Can The South Win?

[Caesar]

I'm new to the game, I've been playing the Demo for a few days and have the game on order. I'm very excited about playing the full game.

My question is has anyone won the full campaign playing the South? If so what is your basic strategy? Are there certain Cities that must be taken or Armies that must be defeated?

If this has already been covered in another thread I apologize.

Thanks in advance.

[gbs]

My first first complete game, which was several patches ago, ended in a stalemate. This, to me, is in fact a victory for the South. I had all of kentucky and Washington DC with no loss of territory except Missouri.

[AndrewKurtz]

My first first complete game, which was several patches ago, ended in a stalemate. This, to me, is in fact a victory for the South. I had all of kentucky and Washington DC with no loss of territory except Missouri.

I like the way For the People (GMT Games) handles victory for the CSA. There is automatic victory is there is an overwhelming win. But, otherwise, if the USA does not win, it is a CSA victory. No draw/stalemate.

I find it works very well. Forces the USA to be aggressive, especially as the game winds down, which I think is a realistic recreation of the pressure felt after four years of war.

[Adam the VIth]

I've only played once to conclusion and as the CSA, I won pretty easily -- though it was a moral victory. I held all my cities and took several key USA cities.

Now, against a human opponent....different.

BTW, I'll have to watch it, but over time, I assume the Union has far greater manpower available? I've actually felt pinched as CSA and USA, but never kept track of actual #s.

[Crimguy]

If winning as CSA is too easy, it should be made tougher. I'm not a "lost cause" historian, but I do think the obstacles for victory for the South should be very challenging indeed. Perhaps on the level of playing as the Japanese in War in the Pacific.

[bloodybucket]

I believe that the objectives listing in the scenario will give the technical answer to your question, in a "Buy low, sell high" sort of sense.

I thought at first yours was a more general, historical question, and that's an interesting one as well. Would the Confederate States gained more in the long run by a stunning military victory than they did in history?

As a game design question, I agree that a stalemate result in a campaign game should be a "win" for the Rebels, both in comparison to what happened and being about the best they could have hoped for, and also for the prodding it would give the North for waging a more aggressive war.

[Castel]

Can The South Win?

Well, if the South could not win, that would be not very interesting i think. ^^

After all, that's a game.

And what's the meaning of a game with two armies and that one of those armies can't win ?

That would be kind of ridiculous, from players point of view.

[Adam the VIth]

When I said I won easily, it was not technically easy, I took tons of losses, etc. But it was in an earlier version and I caught the AI doing some dumb things.

She seems more unforgiving now.

I think playing against a human is the true challenge

[blackbellamy]

The victory conditions are a little screwed up IMHO. For example if both the South and the North do absolutely nothing for the entire game, it ends with a Stalemate. It will say neither side has accomplished it's objectives. I don't think the South has to do anything besides survive in order to win, let alone take extra objectives, but there you go....

Best thing to do is just to play and if you manage to last longer as the South than historically, especially by several months, I would consider that a win.

[Hinkel]

I think playing against a human is the true challenge

It is a true challenge. You guys just have to watch our official 6 player Grand campaign and you will see, its hard for us CSA player

Against AI, I won all games as CSA yet.

[tagwyn]

Yes, hisorically speaking. If Lee had won at Gettysburg in summer of 1863 and Bragg had followed up his wins at Stone's River and Chickamauga, all of which, IMHO, were possible. CSA could have forced England and France to intervene in the war. Loss of Baltimore and possibly Philadelphia could have been catastropic for the North. All possible. Read Gingrich's three vol set posing this scenario. However, Gingrich went too far in describing an attack by the third corp of the ANV against a single raw division in Grant's army. Newt says that these Gray Lions were thrown back??? Ridiculous Mr. Newt.

[denisonh]

Balancing for play against a human opponent and the AI is problematic.

Players can learn and adapt, where the AI cannot. It is doomed.

Now against a human opponent, it is a different game altogether.

I have 3 PBEMs going, and all three are different. Each requires a different approach, so no "cookie cutter" approach to tactics. A human opponent will each your lunch if your are predictable, whereas that is not a concern against the AI.

It is almost as if it is two different games.

SO which do you set the "balance" for?

[aryaman]

I have played several PBEM games and I think that is a strong part in the game, the variety of strategies you could try and face.

[Crimguy]

Yes, hisorically speaking. If Lee had won at Gettysburg in summer of 1863 and Bragg had followed up his wins at Stone's River and Chickamauga, all of which, IMHO, were possible. CSA could have forced England and France to intervene in the war. Loss of Baltimore and possibly Philadelphia could have been catastropic for the North. All possible. Read Gingrich's three vol set posing this scenario. However, Gingrich went too far in describing an attack by the third corp of the ANV against a single raw division in Grant's army. Newt says that these Gray Lions were thrown back??? Ridiculous Mr. Newt.

Uh oh. Another Johnny Reb fanboy rolls in

[tagwyn]

I was born and raised in Dixie. Members of my family fought and died in Butternut Gray. I was taught on my Granduncle's knee about the wonderful Robert E. Lee and the evil Generals Grant and, especially, Sherman. My grandparents took me on a trip to North Carolina when I was a preschooler and I wasn't pleased to be in a Northern place. LOL. As I grew older and wiser and could see and think for myself I realized the evil behind the Confederacy and the need for it to be destroyed completly. My family lost everything as a result of the war and the carpet-baggers but I am not a fanboy for the Rebs. I hope that clears up any issues you might have. Tag

[swang]

Players can learn and adapt, where the AI cannot. It is doomed.

Actually, AIs CAN learn. We're just not there yet in the case of computing power. But the algorithms and the theory have been around for ~20 years.

[gbs]

I was born and raised in Dixie. Members of my family fought and died in Butternut Gray. I was taught on my Granduncle's knee about the wonderful Robert E. Lee and the evil Generals Grant and, especially, Sherman. My grandparents took me on a trip to North Carolina when I was a preschooler and I wasn't pleased to be in a Northern place. LOL. As I grew older and wiser and could see and think for myself I realized the evil behind the Confederacy and the need for it to be destroyed completly. My family lost everything as a result of the war and the carpet-baggers but I am not a fanboy for the Rebs. I hope that clears up any issues you might have. Tag

tag, you're not running for office are you? Just kidding. I on the other hand am a Johnny Reb fanboy.

[Mike]

The victory conditions are a little screwed up IMHO. For example if both the South and the North do absolutely nothing for the entire game, it ends with a Stalemate. It will say neither side has accomplished it's objectives. I don't think the South has to do anything besides survive in order to win, let alone take extra objectives, but there you go....

Best thing to do is just to play and if you manage to last longer as the South than historically, especially by several months, I would consider that a win.

Literally that's how I approach most 'Monster' games... and I consider this a monster because of its size and detail. I don't get too wrapped up in the victory conditions. I much prefer an enjoyable game with an easy going opponant. Don't play for blood much any more. I use the historical model as sort of the middle of the road of where things ought to be. If McClellan won the electionof '64 I think the South may have won its independence sometime after inaugeration day of '65. If Lincoln had won then war would continued until there was a finish IMO.

In my email game with Jim I feel he won as the South when we called it in January of '63, because when we restarted I had lost St Louis, been ejected from 2 of my 3 coastal incursions. I had cleared most of Kentucky, but failed to take Nashville or Memphis although I threatened both. I was way behind the historical timeline.

In our restart we're in 10/61 and I'm doing better. I've cleared most of Kentucky and Missouri and won at Manassas. Still nervous about those coastal incursions. Jim seems to take those rather personal.

[jimkehn]

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

I agree with Mike, though. I like to compare what either side did historically, and if one side did much better than his historical counterpart, he won the game. Within the game, will the South win the war??? I think there isn't a snowballs chance in Birmingham that it can actually win the war. Not against an opponent of even minimal competence. Even in our (Mike and I) first PBEM game, where I had done historically better, I had not enough men to go on a serious offensive. Everytime I tried to attack, I would get seriously repelled. I have often thought people confuse winning the war with winning the game. And a game can be intense, nail biting, and exciting, even if one side (the South in this case, Poland in Case White, Germany in Russia, etc., etc.) has no chance. If you keep in perspective that you will win if you do better than your counterpart.

