Replacements

[ncuman]

I agree with bigus. Sounds like Barksdale always won as the south before he ran into the main problem the confederates have, that being that the union can field armies much larger than the confederates. Now that he has to face this problem against Soundoff, he is not quite sure what to do. However, Barksdale is a smart guy. I am sure that he will figure out a good plan to counteract this advantage. Everyone who has not been reading the AARs that Soundoff and Barksdale have been writing ought to do so. It is good reading and I have been learning a lot by reading them.

[bigus]

Okay I think I should be more clear. First, the attrition works BEAUTIFULLY and is NOT an issue! Second, this is NOT an issue about manpower. My issue here is specifically with the replacement mechanism.

Severely depleted units, due to battle casualties OR attrition OR whatever, are not receiving the replacements ordered when inside a depot\big city on passive. The replacement chips are being used up but are not following the supposed unit priority code.

This is using the latest official patch with no mods.

Fair enough but I don't see this! I see what you mean though. Seems to me if your in passive posture and in a city you will recieve replacements. It might not happen this turn or next turn. but it will happen.(ie: Its not automatic)

Bigus

[W.Barksdale]

Fair enough but I don't see this! I see what you mean though. Seems to me if your in passive posture and in a city you will recieve replacements. It might not happen this turn or next turn. but it will happen.(ie: Its not automatic)

Hmm I've bought the replacements over several turns. If units on passive inside a structure are supposed to be #1 priority on the list for replacements I am not seeing it.

I will try a few more turns I just hate to waste resources on sending replacements to units that don't need them.

[Jabberwock]

Okay I think I should be more clear. First, the attrition works BEAUTIFULLY and is NOT an issue! Second, this is NOT an issue about manpower. My issue here is specifically with the replacement mechanism.

Severely depleted units, due to battle casualties OR attrition OR whatever, are not receiving the replacements ordered when inside a depot\big city on passive. The replacement chips are being used up but are not following the supposed unit priority code.

This is using the latest official patch with no mods.

I don't think you can separate attrition or manpower, if it is a recurring reduction of manpower due to attrition that causes the issues with replacements not going where they are needed.

[W.Barksdale]

I don't think you can separate attrition or manpower, if it is a recurring reduction of manpower due to attrition that causes the issues with replacements not going where they are needed.

I wish I could designate specifically which units I wanted replacements for. I thought that the passive priority thing could do that. I guess just having them on passive does not give 100% certainty they will receive any.

[bigus]

I wish I could designate specifically which units I wanted replacements for.

That would be great....!

I thought that the passive priority thing could do that. I guess just having them on passive does not give 100% certainty they will receive any.

I don't think so..(Only Pocus can answer this). But I agree they should be highest on the list.


Bigus

[Jabberwock]

I assure you that 3/4 of us that worked on the Attrition/Movement issue are still actively involved with the game.
IIRC The Attrition/Cohesion losses had nothing to do with A/C Recovery or any replacment issue. It was strictly to reduce Attrition and Cohesion which was deemed excessive at the time. (Whole armies being virtually wiped out due to movement ...etc).
Maybe Gray can point you to the discussion thread. It might take a while to read it though.

That's the problem. I see the replacement issue as resulting from the work done on attrition/movement. I was told when the Grand Campaign started that we would go with historical attrition, even though it was still a work in progress. When I expressed my doubts, I was assured that I would be pleasantly surprised with the new system.

Now suppose that as the Union in the Grand Campaign, we've got a great plan to beat the rebels by early '63. We implement it, soundly defeating Coregonas' team. We feel brilliant. We expect that the rebs don't feel too bad, because we did something brilliant. Then during the wrap-up, we discover that Coregonas hit the replacements wall in '62, and we would have won with a plan of "just roll everything forward starting in mid-62 and don't stop till it's over". A six-year-old could concieve and implement that plan. That would suck. That would suck for everyone involved.

I've read the "Realistic Attrition" thread, the whole thing, I took part in a few of those discussions. Not a big part, but I was there until the discussion shifted over to the beta forum. I've since read the beta forum discussion. I remember the early attempts at historical attrition. So if 3/4 of the people are still actively involved - you, me, Gray ... then who is the one person we're missing? Not trying to disrespect anybody's contribution, just making a point. If I mention berto, Hobbes, arsan, lodi, solo, Kurtz, Clovis, Ethy, then we're still only missing three or four. Would that be Runyan, Jagger, and Walloc? Guess what, I don't see this as a work in progress, any more than shore bombardment has been a work in progress for the last year. Does anyone else remember being told that was a work in progress? I see this as two dozen guys made a tremendous effort to achieve an initial consensus, and that's what we're likely to be stuck with until AACW2 comes out.

As for the replacement issue, I'm not sure what you want as the Confederates. Historically their manpower was spent by early-mid 63.

Spent? by early '63? Maybe late '63. I hit the wall in '62. I'm well past the high-water mark by '63. Historically the war kept going until April '65. That's when they had nothing left. This attrition is relentless, because replacements aren't prioritized to units where they won't just disappear again. The armies keep dwindling. By the beginning of '64 the rebels have lost. They just don't have enough men comparitively to even win purely defensive battles by late '63. Now, I'm a fairly decent armchair general - I think there's a consensus about that. Barksdale is too. I seriously doubt my ability, or his, to extend the war to '65 against any halfway competent opponent, as long as they don't try to get fancy. On the other hand, I know exactly how to take advantage of these conditions to end the war by late '63 as the Union, against almost any opponent. That suggests that the balance is off.

You're also not considering the idea that maybe every rebel CinC doesn't lose 30-40,000 men at Donelson and Vicksburg. Under these conditions, those guys just don't matter. The rebs will lose in close to the same time-frame, starting with or without them.

Drastic measures were taken and the fact that Longstreet was moved to the west in mid-late 63 proves this.

Not exactly. The fact that Longstreet went west is evidence that they were stretched, but felt they could temporarily spare manpower from the east. It doesn't prove that they had nothing left.

Nuff said. Attrition losses as always are heavy in bad weather.

Not exactly. Some operations were carried out in bad weather early in the war, and they didn't cause enough problems to use up all the replacements.

I think Barksdale's suggestion of more specificity is a good one. I think the numbers that are the root cause of the problem also still need tweaking, and I'm not going to be any more complacent about saying so than I am on any other topic.

[bigus]

That's the problem. I see the replacement issue as resulting from the work done on attrition/movement.

How?

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[soundoff]

I wish I could designate specifically which units I wanted replacements for. I thought that the passive priority thing could do that. I guess just having them on passive does not give 100% certainty they will receive any.

I'd certainly add a +1 to being able to specify which units are to receive replacements. Mind you...how you ever manage to implement such a change given the scope of the game?

[Drambuie]

Reading this thread with interest ... never played against a human and tend to restart before things get too far.

However, I'm curious as to how replacements would have been handled historically? I presume there was never a central pool and things were handled by theatre/army or something and just locally gathered?

One way I could see to handle this, so as to give some visibility of what happens, would be to somehow make replacements appear in several major cities/locations - Richmond, New Orleans, Memphis whatever - and these then siphon down to units within a certain supply radius of those places.

Have some form of priority set at the top level where you decide which area gets them first, gets most etc.

Lord knows how programmable/not that is though, just an idea. I do think though even doing this would still need some form of ability to specify in greater detail who/where gets them at the unit level.

Just some thoughts that may be a)wrong, b) impossible to implement!

[veji1]

From what I understand the "replacement wall" occurs when you have enough troops around that just their little historic attrition (couple of percentage points) manages to absorb all the replacements you can buy (that is if you buy say 5 to 15 of them). I guess if you did mobilization etc, and bought 40 of them, they would eventually reach the more suffering units..

The problem is double for me :
1/ the attrition acts as a replacement trap, while the whole point should be just to show the fact that armies slowly lose stragglers, etc.. replacements are made for replacing actual real losses from battle or big painful march...
2/ the prioritization routine for replacement with the passive/intra structure criteria seems broke.

2/ is easy to solve in the sense that either it works or not and needs to be fixed.

