House Rules?

[Erik Rutins]

I'm wondering what the most common PBEM "house rules" are for GGWBTS these days. Would appreciate if those of you who have a lot of games under your belt with v1.040 would e-mail me at erikr@matrixgames.com and let me know.

Regards,

- Erik

[Treefrog]

DocoWar, Jutland13 and I are trying a house rule:
1. limits the CSA to 3 Army Commanders
2. Lee must stay in the Eastern Theatre
3. Grant must stay in the WEstern Theatre until he achieves 22 command rating.

[Leegb1]

TF,
Do your house rules indicate a balance issue? Are the Confederates stronger on defense than the Union on offense?
LGB

[GShock]

There should be house rules on cannon/ship and even supply production. The manpower represented in the game is absolutely fantastic and should be much more limited imho but there's no way to set such a rule because in any case the fog of war doesn't allow the other player to check the production levels...

[Erik Rutins]

Treefrog,

ORIGINAL: Treefrog
1. limits the CSA to 3 Army Commanders
2. Lee must stay in the Eastern Theatre
3. Grant must stay in the WEstern Theatre until he achieves 22 command rating.

I understand the historical preference reasons for 2 and 3, but what's the reason for 1?

What "house rules", if any, have you already used in completed PBEM games and found to be worthwhile?

[Erik Rutins]

GShock,

ORIGINAL: GShock
There should be house rules on cannon/ship and even supply production. The manpower represented in the game is absolutely fantastic and should be much more limited imho but there's no way to set such a rule because in any case the fog of war doesn't allow the other player to check the production levels...

What's your rationale on these suggestions? The manpower in the game is pretty historical as far as I can tell and cannon/ship production was already limited in the official updates. Supply usage was increased in the official updates as well.

[Leegb1]

I'm playing my first ftf game and the confederacy is doing very well.  Is there a consensus that the Union is much harder to play to win, or is this game balanced?

[GShock]

What's your rationale on these suggestions? The manpower in the game is pretty historical as far as I can tell and cannon/ship production was already limited in the official updates. Supply usage was increased in the official updates as well.

Essentially there's a bible in the private forums on suggestions on how to modify the manpower issue by increasing attrition and the consumption of supplies. Everything derives from supplies so if you increase consumption you limit militia recruiting and, at the same time, you force the players to build less cannons and ships.

The problem of manpower is closely related to the overrunning ratio which is too high in my opinion. Costs being extremely low for depots and forts, a mere fort needs the entire army of potomac to overrun a very small garrison. CSA also has a very strong combat advantage deriving from the road/rail connections and you end up raiding a railroad which gets immediately repaired (extremely low costs again) thus neglecting the advantage of a follow-up attack on a garrison that can't be reinforced.

These and a million other things I already explained, build 200.000 vs 100.000 battles in '64 in Virginia where we know the Army of Northern VA was most certainly the strongest concentration of troops CSA ever had... behind it, in VA, the total desert, no men even to sow the fields remained.

Count these 100.000 and there's more in the western theater... there's simply too many troopers on the map, probably because most get just damaged in combat and, again, there's no real penalty with merging them... you just got to wait for a new damaged unit to arrive at the production center and you can also save on manpower in that region. The loss in experience is highly indecisive.

If you look in the pvt forums you'll see not only I was the main factor pushing towards these limitations, I also did the research on foundries of the civil war era and I've countless times reported with the hugest of all armies and multiple depots in every single conquered region of the United States I ended the game with 3000+ supplies. An analysis of the civil war lists very few big battles, few skirmishes and the vast majority of territorial conquests were attacks on undefended places. This is a dream in wbts, unfortunately... too many men, simply as that.

[Erik Rutins]

GShock,

I appreciate the reply, but with due respect I'm not looking for design suggestions so much as trying to find out what the active players of WBTS have found to be the most useful and tested house rules, if any. I'm planning to play some WBTS v1.040 via PBEM over the holidays and wanted to know if there was any consensus.

Regards,

- Erik

[Treefrog]

Erik,

It creates a disparity between the relative capabilities of the sides to conduct major theatre operations. We think that this is historical. DocoWar can give a fuller explanation.

With this rule, the South cannot be (as) strong everywhere. The USA will have an advantage on a front, allowing them to make progress in the war.

In 1864 we allow an additional CSA AC in the Trans Mississippi to reflect their great success with meagre means in that theatre.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Treefrog
It creates a disparity between the relative capabilities of the sides to conduct major theatre operations. We think that this is historical. DocoWar can give a fuller explanation.
With this rule, the South cannot be (as) strong everywhere. The USA will have an advantage on a front, allowing them to make progress in the war.

In my past experience with WBTS, the Union could make progress without this limitation on the CSA. Have you guys found this to be otherwise in your PBEMs so far with players of roughly equal skill

Regards,

- Erik

[GShock]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

GShock,

I appreciate the reply, but with due respect I'm not looking for design suggestions so much as trying to find out what the active players of WBTS have found to be the most useful and tested house rules, if any. I'm planning to play some WBTS v1.040 via PBEM over the holidays and wanted to know if there was any consensus.

With due respect as well, you asked for the rationale on these suggestions and I explained why what's really needed cannot be achieved by any house rules.
At any rate, the house rule on forcing CSA to a max number of 3 AC is clue enough that what I'm saying is true. I am concerned about the PP loss for the lack of an AC (I guess we'll know more at the end of their tests) but it's a very good house rule... I am surprised I didn't think about that myself and am going to try it. [;)]
Great idea, Doc!

[Erik Rutins]

GShock,

My point is that I'd like to hear some input based on PBEM games that have been completed with or without house rules to find out what the consensus is these days on what house rules work best (if any). If you have some PBEMs under your belt with the last update and some house rules that worked well based on those, I'd love to hear about them but I don't want to enter into a speculative redesign discussion.

Regards,

- Erik

[Treefrog]

Erik,

I suggested to Doc we try limiting CSA to 3 AC after a dinner conversation we had last month (btw Doc is a fine dinner companion). He summarized the development of AC commands during the war for both sides and arrived at the conclusion, as best I can recollect, he can comment and clear up any misconceptions on my part, that the game AC system did not reflect that the logistical and other ability of the North to maintain large operations on multiple fronts was greater than that of the South. This view is clearly our subjective point of view, your mileage may vary.

In my experience with about 9 or so PBEM games with opponents of differing ability, the North often (not always) has a very difficult time against a CSA player of comparable skill and ability. Not always, but often. Of course, a sample of 9 or so is sufficiently small that it doesn't necessarily reflect reality. My abject failures as the Union are limited to Jutland13, which, again, may simply be idiosyncratic (or in my case, idiotsyncratic); he clearly outplayed me and I don't attribute my failings to 4 CSA ACs, although it might have helped if he didn't have them.

My 3 CSA AC suggestion is as much a play balance/handicap solution as anything else.

We address the PP challenge addressed by GShock by allowing the 4th AC on the map, he just doesn't do anything until 1864 when he is available to actively participate in the TransMississippi. Frankly, we might adjust that house rule to allow activation when the North severs the South at the three Mississippi River crossings.

[Treefrog]

I confess ignorance on why HA is so helpful in defending coastal forts.

What is the analysis underlying the conclusion that it is helpful?

[GShock]

Tree perhaps you could propose to increase raid strategic effectiveness so that you've got to wait 1 turn before repairing the damaged railroads. This hampers both sides logistical advantages (i suppose you're playing 100/100?) in movement phase but also renders the reaction phase much much more realistic.  

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Treefrog
He summarized the development of AC commands during the war for both sides and arrived at the conclusion, as best I can recollect, he can comment and clear up any misconceptions on my part, that the game AC system did not reflect that the logistical and other ability of the North to maintain large operations on multiple fronts was greater than that of the South. This view is clearly our subjective point of view, your mileage may vary.

Sure, thanks for the explanation. I understand what you're after now and I can see your point.

In my experience with about 9 or so PBEM games with opponents of differing ability, the North often (not always) has a very difficult time against a CSA player of comparable skill and ability. Not always, but often. Of course, a sample of 9 or so is sufficiently small that it doesn't necessarily reflect reality. My abject failures as the Union are limited to Jutland13, which, again, may simply be idiosyncratic (or in my case, idiotsyncratic); he clearly outplayed me and I don't attribute my failings to 4 CSA ACs, although it might have helped if he didn't have them.

9 Games is a good sample as far as I'm concerned, it's a lot more post-update PBEM experience than I've had. From previous experience, I think WBTS does require quite a bit of skill to play well and it's easy to let yourself get bogged down as the Union if you don't plan ahead. I think both sides are quite challenging though and the Union player has to focus on stretching the Confederate player's defense. If the Union player does not stretch the Confederate player through both multiple land advance routes as well as coastal invasions, he will likely stall out. If he succeeds in stretching the Confederacy, he can keep the momentum going and once it builds the CSA has a heck of a time stopping it.

It's also worth keeping in mind that CSA players tend to do a better job of defending in the West than the CSA did historically and Union players tend not to be as aggressive about pushing on Richmond to tie down the CSA there due to PP concerns (hopefully the updates helped with that). So to some degree house rules have to reflect the "meta game" as well as the real game and consider that the historical figures didn't get a chance to re-fight things multiple times to find optimal strategies.

My 3 CSA AC suggestion is as much a play balance/handicap solution as anything else
We address the PP challenge addressed by GShock by allowing the 4th AC on the map, he just doesn't do anything until 1864 when he is available to actively participate in the TransMississippi. Frankly, we might adjust that house rule to allow activation when the North severs the South at the three Mississippi River crossings.

I'm very interested to hear how it goes. I'm concerned that it will make things too easy for the Union, but maybe it will work out. No way to know for sure except to try it out.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Treefrog
I confess ignorance on why HA is so helpful in defending coastal forts.
What is the analysis underlying the conclusion that it is helpful?

Per section 10.1.4:

"A unit in a region with a level one fortification gets die(10) added and a unit in a region with a level two fortification gets die(40) added to their combat value. In addition, heavy artillery units receive a double bonus. For example, a heavy artillery unit in a level two fortification would get the sum of die(40) + die(40) added to its combat value."

HA adds a lot to the victory determination. It's tough to dislodge a force with HA in a fortification, without destroying the HA. That's why the Union is also often well served to bring an AC along on major amphibious invasions for the increased combat value.

[Treefrog]

Erik,
The HA on amphibious seems pretty risk to me. I would have to commit to be of any help and if the attack fails, would probably be captured by the defender.

The Frog

[Erik Rutins]

I don't mean bring it along on an amphibious invasion, I mean use it to defend against one. The bonus it gets is such that a Union landing that isn't of corps size and doesn't have an AC along can have a tough time overcoming it (assuming it is not destroyed).