Just Curious - Any Way to Stop An All-East Union Strategy Featuring 3-star Grant?

[Gray Fox]

Successfully leading an army in battle is the worst job on the planet. You train young men to be butchers who must do things that would make beasts in the jungle run away. In a way, I suppose we should be proud that most Union Generals were really bad at this, as though we were hopefully too civilized for such things. A nation with overwhelming numerical, industrial and materiel might was stymied for years by a lack of military leadership. Good Union gamers don't suffer from this, because we can figure out what should have been done and just do it. If we fight battles with unbridled carnage, no newspapers crown us as a Satan and the world won't treat our nation like we should be living in caves. Perhaps until 1863, the Union should actually lose NM based on casualties, even if a battle is won.

[Captain_Orso]

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[TD]Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln[/TD]
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[TD]War is the continuation of politics by other means[/TD]
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[TD][INDENT][RIGHT]Carl Philipp Gottlieb Clausewitz[/RIGHT]
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If they make a CW3, I'd love to see them give more attention to the political considerations and restraints faced by both Lincoln and Davis. I realize there is some of this with the On to Richmond rule for the Union (which needs some work too). But one thing to remember is that neither Lincoln nor Davis was an absolute dictator. They both had to keep coalitions of states happy, at a time when states meant more than they do now. This often meant mustering forces and fighting battles in locations that perhaps made more political than strategic sense.

RUS has an interesting take on this, with its identification of some forces with specific geographic regions and the assignment of the most senior officers to GHQ established in set locations. You have events that affect the leadership and you have generals like Stalin who have strongly negative impacts that you cannot resist. Players for both the Red and White forces are forced to do the best they can with what they have, while still leaving plenty of room for creativity. But you really feel that you are immersed in the politics of the Russian Civil War. By contrast, CW2 too often feels like what matters is crunching the numbers to get the Killer Stack as early as possible where you want it. McClellan gets sent to the rear, etc.

EAW also has, albeit only at the start, the Strategic Plans that each side can choose. These affect initial dispositions, cohesion bonuses and victory locations. The EAW ultimate mod also adds the idea of yearly "grand offensives" which have each player choosing regions where they will make their greatest efforts. I could see such strategic plan choices as spicing up CW2 substantially.

If they make CW3, they should definitely get the EAW and RUS designers into the loop to offer ideas.

What a radical idea, including politics in the considerations of the game .......... But of course!!!

Honestly, I have no idea what that would actually look like, and to represent it properly, it should entail more than some events and changing parameters to represent the effects of 'politics". The true conflict is actually is the politics, but I have little to no idea what that actually looked like. We are presented with the finished product of a set of obscure ---and probably mostly secret--- interactions in the midst of conflict, giving birth to an Act, a Decree, or some policy decision. Reducing that to a set of variables is the opposite of what von Clausewitz was trying to convey. Politics drives war and not the other way around.

I wonder if it could even be possible to do it well. Since politics includes very personally motivated decision, there are unlimited decisions each character in a game might choose, which would be impossible ---under current technology--- to program. One would have to reduce possible activities to a finite set of choices, which would have to represent each character's personal traits within their circumstances. Who could even define each and every character and their events? Damn, it would be like The Sims™ driving Civil War[SUP]3[/SUP]™ ...

Successfully leading an army in battle is the worst job on the planet. You train young men to be butchers who must do things that would make beasts in the jungle run away. In a way, I suppose we should be proud that most Union Generals were really bad at this, as though we were hopefully too civilized for such things. A nation with overwhelming numerical, industrial and materiel might was stymied for years by a lack of military leadership. Good Union gamers don't suffer from this, because we can figure out what should have been done and just do it. If we fight battles with unbridled carnage, no newspapers crown us as a Satan and the world won't treat our nation like we should be living in caves. Perhaps until 1863, the Union should actually lose NM based on casualties, even if a battle is won.

I'm afraid that these days, the sentiment that there should be limits to what we should do to our enemies, is long passed, at least with a large faction in the world. We have dehumanized "the others" to the point, we actually believe the propaganda we wrote ourselves.

Sorry, to have taken this off track ... I feel a bout of depression coming on

[Straight Arrow]

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Honestly, I have no idea what that would actually look like, and to represent it properly, it should entail more than some events and changing parameters to represent the effects of 'politics". The true conflict is actually is the politics, but I have little to no idea what that actually looked like. We are presented with the finished product of a set of obscure ---and probably mostly secret--- interactions in the midst of conflict, giving birth to an Act, a Decree, or some policy decision. Reducing that to a set of variables is the opposite of what von Clausewitz was trying to convey. Politics drives war and not the other way around.

I wonder if it could even be possible to do it well. Since politics includes very personally motivated decision, there are unlimited decisions each character in a game might choose, which would be impossible ---under current technology--- to program. One would have to reduce possible activities to a finite set of choices, which would have to represent each character's personal traits within their circumstances. Who could even define each and every character and their events? Damn, it would be like The Sims™ driving Civil War[SUP]3[/SUP]™ ...

The simplest and best capture I've seen so far was in an old, PC game, SSI's 1991 No Greater Glory, that did a great job of dealing with politics and internal bickering through presidential cabinet choices.

[pgr]

It isn't really to the point of how to defend against the blue tide, but an argument could be made that Grant should start as a 1 star or that his seniority be nerfed. Usually, when he makes 3 star he has a very high seniority. In spring 62, Mac, Halleck, Buell (heck Butler and Banks) should be in front of Grant in the promotion line, not only for the history of it but for balance too.

As for actual strategies... if the Union goes all east, you will have to go all east too. As was stated earlier, use railroads and keep all corps within supporting distance of each other. (either two wide or in a triangle). Finally look for situations to counter attack if the Union army starts to separate. (If he has corps that are strung out or isolated, use RR to hit the fragment with everything you have).

[Cardinal Ape]

Making it a bit tougher for Grant to get an army command would help balance a bit. Usually it only takes one assault on a garrison to get Grant promoted.

One thought I've tossed around a bit is if the increase to 6 armies in March of '62 should be changed. I can't help but wonder if the army cap gives the Union too much leeway. A couple of those 6 army commands will end up being back line desk jobs to keep commanders with high political scores happy. It feels to me like there is too much wiggle room to get who you want in command.

The main strain on Union leadership all happens before the spring of '62. If Grant gets a timely promotion that strain is mostly taken care of, and then in spring of '63 the army cap goes to 9... Well, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but by that time I typically have 3 active armies led by Grant, Lyons, Meade/Sherman and 6 six desk jobs for the politicians.

I'm really curious to see how things would play out if the max armies was changed, maybe to 5 in '62, and to 7 in '63.

This is a stretch: I think it would be really nifty if these Union desk jockeys had an event to make them realize that they have been assigned to a desk job. I'm sure Lil'Mac would have a thing or two to say if he knew that he would be spending the next four years training troops in Kentucky.

[DrPostman]

I like the idea of limiting Union armies, at least a little bit.

[Teatime]

I usually play Union but one of the things I modded was to reduce the command radius of generals to 1 region only irrespective of strategic rating.

For example, historically Grant was not able to apply any influence over Rosecrans even when he was given full command in the west and in the east he was not able to influence the Shenandoah

The idea of someone like Grant or Lee being able to boost pretty much all commanders within 6 regions and therefore effectively run a super army was a big anachronism to me .. so I nerfed it.

This then makes it necessary to run those 6 armies as field armies with some not so good generals in command.

It is pretty easy to mod as well.

[Captain_Orso]

The issue with leadership in the game compared to the historical influence of leadership begins with the fact that in the game, leadership follows the game's concept of chain-of-command, without restriction to location, and historically leadership was, on the one hand, restricted to military districts, and on the other, was not restricted by something similar to the game's chain-of-command. IE a division under Grant's command, but outside the region of its corps is still under the corps commander's and Grant's command and direction, and should enjoy some advantage for that, albeit perhaps not exactly the same as if withing the chain-of-command as defined by the game.

Grant was given the command over an area called Western Tennessee ---which is why his army was named The Army of the Tennessee--- which IIRC also included at least some land west of the Mississippi at some times, because strategically and tactically it was logical. But these districts were not written in stone. Additional, and even more confounded were the military departments above them. For example, Halleck commanded the Missouri Department, which included western Tennessee, from some time around the end of '61, after Fremont was removed. West of the Missouri Department was the Kansas Department under David Hunter, and east of it, the Department of Ohio under Buell. Eventually Halleck's department also included the Department of Ohio to include everything east of the Mississippi up to the Appalachians and south to include Knoxville, as a Military Division, not to be confused with the field organization of division. It was all so very mixed up at times: Department of Kansas

This is where the game goes awry. Only under Halleck's command could Grant and Buell operate within the same district. They would always be allowed to coordinate with each other, but I'm not sure how it would have gone over if Grant and Buell united their armies within one district or the other without Halleck's explicit permission. After all, it would actually mean that somebody was operating outside of their district, plus 'abandoning' their district, at least partially,

What you would never see IMHO would be Grant taking his army into eastern Kentucky to fight an invasion of E. K. Smith, because that district belonged to Buell, unless it was a concerted effort including the Army of the Ohio.

