Keeping the historical timeline

[Mike]

OK how have your secesh rates been at taking Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans in the early '62 historical timeframe against ....

The AI

A human opponant

[Mike]

leure: Paris going back to prison must have distracted the group. What else could it be? I took a bath..... recently. It can't be that nobody has duplicated the historical timeline of Union advance in '62.... or maybe not. Was the historical Union advance a multiple pronged stroke of genius (with questionable generals) or were the Johnnies that inept???? As a Yank, I haven't even come close. As a Reb I held all points... but lost Richmond. leure:

[Doomwalker]

I have yet to reproduce the historical timeline, but most of my troubles with doing it involve trying to get my forces together and holding what I have at the start. I have been able to get pretty decent results after my forces are consolidated, but this tends to put me a year behind history.

[Conhugeco]

This is an excellent idea for a thread. Many seemingly little changes are being made to the game which may add up enough to significantly alter play balance.

I've played the 1862 scenario as the Union against the AI at normal settings, and was not quite able to keep to the particulars of the historical timeline. I was, however, able to win the game in early 1865. I would probably do better in a second run through.

Dick

[Mike]

This is an excellent idea for a thread. Many seemingly little changes are being made to the game which may add up enough to significantly alter play balance.

I've played the 1862 scenario as the Union against the AI at normal settings, and was not quite able to keep to the particulars of the historical timeline. I was, however, able to win the game in early 1865. I would probably do better in a second run through.

Dick

I agree. As it is now, I don't see it possible to match the '62 gains, especially against a human opponant. It may indicate play a play balance issue. It will be born out with testing.

[jimwinsor]

The new streamlined division-forming rules will help speed the game up in the early going, I think.

[denisonh]

The new streamlined division-forming rules will help speed the game up in the early going, I think.

For who? I think that the CSA being able to form divisions sooner will make the AI that much more difficult (not to mention PBEM opponents).

I worry that the CSA advantage in more corps commanders early will be "ahistorcially" be reinforced by early formation of division structures (not really in the CSA until after the 1861 campaign season historically).

I think the game had it right before the change with the USA having divisions and no corps early, with the CSA having corps and no divisions (had to create them and it wasn't really available until later in the season).

[Mike]

I haven't been keeping up on the threads about the new unit organization, but I'm not much caring for what I'm hearing. I agree that you may see Rebs on the Ohio and points North before the Yanks can get off the dime.

[Jabberwock]

I haven't been keeping up on the threads about the new unit organization, but I'm not much caring for what I'm hearing. I agree that you may see Rebs on the Ohio and points North before the Yanks can get off the dime.

Yee-hah! Indianapolis in August '61! Next stop Chicago!

[Queeg]

I agree. As it is now, I don't see it possible to match the '62 gains, especially against a human opponant. It may indicate play a play balance issue. It will be born out with testing.

Balancing to a fixed timeline is problematic. In many ways, the Nashville, Memphis, NO by early '62 historical result was something of a fluke. NO was poorly defended and a simple reallocation of Confederate forces in the West could have made either Nashville or Memphis a tougher nut to crack.

There simply are too many variables in a strategic-level game like AACW to make fixed timelines particularly relevant.

[jimwinsor]

Well, don't forget there is a cost to be paid now for div forming ($10, 1mp, 5ws).

In fact, I begin to wonder...lets say you want to simply reorganize brigades between pre-existing divisions. Ie, one div has two sharpshooters, the other zero, so obviously you would want one transferred over.

Well, under the old system, this was no big deal.

NOW however, because you have to break a div down to get at the SS...this means you'll have to pay the cost above to reform the div after the transfer!

Indeed, some organizational flexibility has been taken away under the new system, it looks like to me.

[Conhugeco]

Hi Queeg,

I understand what you're saying, but it does raise some interesting questions. I don't think that anyone would argue that a particular city should fall by a particular date, but if we find out that a Union player can never/rarely win by early '65, or a Confederate player hold out until then, wouldn't you agree that there may be a problem somewhere?

If so, figuring out what the problem is may be the hard part.

For example, you say that the fall of Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans so early in the war was a bit of a fluke. What does this really mean? Maybe that early Confederate leadership was not as vastly superior to the Union's than common knowledge would have us believe? That the leadership was there, but the organization wasn't developed enough to exploit it? That there is some crucial logistical element that prevented the Confederates from making the right moves and allowed the Union to make the right ones? Or could it really be just pure dumb luck, a fluke, that the Union's captured three of the largest cities in the Confederacy in the first year of the war? You get the idea.

Don't get me wrong - the game is still very new, and the jury must remain out until more results have come in, but it is something we need to keep our eye on.

Dick

[Queeg]

but if we find out that a Union player can never/rarely win by early '65, or a Confederate player hold out until then, wouldn't you agree that there may be a problem somewhere?

Sure. The game should, over the long-haul, play out in an historically plausible fashion. My concern is using various intermediate events as balancing waypoints. More than one game has been ruined, in my view, when the developer was persuaded to micro-engineer "historical" outcomes.

