Is Play the CSA like playing Japan in War in the Pacific?

[Cardinal Ape]

So we have a beta going. Not going to publish until we've had a chance to test out a bit.

Changes
1) -15 for the 3 Papers push for offensive events. There's 1 in 1861 and 2 in 1862
2) Coastal battery ROF has been increased from 2 to 4
3) Forts contributing to blockades have been reduce from 4 to 2
4) If Grant doesn't take Vicksburg and Chattanoga and shows up in the eastern theater, USA loses 1000 VP and -3 NM
5) If Sherman shows up at all in Eastern Theater, USA looses another 1000 VP and -3 NM

1- I don't suppose you changed the name of this event? I understand that it is supposed to be all about Richmond, but when I control half the Southern objective cities in '62 and the game tells me that I am going to take a -10NM hit for a 'lack of an offensive' I wonder if they got the word offensive confused with defensive. Ya, the papers will find something to complain about, but they should at least be accurate.

3- Why? Sorry, I don't get the reason for the change. Aren't you making it easier for the Union to blockade with ships?

[GraniteStater]

Well, Your Hairy Eminence, I would most certainly like to get a gander at How to play the Union in PbeM, 'cuz maybe I'm just a bad player. I've never had results anywhere close to defeating the CSA by 1863.

[Cardinal Ape]

We do have pretty different styles Granite, I'm a min-max gamer that enjoys spreadsheets and you enjoy playing 'by the seat of your pants' as you say. Your games do sound like a lot of fun, maybe a bit stressful too. I have a feeling that if you adopted my style you would find it boring because I only aim for the optimal move. Which is why my favorite board games are ones that prevent optimal play - I can't help myself.

If you are interested my current opponent is writing an ARR here. Its in German so you may need to use google translate. I'm not sure how much he shows of my movements or if there is much to be learned there at all. But he says he has never lost as the South, so one of us braggarts is going down. I have a few complete games backed up somewhere, if you'd like a look throw me PM.

[hanny1]

Problem with tinkering to get a better game experience is that you then find there is so mutch that needs to be tinkerd with......4/5 will be an issue to the AI who need to be taught to do x before moving officer y to a theatre, unless your only doing this for pbm. Oddly i Avoided WoN because imo, CW2 needed several months of devolpent to be the game experience it could be, not sure WoN is yet there yet, CW2 cries out for further devolpment but i dont see that happening.

[hanny1]

I'm going to make a bold statement, the South could not win militarily.

Whether historically the Union would have been willing to continue fighting were the capital taken by the South is questionable. Many opinions which were expressed in books and newspapers at the time were, in my opinion, simply rhetoric and bravado; basically, -we will defeat the enemy, because we are better than they are-. Such are statements which reflect only wishful thinking, and which mean nothing when the actual means of fighting a war are considered, other than perhaps the will to fight; but such persons often lose their resolve in the face of opposing reality. Their flags of opinion wave in the winds of least resistance, because they don't consider fact; only their own personal feelings.

What would have happened were Washington to fall to a Confederate attack could be discussed without end. Maybe it would spurn hate even further, and thus resolve to continue fighting; maybe Lincoln would have been impeached for incompetence for being unable to fulfill his duty to protect the capital, but what that might ultimately mean would still be an open question; maybe the Northern opponents of the war would gain enough political influence to first end the fighting and then negotiate a peace, which IMHO would probably mean allowing the South to secede.

"War is politics by other means" von Clausewitz

"power of resistance = means * will" Steve Knott, US Army War College https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrXxz4iniRs&t=273

So, if the 'will' of the Union to fight is reduced to zero, the South wins the war 'militarily', which sounds like it contradicts my first statement. But if we think of 'militarily winning' as only considering the Confederate and Federal military organizations, then the South cannot win the war. If we consider that 'war is politics' and 'power of resistance = means * will', then the South can win.

That is my standpoint on the conflict, which the game tries to represent. Does it succeed in doing so? Not to criticize the devs, but I think it could use some improvement.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mickey3D; VP's should reflect each player's success versus his/her opponent; and I don't think the game does that very well. Why? Because VP's are awarded equally to each side for 'owning' specific locations. For example, IIRC, each side gets 5 VP per turn for owning objective locations, 3 VP per turn for strategic locations, and 1 VP per turn for some, but far from all, other cities. But does it mean the same to the Union player, if he owns Indianapolis, as it would for the Confederate player? For the Union player it is simply status quo; for the Southern player it would mean that he has gone far beyond the historical. Should that not be honored?

