Disease

[General Quarters]

Eric, I think it was, explained the rationale, based on solid historical research, for the role that disease plays in this game. I can't argue with his research. But as a Civil War buff and wargamer, the impact disease has in this game just doesn't FEEL historical. I have read about attrition of various kinds causing a real problem for an army commander and the officials in the capital, but I have never read an account of a battle or campaign where it says, "Unfortunately, for Lee, 20 percent of his soldiers died from malaria during the two weeks before the battle ..."

In the game, disease is a major and persistent factor. One scatters one's forces to avoid a big strike. Again, I have read of commanders scattering their forces for many reasons -- forage, surveillance, avoiding clogged roads, capturing this or that -- but never to avoid disease.

Are there cases I do not know about?

[Director]

Disease was prevalent in newly-mustered units. Two reasons: green troops didn't take care of sanitary issues and people from different areas brought their local diseases with them, infecting people who had no previous exposure. As the Sanitary Commissions and the better officers enforced camp discipline, and as the units went through the chicken pox/measles/etc cycle, the survivors became healthier. An average unit recruited at 1000 men would, on average, have 500 when training was done (sickness, physical incapacity, desertion, etc).

On the whole about twice as many died of disease as combat, a much better average than previous wars (Crimean War was about 4 to 1 as I recall and Napoleonic Wars approx eight to one).

[General Quarters]

Yes, I agree with you about that. You are talking about routine illness that, given the state of sanitation, medicine, marching in the rain and snow, etc., armies were bound to experience. That is simply one of those persistent features of army life that always reduces the number of men available for combat on a given day. Before a battle, both armies have guys on sick call.

But the game simulates something else -- large strikes, up to 24 percent, that hit a single army. While the opposing army, unless it is equally unlucky, is suffering zero. That kind of hit would have a major impact on a battle and, I would think, would be mentioned by military historians, e.g., "As the Conferates planned to move on Shiloh, they were hit by dysentary that KILLED almost a quarter of their men." That is what happens in this game. Can anyone cite a historical example where this kind of thing happened? And, if it happened at all, did it happen as frequently as it happens in this game?

[Director]

The only example I can think of right now is the 'Evacuation of Corinth'. Beauregard retreated from Shiloh to Corinth and dug in, followed by Halleck's army. Of a possible 70,000 the Southern army lost 20,000 to wounds and disease and finally had to evacuate the town because of disease and lack of water. i haven't found any specific info on which diseases, but 'Evacuation of Corinth' was a euphemism for diarrhea, used by Northern generals for some time after the event.

Pemberton's army at Vicksburg was weak from hunger and probably suffered some disease, though I don't remember reading anywhere that it was a big factor.

Burnside's Army of the Potomac suffered disease, I think. I remember reading that Joe Hooker put the army back on strict camp sanitation discipline.

[rockmedic109]

I like having disease rules, I just think the percentage of losses can be too high.  It seems you can loose up to 28% in a two week turn.  Then again the next turn.  Then again the follwing turn.  In six weeks, you can loose two-thirds of your Army.  In my humble {and admittedly less scholarly} opinion, the percentages should be reduced. 

[kfmiller41]

I agree, made a post about this in one of the AARs, just seems to high and if you have bad luck and get several hits you will be devastated (which is what happened to the Union player) Disease should happen, just not quite so bad.

[Mike Scholl]

Have to go along with the general spirit of the complaints. Desease was THE major Killer of the Civil War, so it needs to be in there...., but it's implementation is far too random and devestating. And the AI seems to use it as a weapon. Normally your largest concentration of troops gets smacked with it regularly---but get an offensive underway somewhere else and "bingo", now that's the area getting "whacked" three turns running. I think it needs to be more generally and less devestatingly applied...

[ericbabe]

Right now the rates of disease are calibrated so that the levels of losses to disesase are going to be roughly in historical proportion to casualty losses, at least based on casualty losses recorded from some of our testing.  We're more than happy to listen to players, though, and we will consider lowering rates of disease loss.  I do believe that materially lower levels will cause disease casualties to be lower than historical ratios of disease to combat casualties.

