elxaime wrote:I like the SYW era, but have held off purchasing ROP mainly because I am afraid it will follow the well-worn path of ACW, another potentially great game that misses due to neglect of the PBEM side of things.
I understand the limitation here being that AGEOD is not some giant company with huge resources. But the above is like telling someone whose car still won't run that they should give the auto repair shop credit for all the work they have done
I'm not answering your posts as a ROP player (I haven't bought it yet) but as AACW player : qualifying the PBEM as "neglected" is for me an overstatement. There is place for improvement but PBEM is giving its share of enjoyement and thrill to players and after three years of continuous improvement you can't say it's a "car that won't run"

Also, a few notes on your other comments :
The Union suffers from a variety of "lose 10 morale unless you do this" idiot rules, resulting in being in an early hole of 30-40 morale points.
These rules are questionable (some players prefer to be free to choose their strategy) but they try to force Union players in being aggressive at beginning of the game. Without them any intelligent northern player will wait for his army to be powerful enough and overrun South... not very exciting

Moreover, I think the loss can be reduced to 10 NM (or even 0 with a little bit of luck) if northern player is a little bit imaginative.
With its huge morale edge, the CSA easily mass recruits
Yes but CSA is limited by war supply and even the highest CSA recruiting option will not bring a lot more recuitement points than the medium USA option.
and the morale (and VP) edge usually lead to early foreign intervention.

I only see once the CSA player being a few points from foreign intervention. NM and VP may bring at most two FI points per turn. It means 50 turns (2 years) if really lucky (ok I'm not taken into account other political options and events).
Slower replacement of Union losses due to the built-in game replacement rule mean a higher risk of losing morale, even if you win a battle, due to element losses.
With version 1.15 morale loss in combat is more unpredictable than with earlier patch. But one thing that every experienced players will tell you is to avoid combat if your troops are weary. And that seems pretty in line with reality.
Your naval edge is less, since amphibious landings are set up so that you telegraph your punches, leading to Omaha Beach style losses if you try and take any but the most remote undefended areas. Speaking of Omaha Beach, CSA bombardment easily shreds any Union navy ships that come near shore, ocean or river.
Amphibious landing is not very well modelized but the other option would be to allow landing in the same turn (like in WIA). This would let the CSA without defense against deep punch into the land from northern player : US lands on first turn and in the subsequent turn he move inward before any southern force can reach the landing zone.
Meanwhile, the northern states are blanketed with CSA partisans and Texas Rangers roam Pennsylvania.
Totally agree with you this is a weakness and it has been reported several times in the forum. But cutting railroads in the Michigan, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania will never make CSA player win the game.
I understand there are counters, but as I read Union Player PBEM strategies, it seems the only way to advance is to play the game as you would Starcraft; e.g. full mobilization of the Union in April 1861, trying to zerg the Confederacy with sheer numbers of militia while accepting a paper money/inflation regime worthy of the Weimar Republic.
Have a look to SVF (Struggle for a Vast Future) mod that is trying to take into account this problem.
I refuse to buy ROP if it means that, in order to enjoy a balanced PBEM game, I have to mod the game myself.
What is a balanced game ? Give both players the same chance to win the war ? I'm afraid that you can't do this without twisting the game in such a way that it becomes really unhistorical.
But I agree that in AACW the way victory points are afforded could have been improved in order to allow the southern player to win the game even if he loses the war but, in the process, he managed to do better than history.
As this is a Rise of Prussia thread, I propose you to send me a PM if you want to answer me instead of "polluting" it with AACW stuff.
By the way I'm open to a PBEM with you if you are interested.