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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [American Civil War] >> John Tiller's Battleground Series >> Cav VP's

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Cav VP's - 12/12/2005 5:41:12 AM

jpsherfy@yahoo.com

Posts: 15
Joined: 10/1/2005
Status: offline

Every wargame has issues. I hope that Matrix will address some of those in the Napoleonic series. The two main problems I see are that of cavalry and skirmishers. First of all, victory points for cavalry are too high. I find myself firing at enemy cavalry trotting behind my enemies main line of defense because of the high Vp's attached to them. I should be firing my cannon at closer enemies. Maybe the designer assigned such high vps to cavalry so that it would be used for more historical purposes. This might not be a bad way to encourage proper use of cavalry, but the points assigned seem to go overboard here.

The second area is skimishers. This has been mentioned before, but these units need some restrictions on their movement or some way to encourage proper use. Maybe only allow them to move so far from their parent unit and only in broken terrain. I agree with other posts here that if caught in open by larger formed units there should be some way to address skimishers reluctance to engage these types of units. Maybe formed units should be allowed to melee skirmishers without being disrupted. Or maybe there should be a way to just push them back in a melee without losses to the formed unit. Anyway, I hope that some of these issues might be addressed in reissues of these games. Good luck.

Post #: 1

RE: Cav VP's - 12/12/2005 5:41:32 PM

rich

Posts: 15
Joined: 5/4/2005
Status: offline

Modifying cavalry vps is an easy enough fix - in fact players can do it themselves by altering the pdt file. However an official fix would be preferable. I'd recommend either 3pts or 4pts for cavalry & artillery, depending on scenario. Incidentally, the NIR values are lower than those in PTW & BGW, so some standardization may be worthwhile.

A skirmisher leash - perhaps restricting skirmisher movement away from formed units (or in the case of sub-units from the parent unit) to say 3 hexes in open terrain - would be a useful modification. Perhaps a distinction between skirmisher sub-units, which should remain close to their parent body, and light infantry skirmishers (which might be left in chateaux, villages, woods, etc even if no formed units are nearby) would be a good idea.

I agree that formed units should be allowed to melee skirmishers without being disrupted (as in the HPS games), however I disagree about the formed units not taking losses - in fact it makes sense for them to take heavier losses than the skirmishers in melee, since within the abstract context of a 15 minute turn, the skirmishers would almost certainly fire before falling back and would of course avoid actual physical contact, so there wouldn't really be any "melee". Also the skirmishers - in loose order - wouldn't present such a good target as the advancing column/line of regulars.

So a "melee" would actually represent the formed troops advancing under fire and the skirmishers falling back. Consequently, it makes sense for a formed unit to be able to "melee" skirmishers multiple times in a single turn, pushing them back hex by hex (although probably with a movement penalty) yet suffering casualties from the withdrawing skirmishers and rarely inflicting any losses on the skirmishers themselves. This would reflect the role of skirmishers to harass formed units. Of course if the skirmishers are in difficult terrain, this would be a different situation and the formed unit would almost certainly become disrupted and probably take heavier losses to clear out the skirmishers. If the skirmishers were occupying a chateau it would be very hard to dislodge them at all.

(in reply to jpsherfy@yahoo.com)

Post #: 2

RE: Cav VP's - 12/12/2005 7:00:51 PM

pyguinard

Posts: 139
Joined: 8/18/2005
From: Montr�al, Qc
Status: offline

The point of meleeing skirmishers with formed battalions has been addressed in the latest patches and I think it works fine by now. On mel�es against skirmishers companies, the battalion doesn't get disrupted in open terrain but does in obstructed hexes (forest, town, etc). In my opinion, it makes sense that way.

To me, the real problem comes on the movement phase when in clear terrain, a big unit can be prevented from moving ahead just because of some 25 skirmishers in the way. There should be some way of overrunning those kinds of obstacles (perhaps with of an algorythm that calculates the odds)...