American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

I was having trouble stacking with artillery units until I found in the new rules that one artillery piece is now equivalent to 80 men. That is a big jump from 25 men.

In conjunction with that, comes the effects of melee against artillery. User Manual Section 5.5.3 Melee Modifiers says that each defending Artillery gun counts as one third stacking Point (...normally...8 men per gun). I'm assuming that was just overlooked and it should read ...normally...26 men. Which number is correct?

I can't find anything about embankments in the User Manual. Once again, I am assuming that if you occupy a hex that says that it has an embankment, then you are enjoying the benefit of its Terrain Combat Modifier (trying to make sure that this means that you are occupying the hex to gain the benefit and not actually looking up at the walls of the embankment and firing into that Terrain Combat Modifier). The User Manual also doesn't address if melee is reduced by the embankment Terrain Combat Modifier or is it like woods and trenches, etc and the melee is not impacted.

I can no longer see melee in my replays (All options on except for MDF, Arty Cap, EFOW, and Limited Arty Unlimber). I don't like this at all. Is everyone else having the same problem?

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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

Embankments are a hexside modifier and therefore after one turn in the hex you will enjoy the benefits of the embankment in combat and in melee. Terrain Hexes do not affect melee probabilities just fire combat. But hexside modifiers affect both fire combat and melee combat.

With guns... the system still counts them in a magical and mysterious way. I just did a test with Gettysburg and meleed six guns to find an answer. The Melee Status screen popped up and said the defenders (six guns) were defending with a force of "51 (actual 150)" so that's about 8.5 men per gun. Note: When you right click on the artillery hex it shows the manpower in the hex as "480" (80 men per gun). I believe the change only affects hex stacking and not combat in any way for artillery.

With replays... I had really mixed results. Sometimes I could see a replay and sometimes I couldn't. To be honest, I did everything I could to "break" the replay so I could recreate the problem. I reloaded the turn numerous times and I closed and reopened the game. That worked the first time I did it and I couldn't see the replay. But the second test I did the same things and I could see the replay. That eliminates that idea from being the root cause at least. You are the second person to ask me about replays this week and so something must be amiss. I suggest heading to the WDS forums and posting about this there for Rich Hamilton and Company to review.

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

I've yet to play with the latest version but the change with guns sounds good to me.

Upping the stacking figure to 80 [from 50] should lessen the ability to cram as many guns in a hex [not as much for my liking but that's another story]. So, in a 1,000 man stacking limit scenario you used to be able to get 20 guns in a hex; that would now be reduced to 12. In an 800 man stacking limit scenario you used to be able to get 16 guns in a hex; that would now be reduced to 10.

It should also be harder to get as many infantry in the same hex as the guns because of the higher stacking number for the guns. That also sounds right to me. The artillery batteries took up a lot of room in real life. The gunners don't want masses of men near them when they are operating and I'm pretty sure the infantry don't want to be too close to the guns when they're firing. [Limbered up the artillery batteries took up even more space but it's probably best to keep the limits the same for playability.]

Also, note that although a gun still has 25 men as the nominal number of men per gun it does not work that way in melees. If you have a unit of 300 men attacking a six-gun battery the odds are not 2:1 [300 vs. 150 (6X25)], the odds are 6.25:1 [300 vs. 48 (150/3)]. That's 97.85% chance of winning whereas 2:1 is only 50%. The reason is that when defending in a melee the artillery defends at one-third at one-third of their strength.
So, as a six-gun battery will defend with a strength of 50 (not 150) so all you need is a 200 man unit to get odds of 4:1. At 4:1 you have an 89.09% chance of victory.

I'm unsure why Blake got a pop-up that said the six guns were defending with a force of "51 (actual 150)" instead of '50 (actual 150)'. All I can think of it that it was not one artillery unit of six guns defending but separate units that totalled six guns. Each unit was considered separately in the calculation so there may have been some 'rounding' anomaly which resulted in defending force of 51 instead of 50. [There will be little difference in the likely outcome, 200 vs. 51 has an 87.5% chance of victory. My boys are definitely going in with the bayonet with that chance of victory.]

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

When I edited the User Manual in 2019 Artillery counted as a 50 men for Stacking, not 25.
This goes back to the old BG days.
The latest update has increased the Stacking cost for guns to get it closer to reality.
I currently play a miniature system where a 2 gun section is on a 1" base, with a scale of 1" = 25 yards.
Most all ACW systems I've played had the guns scaled similarly.
So in 125 yards, the scale of 1 hex in the games you could fit 10 guns in the miniature system but the game allows for 12.
Historically the normal spacing called for between guns was 14 yards, a 6 gun battery would thus take up 80 yards of width and be 50 yards deep from the gun barrel to the caisson.
This closely matches the 10 guns in 125 yards so the current game gives you 2 extra guns in a hex.
This was probably chosen because it allows 2/6 gun or 3/4 gun batteries per hex.


SP are set in the PDT file, in most games 1 SP = 25 men so artillery counts as 1/3*(25) = 8 men per gun for Melee.


Lately I have been speeding up the replay, use it mostly to look for enemy movement rather than watching the combat.
But I believe melees are still being shown even at top speed although sound is turned off.

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Gen. Ken Miller




The McKeesport Union Guard

1/1/I
AotP

The melee PBEM issue has been fixed and is pending for the next release.

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Brigadier General Richard Walker
II Corps, 4th Division, 6th Brigade
Army of Tennessee
(JTS/WDS Scenario Designer)