Matrix Games Forums

About to restart a PBEM with 1.02, and wanted to hear people's thoughts about where to set the options, pros/cons, etc. I'm not going to necessarily list all options, but the ones I am thought most likely, or what I am using or trying to decide between.

Ones I'd most appreciate comment on - and rationale

DELAYED COMMITMENT - Small or Medium?
(Trying to figure what would be "most historical" and why)

ACTIVATION RULE - Penalty or Unable to Move?
(I keep going back and forth about this)

NAVAL BOXES - No supply problems vs other %reductions vs Standard Rule?
(Since I have not spent a lot of time looking at naval, I'm pretty clueless what these mean)


Ones I think are pretty straight forward
FOREIGN ENTRY - Historical?
ATTRITION - Historical?
RANDOMIZED GENERALS (this is probably just a personal preference, I would assume the more random, the more it hurts the CSA?) - No
EXTENDED POOL - Historical?
EASY SUPPLY - Off

Thanks in advance.

Well, I haven't PBEM, but I can discuss historical (or practical) on some of these.

1. Delayed -- I think it can be argued that medium (at least) is historical. I'm reading a history now, and in the battle of Shiloh (yeah, yeah, I'm from the North) illustrates the delayed commitment aspect of combat in the ACW.

2. Activation -- I think a matter of preference, but penalty is what I generally prefer. Seems more reasonable?

3. Naval -- this is mostly housekeeping, I think. I use it because otherwise you're spending time each turn to rotate ships in/out of the boxes and back to port (supplies, repairs, cohesion recovery, etc.).

I'm also becoming a fan of the advanced supply rule (this is probably the attrition one, but I'm not in front of my gaming computer now), the one that requires depots to restore elements, and units take loses when not in towns. Look at that one.

I tried randomized generals once, and it seemed (seemed, mind you) that this tended toward creating average generals. Didn't like it much.

I think it is another Attrition option that increases losses when just standing around, which is probably a fair estimation. I have a great great grandfather who it appears died in the winter after Antietam from some illness while the army was just encamped awaiting the next campaign.

No surprise there. I believe the number of deaths outside of combat far exceeded those in combat. What penicillin would have accomplished? (Probably just made the war more bloody and lengthy...)