AACW2 wishlist

[enf91]

I just thought I'd note some things that maybe AACW 2 could have. With all the mentions of it I figured it was at least an unintelligible scrawl on the drawing board that may come into fruition by the next US Presidential election. I just hope none of these are pie-in-the-sky. Other users: feel free to write your own wishes; those affiliated with AGEod: tell me if I'm being unrealistic/demanding/anything else.

1. Leader capture/parole
Currently, the only bad things that can happen to generals are death or injury in battle, leading to permanent removal or being fixed in place for a few turns. Clovis's mod apparently has something that allows generals to be randomly removed from play. Historically, dozens of generals were captured alive to be paroled or exchanged later. Simon Buckner, for example, was taken prisoner at Ft. Donelson, but he was released and went on to serve in the West.

2. Leader resignation/firing
I know the second part sort of exists, that a player can take a disappointing general and stick him in some out-of-the-way post so that he can spend the rest of the war in obscurity. But the general still exists and, depending on his rank/seniority, can hamper efforts to promote other generals. Not many generals were fired, per se, but Fitz John Porter was court-martialed, and some of his friends were tarnished. Resignations were more frequent, like Fremont resigning upon Pope being given command of the AoV and Hooker leaving the Army of the Cumberland to protest Oliver Howard's promotion.

3. Job experience affecting leaders' strategic rating
Currently, experience is only battle experience, and it influences attack and defense ratings. This makes sense; except for certain political generals, most generals improved at tactics as they spent more time in war. Perhaps a measure of experience could be relative to how much time generals spend in a specific position: division commander, corps commander, and so on. I mention this because it came into importance at the little-known Battle of North Anna, where Lee could have humiliated Grant if his one physically fit corps commander had experience at the job (Lee had dysentery, AP Hill was sick, Ewell was exhausted, and Longstreet had just been shot). Anderson, Longstreet's replacement, had never led a corps before, and his uncertainty let Hancock escape a trap that a healthy Longstreet may have sprung.

4. Leader ratings affected due to illness
I just thought of this as I was writing #3. Because the ANV leader and corps commanders were ill, they were not as effective as they could have been. In game terms, Lee would still have been a 6-5-5, while for that battle he was more like a 3-2-3.

5. Cavalry brigades
I noticed that pre-made cavalry divisions are made of 3C/1HA brigades, but in the 4/1861 campaign, those are few and far between. Creating cavalry divisions like that require assembling multiple cavalry regiments and horse arty units, which gets a bit unwieldy. Maybe by the time the game gets underway code will exist that allows cavalry regiments and horse arty to be assembled into brigades without it happening automatically via replacements.

6. City support limits
It seems a little silly that any structure will prevent attrition damage to any force. By this logic, a level 1 city like Manassas could keep an entire army out of bad weather. For added realism, maybe city level could represent a limit on how much unit weight it could support.

[Mortar]

Just wanted to add this to the wishlist. Some may not agree, but I think it bears consideration. I had wondered about giving a bonus/benefit to units attacking on multiple fronts (attacking from 2 or more different regions) or simply a disadvantage to units being forced to fight on multiple fronts. This could be anything from a cohesion loss to an increased chance to rout or withdrawl, or a frontage bonus to the flanking force, or some other condition that Im not thinking of at this second. Just thought I'd throw it out there.

[Mortar]

While Im at it, some may disagree on this as well and it may not work for the game...even though I've only played as the union, I believe early period southern cavalry should be superior in quality than northern cavalry. This is to represent not only the historical result of the war, but the conditions of the time. Southern society was far more equestian than northern for the individual person. Many northerners came from larger cities with nice roads and public transportation and not as many needed to be horseman. In contrast the south had fewer smaller cities, was more rural, had fewer and less developed roads and many southern cavalry recruits had been horsemen for much of their lives. There is also the issue that horses obtained by the union in the early period of the war only, were of very poor quality, by some result of corruption. This condition was improved later by changes in policy by both Pleasonton and later Phil Sheridan later in the war. Of course late period cavalry was the equal of the south in both training and quality. This is just an idea I thought i would share.

[Geohff]

I know that such devices were highly hated and used spairingly but they were used. Torpodes, landmines, booby traps, fire rafts and fake coal bombs are all things I have personally read were used sucessufully on occassion. I would like an option to use, especailly as the Confederacy even if useing came at a price such as Victory Points or NM.

[Big Ideas]

Early Southern cav already has better stats than early war US cav counterparts. I'm not sure how significant the differences are but it is factored in. Also the US cav improve with the later war types and the southern cav lose their edge. (Though I think the start of the "upgrades" for the CSA cav has been delayed in a recent patch.)

[Big Ideas]

What I would like to see would be two new scenarios to increase re-playability and increase the number of campaigns.

