Quaama wrote:
The Civil War was essentially linear warfare. It would have been exceedingly rare for a brigade, let alone a regiment, to go wandering off on their own independent operation. I think any units in a game that get themselves isolated at any stage deserve any penalties they receive. It does seem unrealistic that there is no penalty for firing while isolated as I'd think the firing ability of any surrounded unit would also suffer in reality. I do think it completely unrealistic when an enemy sets up a defensive position against the edge of the battle map so it is impossible for their force to be 'isolated' even though they are effectively surrounded on all sides as far as the battle map permits.
Again my objection is not to the isolation effects -though that might merit a discussion- but rather when the game checks for isolation for a side. Currently it's possible at the end of a player's turn for a unit to be in contact with friendly units (ie back in the 'line') but to still be isolated throughout the next enemy turn.
I would also not argue that the the game's rules are anything other than an abstraction as opposed to a 100% accurate representation of historical reality. Historical arguments can be sidestepped by the realization that the isolation rule is much the same across the Tiller games regardless of time period (eg the WW2 Campaign Series and the Cold War titles all have basically the same rule).
It's a simple rule that more or less gets the job done but falls apart at edge cases. Under the rule a brigade, division, corps or army can form an unbroken line but still be isolated by significantly weaker units, even if the enemy units all only have 1 strength. Conversely, any pocketed force can stave off isolation so long as it is pocketed with a supply wagon of at least 1 strength. But these situations are so unlikely as to be dismissed.
On the other hand I've already seen multiple times the situation I initially described despite being relatively new to the games. Even veteran players make the mistake of thinking they can rescue those units.