Showing city garrisons on map

[nmleague]

Just ran into this in a PBEM game, hadnt thought of it before. Currently each side can see the green dots by a city indicating a garrison. In a current PBEM game my opponant was able to see that I had pulled garrrisons out of some cities and took advantage of that situation. It seems that armies would have no idea whether a city was garrisoned or not until they actually tried to take the city or at a minimum enter the sector that the city was located in. Is there anyway to turn off those garrison strength green dots?

[spruce]

spying ? rumours ?

[nmleague]

Except on side can see every city on the map and whether they have a garrison or not, right from the beginning.

[Gil R.]

What do others think? Should these be hidden in fog of war?

[Roger Neilson II]

What would surely be better is to have all cities show they are occupied.... as indeed all cities will be. But maybe when you ride into town you find that there is a recruiting party drunk in a bar.....

So why not just have a token 'occupation' force showing and then let the other side find out by proper reconnaissance?

Roger

[spruce]

this is a tough question - and I'll say yes and no.

I think during civil war having a city with no garrisons would be rather seldom. In fact - you need to have some men defending the city. I think we are still discussing cities - they are a lot bigger then towns - and need garrisons cause the cities are the cornerstones of the war effort - suppose the garrison would pull out - the rumour would spread very rapidly.

I think we should not hide it in fog of war - perhaps we can tweak garrison values more to "vary" more compared to moving or camping field operation units ... scouts and spies would have a better view on the size of a field army (count the corps, divisions - brigades if possible) to make an assesment.

But a scout or spy actually counting all the garrisons men in a city - I doubt it ...

I would say - don't hide it in fog of war - but allow more variance - especially to the lower end - and never display "0" - as the enemy scouts won't be able to tell if all men have left the city premises ...

so f.e. a garrison with a strength of 3.000 marching out of a city - would display 1.000 on the map - meaning the scouts noticed that the garrison strength has been reduced substantially - however never knowing if all garrison troops have left the city.

[Malagant]

I think cities and forts should have the same FOW as other containers.

You'll be able to see cities near you, but the boys in Tennessee won't know the composition of the garrison of Detroit.

Perhaps rumors for city garrison changes? Might be true, might not!

[TimoN]

I completely agree that there should be more FOW. I was able take advantage of that information and you can see the results in the AAR I made from our PBEM.

Actually I had already made a suggestion about the FOW into the "Wish list" -thread just after the game got out.
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=1316450

[nmleague]

Yes Timo played it well and was able to take advantage of the situation.  The question  arises whether 2-3 brigades would be able to enter a city of 100,000 people even if there is no garrison, or if they would even try.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

What do others think? Should these be hidden in fog of war?

No. Both sides read the other's newspapers with great frequency, and the "reporters" of the time kept everybody pretty well informed of what units were where. Jackson's ability to surprise the enemy depended a great deal on the fact that he was usually suprising his own forces as well.

[Crimguy]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

What do others think? Should these be hidden in fog of war?

I think there should be a small chance of finding information about enemy strength, to be calculated at somewhat infrequent intervals, say every 2-4 months or so - reflecting the time it takes to get information accross enemy lines. I do believe the South had a better spy network than the north, particularly in the border states and D.C.

[nmleague]

Had to laugh at that!!  Put your self back in time, by the time it would take someone to get a Cleveland newspaper all the way to Richmond and for the CSA to be able to react to it would probably be 6 months or more.  And how many nothern cities had papers that came out daily, that could be relied upon.  That is unless they had a high speed plane or direct railline.  Granted spies might get some information from papers (although the accuracy would be suspect), but people forget the scale in distance and the time it would take for information to be passed from one side to the other.  Lets see a single man on horseback might be able to cover 15 miles on a good day (no pony express way stations at which to change horses), but then of course depending on roads and the health of the horse etc., he would be lucky to cover 400 miles in a month and that is one way.
 
This brings up raiders and them taking supplies.  How far could raiders acutally be expected to go behind lines, and given their lack of transport how much could they actulally carry back. They might be able to make a long ride living off the land, disrupting things.  But could they actually steal military supplies.  Most military supplies were probably well guarded, and if they did take them how could they make it back to their own lines with the goods.  The idea of raiders capturing 10 tons of iron and taking it back to the south is a little far fetched.
 
Its interesting, does anyone have any reports or figures of what quanity of goods CSA raiders actually were able to capture.  Or was their primary job to disrupt things and force Union troops to pursue them rather than be used vs the CSA armies.

[nmleague]

I can just see the general staff in Richmond,  I would like one of each of these cities newspapers on my desk each day, just like email[;)].  Oh what do you mean it may take a month for us to get the paper and then the data might be outdated!!

[Mike Scholl]

Had to laugh at that!! Put your self back in time, by the time it would take someone to get a Cleveland newspaper all the way to Richmond and for the CSA to be able to react to it would probably be 6 months or more.


Make that six days and you would be closer. Railroads and Mail were quite advanced since the Revolution..., and soldiers are great readers (or listeners if they can't read). Helps pass the time, and troops love to hear about "normal" occurances in their home towns. Sutlers and Editors knew what would sell, and most of the nations newspapers were in the Army Camps within a week. From which it was a short trip to some trading on the "picket line". After all, you'd read the paper (several times) and the guy across the guy was bored and offering "real" tobacco or coffee.

You are thinking of a different era..., the ACW was in many ways a very "friendly" war..., when they weren't butchering one another in a "battle", most soldiers on both sides had a "live and let live" attitude and the comraderie of "shared misery". The concept of "National Security" is more a 20th Century thing.

[satchel]

Maybe if one had forces within a province, the strengths of its garrisons would show. But if one had no forces in a province, fog of war would hide local enemy garrisons.

[Mike Scholl]

Again, you are thinking in 20th Century terms, not 19th Century ones.

[Great_Ajax]

I would like there to be no indicator as I think it could be explouted but maybe have the FoW showing estimated enemy troop strengths in the area as normal.

Trey

[spruce]

I think it's still a game - but historically moving the garrison is a tricky thing. It should happen very rarely (I don't do it) ... and moving it would for sure instigate some rumour on it within the population - spies would report ...

but it would never ever stimulate an enemy division - corps or army commander to check the rumours and see if they could march to the city and get a free "capture" without siege. I think the grand strategy for warfare is not based on opportunistic rumours.... enfin it shouldn't be anyhow [;)].

... I really think FOW should be also present on garrisons - still an indication of "low strength" might be usefull to depict the fact that people are aware a garrison is low on strength - so conclusion = I equal no garrison with low strength garrison.

It's up to the enemy to decide wether or not to check out the rumour - it's still a rumour ...

[Sheytan]

15 miles a day??? I marched farther then that each day in the Infantry...

ORIGINAL: nmleague

Had to laugh at that!!  Put your self back in time, by the time it would take someone to get a Cleveland newspaper all the way to Richmond and for the CSA to be able to react to it would probably be 6 months or more.  And how many nothern cities had papers that came out daily, that could be relied upon.  That is unless they had a high speed plane or direct railline.  Granted spies might get some information from papers (although the accuracy would be suspect), but people forget the scale in distance and the time it would take for information to be passed from one side to the other.  Lets see a single man on horseback might be able to cover 15 miles on a good day (no pony express way stations at which to change horses), but then of course depending on roads and the health of the horse etc., he would be lucky to cover 400 miles in a month and that is one way.

This brings up raiders and them taking supplies.  How far could raiders acutally be expected to go behind lines, and given their lack of transport how much could they actulally carry back. They might be able to make a long ride living off the land, disrupting things.  But could they actually steal military supplies.  Most military supplies were probably well guarded, and if they did take them how could they make it back to their own lines with the goods.  The idea of raiders capturing 10 tons of iron and taking it back to the south is a little far fetched.

Its interesting, does anyone have any reports or figures of what quanity of goods CSA raiders actually were able to capture.  Or was their primary job to disrupt things and force Union troops to pursue them rather than be used vs the CSA armies.

[Sheytan]

Bear in mind that the dots are not always a good indicator. Units reduced in strength do not appear to display...example I have 2 reduced units in a fort, only one dot is displayed on screen however. I noted this as I had placed a additional unit in a fort and after doing so rechecked the fort after only noting one dot on the map to verify the additional unit actually was in the fort.

ORIGINAL: nmleague

Just ran into this in a PBEM game, hadnt thought of it before. Currently each side can see the green dots by a city indicating a garrison. In a current PBEM game my opponant was able to see that I had pulled garrrisons out of some cities and took advantage of that situation. It seems that armies would have no idea whether a city was garrisoned or not until they actually tried to take the city or at a minimum enter the sector that the city was located in. Is there anyway to turn off those garrison strength green dots?