So what is missing are districts, departments, military divisions, and what ever other organizational structures there may have been, and the influence of the commander's of these entities, also differentiating between their personal presence in the field and their simply commanding these entities.

Also, AFAIK the Congress determined the rank of the commanders of these districts, departments, etc., and the resources (troop strengths) allocated to them. But within these command structures, commander's had some leeway in assigning subordinate command, by requesting approval through military channels for a leader to be brevetted for a position, to be approved then by congress. This might be similar to how the game works in some sense, but it does not consider operational successes, which would be very difficult to consider.

For example, Rosecrans' Tullahoma campaign was a masterpiece of strategy. But in game terms, without a major battle causing a disparity in hits for a leader, there would be nothing for the game to assess in determining if a leader should be promotable (brevettable) to take command of a corps.

Also, successful sieges mean nothing in game terms to promotions or advancement in seniority.

In conclusion, the game has only a limited ability to reflect all of these command structures with all their restrictions and freedoms, which ultimately changes the way historic situations can be represented, with for example Grant as an army commander over many corps, which belonged historically to other armies.

[Cardinal Ape]

Thanks for the informative post Orso.

It sounds like a truly accurate historical command structure would be a nightmare to model. And not very fun to play. I think the current system works okay. Another step or two of depth could be good, but anything beyond that would turn into a micromanagement slog.

That is also a good point on how sieges award no seniority. It has definitely had an impact on my decisions in game; I typically never siege. I really don't like besieging any of the far western stockades because they award NM, I might siege one or two out of necessity, but otherwise I try to limit the impact from the far west. Strangely, assaulting single element garrisons is where the majority of seniority gains comes from in this game. It seems that the bigger a battle is the less likely there is for seniority and exp gains are. The system primarily awards gains for eliminated units, gains for partial damage are very rare, and the bigger a battle is the higher the chance of damaged units being pulled off the front to avoid elimination.


@TeaTime, I do like the concept of decreasing the command radius, though I fear that it may be more detrimental to the CSA than the Union. The CSA has far fewer 3*'s to work with, I fear it may stretch them too thin.

[Captain_Orso]

I don't know if it would be a nightmare, but it would cause you to play realistically. You would simply have to learn to plan and allocate your resources logically. I've heard many players describe that they build units 'intuitively', meaning they think, I could use one of those and one of the other one, without actually having a plan or idea of why. Then they have to cobble these units into a division and struggle trying to make everything fit. I suspect that they then view this struggle as representing the difficulties of managing a military structure, where it is actually struggling with a lack of planing. Logistics is is the paramount in war. Nearly everything else is tactics.

I actually think it would be possible to implement a realistic military organization. IN Wars of Napoleon there is already a function to 'paint' areas for determining military interests for allies. That function could be used to create military districts etc. One would have to decide on the affects of district, department, and theater commanders, and probably, similar to assigning army commanders (which would be district commanders), but also for departments and theaters. One could also have a to designate a plan strength for these structures, and a penalty if you for example gave "Spoons" Butler the command of the Department of the Upper-North-West (fictional) consisting of Minnesota, North and South Dakota and the Indian Territories west of there, with a plan strength of 5000 men, that with his political value, could raise a stink about being sent to command a back-woods department, while Nate Lyon commanded the department of Missouri with 30,000 men.

But this is all just a pipe dream, because I doubt ever be so much interest that Pocus would develop something like this. It would probably have to be usable in other games too, and from my understanding the trend is toward simpler mechanics and not another level of complexity

[Teatime]

@TeaTime, I do like the concept of decreasing the command radius, though I fear that it may be more detrimental to the CSA than the Union. The CSA has far fewer 3*'s to work with, I fear it may stretch them too thin.

One of things I am also intending to look into is the idea of allowing 2 star generals to have army command but with reduced CP.

Historically Union army generals were 2 stars, the only one to make it 3 stars was Grant. The large confederate field armies were commanded by 3 star generals but there were smaller armies commanded by 2 star as well. Not really thought that through or tried it fully yet.

@Captain Orso
I like where your idea is going but, as you point out, it would need changes beyond what we can mod now.

The principal would be that district commands also would have political & seniority values. This could then be assessed against the generals seniority and political value to determine penalties if you place a low seniority general in charge of a high seniority district or vice versa.

i.e Virginia would be the highest seniority district and placing anyone but the most senior general in charge of it would give you a penalty.

Would not be too hard to flesh that idea out

[Captain_Orso]

8<

@Captain Orso
I like where your idea is going but, as you point out, it would need changes beyond what we can mod now.

