Railroads...too easy?

[GraniteStater]

Sound advice - I've said my piece.

And sorry, soundoff, didn't see your post above in time.

[John S. Mosby]

And don't you keep pushing it GraniteStater. Its not only the two of you that lose....it does the board no favours either. To the both of you just let it go. Lifes too darned short and AGEOD gamers should be better than this.

I completely agree soundoff. Although I have not many posts, I have spent many a day here and I must say this forum is far above the confrontational behavior exhibited in this thread. Please let this end now.

[khbynum]

You are right, gentlemen. I will end it here. I apologize to the forum.

[Mickey3D]

I am really not in favor of making any changes to the current transportation system!

I agree with your comment that the travelling speed is slow compared to real life and it's a way to modelized the time spent to load an unload troops.

But unfortunately, the current rail transportation system is far too easy when it comes to move large forces : I can move several divisions turn after turn after turn... without any penality. This lead to unhistorical strategy where you move back and forth huge corps to try to surprise your opponent. In the war this kind of move did not happen so often.

I think the move of big forces should come with a cost to your railroad capacity to force you to think twice before using it.

[RebelYell]

I agree with your comment that the travelling speed is slow compared to real life and it's a way to modelized the time spent to load an unload troops.

But unfortunately, the current rail transportation system is far too easy when it comes to move large forces : I can move several divisions turn after turn after turn... without any penality. This lead to unhistorical strategy where you move back and forth huge corps to try to surprise your opponent. In the war this kind of move did not happen so often.

I think the move of big forces should come with a cost to your railroad capacity to force you to think twice before using it.

The cohesion drop would do that, maybe severity depending of the size of the force and distance traveled?

One region you get no effect, 2-3 and you can still move for attack and so on.

Leaders with better cohesion recovery trait would be valuable here.

[soundoff]

The cohesion drop would do that, maybe severity depending of the size of the force and distance traveled?

One region you get no effect, 2-3 and you can still move for attack and so on.

Leaders with better cohesion recovery trait would be valuable here.

That's novel and worthy of further consideration. Mind you I don't see there is room for any major changes in the program. The Phils would appear to already have a lot on their hands in the forthcoming months.

[pgr]

I think the move of big forces should come with a cost to your railroad capacity to force you to think twice before using it.

Thus could be an elegant solution. What is the background wear and tear for RRs? 5% of total each turn correct? You could add a few % for formations over a certain weight (our use the big stack/little stack cutoff that seems to be used in spotting and cav calculations.)

How much of a cohesion hit comes from rail movement? In my play experience, RR movement seems to have no more cohesion impact than normal movement.

[Ace]

Thus could be an elegant solution. What is the background wear and tear for RRs? 5% of total each turn correct? You could add a few % for formations over a certain weight (our use the big stack/little stack cutoff that seems to be used in spotting and cav calculations.)

How much of a cohesion hit comes from rail movement? In my play experience, RR movement seems to have no more cohesion impact than normal movement.

If I understood correctly, you would make cohesion hits for rail travel?
So, you think units got more messed up by embarking wagons and disembarking, than traveling by foot continuously every day from let's say Wilmington to Richmond?

[GraniteStater]

Good point - isn't better to rail into a battle, thus retaining Cohesion?

[Philo32b]

Thus could be an elegant solution. What is the background wear and tear for RRs? 5% of total each turn correct? You could add a few % for formations over a certain weight (our use the big stack/little stack cutoff that seems to be used in spotting and cav calculations.)

This is a good idea, but wouldn't it be difficult to implement in this game? If I want to move a corps and I don't want to pay the delay cost I can simply break it into smalls parts and travel at the division or brigade speed.

Actually, now that I write this, it occurs to me that you would still pay a cost even with this tactic: if you go into battle during this turn of your force broken into small pieces you are not going to get any of the corps/division combat benefits. So to get those benefits you would have to send them where they are going to go in pieces, and the next turn reform the force and send them into battle. A minimum of two turns, likely the same time cost as the original penalty suggested.

[Mickey3D]

you would make cohesion hits for rail travel?

My initial idea was to reduce the number of railroad points available not to diminish cohesion of units.

This would force the Union player to keep maintaining its RR capacity and avoid the Confederate player to overuse RR transfer.

As pointed out by Philo32b you could split your force to avoid penality to your RR capacity but you would loose one turn to recombine your force.

[Z74]

I suggested a RR/Riverine point system based on national (state by state) not side level.
That is a very hard change to do but really necessary in my opinion. You don't just look at a corps moving on the rail... look at the supplies going with them... we're talking of days and days only to assemble stuff prior to the move and bring in the locomotives and wagons.

I think a cohesion drop is a good idea but I still insist on the fact the points, as well as the replacements and, really 90% of the stuff we do now, should be done at national level. Here you can further add the political results of many choices to build the side NM, which should be based on each state's individual will to fight (and again, transport capacity being one of the main factors).

[RebelYell]

I wish an Pbem option to turn of both virtual travel means for anything else than supply and a new train unit like the naval transports.

[RebelYell]

I want to steal trains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson's_operations_against_the_B%26O_Railroad_(1861)#Hauling_away_the_bounty

[Ol' Choctaw]

I want to steal trains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson's_operations_against_the_B%26O_Railroad_(1861)#Hauling_away_the_bounty

I always thought it should be an event adding to the CSA rail pool.