RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy

RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (Full Version)

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chris0827 -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 7:22:43 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Steely Glint quote: ORIGINAL: chris0827 You overstate the south's advantage in leadership. Only in Virginia did the south have a significant edge in quality leaders. In the west the Union generals were at least the equal of their southern opponents. Nonsense. Until Grant (and Sherman) showed up in the West the Union forces there were run by the usual collection of clowns. The only Union victories gathered there were the results of brute force and massive ignorance. Which is not to say that there weren't some clowns in gray, too...but they were the exceptions and not the rule. And no Union general in the West (or anywhere else) could hold a candle to Nathan Bedford Forrest. Bryce's Crossroads will still be being taught in military academies when they are training officers for the Space Marines. Grant was there from the beginning and Sherman came back from a nervous breakdown in feb, 1862.

Steely Glint -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 7:42:50 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: chris0827 Grant was there from the beginning and Sherman came back from a nervous breakdown in feb, 1862. I am fully aware of the histories of both Grant and Sherman (in fact one of the biographies of Sherman is one of my favorite Civil War bios), but being present is not the same as being significant.

Steely Glint -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 7:46:16 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jchastain Second only to Captain Garth's achievements at Axanar. If I am not mistaken, I believe those lessons come immediate before the Kobayashi Maru scenario in the curriculum. [;)] Yes, but while Garth wound up institutionalized on Elba II, Forrest went on to be the president of a railroad. :)

chris0827 -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 7:53:52 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Steely Glint quote: ORIGINAL: chris0827 Grant was there from the beginning and Sherman came back from a nervous breakdown in feb, 1862. I am fully aware of the histories of both Grant and Sherman (in fact one of the biographies of Sherman is one of my favorite Civil War bios), but being present is not the same as being significant. How are Grant's victories insignificant?

Mike Scholl -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 8:43:54 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Steely Glint I am fully aware of the histories of both Grant and Sherman (in fact one of the biographies of Sherman is one of my favorite Civil War bios), but being present is not the same as being significant. Henry/Donaldson, Shiloh, Vicksburg and Chattanooga are hardly insignificant..., way over 50,000 Confederate Casualties (Killed, Wounded, and Captured).

Steely Glint -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 3:58:15 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: chris0827 How are Grant's victories insignificant? What I wrote was "Until Grant (and Sherman) showed up in the West the Union forces there were run by the usual collection of clowns" by which I did not mean them not just being physically present there but being in major command. Sheesh. Yes, I know their records and backgounds and the politics of Grant's rise. None of that has anything to do with the point, which was that the utterly overwhelming majority of Union leaders in the West before the rise of Grant and Sherman were clowns.

Steely Glint -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 3:58:49 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl Henry/Donaldson, Shiloh, Vicksburg and Chattanooga are hardly insignificant..., way over 50,000 Confederate Casualties (Killed, Wounded, and Captured). Straw man argument. See above.

Mike Scholl -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 4:20:14 PM)
"What I wrote was "Until Grant (and Sherman) showed up in the West the Union forces there were run by the usual collection of clowns" by which I did not mean them not just being physically present there but being in major command. Sheesh. Yes, I know their records and backgounds and the politics of Grant's rise." quote: ORIGINAL: Steely Glint quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl Henry/Donaldson, Shiloh, Vicksburg and Chattanooga are hardly insignificant..., way over 50,000 Confederate Casualties (Killed, Wounded, and Captured). Straw man argument. See above. Baloney! Just what "usual collection of clowns" were fighting in the West? First significant battles were Wilson's Creek and Ft. Donaldson in early 1862. And gee.., look who was in command at the larger one? Grant was there from the start at Belmont. And if Lyon hadn't gotten himself killed they would have had another solid commander available. The Army of the Ohio suffered with some slow-moving leaders..., though they managed to defeat Bragg more often than not, so they weren't that bad. Halleck and Pope werre not much good in the field, but both were gone by the Summer of 1862. The reason the Union was winning the War in the West was because they weren't saddled with a collection of clowns (Banks efforts are a noticable exception---but the South had Pemberton and Bragg to balance him out).

