American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Shiloh comes with a new optional rule:

"Select <b>Full Melee Defensive Fire</b> to have defensive fire conducted by the program against attacking units in melee at full strength instead of half-strength."

I must say this is some improvement. It won't address all issues with weak defensive fire in the one-phase format, but it's an important step in the right direction.



Gen. Walter, USA
AoS / War College

Now if they would also make automatic disruption by units routing through optional at least for artillery ... I know why I haven't played a historical Gettysburg on the HPS engine yet. One glance at this setup



was enough to convince me that it just isn't feasible. All these great batteries are sure to disrupt by frontline units routing through by turn 2 at the latest and then they will not only be totally ineffective, they will also never make it out of this death trap what with the wall hexsides and all.

I can see some justification for this rule, but it should never have applied to artillery, and it should at least be <u>optional</u>.


Gen. Walter, USA
AoS / War College

Anyone who plays against me (when I get Shiloh, or when it is patched into the new games)

Consider that a Mandatory Option (oxymoron that may be). It doesn't sound like it, but I also hope that it means that all melees start a "final fire"

Brig. General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA

It almost seems like they do. I ran a short try and all units about to meleed also fired defensively. But then I didn't try it more than 10-12 times (at Belmont).

Gen. Walter, USA
AoS / War College

Good to see this new feature - an important step on the (still perhaps rather long) way to making a defensive strategy remotely viable.

Perhaps the next step might be a new defensive formation (like in Age of Rifles) that dug-in units can assume and which makes them very hard to crack.

Col. Rich White
3 Brig. Phantom Cav Div
III Corps ANV

Ok, I'm confused. You are talking about Battleground Shiloh? The half strength defense fire was an HPS invention I didn't think it existed in any Battleground games.

<font color="orange">Correction: I didn't scroll down far enough in the posts. It is an HPS game.

This will help the Turn based but I am not sure it fixes it. Attacker will just be very reluctant to melee and will rely on fire to disrupt the unit first but it a step in the right direction.</font id="orange">

BG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)

Now all we need is a patch for all the other titles...

Gen. Thos. Callmeyer
4th Bgd.
1st Div.
XV Corps
AoT