Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

In short, why did ACW battles happen where they did? Since there are not that many major ACW battles (60? 90?) it might not be that hard to simply categorize each one by one or two categories of "WHY IT HAPPENED WHERE IT DID." Lets say you come up with three categories (a) Opportunistic; (b) Strategically-Important location; (c) Choke-point.

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For every battle that fits into category (a): why bother with creating a map. Create maps for the other two only. Some provinces might have no (b) or (c) type maps on them. Some might have two (b)s (Strategically Valuable Locations) that are linked by one (c) (Choke Point). If you win the scouting, you can choose to force the battle at the b1 site. If you win it, then you are in a position next turn(or maybe in the same turn, depending on number of troops, and their mobility) to try to take the (c) battlefield site (the choke point that links B1 and B2). Win the battle for the choke point site, and you are then in a position to take the B2 site . . .

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The other interesting thing which this approach could facilitate is to build off of the existing AI tendencies which some of us have complained about a tad bit (e.g., your comment about repetitive Union AI attacks on Fredricksburg). Right now, the AI has a tendency to just attack anywhere it can, which I think a few of us have argued is not very realistic. If certain provinces were more strategically important as "doors" into additional areas, or as highly valuable strategic caches of some sort, then the AI might not behave quite so ahistorically.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Etc, no doubt -- and it would add a lot to the game if one found one's self deciding how to deploy on a battlefield that was recognizably Antietam.

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ORIGINAL: takati97realm

In regards to generals getting killed off, and tactical battle in my previous post there was a reply  "Um, how much FOF have you played? Generals are regularly lost in detailed combat."

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So the question is, would it be fun to fight battles on historical battlefields when the ONLY thing that corresponds to the historical battles would be the terrain? I'd hate to put an enormous amount of work into this, only to find people are disappointed by it.

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ORIGINAL: terje439


What would Gettysburg rate as then? Shoes can hardly be ruled out under any of the abc's you listed

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Much like MO Reb says above, for the first phase of learning the game, I dove straight into Advanced, and tackled Detailed Combat. Got that pretty well figured out last winter and had 4 or 5 exceedingly fun games against Elmer winning as both sides, and ratcheting up to about Sarge Major. If you want a game that is a fun stategic wargame against the AI, I can think of no better game than this. Learning and then mastering the Detailed Battle engine will give you many scores of hours of fun.

Having got to a plateau with the Detailed Battle Engine, but frustrated by not being unable to beat the computer on higher and higher difficulties (another dimension to replay in months and years to come :) ) I had the "spring hiatus" from FoF. Since I've now delved into PBEMs with FoF, I have now got into the Quick Combat part, which is of course what you are limited to for multi-player. Initially I had not realized this and thought MP games would be unwieldy with Detailed Combat. Also I was not interested in the Quick Combat engine because it seemed to me to limit my ability to harness my tactical abilities. Once I learned that Quick Combat was the way it worked for PBEMs, and heard some guys at Blitz talking about the nuances of setting up your forces to prepare for Quick Combat, I was intrigued.

What I'm now learning is that, there is yet ANOTHER level to this amazing game in learning how to build, move, augment, allocate, supply, and otherwise manage your brigades and containers in order to optimally influence your Quick Combat outcomes. What I had discounted as being "not interesting because it would not allow me to make tactical decisions" is in fact perhaps MORE fascinating because of how you have to set things up at the strategic/theatre level, and then allow / wait for them to get set in motion at the level of the battlefield.

In short, what this game offers most types of wargamers what they might be looking for. Single-player fun against a challenging AI. SP games that involve integrating strategic and tactical thinking, as well as fascinating highly detailed tactical battles. The capacity to build historical scenario sims with the Detailed Engine that have non-random (or perhaps semi-random) OOBs as in the old CW Generals II (meaning: replay Gettysburgh, or Shiloh, or The Wilderness in either SP or MP mode). And last: an excellent PBEM game.

My only disappointment with this game?

The ACW only lasted 5 years and I IMPLORE you guys to apply this engine to additional conflicts so that we can explore them with a similarly beautiful and subtle game engine (Hundred Years War; Vietnam; The Korean Conflict; etc.)