Warfare1 -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 5:25:51 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Steely Glint My ancestor? I'll PM you a clue, but he is no one to be particularly proud of. The Union had a bigger and better economy, better armaments, better logistics, more troops, and a far better railroad system. Despite this they could not manage to win the war until 1865, and the war could very well have ended in a draw. How could this have happened? Leadership. The South's leadership advantage over the North was immense. Whether it was Lee et al at the army level (leaving the abominable Braxton Bragg out of this), Jackson et al at the corps level, Mahone et al at the division level, or Forrest et al with the cavalry, the superb leadership of the South consistently enabled outnumbered, outarmed, and outsupplied men to not only hold their own against vastly superior forces time after time, but to defeat them over and over again. Until the advent of Grant, whose strengths lay in his refusal to quit and his willingness both to take risks and to engage in a war of attrition on a shocking scale, the Union never had a prayer. I was wondering when someone would bring this issue up. I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head with this post. Lincoln was at his wits end trying to get his commanders to fight - and to win those fights - with the south. He replaced general after general. Leadership, morale, and aggressiveness are the issues here.

mlees -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 5:47:17 PM)
Steely Glint, are you seeing your games end too fast, with a Union victory?

Paper Tiger -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 6:15:27 PM)
I think from what is being said it is an initiative issue, the early Union commanders just didn't move. Perhaps the game needs an initiative check for movement where the commander needs to pass the check to allow the move. So a Maclellan who would have a low initiative rating would mostly fail his check and just sit and wait, he may fight a reasonable defensive battle and may train his men well but he won't often make an aggressive move. That way until the Union gets some decent commanders his armies will effectively defend in place or move by Rail only.

elmo3 -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 6:21:29 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Paper Tiger I think from what is being said it is an initiative issue, the early Union commanders just didn't move. Perhaps the game needs an initiative check for movement where the commander needs to pass the check to allow the move. So a Maclellan who would have a low initiative rating would mostly fail his check and just sit and wait, he may fight a reasonable defensive battle and may train his men well but he won't often make an aggressive move. That way until the Union gets some decent commanders his armies will effectively defend in place or move by Rail only. See page 101 of the manual. There already is an optional inititive check that can be used for movement.

histgamer -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 6:34:26 PM)
Just a note Lincoln in many cases was as much of a handicap on his generals as they were upon themselves. The Union had several Great corps Commanders in the east, (well at least Hancock and Reynolds, Couch wasn�t bad either and Sykes was pretty good as well)(Hooker wasn�t that bad either he just suffered from the Lee mentality and scared himself to much so to attack and thus gave Lee the Initiative. ) The problem was the president was a handicap as well, I am sure many of you know Reynolds (probably the best union general that start out east with Hancock being a closer runner up) refused command of the army because Lincoln wouldn�t let him fight the war the way he saw fit. It wasn�t until Grant arrived that Lincoln finally realized he couldn�t micromanage the war and he would have to let his generals fight it. McClellan was no great general either way but he did get worse as he became more paranoid and he became more paranoid as it became clear Lincoln would tell him one thing in person then go back to Washington and do something else (at least that�s how it looked from MACs perspective)

chris0827 -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 8:03:44 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Steely Glint quote: ORIGINAL: chris0827 How are Grant's victories insignificant? What I wrote was "Until Grant (and Sherman) showed up in the West the Union forces there were run by the usual collection of clowns" by which I did not mean them not just being physically present there but being in major command. Sheesh. Yes, I know their records and backgounds and the politics of Grant's rise. None of that has anything to do with the point, which was that the utterly overwhelming majority of Union leaders in the West before the rise of Grant and Sherman were clowns. You don't get it. The rise of Grant was early in the war. He was an army commander in early 1862. If the commanders before him were such idiots how did they drive the confederates out of Missouri and Kentucky?

histgamer -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 8:25:18 PM)
Chris he does get it, Grant was an army commander true but Hallack basiclly refused to allow to much success especially after Shiloh. Grant was an army commander but not at the top of command.

histgamer -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 8:28:24 PM)
Just a note Grant was no lee either. (and im a northerner at heart)

chris0827 -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 8:35:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: flanyboy Chris he does get it, Grant was an army commander true but Hallack basiclly refused to allow to much success especially after Shiloh. Grant was an army commander but not at the top of command. Halleck took personal command of the western armies after shiloh but got kicked upstairs to commander in chief of the union armies in july 1862. After that Grant was basically on his own. I'm still waiting to hear how the union clowns kicked the confederates out of Kentucky and Missouri. Also I'd like to hear why the confederates only won one major battle in the west during the entire war and they needed reinforcements from virginia to win that one. I guess those union clowns were really lucky.

histgamer -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 8:46:19 PM)
The Union was not victorious at Perryville. The south withdrew because Bragg was a moron (none of his commanders liked the move) P.S. The Union was on the whole massively outclassed by the rebels, there were some exceptions, Reynolds and Hancock in the east, Grant and Sherman in the west, oh yea don�t forget Thomas but he didn�t rise to prominence till later in the war. That said on the whole the CSA generals were much better, Cleburne was better than anything the north was able to bring to bear, Forrest was the greatest cavalry commander of the war. The South lost in the west because of several things 1 the north had every advantage outside of generals so if your at least competent you should be able to win. 2 the southern army commanders out west were not very good either. An OK general with 30,000 men should beat and will beat almost every time an OK to slightly above Ok general with 20,000 men.

chris0827 -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 9:17:28 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: flanyboy The Union was not victorious at Perryville. The south withdrew because Bragg was a moron (none of his commanders liked the move) � P.S. The Union was on the whole massively outclassed by the rebels, there were some exceptions, Reynolds and Hancock in the east, Grant and Sherman in the west, oh yea don�t forget Thomas but he didn�t rise to prominence till later in the war. � That said on the whole the CSA generals were much better, Cleburne was better than anything the north was able to bring to bear, Forrest was the greatest cavalry commander of the war. � The South lost in the west because of several things 1 the north had every advantage outside of generals so if your at least competent you should be able to win. 2 the southern army commanders out west were not very good either. � An OK general with 30,000 men should beat and will beat almost every time an OK to slightly above Ok general with 20,000 men. I never said the union won at Perryville but the south did retreat after the battle. I would call it a draw. The union outnumbered the south by even more in the east yet lost most battles. I guess those western union generals must've done something right. I'll repeat my earlier statement. Only in the east did the confederates have a significant advantage in leadership. In the west the union leaders were at least the equal of the southern ones. For exery bad union leader in the west you can name I can name a bad confederate one.

Gil R. -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/5/2006 11:47:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Twotribes One can hardly deny that historic realities were thrown out the window for play balance here. All one has to do is compare the economies, the starting navies, the HUGE disaster that disease is on any army in an enemy province, the limits placed on raising troops ( for both sides) This is incorrect: disease is no more likely to strike an army in enemy territory than friendly territory. The only difference would be that in enemy territory an army can't get the benefits of any of its hospitals and therefore will suffer worse from disease, but that's no different from being in a friendly province that lacks hospitals. Maybe you got this impression by a few especially bad outbreaks when your armies were in enemy territory, but there's nothing in the code that would make this happen.

histgamer -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/6/2006 12:32:09 AM)
Chris if your trying to say that there were an equal number of bad leaders on each side, then somhow all the bad union ones took command at the start of the war in the east. Dosnt make much sense. The Union if they had commanders as good as you seam to sugest they should have won the war by late 1862. The fact is on the whole the south had better generals.

Twotribes -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/6/2006 12:33:50 AM)
In 2 weeks I lost nearly 200000 troops to disease, half the available army, simply because I moved into Fredricksburg, something I HAVE to do if I ever plan to win. Fredricksburg sits right next to 2 of my many Hospitals to no avail because of Code. Be so kind as to provide an historical precedent from the war where half of an invading army died simply by moving a few miles into enemy territory from disease. I suggest that disease plays a bigger role then it should and is specifically designed to hamstring the person on offense. all fine and dandy IF the game also werent designed in manila form to permanently remove these troops forever ( same as dieing) and prevent any reasonably close number of troops to be raised by either side that actually fought in the war. More to the point, when I did this move I had researched and available all the hospital techs I know of EXCEPT the one for detailed battles ( I did not fight a detailed battle). Furthermore with 3 or four forts to reduce to capture said province it is a continueing drain as I reduce each fort ( didnt attack all 4 at once because I was afraid the crash would get me) with the size of forces there it is easy enough to take the forts, but out west it takes several turns to reduce a single fort which means I spend MANY turns subject to random lose ( of 28 percent?) of all forces engaged even though Hospitals are available but code wont let them effect "enemy" territory. Which begs the question, how does a couple brigades of enemy troops bottled up in forts or cities prevent medical staff with the invading armies from doing their jobs?

chris0827 -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/6/2006 12:43:42 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: flanyboy Chris if your trying to say that there were an equal number of bad leaders on each side, then somhow all the bad union ones took command at the start of the war in the east. Dosnt make much sense. The Union if they had commanders as good as you seam to sugest they should have won the war by late 1862. The fact is on the whole the south had better generals. Try reading what I said. I'll say it again for the third time. The south had better generals in the east and the generals in the west were about the same. How else do you explain the south winning most battles in the east while losing most battles in the west? The south was also usually outnumbered by more in the east than in the west. The only major battle won by the confederates in the west was the one where they outnumbered the union.

Twotribes -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/6/2006 12:55:39 AM)
My Take is that in the West it was harder for a general to gain the eye of Lincoln due to the nature of the battles and campaigns through 1863. It was easier for a higher commander to be noticed out west and to not realize his subordinates not he were the reason for victories due to the distance involved and again the nature of personalities and reporting. The process made for the problem early on. In the case of the South they brought their best to Virginia quick or they happened to be there already AND again the nature of the war meant they were more noticable then the Generals in the west. So not so great Generals stayed in the West and the good ones got sent to Virginia or were not released from Virginia. Overall the South had the intial bulk of "good" generals. They also had less wiggle room to tolerate the mediocre or poor ones.

Mike Scholl -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/6/2006 1:13:15 AM)
I'd say it's more like the South had Robert E. Lee..., who was blessed to find two very capable subordinates and develope a number of others. Everywhere else they suffered with the same mediocracy that bedeviled the Union in the Eastern Theatre. In the West the average Union quality was superior (Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas) to what the South could supply (BraGg, Pemberton, Johnson & Johnston) in the main. And of course the Union had Farragut and Porter, for which the South had no real reply at all.

chris0827 -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/6/2006 1:21:06 AM)
Lee had the pull to send generals he didn't want west. That's how rejects like Holmes and Huger ended up there. I think he was mistaken about Magruder. Magruder didn't do any worse than Jackson at the seven days and did well in Texas.

keystone -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/6/2006 1:23:58 AM)
The South had some great leaders in the West, they were just never elevated to higher command positions. Polk and Bragg were Davis favorites, Breckinridge was a threat politically to Davis. Cleburne and others were threats because if allowed ind. command they might unseat him, or so he thought, if they were successfull. Bragg had severe mental problems that hindered not only battlefield decisions but other commanders also. But I believe the main factor in the West was the troops, I think the men that came from the Mid-West were just as tough and resilient as any the South had to offer. And given decent leadership these men could beat Bragg any day of the week, especially with Cheatham(a raging drunk) as his favorite div. commander.

chris0827 -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/6/2006 1:29:30 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: keystone The South had some great leaders in the West, they were just never elevated to higher command positions. Polk and Bragg were Davis favorites, Breckinridge was a threat politically to Davis. Cleburne and others were threats because if allowed ind. command they might unseat him, or so he thought, if they were successfull. Bragg had severe mental problems that hindered not only battlefield decisions but other commanders also. But I believe the main factor in the West was the troops, I think the men that came from the Mid-West were just as tough and resilient as any the South had to offer. And given decent leadership these men could beat Bragg any day of the week, especially with Cheatham(a raging drunk) as his favorite div. commander. Cleburne suggested freeing slaves to fight. That's why he never rose above division command. He was probably the best division commander of the war. It would've been interesting to see what he could've done with a corps.

Mike Scholl -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/6/2006 3:43:40 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: keystone The South had some great leaders in the West, they were just never elevated to higher command positions. Polk and Bragg were Davis favorites, Breckinridge was a threat politically to Davis. Cleburne and others were threats because if allowed ind. command they might unseat him, or so he thought, if they were successfull. Bragg had severe mental problems that hindered not only battlefield decisions but other commanders also. But I believe the main factor in the West was the troops, I think the men that came from the Mid-West were just as tough and resilient as any the South had to offer. And given decent leadership these men could beat Bragg any day of the week, especially with Cheatham(a raging drunk) as his favorite div. commander. The problem with this arguement is exactly that..., They were never elevated to higher command. Hood, Meade, and Sheridan had all been excellent Division Commanders. Given an Army, one was a disaster, one mearly adequate, and one did well. All we know for sure about Patrick Cleburne is that "he was an excellent Division Commander".

