American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Looks like I've started up a new thread on cavalry[:D]

The ability for cavalry regiments to detach sub-units and recombine (like in the Nappy engine) certainly makes sense, particularly with the fixed OOB that prevents players breaking cavalry down themselves. Otherwise, a scenario either has large regiments that can't break down or lots of small units that have to be moved about individually, which can sometimes be a pain on a large map.

But can cavalry perform its proper battlefield role without engine changes to permit scouting and also prevent these small units getting easily surrounded and wiped out? What sort of solution would work without causing new problems?

Surely cavalry piquets should be able to "see" ahead like infantry skirmishers? Isn't that their true role? Maybe they should also reduce nearby enemy movement too?

Also, being in open order and mobile, they ought to be able to get out of trouble without suffering heavy losses, yet - in a turn based game - they usually end up getting surrounded and captured before they can escape. How might this issue be solved conveniently?

Some folks are worried that creating lots of cavalry piquets will permit players to use these to surround & massacre enemy forces. Maybe this can be dealt with by:

1./ Preventing cavalry piquets from deliberately moving adjacent to an enemy unit of greater strength, except perhaps routers.
2./ Cavalry piquets can be just brushed aside by units of greater strength, with neither side suffering losses, but the unit using up some movement allowance to knock the cavalry back into another hex.
3./ Cavalry piquets will only be able to melee other cavalry piquets, unsupported artillery, routers, supply wagons & leaders. They either won't be able to participate in a melee against infantry or, if they can, they won't be able to block the retreat of an enemy force of superior strength and will get brushed aside.
4./ Reduced casualties due to enemy fire (perhaps 1/3 or 1/4 normal losses), but only if a single cavalry piquet per hex and no other units except leaders.
5./ Automatic disruption for infantry and mounted cavalry stacking in the same hex (as in the Nappy engine).

This would allow cavalry to act as a delaying screen, slowing down an advancing enemy, but unable to bring an enemy of superior strength to a complete halt (as say 25 cavalry can currently stop large infantry columns dead in their tracks - a useful tactic on forest paths). However, the cavalry would need to be able to perform this role without suffering massive losses, either getting shot to pieces or else surrounded and massacred.

So perhaps shooting at cavalry piquets should result in significantly lower losses, but getting shot at might force the cavalry to retreat?

Mounted firepower for certain weapon types - pistols & shotguns - would also seem reasonable. Perhaps the pistol firefactor at range 1 hex should be higher, especially against enemy cavalry, considering they'd probably be 6 shot colts and the horseman might well have two guns.

Of course dismounted cavalry wouldn't enjoy any of the benefits of mounted cavalry.


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

I do like #2! I wonder if the fact that Nappy cav already calculates strength for purposes of overrunning skirmishers means this would be simple to add?

Watch #4 though, or it becomes impossible to re-combine! [:0]



Maj Gen Sean Turner
3rd Cavalry Division, "Yankee Thrasher"
I Corps
Army of Alabama

Good observation about 4# - I'll change this.

I think cavalry breakdown into squadrons is one of those things that could unhinge the game system unless combined with systematic changes throughout the game. The ability to saturate the map with small squads of cavalry will create problems. It will make the godlike overview of the map even more so. Not only will you be able to count the number of men in regiments from five miles away but no valley or hill will prevent you from seeing. The highly vulnerable officers, wagons and guns will have to move around with regimental escorts. And, of course the godlike power to coordinate hundreds of cavalry squads to instantly repsond to battlefield changes. And the list goes on.

I think that any major change in how cavalry can break down will need some significant changes to the game engine and other units to compensate. Some things that I feel would be needed to keep these new units from dominating the battlefield:

In item 3 either the cavalry piquets need to be severely restricted or infantry needs to also break down to companies. I would recommend that cavalry piquets once detached would assume a scout only role and could not melee. This probably isn't a bad assumption since on the battlefield a detachment sent to scout wouldn't instantly convert to a raider just because they saw an opportunity, there orders were to scout. If they can raid then infantry needs a method to support artillery, wagons and officers by also being able to detach small units. You shouldn't have to use 500 man regiments to garrison a two gun section.

Scouting: Having large number of cavalry squads roaming the battlefield puts into question why you should have LOS of 70 hexes. If you have a unit capable of recon for the army then the LOS fog of war needs significant restriction. Any unit over about 5-8 hexes ought to be displayed by type only (artillery, infantry, or cavalry). Any unit over 16-20 hexes from the nearest observer should be just a "?" counter. The maximum LOS should be much smaller than 70. While they could on a clear day see that far they really could see men that far. These numbers should probably be reduced further if the target hex is not clear terrain. This would give all these cavalry piquets a real job to do, find the enemy and determine his strength.

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

Well, we could certainly do with "weather" (and limited visibility) being carried over from the Nappy engine. Normal day visibility is 40 hexes, not 70 as in the ACW engine (which is far too high), and that can easily be reduced in the pdt as required.

A more sophisticated LOS system would also be a very good idea, but perhaps hard to incorporate. Distance, terrain type, unit type and size should all be factored in, as well as whether the unit is stationary or moving. Then there'd need to be a % probability of detection depending on the number of units with potential LOS and whether they were infantry, artillery or cavalry, with cavalry piquets having the best chance of detecting the enemy.

Some cavalry piquets (eg. 100 strong units) already effectively exist in the games, but the inability to divide/recombine like Nappy cavalry is an unnecessary and rather arbitrary restriction. Besides, what function is a 500 strong cavalry regiment supposed to fulfill? It can't subdivide for scouting purposes with the current engine, so must either fight dismounted as substitute infantry or be used mounted for shock tactics. But surely ACW cavalry would be better used as scouts than as shock troops like Napoleonic heavy cavalry?

Perhaps there might be a distinction between scouts and raiders, but isn't this really up to the player? Capturing an isolated leader or supply wagon accidentally encountered would make sense - and can already happen with the current engine - and it would be just as feasible for a player to use a supply wagon or gun section as "bait" to ambush some cavalry. I've occasionally tried meleeing limbered guns with cavalry - usually losing some horsemen without actually doing any damage whatsoever to the guns. I suppose there might be a need for infantry to detach artillery/supply guards, but maybe cavalry sub-units could fulfill this role instead?

I suspect that a better LOS system could easily be introduced. The "?" display for units spotted by certain types of units already exsists. It just needs to be expanded and ranges of LOS introduced.

As to cavalry squadrons being able to melee or not. You are correct that these small formations would pick up any officers and destroy any wagons they came accross. I mostly propose the restriction on melee because of our godlike overview. With many small squads of cavalry to implement every LOS of an officer becomes a pontential kill. You shouldn't be able to spot a target five miles away and immediately send a cavalry squad another mile away from the target to take it out. In reality the officer would probably spot the cavalry coming and simply ride to the nearest friendly formation.

Wagons are a different problem. In some scenarios there aren't sufficient cavalry to protect them. Normally as in Gettysburg one or two regiments were detached to do this job, an entire brigade I believe for the Army Trains. But with the current system a regiment of infantry can't spread out to cover the Corps and Division trains. Having a fog of small cavalry units spread out on the map makes this a problem. Either infantry would need the ability to detach companies to protect these assets or there inherent strength for defense would need to be increased.

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

I think it might be more convenient to increase the inherent strength of artillery, although perhaps allowing most infantry to detach a single company might be useful (it's possible with the Nappy engine), either as a detached guard or in loose formation to skirmish ahead to the edge of woods.

LOS is always a problem, and would remain so even with a more sophisticated system, as long as there's a turn base engine. How can the game engine prevent players from observing troops with one unit and then moving other units - that may well be out of LOS - to intercept the enemy? The troops couldn't communicate enemy positions this rapidly as if by radio!

I suspect the only answer would be to move away from a traditional turn based system to a "We-Plot, We-Move" system, where both sides pre-plot their entire moves and then the computer resolves the turn in a series of segments, which the players can follow in the replay. But then you get the problem of when does a unit fire or melee - presumably that would require players to issue fire/melee orders in advance.

But, back to the subject of cavalry, I feel that the game engine should emphasize cavalry's scouting & raiding roles and enable them to perform this function without getting shot to pieces or else easily surrounded & captured. However, the large cavalry regiments that can't detach piquets are really only useful for shock tactics - but I don't feel this is how ACW cavalry ought to be used, yet this is how the game engine effectively forces players to use cavalry.

Hi,

I think there is a basic difference here for two reasons:

1. As the ACW progressed Cavalry became exactly that-mounted infantry. Horses were to get them to the fight faster and once at the fight, they dismount and fight on foot.

2. The scale of the game really takes the role of cavalry out(or simulates it). You do not have to 'find' the enemy. Do you ever play a game in ACW where only one side is present?[:D] If not the cavalry has done its job-found the enemy.

I think the engine is flawed because we have too much control and too much knowledge but you want to give the player even more control.

I feel we need and action point system tied in with a command control system that works. When did either army attack en-masse with the army as a whole? The fixed rule is the only thing preventing this but yet this dosen't let us 'correct' the mistakes made only forces us to repeat them. Let me take the Union at Antietam with no fixed units and the Confederate has no fixed. Who do you think will win most of the time? Or the Penninsula?

Let us have a system where each side may pick a primary commander and only those units are allowed full action points. All other formations in command gat a randomly determined amount less than full.
To replace the primary commander the army commander and the two primary commanders must be in communications range and the longer the path the longer before the primary commander can be switched. During the change over between primary commanders all formations get a random
% of action pointsa. Every action taken uses action points except maybe routed units get max automstically. Infan/cav/art/supply max AP are different as are COL/Line Mounted/line formations. Artillery need AP to fire nad light guns with rapid relaod may fire more.

Col. Phil Driscoll
1st Brigade/1st Division/VCorps/AoP