Well I certainly will second all of that. None of my rant about this issue was ever a criticism and I should have had the presence of mind to thank him as well. All of these "mysteries" are ONLY illuminated by his posts. They are, however, all over the place and that is why I am going to try to summarize his wisdom on at least this spiking thing so that newbies will have one post to go or an amendment to the artillery war college paper.
And thank you General Laub for you very kind comment...
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by mihalik</i>
<br />There is a lot of information pertaining to the mechanics of the game engine that isn't accessible to the gamer. I still don't know what it takes to kill a gun or a crew. I do know that in my Peninsula game my Union opponent seems to take out a gun on about 50% of his shots with batteries, while my sections have only killed a couple. Then there is the unwritten rule where a unit whose rear sides are occupied but frontal hexsides are in enemy zones of control is eliminated, even if there is a frontal hex unoccupied, and even with weak ZOC. John could probably make some money with a book revealing all the secrets in the game engine.
With all this wrangling over the artillery capture rule, let me take this opportunity to once again thank Rich Walker for making the rule a reality. It isn't perfect, but it is far better, imho, than the old system where guns just disappeared. He has also been the guiding force behind density modifiers and cavalry scouting, among others. While none of the implementations has been flawless, I believe each is an enhancement to the game. And, for the most part, each enhancement can be selected or rejected as the players choose. I might add, hopefully not in error, that Rich was the only ACW game designer present at the ACW game discussion and will work to implement other enhancements. Thanks, Rich, my hat is off to you.
MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Colonel Tom Ciampa
2nd Bgde,1st Cav
XIV Corps, AoC
Games: TS/BG: AN, BR, CH, GB, SH - HPS: AT, CTH, GB, OZK, SH, VK