The principal would be that district commands also would have political & seniority values. This could then be assessed against the generals seniority and political value to determine penalties if you place a low seniority general in charge of a high seniority district or vice versa.

i.e Virginia would be the highest seniority district and placing anyone but the most senior general in charge of it would give you a penalty.

Would not be too hard to flesh that idea out

Districts, Departments, and Theaters should not have a rank of importance or prestige.

Historically, this is very convoluted, because the army was convoluted throughout the war. Actually the military had departments which contained other departments. Once Grant's force and area was large enough it became the Department of the Tennessee, but still belonged to the Department of the West, which also contained the Department of the Ohio... But why screw up the game by mixing things up if you don't have to, so district -> department -> theater.

Districts are the basis of armies. Historically Grant commanded the District of Southern Illinois and Cairo, or something like that, which included parts of Missouri west of the Mississippi and part of western Kentucky, of course. Once the size of the area he was operating (which kept getting bigger through capturing territory) reached a certain size they called it a department.

The player should be able to create by 'painting' (WON function) the regions belonging to districts. Basically there should be no region not belonging to a district, although for sizable areas far from the conflict a district my then also be a department. For example the fictional Department of The Upper-North-West I mentioned previously. The size would be arbitrary.

If the player wishes or deems it necessary or advantageous, he should be able to create departments. This would be done by simply selecting one or more districts and assigning them to the department. For example, the Department of the West (I think it was called that) started out as the Department of the Missouri, and then had the Tennessee and Ohio districts, and I believe later the Cumberland added. In fact, if the area were large enough, a department should probably be mandatory, even if it doesn't contain more than 1 district. This might also be used to increase the rank of the necessary commander, beyond the following rules.

Basically, you would have three steps for district sizes. This is simply arbitrary.
Range-1: up to about the size of 2 divisions (in game terms), so about 35 elements. This would include garrisons of course.
Range-2: up to about the size of 4 divisions (in game terms), so about 70 elements.
Range-3: above the size of 4 divisions (in game terms), more than 70 elements.

The rang number determines the rank of the commander of the district/department. Now you can use the rank/seniority/political-value to determine penalties for giving command to any specific commander per the normal rules, but the smaller the command, the small the penalty.

I think that starting with March '62, the commander of a Range-2 district/department should be able to create a minor army with similar affects in CP's and ability inheritance. About the same as a corps, just without belonging to 'normal' army.

Range-1 department commanders can already create divisions starting in October '61, and with 4 leaders you can fully command 2 divisions.

Leaning on history, you have a district starting with Kansas, and going to the boarders of California and Oregon, but excluding the Indian Territory, and the Territories of New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. Because of the size of the force allocated to the district, you only need a brigadier general to command it; historically David Hunter. Because of the size (maybe determined by the number of regions) it must be declared a department as well, ergo the Department of Kansas, but in game terms it would be a department in name only.

So with districts in Range-3 you have the same rules as currently when giving an army command.

If you want armies to be able to operate with each other the same as corps within an army, you must create a department containing both districts. Now both armies can work together, but you need a department commander. And again you fall back on the rules for creating an army with rank/seniority/political-value being taken into account; minimum rank 3*.

So there would be no fixed districts or departments with fixed values of importance. You would only force sizes to contend with. And since as the player you will be allocating your forces depending the the importance of the requirements, you will automatically have the highest ranking leaders with the highest seniority leading the largest forces.

A couple more organizational aspects: Reinforcements (newly built units) and their deployment. Newly built units would be simi-locked, They cannot be put into a stack (so they cannot be put into division or fight integrated with other units), nor be given OP (Offensive Posture), but they may otherwise move normally and defend normally.

One might also assign them to a district at the time they are built, so that the player cannot simply throw them anywhere after their build completed. If the player wants to reassign them, it would cost a number of days, maybe a week or a full turn, as a penalty representing unplanned logistical changes in their transportation.

Each department will have a city defined as its headquarters. Freshly raised units must pass through the HQ to become unlocked. Once unlocked in their own district they operate normally, but cannot leave their district voluntarily, unless their district belongs to a multi-district department, in which case, they may operate normally within the department. They may retreat to outside of their district/department.

Unlocked Units belonging to different districts may not be stacked together, even if they belong to the same department. This is normal command and control in the military. You cannot simply shove units from one organization to another without paperwork.

Again, of course, this would require a major overhaul in some aspects of the game.

[Cardinal Ape]

That sounds great. I'd buy it. Hopefully, if and when the time for CW3 comes ageod will have changed their tune on less complexity.