Minor Map Issue in West Virginia

[jap412]

Mainly just a cosmetic issue, but, has anyone noticed that the West Fork River and the Tygart River are labeled incorrectly. The West Fork is where the Tygart should be and Tygart is where the West Fork should be.

[grimjaw]

... and Biloxi Bay is "Biloxy" and Arkadelphia is "Archidelphia." The list goes on.

[Durk]

Yeah, if you come from the west, and elsewhere, there are issues; but these are not major issues.
For me Ft Laramie and other Wyoming forts. I do not mind as the game is top notch.

[ArmChairGeneral]

I always try to remember that the people who made the game are not from the United States. Our place names are pretty confusing: transliterations of Native American names, repetitions everywhere (multiple cities named Lexington for example) places named after people, etc. The only reason I know them so well is from hours of looking at the road atlas in the back seat of the car on family road trips as a kid. (Which is probably where I got my interest in history too: we stopped at every museum, civil war battlefield, state capitol building, and giant ball of yarn we passed. If Washington slept there, so did we. My favorites were Vicksburg and the battleship USS Alabama. As an adult I visited Washington D.C. and it was like every family trip we ever took all rolled into one and with a cherry on top )

They are still actively fixing a lot of these things, so be sure to post in the bug-report forum. Arkadelphia should be reported, that is probably fixable. (If it is on the bitmap it cannot be easily changed, as I understand it, so we are probably out of luck on correcting the rivers.)

The "Biloxy Bay" error makes me smile every time I see it.

[caranorn]

Yeah, if you come from the west, and elsewhere, there are issues; but these are not major issues.
For me Ft Laramie and other Wyoming forts. I do not mind as the game is top notch.

What's the problem there? I'm pretty sure I placed those structures (any forts and cities in the new western map areas, though some cities at least were "corrected" by others). Ignore the province names, I placed forts and towns based on physical terrain (rivers, mountains etc.). Essentially most provinces in the West should be moved, but renaming was no longer an option by the time I'd completed locating structures.

[Durk]

What makes the area of Wyoming and Nebraska not work is that the North Platte River should run where the "Niobrara River" runs. While there is a Niobrara River, it is not the major river shown in the game and it dumps into the Missouri River to the north. It never connects with any of the Platte Rivers. The North Platte never enters Colorado. It joins the Colorado river, the South Platte, in Nebraska. In game names, this would be about where South Jackson SD and Rock NE divide the Niobrara River. The Platte River also should be navigable, in game terms, to the present day city of North Platte (Rock NE). This makes fort placement off a bit. But forts are placed well in terms of river confluences and strategic location.
You are correct about province names needing to be shifted, but this is not serious as these were all later day names, not historically relevant names. At the time, the provinces were called 'wide open space.'

I want to emphasize, CW2 is the game I have been waiting for since the Civil War met the PC. It is a grand, elegant and delightful game; as well as being the best historical simulation of this war. The map issues are minor, as the thread says.

[caranorn]

What makes the area of Wyoming and Nebraska not work is that the North Platte River should run where the "Niobrara River" runs. While there is a Niobrara River, it is not the major river shown in the game and it dumps into the Missouri River to the north. It never connects with any of the Platte Rivers. The North Platte never enters Colorado. It joins the Colorado river, the South Platte, in Nebraska. In game names, this would be about where South Jackson SD and Rock NE divide the Niobrara River. The Platte River also should be navigable, in game terms, to the present day city of North Platte (Rock NE). This makes fort placement off a bit. But forts are placed well in terms of river confluences and strategic location.
You are correct about province names needing to be shifted, but this is not serious as these were all later day names, not historically relevant names. At the time, the provinces were called 'wide open space.'

I want to emphasize, CW2 is the game I have been waiting for since the Civil War met the PC. It is a grand, elegant and delightful game; as well as being the best historical simulation of this war. The map issues are minor, as the thread says.

That means it's probably my fault :-( . I proposed a number of map corrections during apha but can find no entry for Nebraska or Wyoming (the closest would be removing a nonexistant connection between the Big Horn and Tongue rivers in Montana). Wyoming and Nebraska would logically have been in my research area too so no one else would have likely been looking at that area. But maybe I lost that data (killed my main computer just before beta started), I certainly seem to recall some frustration concerning the Platte River (but maybe just placement of structures).

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

:-)

[Durk]

I totally empathize. For some reason the beta test was very limited in term of who could participate. I am not certain why. Though I am not a great beta tester, I do look at the editing issues of maps and text. I wish I had had a chance to offer my thoughts prior to production.
I think you have done a great job with the map. The forts are so well placed that even though this is a quiet theater, when the CSA manages to get to Denver, the forts fulfill their primary role.

[lovebrown]

I think it is the fault of the authority.

[Ol' Choctaw]

The map had to be done before anything else could be done to the game. There was a very short window when we could actually recommend changes.

It was very easy to become confused with the data base and getting names spelling etc. etc. were not as easy as you might assume.

Changes to the map is no easy matter. At least as I understand it.

There are larger matters that can’t be touched because of the short window available.

To me, the larger problem are many of the Western Forts. Many built during or after the war.

They were included for another campaign that has not developed.

The developers did a good job and tried to work with us to get it right but they had their own pressures to deal with as well.

I think they have gone far beyond what most would have done in support of community wish lists and asked for changes. I am sure most of this will be addressed, in time. It is just not as easy to make changes as it is to spot what may be wrong.

[grimjaw]

"I think they have gone far beyond what most would have done in support of community wish lists and asked for changes."

I agree wholeheartedly. The CW2 map is a huge improvement over AACW, and the spelling errors don't detract from gameplay for me. It's not like they called Boston by the name New York or the like.

[pgr]

Yeah, if you come from the west, and elsewhere, there are issues; but these are not major issues.
For me Ft Laramie and other Wyoming forts. I do not mind as the game is top notch.

Also from Wyoming!

[pgr]

That means it's probably my fault :-( . I proposed a number of map corrections during apha but can find no entry for Nebraska or Wyoming (the closest would be removing a nonexistant connection between the Big Horn and Tongue rivers in Montana). Wyoming and Nebraska would logically have been in my research area too so no one else would have likely been looking at that area. But maybe I lost that data (killed my main computer just before beta started), I certainly seem to recall some frustration concerning the Platte River (but maybe just placement of structures).

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

:-)

Ah not everyone can be from Wyoming!

The biggest problem is that there is too many forts out west to start with. For starters, Wyoming wasn't created until 1868. While Fts Laramie and Bridger existed at the start of the war, the rest of the forts in the area were built during or after the war. (Ft. Fetterman for example was created in 1867 and named for Captain Fetterman killed in the Fetterman fight outside Fort Phil Kearny in 1866.

But really, I'm just happy you mapped the area as a playable zone. If you ever get around to doing expansions based around the Plains Wars, then we can start getting nit-picky...

[Durk]

A second consideration might challenge the common conception of what a fort is. The forts in Wyoming did not have walls. They had a parade ground, barracks, officers quarters, cooking and laundry facilities and stables. They were staging grounds for expeditions, not defensive posts.

[Captain_Orso]

I suppose the evaluation of "Forts", which are actually called stockades when you build them, would depend on their defensive or other values. Do they actually provide ZOC value similar to Real Forts™ that you build with 4 supply and artillery elements? I don't think they do. So they are actually only forts by name.

What surprised me was that the settlements, which I think are only in Kansas and the IT, work like small depots, which going by their name seemed rather odd to me at the time.

Maybe those fort/stockades which were not historically stockades should be changed to settlements leaving only those forts which were actually stockades as fort/stockades, but leaving the name "Fort So-n-So" on them.

Also the supply pull value should probably be adjusted, because the settlements currently pull a lot more supply than do fort/stockades.

[caranorn]

Ah not everyone can be from Wyoming!

The biggest problem is that there is too many forts out west to start with. For starters, Wyoming wasn't created until 1868. While Fts Laramie and Bridger existed at the start of the war, the rest of the forts in the area were built during or after the war. (Ft. Fetterman for example was created in 1867 and named for Captain Fetterman killed in the Fetterman fight outside Fort Phil Kearny in 1866.

But really, I'm just happy you mapped the area as a playable zone. If you ever get around to doing expansions based around the Plains Wars, then we can start getting nit-picky...

My intent was never for those forts to start onmap, rather notes for later scenarios and the like...

The actual map was assembled by Philippe Thibaut himself, we alpha and beta testers just went and proposed corrections, respectively researched structures (cities, forts, villages, ports etc.)...

Edit: I just looked at my files, I probably never communicated "construction dates" to Philippe Thibaut for the forts. So he must have assumed all those I'd listed had existed in 1861...

[caranorn]

I suppose the evaluation of "Forts", which are actually called stockades when you build them, would depend on their defensive or other values. Do they actually provide ZOC value similar to Real Forts™ that you build with 4 supply and artillery elements? I don't think they do. So they are actually only forts by name.

What surprised me was that the settlements, which I think are only in Kansas and the IT, work like small depots, which going by their name seemed rather odd to me at the time.

Maybe those fort/stockades which were not historically stockades should be changed to settlements leaving only those forts which were actually stockades as fort/stockades, but leaving the name "Fort So-n-So" on them.

Also the supply pull value should probably be adjusted, because the settlements currently pull a lot more supply than do fort/stockades.

Not sure what the state of the game is. But any western forts I put in either had long term garrisons or were at least intended as long term posts. Under my proposal their role was to be mostly as a) auto-garrison (I had western fort levels based on number of companies usually at the station, so those forts could be improved etc., size would determine how likely a defense unit would be raised on entry of an enemy force) and b) as a variant of depots to move supplies. Not sure this could even have been implemented as I'd intended.

[Captain_Orso]

Since I'm a northerner I'll leave any discussion about where what "fort" was to you wild westerners

I'm only thinking about which actually had defensive constructions and which were just an assembly of barracks, administrative buildings and support structures, eg stables, supply housing, etc.

Also it seems that the current settlements move far more supply than stockades do. How that fits into reality I have no idea, but mainly because I have little idea of what was actually where in the West

I'm not sure of the settings for probability of auto-garrisons spawning, but it should correspond to the size of the installation. So if a stockade is a settlement with actual defensive structures --ie an actual stockade in reality-- there should be a larger chance of an auto-garrison spawning than in a settlement alone, but maybe that's naive.

Also, maybe we should have to building a settlement first --not currently possible-- and then putting a stockade on top of that --actually converting the structure to a stockade--.

[Durk]

Well said all.

The Far West was a sideshow and should never impact the main game. Most Forts at the beginning of the conflict were trading posts, not actual forts, like Fort Laramie.

How is this for an added bit of information which will not change game play but will add to the history. The game has Salt Lake City, Utah with a Union garrison. At this time, the settlement of the Latter Day Saints actually made the trail route near Salt Lake require extra Union soldiers for the safety of the wagon trains. Union soldiers were not welcome in Salt Lake. That is, Salt Lake was not a Union haven, but rather a community opposed the Union goals and the travel of west bound settlers.
EB Long's book Saints and the Union tells of this time.

So from a historical standpoint, the Glorieta Pass battle and the New Mexico/Arizona/Colorado phase of the war are on point. But Wyoming/Nebraska/Utah could use some tweaking to achieve a minor gain in historical play.

[pgr]

A second consideration might challenge the common conception of what a fort is. The forts in Wyoming did not have walls. They had a parade ground, barracks, officers quarters, cooking and laundry facilities and stables. They were staging grounds for expeditions, not defensive posts.

That is basically correct, with the big exception of the Bozeman Trail forts, which were indeed stockaded. (Fort Reno Fort Phil Kearny, and C.F. Smith) (That's what I get for working 2 summers at Fort PK)

Of course, I think the game does a pretty good job of modeling western stockades as little depots. The wall shape just adds some flavor.