American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

I am trying to design a new scenario on the Gettysburg disk following the instructions in the ACWCO Engineering Department. After choosing the map I am asked which pdf file I want to use, union, reb, entrenched or standard can anyone tell me what this means and what effect the choice has? Next is picking the oob in Gettysburg their are 4 choices is their a faster way of telling what all is in the order of battles other than going through the laborious process of placing all the forces on the map one unit at a time? It is my wish to design balanced games for team play and post them for clubs use. Any advice I could get on scenario design would be appreciated.

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Lieutenant General Ernie Fantini

This may help

The confederate standard and union standard are identical except for who is the FIRST PLAYER and they apparently were to be used for all June battles. This does not determine who moves first as you can specify that in the Scenario File, setting the player who moves first and the turn and phase. It only determines when the game ends who moves LAST.

The rebs-rebs entrenched and union-rebs entrenched are also identical except for the FIRST PLAYER and they were used for the July battles.

There is also a difference in the Breastwork combat modifier (in percentage), being -30 in the standard ones and -60 in the entrenched pdts.


As to the OOB files, I believe they are based on the historical availability of units for both sides so use the one for the correct date you wish to use for your scenario.
The normal file (June9.oob) has a 100 man detachment for each cavalry regiment, infantry regiments are at historical strength and artillery is in 2 gun sections.
The a file (June9a.oob) has all cavalry broken down into a maximum size of 100 men, infantry units are broken down into units of 250 men max and artillery is in 2 gun sections.
The x file (June9x.oob) has infantry/cavalry in regiments and guns in batteries.

In regards to designing balanced scenarios you will need to take into account both numbers and class as the game designers have made the rebs class much better than they should be in order to compensate for the fact that most union players are not as incompetent as their historical counterparts.
The only way to make a really balanced scenario would be to give both sides the exact same number and class of troops as well as officer's command and leadership ratings but this is not possible since the OOB files are locked.


Finally make sure you provide sufficient ammo for guns and small arms. Based on many boardgame and miniature rules I've played with ammo rules I use the idea that guns normally carried enough ammo for about 2 hours of action (the bombardment before Picket's Charge supposedly lasted about 2 hours), figuring a gun fires twice a turn that would be 10 ammo. Normally Corps would carry enough additional for 1 reload and the army trains would normally provide part of a second, say 5 additional per gun. Also don't forget that guns that start off the map add ammo when they arrive (4 for rebs, 6 for yanks), so if you compute the ammo for the guns starting on the map (10+10+5) then compute the ammo for those that will arrive (10+10) the additional (4-6) that are provided when they arrive will provide the army extra. Note:These numbers are per artillery unit, if the Optional Ammo by Gun rule is used the game engine will adjust the ammo to meet this choice.

As to small arms I use Robert Frost's algorithm for determining small arms ammo supply for multiple days battles. Divisions carry enough wagons for 1 resupply (men/10), so a 5000 man division would have 2 wagons worth 250 each.
Corps has additional wagons to provide 75% of the Division supply ( (sum of Division wagons ) x 0.75 ) or 2 Divisions 1000 x .75 = 750, 3 wagons with 250 each.).
Army wagons would provide an additional resupply equal to 1/3 of the Corps level supply or 750/3 or 1 wagon of 250 per the above Corps.
So effectively you could resupply the entire army twice.

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Gen. Ken Miller



The McKeesport Union Guard

3/1/II
Chief of Staff
AotP