Fort Craig

[Mithrilotter]

My wife and I took a driving trip to New Mexico. We visited the Fort Craig National Historic Site. This was an impressive fort with a wooden timber wall reinforced by a higher earth berm behind it. According to Wiki, “By July 1861, Fort Craig had become the largest fort in the Southwest, with over 2,000 soldiers.” “In February 1862, all five regiments of New Mexico Volunteers were sent south from Fort Union to reinforce Fort Craig and to wait for the Confederate advance up the Rio Grande.”

On the massive earth berm was mounted fake wooden cannons and empty soldier’s hats along with the real cannons manned by soldiers. The fake cannons looked real from a distance. According to the historical site, the fort was so strong that it was never attacked by either by Native Americans or Confederates.

Fort Union was an official United States Army supply center. When we visited it, the Fort Union site said that it had 30-100 wagon trains of up to 200 wagons each passing through daily. The Fort Craig site said that so many supplies were stored there that Fort Craig was considered to be an unofficial supply center for the area.

[Tanaka]

My wife and I took a driving trip to New Mexico. We visited the Fort Craig National Historic Site. This was an impressive fort with a wooden timber wall reinforced by a higher earth berm behind it. According to Wiki, “By July 1861, Fort Craig had become the largest fort in the Southwest, with over 2,000 soldiers.” “In February 1862, all five regiments of New Mexico Volunteers were sent south from Fort Union to reinforce Fort Craig and to wait for the Confederate advance up the Rio Grande.”

On the massive earth berm was mounted fake wooden cannons and empty soldier’s hats along with the real cannons manned by soldiers. The fake cannons looked real from a distance. According to the historical site, the fort was so strong that it was never attacked by either by Native Americans or Confederates.

Fort Union was an official United States Army supply center. When we visited it, the Fort Union site said that it had 30-100 wagon trains of up to 200 wagons each passing through daily. The Fort Craig site said that so many supplies were stored there that Fort Craig was considered to be an unofficial supply center for the area.

Interesting stuff! I see Fort Craig in the game. Is Fort Union in the game?

[Mithrilotter]

Unfortunately, no. I looked up a Civil War map of New Mexico. There is a road running East from Taos through a Rocky Mountain pass that isn't shown on the game map. On that New Mexico map, Fort Union is around forty miles South of that unmarked East road through the pass. Fort Union looks to be around 10 to 20 miles Northeast of Mora. Compared to the New Mexico Civil War map, the game map is somewhat off in this area. But that could be due to the standard issue of representing the curvature of the Earth on a flat game map.

If I were to place Fort Union on the current game map, I would put it somewhere on the road two or more hexes South of the Canadian River settlement and on the road two to three hexes East of Mora. Oddly, I didn't see a Canadian River named settlement on the New Mexico Civil War Map. However, there is a river called Canadian River.

[Tanaka]

Unfortunately, no. I looked up a Civil War map of New Mexico. There is a road running East from Taos through a Rocky Mountain pass that isn't shown on the game map. On that New Mexico map, Fort Union is around forty miles South of that unmarked East road through the pass. Fort Union looks to be around 10 to 20 miles Northeast of Mora. Compared to the New Mexico Civil War map, the game map is somewhat off in this area. But that could be due to the standard issue of representing the curvature of the Earth on a flat game map.

If I were to place Fort Union on the current game map, I would put it somewhere on the road two or more hexes South of the Canadian River settlement and on the road two to three hexes East of Mora. Oddly, I didn't see a Canadian River named settlement on the New Mexico Civil War Map. However, there is a river called Canadian River.

Nice will you be advocating for in the next patch?

[Mithrilotter]

I was an alpha and a beta tester on this great game. I have passed all of these Western facts onto Ryan. He is the game designer. He did a great job designing this game. It's up to him if he feels like these changes should be made.

I'm the reason why naval mines got pulled from the game. In play testing as Union, I dropped Union mines in Charleston Harbor. The mines blocked the convoy route. There was no cheap way for the Confederates to remove them. If the Confederates did remove the mines by damaging their gunboats, I just dropped some more Union mines on the next turn and stopped the convoys again.