Steely Glint -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/6/2006 3:57:26 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl Baloney! Just what "usual collection of clowns" were fighting in the West? Baloney yourself. The collection of clowns running the Union Western Theater before the rise of Grant and Sherman were led by such notable losers as Henry Halleck, Don Carlos Buell, David Hunter, John Fremont, and Ben "Spoons" Butler. After Grant and Sherman rose to prominence, yes, things changed. But prior to that rise the CSA leadership in the West was dramtically superior to the Union leadership (with Braxton Bragg, a classic example of what goes wrong when you appoint generals for political/personal reasons, being the significant exception). Given the tremendous disparity of forces and resources you only have to look at how little that the Union was able to accomplish with such vastly superior numbers, weapons, equipment, logistics, support, money, not to mention a far superior railway system and control of the rivers and the sea before the rise of Grant and Sherman and their proteges (and outside of them afterwards) compared to what they should have been able to accomplish and you get a picture of just how totally, awfully, woefully bad the Union leadership in the West really was. And if you want a clear picture of just how bad Union leadership in the West was outside of the Grant-Sherman clique and their proteges, take a hard look at the Red River campaign. Militarily, a five to one advantage in troops and a vast superiority in armaments, equipment and logistics should guarantee a victory even given just marginally competent leadership. Even just plain bad leadership should be able to accomplish at least something with that kind of force disparity. Yet the Union leadership in the West was so incredibly bad that the Union forces failed to accomplish even a single one of their objectives in this campaign. Yes, not even one. There are numerous - far, far too many - other examples. Even very late in the war, the Union leadership in the West was simply abominable. Look up the operations of CSA Colonel John "Rip" Ford and his legendary Cavalry of the West in South Texas, in which his ad hoc militia collection of mounted Texan "children and old men" - local underage and overage volunteers judged unfit for CSA service even in 1865 who were mounted on whatever they could scrounge and who lived off whatever they could find - crushed and routed vastly larger Union regular forces at such places as Brownsville and Palmito Hill through nothing more than superior leadership. Or look up the repulse of the superior Union forces at Laredo in 1864 by the 33rd Texas Cavalry (the Benavides Regiment), where Colonel Santos Benavides routed Union forces despite being visibly outnumbered on the field of battle by the Union forces by - you guessed it - five to one. Do I even have to mention such well-known figures as Forrest, or any of his battles such as Bryce's Crossroads, where he beat a far larger, far better supplied, far better armed Union force like a dog through nothing at all but vastly superior leadership? It's easy to win when you have not only overwhelming numbers on your side but also far better weapons, equipment, logistics, support, far more money, a much better railway system and control of the rivers and the sea. It takes bad leadership at an epic level to overcome such huge advantages and get whipped repeatedly by dramatically inferior forces, short of weapons, horses, supplies, you name it, but the Union managed this feat over and over again. Let me say this again: with the exception of the Grant/Sherman crowd, the Union leadership in the West, even in 1864 and 1865, still looked like nothing so much as a clown show. Leadership, leadership, leadership. The CSA had it in spades; the USA with a very few notable exceptions (Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, Hancock and a few others) simply never had it and the Union political hierarchy had trouble identifying what scarce talent it actually did have. It took Lincoln until 1863 to recognize that the members of the Grant/Sherman crowd (including Sheridan and Thomas) were at least, unlike other Union generals, willing to fight and that - even better - they were willing to engage not only in a style of war that involved not only planned and ordered atrocities against civilians (see Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley and Shermans's March to the Sea) but also in a bloodbath war of attrition that canceled out the South's advanatge in leadership the only way that it could be canceled out - through a blood-based attritional combat style based on brute force and massive ignorance (see the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, etc.) Take away the Grant/Sherman crowd , the atrocity campaigns and the final bloody war of attrition and the Union was so badly outgeneraled that it could never have won the war anywhere but in its dreams.

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