ORIGINAL: Alex Gilbert
I hesitate to comment only because my experience thus far has been against the computer. I am now in a PBEM game but it is too early for me to evaluate that.
My biggest balance concern is that camps seem too easy for the south to build. Camps are essentially limited by the supply of horses, and horses are the one thing the south has in abundance. In a game on "Major" level, I had enough camps to get 20,000 reinforcements every 2 weeks by Feb 1863. I think this is too much, especially for the south. In my few games as the Union, it is much harder to build camps, resulting in the ahistrical pattern of the North having more trouble filling its brigades than the south does. (This is offset somewhat by the much easier time the union has raising new brigades)
I think that adding a money cost (10-20 or so) it would limit the south's ability to create camps and make a more realistic balance of force. Again, this is just based on games against the computer, and I am interested to hear if others have this impression as well.
Alex
Would it be possible to change the cost of a camp based on the number of camps within a province.
Example:
for the first camp in a province the cost is 20xL and 100xH
for the second camp in a province the cost is 10xM, 30xL, and 125xH
for the third camp in a province the cost is 10xM, 40xL, 10xI, and 150xH
etc...
This would help replicate that the reinforcements did not all come from the same place. Understand that historically they came from more populated areas than rural, but the recruiting locations were spread around a State and not just located in the major cities, or key strategic locations.
It would also allow someone to build greater than historical reinforcements, but at a substantial cost. Thus a decision point for the leader of either side. If the CSA player wants to pay the lower cost and keep them dispersed, they will then be harder to protect than picking a couple of well-placed camps that the USA player is hard-pressed to capture.
Tom