Matagorda - Block Cotton selling

[Captain_Orso]

8<

It did occur to me to try to link the blockade percent to the $50 event, though, I was thinking it could affect the amount earned. If it affected both the amount earned and the success chance that would be great. But I figured it probably wouldn't be possible in the event system so I chucked it. I also wasn't sure if cotton in the $50 event was supposed to represent overseas shipping or if it was only about Mexican trade.

I think the Export Cotton event and the current Export Cotton RGD are trying to represent two different trade routes, and I think that is the correct way to view them.

Other methods might try to count ships in the boxes to base results off of. Perhaps the amount of CS blockade runners in the boxes could affect the chance of success, and/or the amount earned as well. Evaluating Union ship counts in the boxes might work as a substitute for determining the blockade percent in events.

I hadn't actually thought about counting the number of runners in the Blockade Boxes. Since I suspect that the EvalBlockade command itself won't even support the DICE_NOT parameter, to program considering both the blockade value and the number of runners, although probably the most comprehensive application of Export Cotton, would require a huge number of events, basically looking something like this:

For each range of the Blockade Value in steps of 5 or 10--ie from 0, 1-10, from 11-20, from 21-30, etc--you would need an entire set of events evaluating the number of runners in the Blockade Boxes--ie from 0, 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, etc--used perform a percentage chance check if Cotton got sneaked through the blockade, and if successful, how much money it would give the South.

That's a whole lot of events to check for the success of exporting Cotton.

Lacking a check for a valid transport route in the export RGD you could do a check against the abstract river and/or rail pools. If the pools are below medium at the start of the turn then the RGD fails or sumesuch.

Since transporting Cotton is a private venture, it should have nothing to do with the Rail and Riverine Pools.

All in jest:

Hear ye, hear ye! Danial Webster's Book of Strange Words: Jest: Poking with a stick , until somebody loses an eye, or violence ensues.

I was a fool to think that a strategy of appeasement would work. Containment is the only option for one this trigger happy.

Appeasement is for the weak.

Containment... five stars, with sauna and other recreational facilities, a few sweet Asian masseuses (Swedes are also not to be scoffed at ), and we might be able to negotiate some terms. But I get bored easily, so no promises.

You shoulda went back to your safe space to hibernate, but instead, like a drunk Russian bear you launch nukes. As if any hit you'd land would be anything but a fluke, you stand to do more damage with a broken sling. 'Cause you know you can't touch this Fellow. I'm too Towering. Every battle with me is like Return of the King.

Russian? RUSSIAN?!? My dearest Borneo Man, I assure you, I am 100% North American Grizzly. If you have doubts, I implore you to come closer to inspect my paws and teeth. Yes, come closer my tasty morsel

Know what I'm Tolkien about?

For one, who could hardly resemble an orc with hair any more than he does, I would leave Tolkien to rest, lest you regret the day you were Beorn little kitten

*Checks the defcon track* Yup, boys, get your shovels ready; we're about to get buried.

Yes, dig, my tiny morsels, dig your graves.

Beorn in the U.S.A.
I was Beorn in the U.S.A.
I was Beorn in the U.S.A.
Beorn in the U.S.A.

Got in a little hometown jam...

[Captain_Orso]

What bothers me is that the Union has no impact on the cotton things, not the cards nor the events nor the export except for the blockade.
And at best the blockade can block the cotton warehouses and lower their income and that is all.

It's a pity that the whole resource based system didn't went live, you see traces of it here and there, and I guess cotton would have been the same resources like coal or iron mines.

So what about depicting cotton as an asset like war supply?
The things that the south could do would rely on the size of the cotton pool:
- the events could be played on this pool
- any RGDs would use a certain amount of cotton to be played.
- the Union could lower the cotton production by conquering the plantations.

True, see my above post for why that is the case.

As I had previously stated, I believe--I have no real evidence for this, other than anecdotal--the South could not come close to exporting all their cotton, and therefore any amount in excess of what was actually exported would only play a role in being captured by the Union. The South would need a possibility to destroy cotton in storage, the Union the ability to sell it, depending on if it were captured by the Army or Navy, because the Navy had completely different rules for capturing goods, which allowed for them to be taken as prizes, and quickly were are getting into a game within the game again.

Going this route, although interesting, would require extensive new programing, so it's something we can dream about, but not something we could realize with the resources we have.

[Captain_Orso]

fwiw the cs sent abroad 1.25 million bales and the us confiscated around the same amount and sold it to northern firms.

I don't recall having heard this number, but it's interesting to know, and supports my conjecture, that the amount of cotton produced by the South had nothing to do with how much was exported.

some union campaigns where motivated for the cotton gains they were expected to aquire.

I wouldn't go so far as to say campaigns were organized for this, but I know there were actions within campaigns geared at capturing cotton, especially by Porter IIRC who was motivated by personal gain.

cs policy was to grow less cotton and more cerial crops

Yes, the CS government requested this, but I don't know how successful this was. It certainly wasn't implemented to the point necessary to compensate the loss of imported food, and the loss of food production cause by the '62 drought.

, it also commisiond 4 uber blockade runners for cotton only out and war material only in, others were regulated to no less than 10% war material in.

Yes, but AFAIK the runners commissioned and built by the CS government were only "über" in as far as they were built specifically with the idea of running the blockade, and were only more of the same compared to the runners the British officers were building.

That state intervention may be a better way to go as a game mechanism.

Not sure what you mean by this.

[Captain_Orso]

The main thing that deters me from the idea of cotton being a full resource like WS is that your main goal with cotton is to turn it into the other two resources. It would be great if cotton could get you more then just money, some WS would be great. Or maybe you could undersell, or give away free cotton for foreign intervention points. You know, 'secret treaties for secret aid' like in the revolutionary war.

And investing some more $ and CC (I know it was slave labour, but the South still needed some overseers etc.) into your plantations might let you produce more cotton. I love how complex we can make this!

*runs for the hills before the nukes hit*

It would make sense to give the South some kind of ability to import WSU instead of money. The simplest way would be to give the South an RGD for each successful load exported, to exchange $x for y-WSU. If not used it expires each turn, so the South could not hoard them.

No nukes please. Nukes singe my hear and make for an unhappy bear

[BigDuke66]

Converting the resources on hand would also be nice for the Union.
WS pool is very large in my current game and I don't know what to do as I just miss the money to utilize the WS for some fancy Ironclads or other stuff that uses a lot WS.
The simple conversion event each tun that takes 50 WS and gives me 50 money is not nearly enough.

An even that allows selling WS to gain money would be nice. Of course the conversion ratio shouldn't be as nice as the current event.

[Cardinal Ape]

@Orso, Gifs of bouncing boobs, cat videos, and pictures of bears playing electric guitars, is there anything more American? I accept you are Beorn is the USA. Perhaps a full stand down is in order, let the historians conjecture over the Bay of Apes incident.

Ya, checking the shipping boxes for ships of both factions is too clunky. I got the idea from an event in Hannibal that seemed fairly simple:
-
SelectSubUnits = Region $Mare Internum Commercius;FactionTags CAR;Models $mdl_CAR_Tra1
EvalSubUnitCount = >=;21
EvalSubUnitCount = <;50
TurnIndex = 1
Probability = 100

Actions
ChangeMoneyPool = 300
-

Thats the 'medium' event, there is one for low and high as well.

So we could go with the idea that the cotton sneaking event has a 25% chance every turn to occur with a low, medium, and high return based on the amount of CS blockade runners. Should only take three events to do. Maybe the high return brings in WSU instead of just more money.


I found and read this: Through the Blockade: The Profitability and Extent of Cotton Smuggling, 1861-1865 Author(s): Stanley Lebergott https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2120650.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

It pretty intense with math, it has tables with capture percents and average tonnage shipped. Some good data for the topic.

If I it took anything away from it for this game its: we need two types of runners, sail and steam.

According to that the Union Navy only managed to capture 12,000 bales of cotton from captured ships. Most of the ships jettisoned their cargo or destroyed it.

[hanny1]

I don't recall having heard this number, but it's interesting to know, and supports my conjecture, that the amount of cotton produced by the South had nothing to do with how much was exported.

Correct, and there is a distinction between exported and traded to the Union and confiscated by the Union and resold North.

I wouldn't go so far as to say campaigns were organized for this, but I know there were actions within campaigns geared at capturing cotton, especially by Porter IIRC who was motivated by personal gain.

The teche region campaign used assets earmarked for Port Hudson was undertaken for thye benifit of control of cotton lumer etc, so that it could be exported North from NO, the commanding generals brother being the agent for the Mil; district made 200,000 from the campaign including 25,000 bales of cotton shipped to the Northern textile industry. There are quitea few examples of such actions.

Yes, but AFAIK the runners commissioned and built by the CS government were only "über" in as far as they were built specifically with the idea of running the blockade, and were only more of the same compared to the runners the British officers were building.

Uber as in being specificly made for the job, coal tar engines as well as sail, they were uber in their sailing perfermence and in what they brought in, because that was what the CS wanted ( chemicals medicine for example) and directly purchased rather than relied on the private enterprise of individuals and the 10% of tonnage of the shiop of a liost t6he CS wanted in gheneral and the ships purchasing agent could arange to purchase.

Not sure what you mean by this.

The CS policy was to starve europe of cotton to effect intervention, but they could have chosen to flood the market with all they could export both choses are effected by the level of effectivness of the blockade. Imo giving the CS this choice, and two different effects based on each, perhaps with RGD based on them, whil;e the Union only has the chose of how much blockade influence to excert isa better method.


BCF by McPherson from page 620 onwards sumarises the cotton exchanges.

Others works deal in more depth. Stanley Lebergotts work is sumararised in BCF, at its m,ost basic he states twice went to europe that went North from confiscated.


http://www.thebhc.org/publications/BEHp ... -p0312.pdf

"Lincoln's policy did not go unchallenged. Among others, Gen. Edward Canby wrote to the president that cotton traders "follow the track of the army (and) traffic in its blood," with all the "baseness of Judas Iscariot, but without his remorse." Lincoln responded that, since higher cotton prices enabled the Confederacy to make as much profit as before the war off a small fraction of the antebellum tonnage, it was better to let Northern commercial interests buy and export the cotton than to let the rebels do it directly."

Um--- say what? Wasn't the whole point of the blockade to deprive the South of benefiting with much needed war material?

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinion ... the-enemy/

Amazon book description:

"Trading With The Enemy" by Philip Leigh

"While Confederate blockade runners famously carried the seaborne trade for the South during the American Civil War, the amount of Southern cotton exported to Europe was only half of that shipped illicitly to the North. Most went to New England textile mills where business “was better than ever,” according to textile mogul Amos Lawrence. Rhode Island senator William Sprague, a mill owner and son-in-law to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, was a member of a partnership supplying weapons to the Confederacy in exchange for cotton. The trade in contraband was not confined to New England. Union General William T. Sherman claimed Confederates were supplied with weapons from Cincinnati, while General Ulysses S. Grant captured Rebel cavalry armed with carbines purchased in Union-occupied Memphis. During the last months of the war, supplies entering the Union-controlled port of Norfolk, Virginia, were one of the principal factors enabling Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army to avoid starvation. Indeed, many of the supplies that passed through the Union blockade into the Confederacy originated in Northern states, instead of Europe as is commonly supposed. Merchants were not the only ones who profited; Union officers General Benjamin Butler and Admiral David Dixon Porter benefited from this black market. President Lincoln admitted that numerous military leaders and public officials were involved, but refused to stop the trade.
In Trading with the Enemy: The Covert Economy During the American Civil War, New York Times Disunion contributor Philip Leigh recounts the little-known story of clandestine commerce between the North and South. Cotton was so important to the Northern economy that Yankees began growing it on the captured Sea Islands of South Carolina. Soon the neutral port of Matamoras, Mexico, became a major trading center, where nearly all the munitions shipped to the port—much of it from Northern armories—went to the Confederacy. After the fall of New Orleans and Vicksburg, a frenzy of contraband-for-cotton swept across the vast trans-Mississippi Confederacy, with Northerners sometimes buying the cotton directly from the Confederate government. A fascinating study, Trading with the Enemy adds another layer to our understanding of the Civil War."

https://civilwarchat.wordpress.com/2014 ... the-enemy/ more detail from the author

Ships to Mata

Historian James Ford Rhodes:

If accurate statistics could be obtained it would surprise [no one] that the North received more cotton from the internal commerce than did Great Britain from the blockade-runners; the greater portion of this [cotton] staple came from a region under control of the…Confederacy…This trade was a greater advantage to the South than to the North…the South obtained salt, quinine, powder, and arms, absolute necessaries for carrying on the War.

Since Matamoros was a neutral Mexican port federal warships could not blockade it. Before the Civil War only about one ship annually cleared New York for the Mexican town. However, a year after the War’s first important battle at Bull Run the average was about one per week. Ships to Matamoros were also cleared from Boston, Philadelphia, and other Northern harbors. Cargoes included a multitude of northern made items that would have been considered contraband if shipped directly into the Confederacy. They encompassed weapons, munitions, and military uniforms, among other articles. For Yankees willing to help arm the Confederacy at a profit, Matamoros was little more than a legal fig leaf to cover dubious, if not treasonable, conduct. When UK recognised the CS as beligerants it was legal to send material to thje CS, post was the Union legal poisition was that this aid lengthened the war by 2 years and cost 2.15 billion more expense than would otherwise have been the case in its compensation, for the almost total loss of its whalling fleet to UK purshased ships, and 20% of all CS shoulder firearms issued during the war comming from the UK manfucateriors being amongst many examples, especially in the first 12 months as UK imports amounted to half all CS firarms issued, as the CS had 1 production facility only and the US issued 10 to 1 from internal production.

Naval Blockades in Peace and War: An Economic History Since 1750 is the most authorative and usfull

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=h27 ... 64&f=false

[Captain_Orso]

In all honesty, if you had made a statement about trade between the Union and Confederacy during the war, without presenting the evidence, I would not have believed it, and been appalled at the audacity.

I knew that there were agents following, or traveling the military into captured Confederate territory, to sell 'captured' cotton. I always assumed it was confiscated, either because the owner had fled and abandoned it, making it spoils of war (how convenient), or because it was deemed to be being used to support the Confederacy, thus making it eligible for confiscation through the Confiscation Act of 1861:

... any person or persons...[who]...shall purchase or acquire, sell or give, any property of whatsoever kind or description...with intent to use or employ the same...to be used...promoting such insurrection...all such property is hereby declared to be lawful[ly] subject of prize and capture wherever found...

I would not have been surprised at all to hear that plantations in captured territory were selling their cotton. In every community in captured Confederate territory, trade, besides within itself, first with the military, and then with other captured and Northern territories was reopened. So selling cotton from captured territory was no surprise, although I don't recall having read about it, nor had I ever thought of it.

What really put me at a pause was that cotton was being sold from Confederate territory to the North, and goods were traded south, including goods of strategic value, such as medicine, salt, munition, and weapons. I still can't really bend my head around that, but there it is.

[Captain_Orso]

@Orso, Gifs of bouncing boobs, cat videos, and pictures of bears playing electric guitars, is there anything more American? I accept you are Beorn is the USA. Perhaps a full stand down is in order, let the historians conjecture over the Bay of Apes incident.

... beubs!!

Ya, checking the shipping boxes for ships of both factions is too clunky. I got the idea from an event in Hannibal that seemed fairly simple:
-
SelectSubUnits = Region $Mare Internum Commercius;FactionTags CAR;Models $mdl_CAR_Tra1
EvalSubUnitCount = >=;21
EvalSubUnitCount = <;50
TurnIndex = 1
Probability = 100

Actions
ChangeMoneyPool = 300
-

Thats the 'medium' event, there is one for low and high as well.

If I could use bash, or some such scripting language using variables, I could build a single event event, which cross referenced Blockade Value with the number of runners in the boxes, and determine if, and if yes, how many loads of cotton were exported.

So we could go with the idea that the cotton sneaking event has a 25% chance every turn to occur with a low, medium, and high return based on the amount of CS blockade runners. Should only take three events to do. Maybe the high return brings in WSU instead of just more money.

Bad idea. it would teach the player to only have x number of runners in the boxes, because, eg between 11 and 30 is all the same

I found and read this: Through the Blockade: The Profitability and Extent of Cotton Smuggling, 1861-1865 Author(s): Stanley Lebergott https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2120650.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

It pretty intense with math, it has tables with capture percents and average tonnage shipped. Some good data for the topic.

If I it took anything away from it for this game its: we need two types of runners, sail and steam.

According to that the Union Navy only managed to capture 12,000 bales of cotton from captured ships. Most of the ships jettisoned their cargo or destroyed it.

[Citizen X]

My god, we created a monster.

At the beginning I stated, that the mechanism is good as is. Needs a bit of tweaking in the amount of gold in costs and gains.
We had a saying when I was still in the IT: Never change a running system.

Before a complete overhaul of such a minor part of the game is endeavoured, proof should be laid that it is nescessary to do so.

At least you should be suggesting a simpler and more stable version.

[Cardinal Ape]

My god, we created a monster.

Yup, this thread has turned into quite the monster, but for me its the tip of the ice-berg; I enlisted the help of a friend who is an amateur board game designer and we started making an economic based game about smuggling cotton out of the South. I have friends who are interested in the Civil War and who interested in board games, but they have no interest in two-player war games, so when I pitched the idea to them and the reactions were good I started creating ... Frankenstein... I'm completely in over my head, but its doing a great job of keeping cabin fever at bay.

At the beginning I stated, that the mechanism is good as is. Needs a bit of tweaking in the amount of gold in costs and gains.
We had a saying when I was still in the IT: Never change a running system.

Before a complete overhaul of such a minor part of the game is endeavoured, proof should be laid that it is nescessary to do so.

At least you should be suggesting a simpler and more stable version.

I hear ya. In all honesty, I consider threads like this to be more about preparing for CW3, than changing CW2. Someone might make an awesome mod, but other then that...

In trying to step back and get the big picture on the topic of making cotton more important, it occurred to me that maybe a better way to approach it might be giving the CS a King Cotton war plan. I haven't played the newer ageod games with war plans so I'm only inferring from pics of them.. I picture it as a multiple choice option, choosing the general strategy of handling cotton for the rest of the war. Choices could range between a fully enforced embargo to a fully encouraged export policy.

[Citizen X]

I hear ya. In all honesty, I consider threads like this to be more about preparing for CW3, than changing CW2. Someone might make an awesome mod, but other then that...

In trying to step back and get the big picture on the topic of making cotton more important, it occurred to me that maybe a better way to approach it might be giving the CS a King Cotton war plan. I haven't played the newer ageod games with war plans so I'm only inferring from pics of them.. I picture it as a multiple choice option, choosing the general strategy of handling cotton for the rest of the war. Choices could range between a fully enforced embargo to a fully encouraged export policy.

Here you fetch me again. But did cotton play an important role in the war efforts of the rebel faction? If a more sophisticated model of anything already there, then I would rather see a better model of the propaganda and intelligence warfare.... but that's a totally different story and offtopic here.

[Cardinal Ape]

In all honesty, if you had made a statement about trade between the Union and Confederacy during the war, without presenting the evidence, I would not have believed it, and been appalled at the audacity.

I knew that there were agents following, or traveling the military into captured Confederate territory, to sell 'captured' cotton. I always assumed it was confiscated, either because the owner had fled and abandoned it, making it spoils of war (how convenient), or because it was deemed to be being used to support the Confederacy, thus making it eligible for confiscation through the Confiscation Act of 1861:

... any person or persons...[who]...shall purchase or acquire, sell or give, any property of whatsoever kind or description...with intent to use or employ the same...to be used...promoting such insurrection...all such property is hereby declared to be lawful[ly] subject of prize and capture wherever found...

I would not have been surprised at all to hear that plantations in captured territory were selling their cotton. In every community in captured Confederate territory, trade, besides within itself, first with the military, and then with other captured and Northern territories was reopened. So selling cotton from captured territory was no surprise, although I don't recall having read about it, nor had I ever thought of it.

