<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 />As a long-time proponent of a captured artillery rule, I acknowledge this one has flaws. It isn't quite what I envisioned, but I believe it is better than the original situation where the guns go poof as soon as they are captured. To my knowledge, that never happened, but instances of guns being captured, turned on their original owners, or recaptured is well-documented.
I think a lot of the problems with the rule go all the way back to design decisions made in developing the very first Talonsoft ACW game, back in 1995. Among these are the ammo resupply system and the lack of a crew. Actually, I believe the old SSI civil War games were superior in this respect. Here are the problems as I see them:
1) Crew casualties are an all or nothing deal, and if you kill one, you get no points for it. If you kill several in a melee they aren't really dead.
2) If artillery is captured, there is no crew to kill. Unless you get enemy units off of the captured artillery, it can keep shooting at you. You can knock out the guns with artillery fire, but then the enemy gets the points because they were originally your guns.
3) As long as there are rounds in the artillery pool, captured artillery can fire. While I have read many accounts of captured artillery being used to fire at their previous owners, I have yet to read one where they were resupplied with ammo. Here is where the flawed ammo resupply system comes in. If each unit had its own supply of ammo, the captured artillery unit would only have whatever was left of its allotment to be fired by the capturing player.
4) The artillery reverts to its previous owner when not physically occupied by the capturing player. Guns are inanimate objects like supply wagons. They ought to change color when captured like supply wagons and belong to the capturing player. The capturing player ought to get full points for capturing guns and half points for spiking or destroying them. Capturing guns denies them to the enemy AND benefits the capturing side. Destroying guns merely denies them to the enemy. I am no computer expert but I can't imagine that basic improvement to be difficult to implement.
5) The campaign carryover problem is a real drawback. You have the same problem with captured and destroyed supplies; it doesn't matter how many supplies you use or lose in a scenario, you get a full complement, no more and no less, in the next scenario. It probably could be fixed, but John is probably spread too thin with so many games covering so many conflicts to get around to it. C'est la vie.
In closing, I am grateful Rich got John to implement this and several other options that add historical flavor to the game. As several of you have noted, they can be used or rejected. For all its faults I find it more historically valid than the default rule. I admit it can lead to gamey tactics, but the whole system lends itself to gamey tactics. Probably because it is a game. I think these could be minimized though with improvements as noted above.
MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Mike,
John fixed your number 2 point.
Fire losses against captured artillery shouldn’t award any points to either side by itself. Of course, the capturing side losses the capture points.
Rich
Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"
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