[Mike]

[quote="jimkehn"]

Not against an opponent of even minimal competence. Even in our (Mike and I) first PBEM game, where I had done historically better, I had not enough men to go on a serious offensive. Everytime I tried to attack, I would get seriously repelled. I have often thought people confuse winning the war with winning the game.

Someone pointed out earlier that all the South had to do was.... nothing.... exist. Even if the South takes greater losses, but exists... they win... eventually... maybe. The history books tell you that if Sherman hadn't taken Atlanta, then Lil Mac would have won the election and so the South would have eventually won the war... well maybe. But I think the election of '64 was a pivitol moment for the war. McClellan doesn't seem to have had the clear vision of what the Union was that Lincoln had. At some point he would have failed and (provided the South didn't do something overt, like fire on Fort Sumpter... again) the war would have ground to a halt... maybe. Anyway, I think the VG game keyed in on the election of '64 in its victory condition. I fully agree with that. I think there should be copious variables applied, but the key to winning or losing the Civil War was that election... maybe.

Damn, I thought 20-20 hindsight would be more clear.

[Director]

McClellan publicly repudiated the 'End the War' plank of his party's platform. Whether he would have actually have been able to continue to prosecute the war is open to debate, certainly, given the anti-war feelings of prominent Democrats. But he was a terrific administrator while in uniform and he had prior executive experience as a railroad man. Little Mac as an able and effective President, pushing the war to a victorious conclusion? The mind reels... but it isn't impossible.

To win the war the South needed to persuade the North to agree to separation. The three best ways to do that were:

1) Persuade European countires to 'broker a peace' based on Confederate independence with the threat of intervention if the North would not agree. Despite some agitation in Britain and Napoleon III's favorable opinion, this never quite happened. If the South was losing there wasn't any point and if the South was winning there was no need. Plus it would be very, very hard for Britain to come in on the side of slavery. Crop failures in Europe made Britain heavily dependent on Union grain during these years, and in politics bread is worth more than cotton. Probability: low.

2) A provocation brings European powers into the war against the North (think the 'Trent' affair). Possible but not very likely; the diplomats would have to really drop the ball.

3) The Northern people give up. Needed: a series of humiliating defeats, preferably with at least one on Union soil. Critical dates: the elections of 1862 and 1864. In 1862 the Republicans lost ground in the governorships, Senate and House, but did not lose their majority. In 1864 the fall of Atlanta and Battle of Mobile Bay provided new hope and brought Lincoln to re-election. So long as the North keeps scoring victories (Forts Henry and Donelson with the capture of Nashville and Memphis; taking New Orleans; capturing Vicksburg) the North will support the war. Lincoln, of course, will never give up unless he loses re-election or loses control of Congress.

The war-weariness in the North before the election of 1864 is (in my opinion) overstated. Even without Sherman's victories at Atlanta Lincoln might well have won... and Southern exhaustion, weariness, depression and disgust with the conduct of the war were probably as high as in the North. Probability of Southern victory via Presidential election: possible but not certain.




More interesting to my mind are the other 'what if' situations: what if the North had won at Manassas? What if Grant had been free to keep advancing after Ft Donelson? The South really could have collapsed in 1862 or 1863... or what if a different President had simply 'let the erring sisters depart in peace' as many Northerners urged Lincoln to do?

If the South had seceded in the early 1850's they might well have won: the North had fewer railroads, lower population and less industry then. Had the South become a nation it is questionable if they could have kept their own states from secession; certainly the North would have risked losing the Pacific states and/or the MidWest.

At no point did the North mobilize half the men that theoretically could have been mustered into the armies. This gave the Union a huge advantage in that they could fight while running industries, shipyards and railroads. After 1862 (the peak of Southern manpower) the war tilted more and more against the South until it collapsed. In the end I think the South COULD win - if the North allowed it, but not otherwise. Given a determined North, eventually the South must lose.