Of course that opens a different question; Southern opinion on how the Confederacy should conduct the war, and I have no idea how it was actually viewed in general with regards to the South invading the North. I have read that some thought the South should only defend its own boarders, while I'm fairly sure that some would have been very enthusiastic about a Confederate army capturing a major Northern city and "showin' them damn Yankees!". A few times I've tried to find some objective facts about what the general Southern opinion was on Lee's two invasions of the North before the outcome of their ultimate battles were known, therefore, at a time when their success was still in question and hopes of positive conclusion were still a viable vision. I've failed miserably at this .

So the question of how to measure 'success' is IMO very open for discussion.

Did you consider using a year by year historical vp score of the North and comparing that to the ingame vp score?, this new variabe, call it political will for arguments sake, would then further impact/influence, output income desertion etc. Prob unlocking events when either doing better quicker or vica versa, ie US achives vp score in 62 in game that it achives in 64 historicaly then events that occur in 64 of mass desertion etc become unlocked in 62. Thus the poltical will to resist is modeld in game jointly against history and the ai/player.Thus the player difficulty is against historical performence as as against in game performence.

[Mickey3D]

Did you consider using a year by year historical vp score of the North and comparing that to the ingame vp score?

I started to do it sometimes ago but too much work (and a little bit of laziness) stopped it in its early start.

I attach the file I built if somebody want to continue...

[ATTACH]38574[/ATTACH]

Edit: I've just realized the file was built with a French version of Excel, not sure the fomulas will be translated correctly if it is opened in an English version of Excel I'll test at work and post a new version if it's a problem.

[1stvermont]

I love the way the game is balanced toward historical accuracy. The only thing that needs some adjustment is the vp's. Give the south 250-300 extra vps to start with.

[vicberg]

Thank you everyone. I'm going to open a mod thread, but I'll leave this thread going before I do so because it's on the main and it's getting a good response.

Granite - point taken. -15 may be a bit harsh and it may also force the game down another single threaded path, everything in the east. Thought behind it is to force the Union player to focus on the east *more* rather than sitting tight and taking everything else. I've played 2 PBEMs and countless AI game. The best strategy I've found is for the Union to do nothing in the east other than defend, use extra troops for West and invasions, take the NM hits because you can make that up in other theaters. Again, with my NM at 80. Grant and Sherman were able to bust through Lee/Longstreet/Jackson in 1862. I may have gotten lucky on the rolls, but something off about that. Others who have posted in this thread are confirming what I suspect. Spread the CSA to the breaking point and THEN start attacking in the east. I am no means an expert in this game, but I do understand the game mechanics inside and out because of the WON MOD. My goal is to create a situation in which the Union needs to do the suicide, "onto Richmond" strategies, at least a *few* times within the game.

Cardinal - Reducing fort contribution to a brown water blockade doesn't help blockading it hurts it. If the Union takes a fort, that fort is worth 4 to a brown water blockade in base game. Each brown water blockade requires 8 SOL. Honestly, never figured out what SOL actually stands for, but think of it as points. Each ship element is a point. A fort is worth 4 points. Reducing a fort contribution to a blockade means that if Union takes a fort, they will now need 6 ship elements instead of 4 for the brown water blockade. Other CSA forts next to the sea region ADD 4 to the 8 requirement. That hasn't changed. So Union gets cheap blockades by invading forts in base game and it's easy to invade a fort. I've now made it a bit harder.

I'm starting to think that we should be comparing the Union to what they did historically using VP points. I'll remove the NM hits, bump up the starting CSA VP numbers. The union will get dinged for not taking the "major" objectives that were done historically. Major objectives will be a point of contention, but in the East, the 3 Offensive events cause a -10 NM hit, I'm going to throw in a -100 VP also. In the West, I'm thinking that Vicksburg and Chattanoga were the two main objectives for Grant, so if they are taken by historical dates, another -100 VP hit for both. This may keep Grant in the theater until 1863. I'll remove the restrictions I just put in on Grant/Sherman.

Also, I'm wondering how historically accurate it is that the Union has McClellan, Siegal and Halleck for Training, Banks and some other boob for recruiting. They gets these guys all in 1861, with the exception of Siegal, I forget when he comes in but it's a bit later. The South has Cooper for Training who goes bye bye late 61 for training and that's about it.

