American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

I think that Gen Hulinsky's suggestion of a tournament review board sounds like an excellent idea. I do have to disagree though with MG Ringbloom's years of service requirement. I do not think it is the amount of time you have played the game that determines experience. Some people can pick up a lot in a very little time. I would suggest that the volunteers must have achieved the rank of Brigadier General. This requires that they already must have been in good standing and obtained their commander's recommendations for advancement. I would be happy to offer my services to this committee if it becomes a reality.

Brig Gen Shaw,
4th Brigade, 2nd Div,
XX Corps, AoC, USA

Gen. Shaw: I am sure you would make an excellent member of the board. My five year requirement did not refer to "experience" so much as the opportunity to be familiar with all the games involved. It simply takes time to play them and I think you would need to have played the games (preferably from both sides) to judge their balance. But perhaps not the 5 year but the number of games played is the key.

Maj.Gen. Drex Ringbloom,
Commanding 2nd Div, "Corcoran's Legion", VIII Corps
Army of the Shenandoah

Hey I'm doing my best to balance the wins for the Confederates but one General can only do so much!

General Don Golen

I Corps /Army of the Potomac
"The Iron Corp"

I'm still letting people weigh in but it looks like after the first round is over, we're just going to move to the second round scenario using the first round brackets again - in other words, whoever you just fought, you're gonna fight 'em again using the Raid On Stephenson’s Depot scenario from Gamesquad which is 18 turns long. Once we announce the start, everyone will have 8 weeks to complete it. If anyone has found this scenario to not be balanced, please chime in now.

Some comments regarding the proposal to create an ACWGC Tournament Review Board:

1 - You notice the lack of comments from any ACWGC Cabinet member in regards to the suggestion. They are probably waiting for the idea to be hashed out and then might not act until an official proposal is made to the Cabinet. It will be interesting to see their reaction because the club has tended to leave proposals such as this in the hands of whoever stepped up and did it. If the club members accepted it then that's just the way the club operated from there on. However, the current Cabinet members might see things differently.

2 - Some of you who have playtested need to chime in. It can be a very time consuming and frustrating occupation.

3 - The qualifications for playtesters go way beyond someone's club rank or how long they have been playing. Match up two people who are not "equals" on the battlefield and see how valid of a playtest that you get. Determining "equals" is certainly a subjective decision.

4 - How many times do the playtesters need to play it? Do they need to play using each different set of options or will just one do the job? I might point out the current HPS technical difficulty concerning night fatigue (and maybe is the reason for not counting all arty tube destructions as well) works fine with all options on but doesn't work if MDF isn't selected. If you playtest with all options on, you don't notice the problems that will show up later in tournament play. Also, there isn't any data to substantiate or disprove anything, but I feel that option selections can impact the balance of most scenarios.

5 - This is important! If we can't identify short (12-24 turns) balanced scenarios, then there can't be future tournaments using HPS games without using mirror matches. We see the problems that are being encountered using just HPS Gettyburg. The next tournament being formulated would use all of the HPS ACW games. Does anyone dare to try and identify some short balanced scenarios in all of the HPS games? I didn't think so.



Lt Gen Ned Simms
1/VIII/AoS/USA
Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em.
VMI Class of '00

I would like to never agree with General Hulinsky.

If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell.
- General Phil Sheridan

Lt. General Rusty Hodgkiss
VIII AoS

There have been plenty of past tournaments in this club so there must be plenty of proven scenarios that can be replayed OR maybe someone can modify existing scenarios to be more "balanced.

Maj.Gen. Drex Ringbloom,
Commanding 2nd Div, "Corcoran's Legion", VIII Corps
Army of the Shenandoah

Drex, the number of tournaments have decreased considerably since BG tournaments were no longer feasible because of the balance/mirror match issues. With several ideas being pursued for future tournaments, it is time for this subject to be broached seriously, even though it might be painful. Scenario feedback is not a favorite thing to do by members of this club so Tournament Directors have included scenarios that were included in the last tournament and get complaints that this scenario sucked and that scenario was unbalanced, etc in the previous tournament.

I agree with building/modifying scenarios to be balanced for use in tournament play. There would have to be quite a few done because we would get tired of playing the same scenarios tournament after tournament. However, easy said but not so easily done. What are there - 11 HPS ACW disks now with more on the way and everybody owns different combinations of the disks? This Wheatfield to Round Top scenario was designed to be balanced and in the playtests the Rebs often beat the pulp out of the Yanks. The scenario had been downloaded well over a 100 times from Gamesquad prior to this tournament with only one feedback (good scenario except some of the Reb units that had fought on the first day of the battle had too many men available for the second day). Thus back to my previous comments in regards to a Tournament Review Board. It can and should be done - but easier to start than to finish - and if not done correctly, the finish won't be good (as evidenced by this scenario). It is a major task that will require a long long time to finish.

Lt Gen Ned Simms
1/VIII/AoS/USA
Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em.
VMI Class of '00

For what it is worth, I LOVE THIS SCENARIO, but until Genereal Tisdale and I are finished, I'll keep mum on how much I LOVE THIS SCENARIO! [:D] (finished turn 11)

MG Al "Ambushed" Amos, Commanding Officer
1st Div, I Corps, AoP, USA

Wait a minute . . . Let me get this straight . . . After agreeing to the rules of the tournament before beginning, we now find that the rules are being changed? What guarantees do we have that if we replay Round One a second time, there won't be another discussion and then see Round One played over again a third time? Are there any tournament rules anywhere that come with a guarantee that they won't be changed?

