Balance in the 1861 Scenario

[Patrat]

How about, in addition to tweeking the Confederates to make games last longer, you make the victory something like this.

The Confederates win a minor victory if they hold one of either of these 3 citys.
Richmond, Atlanta, Vicksburg.

They win a major victory if they hold 2 of those city's. And a decisive victory if they hold all 3.

Make the Confederates strong enough so that they can achieve at least a minor victory 50% of the time.

My major concern is that if you go "Balancing" the game, so that both sides are nearly equal. You are going to end up with the Confederates in New York or Chicago 50% of the time. This to me, will make any MP game more of a fantasyland than a true Wargame.

[PvtBenjamin]

No one will play the confederates, very few people play MP wargames to see if they can hold off the opponent. Doesn't seem like many playing now won't improve.

[Patrat]

I for one would play Confederates. The challenge of holding off the Union for longer than the Confederates did in real life, is enough of a challenge for me.

I don't need fantasy forces to make playing Confederates enjoyable. The Challenge of surviving past April 65 is enough for me.

[Beriand]

My major concern is that if you go "Balancing" the game, so that both sides are nearly equal. You are going to end up with the Confederates in New York or Chicago 50% of the time. This to me, will make any MP game more of a fantasyland than true Wargame.

But I doubt many people consider this seriously No need to duel ghosts. The point is that it would be good to improve CSA situation in 63', when the tables are turning and they can start losing rapidly on every front, with 50% of Union MPP value. But not in the first half of the game, yeah, as then Maryland burns too much.
At least for me, I would not want to see Confederacy considerably stronger at the start.

How about, in addition to tweeking the Confederates to make games last longer, you make the victory something like this.

The Confederates win a minor victory if they hold one of either of these 3 citys.
Richmond, Atlanta, Vicksburg.

They win a major victory if they hold 2 of those city's. And a decisive victory if they hold all 3.

Make the Confederates strong enough so that they can achieve at least a minor victory 50% of the time.

Some changes to VC objectives would be nice, but this is only smaller part of the picture, as current Fighting Spirit does not work like this. CSA can easily drop <10% FS while holding on to Montgomery, Atlanta, Vicksburg and Charleston - but this is game over anyway. To avoid this, either end date needs to brought to 64' rather than 65', and/or FS losses from objectives decreased, and/or pace of Confederate army decomposition in 63' slowed.

[Patrat]

Oh I agree that the Confederates need some serious tweeking. By all accounts games end way to early and way to often in a Union victory.

My only concern was that Balancing in MP could go to far.

As devoncop pointed out, this isn't Chess.

[PvtBenjamin]

Having played SC Europe PBEM for thousands of hours I can assure you that if the game is this unbalanced there are skilled players who will devise strategies that completely destroy the confederates. Others will learn these strategies and the confederates will become unplayable. This is just the reality of gaming.

[IslandInland]

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.

I agree with these guys and this guy.

I favour historical accuracy above all else in a wargame. The game should be weighted towards the Union as historically they won.

[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.

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.

Well I asked Bill twice and he said the MP was definitely going to be balanced, honestly I'm a little perplexed that one of the game testers thinks it isn't. Fafnir is of course legendary in his SC abilities and a fair person and he said the MP game gives the North an overwhelming advantage. Don't take this the wrong way but if its this unbalanced I would think it would have been obvious.

So is the intent of the '61 MP game to be balanced or historical?

I think people who intend to buy the game should know. Thank you.

[battlevonwar]

I added up the totals of MPP between South: 6k by Sept. 61 and 10k for North. It's simple math one side can out build the other and with the tech, it can dominate that...With options leadership can be totally mitigated and with Fortresses that can be 1 shot per turn you don't really have a historical feel going on here. Charleston lasted till 1865/ Richmond did as well. It won't when you are facing a 2 to 1 ratio in 1862 and when your fortresses take 2 or 3 strikes from Naval Bombardment.

[Patrat]

I guess it comes down to what your idea of balanced is.

If by balanced, you mean the south has a decent chance to win the game as outlined in historically based victory conditions, i.e. holding off the Union until 65, I'm all for Balancing.

However if you mean the south should have an equal chance of conquering the north, then I totally disagree.

The Confederates never had the capability or the intention of occupying any large portion of the north. Their sole intention was to defend their sovereignty, not to go off conquering the north. The games victory conditions and the Confederates abilities must reflect this.

This isn't WiE, where at least Hitler had the intention of conquering continental Europe.

Yeah, some players aren't going to be happy that the Confederates are going to be mainly just trying to just hold off the Union until 65. But to give them the capability to conquer large areas of the north will divorce this game totally from reality.

[devoncop]

I for one would play Confederates. The challenge of holding off the Union for longer than the Confederates did in real life, is enough of a challenge for me.

I don't need fantasy forces to make playing Confederates enjoyable. The Challenge of surviving past April 65 is enough for me.

+1

Playing the Confederate underdog would be my preference every time. Its all about lasting longer than I did the game before

[Edorf]

I for one would play Confederates. The challenge of holding off the Union for longer than the Confederates did in real life, is enough of a challenge for me.

I don't need fantasy forces to make playing Confederates enjoyable. The Challenge of surviving past April 65 is enough for me.

+1

Playing the Confederate underdog would be my preference every time. Its all about lasting longer than I did the game before

+1

[BiteNibbleChomp]

So is the intent of the '61 MP game to be balanced or historical?

I think people who intend to buy the game should know. Thank you.

I don't think it is really fair to categorise these as mutually exclusive. The game is intended to be balanced, in the sense that if two players of equal skill were to play a match of 1861, each would have a 50% chance of winning the game. The game is also intended to be historical, in the sense that every event that occurs in the game has its basis in historical events and/or capabilities of the combatants (or in the case of some alt-history options such as the later Garibaldi events, that they are logical outcomes of alt-history options that were at least considered during the war).
That's not the same as giving the Union and the Confederacy equal strength. Doing that is never something I have seriously considered, nor do I intend to. In the simplest terms possible, the Union's victory condition is "win the war", while the Confederate one is "don't lose it". As long as the Confederacy has enough MPPs, units &c to stay alive against a superior foe, it will have a chance of winning and the game will be 'balanced'.

Whether we're there or not is still something of an open question - two months of beta testing and a week of release games isn't enough to say for sure. It's not really enough time to learn all the ins and outs of the game, find an equally skilled opponent, and then play several games (and several, preferably scores or hundreds, of games are really needed to average out the effects of individual games, players, strategies &c). The general conclusion of the beta was that the Union was favoured - that's fine, I'm working on an update that should address the key concerns raised since the release version was put together. Once that's online, I will be watching the tournament closely - that's probably the best way to determine (a) how close we are to 50/50, and (b) if we're not there yet, what are the specific causes of any imbalances. I can then solve those issues as needed

***

As for the forts and blockade...

The best way for the Confederate player to keep the blockade runners open is to build monitors. At 275 MPPs, monitors are cheaper than divisions, and if you return them to port at the end of each turn they are virtually immune to damage (even if kept out at sea, they are nearly invulnerable to wooden ships). Furthermore, they can reliably one-shot gunboats, and once they kill three they have more than paid for themselves in terms of damage done to the enemy. Yes, 275 MPPs isn't exactly cheap (although it's hardly expensive either...), but the opportunity cost of a shut blockade route is sure to be much greater. And it's pretty unlikely for the Union to have an extremely strong blockade up before June or July 1862 (which is the earliest that CS monitors can deploy, excluding Virginia).

Naval landings are something that happened early and often: Elizabeth City was taken in February 1862; St Augustine and New Berne in March; Fort Pulaski in April; Pensacola, New Orleans and Norfolk in May; Galveston and Jacksonville in October (though Galveston was recaptured a few months later). That's saying nothing of the river-based landings conducted through Tennessee during this same period.
Making amphibious transports more costly for the Union disincentivises this historical strategy where it doesn't make it simply impossible (I tried more costly transports much earlier in development, and the latter was the usual outcome). As things currently stand I believe it is already next to (if not actually) impossible for the Union to achieve their historical gains by early 1862. I don't mind this too much in principle as a Union that strong is probably just going to snowball to a quick victory (indeed, balancing the 1862 start is a lot more difficult than doing so for 1861), but it should be fairly obvious why I would like to limit the extent to which historical play is discouraged!

