American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Kennon makes a lot of great points.

How about high fatigue units use up an extra 1 movement point for each non-road hex they advance?

That would limit mobility somewhat without limiting fighting capability further beyond the already extant moral and fire modifiers that work against high fatigue units.

I have long been in favor of using +1 movement points as limiters - for example any disrupted unit moving towards an enemy uses an exta +1 mvt point but not if they are moving away from an enemy. Ideally this would also be based upon proximity of the enemy and only apply if an enemy were within 5 or 10 hexes. I would also like to see that same proximity idea applied to routed units so that they could move towards the enemy and back towards your own lines, but only to within 10 hexes of the nearest enemy, etc. Something along those lines.

Regards,

Lt. Gen. Alan Lynn
CSA Chief of Staff
3rd Bgde, 3rd Cav Div, II Corps, AoA

God Bless <><

Hi,

I am very new to the game and the club, I don’t usually keep up the post here that often but I was reading them last night and these 2 post “New Ruleâ€

I favor handicapping high fatigue units that at the moment of melee if they are at levels(600->900 FA) that they cannot melee against enemy combat units either disrupted or in good order. HQ leaders, routed units, and supply wagons should still be fair game.
That would cut down on a lot of the unrealistic melee combat. Otherwise, if in good order, they should still be able to advance.



BG Ross McDaniel
2nd Bde, 3rd Div, III Corps, AoG, CSA

Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at.-Carlos Urbizo

Possibly crawling on all fours might be safer than standing upright, but we like the view better up there. –Isabel Paterson

Kenon ALWAYS makes a LOT of good points!

BG Hank Smith
Army of Georgia
Smith's Corp Commanding

I really think this is a fix in search of problem. If my opponent wants to overuse tired units, fine. I'll rout him.

Of course, some folks like to use faster fatigue recovery, which does encourage overuse of moderately-tired units. I don't.

Gen. Matt Perrenod
<i>The Blue Ghost</i>
Commandant, Union Military Academy
1st Brigade, 2nd Division, VIII Corps, Army of the Shenandoah
UMA Class of '01

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by mperrenod</i>
<br />I really think this is a fix in search of problem. If my opponent wants to overuse tired units, fine. I'll rout him.

Of course, some folks like to use faster fatigue recovery, which does encourage overuse of moderately-tired units. I don't.

Gen. Matt Perrenod
<i>The Blue Ghost</i>
Commandant, Union Military Academy
1st Brigade, 2nd Division, VIII Corps, Army of the Shenandoah
UMA Class of '01
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Actually I find using the faster fatigue recovery option encourages resting fatigued units. One of the problems with fatigue is that under normal rules they won't recover enough to justify taking them out of the line. While under fast recovery almost any unit kept at medium fatigue will fully recover during the night. And, if you rotate your units during an offensive you can pull units before they hit 300 and recover them in a few turns.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by KWhitehead</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by mperrenod</i>
<br />I really think this is a fix in search of problem. If my opponent wants to overuse tired units, fine. I'll rout him.

Of course, some folks like to use faster fatigue recovery, which does encourage overuse of moderately-tired units. I don't.

Gen. Matt Perrenod
<i>The Blue Ghost</i>
Commandant, Union Military Academy
1st Brigade, 2nd Division, VIII Corps, Army of the Shenandoah
UMA Class of '01
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Actually I find using the faster fatigue recovery option encourages resting fatigued units. One of the problems with fatigue is that under normal rules they won't recover enough to justify taking them out of the line. While under fast recovery almost any unit kept at medium fatigue will fully recover during the night. And, if you rotate your units during an offensive you can pull units before they hit 300 and recover them in a few turns.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I think if we compare fatigue effects historically, the original fatigue system is probably more accurate. When you look at the units involved in the various battles, units involved in intense combat usually weren't committed again in battle. At Grttysburg, Heth's and Pender's Divisions rested two nights and a day before being committed to Pickett's Charge, and even then their performance wasn't optimum. Hays' and Avery's Brigades had about 24 hours to rest before their unsuccessful evening assault on Cemetery Hill. Hood's, McLaws' and Anderson's Divisions weren't really engaged again after the battle on the second day. Likewise, each of the Union corps essentially fought for one day, except the VI Corps, which barely got engaged at all.

