Game-Balance Improvements for Upcoming Patch

[Mike Scholl]

You lost me on this one....

"- I'm firmly against capping the amount of reinforcments received by camps. I do however support toning down a little bit the camp cost (should cost more horses). Making the CSA have less horses is no solution - cause the player will go for more iron and more blockade runners on horses - not a good solution imho. Make camps somewhat more costly ... "

How does giving the South 30 horses instead of the 90 they get currently (per turn at start) give them more iron? I never said a thing about "giving" the South anything..., just taking away a pile of unjustified horses.

[spruce]

Mike, the South can get a zillion amount of horses trough their blockade runners (i'm exagerating off course) - if those provinces become less horse producing - the player will shift to iron production and will be more powerfull in other fields - which I haven't explored yet - trough their runners ...

that's why I also advocated for less horses and iron - and much more gold from runners - which simulate cotton runner earnings ... a load of cotton goes out and a load of goodies comes in.

Even a few horse farms extra - and for sure their plantations are a nice bonus for the South - personally ...

I think camp hoarding is some typical way of gameplay - I achieved it on 2'nd Lt - I think it should be somewhat more difficult - I'm convinced this won't be solved by reducing the amount of horses gathered in CSA provinces - the runners are just too tempting - and too successfull early game and will still hoard.

Just make the camps more expensive - so the risk of camp hoarding is more present ... if the Union goes offensive and takes perhaps one of your stronger cities and blasts your containers - the camp hoarding strategy will cave in - camp hoarding - is off course an offensive strategie - not defensive - and rather unhistorical ... [:)]

[jonreb31]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

ORIGINAL: JonReb
I would like to see better balance in the Quick Battle casualties. In most of the fights I have fought it's either a decisive victory for one side or the other. Sometimes there are ridiculous battles in which one side might take 2,000 casualties while the other takes 0.

As we've been explaining elsewhere, this happens when there is no actual battle but one side simply flees the province -- the reported numbers are the "pursuit casualties", losses due to stragglers and similar. This seems to be confusing and upsetting people though, so perhaps it'd be better to cut the pursuit losses, or else move them to a separate report.

Pursuit casualties is most definitely appealing to me. If it was in a different part of the report, such as "USA/CSA Casualties lost in pursuit:" that would be more satisfying.

[Mike Scholl]

"Pursuit casualties is most definitely appealing to me. If it was in a different part of the report, such as "USA/CSA Casualties lost in pursuit:" that would be more satisfying."


The problem with this whole approach was that "pursuit casualties" in the ACW just weren't much of a factor. Something like Napoleon's pursuit and destruction of the Prussian Army in 1806 just didn't happen. Civil War battles were shockingly bloody and exhausting to both sides, and even when a "pursuit" was mounted by a reasonably fresh force (such as Buell's Army after Shiloh) it was almost always stopped dead by the first "rear-guard" stand. Even Lee and Jackson couldn't get an effective pursuit going after Second Manassas.

[steveuk]

ORIGINAL: spruce

Mike, the South can get a zillion amount of horses trough their blockade runners (i'm exagerating off course) - if those provinces become less horse producing - the player will shift to iron production and will be more powerfull in other fields - which I haven't explored yet - trough their runners ...

that's why I also advocated for less horses and iron - and much more gold from runners - which simulate cotton runner earnings ... a load of cotton goes out and a load of goodies comes in.

Even a few horse farms extra - and for sure their plantations are a nice bonus for the South - personally ...

I think camp hoarding is some typical way of gameplay - I achieved it on 2'nd Lt - I think it should be somewhat more difficult - I'm convinced this won't be solved by reducing the amount of horses gathered in CSA provinces - the runners are just too tempting - and too successfull early game and will still hoard.

Just make the camps more expensive - so the risk of camp hoarding is more present ... if the Union goes offensive and takes perhaps one of your stronger cities and blasts your containers - the camp hoarding strategy will cave in - camp hoarding - is off course an offensive strategie - not defensive - and rather unhistorical ... [:)]

SPRUCE/MIKE

Re: CSA camps. Are there no historical records from which can be calculated the amount of replacements available to the South? The ability to just continually build camps for both North and South seems a bit 'gung-ho' to me. If an idea of actual replacement capability per state could be obtained then maybe the camps could be capped in a way to reflect this.

