Victory Conditions discussion

[Berkut]

I am not unwilling, it is just another thing that I consider broken.

You can tell me that it is working as intended, that in fact historically the South had an outstanding command staff and logistical staff, and this is as intended. That is fine. But, as someone who has a decent, if amateur, level of knowledge about the Civil War and the relative capabilities of the sides, in my view that is broken. I do appreciate finally getting a definitive answer though - at least now I know this isn't a bug, just poor (IMO) design.

I will admit to a bit of surprise that the intent of the feature is not to provide a higher level of granularity in unit capability, but simply to buff up the South a bit. I erronesouly thought this was another way of differentiating units, and another way for the player to manage his forces, rather than a way to make the South stronger. If that is the case, I would suggest making that clear, since it does not say that anywhere in the manual, and the tooltip for the option does not indicate that using it will result in uber unhistorical Southern staff ratings.

Similar to disease - read any decent Civil War history. The number of times you see a particular army in normal conditions made combat inoperational because in one slice of operational time some 25% of it is wiped out by disease is zero, as far as I know. Much less having the operational readiness of the force completely destroyed (represented by disposition going straight into the toilet when disease breaks out). Again, that might be a design decision, and working as intended, but it doesn't represent anything that actually happened. The disease model appears to me to be driven by a simplistic modelling of the oft-cited disease casualty rates, without much thought about how disease actually impacted Civil War era combat formations. But this is old ground.

Playing with it off is not as historical as playing with it on if it were realistically implemented, but playing with it off IS more historical than having ONE army of two facing each other suddenly made combat ineffective by disease. However, this is actually a fine example of how simply flipping options around is a poor solution. Turning off disease is fine, but we quickly realized that this now made camps too powerful, since the game was likely designed to ahve some level of replacements needed to try to keep up with disease losses. Turn off disease, suddenly armies are TOO strong. Of course, the answer to this is to tone down camps, but maybe THAT will have some other unintended consequence. Ad naseum.

Tweaking the optional settings can certainly be done, but I think significant deviations from the abse involve lots of unforseen issues. And when a PBEM games takes an investment of amny hours, only to find that halfway through the game it has to be abandoned, or is out of kilter because you didn't forsee everything, it makes for a poor gaming experience.

Better to have the default settings properly balanced to begin with. And I don't think that expectation is unreasonable.

[Erik Rutins]

Berkut,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, it did help me understand much better where you're coming from.

ORIGINAL: Berkut
You can tell me that it is working as intended, that in fact historically the South had an outstanding command staff and logistical staff, and this is as intended. That is fine. But, as someone who has a decent, if amateur, level of knowledge about the Civil War and the relative capabilities of the sides, in my view that is broken. I do appreciate finally getting a definitive answer though - at least now I know this isn't a bug, just poor (IMO) design.

Consider what the staff actually affects in-game:

Logistical Staff affects the use of supplies. With really bad logistical staff, you use more supplies. With a really good logistical staff, you use less. The generals themselves don't have a logistical/admin type of value, so this is modeled here. If you want "Commissary Banks", this will reflect that. It's also fair to say that Southern armies tended to get by with less than Northern armies.

Command Staff reflects pretty much all the staff officers supporting the commander, or in the case where there's no commander, it reflects the "unnamed" general in command. This is the one that probably affected your battle, as it has a definite impact on quick combat ratings. Its effect in detailed combat is more subtle but still significant. As the Union, there are a few things under your control here.

First, containers are not that expensive. If you are unlucky enough to get a Terrible/Terrible or something close ot that, don't use it, discard it. Build another one. I have gotten many Fair/Normal containers with that policy. In addition, get those containers attached to higher level containers for training. Finally, McClellan spent a lot of time training the Army early on. It's not a bad idea, so as the Union don't plan on winning major engagements with the South's "A Team" in the first year at least, unless you can get them into a situation where you are on the defensive and can accrue some of those bonuses to overcome your shortcomings.

In all honesty, how else would you expect something like Antietam to really be possible? Most players, given that result in a game of this level, would cry foul. The Union had twice as many troops, knew the Confederate plan, etc.

