Generals' Ratings

[Gil R.]

RERomine,

No, generals don’t do politics. But they are tied into politics in a way, in that when a general is promoted or demoted his home state’s governor will become more or less favorable to the central government (= you).

Also, you ask whether a general with an initiative of 0 can beat one with an 8. In truth, I have no idea, since I don’t do the programming. We’ll have to wait for Eric to wander by this thread and respond. (Eric, that’s a hint.)

[Hairog]

Burnside should not be a zero. He beat Lee to the punch at Fredericksburg strategically. If the pontoon bridges had been in the proper place in the march order and it had not rained so much, he would have been over the Rappahannock river and on top of the heights waiting for Lee.
His plan was to put himself between Lee and Richmond and this strategic plan would have worked except for the fiasco with the "mud march" and the pontoon bridges. He was across the river from Fredricksburg a full 5 days before Lee even reacted. It was obvious that he should have called the attack off when he did not get up the heights before Lee but strategically he had Lee beat.
I don't know if there is a tactical. operational and a seperate strategic rating or not. If that is the case Burnside should get a very low tactical rating as he was abysmal in this area but he should get fairly high marks in the strategic rating.
The same goes for Hooker who, until he was knocked unconscious, had stolen the march on Lee at Chancellorsville and could easily have been in position between Lee and Richmond forcing Lee to attack at a great disadvantage.
Conversely Lee was the absolute best tactically and operationally but rather mediocre strategically. When told that Vicksburg had fallen he never did grasp the significance of what that meant to the confederate cause.

[RERomine]

I agree. Tactically, Lee had no peer. Well, maybe Jackson. Considering the maneuvering taking place during a campaign to achieve positional advantage prior to combat, Lee was very good also. I agree Hooker did out maneuver Lee, Lee was able to compensate once he figured out what was going on. And Lee had that nagging skill of cutting Grant off whenever Grant broke contact and moved south again. If you consider the next step up from strategic as operational, Lee was more limited, through no fault of his own. Lee didn't have operational responsibility. His war was where the Army of Northern Virginia operated. Grant was eventually responsible for the Union war, where ever it was fought. This made Grant more operationally skilled. My understand of the game is strategic and operational will be in the realm of the player, rendering such ratings useless.

[Hairog]

I hope your right about the stategic rating being usless but that would mean that if the player ordered army A to go to positon A that army would move immediatly without regaurd to the "initiative rating" of the general in command. If you are bound by "the initiative rating" to move an army or even corps then you will have to have different ratings for tactical and strategic levels for each general. I don't believe it would provide the feeling of being commander and chief if all generals had the same rating for initiative on all levels of play. Give Lee the advantage he deserves on the battle field but also give him the handicap he deserves on the Eastern Theatre.

Part of the fun of Frank Hunters ACW was seeing if your generals would do what they were told. Then if you replaced them could you suffer the political consequences of that choice. This gave a very realistic feeling to the game. I could see just how handicapped Lincoln and Davis were in their choices for generals.

Two old board games I used to play (one by Victory Games and I can't remember the other one) only had stategic level play and got away with only having one rating for each general. I haven't played Crown of Glory enough to get the feel of how different generals effected the tactical sub game. I guess I should set up some battles and try em out. As I recall they have no effect what so ever.

Speaking of the old board games I'll have to get them out and see how they each rated the various generals. I'll try and get it done this weekend. Someone else should fire up Frank's game and see if they can get the ratings from that one. That would be interesting. We would have data sets from the opinions of three different game designers who each did exhaustive research. Isn't Frank Hunter a Matrix designer? Did the current game use his ratings?

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: Hairog
Isn't Frank Hunter a Matrix designer? Did the current game use his ratings?

By "current game" you mean FOF? If so, no, we haven't directly copied anything for other games.

[Gil R.]

In the "Generals" subforum we'll be having voting on which generals to add to the list of 100-percenters and 25-percenters. Please feel free to visit the thread and give your input. The voting begins Sunday, the discussion immediately.

Here's the list of candidates, from which we'll choose four more CSA and two more USA 100-percenters, as well as about ten 25-percenters for each side.

