Human VS Human House Rules

[Injun]

Guys,
I figure in about a month or two I willbe taken on some pesky Reb.
So I sarted this thread as to which house rules you like to use if any.

A few I have thought of:

1) no Teleporting of officers. All must be move by rail, river craft, or ship.

2) Only Cavlary and horse artillery may make raids.

3) partial mobilization in 1862 and full in 1863.

4) When a General takes command of an army must give notification when submitting turn.

5) only one battery of Rodman rifle or Whitworth cannon can be bought each year, these babies where rare.

That would be my choices. What are yours?

[aryaman]

Guys,
I figure in about a month or two I willbe taken on some pesky Reb.
So I sarted this thread as to which house rules you like to use if any.

A few I have thought of:

1) no Teleporting of officers. All must be move by rail, river craft, or ship.

2) Only Cavlary and horse artillery may make raids.

3) partial mobilization in 1862 and full in 1863.

4) When a General takes command of an army must give notification when submitting turn.

5) only one battery of Rodman rifle or Whitworth cannon can be bought each year, these babies where rare.

That would be my choices. What are yours?

Whitworth are not in the game, you probably mean Columbiad.
I would add
6) No paper money printing
7) No river transport to invade enemy territory, use actual ships to do that. I have tested that rule and it goes a long way in creating realistic campaigns.

[Injun]

Aryaman

Whitworth are not in the game, you probably mean Columbiad.
I would add
6) No paper money printing
7) No river transport to invade enemy territory, use actual ships to do that. I have tested that rule and it goes a long way in creating realistic campaigns.

The Colmbiad, I believe was the Brittish Witworth breech loader.

Point 6) Why this?
Your Point 7) Explain. I beleive that gunboats or ironclads must escort those transport paddlewheelers, right?

[Brochgale]

If you take away the ability to print money then you take away what would be an inflationary pressure on CSA in particular and thus I believe make the game less realistic.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[77NY]

Gray- sorry, away from my PC. What is the starting CSA inflation rate in the 62 scenario?

[Brochgale]

Lensman!

Ta for the info and the link. I will have to read it more carefully. I think what aryaman is trying to get at is to perhaps stop militia spawning by CSA by reducing thier ability to print money for creating large numbers of militia - he can correct me if I am wrong. I had a similar discussion about printing money with my nephew and his real concern was that I was abusing it to spawn militia and getting cheap Line infantry - cheaper than I should have got in reality?

When I played my nephew I agreed a house rule with him to stop what he percieved was an unfair aid to CSA - that of militia spawning. I in essence recruited no militia and those militia I got by way of a frreebie, the ones that become unfixed as some do, I would treat as State only troops and would remain in essence fixed unless he attacked the host city and thus released me from the house rule. A rule that would apply till the end of 1862 at which point I was free to move any freebie militia that became unfixed.

It made for some interesting game play. Especially as I could not as readily replace those loses I had sufferred in battle or via attrition.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Injun]

Somewhat correct... but for a different reason than you'd actually suspect!

I recently did a tally of the resources required by both sides by both sides to build up 1861 April Campaign Scenario forces to the 1862 Campaign Scenario levels and there is a tremendous shortfall in 2 of the 3 categories for both sides.

USA Net differences: (by 1862 Early March)

[color="Red"]-$1128 [/color] (shortfall)
[color="red"]-2211 conscripts[/color] (shortfall)
+885 war supplies (surplus)

CSA Net differences: (by 1862 Early March)

[color="Red"]-$1382 [/color] (shortfall)
[color="red"]-751 conscripts[/color] (shortfall)
+187 war supplies (surplus)

There will be some changes in these numbers as the OOBs are historically corrected, but you can see there is a major resource deficit for both sides in both money and conscripts. I'm not able to fix this at this time until the 1861 and 1862 Campaign scenario's OOBs are closer to historically correct. For the time being, it is almost mandatory to produce money and conscripts via the political choices if you want to even get close to the historical force levels of 1862

If you'd like to see details of what the tally includes, see: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=13285&page=2

OK how could we balance this out with a realistic house rule? When does the inflation rate start hurting the CSA?

Now as to the mallitia units, historical where they not the first to be callled to colors in 1861?

Hey I Use them to bolster the West and Trans Miss. Theaters, also Renforce Ft Monroe and Pickens. Later to garrison captured objectives.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Brochgale]

Have not yet played PvP with the latest updates - we are still playing the games against AI and then I expect we will argue again about house rules and see how the changes affect the game play. Although as no two games are the same it might be hard to assess.

I expect though that I will have another barny with the nephew about militia before we get round to playing again.

[Mickey3D]

Guys,
I figure in about a month or two I willbe taken on some pesky Reb.
So I sarted this thread as to which house rules you like to use if any.

