Ace wrote:We've given Union historical advantage in men and materials. It is only right to give Union player the historical burden of political pressure to act or face change in the Office...
As the Union player in the PBEM that started this thread, I agree with the issue of 1 NM for small militia surrenders, but as FelixZ points out there is work-around where you don't leave the unit inside the city. I agree a hard-coded fix is advisable, perhaps by setting a battle size threshold for any NM shift from a combat. But I understand the frustration and it is one that cuts across the two sides. Many is the big key battle a Union player has won with little to no NM gain as well.
Part of the reason I suspect many Union player do not rocket south right out of the box is the reality of their early inferiority in leaders and lack of significant numerical advantage until maybe mid-62'. Hindsight is a problem here, as it is in every wargame simulation. Unlike their RL counterparts Lincoln and Davis, the players know exactly what the leaders can do and exactly how stacked the odds are against the North until they get Grant and some others promoted.
Bear in mind as well that rarely do you find CSA players behaving in a scripted historical sense, so you have to be careful putting a straight-jacket on the North. In our game, a cautious Northern strategy made sense to me given that a very aggressive opponent was carrying out simultaneous invasions of New Mexico/Colorado and Kansas/Missouri, (the former led by Bedford Forrest) plus the early appearance of Jackson (followed by Lee) out West. Raiders were all over the North, with a brief cavalry siege of Chicago and at end game one rebel raider was rattling around Northern Pennsylvania not far from the Canadian border. My opponent also had an intensive fort building program that turned much of the South into a close approximation of 18th century Flanders (and required Marlborough-style strategies to overcome). All these sorts of things are welcome and present fascinating challenges. But if you, on the one hand, allow the CSA player to try anything creative they can manage, it becomes problematic to demand the Union player do X, Y or Z by date certain or suffer the consequences. The current "On to Richmond" rules show the pitfalls, as any CSA player worth their salt packs Manassas to ensure the North has near-zero chance of winning 1st Bull Run (and adding needlessly to the near-certain 10 NM hit the North takes from that event).
In essence, the cautious approach taken by many Union players is a natural reaction to the myriad creative things many CSA players can attempt in the game. While some may demand as proof of Northern prowess that they take New Orleans or Memphis by the historical date or suffer the consequences, in the game the Union player is unlikely to have either of these cities surrender simply when the Union Navy pulls up to the dock (which is what happened historically, more or less, in both cases).
I would add that is it debatable historically whether time was on the side of the Confederacy, as opposed to the Union. As Shelby Foote put it once, many feel the North fought the war with one hand tied behind their back. If they got into real difficulty, they would have pulled the other hand out. Certainly the foreign powers (France, Britain) who toyed with a pro-Southern intervention didn't take for granted their success (sober British military thinking at the time warned war with the US would almost certainly mean the loss of Canada). The Union, as time went on, was in a similar position to the US in WW2 versus Japan. Once the early knockout blows were weathered, the weaker side was inexorably ground down. The Union from 1861-1865 was arguably one of the first major nations to fully harness the early industrial revolution to high-tech war-making.
I agree ACW2 does favor the North in the long game. I am not so sure adding penalities to force certain Union play is the best answer though. Especially where, IMO, it is paired with a very generous portrayal of the Confederacies own freedom of action. The CSA scheme for forward defense of the Kentucky-Mississippi-Tennessee line, which Grant cracked so decisively at Fort Donelson, was based on a political imperative they felt not to "surrender one inch" of southern soil. You can think up a variety of political constraints which were felt by both sides and which manifested in their strategies.