Union Candidates: William S. Rosencrans, Joshua L. Chamberlain, John Buford (has cavalry rating), Gouverneur K. Warren, Winfield S. Hancock, John Gibbon, John F. Reynolds, Oliver O. Howard, Nathaniel Lyon, John C. Fremont, Franz Sigel, Hugh Judson Kilpatrick (has cavalry rating), Wesley Merritt (has cavalry rating), Daniel Sickles, Benjamin F. Butler, Nathaniel Banks, Henry Halleck, Don Carlos Buell, James B. McPherson, John Sedgwick (perhaps should have cavalry rating), Edward Ord, David Hunter (perhaps should have cavalry rating), David M. Gregg (has cavalry rating), George A. Custer (has cavalry rating)

Confederate Candidates: Richard S. Ewell (has cavalry rating), John B. Hood, Louis T. Wigfall, Felix Zollicoffer, J. Johnston Pettigrew, Patrick R. Cleburne, John H. Morgan (has cavalry rating), A.P. Hill, D.H. Hill, Lafayette McLaws, Wade Hampton (has cavalry rating), Joseph Wheeler (has cavalry rating), Richard H. Anderson

[ezzler]

Hard Sarge are you saying leaders don't really matter?

Is it not that you beat Lee when you attack with , say Burnside, because you are in effect CONTROLLING Burnside and using your own better skills and knowledge to win the battle and old Sideburns is just your ADC with some weak ratings that you can tactically compensate for.

If Leaders don't really have much influence then theoretically you could swap them around and have the same results if all else remains constant.

So Lee at Antietam with the 87,000 Army of the Potomac, the order of battle of Mclellan's dispersed Army of Virginia of 45,000, and three cigars to savour throughout the day would only achieve, at best, an inconclusive draw ? Or would this be the end of the war ?

Or Ceaser commands Pompeys More numerical but less able troops at pharsalus and is unable to triumph.

If Lord Gort and Gamlein had commanded the Panzer armies against Manstein and Guderian and Von Bock would France still collapse ?

IMO it's unlikely....

[dh76513]

ORIGINAL: Hairog
Burnside should not be a zero. He beat Lee to the punch at Fredericksburg strategically.

Burnside beat Lee “strategically” at Fredericksburg? This battle is clearly considered a CSA victory. While Burnside waited for the pontoons to arrive, Lee exploited the delay to position his 75,000-man Army of Northern Virginia on high ground around Fredericksburg. Burnside should have known that he could not succeed in dislodging Lee’s troops, but he did not alter his battle plan. According to my history books, the five-day battle of Fredericksburg resulted in terrible Union losses and Burnside withdrew, defeated and losing more than 12,000 men with the Confederates losses over 5,000 despite the fact that his forces outnumbered the CSA Army by about 40,000. In fact, Burnside’s “Mud March” had to be abandoned and he was relieved of his command of the Army of the Potomac and placed by Lincoln in command of the Department of the Ohio.

[andysomers]

Yep - I'm with you David.  Burnside was precisely a miserable failure as commander of the AoP.  He did beat Lee to the punch strategically, but that is a big footnote to history with the late pontoons.  That he was too stubborn to not adapt his plan of battle speak to his poor tactical rating that I have given him.  He took the AoP in realtively decent shape after relieveing McClellan following the Antietam campaign, and left it in shambles, the lowest morale the Army possibly had for the entire war in winter camp at Falmouth.  He redeems himself to a degree as a decent Corps commander, and with somewhat independent command in the Knoxville campaign where he worked with Rosecrans and later Grant to secure eastern Tennessee.
 
AS

[dh76513]

ORIGINAL: andysomers
Burnside was precisely a miserable failure as commander of the AoP. He did beat Lee to the punch strategically, but that is a big footnote to history with the late pontoons. That he was too stubborn to not adapt his plan of battle speak to his poor tactical rating that I have given him. He took the AoP in realtively decent shape after relieveing McClellan following the Antietam campaign, and left it in shambles, the lowest morale the Army possibly had for the entire war in winter camp at Falmouth. He redeems himself to a degree as a decent Corps commander, and with somewhat independent command in the Knoxville campaign…

AS

Andysomers,
I totally agree with you – in fact I am one of those who gave Burnside a zero. Although he might have found some deserved redemptions, these were far and few in between, and in my opinion, certainly not enough merits to bring him above of the “rating” of being a terrible general.

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge
I still say it is the men that count, wars and battles are won or lost, based on the men, not the leaders now plans and details are good and importent, but it still comes down to how the men fight and react if my troops are good enough and I had good weapons, and placement, I will beat…

I say both men and leadership on the battlefield are key to success. And the positive “interaction” of warriors to their commanders is usually a reflection of those “skills” that make great commanders. The disastrous defeat of II Corps at Kasserine Pass confirms my point. A decisive new commander for II Corps: MG George S. Patton, Jr., did make a difference and the same II Corps that tasted defeat at Kasserine Pass would now become victorious under their new commander.