American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

What is are the most common ways of correcting the melee shortcomings in the ACW engine ?

The laughably absurd concept of ACW infantry regiments assaulting in column is easy enough to correct with a HR against the practice - but what about the unbelieveably high amount of melees ?

How do you legislate in your games to reflect the fact that it was essentially all a shooting war and not a hand-to-hand brawl ?

Thanx ..



<font color="gold">Lt. Gen. Ken Counselman
XVIII Corps / AoJ</font id="gold">

www.irony.com and similar sites can be used for die rolls. If you wanted to limit melees, then maybe a player would have to roll to see if he can melee. Figure whatever roll you think is needed and if there should be any modifiers, then a player with a successful roll could show it.
I don't care for a lot of house rules, but to get the end result you want, that is about the only way to solve your problem.

MajGen, 2/VIII/AoS
"Beer! It's not just for breakfast anymore!"

The Norris mods for BG took care of that by drastically reducing the stacking limit so that good melee odds are next to impossible to obtain. Works even better with the HPS games where melee odds are actually an attacker/defender ratio rather than the difference between the strengths. (In BG, attacking 100 with 200 and attacking 900 with 1000 is the same odds, even though the former is a 2:1, the latter a 10:9 ratio. In the HPS games, the former is a more or less certain proposition, the latter is hardly worth thinking about, as it should be. Of course, there's modifiers, but these, too, are more drastic in their effects in the BG games, because usually they are like +1, +2, so in the above case, attacking from the rear and with a leader would already result in a +3 differential. In HPS modifiers, too, are a percentage applied to the odds, like in the Nappy games attacking from the flank is +20%, usually.)

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

Thanks Dierk. [:)]
Reducing hex stacking would indeed seem to be the ticket.
Any ideas where the Norris mods are lurking ?

<font color="gold">Lt. Gen. Ken Counselman
XVIII Corps / AoJ</font id="gold">

They used to be at the Areny site before it closed down. I have the Norris files for most of the stock BG games somewhere on one of my computers, including, IIRC, the Norris mods for Pea Ridge, Perryville, and some other of the more popular older add-ons. I also have the Norris-Frost mods (stacking limit 600, more effective artillery) for Gettysburg and Antietam.

There used to be a new site around somewhere that mainly offered mods for the HPS games. They might have some of the Norris files, though I recall they never made a difference between Norris and Norris-Frost, which was quite confusing. Don't think I have the link though.

Update: I found it.

http://www.acwgc.org/acwco/

From a quick check, they seem to have the BG mods. They still don't differentiate between Norris and Norris-Frost though. From looking at it, I believe it's all Norris. There were very few Norris-Frost mods around anyway.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

With HPS its very easy to reduce stacking. Open the pdt file in a text editor, save it under another name, make the changes you want, then whenever you want to play a scenario with the mods, you can change the pdt line in the bte file. Simple.

Now for some scenarios you may have to unstack some overstacked groups on the first turn.

MajGen Al 'Ambushed' Amos
3rd "Amos' Ambushers" Bde, Cavalry Division, XX Corps, AoC
The Union Forever! Huzzah!

The problem with reduced stacking is that with early war games (CP and CS), many regiments were larger then the 700 suggested stacking limit.

Rich

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Rich Walker</i>
<br />The problem with reduced stacking is that with early war games (CP and CS), many regiments were larger then the 700 suggested stacking limit.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

That is solved by breaking them down into two counters.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

If stacking was reduced to 700-800 we'd lose the modern era
blitzkrieg assaults and these games would start to resemble
the nineteenth century "company into line" concept of fire-warfare. [;)]

I gotta tell ya, I've played a lot of HPS Panzer/Modern Campaigns
games in the past year and I'll take a couple of ACW brigades
any day of the week over an armored division.

This has the feel of an M1AI Abrahms assault force blasting it's way along. [:(]


<font color="gold">Lt. Gen. Ken Counselman
XVIII Corps / AoJ</font id="gold">

Actually I believe it needs to be more like 400-500 to begin to resemble ACW tactics. Too many regiments are at 300-400, so that 700 still allows a rather huge differential against such a hex in the BG games, and still fair 2:1 odds for HPS. A lot, obviously, depends on the breakdown factor. I specifically recall the Norris version of SBR as one where successful melees were virtually out. Stacking was 400, most battalions were in the 180-250 range, with the effect that very rarely you could stack up to the limit. Sometimes I found myself wishing for ranged fire casualties on my side so that two battalions would stack! Basically for melees to have any chance you had to pile up positive modifiers (rear assault, leaders, isolation) and meticulously avoid negative ones (melees uphill, against forest hexes etc.). But I think it was adequate.

As y'all know, of course, Norris also took care to raise the importance of ranged fire by reducing the casualty increments from 25 to 10, but make these lower results more frequent, as well as raising the morale effects from taking fire, especially enfilade fire. As a result, wearing down the enemy with ranged fire, maneuvering for his flanks, aiming for the enfilade shot, was a far more effective way of overcoming resistance than melee.

In one respect the HPS games are worse than BG and that is melee fatigue for the attacker. If you melee with very good odds, there is almost no penalty whatsoever as long as you succeed. A unit could go on meleeing day and night as long as it wins. Thus, not only are outnumbered defenders, say rearguards, completely prevented from fulfilling their historical role (they are just wiped out with little delay for the attacker), but also constant meleeing is utterly encouraged. One of the most serious shortcomings of the HPS engine for me. Now with BG, you meleed three times and that was the end of it for at least a day. And I think that's adequate, considering how often, in the real war, a unit would close in on the enemy, let alone charge home with blank steel. Once a day was usually the extent of it, then a unit was spent. BG gave us 2-3 times. HPS made it infinite times.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

Except that your units are disrupted and must rally before a new melee. And if your units are already tired, FA will mount up.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br /> Once a day was usually the extent of it, then a unit was spent. BG gave us 2-3 times. HPS made it infinite times.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS


<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Of course, one could potentially make the argument that “meleeâ€

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by ALynn</i>
So while I agree that melees are relied upon too much for many players and would prefer a good slugfest myself, I would accept my above argument as a possible explanation.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I don't disagree, I just think it doesn't matter. Whether you stab or shoot, closing in on the enemy under fire (or being closed in on) is what creates the psychological stress.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Rich Walker</i>
<br />Except that your units are disrupted and must rally before a new melee.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Yes, but so what. They will. Disruption doesn't put them out of the fight for long. Fatigue does.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
And if your units are already tired, FA will mount up.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Their being tired or not has nothing to do with it. Fatigue will be added as a result of combat action, not of existing fatigue.

But my hole point is that in the HPS games you will *not* incur significant fatigue, if you just melee with good odds.


Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

For those of you that like to tinker with the pdt files, has anyone tired to play with a lowered FA base? The current default base is 900. What if that were reduced to say 700? Your FA percentage would increase faster and melee would be more difficult as units would be more tired.

Just a thought!

Rich W.