I think I would like the option of being able to right-click on a fort and convert them to entrenchments.
But honestly, there is just too much ahistorical weirdness in this title to keep my attention for long and I do not play anymore - especially after devs have no desire to address.
Throwing a bunch of useless forts on the map, many of them nothing but gimmies for the Union, is just not fun.
Was there truly one historical example during the ACW of any fort being destroyed by a rampaging gunboat? Not that I can recall. At a minimum, it took a concerted effort and the coordination of naval + ground forces.
Yes, once the Union achieved that threshold of required forces, many of them were not that difficult to overcome. But there is a big difference between the historic forces that Farragut used vs Fort Jackson compared to maybe 1 squadron of Gunboats as used in this title.
First section, Captain Theodorus Bailey: USS Cayuga, Pensacola (ship), USS Mississippi, Oneida, Varuna, Katahdin, Kineo, and Wissahickon.
Second section (ships), Flag Officer Farragut: USS Hartford, Brooklyn, and Richmond.
Third section, Captain Henry H. Bell: USS Sciota, Iroquois, Kennebec, Pinola, Itasca, and Winona.
Even then, Fort Jackson was
not destroyed, simply bypassed and still exists to this day!
Even factoring in the relentless enemy fire, the most serious attacks against Fort Jackson came in the last few decades. Not from cannonballs, but from Mother Nature.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4014f.cw0 ... 52,0.206,0
The damage to the fort was largely superficial, with a more objective assessment given by a Union military engineer expressing amazement at how little structural damage there was to the fort.
The fact that the occupying Union had it repaired and functioning several months later attests to the fact.
It is worth noting that the best armaments and best troops had already been stripped of the New Orleans area and redeployed to other Civil War theaters - leaving only a motly crew not otherwise fit for the real combat elsewhere.
He had but one company of regular troops, all others having been ordered north in March to form part of Beauregard’s army. Within the city of New Orleans, there were just 3,000 elderly homeguards, armed with old muskets and shotguns. The solitary defenses between the city and the forts were the weak batteries at English Turn.
These craft were to have been joined by at least two armored floating batteries. Louisiana, which somewhat resembled CSS Virginia was almost completed, the construction of the floating battery Mississippi, well under way. The two vessels would have been truly formidable had they been battle ready.
The second contingent of the Confederate fleet consisted of two gunboats, converted merchantmen, of the Louisiana State Navy. And the third group was the River Defense Fleet of six small gunboats, officered and crewed by local pilots and rivermen, undisciplined and unreliable.
The bypassing of the Confederate forts at New Orleans was not planned but a result of the frustration of being unable to subdue them from shear naval gunfire alone.
The bombardment was more impressive than effective. All night long the big shells could be traced by their pinwheeling fuses as they arched against the dark sky, and the rate of fire was increased during daylight hours until over 16,000 shells had been lobbed at the Confederates. Farragut was deeply concerned with the possibility that the Confederate ironclad floating batteries might soon be added to the defenses and that the mortar flotilla in the meantime could not achieve any decisive results.