1/ is more tricky. I really think that historical attrition should be limited by a hard cap once regiments have reached a floor, from which only "real attrition" from battle or tough movement should occur. This floor should be something like 700 men per rgt for the CSA and 500 for the USA. that way newly formed troops would slowly dwindle to that number during the game, to represent losses of deserters, etc, but once that number reached it would represent a sort of hardcore of reliable soldiers that would only dwindle from actual actions taken by the players...

the replacemnet routine would never top up a regiment to more than those numbers. basically that would mean that the historical attrition option would only apply to newly raised troops, leaving veterans as they are. this plus cap on replacements to the cap number would ensure that you don't end up drafting replacements to just melt away... But a player wanting to expand his forces would still buy regiments of 1000 strength knowing that he will lose a significant part of them just from attrition..

And the other advantage from this is that except brand new divisions, you would never again have your troops at their TOE once you start using them. Nothing frustrates me more than seeing troops with all their rgts full after a season of campaigning just because I had enough replacements available.. I want to see veteran divisions with their rgts bars a bit red, it looks more realistic...

I guess this would be to complicated to emulate, but it would solve the issue and make the game feel more realistic..

[Jabberwock]

Bingo! Thank you veji!

What I'm seeing is that the confederates hit the replacement trap level too soon, about half a year to a year early. That may not sound like a big deal to everyone, but it is.

I think a hyperbolic function rather than a hard floor would be the ideal solution, but a floor is probably a lot easier to program.

[Jabberwock]

Just as bigus quoted... How?

The only thing done with the work a while back regarding attrition/movement was to reduce some extreme attrition losses due to movement. If anything, this would have had a positive effect on replacements, due to less losses to be replaced for units just for moving. You're barking up the wrong tree in this case.

There were two separate rounds of work. The first introduced "historical attrition", the second was supposed to fix it. I don't know where specifically this issue was introduced. Having my doubts about what was being done (I thought the focus was too narrow, as usual ... nothing happens in isolation), but generally feeling like I was told to let the experts handle everything, I didn't start using "historical attrition" until it was required for the Grand Campaign. Letting the experts handle was the right way to do it at that time, I had other projects, and this was more of a priority for other people. I did follow the project with interest, if not the specifics. I'd just like to see it work accurately, so that it doesn't unbalance the war. Thing is, the heavy lifters, the experts who had the biggest axes to grind, don't post anything anymore.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[W.Barksdale]

I don't think that the game will be changed to allow you as a player to specify which units are to receive replacements, (probably too much work for the programmer/developers), but maybe the order in which the game itself automatically does things, might be changed.

How about just getting the priority settings to work properly?

edit: After rereading this it sounded a bit "smart" to me. Not my intention I was just suggesting something that may help.

[Eugene Carr]

Maybe the game could raise regts. to set levels until the number of replacements bought is reached.
Like all regts raised to 100 then all regts. raised to 200 then 300 and so forth until the replacement level is reached.
The CSA should be able to keep units in play for the duration although always shrinking ,for the USA losing units after 9 months, 2 years, 3 years is probably ok.

[W.Barksdale]

Maybe the game could raise regts. to set levels until the number of replacements bought is reached.
Like all regts raised to 100 then all regts. raised to 200 then 300 and so forth until the replacement level is reached.

+1

[Jabberwock]

+2

Throw in a cap number - replacements just don't go to units that already have more than 60% or 70% of initial strength (after August '61 - still have to fill out the first army). If all candidates for replacements have reached the cap, then the replacements stay in the pool.

I think that covers both issues.

[Chaplain Lovejoy]

Kindly allow me shift the discussion a bit to inquire about replacements specifically for support units (HQs, hospitals, naval engineers, and the like). Do these units function at reduced efficiency/effectiveness if they have red showing? If they function the same no matter how much or how little red is showing, then the player probably will not bother purchasing many replacements for them. (If I have overlooked this being previously asked/answered, kindly excuse.)

[Dixicrat]

I'd certainly add a +1 to being able to specify which units are to receive replacements.

+1

Mind you...how you ever manage to implement such a change given the scope of the game?

How about checkboxes on the unit roster pages...? Maybe the number of boxes which you could check could be a percentage of the number of that particular type of unit.