Finally, the Union gets 24 brigades with the strong morale attribute, many also have fully upgraded sharpshooters (already at level 2 sharpshooter). These brigades affect entire divisions, so that's 24 divisions with elite attributes, assuming the union player doesn't do anything stupid and combine them into the same division, and many of these 24 are sharpshooters, which also affects the entire division. The Rebels get 10, and a few of those do not have strong morale OR sharpshooter. That's where the game is somewhat off nor do I believe historically accurate based on Union performance on the field. Leadership wasn't everything. The troops had to do the fighting, and those that distinguished themselves, such as the Iron Brigade, did so on the field. Also, the union has leaders with strong morale attribute, so that's even more elite divisions.

[RebelYell]

My thoughts are that this game may be historical but not really a good game to play. CSA will lose (unless Washington is taken), it's just a matter of when. This is why there's numerous mods in WITP that beef the Japanese up and enable fun games.

After WON, I might give a go at modding this to give CSA a chance. The Union holds ALL of the cards. Every single one, with the CSA having a "marginal" leadership advantage in the beginning that quickly erodes.

Perhaps an EXPERT CSA player that knows every unit and leader, when they are coming into play and exactly what to build and where against a marginal Union player might have a chance. But again, that's not a game worth playing.

One thing you could do is to help create the historical fixed defenses, CSA had a lot of fort batteries to place around the important cities.

Take away most of the given CSA ironclads for balance.

[vicberg]

The CSA Ironclad fleet is another bone of contention. So this may be done. I have started doing research, but my guess is that they had 1 rather than 4 or 5. I may do the same for the Freebie USA Timberclads also.

[vicberg]

One thing you could do is to help create the historical fixed defenses, CSA had a lot of fort batteries to place around the important cities.

Take away most of the given CSA ironclads for balance.

List a few of those historically fixed defenses.

[vicberg]

1- I don't suppose you changed the name of this event? I understand that it is supposed to be all about Richmond, but when I control half the Southern objective cities in '62 and the game tells me that I am going to take a -10NM hit for a 'lack of an offensive' I wonder if they got the word offensive confused with defensive. Ya, the papers will find something to complain about, but they should at least be accurate.

The first Papers Push for Offensive event requires Union troops in Manassas. They don't even need to own it.

The second and third require that the Union is "close to" Richmond. There's a gaggle of regions that meet this requirement.

[vicberg]

I've bumped the following freebie brigades down from elite to veteran. I'm keeping them at veteran in the interests of reflecting better quality and/or training. They can still, through combat, get back to elite. I may need to take these down to regular line infantry. Play testing will reveal this. I'm not sure I can be convinced that this many brigades were able to bump entire divisions up historically. We are working around game mechanics and AGEOD has strong morale and sharpshooter affecting entire divisions.

Flotilla (elite), Blanket (elite), Bull Run (elite), California (elite/ss), Eagle (elite/ss), Excelsior (elite/ss) , Gibraltar (elite/ss), Hookers Old Guard (elite), Horn (elite), Irish (elite), Irish Legion (elite), Keystone (elite), Merchant (elite), Old (elite), Paper Collar (elite), Philadelphia (elite/ss), Railway (elite), Regular (elite), Empire (elite), Union (elite), Washington (elite), Western (elite).

The Rebels haven't been touched and the Iron Brigade has been left alone.

[tripax]

For what it is worth, the regiments currently making up some of the elite flavor brigades are not currently very historical. I brought this up some time ago: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?35608-Flavor-Brigades-comments.

Indeed, a lot of the brigades that arrive by event are not currently very historical; this was the main point of my mods.

[vicberg]

For right now, I'm not focusing on the regimental names. I've simply converted them from the Elite Model to the Veteran Model. I'm honestly not sure why some of them are in the game at all. Iron Brigade, everyone has heard of it. These others? All elite though the haven't fought a single battle? Half of them with sharpshooter? It's like giving a giant a better club to hit with.

[vicberg]

How about I incorporate your mod into mine?

[GraniteStater]

I truly think you don't understand the Union side. Seriously. I did go on at length above, for what I believe to be good reasons and tried to point out some of the challenges the Union faces.

Sure, no elite brigades, whack the Union some more on NM if the player doesn't conform to an external timetable, reduce Brown Blockade...

you want historical? Reduce CSA production to $25 a Turn, 35 WS; reduce RR to laughable and River to nil. Do away with FI altogether after the EP.

Even better, just have a splash screen - 'CSA Loses'. There, now we're historical.

If Card. Ape and others can vanquish CSA opponents over the table by 1863, either they're playing substandard CSA players or they know a lot of things I don't know, or I'm just plain stupid.

