American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

ammo points are assigned to UNITS not batteries so there is no Union advantage in that respect. i.e. a Confederate battery of 3 "units" (ex. 3 2-gun sections) will get 3 points and one with one unit will get 1 point in terms of calculation of total amount of artillery ammo. There is NO bias simply for size of unit.

When calculating ammo totals I add up the on-map units and multiply that by a number that depends on differing factors--side, length of scenario, what happened previously historically, supply situation, etc. Since the Union artillery ammo reserves were far more lavish than the Confederates there is also a built-in factor to take care of that. For example, if there are 100 units of artillery on the map for the Confederates I could times it by 15 and get 1500 for a one day scenario and if there are 50 Union units for that scenario I would multiply it by 20 (to account for more plentiful reserves) and get 1000. I think you will find in the vast majority of scenarios, the Confederate player will have a much higher ammo total to take into account their generally higher number of units.

Players that want to fire off all their artillery units every turn will run out of ammo. Historically, armies didn't do this...they couldn't do it even if they wanted to as their ammunition would run out quickly. In even the fiercest battles, only a small percentage of an army's batteries were firing at any given time. If you keep this fact in mind and employ your guns judiciously you shouldn't run out of ammo in any of the scenarios. You should also pay attention to the opfire setting as using the long range setting for an entire scenario can be a useless drain at times.

Drew

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by prsir</i>
<br />From my experience the Union has hords of 6 gun baterries, some 4 and 2 also. The Rebs mostly have 1 and 2 gun batteries with some 3 and 4. Not a 6 to be seen. Which leads me to a gripe. All batteries whether 1 or 6 consume one artillery ammo point. Where's the justice? Why not increase the ammo and have each battery consume ammo points equal to the size of the battery?

Paul Siragusa
Captain 6/2/II, AoG
Crockett Rifles
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Colonel
3rd Bde/1st Div/17th Corp
Army of the Tennessee

Thanks Drew for the feedback.

Best Regards,

General Pierre D.
CSA Reserve Corps
President, ACWGC

Drew,

No offence, but your allocation doesn't work well. I do the same as you do, in my EAW games, and it works because every battery unit/counter is ONE gun.

In Peninsula, from what I see in the OOB files from the below posted link, you have battery units with various number of guns, 1 - 6. This makes arty allocation impossible. Simply put the NORTH fires one AMMO POINT of Arty fire, and gets the effects of 6 guns fired. The SOUTH fires one AMMO POINT of Arty fire, and only gets, at most, the effects of 4 guns firing. To balance that out you have to make southern guns more effective, which is not the right solution.

I recommend breaking all batteries down into 1 or 2 gun sections.

Yes, the boys will gripe that 1 or 2 gun units can't hit the side of a barn, but you will be able to evenly and accurately distribute arty ammo, so you will have solved one of the two problems (1. equal ammo usage per tube, 2. combat power of arty) fairly, and IMO, you will have solved both since an entire battery of 2 or 3 sections can concentrate on one target, the target will sustain appreciable damage.

I liked Corinth arty breakdown, and felt you had really gone in the right direction by doing so. Many problems (I had with the BG arty)with tactical deployment, ammo supply, etc was addressed nicely by dropping down to the section level where both armies had the same organization. At the battery level where the two armies differed so greatly, there are too many issues to deal with them properly.

Keep up the good work, you and all the ACW design team.

Artillery by the section! HUZZAH!

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

<font color="blue">Quote from Drew: "ammo points are assigned to UNITS not batteries so there is no Union advantage in that respect. i.e. a Confederate battery of 3 "units" (ex. 3 2-gun sections) will get 3 points and one with one unit will get 1 point in terms of calculation of total amount of artillery ammo. There is NO bias simply for size of unit."</font id="blue">

This method would be correct and ammo expenditure would work correctly if batteries were consistently broken down into sections and the sections were always two gun. However, in CP the CSA has over 80 guns in single gun sections. When a scenario has a lopsided share of these (most are in the fortifications and a couple of divisions), the Reb is expending 6 ammo points to fire a 6 gun equivalent battery compared to the Union who expends only 1 ammo to fire six guns. Also, these one gun units create a stacking problem. There is a limit on number of units in a hex independent of the equivalent stacking.

