Game-Balance Improvements for Upcoming Patch

[Artmiser]

To fix that a few of the states that historicly produced the largest amount of troops for the North can start with multiple manufacturing centers and a larger population base to draw on.   You could also add a drain on weapon stockpiles for each camp, so camps use so many weapons each turn.  Not a bad balancer in itself, to many camps and all you could afford for your new units would be with IW.   To me its part of the flavor of the civil war and one of the things that stand out between the northern and southern armies.  We dont want to make things to the same or you end up with a game with the only difference being the color of the uniform.

You could also balance this by adding free units from the main three main northern states.  NY, OH and PA.  IL and IN are up there also but the first three contributed the greatest number of troops.  How ofter you get them and from how many would be up to the people trying to balance the game. 

[Twotribes]

Totally disagree. Why is it that when one supports the South, anything goes, total free reign to do new things and at the same time demand hard and fast limits on the North?

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

Totally disagree. Why is it that when one supports the South, anything goes, total free reign to do new things and at the same time demand hard and fast limits on the North?

psst...

it's a conspiracy to destroy the United States, 2T!

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Artmiser

To fix that a few of the states that historicly produced the largest amount of troops for the North can start with multiple manufacturing centers and a larger population base to draw on.

Mmm, but whenever you raise a brigade the population loss causes your economic return on that province to go down some. It's not even a problem of the total number of men available, more a point that raising troops damages your economy.

You could also add a drain on weapon stockpiles for each camp, so camps use so many weapons each turn. Not a bad balancer in itself, to many camps and all you could afford for your new units would be with IW. To me its part of the flavor of the civil war and one of the things that stand out between the northern and southern armies. We dont want to make things to the same or you end up with a game with the only difference being the color of the uniform.

I agree with that. You'd have to be fairly careful with the camps maintenance costs though, sounds like it would be tricky to balance, to me...

Raising fresh brigades does have a point in its own right mind, as they have double the quality of camp reinforcements. I'm just a bit sceptical as to the balance of this though, after all raising a new brigade costs 50 cash, 50 labour, 2 men, and the management involved bringing it into action. Thats a lot. Whereas camps are the easy option, and all that cash, labour and men can be spent by the CSA on something else. (like even more brigades, more mansions, whatever.). You'd need to make the camp maintenance balance that out.

...and of course there wouldn't be much stopping the North from getting camps if the Union player so decided. The Union has masses of armories if nothing else.

[Artmiser]

The reason you have to be carefull with the north is because with competent leadership the north would have won the civil war in 43.  When you hand a wargamer the reigns of the norths manufacutring and population he will use those to hammer the south flat.  Then you dont have much of a game, They put those hard and fast limits on the north to represent the reasons the north didnt do historicly what a wargamer can do today.

Example after the harvest season of 1862 the state of illinoise contributed 125 Infantry Regiments, 16 Cavalry, and 35 Artillery batteries.

Give me that kind of production potential in this game and I would own any southern player in the world, including God if he was interested in playing.

[Artmiser]

Also if it has not been mentioned you need to make ironclads a heck of allot tougher then they are in game.   10 Ironclads or monitors should smash 50 or even a 100 wooden hulled ships. The problems were that the guns mounted by each side at the time couldnt punch the armor. Maybe a luck hit would dismount a gun or knock out the stack, but other then that all wooden hulled ships could do was run.

[Twotribes]

Well technically most Union Iron clads were ( especially the early ones) not suited for open sea travel. So technically they shouldnt be allowed to fight in the sea zones if one wants to get particular about it.

I suggest the South is wasting money and resources building a Navy anyway.

[General Quarters]

Yes, it has bothered me that ironclads in the game can roam all over. Ironclads not being very seaworthy could be modelled by having them at risk or suffering attrition any time they are at sea, or particularly in bad weather. Or they could be restricted to the sea hex next to the port they were built in. Or at sea only turn at a time after which they would need to return to port. Or very restricted sea movement, e.g., one area per turn.

[Artmiser]

I like the one area per turn rule, would show that they are having to move carefully at sea.   I also want them tougher, im not sure the size of the gun needed to do any damage to them or that any of them were mounted on ships.   Pretty mutch it would take a critical hit to the smoke stacks or a gun dismount.  

[General Quarters]

To follow up on Artmiser's suggestion, is it true that none of the guns in the game could hurt an ironside, short of a lucky shot?

[Erik Rutins]

That depends on the Ironclad as they did vary quite a bit, but I think in most cases you'd need a lucky shot.

[chris0827]

11 ironclads were sunk in action. two by gunfire, 9 by mines.

[Twinkle]

ORIGINAL: Artmiser
Id rather have a cap on camps then reduce the horses. And whatever the cap is decided the North needs to be half that of the south. Historicly the South reinforced units, and the North just let the regiments get smaller and smaller.

YES, but what relevance has that to do with brigades??? We use brigades in the game. Why not study the typical number of regiments per brigade as a function of months of war...

[Artmiser]

What happened, and if you study Oders of battles you can see it.
 
Union I corps I Divison I brigade at battle of antietam
 
First Brigade   Col. Walter Phelps, Jr.
22nd New York (National Guard)
24th New York
30th New York
84th New York (14th NYSM)
2nd US Sharpshooters
 
Same unit at Gettysburg had these regiments
 
[font=arial]19th Indiana
24th Michigan
2d Wisconsin[/font]
[font=arial]6th Wisconsin[/font][font=arial]
7th Wisconsin[/font]
[font=arial][/font] 
[font=arial]It wasnt the same brigade anymore.[/font]
[font=arial][/font] 
[font=arial]Longstreets Mclaw Division at Antietam[/font]
[font=arial][/font] 
[font=arial]Kershaws Brigade[/font]
[font=arial][/font] 
[font=arial]Kershaw's Brigade   Brig. Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw
2nd South Carolina Volunteers (Palmetto) 
3rd South Carolina
7th South Carolina
8th South Carolina
 
At gettysburg[/font]
2nd South Carolina:
3rd South Carolina:
7th South Carolina,
8th South Carolina,
15th South Carolina:
3d South Carolina Battalion, 
 
Longstreets Corps has almost all the same regiments, with a few new ones.
 
The Union I corps has few of the same regiments and mostly new ones.
 
The confederacy had a core of veterans that served it well, and with the unions habit of getting rid of regiments didnt.   However it did help the later on when a soild core of veterans reenlisted, giving some of that same effect to the Union army later in the war.
 
 

[chris0827]

Your Union example shows two different brigades. Every union corps had a 1st brigade. Brigades would be renamed if they switched corps.

[Mike13z50]

I've played a couple of games vs AI as each side, the most important change required is more Major Generals per academy.

Since you get only one MG per academy, that means you need at least 9 academies just to have a division commander for each of 9 divisions. Lee alone had 9 divisions at Gettysburg, each with a commander, not to mention the rest of the confederacy.

I know you say the two star rank does not equal the historical equivilent, but it is frustrating not having enough division commanders.

Change it to three MG per academy.

[Artmiser]

I stand corrected, However It does seem that the North had a tendency to move regiments around from command to command. This would contribute to its lack of unit cohesion at brigade/division level.   After your comment I took a closer look at some of the northern regimental histories.  The level I wargamed you never looked much beyond brigades, since that is the normal unit you would move on the table top.   But having served in the military I would say the constant change in command  in the North would have been demoralizing, you would never develop a trust for your brigade or division commanders because they were changing every three months to six months.  You would know little about the units gaurding your flanks and I could very easily see how this could contribute to allot of the Norths early defeats.

[Twotribes]

Which has absolutely nothing to do with replacements , camps or creating new Brigades.

[Artmiser]

First I was responding to Chris.
 
However it doesnt change the fact that the Union had a policy of not reinforcing regiments, this is historical fact.  And the South did, also fact.  So get over it.  IT also doesnt change my comments that reinforced regiments had a core of veterans to rely on.  This whole back and forth resulted in camp comments and my belief that if you want the game to be somewhat historical you should not allow the north to have as many camps as the south.   If you want everything to be the same and no side to get any advantages over the other you shouldnt be playing an ACW game.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: Artmiser

First I was responding to Chris.

However it doesnt change the fact that the Union had a policy of not reinforcing regiments, this is historical fact.  And the South did, also fact.  So get over it.  IT also doesnt change my comments that reinforced regiments had a core of veterans to rely on.  This whole back and forth resulted in camp comments and my belief that if you want the game to be somewhat historical you should not allow the north to have as many camps as the south.   If you want everything to be the same and no side to get any advantages over the other you shouldnt be playing an ACW game.

You're wrong. The union did reinforce regiments. Why do you think they didn't?

A regiment at full strength was 1025 men. Some mustered in a few more or a few less. Here are the numbers of men who served in some union regiments.

44th New York 1585 men (560 reinforcements)
97th Pennsylvania 2004 men (979 reinforcements)
82nd Ohio 1721 men (696 reinforcements)
89th Illinois 1318 men (293 reinforcements)

Not all regiments were reinforced especially the short term ones but a majority of the long term regiments were. Some received well over a thousand new men during the war. It was largely up to the states whether to reinforce existing regiments or raise new ones. Raising new regiments allowed greater numbers of prominent citizens to serve as officers rather than enlisted men. A man is much more likely to join up if he has a chance at being an officer.