Thu Apr 13, 2017 4:04 pm
Opponent found. I am planning on my AAR to take a style that will require a somewhat longer than usual delay, so look forward to that to start in May or June, I hope.
I'd appreciate some feedback/advice on the AAR, though. Last time I tried to write it from the perspective of real people writing contemporaneously with the events. This time I'll take a different approach.
This time I'm thinking of pretending I am a historian writing a military history of the war. That is, I'll try to collect multiple events in a theater or leading to a certain major battle or outcome into a "campaign" and give it a name and everything. In the actual war, commanders thought in that way, with plans set out that would take months to implement. When a campaign went more or less to plan for more than a week or two, it would get a name (so Banks' Red River Campaign is famous even though it mostly failed, while Hunter's 1862 Charleston campaign ended right after it started when he lost the Battle of Secessionville and it is not remembered as a campaign). My goal will be to write in a similar way, noting "campaigns" that failed almost as soon as they began and giving narratives of "campaigns" that succeeded for a while before failing or that achieved useful objectives. Also, in the real war, leaders would claim success in objectives achieved even if the objectives achieved were nothing like the objectives intended. I'll try to talk about these things, but in a more honest way since my career is not on the line.
I'll note that the game is not exactly played in this way (at least for me). Basically, in the game, it is important to be flexible and change objectives and take opportunities at a higher rate than is historically accurate. This and the lower relative value of key points in the game versus in reality causes preconceived "campaigns" to be less likely to follow anything like planned. Also, it is harder in the game to have campaigns of small forces - things like cavalry raids and the capture of forts by water bombardment a landed sailing party are much more costly and less useful in the game than they were in the actual war.
As for advice, I'll take whatever you give. Let me know if you want more details on organizing forces, on economics, on the personal relationships between leaders, or whatever. I'll try to include those sorts of things, but am more likely to focus on things people think would be interesting.