American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

For something to think about while most of us sit in isolation, there is no check in the system to make sure that maneuvers are not registered as battles. Since no one seems to really care, why don't we do away with maneuvers? There is no need in some abiding by club rules and getting half points while others don't follow club rules and get full points. In the first years of this club, battles and maneuvers served a viable purpose. This was a club full of bravado and side choosing and tall tales. We wanted the club to remain that way and thus used maneuvers as a means to keep each side fighting the other. The club has changed. We still have some bravado and side choosing and tall tales, but it is no longer as important to have brother in butternut fighting brother in blue. If you say that it is, then let's fix it so that maneuvers registered as battles are stopped/fixed. Who agrees or disagrees?

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Gen Ned Simms
2/XVI Corps/AotT
Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em.
VMI Class of '00

There are two players in the game and they each get notice of the game results, so both would have to be aware of any wrong entry.

I get requests to change reporting errors quite often when players notice the errors.

The DOR depends on members properly reporting games.

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General Ernie Sands
President ACWGC -Sept 2015- Dec 2020
7th Brigade, 1st Division, XVI Corps, AoT
ACWGC Records Site Admin

"If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there."

NWC had games being ended by a moderator. Of course that would be a hassle to be implemented here, but how about a third not in the game involved person gets notified? That person could take a look at the participants to make sure a battle was really between Billy Yank & Johnny Reb.

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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."

We rely on the integrity of the players.

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General Ernie Sands
President ACWGC -Sept 2015- Dec 2020
7th Brigade, 1st Division, XVI Corps, AoT
ACWGC Records Site Admin

"If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there."

I don't doubt their integrity but error happen already when members choose things from the various drop-down menus, when manually entering data it is even more likely that errors happen.

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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."

As a matter of their monthly reporting function, Union AC's are mandated to report the number of Battles and Maneuvers completed each month. To do this they must use the Army Games Report (No Duplicate Games) function of the DoR Reports Section. That function very clearly shows who played who in what, and it is a simple enough exercise for the AC to make a correction request to the DoR Administrator. From the Union side of things it can therefore be stated that there very definitely exists a check upon game type. I can also state from experience, as far as I have seen, that the instances of battle/maneuver confusion are very infrequent events.

I do think, however, that changes need to be considered in the Union Army's present award criteria to more aptly reflect the efforts, energy and time of officers who indulge in maneuvers.

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General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC
Union Army Chief of Staff
Commander, Army of the Shenandoah
Commander, Army of the Tennessee
(2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)

Exactly and frequently I get requests to correct errors, whether they be maneuver/battle, wrong scenario, wrong player, and even wrong result; and to add/change players in MP type games.

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General Ernie Sands
President ACWGC -Sept 2015- Dec 2020
7th Brigade, 1st Division, XVI Corps, AoT
ACWGC Records Site Admin

"If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there."

I agree.

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General 'Dee Dubya' Mallory
Chief of the Armies, CSA

Wait wait, all started because:


There has yet to be shown any prove that we have a problem of such seriousness that steps beyond what is already done have to be considered. And even if the problem would be bigger, there are many steps that could be taken before even thinking about removing maneuvers.

Sure sometimes games get registered as battles although they should be maneuvers. But they also get corrected according to General Sands, if there are still some floating around then just report them.

All I can consider for now is that we could change the game register page and add a note that puts emphasis on reminding the members to register games correctly. And we could add a direct way(mail or contact form) to report games that were registered incorrect.

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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 think what General Simms is saying is that it really doesn't matter if two players are from the same 'side' or not - so long as they are playing a game, why not give them full points for the game?

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General 'Dee Dubya' Mallory
Chief of the Armies, CSA

Because having different sides and competing against each other is a main pillar of the club. And here at the ACWGC we have even less means to differ as we only give OBD points per game done, not like at the NWC were VPs can be given. So in that aspect I don't even mind getting just half the points in a maneuver compared to a battle.

If there is someone who is after the OBD points, well then go and get a command position that rewards OBD points, since I'm in the club the position of Eastern TC is empty so go for it.
And if OBD points do not matter, why removing maneuvers at all?

Again, there was no problem mentioned that justifies to lessen the profile that the club has.
At the NWC it was done and there was ZERO positive effect, if anything was achieved it was lessen of the clubs profile and by that made it less attractive to join & put work into the side you have chosen, an absolute wrong way to go.

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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."

At the NWC we haven't had half maneuvers in a long time, but as Christian pointed out there are/were also VP's given out for just battles. That got changed more recently and the results have been a bit mixed, but it'll take some thinking outside the box to worked it out. When we made maneuvers full points, it allowed folks who played just maneuvers to enjoy some additional perks. Again there's more involved when it comes to the awards, honors, etc.

I'm not 100% sure if it'd be beneficial or not here. A lot of our awards are driven towards qualifying victories against the other side, especially at the ANV & AoT awards level. We'd have to consider adjustments, changes or additions to the system to keep it meaningful. Something I am slowly doing on the Coalition side of the NWC. We'd have to weigh whether that's worth the work against the benefit of the changes.

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General Scott Ludwig
4/II/ANV

I just completed a check for the games done by the AotP from 1st January 2018 to 31st March 2020.
Of 192 ended games 11 use a wrong game type:
- 7 battles that are maneuvers(unsure about 2 as they were registered when officer were still on different sides)
- 1 maneuver that is a battle
- 1 maneuver that is a MP maneuver(just listed for the sake of completeness)
- 2 MP Battles that are MP Maneuvers(Maybe player changed and by that turned battles into maneuvers)

Overall just 5,7%, that does not sounds too problematic.

What I find more problematic is that afaik the DOR doesn't recalculate any rewarded OBD points because of a change in game type. AFAIk that has to be changed manually, and here I wonder if that also goes correctly into the officers OBD list or if that one has to be corrected too.

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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."