phoenix
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novice question - destroying infrastructure

Tue Jan 30, 2018 7:05 pm

Just trying to have another go at getting into this game. Can anyone help, please - one of the things that happened in the real conflict was that gunboats of various sorts, for instance, did various kinds of damage, for example shelling towns so that they ceded control, shelling major bridges on the Mississippi, so that they were dropped and out of use to the opposite side. Can this happen in game? I can't find a way. In fact, is the infrastructure - railroads, roads, towns etc damageable in any way?

Many thanks.

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Durk
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:14 am

Be assured that any game can only model so much, so if you love an era, like my obsession with the American Civil War, you look for the game which best represents the era. Not the game you would have produced if you controlled all factors. It is kind of like reading histories of the war or watching movies of the war. So many histories just get certain details wrong, but that does not disqualify them as serious study of the events of the time.

Riverboats can do the core actions in a surprisingly realistic manner. The suppression of forts was a key event and as towns are also strongholds, they can suppress them also. And of course if you have troops on board, you can land and control the town. I actually could not recall a single town which ceded control without a landing as I read your post.

I do quibble with your statement about bridges 'on the Mississippi' as there were none at the time. Certainly on other rivers riverboats contributed to their destruction. So yes, if you land a party from your boats, they can destroy a rail line over a river.

The combat stance options and some of the cards you can play allow for destruction of rail and depots and towns of a small value, like one.

Get into this game. Best strategic level game on the American Civil War and in my best ever game on the American Civil War.

phoenix
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Wed Jan 31, 2018 9:08 am

Sorry - yes, you're right of course about the Missisipi. I was thinking of the Tennessee, perhaps. And I was thinking, of course, of the effect naval power had on New Orleans, which was evacuated, and (in effect) ceded (though there were mobs and 'popular' resistance left over and a landing of marines was required, yes - but not many of them...) due to bombardment and the threat of it, no?

Thanks for the help. I see now where the actions can be found.


At the moment I'm watching videos to try to learn a bit. Spink Akron and Charles Cumming's series seem very useful.

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Captain_Orso
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Wed Jan 31, 2018 12:50 pm

First off, bridges are not represented in the game, other than perhaps if a rail line spans a river, it might be easier to move across the river somewhat.

You can only bombard land-stacks, and only if they are trying to bombard you as well, otherwise it is assumed they are holding off at a safe distance or out of sight from the river.

The tiny force garrisoning New Orleans didn't abandon the city because the Marines landed. They left before that, because they knew Farragut's land forces would arrive at any time, and they had not chance to defend against them. IIRC it was just a couple hundred men in all, or maybe a regiment, but in any case, against the 10,000 Farragut had, it would have been no contest.

The South had pulled all the other forces out of NO many months before, to reinforce Johnston and Beauregard in Tennessee. Also, a lot of artillery was pulled from Forts Philips and Jackson long before, for the same reasons.

phoenix
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:59 pm

Setting the history aside, I'm not sure what you are saying about my questions, Capn Orso. That nothing like bridges and roads are destroyable?

On the history - I'm sure you're right (of course) because I know very little. But Farragut had 10,000 men? On boats?

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ArmChairGeneral
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:37 am

Scorched earth and infrastructure denial are only lightly modeled at the strategic level. It is definitely a thing at the tactical level, however. By temporarily destroying or interdicting railroads and river hexes around enemy stacks, you can slow them down, disrupt their supply lines and (when combined with some pre-established MC in neighboring regions) force them into disadvantageous avenues of retreat when they lose battles.

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Captain_Orso
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:25 pm

phoenix wrote:Setting the history aside, I'm not sure what you are saying about my questions, Capn Orso. That nothing like bridges and roads are destroyable?

On the history - I'm sure you're right (of course) because I know very little. But Farragut had 10,000 men? On boats?


Correct, you cannot directly influence road-networks. As ACG stated, the Scorched Earch RGD will reduce the development level of a region by 10, which can reduce movement within the region.

I was wrong about the number of land troops with Butler. It wasn't 10,000, it was 18,000, if you believe the Wikipedia article Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip and 5000 went on land in NO itself Capture of New Orleans.

Yes, being the US government has the privilege of having very deep pockets and the authority to requisition a lot of material, like a small fleet of transports. Besides, nobody gave a dang how crowded soldiers had to bunk while on board.

Although not nearly over the same distance, check how many men McClellan had to move at one time during the Peninsula Campaign.

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ArmChairGeneral
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Sat Feb 03, 2018 5:05 am

There are various combinations of methods to destroy structures and railroads, including cards, orders to units, intentional or unintentional pillaging, etc. I will not go into the exact combinations of clicks needed to do each type, but instead try to give a general overview of what types of things can be interdicted or destroyed.

1) If you can build it, you can destroy it. Stockades, forts, redoubts (?) and depots can all be destroyed using orders to your troops, RGD cards and special abilities.

Unless it is infrastructure, like an Ironworks, Plantation, Armory or Shipyard. Like any structure, these can be destroyed as a side effect of battles, (rare) but they are not directly destroyable either by RGD card or by orders to units. You can't capture an enemy city, destroy its war production potential, and vacate. The only way to permanently deny these to the enemy are to seize and hold them. (Which is the most efficient and effective means of industrial expansion anyway.)