[Spruce]

what if - what if - what if

if the south had "refrained" from bombing the pile of bricks/rock called fort Sumter and instead had played it politically and made sure that all the slave states would have been "turned down by the Union" instead of "reject the Union" - the impact of the war would have been totally different =

- CSA has more manpower,
- CSA has more credit internationally,
- CSA has more chances to win - guarding the Missouri and Ohio would have been much more difficult for the Union to penetrate deep south,

as a European guy, I take a litte distance and think that the very "definition" of a confederate goverment signed it's own doom. A few hotheads might have squandered the chance for victory and dragged all these states into a fight against a centralised goverment where one guy that played it cool was able to defeat the Southern hotheads.

I think the South should have formed a "transitional" goverment - based on the principles of - still - a federalist goverment to allow the victory against the North. Only with the North defeated, a confederal goverment should be formed.

That's why I've always been convinced that this war was not about civil rights (slavery debate) against state rights - it was an economical and political showdown between the new "industrial" class in the North and the "old planters" in the south. The former being quite protective in means of international trade, and the latter being very liberal towards trade. It was a struggle between 2 polarised powerhouses that had to defend their intrests (money and power).

[Mike]

Didn't somebody say after the war that the South died of an idea?

[Spruce]

Didn't somebody say after the war that the South died of an idea?

I see many similarities with the upcome and downfall of Hannibal Barca...

[Carrington]

what if - what if - what if

if the south had "refrained" from bombing the pile of bricks/rock called fort Sumter and instead had played it politically and made sure that all the slave states would have been "turned down by the Union" instead of "reject the Union" - the impact of the war would have been totally different =

- CSA has more manpower,
- CSA has more credit internationally,
- CSA has more chances to win - guarding the Missouri and Ohio would have been much more difficult for the Union to penetrate deep south,

as a European guy, I take a litte distance and think that the very "definition" of a confederate goverment signed it's own doom. A few hotheads might have squandered the chance for victory and dragged all these states into a fight against a centralised goverment where one guy that played it cool was able to defeat the Southern hotheads.

I think the South should have formed a "transitional" goverment - based on the principles of - still - a federalist goverment to allow the victory against the North. Only with the North defeated, a confederal goverment should be formed.

That's why I've always been convinced that this war was not about civil rights (slavery debate) against state rights - it was an economical and political showdown between the new "industrial" class in the North and the "old planters" in the south. The former being quite protective in means of international trade, and the latter being very liberal towards trade. It was a struggle between 2 polarised powerhouses that had to defend their intrests (money and power).

The interesting question is what would have happened to the fugitive slave laws in the event of ongoing compromise. It has been argued that the 'Southern system' was economically efficient, but the slaves themselves had a different idea. I'd tend to think that the lesson of Eastern Europe is that, eventually, 'pedestrians' get a vote.

Compounding the "push-factor," our interpretation of the Northern industrialists' motivations may be distorted by hindsight: we know now about the tide of immigrants that solved their labor problems. At the time, they may have seen the labor pool as fixed (and so resented the way slavery constrained the labor market).

It's interesting that "the Great Migration" of Southern blacks (and whites) to the North occurs in the 1920s, at the same time that the U.S. imposed restrictions on immigration. I don't know where the historical literature stands on this -- the correlation only occurs to me right now.

All speculation...

[tagwyn]

I believe McClellan had the blood of everyman who died after Antietam directly on his head. He was incompetent and puerile. Any poll of leaders of the AoP would have to put him in the "Burnside Zone." His dilatory return to the field after the Penn. Campaign almost resulted in the destruction of Pope's Army. His failure to close on Richmond was criminal.

[tagwyn]

PS: Why am I a corporal while Carrington is a sgt? Hideous miscarriage, my followers will not stand for it?!!! Tag

[Caesar]

Thanks for the responses.

I finally got the game. I've been away on business but will be around the house until Monday so I hope to get some play time in.

After reading the thread the consensus seems to be if the South simply survives it's victorious. Which makes sense both historically and in game.

Happy 4th of July.

[Carrington]

I guess one concern I have may be that the South is very challenging in PBEM.

[Spruce]

I think the game is decided by the end of december 1862 - this goes for both parties.