A few I have thought of:

1) no Teleporting of officers. All must be move by rail, river craft, or ship.

2) Only Cavlary and horse artillery may make raids.

3) partial mobilization in 1862 and full in 1863.

4) When a General takes command of an army must give notification when submitting turn.

5) only one battery of Rodman rifle or Whitworth cannon can be bought each year, these babies where rare.

That would be my choices. What are yours?

Once Dudosh proposed me this rule :

[INDENT]"Emancipation" declaration only after you had a major victory on the field (a battle where one side looses National Moral)[/INDENT]

It reflects the fact that Lincoln had to wait for a federal victory (Antietam) before releasing the emancipation declaration.

[Chertio]

I don't see any reason for house rules, if there are flaws in the game then these get picked up in the forums and (thanks muchly to the work of Gray Lensman and others) corrected. So In My Humble Opinion...

1) 'Teleporting' has been covered in other threads (one by Paul Roberts points out that in rail travel time from A to B an officer might as well have walked - rail travel counts the time to load and unload a unit, disrupt the normal rail services etc, not the time to shift 1 bloke + clerk by 1st class). Maybe it would be better to make generals permanently active as long as they have no command, or put unemployed generals into some sort of off-map pool. The alternative is to have divisions in forming being accompanied by a swarm of officers, in the hope that one of them might some day deign to take command.

2) Raids by divisions or even corps could have all sorts of purposes, why shouldn't a player try them if they are ready to risk losing the formation, supply and attrition being what it is?

3) Mobilisation has costs, if the costs are not properly balanced then that is one thing, but why should a player not be able to make such decisions for his side?

4) Why is my command structure the business of my enemy? I have a minor gripe that when McLellan is ordered to take command on the Potomac he doesn't necessarily have the seniority (or the army unit) to do so, maybe he should be given #1 seniority (and an army unit?) automatically. The reverse works: when Mr. Lincoln finally fires him he vanishes from play.

5) I don't know how rare heavy field artillery regiments were on either side, or how difficult and slow they were to move. Maybe the total buildable units on either side would benefit from tweaking, or the movement rate and supply costs from changing - but why should a player not have the choice of what is to be built?

I add 6) why should frigates or brigs be allowed to sail into the river system? Not possible I would have thought historically, but is it better to change the game setup or have house rules?

[ShovelHead]

I don't see any reason for house rules, if there are flaws in the game then these get picked up in the forums

I agree, the solution is to adjust the model's parameters to reflect the reasons why these tactics were not used historically.

[Big Ideas]

House rules I use.

don't wriggle inactive leaders and active ones around in a gamey way to take advantage of the intent of the rules otherwise why have that rule.
don't leave single militias behind to dig entrenchments for other corps to occupy later. or spread units out in a region hoping that some will entrench quicker than others.
I don't use redeployments
I play as CSA and have foreign intervention on hard
in my latest game I have used printing press just once- Aug 61 to help pay for 2xHQ.
I don't invade the north until after they have some defences up, and in fact have only crossed the Potomac once in six PBEM games.
BI

[Paul Roberts]

Here are some things I said about "teleporting" in a thread back in January.

Well, one thing I'd say is that "mysterious transportation"--if you mean leader redeployment--is much more realistic than it may appear. This procedure is meant to represent the relative ease of moving a leader and a small staff by rail across long distances.

The normal rail movement rates are based on the transport of large military units, which involves collecting rolling stock and arranging special trains for the purpose of shuttling thousands of men (plus their horses and kit, as well as the supplies involved). Giving a single leader a rail movement order with these rules can result in some very unrealistic situations.

For instance, I recently ordered a general from Baltimore to Philadelphia using normal rail transport, and the game indicated that this would take a week. Since the distance is only about 100 miles, I'm pretty sure the general could walk it in less time than the train would require. Unit redeployment, which is only available for what are after all very small groups of men, is more realistic than the normal rules in this case.

Basically, there are few situations where unit redeployment does much harm to realism. Even a trip from DC to Minnesota, for a single leader and staff, would take fewer than the 15 days of a game turn. The only glaring cases are with isolated units, but a "house rule" takes care of that nicely, and I don't think the AI is programmed to be that devious.

and

All of my PBEM games involve a house rule that redeployments should be "reasonable," which means limited to conditions under which moving a leader by rail and horse would be possible. It's reasonable for a Union general and his staff to "teleport" from Chicago to New York because individuals could easily make that train trip in one turn. However, moving from DC to (say) occupied New Orleans is disallowed because there is no safe rail and road net along the way.

In practice, I find that 99% of leader redeployments involve teleporting the general from DC/Richmond into the theater where he will then spend most of the war. I have never even tried a "tactical" redeployment for the sole purpose of an upcoming battle, and the temporary reduction in leader stats makes that a foolish idea anyway.