The way forts are set up reflects a historical dilemma faced by the Confederacy. This is best explained by a post I wrote during the beta, so I'll just quote that here:

If we look at the record of forts during the war, particularly with the game's scale in mind, underwhelming is the term I would say suits them best. With a few exceptions (the forts protecting Charleston come to mind), most times when the Union made a serious effort to capture a location primarily guarded by a fort, that location fell within a couple of days. Between one Union turn, and the next Union turn, in the game is anywhere from two weeks to two months - more than enough time for your attacking unit to determine the fort's weaknesses, attack and overwhelm it.
Often a fort's garrison was regimental strength (obviously considerable variation here). Most land units in the game are divisions - anywhere from 6 times as many men to 20 times as many men as the defenders. Given the general rule for successfully storming a prepared defence is to have a 3:1 advantage, a division shouldn't have too much trouble.

Forts being a burden to defend is really a consequence of hindsight more than anything. We know, through reading history books or discussions on the internet, or from playing the game once or twice, that forts aren't great at defending things. The commanders on the field, during the 1860s, did not know this. They did know that forts had been heavily promoted in the decades leading up to the war as a cheap and effective way to defend key positions, and their record in previous wars had shown there to be enough truth in this. But the forts that were built (and a lot of them were a decade or two old at this point, if not older) weren't equipped for this war. Had they been attacked by a brigade-strength force (as was typical in the Mexican War), using 1840s equipment and tactics, they would have done splendidly. But they were largely powerless against ironclads and overwhelmed by the sizes of armies in the ACW.
The complication is, if you had told the men commanding those forts at the time this, they would have ignored you or sent you somewhere else. Every time a new technology is introduced to the battlefield, it takes a lot of bitter and bloody experience before it becomes accepted. Even in the early parts of WW2, people were still seriously promoting the cavalry as an integral part of armies - despite being proven obsolete a quarter-century earlier. In the case of forts, that quarter-century of experience hadn't even been demonstrated yet.
In game, that bitter experience is assumed to be learned once a fort unit is destroyed, and the local commanders finally decide to adopt a more modern view of the situation (provided the position in question is still able to be salvaged - too often this wasn't the case). Before then? They're just not going to be convinced - look at how much trouble Lincoln had getting McClellan to simply move his army.

Forts can be reinforced already by sending additional units to potential enemy landing sites, and while this does pull units from the frontline that may be sorely needed there, that too is deliberate and a reflection of the historical reality. A lot of the coastal locations easily taken by the Union were taken in part because the garrisons there were insufficient, or more to the point, because the Confederacy didn't have the men to spare. If you wish to defend them with a force greater than was used historically, the game allows you to, but the men will have to come from somewhere.

- BNC

[Jim D Burns]

I favour historical accuracy above all else in a wargame.

Agree, you could not claim it was a civil war game if both sides are balanced.

As far as what to do for the Confederates, I think forts need to be what they were historically, a reliable way to defend an important position. Right now forts are a joke, make them strength 10 and give them much higher defense stats. It should take a major effort to overcome a fort. If this were the case the South wouldn't be so exposed to an early game crash of their economy.

Also it should not be possible to destroy a fort with naval gunfire only, ships should effect readiness and morale, but it should be rare for them to reduce a forts strength factor. As things are now, a few frigates can clear the coastline of most exposed forts in just 3-6 months. Right now forts do not feel like forts at all, just a weak unit that is easy to shatter with just about anything you bring against it.

Perhaps forts shouldn't be a unit at all. Make it a new terrain type that gives a permanent entrenchment value that cannot be reduced by anything except artillery fire, thus requiring siege guns or naval gunfire to remove for long enough to assault the hex.

[jbmoore68]

I favour historical accuracy above all else in a wargame.

Agree, you could not claim it was a civil war game if both sides are balanced.