[spruce]

ORIGINAL: steveuk

ORIGINAL: spruce

Mike, the South can get a zillion amount of horses trough their blockade runners (i'm exagerating off course) - if those provinces become less horse producing - the player will shift to iron production and will be more powerfull in other fields - which I haven't explored yet - trough their runners ...

that's why I also advocated for less horses and iron - and much more gold from runners - which simulate cotton runner earnings ... a load of cotton goes out and a load of goodies comes in.

Even a few horse farms extra - and for sure their plantations are a nice bonus for the South - personally ...

I think camp hoarding is some typical way of gameplay - I achieved it on 2'nd Lt - I think it should be somewhat more difficult - I'm convinced this won't be solved by reducing the amount of horses gathered in CSA provinces - the runners are just too tempting - and too successfull early game and will still hoard.

Just make the camps more expensive - so the risk of camp hoarding is more present ... if the Union goes offensive and takes perhaps one of your stronger cities and blasts your containers - the camp hoarding strategy will cave in - camp hoarding - is off course an offensive strategie - not defensive - and rather unhistorical ... [:)]

SPRUCE/MIKE

Re: CSA camps. Are there no historical records from which can be calculated the amount of replacements available to the South? The ability to just continually build camps for both North and South seems a bit 'gung-ho' to me. If an idea of actual replacement capability per state could be obtained then maybe the camps could be capped in a way to reflect this.

camp hoarding is not a guarantuee to victory - it will bring you much bigger brigades - but fewer of them. In my game I did camp hoarding until I got 20.000 reinforcments each turn ... which is a bit much I agree ... but I had fewer brigades in the game. I had one army container and about 5 corps containers ...

I would just like to make them a little more expensive - and tone down a little the Souths income. I see no reason why to cap that figure - it all has to do with the difficulty level ? Perhaps the amount of camps should be tied on the city size - a city wit 4 buildings can have 1 camp - a city with 8 buildings can have 2 camps - a city with 12 buildings can have 12 camps ...

And when you are hoarding camps, you can lose very rapidly - when the Union invaded 2 of my Southern states - I simply had too few containers to keep the defense of the fronts.

[steveuk]

ORIGINAL: spruce
camp hoarding is not a guarantuee to victory - it will bring you much bigger brigades - but fewer of them. In my game I did camp hoarding until I got 20.000 reinforcments each turn ... which is a bit much I agree ... but I had fewer brigades in the game. I had one army container and about 5 corps containers ...

I would just like to make them a little more expensive - and tone down a little the Souths income. I see no reason why to cap that figure - it all has to do with the difficulty level ? Perhaps the amount of camps should be tied on the city size - a city wit 4 buildings can have 1 camp - a city with 8 buildings can have 2 camps - a city with 12 buildings can have 12 camps ...

And when you are hoarding camps, you can lose very rapidly - when the Union invaded 2 of my Southern states - I simply had too few containers to keep the defense of the fronts.

Well I know if I increased my camps to replace 20,000 per turn, my brigades would always be at full strength as I never have anywhere near that amount of casualties. I have capped myself to 10,000 in my game and even that seems ample unless the A.I. gets a major victory somewhere which is extremely unlikely.
Maybe your idea of limiting camp capacity to city size could be looked at as it seems to make sense (the bigger the city....the more population).

[marecone]

When you go for quick battle then you have a choice to call for help. When you play instant battles you don't have that choice. Is it possible to make it so? Also, would it be possible to make all those nice options that pop out before you fight detailed battles in instant battles?

[marecone]

BTW, Eric, I like all your improvements that you mentioned here. Just one more thing. Union navy. I belive that union player should have much more navy and that those ships should cost much less. I hate ending the game as union and with only 20 ships [&:].
Also, one q. If you somehow manage to block all rebel ports, do you get some bonus or something? Did anybody managed to do this? If not, that should be improved because it would make naval part of the game much better and it would be much closer to real history.

[von Beanie]

Thinking about the preceding comments from the Union perspective...if the disease option is turned on I believe the North should automatically start with several more camps because they cannot come close to replacing the disease losses in 1862, much less build their armies larger. If the disease option is turned off, then many fewer Union camps are needed. I would assume the same applies to the South as well.