The game engine does include two points that seem right in line with my house rule:
1) It's impossible to redeploy a leader into or out of a location under siege,
2) Admirals cannot be redeployed (obviously they can't take an express train to the middle of the Atlantic or the Gulf).

I quote myself because I am lazy...

[Gray_Lensman]

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[77NY]

I agree that it should be up to the game rules/mechanics to sort out "gamey" or "ahistorical" possibilities.

I'm in the death throes of the Confederacy in my first PBEM, mid-1864. My opponent and I agreed to no "house rules" and I am extremely pleased and impressed with how entertaining the game has been and with how plausible the overall result has been.

Mass-producing militia early on didn't save me from being out-maneuvered by my opponent. Deep raids by Sheridan and Forrest were effective but not decisive. As Chertio mentioned above, between supplies, cohesion, and the vagaries of weather, there are limits on what deep raids can do. Also, if the Union player uses his river fleets effectively, he can either keep the raiders out or, much more devastating, can keep them IN Union territory.

If I'm the Union and the CSA wants to send a division or a corps to attack Chicago, I'm ecstatic.

[Injun]

Boy have I put some bees in some bonnets with this. Yet it is informative. I see that the ahistoric rail movement of the game makes it nessary to use the redeploy-teleportation.

Paul: I agree with that limitation on teleporting. In the gane I have now I have the Sam Houston event. I could teleport an office to Dallas, rather gamey. I can see using only controlled rails, river transport limits and horse limits.

As for the Rodmans and Columbards there mass use in the game is ahistoric, should be made more expensive to build.

Mike3D:"Emancipation" declaration ; Yes I agree a major victory where national moral points are gained by the USA and lost by the CSA. Lensman any way that this be fixed in the game? Say a major loss in national moral prior to a major Union victory.

[Paul Roberts]

Paul Roberts:

Incorrect assumption. In reality, the only thing RR movement rates are based on in the game is the fact that the minimum increment of movement between regions is 1 day. (not a fraction of a day but... 1 DAY). This necessarily causes RR travel times which are greater than historical movement times.

I didn't know that! Does the limitation really skew far from reality in practice, though? (I mean when it comes to moving large bodies of troops, not generals.)

For instance, how long would shipping a Union division from New York to Washington DC take in real life and in the game? Where does the engine scale go off the rails (so to speak)?

[soundoff]

Well Paul here is one place where railroads go well off track but we all play to the rules. When its put like this though it really does bring it home (at least to me) how ahistoric rail movement in the game and by implication river movement is. Mind you how the heck you improve on it without an AACWII is beyond me.

And as for what type of house rule you could ever introduce (shakes his head).

Currently, the entire rail transport capacity of the South (let's say 90 pts) can be available during one turn (15 days) deep far away in the Texas. That same totallity of the nation mobilized locomotives and train can be immediatly available 1 turn after (so 15 days after) in the completely opposite side of the country, let's say in north Virginia.
The same for the Union.
This is absurde and unrealistic.

I don't know if it is easy to implement, but i would suggest, instead of having only a big rail transport value for all the country to fix at the begining of the games or scenarios a value for each big region of the map (like the "naval region" scale for example).

Then you can buy more rail capacity for each region separatly.

Then you can also transfert a part of this capacity but only to one theater close to a another... and only if there is not dynamited lines cutting the links or if there is naviguable river links to transport the locomotives.

[tagwyn]

I haven't played PBEM yet! However, I do not oppose the use of fast transportation of leaders. Whole units should use normal transportation facilities. t

[Chertio]

Agree with Big Ideas about having militia dig trenches to be occupied by Corps later - but since part of the fun is taking the risk of losing entrenchments when moving and working out how to cover for the risk, if a PBEM opponent started doing this then so would I and the game would get boring.

Even then it might not be considered 'gamey' for positions around Washington or Richmond, where the entrenchments were much more than field positions, and forces could leave and re-enter them.

Maybe an option would be to have the choice to use guns and wagons to build either forts (which give no cover to field armies) or permanent entrenchments... any field army arriving in the region would be given, say, level 5 entrenchment immediately on the start of the next turn.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[mikee64]

I personally like to keep house rules to an absolute minimum. That does NOT mean I am unwiling to discuss and agree upon them ahead of time. I think the game now does a pretty good job of "policing" itself. If it doesn't we need to find where exploits still exist so they can be fixed. (Calling Jabberwock.)

denisonh and I are moving into 1863 in a pbem that feels very historically plausible with a minimum of house rules: no early deep raids (prior to July 1861) and no use of the ship "back and forth" movement exploit of destroying CSA forts. It took us all of 2 PMs to agree on that - so far so good. Oh, and I agreed not to move Polk to Cairo early.

I think its all about finding a player you are compatible with, and that can easily be done right in this thread or just by pregame discussion. If you don't want the leader redeploy, find a player who agrees to turn it off. Otherwise I think it's fair game as in play IMO.

I'd like to think I can leave the pages of house rules in my VG TCW boardgame box and trust Ageod and Gray to take care of most of the rest here.

[Banks6060]

As far as the leader redeploy goes...I have really enjoyed the "3 Redeploys" option in mine and Soundoff's game. It allows you to move commanders...but in some cases...more importantly....allows you to move engineers, HQ, Signal Corps, Hospitals, and other support units.

I don't find teleporting to be any detriment to the realism of the game whatsoever. It did not take a month for a general to be transferred from one military district to another.

[Mickey3D]

As far as the leader redeploy goes...I have really enjoyed the "3 Redeploys" option in mine and Soundoff's game. It allows you to move commanders...but in some cases...more importantly....allows you to move engineers, HQ, Signal Corps, Hospitals, and other support units.

I don't find teleporting to be any detriment to the realism of the game whatsoever. It did not take a month for a general to be transferred from one military district to another.

I see no trouble with redeploying leaders, as explained by several people in this thread a small staff of people can move very fast through the country.

But moving Hospital or Engineers can lead to what seems to be gamey technic : e.g. I could "teleport" a hospital unit through the country to help recovery, "jumping" from one low cohesion stack to the other instead of buying one unit for each army or corps. (I know that this is of limited use as sooner or later you'll have several depleted stacks at the same time).

[Jarkko]

It's actually still somewhat economical to build the Militia units and have them convert as usual, but they will no longer be able to be spammed so much with the WSu limitation.

I disagreee about the economical part. There is one reason, and one reason only, why militia should be recruited (with the 1 WSu added cost that is) : Militia is faster. In a pure economical sense it is an absolute waste to purchase a militia with a 1 WSu cost, because they will also use (on average) 1/4th of a regular replacement at conversion, thus making the WSu cost actually higher (1.25 vs 1) and the monetary cost pretty much equal when you purcahse a militia factor instead of a conscript.

There is *one* saving grace for militia tough. They are available immediatly, while conscripts take a couple turns to be available. So, there is an intelligent decission to be made now (instead of just spamming all the militia you could get your hands on, like it was earlier): Should I buy expensive crap that arrives immediatly, or buy slightly better and cheaper troops who arrive later.

[xpyre]

Ah this is a sore subject with me...

The only thing that is imperative about Human vs Human house rules is that both sides fully agree what they are. If you can find someone to agree with then it really doesn't matter what they are!!!

However my own personal opinion is as follows:

This game is a reasonable attempt at setting the framework for a good contest, a compromise between history and a challenging game.... It is not a simulation of the actual war. Indeed I'm not sure what fun playing a simulation would be. History has already turned out one way, this game allows you to have different choices and therefore different outcomes. As soon as you make a single different decision you deviate from history.

Some are saying that it is not "historical enough". So they introduce house rules. Most of these are personal work arounds for the game engine not being perfect, the problem is that they are not universal. Some people seem to want too use house rules to stop any inivative way of deviating from history.... There is at least one person on these boards who would stop playing if he saw Grant in the east in 1861. (as per Soundoff vs Banks)

So I would advocate letting the game designers decide what is right and wrong and just play the game for fun!!!

After all there is no fun to be had from sitting motionless for 2 years waiting for Meade et al. to turn up!

[77NY]

Ah this is a sore subject with me...

The only thing that is imperative about Human vs Human house rules is that both sides fully agree what they are. If you can find someone to agree with then it really doesn't matter what they are!!!

However my own personal opinion is as follows:

This game is a reasonable attempt at setting the framework for a good contest, a compromise between history and a challenging game.... It is not a simulation of the actual war. Indeed I'm not sure what fun playing a simulation would be. History has already turned out one way, this game allows you to have different choices and therefore different outcomes. As soon as you make a single different decision you deviate from history.

Some are saying that it is not "historical enough". So they introduce house rules. Most of these are personal work arounds for the game engine not being perfect, the problem is that they are not universal. Some people seem to want too use house rules to stop any inivative way of deviating from history.... There is at least one person on these boards who would stop playing if he saw Grant in the east in 1861. (as per Soundoff vs Banks)

So I would advocate letting the game designers decide what is right and wrong and just play the game for fun!!!

After all there is no fun to be had from sitting motionless for 2 years waiting for Meade et al. to turn up!

Agree completely! I would love it if my opponent sent Grant east in 1861. No way he gets the experience he does in Kentucky/Tennessee/Missouri, where things are more of a free-for-all. Send Jackson or Longstreet west to take advantage. No big deal.

How about a house rule that all elements must be under their historic brigade/division/corps/army commanders at all times? Give me a break!