I'm also the reason why Fort Jefferson got added in the game. During game testing, my wife and I just happened to take an excursion and visit Fort Jefferson while on a drive trip through the South. This historic fort addition messed up the original Confederate convoy lines. But Ryan was nice enough to make the changes.

[Tanaka]

I was an alpha and a beta tester on this great game. I have passed all of these Western facts onto Ryan. He is the game designer. He did a great job designing this game. It's up to him if he feels like these changes should be made.

I'm the reason why naval mines got pulled from the game. In play testing as Union, I dropped Union mines in Charleston Harbor. The mines blocked the convoy route. There was no cheap way for the Confederates to remove them. If the Confederates did remove the mines by damaging their gunboats, I just dropped some more Union mines on the next turn and stopped the convoys again.

I'm also the reason why Fort Jefferson got added in the game. During game testing, my wife and I just happened to take an excursion and visit Fort Jefferson while on a drive trip through the South. This historic fort addition messed up the original Confederate convoy lines. But Ryan was nice enough to make the changes.

I see that is very interesting about the naval mines in testing and Fort Jefferson. I have always appreciated your testing and additions to SC patches.

I agree this is a great game I love it. These missing forts are one of my few frustrations:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... f75c44b936

And weird to see no Fort Sumter?

[Platoonist]

And weird to see no Fort Sumter?

I imagine Sumter's location smack dab in the middle of Charleston Harbor makes it tough to place on the map. To accommodate its location, you'd almost have to stick it out in the Atlantic like Fort Pulaski where Union ships could easily pummel it from all sides. Sumter historically benefitted from the same contradictory dynamic that made Stalingrad so hard to take albeit on a far smaller scale. The Union bombardment of the fort only made it stronger as the rubble slowly packed down into the form of a massive irreducible earthwork. The Union did attempt to land troops on the island fort but were repulsed. Given its toughness historically while in CSA hands maybe BNC just decided it was easier to just lump it in with Charleston itself.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

New Mexico is a tough theatre to represent. Being perfectly historically accurate, the Union should have one, maybe two, Brigades there, and that's it. The Confederates even less. There's a few reasons why the game isn't set up that way, but most of it boils down to it (a) not being any fun or (b) simply not working in the first place, whether in relation to the AI or how it fits in to the rest of the game.

SC's combat system (and to a lesser degree, the supply system too) only works if there are a certain number of units on the board within a given area. Without them, the units that are left over aren't going to be strong enough to dislodge any opposing units (which can just reinforce back to full strength at the end of the turn), and there's just not enough units to both defend one's own supply sources and make an effort at attacking the opposition that has a meaningful chance of success. That minimum unit density is something just slightly less than the typical armies in the early part of the 1846 campaign, or what is seen in the New Mexico theatre if some - but not all - of the offered units are taken.

Fort Craig, as has been noted, is on the map already. It can be garrisoned if you so choose. About the only thing more I could do there would be to put a fort unit there - and if I do that, most armies players typically send to NM would not be strong enough to take it down (Brigades and Regiments aren't very good at attacking forts - because at the scale used elsewhere in the game, it doesn't make sense for them to be able to do so).

As for the eastern NM road, (a) the map in the game takes towns, roads, rails &c as they were in 1861, whereas the source you sent me is from 1864. I'm not going to get into a debate about whether it existed in 1861 or not, but none of the sources I used when making the map showed it, nor did I find any ACW-related military activities using that route (if it was built for the Indian Wars, that's a bit outside the subject matter of the game). (b) Splitting the NM theatre into two brings us back to the unit density problem - a wider front means more units are needed for the game to work right. I think adding more towns, and more units, to NM might be overstating the region's importance in the war.

And weird to see no Fort Sumter?

I imagine Sumter's location smack dab in the middle of Charleston Harbor makes it tough to place on the map. To accommodate its location, you'd almost have to stick it out in the Atlantic like Fort Pulaski where Union ships could easily pummel it from all sides. Sumter historically benefitted from the same contradictory dynamic that made Stalingrad so hard to take albeit on a far smaller scale. The Union bombardment of the fort only made it stronger as the rubble slowly packed down into the form of a massive irreducible earthwork. The Union did attempt to land troops on the island fort but were repulsed. Given its toughness historically while in CSA hands maybe BNC just decided it was easier to just lump it in with Charleston itself.

Once upon a time that hex between the Charleston ports and the open sea was a land+sea hex, which I briefly tried putting a fort on. It didn't work. At all.
One big reason being that the Union, for the most part, did a fairly good job of reducing coastal forts, which is why I've made forts quite weak in the game. But that also means that Sumter has to be weak in the game (at least unless I have multiple types of fort unit) - which as you've noted, wasn't the case.

At the scale the game takes place, even this fairly awkward setup is about the best I can do to put Sumter on the map, and it doesn't even work - much simpler to just not have Sumter there. The geography of Charleston is such that it can't be easily captured by naval invasion the way most other ports in the game can (there's three land hexes between it and any possible landing spot), and this has been done deliberately - Sumter's importance is, in a bit of a roundabout way, reflected there.

- BNC

[Tanaka]

New Mexico is a tough theatre to represent. Being perfectly historically accurate, the Union should have one, maybe two, Brigades there, and that's it. The Confederates even less. There's a few reasons why the game isn't set up that way, but most of it boils down to it (a) not being any fun or (b) simply not working in the first place, whether in relation to the AI or how it fits in to the rest of the game.

SC's combat system (and to a lesser degree, the supply system too) only works if there are a certain number of units on the board within a given area. Without them, the units that are left over aren't going to be strong enough to dislodge any opposing units (which can just reinforce back to full strength at the end of the turn), and there's just not enough units to both defend one's own supply sources and make an effort at attacking the opposition that has a meaningful chance of success. That minimum unit density is something just slightly less than the typical armies in the early part of the 1846 campaign, or what is seen in the New Mexico theatre if some - but not all - of the offered units are taken.

Fort Craig, as has been noted, is on the map already. It can be garrisoned if you so choose. About the only thing more I could do there would be to put a fort unit there - and if I do that, most armies players typically send to NM would not be strong enough to take it down (Brigades and Regiments aren't very good at attacking forts - because at the scale used elsewhere in the game, it doesn't make sense for them to be able to do so).

As for the eastern NM road, (a) the map in the game takes towns, roads, rails &c as they were in 1861, whereas the source you sent me is from 1864. I'm not going to get into a debate about whether it existed in 1861 or not, but none of the sources I used when making the map showed it, nor did I find any ACW-related military activities using that route (if it was built for the Indian Wars, that's a bit outside the subject matter of the game). (b) Splitting the NM theatre into two brings us back to the unit density problem - a wider front means more units are needed for the game to work right. I think adding more towns, and more units, to NM might be overstating the region's importance in the war.

And weird to see no Fort Sumter?

I imagine Sumter's location smack dab in the middle of Charleston Harbor makes it tough to place on the map. To accommodate its location, you'd almost have to stick it out in the Atlantic like Fort Pulaski where Union ships could easily pummel it from all sides. Sumter historically benefitted from the same contradictory dynamic that made Stalingrad so hard to take albeit on a far smaller scale. The Union bombardment of the fort only made it stronger as the rubble slowly packed down into the form of a massive irreducible earthwork. The Union did attempt to land troops on the island fort but were repulsed. Given its toughness historically while in CSA hands maybe BNC just decided it was easier to just lump it in with Charleston itself.

Once upon a time that hex between the Charleston ports and the open sea was a land+sea hex, which I briefly tried putting a fort on. It didn't work. At all.
One big reason being that the Union, for the most part, did a fairly good job of reducing coastal forts, which is why I've made forts quite weak in the game. But that also means that Sumter has to be weak in the game (at least unless I have multiple types of fort unit) - which as you've noted, wasn't the case.

At the scale the game takes place, even this fairly awkward setup is about the best I can do to put Sumter on the map, and it doesn't even work - much simpler to just not have Sumter there. The geography of Charleston is such that it can't be easily captured by naval invasion the way most other ports in the game can (there's three land hexes between it and any possible landing spot), and this has been done deliberately - Sumter's importance is, in a bit of a roundabout way, reflected there.

- BNC

Thanks Ryan I always appreciate your very detailed insight and input considering all of these factors!