STATE OF DIS-UNION FROM THE UNION POINT OF VIEW
Kennon's analysis of our game is accurate. I will add some insight from the Union point of view.
1862 is a critical year. If the Union is not 'winning' the war in that year then they are in fact losing it. The political point system IS the key to victory and this must be kept as close to 1000 as possible. If the Union is continually sliding below this figure, they can't win.
Exacerbating this situation is the fact that every turn the Union loses 27 political points while the Confederacy loses only 9. It's a small amount but it is three times what the Confederacy loses. On top of all that losing a large battle adds political points to your enemy and loses points for your side.
Once the political points are sliding down, you had better do something to change the direction or defeat is staring you in the face.
I am very pleased with the game historically. It seems to reinforce all my reading of the conflict, but there are some 'areas of concern'. I say 'areas of concern' because I am loathe to cut down a game of this complexity when I have not even concluded a single game against a human opponent.
I'm a little worried about the Union Amphibious Capability or I should say the ability of the Confederacy to respond to it. I'm going to mention New Orleans in particular because it is the biggest concern to me but some of these arguments would also hold for other port cities on the coast. But New Orleans presents some real difficulties.
For those of you not familiar with the real campaign it was one of the earliest of the war and was so successful that it is strange that it is not remembered as well as the great land battles of the war. Herein is probably the reason why it is not remembered in that it was the "Navy's Show". In a nutshell Fort Jackson and Fort St. Phillipe on the Mississippi located just south of the city protected the city from capture. There was a small Confederate fleet involved but in the end passage of the forts by the Union fleet would doom the city. This is exactly what happened.
When the Union fleet battered the forts and ran past them the city had no choice but to surrender. Nobody needs be told that the city is almost below sea level and when Farragut's fleet literally anchored at the docks the city had to surrender or be bombarded at point blank range and be destroyed.
In game terms it is possible to capture Ft.Jackson and Ft. St. Phillipe but if someone can tell me how the city of New Orleans can be captured itself, I would welcome an e-mail.
Theoretically, you just move in an infantry force. But the movement points to do so are so expensive that in practice almost no Union commander can do so. Except perhaps a Grant or a Sherman but they don't come until later. Historically Benjamin Butler was the officer who captured the city but technically the city had already surrendered to two naval officers who bravely debarked and demanded its surrender.
Baton Rouge, just up the river surrendered immediatly after New Orleans once the Navy appeared. In game terms this is impossible. I have not been able to figure out any way the Union can move infantry forces ON THE RIVER as amphibious invasions. You may in fact may not be able to. If you can, I have not figured it out yet.
My concerns with the Amphibious forces are that they can be achieved by the Union at a tremendous cost in resources but when finally assembled could be defeated by a local muster of confederate militia which occurs automatically at the defence site.
It seems a bit much that a large Union force moving hundreds and hundreds of miles by sea could be defeated so easily by local defence forces. All that I have read about the Confederacy has stated time and time again that the confederacy was almost completely helpless to stop Union Naval invasions. They could contain them perhaps when they landed, but they could not stop them. They had no navy to do so and Naval intelligence had not advanced to the degree where exact landing sites could be known in advance.
This is a dual edges sword I know. I'm an old Reb at heart. But I want the Confederates to be able to do things that they could do, not things that they couldn't to balance a game. There are other ways to do that.
I'm also a little concerned about ironclads vs land heavy artillery. It had long been a naval maxim that '4 guns on board' are equal to 'one gun on shore'. The Union navy started with this is mind. But it was soon found that this maxim which held true in the Napoleonic Wars did not hold true for this new age of Ironclads. The Union navy soon found out that Ironclads, although taking some damage did not have to fear the land batteries as much as they did only 40 years before.
In game terms the Ironclads seem to be about the equal of heavy land batteries. For fortress cities like Vicksburg it seems to work fine. But for indefensible places like New Orleans it does not.
In our game, I tried a number of fairly large amphibious invasions (larger than the historical ones) and every one has failed. Not one Union soldier is on the Rebel coasts (except for the islands) which fall more or less by default. But even those take tremendous resources to occupy.
The Confederacy has been blockaded for the entire period we have been playing. Kennon says that he has felt the loss of resources but from the Union point of view it has not diminished the size of his armies. This is 1863 and the confederate armies are still quite large. If they are wearing tattered uniforms, I don't see them because they still fight like the devil.
Although I have the three critical border states of West Virginia, Missouri and Kentucky, it hasn't really done anything. I'm not any closer to victory than before. The only advantage is geography. In that the fighting will tend to be on the borders of those states and in the interior. But the fact that these three states were prevented from joining the confederacy doesn't seem to help the Union much.
Of course THE LOSS of them means he is going to lose big time. So the Union doesn't have an option here, HE HAS to secure the border states. The confederacy doesn't.
Last of all we have the fact that the confederacy is on the strategic defensive. They don't have to 'win' . They just try to 'not lose'.
Learning the Union I think is a bit tougher. They have all the resources and 'goodies'. Naval fleets, ironclads, transport fleets etc.. But another big thing is initiative. If the Union doesn't have it. they will lose. So there is a built in 'luck' factor that does favour the confederacy. If they don't get initiative, they may have a tough time of it and will lose territory and resources. But if the Union does not get it, they will lose the entire war.
It's 1863 in our game now and I'm predicting Confederate Independence.
Oh, I should mention the economy at this point. Kennon and I have used the AI handling the economy. But to simulate the war properly players may have to manage it. The AI does a credible job but it may not be enough to change with the fortunes of war. Presently I have tons of heavy artillery units that are useless to me. If I had handled the production I would have allocated resources differently than the AI.
I say it again. This is a terrific game
Bg. General Gilbert Collins
Army of Alabama
III/I/2nd Brigade
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