I will admit to a bit of surprise that the intent of the feature is not to provide a higher level of granularity in unit capability, but simply to buff up the South a bit. I erronesouly thought this was another way of differentiating units, and another way for the player to manage his forces, rather than a way to make the South stronger. If that is the case, I would suggest making that clear, since it does not say that anywhere in the manual, and the tooltip for the option does not indicate that using it will result in uber unhistorical Southern staff ratings.

Early on, it effectively buffs up the South. As the Union containers train up, it's more about that granularity. As far as providing more info on it, that's a good suggestion. I'm sorry if you were blindsided by the current implementation.

I also don't think it's a bad idea in general to perhaps tweak both sides a bit more towards the middle, so that "Terrible" is less common for the Union and "Superb" less common for the South, but I wanted to get the point across that it's working as intended and that after playing many games with this turned on, it's not impossible at all to win as the Union and it's not impossible to lose as the South. I think right now you are drawing from too small a sample to really throw the baby out with the bath water.

Similar to disease - read any decent Civil War history. The number of times you see a particular army in normal conditions made combat inoperational because in one slice of operational time some 25% of it is wiped out by disease is zero, as far as I know. Much less having the operational readiness of the force completely destroyed (represented by disposition going straight into the toilet when disease breaks out). Again, that might be a design decision, and working as intended, but it doesn't represent anything that actually happened. The disease model appears to me to be driven by a simplistic modelling of the oft-cited disease casualty rates, without much thought about how disease actually impacted Civil War era combat formations. But this is old ground.

This rarely ever happens to me, even with the old disease rules. First of all, disease rarely hits the same place twice in a row and it generally only knocks off one disposition level at a time. If I'm going to send my army out to do combat, I generally pump up its supply to improve its disposition before marching out. I also generally make it a priority to make sure that each of my "garrison" provinces have a hospital and that Annapolis, where I generally park one of my biggest armies, has at least two. By working with the rules, I've been able to manage disease quite well, to the point that I was concerned it wasn't severe enough. One concern I have is with players jumping to conclusions too early, before they've really had a chance to learn all the rules or adjust their play to overcome the various hurdles. I agree that if you don't plan for the old disease rules, they will smack you when you least expect or need it, but they are still quite manageable.

Tweaking the optional settings can certainly be done, but I think significant deviations from the abse involve lots of unforseen issues. And when a PBEM games takes an investment of amny hours, only to find that halfway through the game it has to be abandoned, or is out of kilter because you didn't forsee everything, it makes for a poor gaming experience.

I agree. One question I have though is how many vs. AI games did you play before starting your PBEM game? In any game with this many options, it's always good to have a few practice campaigns under your belt before deciding what options you do and don't like.

Regards,

- Erik

[Berkut]

Thanks for the reply Erik, I appreciate your time.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Consider what the staff actually affects in-game:

Logistical Staff affects the use of supplies. With really bad logistical staff, you use more supplies. With a really good logistical staff, you use less.

NRBH, but is it that you use more, or is it that you get less? Or both?

The generals themselves don't have a logistical/admin type of value, so this is modeled here. If you want "Commissary Banks", this will reflect that. It's also fair to say that Southern armies tended to get by with less than Northern armies.

The problem with this model is that it is not specific to a particular unit, it is systemic. ALL Northern containers have an intrinsically inferior logistical staff. That is simply inaccurate, and untrue. If anything the Northern staffs were slightly superior to the Southern, better organized, and more capable. The Southern armies "got by" with less because their logistical network sucked.

I am not exactly sure how the historical reality of the South having less supplies than the North results in them having incredibly good logistical staff ratings, and the North poor ones! One would presume that in fact the *opposite* would occur!

In addition, get those containers attached to higher level containers for training. Finally, McClellan spent a lot of time training the Army early on. It's not a bad idea, so as the Union don't plan on winning major engagements with the South's "A Team" in the first year at least, unless you can get them into a situation where you are on the defensive and can accrue some of those bonuses to overcome your shortcomings.

I appreciate the detailed response, but this is pretty clearly another example of an attempt to design for effect failing.

The armies in question fought in 1863, not 1861. Both had all brigades in divisions, all divisions in Corps, all Corps in Armies, for a rather long time. Presumably training.

It is not that the Southern containers start out a little better (something I could at least understand, if not agree with) early in the war, and then the Union is forced to catch up. It is that after almost two years of sitting around training, the Union has a mediocre command staff, and the South a superb command staff. This means that it is effectively out of the Unions players hands - I intentionally tried to keep the Union Army out of direct combat to let it train, and the result was that I did train, but the Southern Army became the German General Staff at the outbreak of Barabarossa. I probably would have been better off throwing them into the fray in 1861.

