American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

I do think there should be some sort of adjustment to arty ammo consumption. Not sure what the solution is yet. Daniel's shortage of ammo was partially his fault. It isn't obvious from my posts but he was firing a lot of rounds at my guys south of the Chickahominy on the first day when they were dug in. It wasn't just the AI doing it. It wasn't hurting me a bit, I was hoping he would keep it up. I just didn't expect him to run out, I just expected him to get more selective with his shots.

I had to get more selective of my shots the last couple hours. I figured that with 3k rounds I could blast away. It doesn't take long when you have about 100 guns firing twice a turn. Once I droped below 1000 rounds I got real careful, but it comes with a price. You lose a bit of your offensive punch.

Time consumption was all about how many units were on the field. There were so many regiments firing, on both sides turn after turn, that it just took a while to play each turn. It was fun, but just difficult to find enough time to break away from real life and play it. That is why we had to take a break for a few weeks at one point, real life caught up to me.

As I typed this I thought of a solution to the arty ammo issue. Only offensive fire counts against the ammo supply, but defensive AI fire gets more selective as the ammo goes down. So when ammo supply is at 75% or better of total stock then AI will fire at anything within range.

At 50%- 74% arty will fire at anything within 75% of its total range.
at 25%-49% arty will fire at anything within half its total range.
Less then 25% arty will only fire at targets within rifle range.

Numbers would have to be tweaked, just kinda a free flow of ideas as I typed.

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Lt. Col. Thomas Wayne (Iddings)
6th Brigade, 3rd Division, I Corps
Army of the West

Thanks muchly for taking the time to post this AAR!

In olden days when Talonsoft was king a few series replays were posted, but the turns were uploaded. Both players commented and an observer posted neutral commentary. Don't know which way is better, but any way is better than no way. Thanks again for this labor-intensive effort!

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

Having dual commentary with an independent one is a fun way to present an AAR but is time consuming. I did some in the past where each side posted a commentary on their turn but delayed it about 1 or 2 hours so they wouldn't give away anything to the enemy. Having a third person to collect the comments and publish them delayed is even better.

Turn play definitely favors the attacker. If you haven't found a way to at least make local attacks you are losing. It has been a while since I played this particular scenario but if I remember right the best Union plan is to retreat across the river and only fight on the south side. If you are playing a campaign it is better to take even a marginal loss and save your troops for a better situation.

I am surprised at the Union lacking artillery ammo. Usually they have enough not to have to worry. Which may be what got him. Didn't realize soon enough how limiting it was. Main thing needed on artillery ammo use is better AI selections than minimum, random, and fire at everything. I would like to see at least 4 or 5 range selections. Even better would be some type of test for effectiveness before AI fire.

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

Thanks for the feedback. I know I love reading peoples AARs on other games, I was disappointed to not see any at the MD tavern. I figured it would be fun if I did one.

If it didn't use so much bandwidth it would be cool to post an edited video of the turns. I have recorded a few turns and attempted to make a GIF but the upload time was a killer. I'm still gonna see if I can't pull it off, but it is tough were I live (just north of Winchester VA) due to only having Satellite Internet available, therefore every bit of data is precious.

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Lt. Col. Thomas Wayne (Iddings)
6th Brigade, 3rd Division, I Corps
Army of the West

I like a test for the effectiveness of the AI fire.

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Lt. Col. Thomas Wayne (Iddings)
6th Brigade, 3rd Division, I Corps
Army of the West

I didn't mean they posted video. They uploaded the PBEM files I think for several turns from both sides, and if folks wanted to download them and run them they could.

It worked because it was before encryption.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

Someone ran some tests a few years ago to see how AI fire compared particularly on Turn vs Phased play. The halving of fire in Turn play severely affected defensive fire. Adding the fire before melee optional rule corrected the worst of the effect but still left fire combat badly out of balance between defender and attacker. I haven't found the original posting on it but if memory serves the basic findings were the AI artillery tends to waste ammo firing at long ranges and was prone to not firing at adjacent units. Infantry had similar problems. What made them particularly bad is that since the fire was halved and at longer ranges than a play would use it did little or no damage. The attacker not having this problem marched their troops adjacent to the defender and then fired.

How all this affects an actual scenario depends on whether the scenario has situations where both sides can attack so that these affect average out. If the scenario is one where one side is always the attacker and the other the defender, Turn play significantly favors the attacker.

There is also the problem in that the attacker can "game" the AI. The AI only can fire at something that expends movement points in its LOS and then it is still based on a die roll. A player would use this to make enemy artillery waste ammo firing at something moving in the distance or use one weak unit to trigger any fire while it moves to block the defender's LOS so that mass stacks can move without worry.

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