One solution to the camp problem might be to make each camp supply 200 or 250 replacements per turn before June, 1862, then gradually increase the amount of replacements a camp produces each turn. Assuming that the Union is gradually taking southern territory, the south might be able to maintain their base replacement level while the Union side expands much quicker as they take the southern camps and horses. This should make the south hesitant to build too many camps early on as it could theoretically lead to a quicker defeat. But whatever changes are made, in my opinion the south should never be able to get more than 4000 to 5000 replacements per turn.

As the game stands now, the North does not have the horses to build more than one camp every two or three turns, and that is not enough to offset the disease losses in 1862.

[ravinhood]

I must chime in here and comment to the developer (Gil) don't be too swayed by the North this and the North that and the South this and the South that by historical fanatics. Keep in mind while maintaining an historical flavor, to balance it too much toward historical accuracy will ruin the play vaule as a challenging strategic/tactical chesslike game of the Civil War time period. The last thing I'd want to see you do is turn it into a simulation instead of a more chesslike match between what was and what could have been. There is no harm in the South winning the war(game). It's something that could have very well happened had certain events not transpired or been done differently. We all know Gettysburg was the turning point of the Civil War and Shermans march into the South. But, history could have been different and things should be allowed to be so in a wargame with Civil War flavor. Don't turn it into a simulation. I would be very disappointed, because I bought it on the principle it's more ahistorical than simulated.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

I must chime in here and comment to the developer (Gil) don't be too swayed by the North this and the North that and the South this and the South that by historical fanatics. Keep in mind while maintaining an historical flavor, to balance it too much toward historical accuracy will ruin the play vaule as a challenging strategic/tactical chesslike game of the Civil War time period. The last thing I'd want to see you do is turn it into a simulation instead of a more chesslike match between what was and what could have been. There is no harm in the South winning the war(game). It's something that could have very well happened had certain events not transpired or been done differently. We all know Gettysburg was the turning point of the Civil War and Shermans march into the South. But, history could have been different and things should be allowed to be so in a wargame with Civil War flavor. Don't turn it into a simulation. I would be very disappointed, because I bought it on the principle it's more ahistorical than simulated.

If you want a chesslike match perhaps you could play chess. The Civil War was not a match between equal opponents. The North has overwhelming advantages in men and aterial but needed to conquer the South to win. The South's goal was survival. It had no chance of conquering the north. The North had to garrison the large areas it conquered taking troops away from the field armies allowing the South to somewhat even the odds on the battlefield. The North had to spend enormous amounts on equiping and maintaining a large navy to prevent the South from importing war material. If you even things out it's not the Civil War. Buy a civil war chess set instead.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

I must chime in here and comment to the developer (Gil) don't be too swayed by the North this and the North that and the South this and the South that by historical fanatics. Keep in mind while maintaining an historical flavor, to balance it too much toward historical accuracy will ruin the play vaule as a challenging strategic/tactical chesslike game of the Civil War time period. The last thing I'd want to see you do is turn it into a simulation instead of a more chesslike match between what was and what could have been. There is no harm in the South winning the war(game). It's something that could have very well happened had certain events not transpired or been done differently. We all know Gettysburg was the turning point of the Civil War and Shermans march into the South. But, history could have been different and things should be allowed to be so in a wargame with Civil War flavor. Don't turn it into a simulation. I would be very disappointed, because I bought it on the principle it's more ahistorical than simulated.

What's with the "historical fanatics" line? Aren't you proposing that it be a game for "balance fanatics"? I think all the suggestions you are reacting too are just to bring the "Basic Game and Scenarios" closer into line with the realities of the ACW. No one is suggesting that players can't use all the tools provided to "handicap" one side or the other from that point---just that the "base point" needs to be more accurate. Why can't we have a game that is basically a "simulation"..., the designers have provided plenty of tools for players to "balance it" as they see fit or can agree on? Not to mention it's "mod-ability".

The only point of us "historical fanatics" is that if you START with a valid historical simulation as your "base", you can go anywhere you want from there. A good solid "foundation" is the basis for constructing any "edifice" you care to put up. To paraphrase you, if you start with "what actually was" you can create your "might have beens" more realistically. And avoid the "No way in H-ll's" as well (they properly belong in the "mods).

As an aside, it was Shiloh the South needed to win far more than Gettysburg. As Shelby Foote put it "After Shiloh the South never smiled".

[spruce]

ORIGINAL: steveuk

ORIGINAL: spruce
camp hoarding is not a guarantuee to victory - it will bring you much bigger brigades - but fewer of them. In my game I did camp hoarding until I got 20.000 reinforcments each turn ... which is a bit much I agree ... but I had fewer brigades in the game. I had one army container and about 5 corps containers ...

I would just like to make them a little more expensive - and tone down a little the Souths income. I see no reason why to cap that figure - it all has to do with the difficulty level ? Perhaps the amount of camps should be tied on the city size - a city wit 4 buildings can have 1 camp - a city with 8 buildings can have 2 camps - a city with 12 buildings can have 12 camps ...

And when you are hoarding camps, you can lose very rapidly - when the Union invaded 2 of my Southern states - I simply had too few containers to keep the defense of the fronts.

Well I know if I increased my camps to replace 20,000 per turn, my brigades would always be at full strength as I never have anywhere near that amount of casualties. I have capped myself to 10,000 in my game and even that seems ample unless the A.I. gets a major victory somewhere which is extremely unlikely.
Maybe your idea of limiting camp capacity to city size could be looked at as it seems to make sense (the bigger the city....the more population).

well true, but my point was that camp hoarding (give a leg and an arm to get just an extra camp) is an option. You'll get to brigades of 4.000 - so do the math for the power of such a division, corps or army ...

I must confess I never got my brigades at max strength. With camp hoarding you got to go offensive - so a few of your divisions will lose big time during their offense - but they'll also get all the replacements ... so an unlimited "thrust" ... North in this case !

and you'll don't have to pay extra supply cost for it ! [:D]

Basicly, if you can keep the offense during camp hoarding (either west or east) ... you'll notice you'll have a solid wall in the other theather at full strength. This is convenient, if the enemy is stupid enough to have a hit on that wall, he'll lose the war ... so the North had to go around that wall.

Altough the diseases balance this strategy - I build a lot of hospitals - but got from time to time lots of disease casualties - I suspect Eric that he got his trigger to work on troop strength and not brigade numbers ... I was hoping to avoid disease by playing like this ... but when disease strikes ... losses are awesome!

Anyhow, I was in dire straits when 3 Union armies made an incursion into Virginia - I simply hadn't enough containers to block them all off - going for the Carolinas. I had Lee and his behemoth ANV defending Richmond. And Jackson was guarding the backdoor to the Carolinas. But Jackson saved the day ... lucky for me - or I would have lost the war ! Lee could have spared one of his corps - but still then it's hard to corner 3 armies with 2 corps ! [:D]

conclusion = camp hoarding should be looked at - but it's not a gamebreaker imho ... it's just another style of playing. But please make containers more cheaper for the CSA - any CSA player is pushed towards camp hoarding. And give the CSA more gold from runners - but a more variable income.

[ravinhood]

""I bought it on the principle it's more ahistorical than simulated. ""
 
I think that pretty much sums up my stand. I have no need for an historical simulation. All is required are the playing pieces, the objectives and the resources of the period. Simulations are boring and become stale not long after playing a few games thru of them. An ahistorical "game" on the other hand of the flavor of the period is much more enjoyable and the replayability much longer. That's why Advanced Squad Leader and games like Combat Mission and Steel Panters are so popular. They use the elements of the wars, but, they do not force you to simulate it tit for tat. When I think of a "simulation" it reminds me of a saying in the movie Waterloo "Here they come "IN THE SAME OLE WAY"....Well we'll just have to meet them IN THE SAME OLE WAY"....boring.
 
It was like in the game of HOI (the origional) I could take a country like Brazil and be part of the big picture. Conquered N. Africa, Italy, Spain and the underbelly of Germany. I found that fun an entertaining as an ahistorical game. Hardly a simulation by a long shot (they never could get the US/Brit to mount a decent D-Day landing). SPARTAN is another game set in an ancient time frame. It gives you the pieces of the periord, the setting/map, the resources and all after that is ahistorical. Quite entertaining and still on my hard-drive.
 
I'm not saying the game shouldn't have some Union advantages, I'm just saying don't pay too much attention to historical accuracy fanatics who would end up ruining the game than making it better. Or some diehard yanks that just can't take a rebel butt whooping. haha

[Twotribes]

I would suggest they eliminate the refrences to the ACW if this is the goal.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

I would suggest they eliminate the refrences to the ACW if this is the goal.

