ORIGINAL: von Beanie
If it takes "faster sieges" to recreate what actually happened in history, why isn't that listed as a "normal siege," and then an option provided for "slower sieges"?
If one has to radically change the "default" settings to recreate history, then something is wrong. The default settings should be what recreates the actual imbalance of power, and the victory conditions should be based realistically on that lopsided balance of power. Then, the game could offer the alternatives for a "balanced" game, with victory conditions altered accordingly.
The designers have stated from the beginning that the default balance was set to make for a more challenging, balanced game. The options were then provided so that you or anyone could tailor the game to your liking. All I did was look through the appendix, decide which options I needed to change to come closer to what was requested here, and give it a try. I think over time, once more people get used to the game, certain combinations of options will become "preferred" for either more historical players or folks who want a faster game, etc.
I'm not saying that Faster Sieges = History, but I'm going to try it and see. I think I could have done fine with the default sieges had I made fewer mistakes, but I'm not an expert FoF player like Hard Sarge. Since my son was born right as the final three months of testing started, I was on leave for that period and didn't have much chance to play until after the game was released. I'm approaching it as a player and with knowledge from alpha testing and the results seem to be pretty good to me.
If victory matters (such as on theblitz.org website), who would start a PBEM game as the CSA with such radically altered conditions just so that they could recreate the actual war (keeping in mind that the victory conditions are not based on the radically altered settings)? And it is my opinion that many, if not most, players would prefer to play a game that is historically realistic.
Well, I don't know again that this is the perfect combination, but I'm trying it out to see. Feel free to give other combinations a try to see if they suit better. In all honesty, I'm of the school of thought that the historical CSA did about as well as could be expected given the odds against it once full war started. Although wargamers always want to do better, I'm guessing for PBEM putting the settings a bit more towards "balance" rather than "strict history" would be more fun, particularly for the CSA player.
Lots of wargames produced in the boardgame era reflected campaigns with a major imbalance of power or quality. These games weren't altered by giving the weaker side lots of abilities, units or economic options that they didn't have historically. Rather, the victory conditions were altered to reflect the real situation, and mostly based on the player doing better than each side did historically.
Can you imagine a game on the 1941 Barbarossa campaign where the default scenario gives Russians stronger units or enhanced powers so that they could stop the German invasion on the border and even invade Rumania? One could argue that it's based on WWII, but is it really? That's what happens when a game alters the forces or economic options rather than the victory conditions. Unfortunately, that's what appears to have happened with FoF in my opinion, and that's why some are challenging the game's "default" scenarios and options.
I'm fine with challenging the default settings, but you have to understand that the default settings were always provided with a balanced game in mind. The options were provided so that other kinds of games would be possible.
I take your point about balancing victory conditions around the "painfully realistic" scenario, so that your goal as the South would be to simply do a bit better than the historical. Honestly though, most players if they went through what the South did would probably throw in the towel in 1863 and ask for a re-match. While Lee was doing fine in Virginia, the Union was pretty much stomping them elsewhere.
Anyway, we're all reading this board and will discuss to see if we can provide some additional pre-sets or other advice on this.
Regards,
- Erik
