American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Question on weak zone of control has come up in a MP game, should it be used or not. I have my opinion but want to see what general feeling club wide is.

I prefer to play with weak zones but one can make a case for and against. The main effect of using strong zones is it allows a defender to use the alternating hex defense and hold a line with it. That is, putting large forces every other hex so they can't be meleed successfully and using the strong zones to prevent the enemy from moving between the stacks to break the line. Sometimes you can even have two hex gaps if you use a smaller regiment behind the line to fill in the "ZOC".

Weak zones force a player to use a continous line to form a front that can't be broken except by melee. It tends to make the games more fluid since forming a rigid line across the map that can't be broken is difficult. Most scenarios don't give you enough troops to form a line that can't be meleed across the map using weak zones.

You can see the effect clearly in a battle like Antietam. With strong zones it is easy to set up a alternating hex stack defense in the West Woods that no amount of Union troops can break. The Rebel just puts a few batteries with about 800-900 infantry in the woods with a one hex gap between each position. The small regiments with high morale guarrantee that the stacks can't be broken by fire since only one or two regiments will route out at a time and they can be easily replaced by a small reserve. The stacks have tremendous fire power thanks to artilley. And the strong zones prevent any Union from stepping threw the line. The stack size prevents melees from winning. With weak zones this line would be cut down to 400-500 man stacks in order to occupy every hex. These size stacks could be meleed at 1:1 until something broke.

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

Excellent explanation General, as always, thank you for sharing your expertise.

Based on your analysis it seems that hard ZOC may slightly favor the defense, making it easier to establish strong defensive lines with fewer units. Given the consensus of our club that the HPS games generally tend to favor the attacker, therefore, hard ZOC would be an appropriate choice to mitigate that advantage. Would you agree?

In addition, with hard ZOC, it seems easier to surround and eliminate enemy units that have advanced too aggressively or otherwise become isolated. While I guess this would have about an equal effect on both sides, it seems to me it would be a somewhat more common problem for an aggressive attacker to fully protect his flanks as he advanced.

So in a scenario where I anticipate being mostly on the defensive, it seems it would be advantageous to negotiate for hard ZOC.

Does this make sense?

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Brig. General Tom Bridges

I always liked Hard ZoC myself. On the Offensive, and defensive, it can greatly aid you. If you can lock your enemy in place you can sweep around them with a unit or two and bag a whole brigade if your lucky!

"The main effect of using strong zones is it allows a defender to use the alternating hex defense and hold a line with it."

As a Union player, this has always been my strategy. It seems to work well against melee happy Confederate opponents. My Corps usually don't have as long a front as most of my MP teammates but my line never gets busted and never has units being defeated in detail. I see no reason to play WZOC in turn based games, since as has already been said elsewhere, it only further advantages the already advantaged attacker.

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Lt. Col. Bill Cirillo
4th Brigade, 1st Div.
XX Corps, AoC, USA

So what happens if we do away with ZoC effects altogether and not have it in games?!

How did the concept of ZoC orginate for wargaiming and is it designed to model a military factor or a gaming one?

I'm wondering what happens if we make units that move lose their ZoC effects for that turn ...and maybe the subsequent turn. Would modelling it as something that only static defending units have be more realistic?

Do we have alternatives to the whole practice of ZoC whether it be hard or soft? Zoc "laws" seem pretty set in stone and is there anything that could replace it?

How about making it so that moving INTO the ZoC of undisrupted units has the effect of DISRUPTING all the units that do so?
or units that move out (break contact) with an enemy units ZoC become disrupted by doing so?

Can we break the whole practice of classic wargaming advance to contact and melee affair (that hinges upon ZoC effects) and replace it with something else?

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Brigadier-General Jim Wilkes.
2nd Brigade, Cavalry Division, XX Corps.
AoC. U.S.A.

Hi,

Under the current system I favor weak zones of control, if for no other reason than that it eliminates ZOC kills. I think ZOC kills are unrealistic and I think the alternate stack defense is unrealistic. I think weak ZOC coupled with flank modifiers encourages continuous lines, which is how Civil War battles were fought.

In theory I like the idea of no ZOC, but I think the game would have to incorporate more realistic stacking limits, as in the Frost-Norris variants. Also, I think command rules would need to be tightened up, and maybe a movement penalty for units out of command, as in TSS.

The first time I remember seeing ZOC was in Blitzkrieg, my first Avalon Hill game. I think a lot depends on map scale and unit size on whether the ZOC concept makes sense.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

I think this has been demonstrated in earlier ACW games in that the number of movement points given a unit at the beginning of the turn is factored by how far away it is from it's commanders, whether it be brigade, division, corps, or army...Of course they always received a minimum..I think 6 out of a maximum of 12....It definitely would be interesting if units received zero mp's.

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I remain,

Davis, R., Lt Gen.
VMI Class of 2011
3d Cavalry Brigade, 3d Division, III Corps
'Partisan Rangers'
Army Of Alabama
CSA

ZOC's are a game design trick to fix a whole lot of problems created by trying to turn reality into 20 minute turns. They represent a whole bag of things that are do complicated to model. Things like skirmishers out on the flanks of regiments, fields of fire, and the ability of a commander to react to any movement across his front by shifting troops or changing facing. In other words, a regiment occupying a 120 yard area equivalent to a hex could respond in a wide range of ways to an enemy trying to slip around his flanks.

The problems come in with the one size fits all. When using hard ZOC a 25 man regiment is just as good of stopper at a 1000 man regiment. A 1000 man regiment actually would occupy three hexes if it was in two rank line so a hard ZOC represents it precisely. But a 350 man regiment would be better simulated by soft ZOC.

Then there is the scale factor. A 20 minute turn does simulate the ability for a brigade to react to enemy movements rather well. It is probably pretty close to the time it would take for a brigade commander to see a movement, issue orders to counter it, and then have those orders implemented. However, a regiment has a much quick response time to an enemy movement near it. This is partially represented by the ZOC and partially by it rather large angle of front. But poorly by its ability to react to large movements around its flanks. That is why some games have no flanks on regiments. They assume they could refuse them quick enough not to be flanked.

Then we hit the larger scale of things. The whole system falls apart on the division, Corps and army levels because at that level they are able to react with the same speed as brigade commanders. That is, within 20 minutes of any observed movement. Here you need a Command system which is something the HPS games don't have.

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