The bottom line is HPS needs to either change the ammo use to 1 ammo for 1 gun or combine all artillery into a consistent unit size (2 gun sections or 4/6 gun batteries). I like the gun sections but during the Civil War a section was two guns. I know the designer is trying to add realism by representing the actual gun types used, which for the CSA was every cat and dog, but it is creating a game problem.

<font color="red">A one gun section creates an ammo useage error, a stacking error, and a road useage error (one gun takes up a 125 yard section of road while a Union 6 gun battery gets the same 125 yards).</font id="red">

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

I agree with Bill's pros and cons. I personally don't like to move all those artillery units in the big scenarios. That was the reason of my initial question. I find it a detriment to game play. I remember a WWII game were there were so many trucks it felt like it was a 'get the trucks out of the way' game since you spent half of your time doing that.

Without having played the game yet, it would appear that there would be a major advantage to the Union with their 6 battery guns. Just with auto defensive fire they would appear to have a much greater impact then the smaller CSA units especially if there are so many 1's. The older way of doing it, 4 gun CSA VS 6 gun USA tended to simulate the differences in quality of guns and the quality of ammo.
By having a mix of 6's and 4's it worked well in my opinion.





Best Regards,

General Pierre D.
CSA Reserve Corps
President, ACWGC

I still think the optimum artillery supply solution is something more akin to the infantry supply system. Each unit, when it runs out of ammo, would draw supply from the train in proportion to it's size.

I would also like to see battery-size units that could be broken down into sections at the player's option, like light infantry in the Napoleonic games. This might require fudging gun types for the rebs, but maybe a PDT type for "mixed battery" when batteries were half rifle and half smoothbore could cover this. Of course, several "mixed battery" types might be necessary to get the preponderance of units, but it's a thought. The points made about conserving ammo are certainly valid. In reading of Gettysburg, I found that both Hunt and Alexander disparaged wastage of artillery ammo, and with the ability to control range of defensive fire we can now limit(to a degree)wasted shots when using ADF. I could wish that ranges could be set for individual units, but what we have is an excellent feature that we used to only dream about in the old Talonsoft forum. Hats off to John Tiller and the folks at HPS for all of the wonderful changes they have made and features they have added over the past ten years.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by mihalik</i>
<br />I still think the optimum artillery supply solution is something more akin to the infantry supply system. Each unit, when it runs out of ammo, would draw supply from the train in proportion to it's size.

I would also like to see battery-size units that could be broken down into sections at the player's option, like light infantry in the Napoleonic games. This might require fudging gun types for the rebs, but maybe a PDT type for "mixed battery" when batteries were half rifle and half smoothbore could cover this. Of course, several "mixed battery" types might be necessary to get the preponderance of units, but it's a thought. The points made about conserving ammo are certainly valid. In reading of Gettysburg, I found that both Hunt and Alexander disparaged wastage of artillery ammo, and with the ability to control range of defensive fire we can now limit(to a degree)wasted shots when using ADF. I could wish that ranges could be set for individual units, but what we have is an excellent feature that we used to only dream about in the old Talonsoft forum. Hats off to John Tiller and the folks at HPS for all of the wonderful changes they have made and features they have added over the past ten years.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA
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Mike,

Your suggestions about setting AI range per units would be great – as it stands now, the AI will essentially waste dozens of rounds firing off 1 gun units to zero or minimal effect, meaning that we have to set the range to minimum to avoid wasting ammo in tight supply situations, but that only has the effect of meaning that our larger gun sections also will only fire at close range, thus depriving us of their effectiveness at longer ranges. Under this arrangement, the Union forces can advance to close range and only face half the amount of fire potentially available to us Rebs simply because of an unintended design flaw. And since the Rebs’ main defense against the overwhelming odds we face in many cases is the chance of getting some disrupts before the Yanks can get too close, this places even greater strain on our lines.

It is a double edges sword – either we allow the AI to “wasteâ€

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<br />(hit by lightning the brain comes into focus and ...)

Ok - so we may never see something like this but hey, its a thought.

LtCol. Peters, 4th Horse Artillery
3rd Cavalry Division, II Corps, AoA

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Sounds good to me, but then, the extent of my programming knowledge ended with QBASIC... but I could make a KILLER PONG game! [8D]

Regards,
Major Alan Lynn
3rd Battery "Jacksonville Greys"
4th Div, II Corps, AoA
God bless <><

Guys -- re-read Drew's post. There is no disparity. Ammo <u>use</u> is not the same as ammo <u>allocation</u>. Yes, a 1-gun section uses an ammo point just as a 6-gunner, but in the base number that 6-gun battery gets your side 1 ammo point into your ammo pool while 6 1-gun batteries get you 6 ammo points (before modification).

Of course, that's assuming <b>I</b> read it right! [:I]


As for Bill's idea -- great in principle! As to how it gets programmed, (cue Sgt Shultz) "I know nothing! NOTH-THING!"

(My favourite line from the series, by Shultz: "Col Hogan, promise me one thing. If you ever escape, take me with you!")



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

The allocation is correct as you say. The ammo allocated is based on the correct count. The game mechanics though are incorrect since one gun unit uses the same amount of ammo as a six gun unit. In any situation where ammo appears limited due to amount or length of scenario the player is a fool to leave his one gun units in line of battle. It forces a very gamey action, you send all the one gun batteries to the rear. The allocation is correctly calculated but the ammo useage is screwed up.

I suggested that the OOB be changed to consolidate all these guns into standard two gun sections because this is a good comprimise between representing every cat and dog gun the Rebs had and fixing the ammo useage error. You still have a problem when you take a gun hit but not as bad. It also has the advantage of requiring no reprogramming the game just a new OOB.

The better solution, and requires probably the least modification to the programming, is to have one ammo expended per gun fired (not unit). The allocation and the expediture are now on the same bases.

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

I got a Question on This mater. If a Cavalry or a Infantry unit over runs these units are they still that sides guns or do they go to the other side

Brig. Gen. Stand Watie

Commander of the 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Brig. Gen. Stand Watie</i>
<br />I got a Question on This mater. If a Cavalry or a Infantry unit over runs these units are they still that sides guns or do they go to the other side

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The guns cannot be captured.

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

President, Colonial Campaigns Club
</b></font id="gold">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Ernie Sands</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Brig. Gen. Stand Watie</i>
<br />I got a Question on This mater. If a Cavalry or a Infantry unit over runs these units are they still that sides guns or do they go to the other side

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

The guns cannot be captured.

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

President, Colonial Campaigns Club
</b></font id="gold">

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Why cant you capture a gun what is wrong with that. What happeneds to them if you go right through them

Brig. Gen. Stand Watie

Commander of the 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles

Bill, I think we're saying the same thing. But while I agree with the point about usage, it does seem the fact is if you send your single-gun batteries to the rear or off the map then you actually wind up with more ammo for the larger batteries, making the Rebs in effect have *more* ammo than the Yanks.

I do withdraw my single-gun batteries, but because they can't hit anything, not that I'm worried about ammo. We do set up all our batteries and use them, and that's why we run out of ammo. The Union at Gettysburg kept rotating batteries in from the reserve, so actually fairly few were in action at one time. Maybe we need an ammo rating for the whole campaign? Then we will have to *really* plan (which is why I don't see it happening!). [:o)]

So yes, I agree it's abstract in that one ammo point fires 1 or 6 guns, but if you've been given extra points based on the number of sections/units you have, it should work out. And we haven't even gotten into having ammo per gun type, plus cannister vs case vs round vs whatever else you want to include, and having to track those! Can you imagine having mainly 6#ers and capturing an ammo train full of 3" rifle ammo?? [xx(]

Golly gee, this topic really has sparked a debate, hasn't it?? [8D]

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

Sean,
I agree with you. I rarely use 1 gun batteries. I save them for emergency situations. I like the idea of getting more "bang for my buck", in this case artillery point.








http://www.compassnet.com/3rdtxcav/3rd/var.gif

Paul Siragusa
Captain 6/2/II, AoG
Crockett Rifles