American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

We are only on Episode 3 and look where we are ..............it's gonna be a long hard series !

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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.

It's time to unsheathe your sword General.

A Yankee has accused your army of fleeing the field, "burning supplies, spiking guns, and not stopping until they reached their old camps" and of being in rout after Shiloh. An obvious falsehood in view of the orderly withdrawal of your army from that battlefield.

In the words or your brethren Southern General in the East "No quarter to the violators of our homes and firesides".

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

Thanks to all for playing these games.

First and foremost, my compliments to all those who have both played and studied these battles of history.
For those of us who design these games, though the historicity of each OOB is researched and in many cases reviewed by others, not every opinion can be accommodated.
I actually hold the opposite opinion on how to rate a unit's quality. I would rather rate a unit on their performance during the battle than develop a complicated rating system, as some have attempted, that takes into consideration each unit's level of experience. With that said, I DO NOT deny that that is a factor.
I would like you to consider how many units would be rated D's and lower if we were to rate them strictly on experience, and yet performed far above that rating. I could go on and on with examples but would rather not open pandoras box too wide. Imagine 1st Bull Run/Manassas, should every unit be rated an F due to zero experience?
I would also say that, and as the video pointed out, some units could and probably should be tweaked. However, it will not be me. I am not sure if the OOBs can be player changed, WDS support can answer that, but if yes, go for it. To each their own.
Lastly, and this will be my final comment, the most important thing to "me" in my design concept is: Can either side win? My objective is to answer that in the affirmative.

Again, thanks to all of you in this club. I absolutely love your enthusiasm and dedication to history. Keep the debate going, for without it changes never happen.

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Brig. Gen. Rich Walker
AotW I/3/4
Scenario Designer:
Franklin, Shiloh, Chickamauga, Antietam, Atlanta, Chancellorsville, Petersburg and Shenandoah

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

Thanks, Rich!

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

I echo Blakes comments about all this being in good fun. The game is great and any disagreements over specific ratings is only to make conversation and to pick at the rebs some. But I enjoy the rebs. Without them who would I beat around like rag dolls?

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Maj. Gen. Mitch Johnson
ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE COMMANDER

Great points from all angles.

Iverson's Brigade at Gettysburg lends itself to both arguments and the difficulties of rating units and officers historically for gaming purposes.

Iverson's Brigade didn't perform badly per se at Gettysburg. It marched to Gettysburg that morning, formed line of battle, and advanced across an open field against a hidden Union division. They could have been the Iron Brigade or the Tiger Brigade, and the same thing would have happened.

Iverson himself, as you know, didn't go into battle with them and lead from behind. Iverson didn't throw out skirmishers. As far as I know he wasn't drunk, but just chose not to go in, which was universally considered a big no no on both sides. His wife had just given birth to a son and he may have just been weak that day. We'll never know. He was an antebellum US army officer by appointment. His father had been a US Senator. It's known he despised the North Carolinians he lead. There seem to have been some class issues between Iverson and his men. Iverson said as much in letters. Interestingly, Iverson and his men had to fight a brief delaying action during the retreat back in to Maryland in one of the mountain gaps and it was satisfactorily accomplished. Iverson, after being reassigned, went on to do okay as a cavalry officer in Georgia and the Carolinas.

Then there is the division commander Rodes who may have been badly hungover on July 1st. He was definitely incapacitated and probably wasn't up to leading his men in to battle that day (see his biography). In Carlisle the day before being ordered to Gettysburg, he had been give some hard liquor to drink during a celebration that was held and Rodes was not a drinker. Many people commented on him being drunk and then totally out of it the next day. The alcohol he drank may have been poorly distilled. Regardless, he was in bad shape to lead on July 1st and did not relinquish command as he probably should have.

Then Ewell, who had done a fine job at Winchester and leading the advance into Pennsylvania, let Rodes lead that day. He didn't remove Rodes from command. Ewell ended up getting a hold of the situation and got his two divisions to route the 11th Corps and parts of the 1st Corps, but it took him two tries and of course one of those was Iverson's Brigade attacking a division piece meal.

