American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

I've spent some time thinking about the night movement penalty. Being an old programmer I am assuming that the game simply makes a call to a different table during the night turns to check for fatigue penalty. I am convinced that JTS could set up a similar table to be called after a player clicks on a unit and then clicks on a button labeled force march. This should allow players to gamble and force march a unit to a position on the map and accept the fatigue penalty to get there faster.

Does anyone (programmer or otherwise) think this would be a good addition to the game? It seems feasible and more than a little intriguing to me.

Of course. The mechanics of how it would work aren't really important. Persuading John to implement it is. Posting in forums doesn't usually do the trick.

Still, always good to get a discussion going in the Tavern.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

That would indeed be a nice addition.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

To the best of my knowledge the only Tiller game that includes a force march option is the TWIE series.
In those some infantry units can force march at the risk of taking losses.

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Gen. Ken Miller



The McKeesport Union Guard

3/1/II
Chief of Staff
AotP

MG Mills, sir! <salute>

Larry, I think the idea is good and doable. Key would be to present a logic to the development team to see if it can be applied. Without providing a basic logic idea for the change, it's extra work for them to implement. I would say something like this:

A "FM" (forced march) button, that can't be undone after hitting, that would increase the movement points of the unit by 1.5% (i.e....12 MP's goes to 18 MP's for infantry). This is done at a 20% combat increase and the risk of stragglers leaving the unit...possible 10% of unit is lost (@ 50% chance). This could work for all units except leaders and boats. That means supplies could be lost while rushing the wagons, artillery pcs could be flipped/destroyed, cavalry units exhaust their horses with lost men and infantry loses stragglers to fatigue.

This logic seems basic enough that it would be doable from a programing point and is basic enough to cover all units.

Hopefully you can present this to the programing team and see if they like it for a feature updates or releases?

Regarding changes, not an easy thing to do. I've always been an advocate to add an ammo value to the OOB files to regulate ammo levels better. I also think there should be Caisson supply unit for artillery instead of the total shot list per side. Those are just some starters I would like to see changed.

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Union War Dog!
MG. Derek Hampel
Cmdr. Second Div., XV Corps
Army of the Tennessee

Derek,

Nice wish list sir! I totally agree on the logic. I am working on how to present this in a convincing manner. I believe the most difficult piece will be getting it added to the command list. I doubt they would every add a new button.

Good thoughts indeed.

What exactly is this +20% combat increase?

Besides that maybe some aspects should be detailed in how to implement them.
For example the higher movement points, I would suggest adding a new line for Movement Parameters into the PDT. Current PDTs list the movement points for Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery and supply there. A new line would do the same but for the use by this new Forced March function. That way one can make sure that the FM can be adjusted because I'm not sure if you want to simply do a +50% for all. Maybe cavalry should get even more while wagons/artillery should get less.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

Gen. Hecht you raise really good points. The PDT file is very powerful and I am experimenting on how to make changes that accurately reflect what I am trying to go. Perhaps with some experimentation and practice I can find a workable solution.

Good ideas.

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Gen. Blake Strickler
Confederate General-in-Chief
El Presidente 2010 - 2012

Lieutenant General Hecht, sir! <salute>

Christian, the 20% combat increase would be 20% increase to battle fatigue. The idea is that in the command list you could select "Forced March", or have a button like the formation change as a shortcut, and that would have the following effects:

Increase MP's by 50% for inf., cav., arty and supply wagons. This would be done at a risk of increasing the units battle fatigue and run the risk to stragglers or lost material.

The chance of lost material or stragglers would be 50% for each forced march (lost straggler/material would be 1/10 of the current unit). If a unit reaches Maximum Fatigue, you would not be able to apply a forced march.

Larry, you should look at the weather affects on units during play. It also has some powerful influence on the units/battle and might cover what you are looking for.

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Union War Dog!
MG. Derek Hampel
Cmdr. Second Div., XV Corps
Army of the Tennessee

General Hempl that blue uniform does not do you justice. Put on a grey one and I just might salute your genious!! I will look a the weather effects as you suggested.

Greetings,

Being both new to the board and (relatively) new to the game, I suspect my thoughts won't carry much weight. But, during my initial play of a "Getting Started" scenario, I wondered why something of this nature was not already a part of the game.

My long-time favorite WW II game (Campaign Series) was originally designed by Tiller and has a similar feature in double-time movement. It is only permitted every other turn and carries a combat penalty for fatigued units, but the fatigue rules are quite different than this game.

For ACW, my thoughts are that there should definitely be a TBD fatigue cost along with some random cost for stragglers. I don't know whether I feel there should be additional combat penalty beyond the inherent fatigue penalties; perhaps a small one to represent the physical fatigue from force marching. Too, maybe there should be some additional penalty for fire combat in the event of ambush

I wish this series had some unit recovery, similar to Panzer Campaigns, to simulate the return of stragglers and possibly minor injuries.

Just pondering the possiblities... I'm looking forward to meeting many of y'all on the field.

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Lt. Colonel Mike Terhune
New River Greys - 24th Virginia Infantry
Army of Northern Virginia
I/4/4

"Up, men, to your posts! Don't forget today that you are from old Virginia
MG George E. Pickett, July 3, 1863

Back in the mid-eighties SSI's had forced march in their Civil War games. They used an action point system and by pressing the x key a unit could gain an extra action point at the cost of two fatigue. They had some other good ideas but of course back in those days graphic capabilities for a a 64k computer were very limited.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

Larry,

Your idea (forced march) is well-taken but, if one is playing the standard 20-minute scenario, forced march is the standard pace. All units, every turn, are marching at a pace faster than AP Hill's forced march to Antietam or the VI Corps forced march to Gettysburg. I did a study on Civil War marching speeds a number of years ago. The PDF is stored at the ACW Engineering site (http://acwgc-engineering.com/) if interested. The marching speed in :20 scenarios is too fast, but is perfect for :30 ones.

And good luck getting any significant changes made to the game engine...

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MG Robert Frost

Interesting discussion guys, yes I think it would add an interesting element to the game. Sounds like experts with more knowledge than me are already working on it.

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Lt. Col Joe R. Matthews
6th Brigade/3/III
Army of Northern VA