For the next game update I've already moved disease losses into the file of moddable values -- so players will be able to customize disease losses.

Remember that by keeping troops in a province with a hospital that disease will only affect those troops at 50% the normal rate.

Disease is the primary means we use to discourage large stacks of troops, so lowering disease losses will have the side-effect of not discouraging large stacks of troops.

[Jonathan Palfrey]

Judging from the comments we've seen above, I think the real complaint is not that the toll is too high overall, but that it's wrongly distributed.

1. It should be more evenly distributed. Units should be losing men to disease all over the place, rather than a sudden large strike in one particular place.

2. It should affect new recruits more than veterans.

[General Quarters]

ORIGINAL: Director

The only example I can think of right now is the 'Evacuation of Corinth'. Beauregard retreated from Shiloh to Corinth and dug in, followed by Halleck's army. Of a possible 70,000 the Southern army lost 20,000 to wounds and disease and finally had to evacuate the town because of disease and lack of water. i haven't found any specific info on which diseases, but 'Evacuation of Corinth' was a euphemism for diarrhea, used by Northern generals for some time after the event.

Pemberton's army at Vicksburg was weak from hunger and probably suffered some disease, though I don't remember reading anywhere that it was a big factor.

Burnside's Army of the Potomac suffered disease, I think. I remember reading that Joe Hooker put the army back on strict camp sanitation discipline.

Excellent examples, Director, right to the point. So large disease losses could, in fact, happen. My next question is whether they seem to occur more often in the game than in real life.

[General Quarters]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

Right now the rates of disease are calibrated so that the levels of losses to disesase are going to be roughly in historical proportion to casualty losses, at least based on casualty losses recorded from some of our testing.  We're more than happy to listen to players, though, and we will consider lowering rates of disease loss.  I do believe that materially lower levels will cause disease casualties to be lower than historical ratios of disease to combat casualties.

For the next game update I've already moved disease losses into the file of moddable values -- so players will be able to customize disease losses.

Remember that by keeping troops in a province with a hospital that disease will only affect those troops at 50% the normal rate.

Disease is the primary means we use to discourage large stacks of troops, so lowering disease losses will have the side-effect of not discouraging large stacks of troops.

I very much appreciate your responsiveness to gamers, even if it means that, in some sense, the game is less historically accurate. As a gamer, I want it to "feel" like the real civil war (as I understand it).

Yes, the hospital is obviously a big help, but that seems artificial. I kept Lee parked in Lynchberg, which had a hospital, but, in the history books, you never see that northern Virginia or the Shenandoah were disease-ridden and lacked medical facilities and therefore the army could not stay there long. So it seems arbitary.

You are right to discourage large stacks of troops -- there was a limit to what could be managed logistically and even organizationally, and both armies often depended on being able to living off the land. Perhaps there are other ways to discourage large size, such as a percentage loss of effectiveness or a supply malus to armies over a certain size or that you have to have field hospital (something more powerful than the brigade enhancement already in the game, maybe one for every 5 divisions).

If you want to keep overall disease losses at historical levels, you might have two hits a turn each at about half the current impact.

[Berkut]

The problem with disease in FoF is that it dominates the game play.

I do not doubt that both sides lost considerable men to disease, but I am not aware that it was common to see offenses simply stop because on the eve of the kick off 20% of the army dropped dead.

Disease should be something that varies between a little and a bit more every single turn - not nothing most turns, then 1/5th the army when it hits.

Also, many of the men who would be a "casualty" from disease would be back in the ranks within weeks. They would not ALL die. So what exactly are the oft reported numbers citing? The number of men actually lost to the army, or the number of men afflicted?

[Mike Scholl]

One of the problems with disease as a game factor is that all of us were fortunate enough to grow up in a world where diseases could be fought and beaten. Wonder Drugs and immunizations were parts of our childhoods and always there when we needed them. We forget that less than 100 years ago it was different. World War One was a massive effort on the part of mankind to do away with the other side on an industrial scale..., it's casualties during those four years were horrible and unprecidented. Yet in the year after in ended, the "Spanish Influenza" killed more people than the whole 4 years of the war.

Or look at Napoleon's invasion of Russia. He mobilized about 600,000 men for the effort, and yet had only about 140,000 with him for the decisive battle at Borodino. Now he had units protecting his flanks and his lines of communication, but if you add up the totals on the day of Borodino in September, you will fine over half of the men from June 22nd were gone. The term of the day was "wastage"..., the normal and expected loss to non-battle causes over the course of the campaign. We just find it difficult to think in those terms today.

Most losses on both sides in the ACW were to "non-battle causes". Men who grew up fairly isolated in rural areas were suddenly gathered together in encampments and became part of the same "disease pool". Which meant not only did you have sickness resulting from poor sanitation and hygene---you also had fully grown men suddenly exposed to all those childhood diseases they had no immunity to. That line in "Gone With the Wind" where Scarlet gets a letter telling her that her first husband has "succomed bravely to the measiles" is no joke..., though I and others certainly thought it funny when we first saw the film. The thought of thousands of men actually "shitting themselves to death" is almost beyond our comprehension..., but it was a fact of the ACW. As were Whooping Cough, Diptheria, Small Pox, Tuberculosis, and most of the things we were immunized against at a very young age. We need a different mind set to talk about these things...

[Twotribes]

Which still ignores several game facts AND the point of the previous post. We are arbitrarily held to low troop levels that are NOT historical by a decision by the designers to LIMIT population, add to that the seeming growing consensus amongst those designers to FURTHER limit troop size by tieing replacements to that shrunken manpower pool.

The mechanics of the game punish offensives with disease, intended or not. One can not project his hospital coverage into an enemy contested province so his armies on the offense are the likeliest to be hit by massive and repeated disease losses. This can cause serious loss to an army already being hit by march attrition and battle losses, effectively stopping cold offenses.

I do not recall this happening in the Civil War. Once again the losses most occurred in recruiting and training camps or in armies that grew lax from inaction. Also it occurred in places that were under siege, as food and ability to control sanitation dwindled.

[General Quarters]

Yes, if hospitals cut down disease in adjacent provinces (whether railroad or not) that would help. That way, McClellan could be in Fredericksburg and still get some protection from a hospital in Richmond. The "hospital" could stand for a staff and infrastructure attending to the sanitation, diet, and medical care of the troops in the field.

[ericbabe]

Whether or not the player is limited to levels of troop strength that are below the historical numbers I believe depends on which difficulty setting the player is using.  It's true that because of the levels of Men in each province you can't build new units to get a level of strength that corresponds to historical levels, but I believe you can build a number of brigades that corresponds roughly to historical levels (again, this depends heavily on the difficulty settings and game options players are using).  With reinforcements from Camps, players can get strength equal to or surpassing historical numbers -- on other threads, players were complaining that they were getting too many men from Camps compared to historical numbers...but again, this is really heavily dependent on the game options/difficulty levels that players choose.

I haven't been able to find comprehensive statistical tables that give disease rates by month, but have only been able to reconstruct partial data based on records for particular regiments, and some aggregate stats from the Sanitary Commission.  I have found good evidence that regiments could often go for months without material losses due to disease but then have several months in which losses were extremely high: for instance, perhaps the most dramatic example I could find, the 6th Vermonth in the winter of 1861 had 278 cases of typhoid fever, 330 of measles, 90 of diphtheria and 180 of mumps -- all in one regiment, an infection rate of 60%+.  I've read a report from the U.S. Sanitary Commission that estimated that in the AoP, from July to Dec of 1861, fully 30% of the troops were too sick to participate in battle.  The AoP 8,000 cases of disease in July of 1861, and this rose to 35,000 cases in Dec of 1861 -- during this time the rate of infection among the troops varied between 45% and 23%, with the aforementioned average of about 30%.  FoF has a disease rate of (random(15)+random(15))%, so the 30% rate of infection in the AoP is at the upper limit of what FOF would allow.  The AoP could have marched on Virginia in fall of 1861, but if it had it would have left a significant portion of its men behind languishing in camp hospitals.  If anyone knows where I can find more comprehensive statistics, please pass along the references: I've looked all over but haven't found anything like a monthly table of disease losses and infection rates.