Maybe the reason most battles only lasted one or two days, and pursuit was usually ineffective is that both armies got worn out and disorganized. I have used the faster fatigue recovery option since it came out, but I think General Perrenod makes a good point.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

I think the issue is complex and many good points were brought up. I think that the current fatigue rules are adequate penalizing the player when using them. I think the question here is should they be used in combat at all when at high fatigue and therefore what limits should be put on them. To answer Rich's question it would be bad to add more to the fatigue restrictions, the only one I would support would be max fatigue may not enter EZOC's.

One point is that the quality of a unit would affect the affects of fatigue. High quality units would still be effective while low quality would not.The time frame of most battles usually does not allow for adequate fatigue recovery. It is of no advantage not to use them. The Victory conditions usually require that you eliminate enemy strength and using every means is justifiable. I think this is also the reason of high losses as Victory will usually happen when you defeat the enemy. As you attempt to destroy the enemy you take casualties which mean you need to eliminate more to gain the point advantage etc... Objectives require you to go through the enemy to reach them and more losses.

Since most fatigue is caused in conjunction with losses perhaps a better solution would be to implement a technique from the board game version of 'Brigade combat effectiveness' (BCE), which means that when the cumulative losses of a Brigade reach a certain level (different for each brigade based on overall quality of units) the Brigades units would not be able to enter EZOC's. This effectively takes them away from offensive action although they could be used defensively. Using up your Brigades quickly would put you out of the offensive battle. I think that this could reduce some of the excessive losses but they still could be high. The BCE could be adjusted during an evening of non activity, recovering some losses and determining a new BCE level. This has been brought up before. I understand this requires programming and therefore difficult to implement.

Just my 2 cents.




Best Regards,

General Pierre D.
1st Bde, 3rd Div,I Corps
Army of Georgia, CSA

"NEVER get into a fight without more ammunition than the other guy."

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Rich Walker</i>
<br />Many players ignore FA. I'm quilty

Suppose the engine would not allow units with a FA of say 400 or 500 to move closer to an enemy (except for routed enemy units)? Much like a routed unit cannot move closer to an enemy.

Good, bad or ugly
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Simple fixes are always easier to get implemented. When you increase the complexity of a change, it seldom will be changed.

So, the answer to the original proposal by Rich W.is YES, this change might be a (relatively) simple fix to a very complex situation.

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, Commanding, Army of Ohio

ACWGC Cabinet Member
ACWGC Records Site Administrator
</b></font id="gold">

I favor making it high fatigue units(600->900 FA) cannot move into a known enemy ZOC or initiate melee, if already adjacent.
I also support faster recovery from medium and high fatigue, although not so much on low fatigue.
Blown men or horses who get 20 minutes rest can recover considerably and make another effort.
However, high casualty units who just suffered them probably would not qualify. (Argh!!! Making it more complicated again!) [:D]

BG Ross McDaniel
2nd Bde, 3rd Div, III Corps, AoG, CSA

Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at.-Carlos Urbizo

Possibly crawling on all fours might be safer than standing upright, but we like the view better up there. –Isabel Paterson

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by mihalik</i>

I think if we compare fatigue effects historically, the original fatigue system is probably more accurate. When you look at the units involved in the various battles, units involved in intense combat usually weren't committed again in battle. At Grttysburg, Heth's and Pender's Divisions rested two nights and a day before being committed to Pickett's Charge, and even then their performance wasn't optimum. Hays' and Avery's Brigades had about 24 hours to rest before their unsuccessful evening assault on Cemetery Hill. Hood's, McLaws' and Anderson's Divisions weren't really engaged again after the battle on the second day. Likewise, each of the Union corps essentially fought for one day, except the VI Corps, which barely got engaged at all.

Maybe the reason most battles only lasted one or two days, and pursuit was usually ineffective is that both armies got worn out and disorganized. I have used the faster fatigue recovery option since it came out, but I think General Perrenod makes a good point.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

That is true but the HPS engine doesn't reproduce or reward the player for doing any of that. In Gettysburg the world ends at night of the third day. There is no incentive to save or rest your army, only to kill enemy as long as you can get a unit to fire. If they awarded VP for having units at low fatigue or some how rewarded not destroying your army in the process of destroying the enemies things might work more logically.

