As I see it...

[Gray Fox]

How does a battle happen against an entrenched foe? Meade was not defending the shoe factory in Gettysburg or the farm of a freed slave. Lee wasn't assaulting Washington D.C., so why was there a battle?

First, let's set down the facts. A Division in line has a front facing the enemy of about one mile. If you were to spread the Division any thinner, they would more easily crack in an assault. Line the men up in deeper formations and they would be a prime target for cannonade. I posted in another thread how level 4 entrenchment stopped only around a third of the hits a unit would take. A breastwork would stop easily twice that, so the best protection a unit can get from mere "entrenchment" is pretty much a gift of the terrain. Entrenchment in game terms is not a line of WWI trenches. That would be a stockade or fort. You benefit more from a farm fence or a railroad cut than from a shovel and an axe.

So where is my army entrenched? If they are in a structure in a region, then that is an easy question to answer. But what if they are entrenched outside any structure in a region with a river? Then according to the game, they are situated to fire at passing ships along the river. However, they cover any structure/city anywhere in the region from siege, too. They also block any force moving across any portion of the river. Except that a river border of a region is many miles long. It would take most of a combatant nation's Divisions to entrench along its entire length...and that is just one region. Similarly, an army is not entrenched along every one of the region's other borders, as this would be even more impossible. So, again, where is my army entrenched?

An army cannot be entrenched along the entire length of a region's river(s). It cannot be entrenched along every border of a region, either. It cannot be entrenched outside of a city and along a river and along another border at the same time. These are simply impossible. I would say that an entrenched army is somewhere in a region in bivouac. When an enemy moves to enter the region, then scouts tell the overall commander. He counter-marches inside the region to meet the enemy. The "time to entrench" factor reflects that he knows the region better and gets there "first with the most". As such, he defends on "good ground" so that his troops get the benefit of level X entrenchment. The ground itself may only be a few square miles and is otherwise insignificant. Perhaps some other units MTSG as well. The enemy cannot leave his force on their line of communications and must defeat him...or withdraw from the region. That's how a battle happens against an entrenched foe.

[Captain_Orso]

"Entrenching" is a combination of using favorable terrain and modifying that terrain to suite defensive purposes, such as piling logs and actually digging into the ground.

Two very telling examples of this are how Lee's army prepared their positions at Spotsylvania Courthouse and Cold Harbor. In both cases Lee's army "entrenched" their positions into a formidable defenses in a very short time with devastating affect on Grant's assaults. In neither case did Lee "counter-march" nor maneuver to put himself in Grant's path. Grant came to Lee because Lee occupied the strategic positions.

So, why didn't Grant simply skirt around Lee's positions to get behind Lee, basically flanking him, or simply bypass Lee's positions to get into Lee's hinterland? Because if Grant is in Lee's hinterland, Lee is also in Grant's hinterland.

Additionally, maneuvering in the proximity of an enemy force free to maneuver is begging to be attacking while on the march, the marching force being at a great disadvantage, because the attacking force can chose where to attack that maneuvering force, and the maneuvering force is not formed up to defend itself.

Ergo, to approach an enemy force, you must address it, restrict its ability to maneuver and attack you while you are maneuvering. The enemy force can chose to maintain its prepared position, fight the maneuvering force at equal odd, because it has left its prepared position, or improve its position and wait to be assaulted. The latter chose is militarily the most advantageous.

I'll not go into emplacing guns to bombard more than to say the following. Batteries can only bombard ships passing the emplaced artillery. They do not bombard them along an entire stretch of river or waterfront. I would have liked to have emplacements be their own location pointing at the juncture of two river regions and nowhere else, but this would have required some major changes in the game engine and were thus rejected.

Long before the first public beta of CW2, we had very lengthy discussions about blocking and forcing river crossings and how that might work better than what we previously had. In the end the simplest solution was implemented, which is the 90% blocking chance with 4 or more naval combat elements. It may not be the sexiest solution, but simplicity has its own aesthetics.

[FightingBuckeye]

And Meade, or at least Buford and then Reynolds, marched to Gettysburg. There are times when both approaches work. You can't always predict where the enemy will come at you and the enemy won't always cooperate with your plans. Whatever the case, I think both situations are pretty accurately represented with the current system. You're arguing about the tactical decisions the generals handle while we are dealing with a strategic outlook on the war. We're not telling them where in the region to fight or how to deploy, let the game engine handle that stuff.

[BattleVonWar]

I can see the value in the system, the common sense. I don't argue it one bit. I use to dig trenches as a boy. I loved it... It may not be accurate to history but it may be accurate for the game to be played without front collapse and insane casualties. Most of my games end around 200k dead on each side...but problem is there isn't much more Real Estate to give up either before a total collapse.

I think the narrow fronts of the Virginias and the inherent defensive nature of the terrains and the ability to cover so much real estate with so few men is a good question though. I suppose though till you attempt to institute new methods of gameplay you have no clue where you are treading. Might be chaos... and may step on a 2 inch spike. Ruin a highly playable engine without a lot more years behind it. (CW3 perhaps can address this fully)

In The Great War and Guns of August(the former they tampered a lot) with gameplay altering entrenchment values and boy did it destroy the game. Was unplayable! I loved that game till they made entrenchment so deep you couldn't make it to the Belgian Coast in 1914... Russia couldn't attack Austrian Forts(they were like little Verduns everywhere)