Yeah, go ahead, 'balance' it some more. The complaining about the CSA in this game is more than a little unwarranted, imho.

[vicberg]

Granite,

I'll say this again that expert CSA play can offset CSA limitations. However, what does it take to become an expert? Playing it PBEM or vs. AI 20-30 times, minimum, so that you become aware of every facet of the game, every event, every build, everywhere freebies are coming in, every defensive choke point, where to exploit, how to exploit, how to economize your force everywhere on the map. There's little to no room for error.

I'll guarentee you that CSA leadership, etc., was not perfect during that war. They didn't know what's going to happen. They didn't know and neither did the Union. However, in this game, the Union is a LOT more forgiving, has the initiative pretty much throughout the game unless they choose to give it away. They have all the cards. There's quite a few others who agree with the assessment that this is game is lopsided.

You, either luckily or unluckily depending on your attitude, have run into an expert player. You'll learn a lot. From what I read on your posts against Havi, he's really good at forming the large cavalry divisions and raiding. He capitalized on Cairo (I think I read that) and took it while Grant was elsewhere. He's obviously got you stalemated across the Potomac. I'll also say that Havi is either an excellent war gamer in general OR he knows this game inside and out, so he knows how to capitalize, when to capitalize, everything I just posted on first paragraph. For you vs. him, I wouldn't recommend a nerfed Union. Against any expert CSA player I wouldn't recommend either. But I've also seen cases where two expert players and CSA is resigning relatively early.

IMO, two evenly matched players, and Union has a lopsided advantage. I'm also not talking about major changes. The NM loss for Offensives has been reverted back to base. Grant/Sherman are free to go anywhere. The elite Union brigades have been nerfed and the VP has been adjusted. Forts do a bit more damage and don't contribute quite as much to blockades. Small changes. Cooper will probably not disappear and I may create another one. I'll probably nerf down the CSA Ironclad fleet.

[GraniteStater]

Hey, it's your mod. you can do what you want. However...

There's little to no room for error.

No, I've seen it more than a few times. The CSA player can leave something open or made a bad physical move, and he can recover without much difficulty. You really don't seem to understand that the average CSA Div Leader is better than the average Union one. This doesn't go away, ever, a 4-3-2 is a 4-3-2 throughout the game. As I posted above, it's not uncommon at all for the CSA to have Corps with three Divs and none are 3-1-1; as a matter of fact, a 3-1-1 is unusual for the CSA. The result is a CSA player can counterattack quite readily against Union forces that just arrived and aren't entrenched.

The Union has to maneuver, the onus is on the Union to attack, throughout the game. Never mind Manassas penalties, I might be practicing a long buildup approach currently, but I still just can't sit there and do nothing at all. So the side that must attack has to do so with Army Leaders who are 2-0-1, (Buell and McDowell are the best, at 2-2-2, until Rosecrans comes along) and AFAICS, Promotions are still nerfed in 1.06; I've had a reasonable amount of fighting in two games, and I finally got a message that Rousseau can be promoted (* -> **). Whoopty-freakin'-doo. AACW had a much faster Promotion track.

So when you do get a semi-decent **, he gets squashed down to 2-1-1. After a while, you don't want any decent * to be a Corps commander. Oh, sure, Hooker, Slocum, Hancock, yadda yadda - who can't do bull-dinghy because their Corps Leader is inactive more often that not.

I really don't think what's being proposed here, admittedly, from your recent posts, toned down a bit, is truly understood as what it does to an attack-challenged side.

Again, it's your mod, it's not my place, etc., but the whole tone of 'poor, poor, CSA' is askew.

The whole point of the application is that if the CSA can't Win Big Early, it's going to have difficulties. Right now, in September 63 against fiddlers25, I finally am starting to threaten in a manner so he just might have to give up his trenches. That's the whole point. Sure, Big Blockade, Big Navy, Big Indy and Lotsa Support make things a little more favorable, but you still have to make the CSA yield ground or fight unfavorably - and they rarely fight unfavorably because of their Leaders, they fight unfavorably because the Union can stretch the lines (Five Forks?), or use extra stacks to cut off Supply and RRs.

But the Union never makes up the Leadership Gap - they close it down to something a bit more viable, but the average CSA * is still better than his Union counterpart.

And the onus on the Union ain't chickenfeed - I'm starting to make some things happen in two games now, and have reasons for confidence, but the clock is ticking. I know what it takes to secure Objectives all over the map, they're spread out, and it takes a certain amount of time just to get there, never mind secure it.