Alternatively, maybe an additional button or check box near the unit posture buttons... something like "priority replacements". Or maybe a dropdown (or buttons) that offered the choice of high, medium, and low priority for replacements.

[Jabberwock]

Kindly allow me shift the discussion a bit to inquire about replacements specifically for support units (HQs, hospitals, naval engineers, and the like). Do these units function at reduced efficiency/effectiveness if they have red showing? If they function the same no matter how much or how little red is showing, then the player probably will not bother purchasing many replacements for them. (If I have overlooked this being previously asked/answered, kindly excuse.)

They do function the same, they just build slower.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[W.Barksdale]

Gray, that feature is supposed to be in there already (ie. units on passive posture), however, it does not seem to be working.

If the AACW beta team has it working, as some have suggested, I really wish that they could start some threads and go over these changes once they are implemented and enlighten us as to how they do things.

It seems to me that they just come up with an idea, and put it in, without adequately testing it. Or leave it as a "work in progess" for a year or more. Or drop it all together to start fixing "troop numbers" that have no real effect on the game anyway. In fact, I think the troops numbers are fine with historical attrition on. Especially when the replacement mechanism is messed up!

My apologies, I am diverging.

Maybe the game could raise regts. to set levels until the number of replacements bought is reached.
Like all regts raised to 100 then all regts. raised to 200 then 300 and so forth until the replacement level is reached.

Throw in a cap number - replacements just don't go to units that already have more than 60% or 70% of initial strength (after August '61 - still have to fill out the first army). If all candidates for replacements have reached the cap, then the replacements stay in the pool.

How about this idea? Do you think it is easy to program?

[MrTFehr]

Guys, here are my thoughts:

1) The war was NOT a "fair" fight. The North had WAY more available to them as far as manpower and material.

2) The advantage the Rebs had early on was the quality of generals and troops, even at the start they were outnumbered and furnished with lower quality weapons.

3) Once the Yankee generals figured out how to form an army and lead it in battle they won the war (barring civilian unrest issues). This, of course, took time to swing. But, once the North's quality generals made their way to the top it was a whole new war.

4) Attrition is always higher in poorly organized units with low morale. The attrition system should reflect this. Also, national moral should figure into this as well, who wants to fight for a cause that is most clearly lost?

5) Attrition also goes up when troops are placed into situations that they deem "unreasonable". With very few exceptions in history troops that are placed in suicide situations tend to disappear in the night.

6) Non-casualty attrition is caused by several different factor, chief among them are disease and desertion. Thus, the presents of a medical unit should slow attrition as would high unit and national moral.

Just my thoughts.

[Daxil]

1) The war was NOT a "fair" fight. The North had WAY more available to them as far as manpower and material.

Apologies to the grognards, but I think finding a way to make this "game" balanced outweighs maintaining historical accuracy.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[W.Barksdale]

First off, if the feature is in there and it isn't working, it's the first I've heard of it. Secondly, since it seems to be broken and it has now been reported to not be working correctly, it has gotten my attention and my participation in this discussion. Third and most important, trying to berate the fine work of the volunteer beta team for all their testing contributions just because you are frustrated with a possible new/old bug that up to now has been unknown to us or to insinuate it was left in as a "work in progress" is somewhat insulting to us and misleading to other posters not to mention an obvious lower priority being set on your requests.

I'm sure I am not the only one who feels this way. I'm just stating the way I perceive things.

Anyway, if it is not a "work in progess", may I kindly request some member of the beta team to show me where I am going wrong. This is why I started the thread. The only answers I got were "the attrition is working fine" or that I don't know how to play a long game.

Finally, I am sorry that you feel insulted that your beta team can't catch many of the bugs that I am seeing (or think I see if indeed this replacement system works fine). I am sure there is lots of things going on behind the scenes that I am not aware of. Look at the product we have. It's obvious they work extremely hard on it. They can't, however, catch every little thing. This is why I posted about it.

If you want to set a lower priority on my requests, ( and for the record I am 100% certain that all players want replacements with attrition working), then by all means, be my guest. Heck don't implement them at all.