They could make it Guilder vs Florin.

[Mike Scholl]

"""I bought it on the principle it's more ahistorical than simulated. ""

I think that pretty much sums up my stand. I have no need for an historical simulation."


ravenhood I don't think anyone has suggested that you be forced to play an "historical simulation". What's being asked is that the basic scenarios of the game be made as realistic and historical as possible for those that DO want to play that way. You can choose to set your favorite side (which I gather is the South) to "+3", "+5", "South can Emancipate", "better economy", or whatever you want when you play. You wouldn't get a "Confederate Navy" in the starting OB---but Jeff Davis didn't get one either. And if you give yourself enough "bennies" you can always build one. That's why the designers put all those "variables choices" in the game.

But it is far easier for everyone who might want to play if the "basic foundation" is solidly correct. I didn't say "absolutely historical" (no game can be for one thing), just basically built on a foundation of reality. Where you want to go and what you want to do after that is strictly up to the players..., but at least they'll all know which way they have gone and what they are trying to do. If YOU "don't have any need for an historical simulation", please feel free to "adjust" YOUR games in any matter that is pleasing to you. I certainly won't object. But how about letting the "historical simulation fans" have a chance to enjoy it as well?

[Alex Gilbert]

ORIGINAL: von Beanie

Thinking about the preceding comments from the Union perspective...if the disease option is turned on I believe the North should automatically start with several more camps because they cannot come close to replacing the disease losses in 1862, much less build their armies larger. If the disease option is turned off, then many fewer Union camps are needed. I would assume the same applies to the South as well.

One solution to the camp problem might be to make each camp supply 200 or 250 replacements per turn before June, 1862, then gradually increase the amount of replacements a camp produces each turn. Assuming that the Union is gradually taking southern territory, the south might be able to maintain their base replacement level while the Union side expands much quicker as they take the southern camps and horses. This should make the south hesitant to build too many camps early on as it could theoretically lead to a quicker defeat. But whatever changes are made, in my opinion the south should never be able to get more than 4000 to 5000 replacements per turn.

As the game stands now, the North does not have the horses to build more than one camp every two or three turns, and that is not enough to offset the disease losses in 1862.

I want to expand on this idea. (this might not fall within the realm of this patch as it would require additional code) Perhaps there should be a multiplier for the camps based on the date. Thus camps produce 500 replacements times the yearly modifier. In 1861-62 it would be 1.0, in 63 it would be 0.8, in 64 it would be 0.5, in 65 it would be 0.3 or something like that. The numbers are clearly open to adjustment.

This would preserve the general flavor of the growing manpower crisis that the south faced in 1863-65. I am against setting a firm limit on the number of camps, because I think that is one of the interesting strategic decisions for the player to make. You could certainly make the argument that the South COULD have had higher manpower levels if they had instituted a draft etc, so I think there is some justification for this. I think that this type of system also increases the strategy involved, as early camps are worth much more than camps built later--and this puts more pressure on the south in their initial build decisions.

(perhaps there might even be a tech advance for "more efficient drafts" or something to improve the modifier)

To reflect the North's abundant manpower, they could have either a straight 1.0 modifier, or at least less of a late penalty to their camps. Again, I leave this to those who know the period better than I do.

The other advantage is in terms of game balance. I think it is important to maintain some balance, and as the modifiers would affect the late game only, this modification does not allow an early Union steamroller effect.

Alex

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl


...What's being asked is that the basic scenarios of the game be made as realistic and historical as possible for those that DO want to play that way.

...

Nothing wrong with that but it's not enough to just say the designers got it wrong. Where are the numbers to show how, and to show what people think shold be the starting numbers?

McPherson said in Battle Cry of Freedom on page 437:

"The Confederate economy started with two strikes against it. Most of the South's capital as tied up in the nonliquid form of land and slaves." How do you show the designers got that wrong or what shold be changed? Beats me.

On page 447 he says:

"For the war as a whole the Union experienced inflation of only 80% (contasted with 9000% for the Confederacy),..."

Do you really want FoF to accurately model that? I doubt it does now. Thankfully.

Anyway, IMO the folks who are saying this or that is not historically correct need to put up some numbers if they expect changes from the designers.