Obviously, I'm not crazy about seeing things handled like this. If I'm the only one who feels like this, I'll bow out of the tournament with minimal hard feelings. BUT, if there are others who have lost some enthusiasm because of the changeable nature of things, please chime in.

Is it remotely possible that we can continue the tournament by the standards we agreed to before beginning?

Your Obedient Servant,
Lt Gen Dwight McBride
Ist Division/1st Brigade
V Corps/AOP/USA

Can't we just continue the original tourney and play another sometime?

Major Gen. Seger
I/VIII AoS

Should those of us still playing games finish?

General Don Golen

I Corps /Army of the Potomac
"The Iron Corp"

Play on! Play on! We live, we learn, the next tournament can be perfect, let's just enjoy this one.

MG Al "Ambushed" Amos, Commanding Officer
1st Div, I Corps, AoP, USA

Allow me to express my sympathies for the tournament organizers -- they have done a great job and tried their best to give the players an enjoyable experience. But trying to achieve balance is particularly difficult. I know, because I have run tournaments in the NWC for years. Stock scenarios are usually historical and not meant to be balanced. For that reason, I design my own hypothetical scenarios and try to make them balance. But even this is hard to achieve unless each scenario is playtested -- preferably more than once. But who has time for that? So, what I do is rely on the uncertainty of war. I design what I think is a balanced scenario and then players are randomly assigned a side to play. If the scenario turns out to be unbalanced then it was only that element of chance that stood between a player and victory. I don't apologize for unbalanced scenarios -- nothing in war is certain. The players know this going in. The tournament organizers have done their best. They learn from mistakes and the survivors go on. I would happily give my oppenent another game (he fought bravely and exhibited great skill), but rules and brackets should not be changed once a tournament has started. We play, we learn, we go on. It's only a game -- for braggin rights maybe but in the end its just for fun.

BG Ken 'Muddy' Jones
Army of Tennessee
USA

Gentlemen <salute>

I certainly intend to complete my remaining battle. The results of the previous two battles are what they are and have been entered in DoR. I may not believe it an even scenario, however I agreed to play the scenario as presented.

General Simms did us all a service by sponsoring this tournament, and I appreciate the opportunity to face Yankee officers I may or may not have ever met otherwise. Let's thank him for stepping up to put together a club activity and move on with the tournament.

my regards,





Col Neal Hebert
2nd Division, I Corps, AotM
Adjutant, VMI

Lt General Simms and All Our Esteemed Union Opponents,
Gentlemen,

I will certainly abide by whatever decision Lt General Simms decides upon. I've meant no disrepect to him, his efforts or our fine opponents. I definitely agree with the comments below and many more made by other fine Officer's here at the MDT.

BG Ken 'Muddy' Jones - <i>Nothing in war is certain.</i> Agreed.

LG Dwight McBride - <i>pharaphase... it's not good to change the rules after the fact.</i> Agreed.

Basically, it's just a manner of Southern pride (we got stomped) and what the Union Camp feels is fair play (how would I have faired if I were in their shoes... well, if Rebs had shoes). [;)] It's fairly apparent to me that the scenario is unbalanced in way that no one anticipated when (quoting Lt Gen Simms)... <i>the Yanks have won 11 (6 Major Victories, 4 minor victories, and 1 draw) and the Rebs have won only 4 (4 draws)</i>. Not a single victory for Confederate side? There are great players on both sides of the Club and when the results are so one sided you know one side was accidentally dealt all the face cards in the deck and the other side got dealt 4's, 5's and 6's. Pretty hard to get a Draw in that sort of poker game. [:)]

Anyway... all that we are doing as the Confederate players is making a public appeal as to what sort of tournament "you all" want to have here. If you want a tournament that has only a few token Confederate players in Round Two, that's ok with me. But if you feel the results of Round One would lessen the enjoyment of the remainder of the tournament for everyone by the absense of a significant number of Rebel Officers, then something needs to be adjusted.

You are not obligated to do anthing... we will certainly abide by the rules as they were established. We've already given up Major & Minor Victories in the DoR and we are not calling that those games be reversed. Those are the fortunes of war.

I think everyone would certainly agree that this first scenario was a hot little engagement. I enjoyed fighting it against my opponents but was a bit disappointed when I had inflicted more casualties on both of my opponents... was outnumbered 2 to 1 at scenario end... but the best I could possibly hope to achieve by the way the scoring system was established was a Draw. Now you all know that I am an average player at best but when nearly every Rebel player is experiencing the same result... then I know something is out of whack. If I were running my own Tournament... and something like this happened... then I would make the necessary adjustments to honor my Union participants who were placed in that situation.

But I am not Lt General Simms and I'm just a silly Reb and regardless of the decision Ned makes I will think no more or no less of him. I must say I really love his wife's "peach pie"! [:p] I appreciate his efforts on our behalf and support him 100%.

Sincerely,

That dang...
General Roger Hulinsky
Cmdg, AotM
Confederate States of America