Admittedly outbreaks of disease seemed to have happened over several months rather than in a single two-week period, but I rather just think of this as a simplification necessary for ease of game-play -- I'd hate to have players wade through disease losses for every single brigade on every single turn of play: that would just be information overload, IMO.  Similarly, some troops did recover from their disesases and were able to return (though this did not happen in a majority of cases, 2/3 of the casualties in the Civil War were due to disease and 3/5 of the deaths were due to disease, so in most cases men lost to disease weren't coming back to fight another day), however, since FOF rates of disease are about half of the average reported by the Sanitary Commission, it's reasonable to say that those men are modeled in our lower rate of disease.

Also I've noticed that while some diseases were caused by poor conditions in camps or proximity to swamps (typhoid, malaria, smallpox are about 1/3rd of the cause of disease casualties), there were some classifications of disease that were exacerbated when armies were on the march: food poisoning, heatstroke, frostbite.

We could do disease twice per turn at half the current rate, but I'm not sure this would change the behavior of the statistics that much -- large stacks would become even more likely to be hit by disease, since the behavior in this case would deviate less from expectation (and the expectation is that large stacks are going to be hit).  The Sanitary Commission seemed to think that new recruits were vulnerable to disease because many new recruits were simply recruited in poor health and so were more vulnerable, but they also seemed to confirm that troops that survived longer had better personal hygiene and were able to avoid the very prevalent intestinal diseases, so adding something like the aforementioned "disease flag" might be a way to modify the disease rules in a way that doesn't overburden the player with information or cause the numbers to deviate too much from their historical levels.  Also, the Sanitary Commission points out that new recruits were much more likely not to take their quinine than veteran troops and so were more susceptible to malaria.

[General Quarters]

Very thorough research, but it doesn't quite show that the game seems to model.

When the AoP had 30 percent out with sickness, the ANV probably had something similar. But I don't know of any time when the AoP had 30 percent out and the ANV a trivial amount, or vice versa.

One could probably assume that all armies had a non-negligible percentage (15-20 percent?) out more or less all the time, and occasionally higher when a particular disease spread through the ranks. That phenomenon could be said to be accurately modelled by the game by having armies slightly smaller than they were historically and, to some extent, by the attrition rules (since sickness increased on the march). In effect, the game is modelling men available for duty.

I am not questioning that rather constant base level of sickness, which probably affected both sides and all forces more or less equally, more or less all the time. I am questioning the highly differential impact of an army on one side being hit with up to 24 percent losses while the opposing army is hit with none.

Put differently: suppose each army routinely has 15 percent out ill, and suppose the current force levels automatically reflect that loss, then the current disease rules are saying that one army has an ADDITIONAL 24 percent out -- in effect, 39 percent of its force dies or becomes permanently incapacitated.

I would suggest that you think of the current disease rules, not as attempting to replicate all the deaths and incapacities during the war, but only those ADDITIONAL deaths that occur when a particularly virulent disease strikes one force.

[Artmiser]

 
 

Here is the chart I was refering to in another topic on disease and the civil war, you should all find it interesting
http://www.civilwardata.com/ca_demo6.html

[Queeg]

The disease model is fine as far as I'm concerned. It's realistic in the sense that it models a factor that was a critical consideration to the real-life commanders of the time but that most other games completely ignore. More importantly, it encourages the player to act in a realistic manner by dispersing his units into winter quarters and paying attention to hospital coverage. Perpetual uber-stacks on the front lines - a tactic that works just fine in most games - is an invitation to disaster in FOF. That's as it should be.

It doesn't bother me that it may hit me worse than my opponent. Or vice versa. Fortunes of war and all that. Plan ahead.

My advice: Tweak a little perhaps. But don't worry about wholesale changes. It generally works fine.

[Berkut]

The problem with the current model is that while it may accurately refelct the overall numbers, it impacts the gameplay in a disparite manner. Disease was a constant factor - but that is just it - it was constant. It didn't swoop in out of nowhere and devastate entire armies while leaving their opposition healthy. It was a constant drain on manpower, but a drain that effected both sides, and hence had nothing like the incredible effect it has in the game.