American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Since in another thread, I said that there are "bigger fish to fry", I thought I best post...

What is my "big fish", what is the one change I think would most benefit the engine?

(This is more for the unphased play, but applies to both)

That, the possibility of taking disruption in the offensive phase (ie, when taking fire from adf), should be seriously raised, when the attack hits with a certain "threshhold" of firepower. (Basically, the equivalent of a 400man regiment with rifles at one hex, though the exact level can be discussed). The idea being that the best way to rebalance defense and offense is to make it very likely that a unit advancing to melee will be disrupted it if advances right into the teeth of the enemy firepower. Suddenly, your best way to break an enemy line would be to either wear it down first, to cut their firepower, or to work the flanks.

Brig. General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA

I like the sounds of that! Simple and effective. Add in the new Shiloh "Select Full Melee Defensive Fire to have defensive fire conducted by the program against attacking units in melee at full strength instead of half-strength." and combine the two in a patch that adds each as a separate optional rule and we will see a quantum leap in the offense/defense balance issue in all the HPS ACW games.
Gen. Thos. Callmeyer
4th Bgd.-1st Div.-XV Corps-AoT

I always liked the board game idea of a Pin result on moving units. Plays hell with the best laid plans of an attacker.[:D] And, probably reflects one of the problems Civil War commanders had when attacking. The tendancy of advancing troops to stop and return fire when fired upon rather than continuing their attack.

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

The one thing I liked about the pin in the old boardgames was it was automaticaly removed so it was only a one turn thing. Of course I can remember the same units getting pinned turn after turn but at least the removal was automatic for both sides and it affected the attacker more than the defender since the only debit was the unit couldn't move or melee.

Lt.Gen.Ken Miller
Veteran's Divsion
VIII / AoS

I think that the old TSS game had it closer to right. A morale check before melee, a Pin result, a melee only against units you fired on, retreat by prolonge for artillery, density and Brigade combat effectiveness. It has been dealt with before in boardgames. I can't see these as being overwhelming to program! If these were in place we could graduate to the next level of issues.

However you must remember that it does do not change the fact that in the games the CSA wins at Gettysburg, Peninsula, Antietam, Shiloh etc.... irregardless of single phase, multi phase, whatever!

Best Regards,

General Pierre D.
CSA Reserve Corps
President, ACWGC

[:D]

If you read Gordon Rhea’s account of the Battle of Cold Harbor, for instance, you get a great idea of what happened to the attacking Union units on June 3, 1864 where most of them advanced and were pinned down by the heavy Confederate fire and proceeded to duck and cover and scrape out a trench/dirt breastwork wherever they stopped to help cover them until nightfall. They weren’t necessarily “disruptedâ€

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by ALynn</i>
We get entirely too many melees to be realistic in these games. The number of true large-scale melees during the war was quite low – hand-to-hand combat accounted for an extremely small percentage of the casualties.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Melee doesn't have to mean there are actually casualties. Melee is more a contest of wills and is usually decided by one side retreating from the fight before it comes to stabbing with the bayonet (or clubbing with the musket butt, more likely). So the lack of bayonet wounds doesn't mean melees didn't occur.

But I agree with the conclusion that melees play way too high a role in these games. That's mainly because they are a much better way of achieving a decisive result than is firepower. The games definitely got that one wrong. (And HPS even more so than BG--melee is still potent, but firepower has mostly become abysmal.)

Gen. Walter, USA
AoS / War College

So then, why not just bump firepower up then??

Lt. Jason Fitch
commanding, 4th Bde
1st Div IX Corps
Army of the Ohio

As has already been pointed out, pinning would certainly be a good feature to help redress the balance between attacker & defender (it works well in <i>Age of Rifles</i>)

<b>Automatic</b> "frantic" defensive fire immediately prior to resolving melees would also be worthwhile (again in AoR)

A new defensive formation that "dug in" units can adopt, providing all round defensive fire but no movement would be useful too (this too is in AoR)

So would fatigue for using up full movement allowance - this would deter players from rushing their troops about the map at top speed, turn after turn.

Or a gun capture / recrew / recapture feature

Or a proper supply system for artillery

However, none of these would actually be my "One Change" to improve the game engine. Instead, what I'd really like to see is the traditional turn-based system replaced by a more advanced (and realistic) simultaneous plot & move system. Since there's a replay button to see the opponent's turn, surely this could be developed into a system where the movement during a player's "turn" is only provisional, with the computer combining the two players' pre-plotted moves and then allowing both players to see what actually happened in a replay of the entire turn. (Of course with FOW, the player would only see those enemy units that were observed by his own troops).

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

Col. White,

I have to state that simultaneous systems are not more realistic and certainly not more advanced. It is more of a question of preference then realism. They are a different way of playing. You still have the problem of the enemy not properly reacting to your move. You just react in different size chunks. IMHO.





Best Regards,

General Pierre D.
CSA Reserve Corps
President, ACWGC

I'd vote for artillery to be able to retreat after melee defeat, ending up limbered and disrupted (and probably a few guns missing, too). They're semi-mobile victory hexes otherwise.

