stacks.
Higher Disrupted Movement - this one is debateable but I think it fixes a problem with the ability of disrupted troops to get themselves out of harms way.
Alternate Fixed Unit Release - increases the release range to 5 hexes. Anyone who has had me surround Sherman in Shiloh knows why this one is good.
Artillery Ammo by Cannon - fixes major problem with how the game handled artillery ammo.

Rules than add functionality to game:
Mounted Cavalry Skirmishers - I like this one. Cavalry doesn't go blundering around getting itself killed by supposedly slow moving infantry and can actually act as scouts.
Flank Morale Modifier - getting shot in the rear has an effect.
Bridge Limit and Repair - nice addition to use of bridges but you have to be careful with this one since some scenarios assumed the bridges stayed destroyed as part of their VP calculations.
Artillery Retire by Prolonge - haven't really seen a use for this one but it is a nice little addition.
Artillery Capture - everyone wanted this one until they got it. It causes problems with VP for capture. Some scenarios it is fine some it causes real problems.

Now for the Hard versus Soft Zone - I favor soft zones for a lot of reasons which I won't go into here. But I do group these together as use all or none since you need some things added to compensate for the effects:
Weak Zone of Control - this chooses the option of soft versus hard.
Partial Retreats - this reduces the chances of isolation kill.
Isolation Rules - You need this to correct for weak zones. It keeps some small unit that gets behind your lines from requiring a brigade to kill it. However, it creates other problems for people who aren't careful about setting up their lines.

Quality Modifiers - these the Yankees think make the Rebs unbeatable but forget that most scenarios need some compensation for the usually large manpower differences. This would take a separate thread to debate:
Quality Fire Modifiers - Unit morale value increases or decreases fire 10%
Quality Melee Modifiers - Unit morale value increases or decrease melee strength 10%

Think I got them all.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)

Great help, thank you. Should we make this a sticky?

What about "Rout Limiting"?

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Brig. General Tom Bridges

I have played MP games with the melee rule in effect and no problems, we have just included melee instructions with our file to the leader and he does them with his turn, as the leader is usually last. I think the benefit outways the small extra effort as you will have nearly as many interpretations of the melee rule as you have players and it prevents a lot of discussion.

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My understanding of the Flank Morale Modifier option is that friendly units on each flank increase a unit's morale by 1 level. This encourages solid lines rather than alternate hex defense.

I play with all options except isolation and retire by prolongue.

I don't play with isolation because historically a lot of times surrounded units continued fighting ferociously. This rule has necessitated the creation of an artificial device in the game known as a supply source. I have played for awhile now without the use of this rule and consider the game experience to be superior to when I did use it.

The only reason I don't use retire by prolongue is that the unit disrupts when it backs up. I can find no historical reason for this. Sometimes when I am moving units down the road they will drag an artillery unit back and disrupt it. This is an annoyance I can do without. If the unit did not disrupt, I would probably live with this annoyance for the sake of the little bit of historical accuracy the rule provides.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

I think you are right on the Flank Modifier and it is a good one to have on. I kind of consider it in the group with ZOC rules since it helps compensate for lack of hard ZOC.

Isolation rules cause people a lot of problems but with soft ZOC I consider it a necessary evil. It does create situations where regiments are wiped out that could have escaped. I would like to see the rule modified so that the isolation test was made more often so it would be easier to relieve such surrounded units.

The reason I favor it is it is very easy to exploit not having it. Without it you can slip a few units into the rear of an enemy army and using your god like powers of coordinating out of command troops tie down entire divisions since it takes six units to elliminate a unit without isolation rules. Isolation rules keep players from detaching brigades and division to wander around the map like you had radio control of them. With isolation you have to maintain lines and communications.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)

Hi, General,

We have both made our arguments before, and certainly you make valid points as always (although you can kill with only 4 units unless the target unit is routed).

I will point out that the reason Pickett's Division wasn't available to Longstreet on the second day of Gettysburg is that somebody had to guard the wagons.

I agree that improvement in the isolation rule would make it more palatable, but I don't expect that to happen anytime soon.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

You are correct on the minimum needed without isolation rules is four units as long as zoc's can be placed around all frontal hexes and units occupy all rear/flank hexes. That is still almost a full brigade required to insure destruction of one regiment and it must be properly positioned to accomplish it. But still requiring close to a full brigade, 1000-3000 men, to neutralize a regiment that might be less than 100 is a problem. If that regiment is cavalry and the attacker is all infantry it gets worse although I haven't tested the surround rules on cavalry without isolation rule. The four hex surround also only works if you have enough non-disrupted units to win the melee. If you fail the defender will route out of the trap with a good chance of disappearing from view. I have lead entire divisions on a merry chase trying to hunt down a few regiments that accidentally routed behind their lines instead of the right direction. Even with isolation rules I have forced them to spend hours trying to corral them.

The isolation rules aren't a great fix but a necessary one. We just have to much flexiblity within the HPS system to use detached units as independent commands not to give them some type of serious penalty.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)