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Marlborough -> Some Comments on Forts and a question on editing (7/19/2008 8:43:40 PM)
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First off, let me say excellent game and I am enjoying it very much. Congratulations to the team for a fine product.
However, I do have one gripe with the game, namely the vast proliferation of forts. I have played through twice as the Union vs. CSA AI, and I think that the one area where the game doesnt have it right just yet is the issue of forts, particularly for the Confederacy.
1. Level 1 forts get constructed way too fast. The CSA invades Kentucky, usually on GT2, and by the end of their move, not only do we have Fortress Paducah, the Gibraltar of the Mississippi, but also usually forts in Bowling Green and Louisville as well. So, before the USA can even react, the CSA is deeply dug in and the US must fight Verdun-like battles to extricate them. I find this unrealistice on a number of counts -- there is no way that such substantial fortifications could be thrown up so quickly, particularly in the early days of the war, and the logistics of moving troops from the Northern border of Tennessee all the way to the Ohio River, and the construction of forts that immediately bar river traffic, etc, just seems to be not right. For example, Forts Henry and Donelson, captured by Grant in February of 1862, were far from being complete, even after 10 months of war. At the time they were captured, they were short on guns, and high water from the Mississippi was inundating one of them.
2. The Confederacy has way too many forts built in regards to the historical capacity to do so. The CSA's ability to build forts in the real war was severely hampered by a lack of the necessary heavy guns, powder, shot, as well as other materials necessary. They had to pick and choose and prioritize where to fortify. They could not throw a string of forts up all along the front, in virtually every region they occupied, and do it all within 30 days time.
3. The vast numbers of forts built by the CSA tend IMHO to disrupt the flow of the game. The Civil War, prior to mid 1864, should be a war of movement and fluid campaigns, not a WWI style grindout between opposing lines of fixed fortifications. When the CSA has forts in depth all along the lines, this war of movement comes to a complete halt. It also adversely affects the CSA in at least two ways -- in both games I have played, the CSA AI concentrated way too much on keeping Fortress Paducah, and continued to have large armies in there even as Grant and Sherman tore through the heartland of Georgia and Alabama. Eventually, their army there was annihilated. The other problem is that when the North can build forts in every region it captures, because they have such high supply output, this makes it hard for the CSA to do any manuevers such as Lee's two invasions to carry the war to the North, or the Confederate counter attacks in the West that resulted in Perryville, Chickamauga, and Franklin. In fact, the only places where I can find in history where CSA attacks ran into serious Union forts and foundered were the Battles of Nashville, the Siege of Petersburg, and Early's abortive strike against Washington, where the attack was called off as soon a VI Corps arrived to man the DC fortifications. However, CSA strikes at Harpers Ferry, Frederick MD, etc all succeeded as part of a war of manuever.
4. The CSA uses up too much supply early in the game building forts, supply which they will need later to maintain their armies. I suspect that the CSA AI fort building frenzy has serious detrimental long term effects on the ability of the AI to sustain its armies.
I would respectfully suggest the following potential solutions in an upcoming patch to correct this problem.
1). Make Forts for the CSA EXTREMELY expensive in terms of supply, which means that tough decision would have to be made and priorities set on siting forts, which would mirror the historical reality of a lack of resources for the CSA to engage in a massive fort building program.
2). At least prior to summer 1864, greatly increase the amount of time it takes to build a fort, either L1 or L2. These structures were not built overnight, but required lots of planning, assembling of materials, etc. A delay of 3 months or even more seems about right to me. This would make players think twice about fortifying too close to the current front line, as the region may fall before the fort is completed. Once again, the CSA should be forced to concentrate on using their very limited fort building resources in only the most strategic locations -- adopting a strategy of fortifying key points such as Chattanooga, Dalton, Atlanta, Memphis, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, Petersburg, etc, rather than building forts in Manassas in July 61. Recall that when McClellan finally got the guts to send some men out towards Manassas on a force recon in early 62, the 'cannons' that he had feared in Confederate 'earthworks' there were actually 'Quaker Guns' -- felled trees painted black as the Confederacy didnt have enough real cannon to fortify the place. Magruder used the same trick at Yorktown on the Peninsula, another phony CSA fort not a real one. Once mid 1864 rolls around, the troops did become quite adept at throwing up breastworks quickly, so the delay for fort building could go back to 1 month then, but certainly that was not the case prior to mid 1864.
3). Change the data files for the regions to greatly limit which regions can have forts built in them at all. There are many regions in the game with no towns or cities, or other terrain or population features that would suggest a fort would ever be built there for any reason. The AI could be helped by removing the eligibility of these regions to ever host a fort. I have tried to do this by editing the .dat files in the 'regions 61' file, but nothing I have tried worked. I have tried inserting a line of 'Fortbuild,0' for the regions I dont want either side to be able to fortify, but that didnt work. I have also tried deleting the 'Fort,0' line in a region, to see if it makes it ineligible to be fortified but that doesnt work either. Any suggestions on how to mod these files to make it impossible to build forts in many of the regions of the game?
I would welcome any feedback on these ideas and comments from fellow players or the design team. Dont think because I went into such great depth on this issue that I dont love the game (I do), just having a bit of trouble feeling that the fort concept is currently implemented right.
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