The first scenario would be a Second American Civil War- where the USA lost the first civil war after say Gettysburg. The CSA would control some extra territories from the USA. The CSA has a navy and reasonable army. Of course the USA is greatly weakened and can not act independently. But a greedy Davis- five years after the win- decides to invade Mexico. This is the USA's chance to try and return the history of the world back to normal. The CSA finds itself fighting a two-front war.


The second scenario would be an uber-South which includes MO, KY, and MD from the start. This would give an entirely different feel to the campaign- making it much more even though the USA would still have superiority and would probably have to use more resources than it did historically- instead of fighting the CW with one hand tied behind it's back . The South would have heaps of options. The south could have more units and some of the leaders coming from these states would/could be on the South's side. The South could then have it's capital in its true location- Washington DC.

[cptcav]

One of the things that I have noticed is that although you get money, conscripts, and supplies being generated by each state, when you raise units, you are not limited to what any one state can produce. For example, in one turn, I can raise several brigades in the State of Arkansas using the conscript production from the CSA as a whole.

It seems that a more realistic feel to it would be that when you raise a unit from a particular state (north or south) that it would take only conscripts generated by that state. This would probably have a major impact on the time that it takes to raise a unit. Still, I think that this would give more of a realistic production model to the game.

Regardless, I do not feel that the current production method is broken. I am just thinking out loud.

Regards,
CptCav

[caranorn]

First I'd like to strongly second one of Enf91's suggestions:

Leader ratings due to illness: Examples J.B. Hood in the later part of his chareer, he had lost an arm and a leg (actually iirc only one of those was amputated, but he lost the use of the other), was constantly under medication and/or pain. No wonder he was irritable and no longer half as effcient as before. Earl Van Dorn, he fell into a freezing river at the outset of the Pea Ridge Campaign, he was seriously sick throughout that campaign and unable to sit a horse, accordingly he was unable to do much good (job experience would work there too as it was his first large command and he'd only had the job for days). I'm sure I could name a dozen other examples of this type...

Now to my own suggestions:

Division size based on competence of commander (currently a Floyd can have the same size of division as an A.P. Hill, Floyd only ever really commanded a small brigade while Hill commanded the large Light Division)...

Better model for naval and riverrine operations and combat. This was a major facette of the ACW and is currently underrepresented....

Manpower used in industrialisation, construction of new railroads and riverine transport...

Expansion of the map to include more of Mexico, the Carribean, the West and Canada. Make fighting for California a possibility. Also look more at the Indian Wars and "banditry" that were resource consuming to both sides...

Modify Army Commanders' effective (as in after modifying corps commanders', wouldn't want a double bonus/malus) ratings for good or bad subordinates in addition to the current inverse with corps commanders being modified for their army commanders. That would mean that generals such as Lee or Grant would actually command in battle on occasion, rather than just send in Jackson, Longstreet, Sherman and other corps commanders to do the dirty job...

Add major roadnets in addition to railroads. Possibly this is already included as some overland routes are easier to travel than others. In that case it should be easier to discerne said routes on the map...

Possibility to merge/consolidate understrength units and elements...

Events to represent nationalistic recruitment drives for one cause or the other (Germans in US service likely, Irish sympathies for Confederate independance but opposed to slavery; revolutionaries serving in the war (Sigel, Meager etc.) with increased likelyhood to raise volunteers from their populations, but also affecting foreign intervention)...

Nationality commanders (Sigel, Schurz, Meager and many others who almost exclusively commanded their nationality of troops or at least gave them a bonus)...

Special case for the State of New York in the Civil War with the possibility of the state going neutral and the like. That would also require that volunteer forces be identified by state , in case they have to become inactive for one side...

Maryland and Delaware possibly joining the Confederacy. Virginia possibly not seceding. East Tennessee...

Possibly start the game in February as different Union strategy at that point could have led to more or less aggressive seccesionist movements and thereby an entirely different war (similar to Lyon in Missouri)...

Some experience and seniority gains per random events to represent skirmishes and actions that would never take place at this game level...

Mortality for any and all leaders regardless of rank and position (A.S. Johnston) and that without risking loss of Army, Corps, Division structures...

Auto-raising of new leaders (from a reserve pool) in such cases where a position has to be filled during a turn and no capable leader is available with the force in question (division leader is wounded, no unassigned 1- or 2-star leader in the region, therefore a new 1-star is taked from the reserve (representing a brigadier or colonel within the division assuming temporary command and possibly having their rank recognised by congress), leaders in said reserve pool could only enter the game by event (either by assuming command like this, or being added when they historically received a larger command)...

I'm sure I'll think of more suggestions later. All of the above were hipshots, the first things to come to my mind...

P.S.: How do you recognise I'm not a programmer? Just check my text above, I bet there are som parenthisis I never closed ;-) ...

