American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

In a battle in Campaign Chancellorsville I encountered an unknown unit (indicated by a ?) that was within two hexes of my unit in column. The unknown unit is in a clear hex one elevation above my nearest unit.
I moved another unit to approach the unknown unit and changed into line to fire at it (range 4 hexes). The game would not let me fire at what it regarded as an empty hex.

Is this a normal procedure with Unknown Units or was this just a game glitch particular to this instance?

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Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia

Normal. I've always assumed that it was programmed that way because if it were real life, your skirmishers only knew that some one was out there, not knowing if it was friend or foe. We as gamers know that it is foe, but in the 1860s, they wouldn't have.

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Gen Ned Simms
2/XVI Corps/AotT
Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em.
VMI Class of '00

No friend of ours was wearing a blue uniform .
He's run away now - the chase is on!

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.

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Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia

Gentlemen, Sirs! <salute>

Paul, I believe that you are using Extreme Fog of War optional rule!

So I thought I was going to be clever with my answer but this is what I find for the use of this optional rule:

Extreme Fog of War (27) - When Extreme Fog of War is in effect, the visibility highlight only displays from friendly occupied hexes. Also, for enemy units in obscuring terrain (e.g., Forest), enemy force counts will only display as XXX instead of, for example, 3XX.

So if I were to guess it is because of the elevation difference! Also is it the possibility that skirmishers are deployed and that the unit then is actually a hex behind?

I am guessing that maybe we need to confirm that with the expert Instructor from VMI?

Respectfully,

Your Obedient Servant,

General Nick Kunz
Chief of Staff,
Army of Northern Virginia

Extreme Fog of War is not selected - only normal Fog of War. [All other Optional Rules have been selected except: Manual Defensive Fire; Artillery Capture; and Mixed Organization Penalty.]
As detected subsequently, due to the speed of their movement, no skirmishers were deployed as they were in column and have stayed so to speed their retreat.

It would seem it is an intentional part of the game program as General Simms has said above. Being relatively new I had not come across such a thing before.

My boys are doing it tough at Chancellorsville and are keen to pop any Yankee they see - no time to wait to 'see the whites of their eyes. [As it turned out it was a 400+ man infantry unit with an officer running hard for the safety of their own lines - we're after them.]

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Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia