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ORIGINAL: andysomers

Boy - I am so very excited to see this game coming. I have been waiting for a full strategic and tactical ACW sim for a LONG time. This looks to be the real deal!

I have been playing ACW strategy and board games since the mid-1980's, and have seen virtually everything there is to offer - let me say, you guys seem to be spot on for every aspect.

I have many questions for you, many of these are based on interpretations of the 6 screenshots available.

1 - Supply - How will your suply system work? Will you have to hold open a connection to a major town or a supply depot? Can you carry supply (i.e. baggage trains/wagons)? What wil be supply routes (rivers/railroads/roads?)

Unlike our first game, "Crown of Glory," in which one had to built depots, supply themselves lines are abstracted, but there are several factors one must track and, if necessary, react to if one is to keep ones armies well supplied. For example, armies/corps/divisions with better and worse logistical ratings will be supplied more and less easily. One needs to set one's supply priorities for all units, ideally giving higher priority to units that may engage in battle very soon. (The others can be kept at low supply, or told to forage for themselves.) If units are poorly supplied they lose men through attrition and their disposition goes down.

These are just some of the rules relating to supply. Overall, I'd say that supply is an incredibly significant factor, but at the same time the system for ensuring that one is well supplied is reasonably simple, even if the ramifications of good or bad supply are numerous.

2 - Rivers - What role will rivers play? Will there be major and minor rivers? Are they primary supply lines? How will you play in ships navigation on the rivers? I assume that your navies wil be divided into river-going and ocean-going fleets - will ocean-going fleets have some river navigation (i.e. coastal/estuarial parts of major rivers, Delaware, Mississippi, York, James, etc.)

River provinces with major cities (e.g., Savannah, Memphis, Mobile, etc.) produce resources and military units, and can be of vital importance. Other river provinces are less important. All of them represent significant barriers to movement, some more than others.

We have gunboats that can sail up rivers to besiege forts, but no other brown-water navy vessels. The reason is that most such battles involved just a few ships on each side, and it would not have been very fun to play. We do have more variety for the open seas: warships, fleets (= amphibious transports) and ironclads, which can all engage in a quick combat. We also have blockade-runners for the South, which are essential to its economy.

3 - Strategic military movement - What type of convention are you using to divide the map on this level? Hex-based? If so what are the size of the hexes (i.e. 15-mile, 25-mile, etc.)? Is it based on the regional "risk-type" map? If so, that seems too large, and can opposing forces occupy the same region?

The U.S. map is divided into "provinces," and these vary in size and shape. Tennessee, for example, is divided into seven provinces, including Cumberland River and the part of the Mississippi River where Memphis is.

Opposing forces cannot be in the same province without a battle breaking out. One needs to conquer provinces to win the game (or, if you're the South, keep the North from conquering your provinces).

4 - Naval involvement - What is the strategy with navies? river-borne and ocean crafts? What types of ships? Will the navies be allowed to interact with land actions (i.e. fort bombardment, blocking of key bridges, etc.)

I answered most of this above, but will add that there are some special rules intended to encourage the use of navies. For example, if the North successfully blockades southern ports it can cripple the economy, and get victory points. Also, if the North can control all of the provinces into which the Mississippi River is divided it cuts off the west, and the CSA receives no more income from those states -- sort of the Anaconda Plan.

5 - Starting point - How difficult would it be to establish a July '61 start point? Most games on this scale start at that point (i.e. Pre-1st Bull Run). This would allow for a bit of 1861 campaigning (Bull Run, Wilson's Creek, Belmont/Columbus, etc.) and open Missouri to possible CS capture. Can you give an option of several start points (e.g. 7/61, 11/61, 1862, 1863, 1864 starts, etc.)?

I don't believe I'd be speaking out of school to confirm that we will have a second, First Bull Run scenario. The other one will be November 1861, which is our standard scenario because the game begins in a very balanced way. At this point, we cannot add any other scenarios without delaying the game's release, but something may be possible in the future.


6 - Kentucky - How are you factoring in Kentucky "neutrality"? Will there be penalties to the side that enters the state first? Most games typically factor this. Does the late (i.e. 11/61) start remove this factor in your mind?

This is still being tweaked, but essentially, Kentucky joins one side randomly, with the chance it will reach a decision increasing each turn. We're still determining whether we need to make changes to the degree of randomness as we play-test. But no matter what, in the Nov. 1861 scenario Kentucky always begins neutral.

Thanks for a great effort and what appears to be the best game on the ACW in a LONG LONG time!

Andy Somers
Huntsville, AL

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ORIGINAL: andysomers

Another subject - fortifications.

Some of the games that I've played and helped design have a limit on fortifications, especially pre-1864. This avoids a WWI type scenario where the CS builds up a defensive line and waits behind defensive fortifications to be attacked, holding out to reach the usual 1865 or Election of 1864 victory condition. What is your philosophy on fortifications, both permanent earthen (e.g. Vicksburg, Washington DC, Petersburg) and masonry forts (Ft. Morgan, Pulaski et. al), and large scale field works (e.g. Mule Shoe salient at Spotslvania)? Will there be limits or something simliar to avoid a full-fledged trench warfare? Thanks!

AS

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The U.S. map is divided into "provinces," and these vary in size and shape. Tennessee, for example, is divided into seven provinces, including Cumberland River and the part of the Mississippi River where Memphis is.

Opposing forces cannot be in the same province without a battle breaking out. One needs to conquer provinces to win the game (or, if you're the South, keep the North from conquering your provinces).

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We have gunboats that can sail up rivers to besiege forts, but no other brown-water navy vessels. The reason is that most such battles involved just a few ships on each side, and it would not have been very fun to play. We do have more variety for the open seas: warships, fleets (= amphibious transports) and ironclads, which can all engage in a quick combat. We also have blockade-runners for the South, which are essential to its economy.

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We have three kinds of forts, Type I-III, with Type III being large masonry forts.

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ORIGINAL: andysomers

Thanks for your answers! Let me say before I continue comment that I do not know you guys nor you me, so any suggestions I give is certainly not meant to insult your intelligence. You guys clearly know a good product. That said, I would like to respond a bit more to your comments/answers:

We appreciate your comments very much. I'll try to respond below.

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The U.S. map is divided into "provinces," and these vary in size and shape. Tennessee, for example, is divided into seven provinces, including Cumberland River and the part of the Mississippi River where Memphis is.

Opposing forces cannot be in the same province without a battle breaking out. One needs to conquer provinces to win the game (or, if you're the South, keep the North from conquering your provinces).

I have yet to play an ACW game at this level on the, I'll call it "RISK"-type subdivisions of land. I tend to think that is probably too large, I always liked hex-based (15-20 mile size hexes). This seemingly gives more advantages for terrain management and army positioning, and would seem to me to provide a more seamless interface to bridge the gap between the strategic and tactical maps. However, I see the ton of accolades that you have gotten for Crown of Glory, and I am very willing to try something new. I will withhold judgement until the product is revealed!

My only question would be this - the tacitcal battles that will take place in these "provinces" - will they be on one terrain type every time? Since they cover a fairly large area, it would seem to me that several different possibly randomized battle grounds are offered. Example, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, Wilderness, and other numerous small engagements were probably fought in the same "province" as you have the map divided, but each featured much different terrain and basic maps. How do you account for this or do you?

You're absolutely right that this is a key consideration. Right now, the terrain is completely random, but on my harddrive there is an Excel spreadsheet just waiting for my attention. The spreadsheet lists all 200+ provinces, and has nearly 20 columns in which I'll be inputting terrain types, so that Mountainous and Very Mountainous appear in Shenandoah but not Kansas, or Swampy and Very Swampy appear in Everglades, etc. etc. Every battle in detailed combat takes place on a randomly drawn map consisting of two terrain types -- e.g., "swampy and flat," "open and riverine," "flat and open," "populated and forested" -- so the program will be drawing from this file so that the right terrains are in the right part of the country. And yes, we do have The Wilderness, going right where it should be.

You might be glad to know that if your side makes an initiative check you get to choose which terrain you wish to fight in. So, if you're the CSA and don't have as much artillery as your opponent, you can choose "swampy" or "riverine" to slow down their artillery movements, or can choose "open" to help your cavalry advantage.

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We have gunboats that can sail up rivers to besiege forts, but no other brown-water navy vessels. The reason is that most such battles involved just a few ships on each side, and it would not have been very fun to play. We do have more variety for the open seas: warships, fleets (= amphibious transports) and ironclads, which can all engage in a quick combat. We also have blockade-runners for the South, which are essential to its economy.

I think your naval philosphy is correct - I like it. I would suggest adding river ironclads and river troop transports. These were highly utilized. Additionally, I would like to see limited river navigation by ocean fleets (i.e. an ocean going vessel or fleet should be able to engage New Orleans via the MS River, etc.)

It's an interesting suggestion, and I don't remember the decision-making process that led us to omit such units. But at this point, to make our release schedule, I don't believe that our programmer or graphics guy can do this. But you should definitely post it as a suggestion (if you still feel it's necessary) when the game comes out and we're soliciting suggestions for what should go in patches.

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We have three kinds of forts, Type I-III, with Type III being large masonry forts.

A couple follow up questions here and comment. Is a Type III (masonry fort) inherently more impenetrable than a strong Type II? I think that the masonry forts should not be deemed as the strongest in the game. One tactical advance of the Civil War is that rifled cannons essentially made this type of fort functionally obsolete. For reference, examine the 1862 US action to bomabrd and subsequently capture Fort Pulaski near Savannah. A bombardment with rifled cannon lasting little over a day reduced the fort to an extent that the magazines were exposed and the fort surrendered. The US government began retrofitting some of these coastal defenses with reinforced concrete improvements during the Span-Am war (look at modern photos at Ft. Morgan, Alabama) to counter the advancement of rifled artillery. Reinforced concrete was state of the art in permanent fortifications up to and during part of WWII. Moreover, masonry forts typically could only house smaller garrisons (1-2000) and not an army or even division size type of force.

My beef on this issue is that Washington DC was the heaviest and most impenetable fortress in the world during the ACW, with Richmond being the second most, by most all accounts. However, masonry forts were not a part of either of these fortification complexes. Earthen fortifications proved their worth in the ACW, this strategy prevailing until WWI and beyond.

What I would suggest is this. Establish masonry forts at the start of the war in their historical locations and give each a stock of heavy guns. Players may choose to occupy them as they wish, but limit the size of the garrison. Still allow construction of the level 1, 2, and 3 forts, but they should be earthen, with only the most formidable fortifcations limited to DC and Richmond, perhaps one other location per side, or make them so expensive that each side can only afford one or two.

This may be splitting hairs, and this may be a misunderstanding of this issue, either way it's just a friendly suggestion (as are all my comments!). Whatever the case, thank you again for your diligence and effort into answering this and all the other questions. It is great marketing and PR for you guys. If I can be of any further help, please let me know. I would invite you (and any other forum members) to visit my free online civil war role play (now in beta mode) at Campaign TARP - 1863 East. It may give you some ideas for carryover into your game that may be easy to incorporate. I appreciate the opportunity to comment!

I think your points about forts are all very valid. I may have misremembered the definition of the different types of forts. Fort Type III is our largest fort (and thus holds the largest garrison), but I do not believe that these are exclusively masonry. It just so happens that most of them are. Since it's been half a year or so since I've dealt with the specifics of the different types of forts I think I'll ask Eric to stop programming for a moment so that he can respond.

Incidentally, I visited Fort Pulaski while at a friend's wedding back in June, so I know just what you mean about the damage it suffered.

AS

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ORIGINAL: andysomers

Gil,

Thanks again for your diligent response. I understand the need to get the game out, and can see the need at some point to stop "innovations" for the sake of getting product on the shelves (maybe it won't quite go to "11" - loved your comment in the other thread!). I will comment additionally when the game come out - I have a ton of other ideas that I would like to share with someone. This truly is the game that I have been looking for, I am so very excited to see it near completion. I have been trying to personally come up with some version of it on my own in my spare time - this far exceeds a lot of what I have dreamed up.

Is this the best avenue for comment until the game is released?

Thanks again for your repsonses and the opportunity to voice input.

AS

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Opposing forces cannot be in the same province without a battle breaking out. One needs to conquer provinces to win the game (or, if you're the South, keep the North from conquering your provinces).

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ORIGINAL: Gresbeck

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Opposing forces cannot be in the same province without a battle breaking out. One needs to conquer provinces to win the game (or, if you're the South, keep the North from conquering your provinces).

You mean a force can't try to avoid battle? In CoG it's possible, and I like such a feature, considering that provinces are rather large.