Balance in the 1861 Scenario

[stormbringer3]

I agree with the above opinion that forts should be strengthened and also with being able to dismantle them.

[PvtBenjamin]

After playing now about 10 MP games with this scenario I am surprised that anyone does not see a hughe advantage for the Union. All my Union games were just a walk in the park. No need to make big attacks just wait and build you units and research with the MPP advantage against the Confeds. Then take Garibaldi and smash Richmond. Diplomacy advances for the CSA are cancelled by taking the port cities with marines. Once Richmond is gone the game is lost for the CSA.
Only option for the CSA is to attack early Washington or other valuable targets to decrease the FS of the Union.
This will only work if the Union is not prepared for this. So against beginners the CSA may win.
The CSA does not have the capability to do long lasted attacks, it is too weak MPP wise.

So to fix this the MPP gap has to be lower and it should be harder for the Union to take the port cities and fortresses.
Also Garibaldi ist too strong at this point in time. There is also no real punishment for taking Garibaldi with 3 stars expierence. Since the mobilization of the European countries will be gone by taking the port cities.

To make offesive possibles the CSA should have siege artilleries with 2 or 3 shells. Otherwise they cannot affort to attack the entrenced units. With 1 shell they are of very limited use.
The fortresses should be upgrade until level 4 and start with level 1 for the CSA otherwise they can be smashed anytime with 2 marines.
The long range marines are also too cheap. They should be double the cost. I have seen players landing them. Get the city then next turn make them LR amphis again and do this until all easy targets are destroyed.

Main problem is the Union has MPP for eveything; research, units, amphip. attacks while the CSA struggle to keep a force to defend itself. That may be the historical facts but it should not happen so early in the game.
So maybe start with a lower industrialization value for the Union which then will increase more by tech.

Bill & Hubert Looks like the MP game could use some balancing. The man knows his game.

[Alter Native]

I kind of agree. But still, sadly, blockade can be enforced by ships anyway, no need for marines everywhere. So does it change that much in eco situation?

Well that's the whole point. Why block a route for raiding 40% of it when you can just conquer the harbor, get 100 % of the route and have all your ships available to raid other routes where you can't conquer the harbours.

This is from my last union game, description of the details in the previous post:


also, I didn't block Jacksonville by reducing the port's strength. so deduct another 50 MPP from the Confederacy, also I was figuring stuff out and most of this could have been done in 61 already.

300 MPP that's an entire division (Every single turn) that's missing for the rest of the game.

A single marine should not be able to one shot them

And is it? I am sure that one marine landing from amphib totally do not one shot almost any fort. Sometimes even two marines is not enough (depends on supply, techs and luck). Do you mean 'next turn attack', when landed single marine is adjacent to the fort and gets the bonus?

I promise you, they did.
Disembark -> one shot the fort of new Orleans -> enter the city -> 80 MPP route, gone, 20 MPP City lost, FS lost, Europe in panic -> another 100 MPP routes lost.

No HQ around, no prepared attack
I may have had the infantry +1 upgrade already and another point in navel tactics which buffs marines, but still...
I was playing on veteran and gave the AI a 1.5 experience bonus, that should have compensated some of my advantages.

Not really, Mobile is easy to screen. New Orleans also can be defended with some effort. Monitors also are nice sometimes.

Yes, I agree at least for Mobile. But this is still not the solution. Why screen a city, when I could just place a unit inside the city
Oh wait... I can't... because of the weak fort garrison that can't be dissembled. Also when the Confederacy has their first Monitors it's already too late.

[battlevonwar]

Perhaps there is a hotshot CSA Player that can humble this strategy into mootness ? Is that guy out there? ? ? Anyone Bueller Anyone

[PvtBenjamin]

Played just a few turns

I think

Richmond & DC need to have more forts where units can entrench around them. They are both wide open and right next to one another. It should be very difficult to take both cities early on, this alone could ruin competitive PBEM play.

In the April '61 scenario he North Navy is far too superior in the beginning. We're looking for balance not history correct?

[devoncop]

Balance in MP.

History in SP I would argue.

Your point still stands though. Both capitals and the major ports should be MUCH more defensible than they are.

[Alter Native]

Richmond & DC need to have more forts where units can entrench around them. They are both wide open and right next to one another. It should be very difficult to take both cities early on, this alone could ruin competitive PBEM play.

You have to build fortifications yourself using engineers, I think you even get one for free as the CSA . Also without Corps any offensive action is extremely difficult so getting either city early is close to impossible.

In the April '61 scenario he North Navy is far too superior in the beginning. We're looking for balance not history correct?

Should be balanced within the historic boundary conditions, so the blockade from the union is just part of the game and history.
It's like giving Germany in WWII aircraft carriers in 39 so it's balanced against the Royal Navy.

[PvtBenjamin]

Richmond & DC need to have more forts where units can entrench around them. They are both wide open and right next to one another. It should be very difficult to take both cities early on, this alone could ruin competitive PBEM play.

You have to build fortifications yourself using engineers, I think you even get one for free as the CSA . Also without Corps any offensive action is extremely difficult so getting either city early is close to impossible.

In the April '61 scenario he North Navy is far too superior in the beginning. We're looking for balance not history correct?

Should be balanced within the historic boundary conditions, so the blockade from the union is just part of the game and history.
It's like giving Germany in WWII aircraft carriers in 39 so it's balanced against the Royal Navy.

Completely disagree with both of your points. In the SC Europe game the German land and air forces are far superior as are the subs. That is not the case here the differential in the Navies makes the game completely unbalanced. Both cities should start with forts for the game.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Perhaps there is a hotshot CSA Player that can humble this strategy into mootness ? Is that guy out there? ? ? Anyone Bueller Anyone

Bueller! Bueller!

Not sure if I'm a hotshot, but I'm going to give it my best playing CSA in a MP match against another former beta tester.
This is going to mean covering New Orleans, Pensacola, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Mobile, etc with brigades as soon as they are available and/or by rotating in divisions to the main fronts and brigades to the periphery.
Also it means monitors and river ironclads as the war progresses.

I generally agree that in MP anyway...as things stand...balances issues still need to be tweaked a bit in favor of the CSA.
Still, this game is still early after release...and more MP matches need to be conducted to fine tune this.

At least in this current match I am in, I'm going to try my best to last as long as I can against the northern colossus.
Its not going to be easy.

Link to CSA Turn 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRizNVrtrQo

Cheers
OldCrow

[cholerajohn]

I would ask that if the game is to be rebalanced it be done so a separate campaign scenario option. Everything I am reading in complaints were known weaknesses of the South. Weaken the North's industrial capacity? That is like saying in my WW II game the US has too much industrial capacity for Japan to win. Yes it did (and the Japanese military knew it based on all the wargames it ran and they kept changing the rules and still lost). Play a few games and, like a golf handicap, figure out what your goal for survival should be. Maybe that is the rebalance. The South gets a decisive win if it lasts past 1865 with x MPP tactical if the MPP is y.

[PvtBenjamin]

Well in the SC Europe MP game its basically impossible as Allies to hold Leningrad, Moscow or Egypt against a strong player, all of which never happened. Its still very possible for the Allies to win. The game is designed this way so their is balance. I agree historical events need to be considered but in the end the game should be balanced so either side can win not the Confederates held off until '65. Who wants to play the South in MP in that case? My understanding was MP was going to be balanced and honestly I wouldn't have bought the game otherwise. I bought the game on Matrix to help out the devs, should have bought it on Steam so I could get the refund.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Well in the SC Europe MP game its basically impossible as Allies to hold Leningrad, Moscow or Egypt against a strong player, all of which never happened. Its still very possible for the Allies to win. The game is designed this way so their is balance. I agree historical events need to be considered but in the end the game should be balanced so either side can win not the Confederates held off until '65. Who wants to play the South in MP in that case? My understanding was MP was going to be balanced and honestly I wouldn't have bought the game otherwise. I bought the game on Matrix to help out the devs, should have bought it on Steam so I could get the refund.

Two months of beta testing MP isn't enough when it a was a very limited pool of folks willing to try that vs SP.
Still, Fury has a good record of adjusting the balance as you well know. It depends on a wider player pool of all kinds of experience and a lot of matches to get more data.
They don't just release a game and walk away.

Anyways, yeah...maybe you should of waited for Steam to get a refund. The rest of us will work on getting the balance right.

[LoneRunner]

I would ask that if the game is to be rebalanced it be done so a separate campaign scenario option. Everything I am reading in complaints were known weaknesses of the South. Weaken the North's industrial capacity? That is like saying in my WW II game the US has too much industrial capacity for Japan to win. Yes it did (and the Japanese military knew it based on all the wargames it ran and they kept changing the rules and still lost). Play a few games and, like a golf handicap, figure out what your goal for survival should be. Maybe that is the rebalance. The South gets a decisive win if it lasts past 1865 with x MPP tactical if the MPP is y.

I agree. Please keep the game historically accurate. Yes, the North held the advantage, that's why they won. Perhaps, the victory conditions should be adjusted. Or maybe, we could figure out why the South historically held out so long.

During game play, Northern players could be correcting a lot of mistakes that the North made during the actual war and that's why the game appears unbalanced. Or, perhaps the South held certain advantages that are not included in ACW. Here's a couple ideas:

Forts
Weak forts are a big disadvantage for the South. In many cases forts are a weak point in my defense. Fort Donelson and New Orleans come to mind. I would much rather have a fortification than a fort in an important hex because I can place a unit in a fortification. Replacing forts with fortifications/fortified cities plus an occupying brigade would be much more historically accurate than an empty five point generic fort.

Yes, during the actual war, the North quickly captured many ports and forts along the Southern coast. I think the North was able to do that IRL because the South neglected to properly defend the coast. In ACW the South is unable to defend the coast because weak forts block proper defense, for example, New Orleans, Savannah, Wilmington.

Blockade Runners
In ACW the North can completely shut down a trading route by capturing a port. IRL that didn't happen. Even after capturing major ports, the North struggled to shut down Southern commerce partly because the South became adept at using the intricate network of waterways through the barrier islands to avoid the blockade.

Perhaps occupation of a port only shuts down a percentage of a trade route. The remainder of the trade route shifts to another point on the coast. And then another. Kind of like whack a mole. But that's exactly what the Northern fleet encountered.

I'm sure historians in our group can identify other historical advantages of the South that are not represented in ACW.

[Edorf]

I agree with cholerajohn and Lonerunner. Keep the game historical accurate.

[devoncop]

Its the classic SP v MP debate we have here.

Distant Worlds specifically decided to make its game SP only desptite pleas from the MP crowd because the developer Erik Rutkins and his team knew that as soon as MP went in the next demand would be to make the factions " balanced" to make MP games " fun".
The devs wanted the game to be asynchronous and unbalanced so that players could choose to play an underdog if they wanted and to see how long they could survive.

I am really enjoying my MP games in SC ACW despite being on the end of a couple of absolute trouncings by much better players and that includes playing as the Rebs. The two sides here are asynchronous and unbalanced as they were historically. The Federals should win 90% of games given opponents of equal ability and the challenge as the Rebs is to try and survive a little longer each time.

Maybe the South needs to be strengthened a little as most games seem to last no longer than mid 1863 given competent Union play but please do not perfectly " balance" the game for MP by creating two historically nonsensical cookie cutter factions. If you want balance in MP I can recommend chess

[Patrat]

I agree with cholerajohn and Lonerunner. Keep the game historical accurate.

I agree with all these guys and devoncop.

Tweak the balance a little to make playing Confederates more fun and have the games last longer, ok by me.

Adjust the victory conditions so the south can win 50 % of the time, that's a fine idea.

Create a fantasy game where the Confederates are the military and economic equal to the North. That will keep me from ever playing any MP.

That's one thing that always bothered me about MP in WiE. Making the Axis unhistorically strong, just so they can conquer Europe approximately 50% of the time. That's the main reason I didn't play MP in that game. I have always thought that the victory conditions should of been tweaked to meet the goal of the Axis winning approximately half the time.

[battlevonwar]

I am very interested in seeing what you are capable of I will also put some effort into figuring out how to find ways around the obviously glaring advantages of one side. I think that defending the Ports is essential but you will need more units and therefore perhaps have to sacrifice somewhere else ... That or make such a massive push if possible to draw every last fighting man away from the periphery. A lot like AGEOD ACW II, the ideal strategy was to say go all in on Washington(which I don't think can work here) cause the Union would ignore any other field to purely defend it.(this ended in causing you to defend less elsewhere as you 8-10 fighting men in Maryland) The CSA Navy used properly could definitely be potent but there are few ports where they need to be; to use it proper I think so refitting and recycling is very difficult. It's easier to defend the Ole Miss then say the James which really really needs a sealant.

I did poor in my mediocre vs this strat in my counterplay but I am not sure anyone could do 'much better' we shall see. I think maybe a full on invasion through Kentucky would do something but I look around and I don't see value there vs other key strategic areas in the long run.

Eager to see what you're capable of but I am brainstorming new ideas as well. . . (I think a lot of hotseat will be needed to see what power players can be employed in game)

Perhaps there is a hotshot CSA Player that can humble this strategy into mootness ? Is that guy out there? ? ? Anyone Bueller Anyone

Bueller! Bueller!

Not sure if I'm a hotshot, but I'm going to give it my best playing CSA in a MP match against another former beta tester.
This is going to mean covering New Orleans, Pensacola, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Mobile, etc with brigades as soon as they are available and/or by rotating in divisions to the main fronts and brigades to the periphery.
Also it means monitors and river ironclads as the war progresses.

I generally agree that in MP anyway...as things stand...balances issues still need to be tweaked a bit in favor of the CSA.
Still, this game is still early after release...and more MP matches need to be conducted to fine tune this.

At least in this current match I am in, I'm going to try my best to last as long as I can against the northern colossus.
Its not going to be easy.

Link to CSA Turn 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRizNVrtrQo

Cheers
OldCrow

[battlevonwar]

This isn't a roleplaying game, if anyone of you played much Strategic Command I or II and don't recall the exploits I'll name a few. The AA Tech Bug in SC1, it would make your fighters evaporate the enemy air cause it combined AA into the Air Unit as a direct Bonus and you would see 7 air units get destroyed in a turn or two.

In SC2 you could DOW every Minor as the Axis and take them all and have a token force for Barbarossa. The issue in this would be that you would drive onto Moscow and past it like a lawnmower cause your units had a MASSIVE morale/effectiveness boost that didn't evaporate and the opponent had a massive morale drop, only answer was for the Allies was to give the Axis every Neutral on the Map ... (I also remember a Paradrop once on my Capitol and the game ending from the UK, as if that was going to really make the Germans surrender?)

SC3 had her issues but I remember the team worked more quickly at remedying things and many of my battles lasted into the Urals. It was very immersive fighting for every last inch of real estate. Trying to counter every move your opponent made. It was awfully tough to be prepared for everything or to know everything. I remember battles in Egypt that would go on and on. Of course it's been awhile and The game was far more vast as I recall but I didn't play it as much as the other titles.



The fun part is countering the META. . . Finding a counterplay in Multiplayer and if you want to roleplay I suggest a dozen houserules not refunding your money. There are always those fans who desire that feel. There isn't a game out that doesn't have endless exploitations from HOI4, Warplan, other ACW Titles I've played.


Here we see a player that brings in a great leader, waits till he has a 2 to 1 advantage on you and uses his artillery/navy to trade in such a way you give up everything else or Virginia. You can't give up Virginia without losing and everything else without losing so it's a decision(there must be a counterplay) or a game alteration if not?

[battlevonwar]

Numbers and losses ... issues where I could of had more numbers ( I lost several naval units cause the game spawns them to die literally without a port to escape to also try keeping Norfolk with that dreadful fort on it no fun, I lost several land units to an event and learning game mechanics ) but all in all I think the Union has a disparity that allows him to push too early to history if you want history even if I'm 1/10th the experience of my opponent. . . 80 vs 50 and even if you can get to 60 I don't think you can fight a Union with max'd with 60 Land Units... Be my guest and try in 1862 with even tech and a level 7 General when your best is level 8

[Alter Native]

Perhaps an easy to implement solution that would go a long way is:
- Removing the forts of New Orleans, Mobile, Wilmington

Once you get the "protect your cost" popup window in 61 you get three event brigades in New Orleans, Mobile, Wilmington which would already go a long way to protect the easy capturing of those cities.

Then, forts need to be dissolvable so that the CSA player may chose to dissolve forts in Norfolk, Charleston and manually place brigades there.

None of this making up some unhistorical events, but it would help a lot with making the ports harder to capture und thus protect the CSA economy a bit longer.
At last I'd be in favor of making navel invasions much more costly for the union, e.g. doubling the amphibious landing costs and reducing the starting amphibious warfare tech by 1.

At last I'd remove (or change) the FS-objectives from Mobile and Norfolk. Now the union has to decide if they want to go for a navel strategy, trying to weaken the economy of the south first or do they want to take on the FS-objectives inland (Nashville, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Memphis) to prevent European mobilization and start chipping away on the CSA Fighting Spirit.
Because right now they can do both easily.