Too tedious to even try?

[Coregonas]

Ad just Consider those pesky cavalry raids as only part of the idea.

What about pesky naval invasion raids

These can come and go away nearly as fast as cavalry, with naval superiority enough.

[soundoff]

I have been following this thread and find myself agreeing with Jabber here. I'd like to comment and tie this all back into a more general theme around the AACW gaming experience.

First, to dredge up a quote I have bandied about before:

[INDENT]'Great games are all about giving players interesting choices' - Sid Meier[/INDENT]

With regard to our AACW crossing issues, Jabber's suggestion would provide what has been missing in the system up to this point- a legitimate choice for the player when it comes to sending that cavalry unit on a raid or launching that amphibious assault to provide a flanking manuever for an offensive.
Choices must involve both Risk and Reward to be truly effective, otherwise, IMO, there really isn't a choice involved if "everyone" knows the smart move is to do "A" instead of "B or C". Cavalry raids are a perfect example of this- there is no real downside to deciding to send raids, as the only risk involves avoiding direct contact with the thinly garrisoned enemy. Well, that's what cavalry do best! So... not really much of a interesting choice after all. As Jabberwock put it, there needs to be a real fear that you might just lose that carefully nurtured cavalry unit before it even reaches terra firma again.

At least it would make a player think about the odds, and if you can get someone weighing the risk/reward of a particular action... you've won half the battle.
As to how it should get implemented, etc., etc., to quote "The Battle of Britain"- I'll "leave that to those with egg on their hat".

+1

[arsan]

How many cavalry regiments sunk on rivers on the real ACW?
I had never read anything about it.

[Jabberwock]

Ah, but how many lone cavalry regiments shot up by gunboats while attempting to cross rivers? At least two that I recall reading about off the top of my head. It would take a week doing nothing else just to compile an accurate list of incidents. One that I recall was in Florida, St. Mary's river.