American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

"Playability" and "fun" are certainly crucial, but do they conflict with, or coincide with, making the games more historic and realistic?

Perhaps some gamers want simplicity and others ever increasing levels of complexity - so maybe optional rules can cater for both groups - but I'm sure nobody wants a system that's unrealistic and unhistorical if that can be avoided. Thus a turn-based engine where the attacker can move, fire and melee all his units turn after turn after turn places the defensive player at a significant disadvantage, especially in the standard single phase mode where defensive fire is erratic but where offensive fire is guaranteed and ZOC melee elimination tactics facilitated.

An action point system, where players can pick and choose which troops they want to move has its merits, but does this still give too much player control? After all, what commander ever <i>knew in advance </i>which officer or unit was going to mess up or sit dithering instead of attacking in support of troops further along the line?

A more random fixed leaders/units system would mean that it would be generally harder for a player to coordinate poor quality troops under poor quality leaders, yet there would be no absolute certainty that even the very best formations would actually be in the right place at precisely the right time. Remember no radios!

However, this should probably be an optional rule, since many players like to have full control over all of their troops all of the time. Realistic - certainly not. Fun - doesn't that depend of the individual player? Besides, surely more variety = more fun? I'm sure some of us would have fun coping with an unanticipated blunder on the part of an incompetent subordinate or with improvising after a well-organized plan falls apart when a division temporarily loses its way or misinterprets an order.

Of course the probability of a formation being temporarily fixed shouldn't be too high - even for poor quality troops - as this will affect playability. But this can be playtested before being incorporated into the game engine and the values could be set in the pdt so that they can be easily modified again. Perhaps a "C" quality leader might have just 5% probability of fixing, a "D" leader 7% and an "E" leader 10% per turn? A "B" leader maybe just 2% and an "A" leader 1%, so not something that'll mess up gameplay, but a feature that'll occasionally throw a spanner in the works.

Maybe we could <i><b>also</b></i> have an action point command system at some point in the future, as has been suggested by some folk here. But that would be a separate feature and might need quite a bit of coding work, whereas what I'm suggesting is a feature that should be fairly straightforward to incorporate, since we've already got fixed units and already have a command test, so all that would be needed would be to link these up and put the probability into the pdt.


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

Whether Action Point system is included or not, implementing any workable limited command system will require quite a bit of coding. Simply overlaying onto the existing system would fail since the two choices are full movement or being fixed. Fixed in HPS games is almost the equivalent of suicide when troops are near by. They are easily surrounded.

Whatever system is implemented the affect has to be graduated. A unit in full command would have full movement. But those without would still need some freedom of movement to respond to local situations and of course the defender needs at least some ability to respond to attackers or we get PanserBlitz again. Usually this means some system of half movement and/or movement only away from the enemy (like current route system). Any system that is going to significantly limit the number of brigades active on the map will create situations where large formations can be surrounded even as they watch the troops doing it so you also need survival loophole in your rule. Then of course you have all the possible exceptions like are reinforcements restricted? How about formations in column on roads? Could a lead brigade stop a whole division in column? Would a unit under fire become fixed?

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