And I was on the defensive, btw. So, I trained, I was on the defensive, and the result was that the Union Aramy was crushed. Not just beaten, but absolutely crushed.

In all honesty, how else would you expect something like Antietam to really be possible? Most players, given that result in a game of this level, would cry foul. The Union had twice as many troops, knew the Confederate plan, etc.

I will counter with this: In all honesty, how was Gettysburg possible, with the South having vastly superior generals, vastly superior logistical expertise, and vastly superior mid-lower level leadership?

Answer: They didn't actually have all those things, at least not as late as 1863. In reality they had some excellent generals, some very good staffs, but some very bad ones, and overall poor logistical expertise.

And like I said in the thread, my beef isn't that the Union lost - I actually expected that due to the unit quality disparity. But I am ok with losing battles in Virginia, and long as I can bleed the South in the process. 4:1 though? That just amkes me think the combat model is not well done. Hell, even my opponenet was pissed off.

Early on, it effectively buffs up the South. As the Union containers train up, it's more about that granularity. As far as providing more info on it, that's a good suggestion. I'm sorry if you were blindsided by the current implementation.

Again, this is *after* the training up period, not before. I imagine the problem is that the South starts out better, AND trains faster, meaning that as time goes on, they actually get a LOT better.

There should be some kind of bell curve for staff rating increases. I would actually claim that on a scale of 1-10, command staff should not be able to get much over 6 or so *without* being in combat. If the Southern containers start off around 4-6, and the North around 2-4, then both train at roughly the same speed, but capped for out of combat training at "fair" or so (you could maybe get better if it randomly started that way, to represent the rare exceptional staff at creation).

Further, even with combat, it should be progressivley hard to get the ratings up into the 8-10 range. And combat in some cases should decrease it, to represent lost experts, although again, it should almost never decrease the rating below average, since replacing average officers is not hard.

This would force a decision on the Northern player. If I fight early, I will probably lose. but I will accelerate the staff training, and get that valuable combat expeience I need to close the gap. If I do not fight early, I may close the gap eventually, but it will take a long time - are we willing to let the AotP sit around for a year and a half?

And btw, the South lost MORE men at Antietam than the North did, assuming you are referring to the battle between Mclellan and Lee in Spetember of 1862. No 4:1 casualty ratio there.

I also don't think it's a bad idea in general to perhaps tweak both sides a bit more towards the middle, so that "Terrible" is less common for the Union and "Superb" less common for the South, but I wanted to get the point across that it's working as intended and that after playing many games with this turned on, it's not impossible at all to win as the Union and it's not impossible to lose as the South. I think right now you are drawing from too small a sample to really throw the baby out with the bath water.

My issue is not whether it is possible to win, it is whether the game makes any sense. And the North getting crushed with a loss ratio unmatched in the actual war in numbers in 1863 because the South has vastly superior "command staff" that they never had should not be possible. I will grant that it is a small sample to draw a conclusion from, but I cannot see how this could result in any other result, and the knowledge that this result *could* happen makes the game unplayable, IMO. I simply will not invest the time necessary at the risk of it being relatively asted when someething like this comes up.

This rarely ever happens to me, even with the old disease rules. First of all, disease rarely hits the same place twice in a row and it generally only knocks off one disposition level at a time. If I'm going to send my army out to do combat, I generally pump up its supply to improve its disposition before marching out.

What if it isn't marching out, but staying at home trying to train its horrendously bad command staffs?

I agree. One question I have though is how many vs. AI games did you play before starting your PBEM game? In any game with this many options, it's always good to have a few practice campaigns under your belt before deciding what options you do and don't like.

True enough, and I don't really play against the AI, since I think it is

1. Boring and uninteresting, and
2. Teaches you how to exploit the system, not how to play it.

But my opponenet was similarly newb, so we could make our mistakes together. But both of us doing the exact same thing should not result in radically different outcomes. If that is happening, then the game is no longer letting you play the game, it is shoe-horning you into an outcome. Making Southern containers arbitrarily train faster, a LOT faster, is ahistorical, and poor game design to boot. It is forcing an outcome, rather than setting up the parameteres and letting the play of the players determine the outcome. There is nothing instrinsic about the South that made their command staffs superior to the North.