What really put me at a pause was that cotton was being sold from Confederate territory to the North, and goods were traded south, including goods of strategic value, such as medicine, salt, munition, and weapons. I still can't really bend my head around that, but there it is.

I have no shame in admitting my lack of knowledge on the American Civil War, so the other night when I read, "Rhodes believed "it would surprise no student of the subject to find that the North received more cotton .... than did Great Britain from the blockade runners."" I thought, 'Well, I'm not a student of the subject. That surprises the hell outta me!'

I knew there was some cotton being smuggled into the Union, but by some I had no clue they meant the North got nearly twice as much as the UK did. Crazy.

[Cardinal Ape]

Here you fetch me again. But did cotton play an important role in the war efforts of the rebel faction?

Its my opinion that the CS tried to make cotton play an important role but failed to do so. For imposing an embargo on cotton, way too much made it out, especially to the North. Turns out that it may have done more for the war effort to deprive the Northern mills of cotton rather then the UK. Don't take those rust belt factory workers for granted...

There were some in the South, like Hammond, that were convinced that cotton could be used as a diplomatic tool that could determine the outcome of the war. Whether they were right or wrong, it seems doubtful to me that any strict policy on cotton could be implemented and enforced by the CS with their non-federal government. Though, that doesn't mean they didn't try.

[Durk]

Ok, for what it is worth, stepping in on the cotton debate.
All simulations of historical events are simulations of a theory of history. Even as certain as we are about the facts of history, there is often no consensus. Most game designers understand this probabilistic nature of gaming. Of all of the issues of the American Civil War, the what if about cotton is a huge unanswered one. American Marxist historians made the cause of the Civil War cotton, not black slavery. More than other historians, they focused upon the use of cotton during the war. But their were competing voices. Economic determinist did not see cotton as a factor for good or ill, just stuff.
Much mixed conclusions surround to whom cotton sales most benefited, beside war profiteers. Historians come down on at least five major theories.
CWII models the dominate theory, that cotton was King and any cotton sold to Europe was a good thing.
CWII does not model sales to Northern interests.
The question is not, what would make this game more historical with regard to cotton, but, perhaps, if a CWIII reaches fruition, can the options interface of WON be used to allow exploration of the several theories of the power of cotton.

[Captain_Orso]

What irritates me the most, is not having been ignorant to the extent of trade across the battlefront, but that it was not only tolerated, but was a matter of policy.

There is never a single object to be accused of the cause of war. War is politics propagated by other means. Cotton is an organic product; it can cause nothing.

Cotton played a role in the conduct of the war, because both contrahents earned through trading it with each other throughout the war. That is insane. It implies a conviction on both sides to enter into a pact of blood for money.

The American Civil War was probably one of the first examples of a truly civilian and democratic war, in that the civilian population played a major role in starting the war; not that politicians didn't play a role, but in my opinion, the true cause of the war was the humanity of the people.

There are many aspect to this, and they are difficult to distill to a concise answer. There will always be an extreme marbling in the end product, which speaks for the complexity of human nature. The North would not suffer knowing that slavery was being conducted in the South, but many who would have it abolished, also feared not only a flood of former salves to the North, but feared them altogether. What are these creatures who look so different from us, speak the same language so differently, are so poor and pitiful that one is torn between the disgust at being forced to view him, while at the same time drawn to pity him, to burn with empathy, and a need to free him from his bonds.

The South as a whole was not without any compassion at all for the slaves. But the South developed a slave culture over many decades. Starting with slavery, as with indentured servantry, as simply a part of life, neither dominant, nor entirely important. It did not necessary mean the slave was a lesser person. Class and cast wer more important. But as slavery grew the necessity for a bigger answer grew with it. Because it was a necessity, it had to be excused, even if to excuse it was to poison the soul.

It is entirely human to find excuses for things we cannot otherwise explain. We have a strong need for an answer. If we cannot find an answer which follows logic; logic must be broken and must be changed. We create a logic to meet the facts we know, and produce what we call an answer, not because it answers the question, but because it answers out need.

The answer to the question of slavery was, Africans became less then human, because to treat humans in this manor would be unbearable. God was claimed to have ordained holding blacks as slaves, their lesser value, and lesser humanity. Cognitive dissonance is the results of needing a positive answer, to bolster a required outcome, to a negative situation, by ignoring or perverting the facts. Humans are masters at cognitive dissonance.

So we fought because we felt we were right, we hated the other for pointing to our own shortcomings, hated him for not embracing our views, hated him because we were bothers of the same beloved father, demanding out father's approval and love, and knew he could not give them to both of us if we thought and lived so differently. As a nation of many cultures, we are still struggling with this.

[Captain_Orso]

Dang, I hope I haven't driven anybody to go off to a corner and cut their own wrists

Anyway, back to more game and less pathos

IMHO the way Export Cotton works now does not reasonably represent the role cotton played in the war. But to more closely represent it in the game along these lines, it would take a considerable amount of effort, and not guarantee to actually influence the game; Much Ado About Nothing.

The facts of the current Export Cotton system are:
- The South gets 6 Export Cotton RGD's in the autumn of each year.
- If per chance the Cotton Rot event successfully fires, the South loses 4 Export Cotton RGD's.
- If per chance the Export Cotton event fires, 1 RGD is exchanged for $50.
- If the CS player plays an Export Cotton RGD, its success is guaranteed, but the remittance is only $15.

So what could be done to make this better?

[Citizen X]

Dang, I hope I haven't driven anybody to go off to a corner and cut their own wrists

Anyway, back to more game and less pathos

IMHO the way Export Cotton works now does not reasonably represent the role cotton played in the war. But to more closely represent it in the game along these lines, it would take a considerable amount of effort, and not guarantee to actually influence the game; Much Ado About Nothing.

The facts of the current Export Cotton system are:
- The South gets 6 Export Cotton RGD's in the autumn of each year.
- If per chance the Cotton Rot event successfully fires, the South loses 4 Export Cotton RGD's.
- If per chance the Export Cotton event fires, 1 RGD is exchanged for $50.
- If the CS player plays an Export Cotton RGD, its success is guaranteed, but the remittance is only $15.

So what could be done to make this better?

Err... first to your previous post... amen

I am with you that this system doesn't reflect the important role of cotton in many regards, economically, politcally etc.

However it reflects the Second Economy on cotton quite simply and quite well. With all shortcomings on "simple". A certain amount of smuggle can't be prevented, thus rightfully nothing can be done about it by the North. Then you have options with more or less risks for your endeavour and you hope you pick the right thing for your best bargain. It lacks any nuances and maybe needs tweaking in the loss/gain dpartment but it works.

What isn't being represented maybe is cotton as a factor in the First Economy, but then again we don't even have banks or such and after all it is a wargam, not the Harvard course for national economics.

[Cardinal Ape]

Dang, I hope I haven't driven anybody to go off to a corner and cut their own wrists

I don't want to demean your post with a too low level response, but as one who has only really recently begun to delve into American history with its mind boggling paradoxes I found it insightful. Thanks for sharing.

IMHO the way Export Cotton works now does not reasonably represent the role cotton played in the war. But to more closely represent it in the game along these lines, it would take a considerable amount of effort, and not guarantee to actually influence the game; Much Ado About Nothing.

The facts of the current Export Cotton system are:
- The South gets 6 Export Cotton RGD's in the autumn of each year.
- If per chance the Cotton Rot event successfully fires, the South loses 4 Export Cotton RGD's.
- If per chance the Export Cotton event fires, 1 RGD is exchanged for $50.
- If the CS player plays an Export Cotton RGD, its success is guaranteed, but the remittance is only $15.

So what could be done to make this better?

I think we can do better. What have now are a few bare-bone pieces that don't offer any real choice on their own. You sign the embargo order or you don't. You play the RGD's for a small amount now or wait for more money later. And you always send your runners to the boxes (some game vets refuse to build more because of their bad rate of return.) If these three pieces where brought together, even if it was done in the most rudimentary way, it would help to create a bigger concept of being able to do something with cotton.


The main pieces:
- The diplomatic option to 'Declare a complete cotton embargo'
- Blockade runner units
- RGD cotton export cards and smuggling

If we can link those three things together whilst also introducing a tiny bit more player influence it will come out as something much bigger than the pieces by themselves, I think.