Lastly, North Carolina brigades had major desertion issues having a lot do with politics and dissatisfaction with the politics of Richmond. The North Carolina governor about threatened to leave the Confederacy if Richmond didn't respect North Carolina more and in '64 Davis and Lee had to detach Gen. Robert Hoke and some North Carolina units to hunt down North Carolina deserters and conscripts. Iverson's brigade would have been affected like any other Tarheel unit.

So, I am with Blake in that a rating of C would be fair to the Iverson regiments, but Iverson and Rodes probably should be rated on the poor end based on the days events. I think Ewell did fine at Gettysburg despite the mismanagement of Rodes' initial attacks and think he was solid during the campaign, and definitely better than A.P. Hill.

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Respectfully, your obedient servant,

Maj. Gen. L.P. Smith
Division Commander - II Corps
Army of Northern Virginia

Excellent points, Lyle! You need to stop by the MDT more often and drop some knowledge on us like that

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

Most of my OB unit rating for the Napoleonic Battles games was done with the reputation of the unit, prior to the battle, as my basis for the morale rating or the leader's command/leadership values. Not its performance on the battlefield in question. That would be like building a MLB game of the 1966 World Series using only the ratings of the players to be how they did in those games. You value the units based on the whole sum of their experience prior to the battle and then let the players decide when and where they fight and the game combat and morale test doing the rest.

Fernando Valenzuela won 20 games or more in many of his years with the Dodgers. He had a great arsenal of pitches. He also was a fine hitter being one of the rare MLB pitchers to bat for .300+ consistently. If I rate him for one of his bad days I do him a disservice. No, as he enters each game I give him a good hitting ability saying that almost 3 times out of 10 at bats he probably will get a hit. I assign him a skill rating (vision .. eye to hand coordination, etc) that basically allows him to fall into that percentage bracket because that is what he was: a good hitter. I let the batting code take care of whether he get the hit or not.

So if Iverson's NC troops were typically Morale C type troops then give them that rating oh and by the way, Stannard's brigade performed well too but we see that only one of the regiments was given a good rating with the other two being D rated. Again, I would say give them all D ratings. They held up well being that these raw troops, in their first battle, had varying degrees of success. We are not out to reproduce the same results. We are out to grade the units in a category that best fits their reputation and description.

The dynamics of morale are just too difficult to pin down with morale grades or either one of the methods discussed here (past performance & what really happened) but I am firmly in the camp that says you rate the units based on how they have performed prior to the battle. I can see the argument from both sides. I think in the end the players have a part in it also in that even a morale A rated regiment, when flanked by the enemy, can run for the hills at the conclusion of the next morale test and opening scenes of the player's turn. We like to use a rating system but perhaps there is a better way to go about all of this. Maybe a dynamic morale solution is called for whereby a unit is given a rating that goes in line with their past performance but can rise or fall based on its brave deeds or mishaps during the current battle.

Thus I vote for a mix of both systems in the end. One that says, "Go with how they have performed, on the average" but that morale rating can be adjusted during the battle so that militia have the courage of David of Israel while the veterans give of themselves less than their best. This of course would mandate a code change which I know will not be happening.

So not only should ammo status and unit status (Good order or Disrupted) modify the morale of a unit but also if it has routed during the game. Some units could shake off a rout while others were totally ineffective for the rest of the day.

And like Rich Walker said, this is my last word on this as I spent something like 22 years of my life debating on forums like this just how a computer should recreate history. Its not an exact science, rating units, recreating these virtual battles. In the end, the series is remiss in many areas. It just does a good job of hooking us to play just one more game and boy, we do a wonderful job of that, don't we? ROFL

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Optional Rules I Use in WDS ACW Games:
(by column from left to right)
Column 1: All ON except for Man. Def. Fire; Column 2: All ON except for Alt Fixed Unit Rel.; Column 3: All ON except for Art.Capt. & Prop.Op.Fire