For example, you say that the fall of Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans so early in the war was a bit of a fluke. What does this really mean? Maybe that early Confederate leadership was not as vastly superior to the Union's than common knowledge would have us believe? That the leadership was there, but the organization wasn't developed enough to exploit it? That there is some crucial logistical element that prevented the Confederates from making the right moves and allowed the Union to make the right ones? Or could it really be just pure dumb luck, a fluke, that the Union's captured three of the largest cities in the Confederacy in the first year of the war? You get the idea.

That's exactly my point. It could be all, some or none of those reasons. And if the Confederate leadership had made holding those three cities a priority, then perhaps none would have fallen but Richmond would have. But that might have turned out to be a better strategy. The whole point of a strategic level game is to be able to say "I'll trade Richmond for New Orleans" but still win the game in a way that's historically plausible.

We know how the ACW played out. But in the gaming sense, the real ACW was just one of several plausible alternative universes and it's really next to impossible to say that the "historical" path was, in fact, the most likely of all plausible paths.

[saintsup]

But in the gaming sense, the real ACW was just one of several plausible alternative universes and it's really next to impossible to say that the "historical" path was, in fact, the most likely of all plausible paths.

Well said !!

[Pocus]

For who? I think that the CSA being able to form divisions sooner will make the AI that much more difficult (not to mention PBEM opponents).

I worry that the CSA advantage in more corps commanders early will be "ahistorcially" be reinforced by early formation of division structures (not really in the CSA until after the 1861 campaign season historically).

I think the game had it right before the change with the USA having divisions and no corps early, with the CSA having corps and no divisions (had to create them and it wasn't really available until later in the season).

For now we have not changed that, but the previous campaigns had already CSA division from the start you know... so at worse, it is as ahistorical as before now

But now that the big rule is streamlined, we can add CSA divisions by historical dates.

[Pocus]

Well, don't forget there is a cost to be paid now for div forming ($10, 1mp, 5ws).

In fact, I begin to wonder...lets say you want to simply reorganize brigades between pre-existing divisions. Ie, one div has two sharpshooters, the other zero, so obviously you would want one transferred over.

Well, under the old system, this was no big deal.

NOW however, because you have to break a div down to get at the SS...this means you'll have to pay the cost above to reform the div after the transfer!

Indeed, some organizational flexibility has been taken away under the new system, it looks like to me.

no, take a reread of what I posted You don't pay the cost when you click on the button, you pay the cost during hosting. It means you can split a division, arrange it, then agregate it again without paying the cost.

You can even disable Divisional Command from a leader, then change your mind and re-enable him to this command without paying the cost, because overall you did nothing. Hosting know that.

From a 'programmatical' point of view, we are in client/server mode here. Commits are done by hosting, not by player. It also means nobody can cheat. As you don't pay during your turn, even if you tweak to 0 the cost, the legit cost will be paid during hosting.

Hope I'm clear (bad english and some fatigue here )

[Gibbon]

This home made hazelnuts alcool of yours is doing you no good either

[jimwinsor]

Ah, I see!

[von Beanie]

I'm not having any problem making the historical timeline versus the CSA AI set on the "hard" level and giving it a full view of my dispositions. Forts Donelson and Henry just fell in Oct 61.

Against an experienced human I conquered everything by late 1863.

Removing the ahistoric Appalachian rail line has made things quite a bit tougher for the Union, which is a good thing.

In my opinion the keys to Union victory are building lots of militia (they turn into normal units in a few turns), and not get carried away chasing the CSA cavalry. If you guard your rear area with lots of militia the CSA cavalry die off from a lack of supplies in the unusually severe winters. Winning battles isn't important as the Union player if you cause fairly high attrition. So make sure you keep bleeding the CSA on the eastern front so that they can't afford to defend everywhere else.

I really believe this game does an outstanding job of representing the military geographic situation of the war. Once the weather is tweaked to be a bit more realistic, this game will be a classic.

[Grotius]

I'm in the middle of posting a pretty detailed AAR of my one campaign game over in the AAR section, but I can summarize my timeline here. I played the AI on Normal Difficulty with the lowest AI "fog of war" bonus, plus extra time for the AI. I didn't take Memphis, Nashville, or Island 10 until mid-1863! Now, I was a newb, so I made plenty of mistakes. In the east, I took Richmond in mid-1863; I wonder whether the AI garrisoned it strongly enough. We had tough fights for Alexandria going even as I waltzed into Richmond.

One big factor in my game was that the AI consistently fought with penalties for command organization. I'm optimistic that the AI can be tweaked to address this problem, since it strikes me as a "number-crunching" thing that can be improved, not a higher-order AI puzzle. But what do I know, the only AI I've ever written was the world's worst checkers AI.

Also, I agree that the cold weather needs to be toned down a bit, though I could see mud and cool weather perhaps slowing us down a bit more.

Is the RR removal a mod, or in an upcoming patch? Is it really ahistoric -- there was some sort of RR crossing Appalachia by 1860, no?

And I agree, this game is already a classic, in my books. A stunning achievement.

[bloodybucket]

Hindsight blinds us to the blindness of the participants, I think.

Having a knowledge of what was, not dealing with enormous stress, bloodshed and pressures of all sorts, being from this current time with our values and mindset precludes our really being in the skins of those who made the decisions that drove the war.

I'll settle for a plausible outcome with the historical events being plucked from a broad range of possibilities, rather than as mileposts on a ridgid timeline.