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I understand that you can only squeeze so many cities into an area, but not including Columbus, KY seems very weird.

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1865 map of the general vicinity:

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1863 "Seat of War" published map of the area with major rail lines "overly" emphasized:

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(see - https://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/digital ... 23/id/427/ )

DarkHorse2 wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 2:40 pm I understand that you can only squeeze so many cities into an area

This is the essence of why it's not there.

Generally speaking, I try to avoid having two adjacent hexes both containing settlements. Yes, I make the odd exception, usually for large cities, but Columbus isn't exactly a "large city" with a population of ~1000 in 1860. This means that if Columbus was to be added, I'd delete Hickman and then have Columbus in the hex directly north of where Hickman is.

Columbus is interesting historically principally because it overlooks the Mississippi and the Confederates tried to block access to the river. The way the game is set up, that means that there has to be a port on one of the river hexes. However, if there's a port, then the only space for the force Grant historically led from Cairo into KY to move is in the gap between Cairo's port and Columbus' port - either one or two hexes wide depending on where the port is placed. In either case, a fairly substantial chokepoint is created, which the Union is going to struggle to break through.

Ultimately, I judged the Union's ability to cross the Mississippi south of Cairo to be more important to the game than anything having Columbus on the map can offer.

- BNC

DarkHorse2 wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 2:42 pm 1865 map of the general vicinity:

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ColumbusKY_1865.jpg

Looks like you could also say that Columbus and Hickman were also a river port towns like New Madrid? Looking at your posts and maps you have inspired me to make these changes: