American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Lots of chatter since my last post. The only thing I'll say is, regarding Steve's post, 100 men wide and 100 men deep would be ten THOUSAND men. Try THAT in yer pdt, Robert!


John
Col 2/20th A/C

10,000 men in a hex (roughly a division). Works great on a grand scale scenario and if the map covers the whole eastern US. Why not? I'm sure the .pdt and game engine could handle it. The firing range would be limit to 1 hex for all weapons I guess.

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Union War Dog!
MG. Derek Hampel
Cmdr. Second Div., XV Corps
Army of the Tennessee

Gawd, you're right - I was meaning 10 deep ... which is about the size of what I have been working with. It's definitely been awhile.

And playing around with combined pike/shot rated units, and unit frontages, all of that stuff.

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~Retired~

Gentlemen, I salute your expertise in PDT modifications and manipulations, as well as your philosophy concerning "work-arounds" as opposed to game engine changes. However, I don't believe that the majority of club members have the skill or inclination to dabble around in PDT files! Most of us just want to be able to have a good product that plays well and satisfies our concerns, whatever they may be. Nor would a prospective new member to the club and games necessarily want to be presented with the need for additional tweaks just to be able to play what should be a straightforward, enjoyable and insightful simulation.

John Tiller and his team have come through with some very good and needful game engine modifications and additions in the past. And the ACWGC was called upon to help with the direction. I recall when Rich Hamilton asked the club on this forum to provide all their thoughts about any upgrades and changes that they would wish to see implemented in the Civil War Battles series prior to a planned upgrade. I was struck by the enthusiasm and rapport that the club had with the Tiller team at that time and the excitement that was generated by the upgrade when it was finally published. These things do happen with the result that the product simulations become even more realistic and playable, both for the ACWGC and the general public!

I tend to think that, if we spend too much time in technical tweaking in the belief that core changes will never happen, JTS might expend less effort in addressing future improvements. On the other hand, maintaining a trusting relationship with JTS ought to be one of our number one concerns, lest we, as a group, eventually appear to be something less deserving. Personally, I don't feel in the slightest that someone within the JTS team isn't keeping track of the ideas and suggestions for game improvement generated within our forums. We represent a knowledgeable and experienced cadre of players for these titles. We shouldn't feel that our comments are ignored or overlooked any more than JTS should feel that we don't know what we are talking about.

To make things much easier for the record in both directions, I agree with a suggestion made recently by Col. Hecht that a separate sub forum ought to be created for Suggested Game Improvements & Discussions. Furthermore, that once done, a concerted effort should be made to move all applicable past posts and related threads into that forum.

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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)

I think what might be overlooked is that for years anything and everything to do with the Civil War, is that everyone has their own opinion; this presents a real and practical problem whereby an end user has got to be prepared to work with those files in order to determine where and what an engine can do before even proposing an engine change (regardless of which engine it is that you are talking about.). E.g. Longstreet was a bum at Gettysburg/Longstreet should have been listened to at Gettysburg (ad infinitum), this weapon was more effective than that... and anything in between.

I guess I have to agree with Joe's statement that skill/inclination play a part, and I guess there is a mercenary motive involved too. However setting that aside, I think that end users, definitely need to be prepared to 'go there' when it comes to coding, because no one can ever assume an engine change will happen. This goes for design work when the end result is to be a product too (maybe especially true to be entirely fair), because engine changes don't happen overnight and they are pretty cyclical in nature. Also too, there is a big difference in an 'engine change' and a 'tweak' - a 'tweak' is far more likely to happen (based upon what I have seen in my limited exposure to several series).

The (rhetorical) question becomes: 'how do you know the difference then?' -And that is my point, if you want to have effective suggestions then one really needs to understand the difference, especially because what is really being talked about is something that is going to require an argument style presentation.

Another point was - want to play around with changing facing from hexside to hexspine? It is doubtful (and people who would know - do know this one) that this would ever be done to CWB, but Musket and Pike? It uses hexspine facing (with true hexside flanks). Another rhetorical question; what would you do with hexspine facing? Well now you got something that you can play around with in the Musket and Pike engine - or NB if you rather... sure you got no maps to go with it, but the larger point might be testing out a combat model to see if it is even viable to use spines with flanks instead of hexsides for unit frontages.

But the thing is, is what is being mentioned is not something that anyone new to the hobby can be expected to do; true -however someone does have to do it, if it ever gets done -therefore the conversation needs to be framed in this manner.

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~Retired~

If I recall correctly, the Mex Am War game used a different facing. Having two frontal, two flank, and two rear hexes makes a lot of sense, but boy did I get the "hee haw" when I suggested it for ACW!
Going one step further, the Age of Rifles game uses eight facings. three front, two flank and three rear. It is a very different, and far more sophisticated engine.
Engine changes are so few, and so slow in coming, that the only way to make a difference is by working the pdts. Better than nothing.
John Ferry
Overland co designer