In reality, 1 Southerner could not REALLY whip 5 Yankees...

[Jonathan Palfrey]

ORIGINAL: jchastain
While I appreciate what you are saying and would normally agree, this conflict was just so overwhelming out of balance when viewed with the benefit of hindsight for it to be much of a game with entirely accurate numbers unless the rules were just massively overhauled to:

(1) prevent the US from doing anything obvious or logical (in which case we'd just be hearing a different series of complaints about how stupid the game is for not allowing people to have realistic levels of control)

or

(2) devolve into "CSA wins by surviving a full year", in which case we'd be hearing complaints about how ahistoric the game is because it lasted far longer than that in real life.

It really is a no-win for the developers and I have to say that I think the current setup, while obviously not perfect, does a pretty reasonable job of striking a playable balance that captures the feel of the era. In any case, the point is likely moot anyway as I can't see them doing the scale of rewrite that would be necessary to implement this approach.

That said, I do not believe anyone would turn away from a magic bullet if one could be found. It is easy enough to quadruple the economy of the North in the data files and then supplement the OOB a bit to further round out the army and navy. If anyone know precisely what needs to be added, I'd even be willing to do the file edits. Then if those interested could generate actual suggestions for easily implementable alternate balance mechanisms, I'm betting there would be an audience willing to consider those recommendations.

This is a matter of opinion and you're entitled to yours, but I don't agree that the conflict was overwhelmingly out of balance. Reading historical accounts of it, there were times when Lincoln was in despair, the Northern newspapers were in despair, the Northern generals were reviled for their lack of achievement, etc. If the Confederates had done just a little better at those points of the war, it seems to me the despair could have got out of hand and led to a peace settlement -- which would be a Southern win, in effect.

Yes, the resources behind the two sides were overwhelmingly out of balance; but for a few years that didn't seem to matter too much. The Confederates were totally outclassed in supplies, but they got along somehow with what they had. They were outnumbered; but they were on the strategic defensive. They were somewhat but not greatly outclassed in weapons technology.

I think the game mechanisms allow military advantages to be bought rather too easily with money. It didn't seem that easy at the time to throw money at the problem. The really crucial advantage the North had was in numbers of people: it could grind the Confederates down by attrition.

[Berkut]

Just look at the American Revolutionary War.

Here you ahve the Brits with every advantage. Better troops, better weapons, better training, better generals, better supplies.

But they lost.

Why? Because their victory conditions were not amenable to being achieved simply by having the higher quality army. The Brits could, and did, pretty much win nearly every major engagement. But they had to subjugate a nation that was large, spread out, and hostile. They can go and take Boston. They can go and take Philadelphia, or Charleston. But they cannot take the enxt without abandoning the first.

Now, the North does not have the same problem as the Brits, namely because they could, in fact, create armies of a million men and simply force Southern capitulation through occupation of the important parts (primary cities, ports, rail lines, etc). But the basic problem of disparite goals stil exists.

[SurrenderMonkey]

ORIGINAL: Berkut

Just look at the American Revolutionary War.

Here you ahve the Brits with every advantage. Better troops, better weapons, better training, better generals, better supplies.

But they lost.

Why? Because their victory conditions were not amenable to being achieved simply by having the higher quality army. The Brits could, and did, pretty much win nearly every major engagement. But they had to subjugate a nation that was large, spread out, and hostile. They can go and take Boston. They can go and take Philadelphia, or Charleston. But they cannot take the enxt without abandoning the first.

Now, the North does not have the same problem as the Brits, namely because they could, in fact, create armies of a million men and simply force Southern capitulation through occupation of the important parts (primary cities, ports, rail lines, etc). But the basic problem of disparite goals stil exists.

This is EXACTLY my point. Thanks, Berkut. [:)]

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Berkut
NRBH, but is it that you use more, or is it that you get less? Or both?

Use more and use less, I believe.

The problem with this model is that it is not specific to a particular unit, it is systemic. ALL Northern containers have an intrinsically inferior logistical staff. That is simply inaccurate, and untrue. If anything the Northern staffs were slightly superior to the Southern, better organized, and more capable. The Southern armies "got by" with less because their logistical network sucked.

