The Shenandoah

[Stauffenberg]

Some observations on the Shenandoah in AACW:

AACW details so many things extremely well, some even brilliantly I am sure many would agree; however it falls rather flat on a few issues and the Shenandoah is one of them I think. The problem is that the Confederates have no real reason to contest anything within the valley other than the strategic cities of Winchester and Harper’s Ferry in the north. And of course, the Valley actually never had any importance to the Union as an invasion route; the whole point was to deny it to Confederacy.

I am sure my knowledge of 19th century Virginia demographics is rather limited, but it strikes one as odd that Charlottesville (a city that was largely ignored throughout the war) is a Strategic City while Staunton, a very important city (in fact the RR supply hub for Lee’s entire Gettysburg campaign for example) during the war, is not. But also the southern Shenandoah Valley has little of any value. You can see the designers attempted to cover this in part with the depot that is automatically built under Joe Johnson's army at the very beginning, but most games see the South destroying this depot and abandoning the Valley early on for the most part.

Some possible changes to better cover the Shenandoah:

--Make Staunton a size 1 or 2 city and revert Charlottesville to a reference city.

--Warren VA (with city of Strasburg) a Strategic Location.

--Redo the map to more effectively divide the valley off from the east by making Clarke, Page and Augusta VA regions (north to south) Impassable Mountain regions with roads or tracks through them, much as the Cumberland Gap is depicted out west.

--Tie the occupation of the valley into the victory point equation by either giving 5 VPs a turn for the occupation of Warren VA, or alternately divide it up for the three Strategic Locations of Harper’s Ferry, Winchester, and Warren (north to south) @ 2 VPs each.

The idea is to make it harder to get in and out of the valley, except at each end, as well as provide some real incentives to be there. I haven’t tried the one-week turn mod yet but in conjunction with these changes one might even be able to model Jackson’s campaigns there decently.

[Gen. Monkey-Bear]

One of the key characteristics of fighting in the Valley during the war was that the area was (relatively) easy to conquer, but difficult to hold on to. It changed hands constantly; a place like Manassas depot, for example, was much harder to capture than Winchester but it was also much easier to defend once it had been captured. Try holding on to both the Shenandoah Valley and the Manassas depot in a game as the CSA, then you may understand what I mean. It makes more sense to give up the Valley to the Union but keep Manassas. The Valley can always be recaptured by the CSA later on; Manassas is much harder to reconquer.

If the game could somehow demonstate this idea of the Valley being easy to conquer and hard to hold, then it would do a pretty good job. It looks like Stuaffenberg has the idea that might work.

[wsatterwhite]

I'm not sure about the notion that the Valley should be hard to defend, especially for the Confederates- if anything, I think it was (and should be in game) relatively easy to defend. From everything I understand, the problem with defending the Valley long term is that troops will almost always inevitably be needed elsewhere- defending the Valley (or not defending) to me is more about manpower than anything else.

I agree with the idea of adding a few VP locations down through the Valley and removing Charlottesville as a Strategic City, that way there is a premium placed on actually seizing and holding the valley instead of simply using it as a bad door to Richmond via Charlottesville.

[colonel hurst]

As the CSA, I try to get out of the valley as soon as possible and defend at Manassas or Fredricksburg and Charlottesville . I think the reason they made Charlottesville a strategic city is because if it is taken by the USA, Fredricksburg is then flanked.

As the USA, I never use the valley as a backdoor to Richmond as it is hard on the men marching from Winchester to Charlottesville. Much rather take the railroad from Alexandria/DC.

There just isn't much reason to hold on to the valley for either side I feel.