[caranorn]

And I'll also second CptCav's suggestion on units raised in one state requiring local manpower. Had planned to add that to my own list but ended up forgetting it as I went through the various nationality/state ideas...

[Mortar]

I was unaware the early southern cavalry advantage was already represented...thank you.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[enf91]

Wow. After so many weeks of nothing, there are now a dozen responses. I wonder who stickied this in the first place?

[Gray_Lensman]

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[enf91]

Nice job taking words out of context, Gray.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Mortar]

These may have been discussed before but wanted to express a desire for a few more items....It would be nice to be able to have a little more manipulation of the individual elements, as far as forming them into brigades and renaming actual units/brigades/regiments (of course a vanity feature, but why not?) Also, Im not sure if this is already possible, but I have yet to see it...can non-elite units ever advance to elite status? I dont know if this would be a good game idea, but it seems like it should be a possibility under SOME condition, maybe with enough experiece?

[soundoff]

A few improvements I'd like to see in an AACW2

Cavalry raiding - curtail properly deep raiding (I know in part its been addressed in the current game but it could be a whole lot better). I'd also separate all depots from cities so that depots were always a viable target for capture/destruction.

ZoC - This needs reworking. For example it seems illogical that an Army with its attendant baggage train is prevented from moving from one region to another yet without the baggage train movement becomes possible.

Lines of Retreat - Sometimes lines of retreat for commands are simply plain daft.

Railroads - An ability to build railroads with well thought out resource costs, including manpower.

[Big Ideas]

the 22 strength cav has the following advantages over the USA cav
initiative 10 - 9
range dam 1/12- 1/10
cohesion 85- 70
speed 130- 100
pat/evad 10/10 - 8/8

I don't know if the USA cav is more expensive than the CSA cav- but it should be.
the 19 strength cav is virtually the same as the USA cav except speed is 120 -v- 100 and cohesion 80 -v- 70.
maybe both CSA cavs should have a discipline advantage but don't.
but speed and cohesion are still very important.

BI

[Gray_Lensman]

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[runyan99]

My main suggestion:

More numerous and smaller regions (whether the overall map size has to be increased to accomodate this or not). The current "March to the Sound of Guns" is a cool concept but the scale of the regions is too big for this particular game aspect. How do you hear the Sound of Guns across a region maybe dozens (if not a hundred) miles across?

If the number of regions were doubled, how do you think that would affect gameplay and balance?

[soundoff]

The arrival of commands that MTSG is too darned instant. It would be nice if there was a sliding scale of delay in arrival possibly influenced by the time it would have taken a Corp/Army to move from region A to region B (at force march pace). It sits uneasily with me that nearby commands can MTSG and arrive at the very start of battle when terrain and weather conditions are such that under normal movement conditions it would take a week or more to travel the required distance.

[Generalisimo]

The arrival of commands that MTSG is too darned instant. It would be nice if there was a sliding scale of delay in arrival possibly influenced by the time it would have taken a Corp/Army to move from region A to region B (at force march pace). It sits uneasily with me that nearby commands can MTSG and arrive at the very start of battle when terrain and weather conditions are such that under normal movement conditions it would take a week or more to travel the required distance.

Well, that would depend on how much Pocus can "revise" the MTSG code for a new game...

I am sure it needs some polishing ... but the idea behind it is great!

[runyan99]

March to the guns should not be taken literally. It does not and should not model troops marching to a commenced battle, actually hearing the guns, like AP Hill at Antietam. Rather, it does and must represent the ability of any army spread over some distance to react day to day to ENEMY MOVEMENTS, and thus achieve concentration of the whole force on the day of battle.

Since there are 15 day turns, this ability is critical. MTSG models defending corps doing something intellegent during the 15 days, rather than sitting idle while the enemy moves, until the player can see the movement, intervene, and issue new orders.

In this context, Johnston's move from Winchester to Manassas, to concentrate the army BEFORE the start of First Masassas, should be seen as a MTSG type movement, in response to McDowell's advance into Virginia. Since the Union movement was known to be underway, Johnston did not and should not have waited for the battle to start before beginning a countermovement.

To make an argument that Johnston, at Winchester (or just south of there) could not possibly have heard the guns at Manassas, and marched to the battle in time, is to totally miss the point of a game mechanic that was wisely installed to compensate for command and control problems directly caused by the 15 day turns, and thus the long delay inherent on the part of the player in reacting to any enemy move.

[Omnius]

As I'm playing with the AACW demo I've been seeing that it has a few things missing that the BoA2 demo now has. I really like the way BoA2 gives players the ability to give formations a selection of options for setting agressiveness or passiveness in combat. That second row of buttons to set how aggressive or passive a stack should be is really nice. I also like how in BoA2 you can set land units to debark from ships during the same turn that they are moving in the ships instead of having to wait until the next turn to give debarking orders.

So my big question is when will AACW 2.0 come out? I really like what AGEOD has done with AACW and am looking forward to seeing the second version come out that upgrades the game system to BoA2 standards.

One thing that I would like to see in all AGEOD games is the ability to turn off unit counters. The map gets so cluttered when the units are showing and standing right in front of cities so that it gets really difficult to see city stats. Please put in a button that allows players to turn units off on the map so we can see the map more clearly when we want to and back on when we're done perusing the map.

One booboo I've seen in the AACW demo is that sometimes the Alexandria artillery battery gets stuck in a corps that's in an adjoining region instead of being picked up by a corp that's in the Alexandria region. Captured artillery batteries should stay in the region they're captured in, especially those slow moving 10 speed fixed artillery batteries that just never could walk away with a corp that may have hastened to the sound of the guns and then went back to the original adjacent region after the battle.

Otherwise AACW looks pretty good and now I'm just waiting to see if AACW 2.0 is coming out soon so that maybe I'll wait for the second version. BoA2 looks really good compared to the original BoA and now I'm waiting for it to become more viable as bugs get fixed. I'll have to check out NCP next to see how it stacks up to BoA2 as far as features.

My only complaint about the BoA2 demo is that after a while I can no longer save games, demos should not have time clocks on them that make them less playable after a short while.

[Generalisimo]

So my big question is when will AACW 2.0 come out?

ROP & VGN are the next titles that will be released by AGEOD... so, no AACW2 in the near future.

My only complaint about the BoA2 demo is that after a while I can no longer save games, demos should not have time clocks on them that make them less playable after a short while.

Well, the idea is that if you like the demo, you BUY the game...

[Omnius]

Johnston's move from Winchester to Manassas, to concentrate the army BEFORE the start of First Masassas, should be seen as a MTSG type movement, in response to McDowell's advance into Virginia. Since the Union movement was known to be underway, Johnston did not and should not have waited for the battle to start before beginning a countermovement.

To make an argument that Johnston, at Winchester (or just south of there) could not possibly have heard the guns at Manassas, and marched to the battle in time, is to totally miss the point of a game mechanic that was wisely installed to compensate for command and control problems directly caused by the 15 day turns, and thus the long delay inherent on the part of the player in reacting to any enemy move.

Runyan99,
I think you're a tad off on thinking that Johnston could have heard the guns at Manasas all the way from Winchester and marched his command to aid Beauregard in time. Don't forget that Johnston was ordered to rail his way from Winchester to Manasas before the battle ever started. In the AACW demo Johnston starts out in his own command, not as part of the reb army at Manasas, so that would make it impossible in game terms for him to respond to the sound of the guns. I definitely think that MTSG should be only for corps or armies in adjacent regions as we have to factor in march time in a 15 day turn since the game system's MTSG does not rail them and shouldn't. Johnston reacted to the sound of the telegraph in railing to Manasas long before the sound of the guns went boom. We can replicate this historical fact by ordering Johnston to rail over to Manasas on the first turn of the demo, but then we have to be careful that the Union Athena doesn't go off on a wild tangent taking Harper's Ferry first.

[runyan99]

Runyan99,
I think you're a tad off on thinking that Johnston could have heard the guns at Manasas all the way from Winchester and marched his command to aid Beauregard in time. Don't forget that Johnston was ordered to rail his way from Winchester to Manasas before the battle ever started.

Yeah, that is my point. MTSG does and must model movements that happen before a battle starts.

[Omnius]

ROP & VGN are the next titles that will be released by AGEOD... so, no AACW2 in the near future.


Well, the idea is that if you like the demo, you BUY the game...

Generalisimo,
Could you please elucidate on what ROP and VGN are? Haven't seen what these titles represent. Thanks for the dope on it being a while before AACW 2.0 is thought about. How can I like a demo if it shuts down or has parts of it shut down prematurely? Some people don't have all the free time in the world to play the demo and if it goes sour before we can really play the demo to enjoy it then the demo isn't doing the job it could be doing if it just kept on working. Besides I never buy computer wargames until I see them finished with all the patches, just not worth wasting time restarting games when a new patch rolls along or having bugs stop a game in it's tracks. Too bad the demos aren't upgraded to show how bugs are being fixed as new patches come out.

[Omnius]

Yeah, that is my point. MTSG does and must model movements that happen before a battle starts.

Runyan99,
I disagree that MTSG should model movements before a battle starts, that's the decision we players should be making. The Rebs thought ahead that the Yanks would attack Manasas and thus ordered Johnston to move first by rail to get to the battle before it started. That is not MTSG but Moving Before the Sound of Guns. Johnston never could have marched his troops to Manasas from Winchester if he had waited until the guns started, he also would not have had the trains there waiting for him to be picked up for a quick rail move even if he could have heard them. You're asking the AI to cover your behind if you don't think first where you should concentrate your army before a battle starts and that's not the province of the AI but for us to decide.