2) You can temporarily destroy railroads. You can neither build them, nor permantenly destroy them. Torn up track will be rebuilt quickly through a variety of methods, including a random chance to repair automatically each turn. Nonetheless, destroying rails that enemy stacks are trying to make immediate use of is very useful.

No matter what, it costs some kind of resource to rebuild rail, so tearing up tracks that the enemy needs to control will cost them to keep repairing.

If you are tearing track in an attempt to cut supply to an enemy stack, try to cut at the point of worst-terrain so that their land supply won't be able to cross the region in one turn.

You do not have to destroy a rail to interdict supply; any uncontested combat unit in a region blocks enemy supply from routing through the region. Establishing > 75% MC in a region also blocks all enemy supply. Conversely if you have at least 25% MC then you can use the region's infrastructure to transit supply. A region can be open to supply movement by both sides.

3) You can't destroy bridges (there are only a few rail bridges modeled in the game anyway) but you can place gunboats in the river region to (mostly) prevent enemies from crossing (because of the same rule that would also prevent crossings if there weren't a bridge there).

4) You can destroy Settlements and Indian Villages through direct action and RGD. Settlements are Lvl. 1 cities with a special icon on the map; tool-tips will identify them as Settlements. They are common in the Indian Territory, the Great Plains and the Far West. No other Cities can be destroyed, nor can population be reduced.

5) Sufficient naval power in a river (or sea) hex prevents both supply movement as well as enemy unit crossings. Artillery with high enough entrenchments or that are in a fort of any kind will interdict adjacent water supply movement when they are given the Bombard order; their posture doesn't matter unless they are Passive (Green). They will also attempt to bombard any enemy fleets or units with Riverine Movement orders transiting adjacent water hexes. Enemy fleets get to return fire, however; don't expect an entrenched 6 lber to survive return fire from an Ironclad.

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Captain_Orso
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Sat Feb 03, 2018 2:01 pm

ArmChairGeneral wrote:8<

2) You can temporarily destroy railroads. You can neither build them, nor permantenly destroy them. Torn up track will be rebuilt quickly through a variety of methods, including a random chance to repair automatically each turn. Nonetheless, destroying rails that enemy stacks are trying to make immediate use of is very useful.

No matter what, it costs some kind of resource to rebuild rail, so tearing up tracks that the enemy needs to control will cost them to keep repairing.


It's called "damaging" the railroad officially, but yeah, I've said destroyed my share of times.

ArmChairGeneral wrote:If you are tearing track in an attempt to cut supply to an enemy stack, try to cut at the point of worst-terrain so that their land supply won't be able to cross the region in one turn.


Good tactic, BAD inference. I have to explain this about 4 times a year; if supplies will not reach their destination within a turn, they will never reach it. Supplies are transported by hypothetical Supply Units. If a Supply Unit could not make the journey from a supply source to a location pulling supplies within one turn, no supplies will ever arrive at that supply-pull from that source.

ArmChairGeneral wrote:You do not have to destroy a rail to interdict supply; any uncontested combat unit in a region blocks enemy supply from routing through the region. Establishing > 75% MC in a region also blocks all enemy supply. Conversely if you have at least 25% MC then you can use the region's infrastructure to transit supply. A region can be open to supply movement by both sides.


A simpler, albeit more tentative method for preventing supplies from passing through a region is to have 1 or more unopposed combat units in that region at the start of a turn, bc Supplies are distributed in three independent phases at the start of each turn. Regardless of MC, an unopposed combat unit blocks all enemy supplies from transitioning that region.

The best units for doing this are Cavalry, Irregulars (Partisans, Rangers, Indians, Bushwhackers, and CSA Mounted Infantry and Volunteers), and Skirmishers, because the enemy my not even see them, and will therefore have his hands full trying to find and attack them. Additionally--this is IMHO a short-coming of the game--there is no report anywhere in the game that supply is being blocked, so it is unlikely the enemy will even notice a blockage until it is too late.

ArmChairGeneral wrote:8<

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ArmChairGeneral
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:53 pm

Orso said:
If a Supply Unit could not make the journey from a supply source to a location pulling supplies within one turn, no supplies will ever arrive at that supply-pull from that source
.

Yes exactly. That s what i was trying t get at, bearing in mind that supplies can move intermodally. So if you cut a rail and a (notional) wagon could cross the terrain in, say 8 days, then it could take a day or two reach the damaged rail, cross the region by land and then continue on to its destination using the rail on the other side and still make it within one turn, then the supplies still get through. If you cut a different region that takes longer to cross by land and the total trip now takes more than one turn, then no supply flows.

phoenix
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Sun Feb 04, 2018 10:25 am

All very informative. Many thanks, both.

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pgr
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Re: novice question - destroying infrastructure

Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:09 am

As to the original question, land troops can tear up RR tracks, and small settlements can be destroyed, as well as depots. Fleets can't destroy infrastructure, but if you have 4 active ship elements, they can block movement across a river. I suppose you could say that they are shelling the bridges (in an abstracted kind of way).

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