Major General Dirk Gross
CAV DIV/XIV Corps/AoC

With all respect to Gen Pierre D., I agree with Col White on simultaneous preplotted turns. If nothing else, it erases such anomalies as the side that goes first gets shot at dusk and routs away at night. But Gen D is right in that properly implementing preplotted simultaneous turns would require a lot of foresight in determining viable unit reactions as the situation develops during the turn. Nevertheless, I hope to see it in my lifetime.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

Unfortunately, I suspect that a pre-plotted simultaneous movement system would probably require a completely new engine, so it would be rather more than just "One little Change".

For such a system to work, players would almost certainly need to be able to pre-assign certain orders on a unit by unit basis (although it should be possible to assign the same orders to an entire division or even corp if a player so wishes). eg. whether to melee and at what range to open fire. Also whether to evade enemy movement, stand one's ground or actively attempt to make contact. Guns should automatically limber up and fall back to avoid getting meleed - unless given clear orders to hold their ground, or perhaps if caught by surprise by previously undetected enemy. Of course things shouldn't necessarily always go to plan or run smoothly and troops might panic or decide to disregard orders or end up doing something really foolish, especially if led by certain leaders, who might be rash, cautious or just downright stupid (the treatment of leaders in the current engine could certainly be improved upon). But the A/I would need to be capable of preventing wierd things happening most of the time and should really be able to tailor the probability of something completely unanticipated or bizarre occurring depending on the unit quality and any leaders stacked with it. But perhaps that's asking far too much for the A/I to cope with.

Probably each 20 minute turn would need to be subdivided into four 5 minute sub-turns (or maybe five 4 minute turns), with the computer calculating the "turn" in a series of mini sub-turns. Maybe players should be capable of issuing different orders <b>in advance </b>for each sub-turn, eg. advance, fire, fall back, fire again. But the players would only see the entire 20 minute turn unfold in the replay. For the EAW series the standard 5 minute turn would be sub-divided into five 1 minute sub-turns - perhaps this system could also be used for small scale ACW scenarios, with the scale modified to the company level. Alternatively (ideally just modifiable in the pdt as now), there could even be 10 minute turns subdivided into five two minute sub-turns. Flexibility is a very useful feature.

But, as far as "realism" goes, such a "we-plot, we-go" system - if handled properly - would surely be far superior to any traditional turn based system derived from pre-computer era tabletop wargaming.

However, I'm sure there'll still be quite a few players who'll continue to prefer the old system - at least initially - after all a new system where the enemy can't be relied upon to obligingly stand still while you take your 20 minute "turn" and calculate all those clever, but not so very historical, chess-like ZOC melee eliminations, might require a radical tactical rethink. But I for one look forward to the day of seeing ZOC eliminations a rarity rather than a standard tactic - but a simultaneous movement system would provide much more besides.

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

Simultaneous movement system would allow the addressing of a lot of "issues" with the current system but being in the process of trying to figure out how to make it work, it also introduces a lot of problems. The AI for the units would have to be a lot "smarter" then the current AI in order to deal with all the special problems that come up when the plotted move runs into trouble. Plus there has to be some link between units to allow units to know that moves that must be coordinated have somehow failed.

And there are the purely mechanical problems of such a system. Like how to replay the battle? There is no single point of view to watch the "real time" replay from. You can't do like our current games and jump to each active unit and show what is happening to it since all units are active. Sid Meier solution was a pretty far away view that could be zoomed with FOW to prevent you from seeing things you shouldn't. But he had no pseudo turn for preplotted moves so the game could be played by email.

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

Combat Mission (a WWII game) is a WEGO (preplotted) system and works in PBEM games. In this game, you first set your units and then your opponent sets his units, both within the parameters of the scenario. Then you plot your turn, set your units to do all the various things units can do, like fire, manuever, hide, run, etc. You do this for each individual unit or you can do it by squads or companies. You can actually plot things like sneak, hide, "shoot and scoot" (pre-plot a move, then a fire, then reverse your tank); you can check LOS for your units, individually. Then you send the file to your opponent and he plots his turn and he then sees the computer run BOTH commands, at the same time. He can see his units move, can "hear" close by tanks moing, can see each individual uits move or fire. This is done by a VCR like interface that CAN BE REPLAYED by the phasing player. After he has seen the replay, the turn is set back to you where you observe the REPLAY using the same type of VCR replay. After you have seen all you want, you then plot your next turn, basing your next moves on the previous turns replay. It works well.

It is a Advanced Squad Leader type system.

So, it is possible to combine all that (most of) what you are talking about in an PBEM (and hotseat and online) game system.

Is it suited to the ACW and the games we now pla; I don't think so. It is much different. Is it better; that is a question for each indiviual.

I have something like 20 games going in the Tiller system (HPS and BG), but only 3 in the Combat mission series.

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
LtGen, CO XXIII Corps, AoO

President, Colonial Campaigns Club
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