Activation rule

[jjw509]

What setting do most of you guys play on? I think tried the one just before veteran where there is a big chance a non-activated general can't move at all. With plus 2 activation as the South I find I feel like the sides have flipped before Lee comes in when I have Beauregard and/or Johnson sitting still but the Yankees are moving. I have moved it down to movement and combat power loss for not being activated.

[ArmChairGeneral]

I like playing with the possibility of generals becoming fixed in place. It makes things a little harder on me, and means that stacks led by 3-1-1s are totally unreliable and get themselves into trouble a lot, while 4 strat generals are worth their weight in gold. Planning out escape routes is more of a challenge, since you have to deal with the possibility that you will get fixed in place while retreating (which seems to happen a lot after battles anyway). Also, it means that Cav scouts go without leaders unless they have a 5 or 6 Strat rating, since your scouts can starve to death waiting to become unfixed otherwise. The possibility of being fixed requires you to think differently and more carefully about who is in charge, and brings the characters to life a bit. Seniority becomes a big deal, since you have to watch out for 3-1-1s outranking people who are actually willing to fight.

To compensate the AI (being fixed in place really throws her for a loop, and she can't plan around the possibility very well) I give her +2 or sometimes +3 Activation Bonus. At +2 the Union will still have some inactivity and being fixed in place to deal with. At +3 she will essentially have a free hand and be active on most turns, even with her terrible early 3 stars. In my current Union game I gave the CSA a +2 and everyone seems like they are active on pretty much every turn. IMO lowering the Activation bonus goes further in nerfing the AI than lowering her Rank, since she is not very good at finessing her command structure to minimize inactivity.

One bit of micromanagement that becomes necessary is breaking up the Generals pools right away. Otherwise, the whole stack can get fixed because the top ranked leader failed his activation roll. A lot of times I put all my spare generals in stacks with high rank high Strat leaders (Lee, essentially) so they aren't fixed for three turns in a row when I need them. One change I would like to see is allowing fixed units to still be able to combine into divisions. As a workaround, whenever I am marshalling units to form into divisions I keep them in a stack without a leader so that they can't become fixed and prevent me from organizing my troops.