American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

In HPS it is my understanding that the defender fires at 1/2 value and that the attacker fires at full value. Is this correct? Isn't this completely backwards? Shouldn't the attacking party (who is on the move) be the one who's attack value is halved? As players have mentioned movement is not tied to fire value, so when the attacker moves 2 mps or 12 his "fire" value is the same. Now I realize that this would mean re-programming the whole game and I am not advocating that but doesn't it make more sense to have the defender fire at full value and the attacker at 1/2?

Wouldn't this reflect better actual Civil War Tactics that should favour the defender? This is one of the reasons I get so frustrated with the HPS tactical portrayal. Now I realize they have made changes to defender fire when meleed. But what if no melee is present? It is fire fights that decided most Civil War combats, not melees. Shouldn't the game system reflect that?

Now maybe I am totally missing something here, but if the AI fired at full value in defence this would compensate to some degree the nasty habit it has of picking some strange targets. The "advantage" to the attacker would be in priority target selection but still at only 1/2. Some would say that this would help the defender too much, but that is my point exactly. It should.

If someone more learned than myself could comment or answer this puzzling anomaly I would welcome an answer.

Lt. Col. Collins
III/I/II Brigade
Army of Alabama

The attacker get's 1 shot, at 100% effectiveness (not to mention modifiers)

The defender get's any number of shots at 50% effectiveness each - I've seen that range from 0 to 6, depending on the situation. And with the addition on the new optional rule "- Defending units will now fire at 100% as a result of melee." I would say things are certainly in the defenders favor when you look strictly at ability to throw down lead in any given turn.



LGen. Hamilton
II Corps
ANV, CSA
Signal Corps - Editor in Chief

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Rich Hamilton</i>
<br />The attacker get's 1 shot, at 100% effectiveness (not to mention modifiers)

The defender get's any number of shots at 50% effectiveness each - I've seen that range from 0 to 6, depending on the situation. And with the addition on the new optional rule "- Defending units will now fire at 100% as a result of melee." I would say things are certainly in the defenders favor when you look strictly at ability to throw down lead in any given turn.

LGen. Hamilton
II Corps
ANV, CSA
Signal Corps - Editor in Chief
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

When using the Turn based system which uses the Opportunity style defensive fire at half strength, the actual casualties resulting from defensive fire is about half what phased play would cause. While the defender does get to fire more the AI does a poor job of handling that fire. Most fire occurs at to long a range to be as effective as the Offensive fire and very inconsistently. It is also only triggered by movement or fire. It also looks like the average number of times a defending unit will fire is about two but I don't know whether that is a statistical or hard coded result.

Someone in a different thread actually posted the results testing this and if my memory is correct the net result was Turn based defensive fire was on average half as effective as phased based defensive fire. The full strength fire for before melee will help correct this but I can't test how much since I don't have Shiloh yet.

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

The main problem with single phase (what Gen Whitehead refers to as turn-based) is that the op fire is so unpredictable. I have had units march up to a stack of eight sections of artillery and take it out with the artillery only firing two or three times, none at point blank range. I have seen other units fire every time a stack moved. On balance, the op fire is pretty anemic. If you have two lines standing toe to toe, the attacker will have the advantage, because he will fire his units by stack, getting full effect while receiving scattered counterfire at 50%. Of course, if the attacker has moved, he will only fire at 50%. Woods are a real problem for the defender because the attacker only risks defensive fire twice-when he moves his stack into the enemy ZOC and when he fires his stack. In my experience he will always significantly outshoot the defender. Lately I have advocated some form of op fire to supplement the multiphase system partly so that infantry can change formation throughout the turn. Right now, those two features are the best things about single phase (imho). But I think somehow you have to make sure all the defenders get to fire, especially against units in their ZOC.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

To better reflect simultaneous movement, I propose the system only give 1 movement point per unit per turn. [:o)]

Actually, I think the movement versus fire has been used in many other games (Steel Panthers I think?) and it makes sense to me that if you're walking, you're not shooting or reloading...

Major General Dirk Gross
XIV Corps/AoC

I agree that defensive fire is too random and ineffective - this results in the attacker having greater firepower and allows him to move into contact & melee with only a small risk of getting disrupted or suffering significant losses. So, basically the advantage lies squarely with the attacker, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

Perhaps the defender needs to fire more frequently? Or fire at 100% effectiveness? Or each defending unit should get at least three shots at the enemy, determined by range settings?

Another possible solution to the weak defender / strong attacker issue might be to move over to an <i><b>action point </b></i>system, like the WW2 engine. At the moment, with the current system, an attacking unit can use up its <i>full</i> movement allowance, then fire and then melee too! But with an action point system, if a unit used up more than 2/3 of its allowance it wouldn't be able to fire. Also, in order to melee, a unit (or at least infantry) normally requires most of its action point allocation - so an attacking unit would need to start out adjacent or maybe one hex away from the defender in order to melee. Of course, if an attacker started out adjacent to the defender the unit could instead fire three times (if it didn't move or melee), but the defender would probably fire back three times too, and if the defender had breastworks or trenches and artillery support, the attacker would tend to come off worst in a firefight. This would result in the attacker needing significant numerical superiority to take a position by direct assault, preferably after softening up the target with an artillery bombardment in advance.

So, in my opinion, an action point system might well be the best solution - for the EAW and Nappy games as well as ACW - and it wouldn't need any new code, since it could be carried straight over from the WW2 series.


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