The system as is rewards both sides for keeping high fatiuge units in the line of battle. While they risk them routing they still serve a purpose. If nothing else the enemy might shoot at them instead of one of your good units. You might even run the enemy out of ammo since they trigger defensive fire just as good as a low fatigue unit. In an attacking stack if you are lucky the enemy defensive fire will be wasted on one of the fillers leaving the troops intended to carry out the melee unhurt.

That is why I have found the fast recovery option actually causes more units to be held out of the line of battle. For a long 2 or 3 day battle there is actually a reward for the player who can better manage his fatigue levels. I have won some battles doing this. Under standard rules there is no reason to pull a fatigued unit out of the line until it routes itself out. The only exception is there are a few Campaign paths where the battles are close enough together that the game doesn't auto recover all your fatigue.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by KWhitehead</i>
<br />
That is true but the HPS engine doesn't reproduce or reward the player for doing any of that. In Gettysburg the world ends at night of the third day. There is no incentive to save or rest your army, only to kill enemy as long as you can get a unit to fire. If they awarded VP for having units at low fatigue or some how rewarded not destroying your army in the process of destroying the enemies things might work more logically.

The system as is rewards both sides for keeping high fatiuge units in the line of battle. While they risk them routing they still serve a purpose. If nothing else the enemy might shoot at them instead of one of your good units. You might even run the enemy out of ammo since they trigger defensive fire just as good as a low fatigue unit. In an attacking stack if you are lucky the enemy defensive fire will be wasted on one of the fillers leaving the troops intended to carry out the melee unhurt.

That is why I have found the fast recovery option actually causes more units to be held out of the line of battle. For a long 2 or 3 day battle there is actually a reward for the player who can better manage his fatigue levels. I have won some battles doing this. Under standard rules there is no reason to pull a fatigued unit out of the line until it routes itself out. The only exception is there are a few Campaign paths where the battles are close enough together that the game doesn't auto recover all your fatigue.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Hi, General,

Your points, as usual, are well-taken, but only reinforces the opinion (which we both share) that the game engine is more responsible for ahistorical behavior by rewarding it than the player, who is merely using the tools he is provided with to best advantage. In fact, Rich's original suggestion is to tweak the engine to produce more historically accurate results. I would add that most of my comments on this board over the past ten years have been toward this same end, and I believe yours as well; which has led to improvements such as artillery expenditure by tube, embedded melee to prevent blitzkrieg in single turn and artillery capture, which admittedly could use a little more work.

I would have no problem with preventing high fatigue units from entering an enemy ZOC, but I think an exception ought to be made for units who are cut off by ZOC being able to retreat the one hex using weak ZOC. But what might be beneficial would be a voluntary rout button, a "sauve qui peut" such as Col Oates essentially issued at Little Round Top. Building on that, I think the routing routine ought to be changed so that the general direction of rout ought to be selected by the owning player for each unit. Admittedly, this gives more control to the players, but it would prevent units from routing from the frying pan into the fire, something that I don't recall happening in any engagement of the Civil War, but what happens all to often in the games. Another advantage would be you could actually see what units are routing and where, which isn't available right now because the routed units have simply disappeared when you run the playback. That would probably necessitate a separate rout phase at the beginning of the player turn, but would correct an anomalie in the present engine.

As to the fatigue recovery situation, I can't blame you for doing what is optimum to win the game. I am just suggesting that the original fatigue model might be more historically accurate. Seems as though the historical commanders usually ran their units into the ground before committing fresh units, probably because a passage of the lines didn't happen near as smoothly as it does in the game. Having said that, I will probably continue to use the modified fatigue because it's not much fun having a bunch of worthless troops sitting around waiting to recover enough fatigue to be useful again.

Another point you made about high fatigue units in a stack drawing fire; why has it always been you can select a unit in a stack to fire at? You should be able to fire at a stack and all units in the stack share the casualties. I know they used to have that for artillery fire in the Napoleonic games. Why don't they extend that to include all fire?

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA