American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

I see your point now. I have no problem with increasing to the max range if the likelihood of any damage over a certain range is minimal, like .1. But I also have no problem with an
artificial max range based on the technological limitations of that period. They have already done that with (small arm) rifles, even though they could hit at much greater range. Sniper rifles at over twice the range. Color me neutral. But thanks for that artillery file. Pretty interesting!

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

0.1 would mean not even a half casualty for a 6 gun battery. The lowest value currently used is 0.25 and that gives at least 1.125 casualties, I think that should be the bottom line.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

Then there is the problem of ADF. Do you really want the choice to be essentially 4 hexes or max range with a chance of inflicting one casualty at a range greater than, say, a mile?

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

Will we also see new PDT movement values that are standardized over all games?
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20968

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

You have to be careful giving units long ranges just because their weapons could fire that far. Unless you are going to play all games with manual control of both offensive and defensive fire you are going to have the AI run you out of ammo. Ranges should reflect weapon use doctrine as well as potential. Long range artillery fire was done more to harass the enemy rather than to actual do damage. Likewise rifle fire was seldom used except for harassment at range of 300+ yards. There was little chance of a hit unless the target was unusually massed.

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

True, anyhow AI should be not our concern especially as a HvH club.
I wouldn't mind if the AI gets improved in that aspect but just to refrain the use of correct ranges so the AI can handle it while the human player is the fooled one isn't OK at all.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

I think AI HAS to be our concern as long as the vast majority play ADF or turn. A needed fix is changing the range settings. Instead of the intermediate range being a random selection of firing units it should be a hard max, like the minimum setting only farther out, like maybe 10 hexes. Unless you want to give everybody unlimited artillery ammo, which would render range settings unnecessary anyway.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

Yea simple max hex range is the way do go. Question is if Berto can "easily" change the current system to that.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

AI is a major concern. Not because player's are using it as an opponent but because you have to use the AI's fire logic to eliminate having to have an extra mail round to resolve defensive fire in phased play. For Turn play you have no choice by to use the AI to handle defensive fire. It is a particular problem for the Rebel player because he usually has limited ammo supply. The Union player can in most scenarios let the AI bang away at anything it can find to shoot at. The Rebel player however will lose most games if it allows this. Some games it is necessary to set the AI for both artillery and small arms to minimum range if the player doesn't want to watch the Union walk over him toward the end of the game because he can't even fire.

This is a significant problem to a player who has limited supplies because he has to give up having a defensive fire phase because the AI has almost no settings between not shooting except at adjacent units and blasting away at maximum ranges.

It is also a problem that should be easy to fix since all that is needed is a few more choices in what ranges the AI will try to fire in. In most cases, that would handle the worse of the problems. It would be nice to have an AI that actually made good choices in what to fire at but it isn't necessary to fix the problem for most situations.

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

Fwiw, that actually is the reason it is a major concern.

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~Retired~

Are you saying, Steve, that AI play is a necessary asset to the sale of these games?

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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)

Basically that is the gist of what the feedback to the company has been for a long time now, although I don't know how WDS will approach things -I am speaking more generally across the range of series'.

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~Retired~

Speaking strictly for me, playing against the computer holds little attraction for me anymore, even against a challenging AI.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

Yea HvH in phases is the way to go even if more mails have to be send.
But I guess the majority of the clubs member's are US citizens what always leaves the option to do at least the smaller scenario by direct-play what is much faster then even playing in turns.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

If its a major concern then the game is screwed.

I doubt anyone will be able to program an AI for a game that has hundreds of units operating across thousands of hexes. At best it will be like play a ten year old who doesn't not the game rules. The possiblities that an AI would have to evaluate just to move one unit would be staggering much less trying to coordinate those moves.


The AI's in most of these board games are just scripted movements. They can make a very stagnant situation playable but usually they are easily exploited. Most rely on just giving the computer better everything to compensate for dumb but that does not create a very interesting game.

Maybe if you interface your computer opponent to Big Blue it might work.

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