As far as what to do for the Confederates, I think forts need to be what they were historically, a reliable way to defend an important position. Right now forts are a joke, make them strength 10 and give them much higher defense stats. It should take a major effort to overcome a fort. If this were the case the South wouldn't be so exposed to an early game crash of their economy.

Also it should not be possible to destroy a fort with naval gunfire only, ships should effect readiness and morale, but it should be rare for them to reduce a forts strength factor. As things are now, a few frigates can clear the coastline of most exposed forts in just 3-6 months. Right now forts do not feel like forts at all, just a weak unit that is easy to shatter with just about anything you bring against it.

Perhaps forts shouldn't be a unit at all. Make it a new terrain type that gives a permanent entrenchment value that cannot be reduced by anything except artillery fire, thus requiring siege guns or naval gunfire to remove for long enough to assault the hex.

I agree with this 100%

[devoncop]

I favour historical accuracy above all else in a wargame.

Agree, you could not claim it was a civil war game if both sides are balanced.

As far as what to do for the Confederates, I think forts need to be what they were historically, a reliable way to defend an important position. Right now forts are a joke, make them strength 10 and give them much higher defense stats. It should take a major effort to overcome a fort. If this were the case the South wouldn't be so exposed to an early game crash of their economy.

Also it should not be possible to destroy a fort with naval gunfire only, ships should effect readiness and morale, but it should be rare for them to reduce a forts strength factor. As things are now, a few frigates can clear the coastline of most exposed forts in just 3-6 months. Right now forts do not feel like forts at all, just a weak unit that is easy to shatter with just about anything you bring against it.

Perhaps forts shouldn't be a unit at all. Make it a new terrain type that gives a permanent entrenchment value that cannot be reduced by anything except artillery fire, thus requiring siege guns or naval gunfire to remove for long enough to assault the hex.

As Ryan has pointed out though...forts simply were not " a reliable way to defend an important position". Even in 1862 they were reduced and taken on the vast majority of cases within a day or two and certainly within the timescale of a player turn. By the later periods of the war advances in ordinance basically made them obsolete .

The Union was routinely bombarding forts including using River boats equipped with mortars that outranged anything the fort could defend itself with and ironclads that resisted artillery fire. The Western Gunboat flottilla under Foote took the grand total on one hour and fifteen minutes to force the surrender of Fort Henry even without the aid of Grant's land forces.

Forts in the game are, as they were historically an inconvenience to the Union rather than a serious obstacle to a decent attacking force.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

Jumping in with my 2 cents! (aka IMO)

I strongly advocate having a 'historical' scenario even if it is imbalanced. There are ways to mitigate this in multiplayer (see below). I feel that if there are not 'historical' scenarios available, then the game loses some of its inherent 'flavor'.

I am not opposed to having a 'balanced' scenario and might even play it some. However, again I believe that the game (with that scenario) will lose some of it's 'flavor'.

Multiplayer Balancing:

I would argue that multiplayer balance NEVER has to be an issue.

One solution to 'balance' the MP game is to agree to play twice (once as each side) and determine victory by who survived as the confederates the longest (or any other criteria agreed upon before starting). Now the contest (no matter how unbalanced the major powers are) is perfectly balanced.

If that is too much of an investment of time for one opponent, I suggest that each side submit bids for how quickly they can force a surrender by the Confederates when playing the Union. Low bid plays as the Union and victory in the multiplayer match is determined by the success or failure of fulfilling that bid.

Single Player Balancing:

Having a scenario that is mostly 'historical' can still be fun for single player as you are trying to either delay or hasten the surrender. With the increase of popularity of 'survival' games in the past decade, this should not seem unreasonable.

Suggestions:

Keep a set of mostly 'historical' scenarios.
Add one or more 'ahistorical balanced' scenario.
Add a 'bid for Confederate Surrender' option to multiplayer creation.

[Alter Native]

Forts can be reinforced already by sending additional units to potential enemy landing sites, and while this does pull units from the frontline that may be sorely needed there, that too is deliberate and a reflection of the historical reality. A lot of the coastal locations easily taken by the Union were taken in part because the garrisons there were insufficient, or more to the point, because the Confederacy didn't have the men to spare. If you wish to defend them with a force greater than was used historically, the game allows you to, but the men will have to come from somewhere.

