Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

...I can not find an answer in any of my many histories of the RevWar.

Forgive me but please tell me HOW one identifies which units in any OOB of any battle in the C1776 game ARE MILITIA UNITS.
I have hunted through the units in the 1st Battle of Saratoga (Freeman's Farm) and I CAN NOT find ANY units that are labeled as "militia."

I consulted an Osprey OOB for the battle which lists SOME militia units to wit:

2nd Albany County Regiment
17th Albany County Regiment
Dutchess and Ulster County Regiment
Two Regiments of New Hampshire militia
1st and 2nd Regiments of Connecticut militia
1st South Berkshire Regiment of milita, and
Five Regiments of Massachusetts militia

Some with named leaders. So by using the "find a leader" menu choice under VIEW I have found some of them...BUT neither the "units" listed by those names nor ANY label or ID I can find on any of the American units... use the word "militia." Nor can I find the answer by the arms they are using or don't have? The Info box just lists:
INFANTRY
MUSKET
RANGE 4

? WHAT am I missing? Must one consult an independent OOB and then cross-reference the names of any known leaders...which are said to be militia AND THEN go through the units on the map one by one looking for those that are supposed to be militia as opposed to regulars or continentals?

While I have owned and played a few games in the C1776 over the years, I never really paid attention to the "TIPS" and tactics offered about the critical differences between Regulars and Militia especially concerning melee. So I set out to bone up....and lo and behold, I am so stupid that I can't even FIND the militia units among all the units in the American Army at Saratoga. HOW ARE THEY LABELED or identified?

The manual is no help at all...I can't even find images of a unit in the printable documentation.

I know that this is really dumb of me but I can't spend one more hour searching for the answer on my own and the couple of people I have emailed to ask have not answered me.

Thanks..."Stupid at Saratoga"

PS I would attach a screenshot but I have no website I can upload one to. I put it in Dropbox but I don't know how direct it to this post...if you open Saratoga_a and click on hex 47,66 you will see Wemple and the 2nd Albany County...but you will see NO mention or indication that it is a militia unit. I am wondering if by INFERENCE you are to interpret ANY COUNTY OR STATE unit to be militia UNLESS it is labeled "regulars" or "continentals" but that would seem to be to be a rather arcane method of identifying a MILITIA regiment.

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[img]http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~theciampas/corporal.jpg[/img]
Ens. Tom Ciampa
Continental Regulars/1sDiv/NY&NJ Brigade/3rd NY Regt

Tom,

Not a stupid question at all, but this answer may be.

When you right click on the unit picture in the side/or bottom bar you will see if the unit has been set up as Militia/Infantry/or Light Infantry within the game engine. I've not looked at the scenario you're referencing in a while. So here's a guess...

The designer may have given a labeled militia unit Infantry status with poor quality to keep the unit from acting like light infantry, i.e. go into Extended Line. I hope this makes sense.

al

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LtGen Al Amos
1st Continental Light Dragoons
Commander Lt Dragoon Bde - American Army

Well Al, if you don't have a simple answer for this issue, I am at least, not as embarrassed that I posted it. I have gone to the unit that I KNOW is a militia unit (by its historical name) because of the OOB in the Osprey for 1st Saratoga (Freeman's Farm) and all I see when I RIGHT CLICK on the unit picture is:

Infantry
Musket
Range 4

And,

5th Company
2nd Albany County
Glover's Brigade
Right Wing
American Army

And on the left Colonel Wemple and Command E, Leadership C, and Movement 24 (and of course the same unit I.D. info as stated for the 5th Company of Glover's Brigade).

It was a good guess that, The designer may have given a labeled militia unit Infantry status with poor quality to keep the unit from acting like light infantry, i.e. go into Extended Line. AND I'D SAY YOU WERE CORRECT, because I could not change its formation to Extended getting the error message that ONLY lights and militia can assume extended formation.

It seems to be coming down to the fact that there are no MILITIA in the Saratoga scenario...just very inferior infantry which the player must try to identify by inspection and just not use them for anything remotely daring.

Think about it...I would not even be ASKING THE QUESTION if I didn't read the tips and then went looking for the militia units to figure out where they were, and how they could be useful and what they should watch out for.

Finally...Now this is interesting...I checked Battle Road which is really early in the chronology of the battles...the expedition to Concord... and I would assume was likely mostly militia...and units in that battle ARE LABELED MILITIA and are D class units, and when[b] right clicking are labeled "infantry without bayonets"! [/b]

So it would appear that at Concord there WERE MILITIA UNITS but in the Saratoga_a scenario (Freeman's Farm) there are no units ID'ed as MILITIA even though historically there were militia companies in that battle. Kinda downgraded to low class infantry for this battle.

In any regard Al, thanks for answering. I will let it go...like I said, I only asked the question because I read that one has to be careful with militia. Don't have to worry about it now because I can't really find them.

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[img]http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~theciampas/corporal.jpg[/img]
Ens. Tom Ciampa
Continental Regulars/1sDiv/NY&NJ Brigade/3rd NY Regt

Tom,

I believe there was a major patch back in the day that converted most of the "militia" into poor quality line because the abuse of the game engine 'militia' type. Bunker Hill was the worst with ALL the American units in Extened Line formation.

If you were to install the game straight from an early CD of the game, you'd see scads of MILITIA type units.

Retyping the American militia to low grade line units really balanced out many scenarios.

When you find a troop type armed "without bayonet" is a weapon type and can be given to any unit. There are Muskets w/o, and Rifle w/o weapon types.

Although this series has seen some of the love the other series have over the last ... what 10-12 years(?)... it has been improved greatly from C76's first appearance. (btw the way it was very, very good when it forst hit the store shelves.

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LtGen Al Amos
1st Continental Light Dragoons
Commander Lt Dragoon Bde - American Army

That explains a lot...thanks again Al. I appreciate the time you took to give me answers.

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[img]http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~theciampas/corporal.jpg[/img]
Ens. Tom Ciampa
Continental Regulars/1sDiv/NY&NJ Brigade/3rd NY Regt

Interesting to note....also the historical development of 1776 as well.

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Field Marshal The Earl of Lexington, OSM
(Scott Ludwig)

Commander-in-Chief of His Most Britannic Majesty's British Armies in America
The British Armies in America

Training Center Commander

Glory in the King's Service! God Save the King!

Hi Tom,
Thanks for posting your question. We hope that we never treat a question as either poor or dumb.

It's just the type of question that we wish everyone were generating on the hundreds of possible topics.

Please keep 'em coming

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Phil Wilson, General
2nd Division
Continental / American Army

Couldn't agree more with Phil!

These are great questions and I feel like in the OOB file itself, there might be a designation....but if Al cites them as being converted I am sure that's the case then....

You and Al have been generating a lot of good discussion lately. we thank you!

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Field Marshal The Earl of Lexington, OSM
(Scott Ludwig)

Commander-in-Chief of His Most Britannic Majesty's British Armies in America
The British Armies in America

Training Center Commander

Glory in the King's Service! God Save the King!

There is a designation to mark troops as militia using M for the type, but I like the conversion to low quality Line troops much better.

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Colonel Comte du Colon "Le Longue Barbe"
Troupes de la Marine - Commanding
L'Armee de Terre Royale

My Blog
https://thechiefwargamingblog.blogspot.com

Thanks. Just glad that a few people still read the forums. Sometimes you can't just figure some things out by just going to the manual. BTW, Phil sent me some of the boot camp handouts and one of them was Michael Osborne's paper on tactics and he did touch on this same subject. Had I read that right away it would have shed the light of understanding as he mentions the militia thing and the later patches.

Thanks again for all of your responses.

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[img]http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~theciampas/corporal.jpg[/img]
Ens. Tom Ciampa
Continental Regulars/1sDiv/NY&NJ Brigade/3rd NY Regt

It is always good when someone has a handy guide laying around....

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Field Marshal The Earl of Lexington, OSM
(Scott Ludwig)

Commander-in-Chief of His Most Britannic Majesty's British Armies in America
The British Armies in America

Training Center Commander

Glory in the King's Service! God Save the King!

Speaking of "guides"...the issue with both House Rules and the various Game Set Optional Rules is not so much that there hasn't been much discussion, but that there would not appear to any "official" for lack of a better label, posting of a concise and easy to understand set of both, the House Rules, and then a list of Optional Rules, their definitions as written, and an agreed upon interpretation of them. Regarding the latter; the intent being to set down eventually, the relative advantages and disadvantages in their employment in a particular individual contest and for tournaments (re: Tourneys, to provide some sort of relatively sensible balanced playing field). Naturally some scenarios with be unbalanced historically and if those are selected for a tourney, all the more reason to either not select those games, or try to impose options which will at least mitigate serious imbalance.

All this being said, I am not saying that nothing is posted on the club page because there is a section (begging as it might, expansion and clarity) but only saying that it would be good to start a string here in the forum beginning with a simple interpretation of them by first Tiller in his game notes, and perhaps by "someone's" ...anyone's...interpretation of their pros and cons. The key is to evoke contributions of opinion of the club members interested enough to weigh in; with their own viewpoints, understandings and preferences. The aim being to come to a sensible set of House and Optionals for tourneys, and a list of explanations for each optional rule for assistance by individual game opponents when negotiating their inclusion or exclusion in any particular scenario. Hopefully, following such discussion and conclusions, seeing them posted in the "rules" section on the club main page.

Important: I am not nominating myself to start it off, but I am willing to start such a dedicated string though at the risk of plagiarism of some of the work already done over the years by members of this club and other HPS clubs sharing these same House and Optional Rules. Of course such work would be documented and credited to those early authors.

Lastly, I hope that the membership doesn't interpret the attempt of this as either a waste of time or starting a tempest in a teapot. It just seems sensible, to me, to formalize viewpoints and devices that sort of "float around" and "surface" periodically over the years, only to be buried in ancient posts on the forums, instead of biting the bullet and just formalizing what can be so done and posting them as a standard...in particular for Tourney contests.

Thank you.

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[img]http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~theciampas/corporal.jpg[/img]
Ens. Tom Ciampa
Continental Regulars/1sDiv/NY&NJ Brigade/3rd NY Regt

As a side note, for Tourneys, they are rather informal here and I wouldn't be one to impose any rules on them, instead leave it up to the players to decide. But having such a guide to consult would be useful. I am sure there are a variety of opinions, even within the same army, of what rules work and what do not. The fact that there is no central page is something I'd like to remedy. As I've stated to some in the past, being a more informal Club, casual in the sense that we are, tends to have these things fall by the wayside. As these issues come up, we will certainly address them. I do think it would be great for new members to have a guide about optional rules in the game itself that work well for each side and maybe have some comments from American officers on what works for them and British officers on what works for them et al.

Let's nail down the house rules first. These will be posted on the page that exists. Not actually written into the Club rules or written in stone either. It would be a good way to guide people...naturally I think the melee in line is a good addition....the document Garry Cope has written by Bob Breen I think it was, will be a good place to start....

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Field Marshal The Earl of Lexington, OSM
(Scott Ludwig)

Commander-in-Chief of His Most Britannic Majesty's British Armies in America
The British Armies in America

Training Center Commander

Glory in the King's Service! God Save the King!

Sounds good to me...Shall I start a new fresh string? I am not happy with my original "dumb question titled" and I don't think that can be edited out...but if you think is more sensible to keep this thread going I will not disagree. In searches, however, a simple title of "House Rules" will be easier to come across for anyone who is looking and wasn't a part of this discussion.

Thanks.

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[img]http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~theciampas/corporal.jpg[/img]
Ens. Tom Ciampa
Continental Regulars/1sDiv/NY&NJ Brigade/3rd NY Regt

Start a new one....

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Field Marshal The Earl of Lexington, OSM
(Scott Ludwig)

Commander-in-Chief of His Most Britannic Majesty's British Armies in America
The British Armies in America

Training Center Commander

Glory in the King's Service! God Save the King!