American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Sirs, I was playing a custom scenario in Gettysburg that had fords over the Potomoc River. My opponent reached the ford first and pushed his cavalry across. I was able to stop his advance and create a wall of ZOC's pinning him against the river. He had the ford within his perimeter. The next turn all of his units were isolated. Apparently the game would not trace a supply line back across the Potomoc River ford. We were both pretty shocked. I then tested this on a couple of other Gettysburg scenarios. The same thing happened in scen 090 Block the Crossings and 286 Forcing the Potomoc. I ran one more test in Chickamauga and also had the same result. I ran one test with a bridge over the Potomoc and I was able to stay in supply. Here are a few questions for everyone.

1. Has anyone seen this before in Gettysburg?
2. Has anyone run across this in any of the other titles?
3. Does anyone know why this happens?

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Gen Doug Shaw,
4/1/XIV AotC

Is it a true ford hex or just a hexside marked as ford on the map?

The manual describes:
"In the case of a Water hex crossed by a Trail, the terrain description will be Ford."
So if a bridge crossing a water hex works but a trail not the engine seems to recognize the terrain just as water hex and ignores the trail, that seems to block tracing a line of supply.

Are the units still isolated if you have a supply unit with them on the same side of the river?
Maybe it is wanted that you are not treated as if there is a bridge but have to have supply with the units crossing a ford.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

I stopped using the isolation rule a long time ago.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

If one lets his units be surrounded he has to pay a price for it.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

He does, suffering flanking fire and/or melee. Any other penalty in the context of a twenty minute turn is excessive.

Btw, the solution to the ford problem is to use the editor to put supply sources on both sides of the ford until the bug id corrected. Too late if you're already in the middle of a game though.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

The Isolation rule is there mostly to punish people who run unsupported units all over the map. Sometimes units end up isolated that probably shouldn't but it should be rare if the player properly supports his units. Isolation represents troops surrendering when cut off from the rest of the army.

Historically if a commander allowed his regiments to be cut off from the main army they would run for their lives. Failing finding a way out they would throw down their arms and surrender. Rarely did they commit suicide and fight to the end once they knew they were cut off. Generally no 101st Airborne in the Civil War.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)

Exactly.

That Isolation triggers immediately next turn is maybe overdone in some situations but generally it's OK.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

The situation in question only applies to ford hexes over rivers, not creeks. The ford occupies an entire water hex. It has 6 hexsides with 4 of them facing water and 2 of them facing land. The ford has a trail hexside on each side facing land.

I do not believe that supply units have any affect on this situation. Isolation results from not being able to trace an uninterrupted line of hexes to a board edge only, not a supply unit. I have isolated entire armies before with numerous supply wagons that have not negated the isolation effect.

The other thing about these ford hexes over rivers is that they act like bridges and not clear terrain hexes like I thought they would. You cannot move into the ford hex unless you are in column or mounted formation. You cannot stack units in the ford hex or change to line or dismounted formation. You also cannot exit the hex if it is occupied by another of your units. Also, when you try to do these things in the ford hex the error message that comes up says that that move is not permitted on a bridge hex.

In my opinion these ford hexes in rivers should be treated as clear terrain hexes and not bridges. They should definitely allow supply lines to be traced through them.

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Gen Doug Shaw,
4/1/XIV AotC

I guess there are different types of fords, but what I picture is a narrow rather shallow spot in the river where you can walk across without having to swim. The program is not sophisticated enough to differentiate between different depths and widths of fords, but I imagine treating a ford like a bridge rather than a clear terrain hex makes more sense, particularly across a river. I agree though that it shouldn't block supply.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

All I can say is God bless John Tiller for giving us options so we can agree to disagree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Camar%C3%B3n

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

The usual exception to the rule, you want to point to such special situation with the Foreign Legion and say that this has to apply always?

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

Show me the instances in the Civil War where an army or portion thereof was surrounded and immediately lost the will to fight.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

Well if you let half your army be surrounded you really have to rig the rules in your favor to get away with such a way of "conducting warfare".

Such rules, like many others, do not take effect unless you're ignoring them and are playing like you're in the wrong war. And if you're constantly doing so you have to be punished, so simply adjust your way of playing and all is fine.

BTW show me an instance where an army or portion thereof was surrounded(and please no sieges).

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

Appomattox.

Here is another:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Batt ... orld_War_I)

If you let half your army be surrounded in the game you don't have to rig anything. You will be in trouble whether you have an isolation rule or not. I just do not consider a string of cavalry companies spaced every thousand yards a mile behind the lines whose real job was supposed to be security for some general or provost marshal duty to constitute grounds for your army to immediately lose the will to fight.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

Again examples I can't follow.
I surely do not know all scenarios but read complains about the usual cavalry regiment not really being able to act as recon because it's just a single unit and not even split in battalions.
So in what scenario does one side of soooooo many cavalry companies that it can surround an entire army or just on corps?

And Appomattox?
According to maps the ingame isolation rule would not have been triggered, there was no cordon that cut the army off, there was always the road Richmond-Lynchburg road to go back to the northern bank of the Appomattox, not that this would have been any help but ingame there wouldn't be any isolation of the ANV.

PS and with examples of WWI you're drifting off further and further from how warfare was in the CW. I'm sure you can pull out even more examples from Vietnam but such do just not matter for the Civil War.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."