American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Gentlemen,
I daresay this has been asked before but I ask you indulge me nonetheless. Why are artillery VPs 60pts per gun in HPS Gettysburg? Given the generally superior ability of the Yankee guns and the high ground factor on days two and three, I'm finding it a tad limiting. My guns are taking a pounding. Yes I could run and hide but overall I'm thinking there is an imbalance. I'm just wondering what the rationale was for the doubling of points on this one?

Respectfully
Brig. Gen Dale Blair
Eureka Bde
2/2/I
AoA

Here is the rationale of Doug Strickler, the game's designer:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Design Philosophy

I have only a couple of points to make here. I have attempted to provide a vehicle that encourages the use of maneuver. Napoleon analyzed all warfare as a combination of mass and maneuver. Smaller maps covering historical situations virtually remove the element of maneuver from any but a purely tactical context. Maneuver engenders employing your cavalry in its true roles of screening and scouting. Maneuver encourages confronting a position with non-frontal assault. There's a time and place for everything, but, I think that you'll be surprised by the avenues that open up when one is not shoehorned into a short list of options by a map.

Maneuver, in my experience, tends to lower the casualty rates. These still remain too high, though I attribute a lot of that to play style as much as anything. This is the second aspect of gaming that I've tried to address. I've used negative incentives by way of substantially increased victory points for artillery (60) and cavalry (40). Concern over losing those points needlessly should lead to artillery being protected if at all possible; this, I submit, is historically accurate. Similarly, concern over the effects on one's Victory Points should lead to cavalry being employed against cavalry when at all possible, as the points net out unless one side takes a drubbing. Again, I think this is historically accurate in general. If more cautious play is encouraged as a side benefit of these changes, that too would more accurately reflect warfare of the age.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I don't agree with Doug's philosophy, but he designed the game.



MG Mike Mihalik
2/4/I/AoMiss/CSA

I don't agree either, but you can easily alter these values by editing the scenario. I think I will when I play Gettysburg next.

<center>Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
[url="http://www.acwgc-usa.org/"][/url]
<i>"... and keep moving on."</i>

</center>

I personnally agree with Doug. We may not like the constraints this puts on us but historically and technically they are correct. In terms of the amount of material and manpower required to field artillery and cavalry the VP represents their actual cost relative to infantry very well. A man on a horse was cost considerably more than to put in the field in terms of training and equipment. Like wise, fielding a battery of artillery required considerable more resources than infantry or cavalry. These assets can't be wasted the way we fight battles. Generals did not throw away good cavalry fighting infantry if they could help it. The cavalry might fight a delaying action against infantry but they were releived by infantry as quickly as possible. Likewise, artillery was not deployed in such a way that it would be exposed to capture or counter battery fire.

There was some problem with the ease of getting hits on artillery as well as crew kills but this has been corrected in recent game updates. There are still some problems with how artillery capture and VP works under the optional rules.

But if you use cavalry to fight infantry and artillery as little tanks you will probably find Doug's system is going to penalize you. Which is the way it should be.

General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
2/3/IV AoM (CSA)

I don't disagree that cavalry should be more valuable than infantry and should be used primarily against cavalry. It's worth 2 times infantry in all games except Gettysburg, and that's really enough of a penalty. 4 times as much simply means
1) cavalry becomes entirely useless against infantry, or even where infantry is near, because
2) with cavalry as walking high-VP targets, it really becomes worthwhile to actually go chasing cavalry with infantry regardless of the tactical situation.
Now cavalry did fight infantry dismounted in the real war. Gettysburg day 1, Cold Harbor day 1, etc. Try that in HPS Gettysburg. You run up such a VP penalty that no tactical objective is ever worth it.
The idea is correct, but it's already there in the series. 4x is too much.

<center>Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
[url="http://www.acwgc-usa.org/"][/url]
<i>"... and keep moving on."</i>

</center>

No, men were a dime a dozen. Horses are expensive. Just go out and buy one and you will see.[:D] A Porsche is a a lot cheaper to own.

Also it took years to turn a soldier into a good cavalryman. That is why the Union was so late fielding good cavalry.

Now it is time dependent. Early in the Civil War, 1862, you could justify saying they were 4x infantry because in the South there weren't a lack of volunteers to be in the cavalry and in the North the cavalryman were so bad it didn't matter. Toward the last, 1864, thise situation changed again. For the South horses were in short supply and very valuable to the army. For the North they finally were overproducing them so they were little more than mounted infantry anyway.

General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
2/3/IV AoM (CSA)

I agree with General Walter on this one. 2x is enough for cavalry and 3x/gun enough for artillery. The reason cavalry rarely engaged infantry wasn't that cavalry was more valuable, but that infantry was generally more effective in combat. I can think of few instances during the Civil War when mounted cavalry charges against infantry were attempted, and fewer still where they were successful. Most of those that were successful were against broken infantry, as at Cedar Creek.

As for ease of artillery getting hits and crew kills, if there has been an improvement, I haven't noticed it. In the last Gettysburg game I played, infantry was knocking out gun crews three levels higher and four hexes away with some regularity. Also, even though my artillery was usually behind entrenchments in woods and town, two or three would be knocked out every fire phase. Those were my guns, as the Reb can't afford to fire in every fire phase. This bears no relation to the actual gun casualties at Gettysburg.

As an aside, at Tillercon III we were told that JT is now amenable to actual crews for the guns. I think this will be an improvement, if it happens.



MG Mike Mihalik
2/4/I/AoMiss/CSA

There will always be lots of crew kills and artillery hits in GBurg because the VPs are so high. Each battery section becomes the equivalent to an objective so you try to take it out. My one full GBurg game degenerated into an absurd exercise in battery and counter battery fire.

Lt.General Dale Lastowicka
3/4/VIII Corps, AOS

Actually the one gun problems described have been fixed in the new updates. If you stack the one gun sections together now they will fire as a group with the same power as an equivalent battery. With the new ammo rules they no longer waste ammo firing.

Small scenarios do have a problem with the VP value of artillery and cavalry throwing the balance of the game when just a few units get overrun. I usually avoid small scenarios because they do tend to be a dice roll for victory due to how far the game will swing due to a bad route or a low odds crew hit.

But in full battles like Gettysburg the artillery shouldn't be in the front lines. The cavalry should be on the flanks not elbow to elbow with the infantry in the center just like the actual battle was fought. As soon as the I Corps arrived on the field Reynolds pulled back Bufford and sent him to the flanks and eventually off the field. When the artillery reserve showed up it was parked behind the lines along the Taneytown road. Eventually some if it got positioned on Cemetery Hill well behind the infantry lines.

When Pickett made his charge the artillery barely made an appearance with the infantry. It definitely wasn't used as mobile tanks like we tend to use it. That was because it was so easy to kill their horses which isn't reflected in the game system. No such thing as immobilizing an artillery section.

And because we do use artillery like tanks and cavalry to help us try to surround infantry we see a lot of dead cavalry and captured guns. The problem isn't with the VP value of the weapon but with the tactics of the player.

How you handle your forces determines whether these VP values are a problem. It the demo game I have going with Gen. Wilkes with me as the Yank we have fought for two days almost continously. I have lost only 1200 cavalry, about 10% of my cavalry force, and 17 guns, about 5% of my artillery. His casualty level is similar. Cavalry was use to threaten flanks and counter enemy cavalry moves not fight infantry. Artillery was used in close support of defensive lines and attacking units but not as tanks. A few were lost to counter battery fire but none were lost to overruns or crew kills.

If you more or less fight battles like they were fought in the Civil War you will find the game system rewards you. If you try to use tactics that weren't typical of the Civil War you will find the game will punish you. As it should. It's a somewhat simulation of Civil War combat.

General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
2/3/IV AoM (CSA)

<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 />Good to hear that the arty now fire as a group. As usual I am behind the learning curve! [8D]

I am not so sure that the system completely simulates combat but I will say this - if you play with the one phase system moving out into the open in full view of artillery is a quick way to first disrupt and then become easy pickings for a counter attack or further artillery fire.

Brig Gen Bill Peters, The Boise Rifles, II Corps Artillery, AoA
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I avoid Turn based but if it does achieve the above then artillery is finally working like it should. Artillery was a shock and awe weapon. It only caused 10% of the casualties during any given battle except ones like Mavern Hill. But it sure made men in the line reconsider whether marching across an open field was a good idea. Unfortunately HPS doesn't have a Pin result like many board games did to reflect this result.

One of the problems with artillery in the Turn based play was it fired by section. Combined with being halved it couldn't cause casualties so you could pretty much ignore it. HPS's chance allowing the whole stack to fire together changes this but I haven't played enough in Turn based to see how it worked there.

General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
2/3/IV AoM (CSA)