American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

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

I will throw in my thoughts to open the discussion. Firstly, a very well thought out and penned response to Richard and one which, to some degree, I agree with, in principle. It is good and even proper that game designers have the flexibility to work with the PDT's as they see fit, from a game designers POV. However, from a players POV this may not be the case, I propose, where the variance that appears within the PDT's can be confusing, annoying and downright disruptive to smooth play of a game series/scenario. In this contention I refer to both board games and indeed miniatures games rules whereby, generally, I have found over decades of play, that basic standard rules within a specific game/rule set apply, as a standard, except where a scenario has specific terrain etc requirements. This is, I believe understandable and acceptable by players generally. However, having different PDT values within a game series because different designers have/had differing views on how far or fast a unit could march or shoot is unhelpful and indeed often, as noted, disruptive to smooth play. As a case in point, I started out playing these games. ACW, by making my own personalised PDT tables from the game PDT's in an effort to streamline my play and ensure I had the correct values to hand, until I later discovered that they were to some degree defunct, by virtue of differing PDT values from game to game and indeed within an individual game itself ! In conclusion, and as noted by Blake, there is no right or wrong answer, only personal opinions and preferences. I imagine from a commercial viewpoint, let along a financial one, the possibility of releasing separate game series with standarised PDT values and non standard values will never happen. My personal viewpoint is however that PDT values should ideally be standarised across, at least a specific game, if not, game series, and that where this is not the case, that the non standardisation within the PDT be duly and clearly noted and highlighted. This, I believe, may have been the case in some games but I have also found, to my discomfort, not to be always the case. You pays your money & takes your chances !

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Karl McEntegart
Major General
Officer Commanding
Army of Tennessee





Make my enemy brave and strong, so that if defeated, I will not be ashamed.

I generally feel that there should be set standards across all titles in all aspects. But, and it's a big 'but', designers should have the freedom to change things. That is generally so in respect to historical scenarios although the designer should explain why 'standards' were changed. I know Blake provides some explanation in scenarios he has designed and even provided a detailed explanation in regards to the custom historical Gettysburg scenario of the full battle. I don't completely agree with all the design decisions made but I know the reasoning behind them.
[I believe in some circumstances the game mechanics corrupt some aspects of the design intentions. I recently played Gettysburg BG001 and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was such a pleasure not having to worry about a greatly deficiency in supply wagons which is unrealistic in the original scenario. Neither side was short of small arms ammunition; the CSA wasn't short on artillery rounds either as commonly thought, evidenced by this report - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924077728255&seq=357&q1=.]

In terms of the two examples given. Perhaps the weapon ranges were shortened in some scenarios to reflect some weather situation. Fog may have lessened visibility or wet weather may have affected ammunition. Terrain effects may also be changed to reflect the historical situation. maybe the woods were denser, or lighter, than the standard thereby affecting weapon effectiveness and/or movement. Such things may have been significant enough so that design changes were made to properly reflect the historical situation. Still, if the designer doesn't say why he did such things we never know if it is justified or not.

So, I'd like to have it both ways. There should be set standards across all scenarios. The designer should have the freedom to change those standards provided he explains why changes were made. In many cases this could be done with an additional sentence or two added to the scenario description (e.g. woods in this area were dense forests so movement and weapon effectiveness will be hampered, units from X Army were completely surprised (or suffering from illness) on that day so start the battle fatigued). In others, a more detailed explanation may be required: Units in X and Y divisions arrive later at their historical entry points as those units had suffered some mishap that slowed their rate of march.
[It should also be noted that the game mechanics do corrupt some things that are largely unavoidable (e.g. stacking and road movement, artillery stacking, road movement in general - road columns were very long affairs, they certainly didn't cram up to 1,000 men in a 125 yard stretch of road at the end of every 20 minute period).]

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Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia

There should be a standard PDT for all of the ACW games. Designers should be required to point out any deviations in their scenario description. Making changes without warning the customer is an intolerable practice.

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Gen Ned Simms
2/XVI Corps/AotT
Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em.
VMI Class of '00

I agree that any changes from the standard 12/24/12/10 movement numbers, or 1000/20 stacking limits, or major changes to weaponry effectiveness should be notes in the scenario description. I don't mind playing with alternate PDTs but I do not like being surprised. I more often skip alternate PDTs though because I prefer the more standard approach to all this.

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Gen. Mitch Johnson
GENERAL IN CHIEF
ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE COMMANDER