Could someone explain this for me?

[Berkut]

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

OOOF! Yes most unfortunate result. Like Erik said, retreat path issue is fixed, but on top of that....don't ever forget you have that Seek/Avoid Battle button on you army. Set to Avoid, and I think you woulda had a 50% chance of actively moving back thru Fburg to Potomac, escaping the trap.

Yeah, once I was stuck in Rappahanock, that is exactly what I did, to no avail. The nasty Rebs caught me anyway.

Which was to be expected, what with their Superb Command Staffs!

[Berkut]

Bump - hoping to hear something definitive about the combat loss ratio issue, and definitely about the rather out of kilter staff ratings.

[jchastain]

One other point I would suggest you to track when looking at battles results is supply.  In my testing, I have found supply level to be perhaps the most critical element to the performance of my armies.

[Berkut]

ORIGINAL: jchastain

One other point I would suggest you to track when looking at battles results is supply. In my testing, I have found supply level to be perhaps the most critical element to the performance of my armies.

Good suggestion.

I do not know what the supply levels where, but the US Army was sitting in a friendly province for quite some time, and had not engaged in a battle. So I would presume that their supply situation should have been ok.

[Joram]

ORIGINAL: Berkut

Bump - hoping to hear something definitive about the combat loss ratio issue, and definitely about the rather out of kilter staff ratings.

They've talked about both many times. I suggest you would do a search of the forums.

[Berkut]

ORIGINAL: Joram

ORIGINAL: Berkut

Bump - hoping to hear something definitive about the combat loss ratio issue, and definitely about the rather out of kilter staff ratings.

They've talked about both many times. I suggest you would do a search of the forums.

Thanks for the helpful suggestion.

I've seen plenty of posts about the combat ratios, most of which are similar to mine. THe only response I've seen has been essentially "Well, we think that they are ok".

Well, they are not ok. 4:1 should not happen often, if at all, and certainly not when you are talking about major, sustained fights with high casualty levels. I would like to know if this is being looked at, hopefully in the context of the next patch.

And I have not seen anything at all definitive adressing the staff problem, or anything explaining how one side can get an all around amazingly good staff like that, while the other must make do with a poor staff.

These are, IMO, two rather major issues. Without resolution, the game is unplayable via PBEM, at least it is to me. And since the only reason I bought the game was to play by email, it is something of an important topic for me.

[General Quarters]

ORIGINAL: jchastain

One other point I would suggest you to track when looking at battles results is supply.  In my testing, I have found supply level to be perhaps the most critical element to the performance of my armies.

What seems critical -- a minimum supply level of at least 5? Or is it a matter of the higher, the better for the purposes of battle performance?

[Berkut]

ORIGINAL: General Quarters

ORIGINAL: jchastain

One other point I would suggest you to track when looking at battles results is supply. In my testing, I have found supply level to be perhaps the most critical element to the performance of my armies.

What seems critical -- a minimum supply level of at least 5? Or is it a matter of the higher, the better for the purposes of battle performance?

Ughh, I hope not.

Being low on supply should be bad. Being out of supply should be really bad. Other than that, having lots of supply should make a minor, if any, difference.

I wonder if that is part of the problem with battle results - just too many "minor" variables that add up together and end up with extreme results?

[Mike Scholl]

OK, Eric. Now what have you guys got in the works to fix this rediculous state of affairs?

"Here are the Southern Staff ratings, Command - Logistics:

Army: Superb - Great
1st Corps: Excellent - Good
1st Div: Good - Good
2nd Div: Great - Great
3rd Div: Normal - Good
2nd Corps: Great - Good
4th Div: Great - Fair
5th Div: Great - Great
6th Div: Great - Good

Wow. The Army of North Virginia really has their **** together! Pretty impressive for an army that has never seen combat before!

Now lets look at the Army of Virgina (named as such because it at one time took over a good chunk of Virginia while we danced last year):

Army: Poor - Fair
1st Corps: Poor - Fair
1st Div: Normal - Fair
2nd Div: Fair - Poor
3rd Div: Fair - Poor
2nd Corps: Fair - Normal
4th Div: Poor - Normal
5th Div: Fair - Normal
3rd Corps: Fair - Normal
6th Div: Good - Normal
7th Div: Fair - Normal

Now, *both* of these armies have been doing the exact same thing for the last couple years - namely, not fighting. How is that that the South has this astounding army staff from top to bottom? While the Northern Armies staff are all mediocre or worse."

It's pretty obvious that something very one-sided is at work in getting to this result. The South may have had some better Leaders in the early going than the North..., but these are "staff wallahs". There is no rational reason why one side's should be that much better than the other's..., especially in the "logistics" realm where the North excelled. Something's just not "kosher" here. Any ideas?

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: Berkut

Yeah, the Army of the Potomac was destroyed in the next turn when it was pursued into Rappahanock and could not retreat.

So much for the hours and hours spent on that PBEM game. This is very frustrating - having a game ended in this manner really makes it hard to fire up another one.

Why a army would retreat into a province that is out of supply rather than just retreating back into Maryland is beyond me. I did control Rappahanock at the time though.

We're considering a change -- suggested by Hard Sarge, I believe -- that would enable armies that lose battles in coastal provinces from which they have no escape by land to escape to the nearest friendly port, as if they had been evacuated a la Dunkirk. In such cases, they would take HEAVY casualties, so armies might escape, but lose a good deal of strength. (And I just came up with the idea that in such evacuations armies would lose any non-improves artillery, as yet another penalty.)

I assume people like this idea?

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: Berkut


Here are the Southern Staff ratings, Command - Logistics:

Army: Superb - Great
1st Corps: Excellent - Good
1st Div: Good - Good
2nd Div: Great - Great
3rd Div: Normal - Good
2nd Corps: Great - Good
4th Div: Great - Fair
5th Div: Great - Great
6th Div: Great - Good

Now lets look at the Army of Virgina (named as such because it at one time took over a good chunk of Virginia while we danced last year):

Army: Poor - Fair
1st Corps: Poor - Fair
1st Div: Normal - Fair
2nd Div: Fair - Poor
3rd Div: Fair - Poor
2nd Corps: Fair - Normal
4th Div: Poor - Normal
5th Div: Fair - Normal
3rd Corps: Fair - Normal
6th Div: Good - Normal
7th Div: Fair - Normal

Now, *both* of these armies have been doing the exact same thing for the last couple years - namely, not fighting. How is that that the South has this astounding army staff from top to bottom? While the Northern Armies staff are all mediocre, at best?

This is in 1863 - not the beginning of the war by any means.

Do you remember what ratings the two armies had at the start of the game? Might the CSA army container have started Superb-Great? Army containers ONLY improve through fighting, and you say the army wasn't fighting. If it is true that the army engaged in no battles over two years AND started at less than Superb-Great then we would have a problem. But if you lucked out and got such a good container to start with, then everything you describe is perfectly normal: remember, bigger containers train smaller containers within them, so an army with Superb-Great over time will train every container inside to be better, which is why the CSA's smaller containers were also so good, and why the USA's weren't.

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: Berkut

Yeah, once I was stuck in Rappahanock, that is exactly what I did, to no avail. The nasty Rebs caught me anyway.

Which was to be expected, what with their Superb Command Staffs!

Command staffs for containers have nothing to do with whether they intercept enemy containers that are trying to avoid them.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

ORIGINAL: Berkut

Yeah, the Army of the Potomac was destroyed in the next turn when it was pursued into Rappahanock and could not retreat.

So much for the hours and hours spent on that PBEM game. This is very frustrating - having a game ended in this manner really makes it hard to fire up another one.

Why a army would retreat into a province that is out of supply rather than just retreating back into Maryland is beyond me. I did control Rappahanock at the time though.

We're considering a change -- suggested by Hard Sarge, I believe -- that would enable armies that lose battles in coastal provinces from which they have no escape by land to escape to the nearest friendly port, as if they had been evacuated a la Dunkirk. In such cases, they would take HEAVY casualties, so armies might escape, but lose a good deal of strength. (And I just came up with the idea that in such evacuations armies would lose any non-improves artillery, as yet another penalty.)

I assume people like this idea?

The penalty is too high. If the Union failed to take a fort or city on the southern coast they either retreated to their base or boarded their transports. There was never anything like the evacuation of Dunkirk. A big morale hit yes but heavy losses just because they retreated no.

[Gil R.]

Are you saying there couldn't have been a Dunkirk-like evacuation, had the circumstances forced it?

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

Are you saying there couldn't have been a Dunkirk-like evacuation, had the circumstances forced it?

Pretty much. There was nothing close to it in the civil war.

[Gil R.]

Are you saying there COULDN'T have been a Dunkirk-like evacuation, had the circumstances forced it?

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

Are you saying there COULDN'T have been a Dunkirk-like evacuation, had the circumstances forced it?

Can you show me a single incident from the civil war that comes close to Dunkirk? Why would you use a campaign from a war 80 years later to model the american civil war? The circumstances of Dunkirk are nothing like the amphibious operations of the Civil War. Dunkirk wasn't a failed amphibious invasion. Most of the men at dunkirk were saved. You want heavy union losses. A large percentage of the losses at Dunkirk were caused by air attack, something not available in the civil war though I'm surprised there aren't rules for dropping bombs from balloons. Read a little about the Union coastal attacks before you start comparing them to Dunkirk.

[General Quarters]

chris' logic seems to be: if it didn't happen, it couldn't happen. I don't think there were any Dunkirk-style rescues that were attempted and failed. So, by the same logic, if they never failed, they couldn't fail, which is equivalent to saying they could have happened after all.

[Queeg]

The evacuation issue seems to me to depend on how the army got into that fix. If by failed amphibious assault - they sail in, get off, fight, fail, climb back aboard - then perhaps it makes some sense, with some penalties. But if an army marches itself into an isolated coastal province and gets whipped, it ought to essentially vanish.

In game terms, it's the difference between withdrawing to the transports that brought you there and withdrawing to abstracted transports that aren't really there. The latter ought to be possible, if at all, only with very heavy loss.

I don't mind a rule that compromises the two for the sake of simplicity, I guess, but I would favor heavy losses in the compromise rule.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: General Quarters

chris' logic seems to be: if it didn't happen, it couldn't happen. I don't think there were any Dunkirk-style rescues that were attempted and failed. So, by the same logic, if they never failed, they couldn't fail, which is equivalent to saying they could have happened after all.

I'm still waiting to hear of a civil war situation similar to Dunkirk. World War II has plenty but this isn't a WWII game. How would the confederates have forced such an evacuation? Can you imagine what the guns of a union fleet would've done to confederate troops out in the open? It would've made Pickett's charge look like a picnic. How about studying what did happen when Union forces failed in an attack on southern ports instead of using dunkirk as a model.