Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: spruce

Mr Mike Scholl, I don't know what you've been smoking, but I don't like your attitude at all. Tobacco..., and my attitude is that of a serious historian. Your like or dislike is immaterial to the discussion

First of all, I don't have to show a single example to you - because the guys of WCS have designed this game and dedicated many hours of their precious time to come up with a nice game. I support their approach fully. So I would like you to show examples of battles with no wounded, deserting, captured, routed, out of command units. I think you should reconsider before you start to inflate on the matter.
No, you don't have to show me a single historic example. But if you can't, you should not expect to be taken seriously. And there is no such thing as a "battle with no wounded, deserting, captured" or routed units. They are generally listed in the Casualty Lists as "missing", (As in Killed, Wounded, and Missing) and are part of the casualty numbers I'm refering to

Second, if you would reply directly to the game dev's, you might get a more focused discussion, if you claim you know all about Erics remarks - which I fully support - just reply to his words directly ... and stop insinuating that I'm making claims out of the blue. If you want to change the game - concinve Eric, not me. That's why I am posting..., to convince Eric. But you seem to have appointed yourself his "champion", so I invited you to engage in meaningful discussion.

Third, I'm not even a US citizen, I'm not a specialist on the matter, but from what I've seen I think the guys at WCS are right = You've made that plain. You've just failed to support your possition.

the point is that stragglers, casualties, deserters, routed - and out of command units take a toll on your battle ready figure ... it's not that the battle report in Fof only displays dead guys, they are the sum of a whole list of stuff...

Stop attacking me, and stay to the point I haven't "attacked" you..., simply invited you to support your assertions. And as far as I can tell, your only "point" is that the designers made the game, so they must know everything about the subject and be right in every decision. My experiance in 45+ years of historical study and gaming tell me that this is not necessarily the case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brice's_Crossroads
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Manassas

by the way - it's up to WCS to decide how many troops get out of command during or after such a fierce battle. But if you play f.e. MMG Take Command 2'nd Manassas (a tactical civil war game) you'll know what I'm talking about - when you play Longstreets offense on the Union Left wing and center - you'll notice a great number of Union regiments will begin to waver and panick and run off - and might even rout. I've played a lot of Civil War games..., but I don't assume that my experiance in this artificial environment is the equivelant to serious historical study. Games are fun, and some catch the "feel" of certain elements of reality quite well. Others have almost nothing to do with reality. This one looks like it could be entertaining and challenging in the economic/political sense. Tactics seem to take a backseat to grand strategy and logistics. This is fine, and an area that has recieved short shrift in the past---but if most of the "battles" are abstract in the game then it would be nice if the results reflected historical reality more closely.

For the moment I'm playtesting a series of scenarios based on the attack of Jones, Hood and Kempers divisions on the Union left wing and center ...

In my best moments I achieve a kill ratio of 2/1 (so 2 of his guys for one of my guys), but if I take the retreating and fleeing units into the equasion I come to ratios of 4/1 ... easely... And the victorious party gets to re-group, resupply etc. more easely.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jchastain

Mike -
As I have said, I am not a historian. And please do not take this to be argumentative, as that is not the intent. Instead, I am trying to better understand the history and how it might apply to a game. Keep in mind, I'm not a dev - just a tester. But I find the discussion to be interesting.

Let us assume that casualties are adjusted to be roughly the same for both winner and loser for battles in a game (really any game and not just this one since this is meant to be a primarily theoretical discussion). Why, as the union player, would I not just attack relentlessly? The USA will win an attrition war. If "winning" a battle only determines ownership of the dirt on which the battle was fought and does not meaningfully affect casualties, then it seems I would be best served to attack everywhere without regard to winning or losing in any particular battle. Eventually the USA will just wear down the CSA armies until they can no longer effectively resist and the remainder of the war then just becomes an exercise in marching across the map. Even if I assume you lose massive amounts of supply - so what? That would just mean you'd lose the next battle. Again - so what? The goal is just to fight and ensure attrition on both sides. In fact, why buy supply at all? Why assign any generals and risk them in combat? Why invest in any upgrades to improve unit quality? If any of those things matter and impact casualties, then you can/will see lopsides losses. Hstorically even casualties, absent any additional controls, seem likely to harm rather than help many strategic elements of a game. I might counter that this was exactly the strategy that U S Grant followed in 1864. But in the game there is also a factor of "national will" involved. I haven't played the game, so I'm not certain how it works during play---but historically a defeat resulted in the losers retiring to recover their morale, and forget the horrors on one of these murderous killing matches. Generally the winner needed a breather as well, but at least had the "morale bonus" of having "won". I assume that a string of defeats would drag down "national will" and make foriegn intervention more likely. And how do you explain battles like the Seven Days? Lee "won" in that he drove McClellan back from Richmond and eventually caused his withdrawal from the Peninsula---but the Confederate's casualties were much higher than the Union's. This doesn't seem to happen in the game. Possession of that "dirt" you dismiss WAS very important to the morale of the armies and the Nations they fought for.