Finally, there's a reason almost every Strat City is in the south - the Union has to invade! BTW, you should know that there are certain points up North the South can take for VPs and Objectives.

Oh, and Training - there's a reason for that. The US Army already had a doctrine, programs, and officers in place (actually, it has to do with the Constitution: States may maintain militias, but they have to conform to the discipline and regime determined by Congress), plus a cadre of NCOs who knew how to train troops. The South had to do all this from scratch and good officers went to combat units, not training.

Don't you think that through two versions of this application, the folks at AGEOD didn't discuss these things? Now, after playing AACW a while, I realized that they buffed the South to have a better game, and that's OK, although I do have at least one gripe (the Almighty River Fleet under a 5-4-4 - nah, I don't think so).

It's your mod, it's not my place, but geez, the South needs help??? The whole balance of the game is Win Early for the South or you might be ground down, step by step. The North can't win early and it's foolish to try. That's why National Morale is the hub of operations - make bad decisions, lose battles, NM goes down, Cohesion goes down, manpower goes down, things take longer, etc., etc.

And don't forget the halved Replacement rate for the Union - you can't just go assaulting positions 'cuz you feel like it - if you don't do it right, you just sit there and bleed while the CSA units are back up to snuff two Turns before you can even think about another go.

But it's your mod. You've done a good job with WoN, it's fun to play, and heaven knows, trying to get the scripting right in that bramble thicket ain't easy, I'm sure.

[hanny1]

in Human V Human there is no contest, the Union will win and win quickly and easily, the only varaible is the levelof ability of the players, but game mechanics give the Union an almost unbeatable advantage. Surely we all know that?

[GraniteStater]

I don't think you've been playing this game for a very long time. We had a tournament here in AACW and CSA players more than held their own. Back in 1.03, havi was a newcomer against me, but he learned really, really fast and lost very narrowly in Jan 1866.

If you think the Union 'will win quickly and easily', play me in a PbeM and I'll take the CSA.

Believe me, it would be a pleasure.

[vicberg]

Since I'm going to beta this with Tyler. I'd like a lesson in CSA capabilities in base game. I need to see what they are capable of in capable hands. You up for it? Email is vicberg@comcast.net.

[GraniteStater]

[ATTACH]38581[/ATTACH]

You talkin' to me?

If so, what the hey, why not, love to. I have played the CSA before in an AACW PbeM - I inherited it in the tournament - man, did that guy love Horse Artillery...

[vicberg]

Email me.

[GraniteStater]

You're on, O Most Scriptful One.

This should be fun.

[Cardinal Ape]

Cardinal - Reducing fort contribution to a brown water blockade doesn't help blockading it hurts it. If the Union takes a fort, that fort is worth 4 to a brown water blockade in base game. Each brown water blockade requires 8 SOL. Honestly, never figured out what SOL actually stands for, but think of it as points. Each ship element is a point. A fort is worth 4 points. Reducing a fort contribution to a blockade means that if Union takes a fort, they will now need 6 ship elements instead of 4 for the brown water blockade. Other CSA forts next to the sea region ADD 4 to the 8 requirement. That hasn't changed. So Union gets cheap blockades by invading forts in base game and it's easy to invade a fort. I've now made it a bit harder.

SOL - Ships of the line?

Sorry, it was late, I should have elaborated more... When it comes to blockades and forts you should take a look at the USADistantBlockades.sct in the events folder. This event forces brown blocks onto ports if certain forts are Union controlled. I believe this event is the main problem with easy Union blockades because it doesn't even check for an existing fort or artillery, nothing besides ownership. The script may override your change in some aspects.

Also, I'm not sure if you can change this.. When it comes to forts contributing to the required number of ships to blockade it doesn't actually mean forts or artillery. Any unit that meets the range and/or entrenchment level can trigger the +4/-4. This does include normal infantry.

[vicberg]

I'll take a look.

[Aurelin]

5) If Sherman shows up at all in Eastern Theater, USA looses another 1000 VP and -3 NM

So much for Sherman's march across Georgia or through the Carolinas.......

[Straight Arrow]

So much for Sherman's march across Georgia or through the Carolinas.......

Yeah,

But according to Rice, the mud march in the Carolinas wasn't that much fun.

It looks like the western boys won't be able to tramp their way up to the Grand Review.

[GraniteStater]

It looks like the western boys won't be able to tramp their way up to the Grand Review.

And then they had to walk home from D. C.!

* Exhausted vet arrives back at the farm in Indiana - -

Wife: Where the hell have you been? *