American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Unbelievable to me that people would boycott something like these wonderful games for relatively minor issues. Do as you will gentleman, I know things will be fixed and dont care when, Im loving every match Im in.

I am boycotting spoons though… sometimes when I eat cereal milk misses my mouth and causes quite a mess………….. …..

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Lt. Colonel JJ Jansen
3rd Calvary Brigade, 4th Calvary Division
Army of Tennessee
CSA

I can't speak for others except to relay that I have been told that they have trouble distinguishing things compared with the JTS versions.
For me, it's a partial colour-blindness issue, things just blend in with the new colours. When hex outlines do not appear in any 2D view (e.g. WDS Chancellorsville [the only other WDS title I've played thus far, Chickamuaga, seems to be okay)] it makes it all the harder.

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

The fatigue and LOS issues are minor for me. Unless they make the game literally unplayable, the question at the heart of the matter for me is whether they are enough to influence decisions in the game. They don't for me. I see no advantage to playing differently than I would were the bugs not there.

Look at the 4.0 change log and see the bugs that were fixed and reconsider whether you want to go back to 3.0. For example: Game crashes. The dawn movement fatigue bug. Spiked and captured artillery still providing LOS for an army. All these bugs are actually serious. More so than the two bugs that people are suggesting a boycott over. The dawn movement bug absolutely caused me to change how I played.

The only thing I sympathize with is the frustration for those who have trouble seeing the game due to the new map colors because of color blindness or age. My eyes are fine and even I am having trouble. However there is an easy fix available, at least if you still have 3.0 on hand. If you do not, I do and I think others do as well. We can easily get people the old hex colors to fix the problem.

A nasty email to WDS is a disproportionate response, let alone a boycott. Jesus, people, don't be lazy; file a proper bug report if you actually want to effect a positive and concrete change. WDS will fix them. At least one bug that I submitted for 3.0 was fixed and it wasn't even noted in the change log. It may be that WDS fixed several more bugs than they give themselves credit for in the change log. They also improved the game manuals in many ways.

For those who want to roll back to 3.0 but want WDS to provide the download: how did you not save the 3.0 install files for yourselves? The old JTS site even says you should:
"When done we suggest you make a backup copy of the installer file to a DVD-R or some other external medium for future use."

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WDS: Antietam, Chickamauga, Gettysburg, Overland

Just a quick note, and I won't provide any specific information, but I participated in a 2-hour conference call that discussed the concerns largely presented here. WDS continues to support these games and will continue to make improvements over time. I am not a WDS employee but have been a lead designer for JTS/WDS for over 20 years. You all should know by now that every effort is made to make these games the very best, they can be. Thanks for your many years of playing these games. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.

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Brigadier General Richard Walker
4th Brigade,3rd Division
Hardee's Corps
Army of Tennessee
(JTS/WDS Scenario Designer)

Rich, thanks very much for coming on here and passing on the update - much appreciated. Few things in life are perfect, but it's all about the direction of travel & given how many happy hours I've spent playing your games, I'm happy to trust you guys to make the necessary adjustments.

One thing I would say is though; if Forgotten Battles is the last ACW title, there's surely got to be a wider question of how these games thrive in the future. It's greatly appreciated that the updates are free for customers who have already paid for a given title, and I know you guys at WDS love these games as well, but without a new product stream, where does the ACW series go next?

One suggestion might be more hypothetical scenarios - I'm not talking about a 150th Florida or British heavy cavalry at Gettysburg (although to be fair, if the Trent affair had gone very differently, who knows?), but as with any conflict the size of the ACW, you don't need to work very hard to come up with plausible 'what if' scenarios which aren't already covered in the existing scenarios.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the update - I thought you would be on the case but glad that's confirmed.

All the best,

Tom

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Brigadier General TW Marshall

ACWGC President 2022 - 2024

Marshall's Brigade 'The St Andrews Greys', 2nd (Gator Alley) Division, Stewart's Corps, Army of Tennessee

I have two suggestions.
1. Smaller scale scenarios where units are mostly companies instead of regiments. [Not my 'cup of tea' as I'd rather use miniatures for such things but it may appeal to others.]
2. Much larger engagements of a more strategic level. An entire campaign on a large map in one scenario; an entire year of the war on one front; an entire front for the whole war; the entire war. Such things would appeal to me and probably solo wargamers (who would probably need an enhancement to the current AI capability which is weak). [An example of this sort of scale I'm talking about would be Gary Grigsby's War in the East (I haven't played War in the East 2).]

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

Guys

There are more scenarios in these games in total than most of us could play in our lifetimes (and I know while some of them are duds, most are not).

What comes next? The possibilities seem vast to me if a decision is made to invest time in enhancing/revising the code of the series to address known issues (Opportunity fire for example), support new optional rules, provide access to the map layer, and on and on.

And some have suggested, if such improvements are of a "sea change" nature I would have NO issue paying for them.

Why do we need more titles?

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Walter A. Dortch
Commanding -/4/V AotP
UA Cabinet Secretary
UA Operations Officer
UA Wolverine Team Leader

Well said Sir,
I have just joined the VMI, and therefore know nothing, but with what is currently available I will never get thru all the scenarios in all the games.....if I had another lifetime ! So I will enjoy what I now have and revel in it and.....suffer the rest.

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Karl McEntegart
Brigadier General
Officer Commanding
Army of Tennessee





Make my enemy brave and strong, so that if defeated, I will not be ashamed.

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Gen. Blake Strickler
Confederate General-in-Chief
El Presidente 2010 - 2012