If you disagree with that, not from a hisorical standpoint but rather from a strategy game design standpoint, please let me know. But I suspect we will agree that there must be some other control mechanism that must be expected to temper the aggressiveness of the union under such a system in order for a game to be successful as a strategy title. In FoF, there actually is the concept of National Will - the support of the general populace. One might argue that successive major losses - even if strategically effective in a guerilla campaign - could not sustain popular support. So, that could become a reasonable mechanism that tempers the aggressiveness and dissuades hopeless aggression. And in fact, National Will and performance in battles do both have a significant impact on Victory Points within FoF. Is that the mechanism you are considering as the strategic fulcrum that balances the game strategically? YES. "Victory" or "defeat" was often in the mind of the commanders or the troops, not in the number of casualties. Hooker still possessed a position that the average wargamer would savor when he retired at Chancelorsville..., but Hooker was "beat". Any wargamer with freedom to use all his forces would destroy the Confederacy at Sharpsburg and not break a sweat. But Lee knew he was fighting McClellan, who's fears and lack of confidence in himself always had him half-beaten before the fighting began. "The moral is to the physical as three is to one." is a quote by Napoleon..., but was quite true among the leaders and politicians in the Civil war.

I would not be opposed to altering the battle casualty totals. But I would want to do so in a way that ensures strategic balance within the game.

Next, let's cover march attrition. I am not hearing that you are opposed to that as a concept for abstracting non-combat losses. Again, if I am mistaken is that assessment just say so and we can discuss that in greater depth. But if we accept that mechanism, then an army marching in to attack will suffer the attrition en route to the battle. The defeated army will suffer that attrition when being forced to exit the province. Certainly not..., march attrittion an historic reality. Especially when the pace was "forced". But oddly, "retreat attrition" does not seem to be a major factor. Perhaps because the troops were more motivated to be going away from the enemy, perhaps because they were more willing to abandon equipment, perhaps because thier foes were to exhausted from the fighting and to happy to see them go to pursue. Lee suffered casualties of more than 1/3rd of his army at Gettysburg (Killed, wounded, and captured)---but virtually none on his retreat back to Virginia. Burnside was soundly defeated at Fredricksburg, but suffered virtually no losses in retreating back across the river. As I said before, the only real effective pursuit and destruction of an army in the Civil War was at Nashville, a rather unique event and circumstance.

The interesting point to me is that if the attacker is the victor, the casualties figures are likely more similar than they appear because the reported number includes the "pursuit" figures (movement attrition of the defender existing after the battle) but not the attrition suffered by the attacker upon entry. However, if the attacker fails, then the situation is actually worse that shown as they suffered attrition on the way in and out. It raises the legitimate question of whether attrition should be applied following a battle, but I must say that it would seem exceedingly strange to me if attrition were applied when an army was ordered to march but not if they were chased away with the enemy at their tails.

Separating movement and attrition doesn't seem like the proper answer to me. Doing so and applying attrition even when an army sat still would remove a significant incentive to allow an army to stand in place and "rest" between campaigns. It would reduce rather than enhance the realtic feel of the game to me.

Again, I suspect the devs will consider changes. And I respect your desire to keep the game historically pure. But I think the conversation needs to progress to proposing actual changes that might be made with analysis of their impact to the game. I am not certain if the AAR is sufficient to begin such a discussion in earnest or if we are all better served to begin that conversation once everyone has an opportunity to experience the current state. But respectfully, that is where I believe the conversation needs to progress if it is to produce any actionable results.

quote:

ORIGINAL: regularbird

AU, congrats on the big Auburn win this weekend.

quote:

ORIGINAL: regularbird

I must agree with Mr. Scholl on this one.  I hope Eric takes a good look at his arguments.

I still think you are way to hard on Mac.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: regularbird

I must agree with Mr. Scholl on this one.  I hope Eric takes a good look at his arguments.

I still think you are way to hard on Mac.

Let me explain my intense disdane for "Little Mac". In September of 1862, he was handed the greatest single chance to end the war that any commander on either side ever had. His opponant was divided all over the landscape, but hurrying to take a stand with his back to a major river. Within call he had well over twice as many men as Lee could possibly hope to bring onto the field. Mac had Lee's plans in his pocket and Lee didn't know it. All the man had to do was bring up ALL his troops and push in one massive frontal assult and the Army of Northern Virginia was done for..., leaving nothing of note between Mac and Richmond. When you think of all the suffering, misery, and loss of life on both sides that occurred between January of 1863 and April of 1865, and could have been avoided by any moderately competant performance by McClellan, it makes me want to strangle the pompous little ass. And he was PROUD of his performance at Antietam... Argh..., I can't think of the little twit without getting sick to my stomach.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

I still don't follow part of this theme

the battles reported with a 0 loss, are not battles, the other side ran away and did not fight, you will in some/most cases get 0-0 losses as no fighting was done, the one sided losses are the other side not haveing a good break contact and routed

I don't see how you are comparing battles and seiges to a meeting engagemnet, where they don't engage ?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Queeg

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

I still don't follow part of this theme

the battles reported with a 0 loss, are not battles, the other side ran away and did not fight, you will in some/most cases get 0-0 losses as no fighting was done, the one sided losses are the other side not haveing a good break contact and routed

I don't see how you are comparing battles and seiges to a meeting engagemnet, where they don't engage ?

I agree there should be a difference between battles, sieges and withdrawals - but "0" shouldn't be an option in any of them. Even in withdrawals, the loser doesn't just "run away" like a bunch of frightened women. They withdraw with a rear-guard that inflicts casualties. I don't think any of us are suggesting that the numbers be vastly overhauled. But there should never, ever be a "0."

In looking back over the ACW battles I could think of, the closest one I could find to a bloodless victory was Jackson's capture of Harpers Ferry just before Antietam. There, as I understand it, the two sides fought a brief skirmish, with each losing ~250 men, and the Union garrison surrendered. That, of course, was a (a) a siege and (b) a highly unique situation - and when they did fight, they both lost the same number of casualties.

I'm not a programmer, but it seems to me that one solution might be to change the way the program treats a "0" result. Instead of being a "0," perhaps it could be calculated as a percentage of the losses incurred by the victor, say, 10-20%.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Paper Tiger


Do you mean here that it is more a case of march attrition for the side withdrawing?

quote:

ORIGINAL: elmo3

It's interesting to note that at Chicamagua, Stone's River, and Shiloh the "winner" suffered more casualties. That puts the designers in a bit of a dilemma since it would be nearly impossible for them to award a win in game terms to the side suffering more casualties without some very clever programming to take strategic factors into account.

quote:

Then there is The Wilderness, listed as "inconclusive", even though the Union suffered more than twice the CSA losses. Again, a very difficult conclusion to draw based on the numbers alone and almost impossible to program into the game I suspect.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Grifman


Actually it could be done easily. The game first decides who won a battle. Then it assigns a random % of casualties to each side based upon some historical ranges. That would result in some battles where the victor has higher casualties than the loser. That's at least one way it could be done, though I can think of others.

quote:

ORIGINAL: elmo3

I found a website with the following casualty figures on the 10 bloodiest battles of the war with an opinion on who won the battle:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#3
Battle of Chancellorsville
Date: May 1-4, 1863

Location: Virginia
Confederate Commander: Robert E. Lee
Union Commander: Joseph Hooker
Confederate Forces Engaged: 60,892
Union Forces Engaged: 133,868
Winner: Confederacy
Casualties: 30,099 (17,278 Union and 12,821 Confederate)