Sure and I generally agree with that, which is why I agree that allowing them to be a bit closer probably makes sense.

I am not exactly sure how the historical reality of the South having less supplies than the North results in them having incredibly good logistical staff ratings, and the North poor ones! One would presume that in fact the *opposite* would occur!

Not in a grand strategic game, necessarily. The South cannot maintain as high a supply for its armies as the North without crippling its economy. Therefore, the North tends to be able to overcome the inefficiency of some containers while the South's containers compensate for the weakness of its economy.

I appreciate the detailed response, but this is pretty clearly another example of an attempt to design for effect failing.

Keep in mind, I'm not the designer. I've been a fly on the wall and I've played the game a lot. In addition, I've studied the manual. That's where these responses are coming from, but I'm sure Eric would be able to add some more to the rationale than I can. Game design sometimes functions on abstractions that serve a purpose as part of the whole, but if taken literally and on their own, appear out of place.

The armies in question fought in 1863, not 1861. Both had all brigades in divisions, all divisions in Corps, all Corps in Armies, for a rather long time. Presumably training.

Ok, my bad for not recalling the date of your battle. I'm surprised to hear that.

It is not that the Southern containers start out a little better (something I could at least understand, if not agree with) early in the war, and then the Union is forced to catch up. It is that after almost two years of sitting around training, the Union has a mediocre command staff, and the South a superb command staff. This means that it is effectively out of the Unions players hands - I intentionally tried to keep the Union Army out of direct combat to let it train, and the result was that I did train, but the Southern Army became the German General Staff at the outbreak of Barabarossa. I probably would have been better off throwing them into the fray in 1861.
And I was on the defensive, btw. So, I trained, I was on the defensive, and the result was that the Union Aramy was crushed. Not just beaten, but absolutely crushed.

With all due respect, here's where I'd like to see some save files. As the Union, I can absolutely beat Southern Armies when I'm on the defensive in 1863. No problem, even with the staff ratings on. The fact that you've formed an impression that it's impossible in the game based on your result tells me something else must be involved that you haven't pinpointed yet.

I will counter with this: In all honesty, how was Gettysburg possible, with the South having vastly superior generals, vastly superior logistical expertise, and vastly superior mid-lower level leadership?

Absolutely. In my experience, in Forge of Freedom, Antietam is possible at around the right time frame in 1862 and Gettysburg is possible in 1863. Since we're playing the same game, there must be something different in how we are playing it.

And like I said in the thread, my beef isn't that the Union lost - I actually expected that due to the unit quality disparity. But I am ok with losing battles in Virginia, and long as I can bleed the South in the process. 4:1 though? That just amkes me think the combat model is not well done. Hell, even my opponenet was pissed off.

I completely agree. I've never had the Union lose a defensive battle in 1863 with 4:1 losses. I expect the next patch, if you were using it, would have helped with the loss ratio, but I still don't have a good explanation without seeing a save file for why that loss happened.

There should be some kind of bell curve for staff rating increases. I would actually claim that on a scale of 1-10, command staff should not be able to get much over 6 or so *without* being in combat. If the Southern containers start off around 4-6, and the North around 2-4, then both train at roughly the same speed, but capped for out of combat training at "fair" or so (you could maybe get better if it randomly started that way, to represent the rare exceptional staff at creation).

Those are pretty good suggestion as far as I'm concerned, I'll bring it up to Eric to see what he thinks.

My issue is not whether it is possible to win, it is whether the game makes any sense. And the North getting crushed with a loss ratio unmatched in the actual war in numbers in 1863 because the South has vastly superior "command staff" that they never had should not be possible. I will grant that it is a small sample to draw a conclusion from, but I cannot see how this could result in any other result, and the knowledge that this result *could* happen makes the game unplayable, IMO. I simply will not invest the time necessary at the risk of it being relatively asted when someething like this comes up.

I think you may again be erroneously ascribing your victory to this one variable. The fact is, even with the command staff disparity, I have not had those kind of results. There must have been something else involved to generate this kind of unusual outcome. I don't claim that the outcome was reasonable, but we ventured down into the game design and while you make some good points about the command staffs, the one thing I am not convinced about is that they are the cause for your defeat.

What if it isn't marching out, but staying at home trying to train its horrendously bad command staffs?

Hehe, same thing. I build hospitals in my garrison provinces. Generally two hospitals per Army makes disease hurt a lot less.

True enough, and I don't really play against the AI, since I think it is
1. Boring and uninteresting, and
2. Teaches you how to exploit the system, not how to play it.
But my opponenet was similarly newb, so we could make our mistakes together. But both of us doing the exact same thing should not result in radically different outcomes. If that is happening, then the game is no longer letting you play the game, it is shoe-horning you into an outcome. Making Southern containers arbitrarily train faster, a LOT faster, is ahistorical, and poor game design to boot. It is forcing an outcome, rather than setting up the parameteres and letting the play of the players determine the outcome. There is nothing instrinsic about the South that made their command staffs superior to the North.

It's not a point of where you want to play against the AI in perpetuity, but how much experience you have under your belt as far as the actual game balance goes. Before you continue to pass judgement, I think a little more experience would help you out. If you played more and had five more similar battles that did not have that outcome, what would your conclusion be then? Probably closer to mine, I'd guess.

I'll mention again in the meantime, that if you turn off the staff ratings, you can come close to the same balance you're looking for. You should at least try it against the AI with staff ratings turned off to see how you like it.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey
This is a matter of opinion and you're entitled to yours, but I don't agree that the conflict was overwhelmingly out of balance. Reading historical accounts of it, there were times when Lincoln was in despair, the Northern newspapers were in despair, the Northern generals were reviled for their lack of achievement, etc. If the Confederates had done just a little better at those points of the war, it seems to me the despair could have got out of hand and led to a peace settlement -- which would be a Southern win, in effect.

... and this is indeed possible in the game, but the balance is also there for the player to adjust to decide how easy or hard it should be for each side.

Regards,

- Erik

[Queeg]

ORIGINAL: jchastain

While I appreciate what you are saying and would normally agree, this conflict was just so overwhelming out of balance when viewed with the benefit of hindsight for it to be much of a game with entirely accurate numbers unless the rules were just massively overhauled to:

(1) prevent the US from doing anything obvious or logical (in which case we'd just be hearing a different series of complaints about how stupid the game is for not allowing people to have realistic levels of control)

or

(2) devolve into "CSA wins by surviving a full year", in which case we'd be hearing complaints about how ahistoric the game is because it lasted far longer than that in real life.

It really is a no-win for the developers and I have to say that I think the current setup, while obviously not perfect, does a pretty reasonable job of striking a playable balance that captures the feel of the era. In any case, the point is likely moot anyway as I can't see them doing the scale of rewrite that would be necessary to implement this approach.

That said, I do not believe anyone would turn away from a magic bullet if one could be found. It is easy enough to quadruple the economy of the North in the data files and then supplement the OOB a bit to further round out the army and navy. If anyone know precisely what needs to be added, I'd even be willing to do the file edits. Then if those interested could generate actual suggestions for easily implementable alternate balance mechanisms, I'm betting there would be an audience willing to consider those recommendations.

Excellent post and captures my thinking.

[Queeg]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

The point I keep trying to get across is that you already have this capability. Use the provided in-game settings to adjust the strength of the South down and/or the North up until you are happy with the results. I realize folks want this to be the default and that there are some other historical improvements we are working on, but you can already do what you're asking for without changing the victory conditions and the game was designed to do it. It's not a "cheat" or a "fix", it's a designed use of the various settings - that's why we provided so many of them!

Regards,

- Erik

I've been saying this for several days now. Apart from some necessary fixes (eliminating the CSA navy, etc.), the real debate here boils down to the question of whether the base scenario should be "historical" (assuming any consensus can be reached as to what that means) with settings to tweak toward balance or balanced with settings to tweak toward "historical." My position: There is no universal law of game design that mandates one approach over the other and, in reality, it doesn't matter much so long as the settings cover the spectrum. Frankly, if we all had spent a fraction of the time and energy we've used debating the setup issue to actually exploring the settings and their effects, we'd have a much better handle on the game and its potential.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey
This is a matter of opinion and you're entitled to yours, but I don't agree that the conflict was overwhelmingly out of balance. Reading historical accounts of it, there were times when Lincoln was in despair, the Northern newspapers were in despair, the Northern generals were reviled for their lack of achievement, etc. If the Confederates had done just a little better at those points of the war, it seems to me the despair could have got out of hand and led to a peace settlement -- which would be a Southern win, in effect.

... and this is indeed possible in the game, but the balance is also there for the player to adjust to decide how easy or hard it should be for each side.

Regards,

- Erik

How can the players adjust the manpower problem? The north has only a 1.17 to 1 advantage at the start and a 2 to 1 advantage in manpower to recruit more units. That's wildly inaccurate.

[Erik Rutins]

In my historical test, I turned off population modifiers and mustered and trained and conscripted. I ended up not too far off from the historical numbers. I think we may be off by 20% here when you adjust the North's power and turn on Richer Economy, but it's not by much more than that.

Regards,

- Erik

[Queeg]

ORIGINAL: chris0827

How can the players adjust the manpower problem? The north has only a 1.17 to 1 advantage at the start and a 2 to 1 advantage in manpower to recruit more units. That's wildly inaccurate.

It's not "wildly inaccurate," as you correctly pointed out in the other thread. The Union, in reality, neither (a) mobilized the percentage of its manpower that the South did, nor (b) brought the percentage of its mobilized force to the battlefield that the South did. The reasons were many and complex and reflected political and social constraints that were, for all practical purposes, immutable.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: Queeg

ORIGINAL: chris0827

How can the players adjust the manpower problem? The north has only a 1.17 to 1 advantage at the start and a 2 to 1 advantage in manpower to recruit more units. That's wildly inaccurate.

It's not "wildly inaccurate," as you correctly pointed out in the other thread. The Union, in reality, neither (a) mobilized the percentage of its manpower that the South did, nor (b) brought the percentage of its mobilized force to the battlefield that the South did. The reasons were many and complex and reflected political and social constraints that were, for all practical purposes, immutable.

It is wildly inaccurate. The north had close to a 2 to 1 advantage in men under arms in nov 1861. The game gives them a 1.17 to 1 advantage.

[regularbird]

Chris, I am convinced that our your accurate arguments are being wasted.  We are not going to convince some of the folks on this board that the game badly needs a historically accurate starting scenario.  They love the way things are now and the heck with the rest.  If a historical start scenario is not addressed I myself will move on to greener pastures.  I like the potential of this game but it is not what I was looking for in its current condition. 
 
let's just hope Eric finds the time to address the concerns of us historic folks, if not, oh well, there will be other games.

[Queeg]

ORIGINAL: regularbird

We are not going to convince some of the folks on this board that the game badly needs a historically accurate starting scenario.

What would you propose for an "historically accurate" starting scenario? Not every last nut and bolt, but in general, what needs to be changed and to what degree? How would you handle the numbers? I'm not trying to be argumentative; I just want to see it there is a consensus.

[Erik Rutins]

Chris,

ORIGINAL: chris0827
It is wildly inaccurate. The north had close to a 2 to 1 advantage in men under arms in nov 1861. The game gives them a 1.17 to 1 advantage.

I wasn't involved in the scenario design, but if you can provide some references, I'll forward them to the scenario designer. I'd be surprised if he was that far off in terms of the November, 1861 starting forces. However, if that's the case, we'll fix it.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Queeg
What would you propose for an "historically accurate" starting scenario? Not every last nut and bolt, but in general, what needs to be changed and to what degree? How would you handle the numbers? I'm not trying to be argumentative; I just want to see it there is a consensus.

I would ask the same. Why don't you guys start a separate thread aimed at "Historical Scenario Corrections" and bring to our attention there _scenario issues_ rather than game or rule related things that bother you. I can guarantee the design team will see your comments.

Regards,

- Erik

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Chris,

ORIGINAL: chris0827
It is wildly inaccurate. The north had close to a 2 to 1 advantage in men under arms in nov 1861. The game gives them a 1.17 to 1 advantage.

I wasn't involved in the scenario design, but if you can provide some references, I'll forward them to the scenario designer. I'd be surprised if he was that far off in terms of the November, 1861 starting forces. However, if that's the case, we'll fix it.

Regards,

- Erik

The main confederate army in Virginia has 103,00 men with a total of 175,000 confederate troops in the entire state. How could the scenario designer get numbers like that?

[Erik Rutins]

Chris,

If you were to post a new thread, with some references to show where the numbers are off, I'm sure they can be corrected. As to any reason for differences from historical numbers, I'd have to ask the designers to chime in.

Regards,

- Erik