Ok Forts, were historically weak and were taken easily. That's fine and maybe they shouldn't be buffed. Ok.
But my understanding of these historic strategy games is, that you are in the same position as leaders at the time and you can do anything they could have realistically done to win the war.

You're dealt the same hand, you just have to play it better.
But I can not bolster the defenses of some key cities such as New Orleans?
I can not station a brigade in Fort Pulaski?
I just have to rely on 80 guys with some outdated guns in Norfolk to defend the most important shipyard in Virgina? Why?

I'm R.E. Jefferson Davis Lee, I was promised to be in "control the armies, research, production and diplomatic policy".
I don't want to loose this war, please let me defend New Orleans. They certainly could have stationed an entire division there. Why can't I?
Please let me secure Norfolk with an extra brigade (by allowing the dissolving of the fort).

They made avoidable mistakes back then, that's their problem, they lost the war. But why am I forced to make the exact same mistakes?

Allowing us to dissolve forts and place new units in the same position would go a long way in this whole blockade discussion.

Making amphibious transports more costly for the Union disincentivises this historical strategy where it doesn't make it simply impossible (I tried more costly transports much earlier in development, and the latter was the usual outcome).

I strongly disagree. Right now it costs around 120 MPP to ship 3 invading units to New Orleans.
The potential reward is a 20 MPP City, the shut down of a 80 MPP route for the rest of the game, a big FS Hit for the confederacy, a shock to European mobilization (with the potential shut down of another 100 MPP worth or routes).

For that return on investment I'd gladly pay 1000 MPP in shipping costs and probably much more. This would still be a fantastic deal if the amphibious transport would cost 200 MPP per unit.

Even for smaller cities such as Mobile you're shutting down a 50 MPP route (and a potential French route) and taking a 10 MPP city with a FS-hit. Paying 400 MPP in shipping costs for this is great!

I agree that it should be possible for the Union to shut down the trading economy of the South, but we can expect them to do at least a bit of work for that. With the cheap shipping and the weak, un-dissolvable forts they are essentially given everything for free.

The best way for the Confederate player to keep the blockade runners open is to build monitors.

Yes technically true, but they come too late to prevent navel invasions in early 62.

[Patrat]

IIRC the major reason the south lost new Orleans was that its garrison was called away to stop Grant's drive after donelson and henry.

In a nutshell, the south just didn't have enough troops to man the battle fronts and fully garrison their coastline.

Fortifications have always been a force multiplier. So the south tried to rely on them to hold key coastal points. Unfortunately as BNC pounds out, advances in ordnance rendered forts unable to do this.

I think part of the solution is what somebody above posted. Don't have the capture of the port totally shut down the route. As the poster pointed out, supplies still got in despite the major ports being captured.

[LoneRunner]

Ok Forts, were historically weak and were taken easily. That's fine and maybe they shouldn't be buffed. Ok.
But my understanding of these historic strategy games is, that you are in the same position as leaders at the time and you can do anything they could have realistically done to win the war.

You're dealt the same hand, you just have to play it better.
But I can not bolster the defenses of some key cities such as New Orleans?
I can not station a brigade in Fort Pulaski?
I just have to rely on 80 guys with some outdated guns in Norfolk to defend the most important shipyard in Virgina? Why?

Allowing us to dissolve forts and place new units in the same position would go a long way in this whole blockade discussion.

For that return on investment I'd gladly pay 1000 MPP in shipping costs and probably much more. This would still be a fantastic deal if the amphibious transport would cost 200 MPP per unit.

Even for smaller cities such as Mobile you're shutting down a 50 MPP route (and a potential French route) and taking a 10 MPP city with a FS-hit. Paying 400 MPP in shipping costs for this is great!

Excellent explanation Alter Native, I agree. Allow the CSA to convert forts into fortified hexes. Provide the South with options they can use to protect their coast if they want to choose that strategy.