New Mexico is a tough theatre to represent. Being perfectly historically accurate, the Union should have one, maybe two, Brigades there, and that's it. The Confederates even less. There's a few reasons why the game isn't set up that way, but most of it boils down to it (a) not being any fun or (b) simply not working in the first place, whether in relation to the AI or how it fits in to the rest of the game.
SC's combat system (and to a lesser degree, the supply system too) only works if there are a certain number of units on the board within a given area. Without them, the units that are left over aren't going to be strong enough to dislodge any opposing units (which can just reinforce back to full strength at the end of the turn), and there's just not enough units to both defend one's own supply sources and make an effort at attacking the opposition that has a meaningful chance of success. That minimum unit density is something just slightly less than the typical armies in the early part of the 1846 campaign, or what is seen in the New Mexico theatre if some - but not all - of the offered units are taken.
Fort Craig, as has been noted, is on the map already. It can be garrisoned if you so choose. About the only thing more I could do there would be to put a fort unit there - and if I do that, most armies players typically send to NM would not be strong enough to take it down (Brigades and Regiments aren't very good at attacking forts - because at the scale used elsewhere in the game, it doesn't make sense for them to be able to do so).
As for the eastern NM road, (a) the map in the game takes towns, roads, rails &c as they were in 1861, whereas the source you sent me is from 1864. I'm not going to get into a debate about whether it existed in 1861 or not, but none of the sources I used when making the map showed it, nor did I find any ACW-related military activities using that route (if it was built for the Indian Wars, that's a bit outside the subject matter of the game). (b) Splitting the NM theatre into two brings us back to the unit density problem - a wider front means more units are needed for the game to work right. I think adding more towns, and more units, to NM might be overstating the region's importance in the war.
Platoonist wrote: Tue Dec 10, 2024 3:27 am
Tanaka wrote: Tue Dec 10, 2024 2:14 am
And weird to see no Fort Sumter?
I imagine Sumter's location smack dab in the middle of Charleston Harbor makes it tough to place on the map. To accommodate its location, you'd almost have to stick it out in the Atlantic like Fort Pulaski where Union ships could easily pummel it from all sides. Sumter historically benefitted from the same contradictory dynamic that made Stalingrad so hard to take albeit on a far smaller scale. The Union bombardment of the fort only made it stronger as the rubble slowly packed down into the form of a massive irreducible earthwork. The Union did attempt to land troops on the island fort but were repulsed. Given its toughness historically while in CSA hands maybe BNC just decided it was easier to just lump it in with Charleston itself.
Once upon a time that hex between the Charleston ports and the open sea was a land+sea hex, which I briefly tried putting a fort on. It didn't work. At all.
One big reason being that the Union, for the most part, did a fairly good job of reducing coastal forts, which is why I've made forts quite weak in the game. But that also means that Sumter has to be weak in the game (at least unless I have multiple types of fort unit) - which as you've noted, wasn't the case.
At the scale the game takes place, even this fairly awkward setup is about the best I can do to put Sumter on the map, and it doesn't even work - much simpler to just not have Sumter there. The geography of Charleston is such that it can't be easily captured by naval invasion the way most other ports in the game can (there's three land hexes between it and any possible landing spot), and this has been done deliberately - Sumter's importance is, in a bit of a roundabout way, reflected there.
- BNC