Civil War multiplayer?

[Gelion]

techumseh, I have to agree with McM, except for two points.

1) Keep the defensive bonus for forests. It is both historical and gives some advantages to forest terrain rather than it being another "moor" that slows down movement. Together with "destroying" railroads, the forest becomes an important tool of defense for both sides.

2) Railroad re-construction. If you do not want both sides to consturct railroads, then it might be more useful to give both sides more engineers to restore destroyed railways. Destruction is way too easy in Civ2 engine and it plausible that re-constructing railways takes a little faster than in real life too. This tactic is a great addition to both sides and it is really a shame if we had to limit our options there.

Kudos on making coastal cities more defendable! If you check our game now you'd see what I mean

Does this mean that you won't be including smaller ships for both sides? They could make shore bombardments a little less bold by the North....

[techumseh]

techumseh, I have to agree with McM, except for two points.

1) Keep the defensive bonus for forests. It is both historical and gives some advantages to forest terrain rather than it being another "moor" that slows down movement. Together with "destroying" railroads, the forest becomes an important tool of defense for both sides.

2) Railroad re-construction. If you do not want both sides to consturct railroads, then it might be more useful to give both sides more engineers to restore destroyed railways. Destruction is way too easy in Civ2 engine and it plausible that re-constructing railways takes a little faster than in real life too. This tactic is a great addition to both sides and it is really a shame if we had to limit our options there.

Kudos on making coastal cities more defendable! If you check our game now you'd see what I mean

Does this mean that you won't be including smaller ships for both sides? They could make shore bombardments a little less bold by the North....

1) I'm not sure that forest is historically anything more than an obstacle. Ridges and river lines are most prominent as defensive lines in military histories.

2) I'll consider adding more engineers, or I might make engineers buildable for the Union - I'd hoped that the event creating 'contrabands' (freed slaves) for the Union when they destroyed a Confederate slave unit would be enough, but that obviously doesn't have much effect in the first half of the game, if ever.

Have you remembered the house rule that "To pillage, a unit must spend it's entire turn in the square being pillaged"? It makes pillaging more tricky, at least in the vicinity of enemy units.

3) No, I won't be adding smaller ships. I don't think they would add much to the game, and besides, the unit slots are all taken. I might consolidate the warship and the frigate - I'll see what Fairline comes up with. If that happens, I'm open to suggestions regarding the extra slot.

Coastal cities will be defensible. So far in the game I'm playing at least, ports have been defended primarily with militia, and there have been several attacking ships sunk. Later in the game, when there are artillery and veteran regular infantry units as well as ironclads and even submarines, taking a well defended port may be quite a challenge.

[McMonkey]

@Techumseh

1) Forests make for good blocking points. Historically a unit may not have positioned their troops in a wooded area for defense, but they may have used a wood on their flanks (held by skirmishers) to prevent the enemy outflanking them. I personally think you should keep woods at 50%. Surely they have got to offer more protection than an open plain!

2) I must confess I probably misunderstood the pillaging rule and may well have broken it on a few occasions. Naturally when you pillage your units turn is over. I take it you mean the unit should also be in the square at the end of its previous turn before it can pillage!? This may make sense, but I think it will be hard to remember. I would just add a few more engineers and slaves rather than use complicated (OK not as complicated as rocket science ) house rules.

I'm still not convinced about not allowing RR construction. From the map you attached it is clear the Confederacy did build some lines during the war and I'm sure the North did too. With the limited number of Slaves available to the South and the need for several of those to be RR repairers up north I think the amount of new RR construction would be fairly limited and would probably consist mainly of linking up networks (Texas and Florida perhaps) than constructing masses of Virgin lines out into Indian territory. This seems perfectly historically plausible to me. Remember the who scenario is supposed to allow for alternative outcomes

3)

The Confederates suffer heavy losses when the US Navy submits the city of Norfolk. Union ships flotilla lead by "USS Constitution" kill or disperse 5 union volonteer regiments, 3 militia formations and sink one transport found in the haven. 1 Confederate general commanding an artillery unit was also killed and given according to surviving Confederate forces. The city has been liberated and heavyly fortified against a possibe Rebel attack. Unfortunately a warship "USS Reliable" has been sunk due to the fault of its captain as he missed an underwater reef.

The Union navy has also bombared the city of Morehead in revenge over the slaughter of Union troops. 1000 Confederate men killed. The Union shall be coming back.

As you can see, Norfolk was pretty strongly defended and it still stood no chance. In this game my only options seem to be to fill my ports with a huge garrisons and leave everywhere else dangerously weak or abandon the ports and cut the rail lines. I'm sure this is not whats intended. I'm glad this will be remedied in the update as it is pretty demoralizing being in a Rebel coastal garrison waiting to die :desire:

Regarding slots. You could replace the wagon as I can't see any advantage to the Confederacy from building them, especially if the tech rate is speeding up.

[Gelion]

1) I'm not sure that forest is historically anything more than an obstacle. Ridges and river lines are most prominent as defensive lines in military histories.

From what I remember reading, the first battle of Bull Run, the forests were used extensively for defense. Same could be said about some other engagements.

1) Forests make for good blocking points. Historically a unit may not have positioned their troops in a wooded area for defense, but they may have used a wood on their flanks (held by skirmishers) to prevent the enemy outflanking them. I personally think you should keep woods at 50%. Surely they have got to offer more protection than an open plain!

Good point. It is not about winning great battles sitting it a forest. It is about protecting a point with one regiment so that you do not have to worry about that flank.

[AGRICOLA]

I've been avidly following the titanic Civil War MP struggle between fairline and techumseh. When it looked as if the Union navy was making chopped liver of Reb coastal cities, I looked over the scen in some detail to see what the South could do about its difficulties with the northern bullies. I hit a blank wall. I decided to try to contact someone who might know.

I opened the Yellow Pages, found Psychics, phoned, made an immediate appointment, put fresh batteries in my tape recorder, stopped briefly at an ATM, found the address, puffed my way up multiple stairs, knocked on a door marked with a strange sigil, was ushered into a dimly lit room by very ancient woman who pointed to one of two chairs around a round table and held out her hand. When the financial arrangements had been concluded I stated my problem and she sat down and stared into a glass ball that could well heve been one of the Christmas ornaments that look like it is snowing inside when it's turned upside down.

"So you want to contact General Lee? Dunno why you want to talk to him. He's around now and then, but only to complain that the fools in Richmond rejected his grand plan."

She continued gazing at the ball and finally said "He's here, still talking about his plan."

I hurriedly switched on the recorder as she began to relay what he was saying. I was grateful for the recorder because she began mumbling with a thick Dixie accent.

After the séance, I headed home and tried to transcribe as much as I could from the tape. Here's what little I could decipher of Bobby Lee's rejected plan:



DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES, IT'S TIME TO ROLL THE DICE ! R.E. LEE


**Research ______ as soon as possible. After that, science will be ______.

**Sell all city improvements that ______ war effort:
- most ______
- ______ in cities around ______ where there is little ______
- all __________ because the Confederacy already has ______
- nearly all ______

These ______ ~9,000 gold.


**The ______ that the can be built at the start are ______ and ______. These and ______ will be IRB at a cost ______ each. ______ will have the highest priority.


**The initial Confederate objectives are the ______ to ______. If these can be captured, the Union ______ will be eliminated and they will have lost their ______ cities. Maximum use will be made of ______ to rapidly capture ______ .


** ______ in ______ of the ______ will immediately ______ toward ______ . ______ units to ______ will remain as garrisons.


**All combat units in the scen have ______. Consequently, ______ units will as much as possible set up ______ cities on _______ or in ______ rather than ______.


**For the Confederates, who can only build ______, trying to trade is a waste of resources. The superiority of the Union _______, the lack ______ and the inability to found new cities preclude trade with ______, the only place where the reward may possibly warrant the resources expended.


**Slaves ______ are another drain on ______ resources. This is a very ______ and they work so slowly that what little they can ______ is not worth the food they consume. They ______.


**Once ______ have been discovered, science will be ______ because, from ______ I have no idea which techs the Confederacy can research and which units they can actually ______. ______Legion would be a help but I can't figure out how ______ have to be researched before getting to the prerequisite ______.





After a lengthy, and apparently successful, effort to fill in the blanks, I began a SP game as the Rebs, scrupulously following Lee's plan. My respect for the gentleman increased immeasurably when his plan worked like gangbusters.

In March 1861, all Confederate attack units reached their start positions. As per history, the balloon went up in April 1861. When the dust selled at the end of the Reb's April turn, the Stars and Bars were flying over Washington, Annapolis, Baltimore, Wilmington, Lancaster, Harrisburg and Atlantic City in the east and Cairo in the west.

Before my MP playing friends utter loud howls of outrage and heave rotten tomatoes and dead cats at me for using SP to test a MP scen, let me say that I agree with them that comparing SP to MP is like comparing climbing a set of stairs to climbing Mt Everest. So, I looked for a means of playing out the April 1861 Confederate attack against actual Union forces in an MP game.

I downloaded techumseh's USA March 1861 save and Catfish's USA June NPW 1861 save, used a hexeditor to copy the No Password section from Catfish's save to techumseh's, and was able to open the March save. Then, from my end of March SP save, I listed the type, number and locations of all Reb units that might have even the slightest role in the April fighting.

After ending the Union turn in tech's save I arrived at the start of the Confederate April turn. I deleted all Reb units from all areas that they shared with the units on the list. Then I cheated in all the units on the list and changed all to NONE. Finally I had what I needed, a MP game at the beginning of the Confederate April 1861 turn with my SP units replacing the ones that fairline had in the MP.

The play was rather similar to what I used in SP, although a bit more conservative. By the end of the turn, the Stars and Bars were flying over Washington, Annapolis, Baltimore, Wilmington and Atlantic City (please see map below) in the east and Cairo in the west (too far west to be on map) The powerful Reb forces in Wilmington and Atlantic City will likely capture Philadelphia and Trenton in May and New York, Brooklyn and Newark in June.

Way to go, Bobby.

[Gelion]

The thing is.... you can't sell and rush as per rules of this game. It was a very interesting read though

[AGRICOLA]

The thing is.... you can't sell and rush as per rules of this game. It was a very interesting read though

Thanks for the kind words and the heads-up.

However, I'm wondering why your interpretation of the house rules (I have always hated them with a passion) is so different from mine.

Neither prohibition is mentioned in the Playtesters Readme that techumseh e-mailed to me together with the rest of the scenario files.

I also have downloaded this entire thread into a Word file and done a search on "sell" and "rush". Nowhere does tech mention any restriction on rush building. As far as selling goes, in an early post he did add a restriction on selling improvements but later rescinded it.

I suppose that is what happens when a scen is under development.

EDIT: Should have double checked my facts before posting.

[AGRICOLA]

YOU CAN'T KEEP A GREAT PLAN DOWN

Dismayed by the information that I may have cheated in carrying out Bobby Lee's strategy, I returned to the April 1861 MP game to see what could be done without using any units that were rush built or built with the proceeds from selling city improvements.

The good news is that, by the end of the turn, the Confederate flag proudly flew over Washington, Annapolis, Baltimore and Atlantic City.

[rikki84]

where can all of us reading this find this scenario at? is it posted on scenario league yet?

[McMonkey]

I can't remember exactly where Tech posted it (possibly e-mail or in one of the updated read me files) but he definitely told me about not selling improvements (which was one of my initial actions in the first aborted game). I don't recall anything forbidding rush building, though as I have no spare cash that doesn't make much difference!

@rikki84
At the moment Techumseh has only e-mailed the files to playtesters. I expect it will be posted on the SL Site when the final version is ready.

[Gelion]

Of course I meant you cannot "sell and rush". Rushing is okay.

AGRICOLA, how about you post a save?

[AGRICOLA]

@Gelion

I will if techumseh gives his approval to post a potential spoiler. I have no wish to harm his work . . . . . the screen shot that I posted only shows what the Union knew of the Confederate situation. I'll be sending tech my results and comments later today.

Excuse my ignorance, but I really don't know what "sell and rush" means.

The whole business of not selling improvements has never made sense to me. For example, Alexandria has a bank that costs 3 gold/turn yet only generates 1 gold/turn in additional revenue. If something costs more than it earns, what's the point in keeping it? Similarly, courthouses in cities near Richmond either do not reduce corruption or reduce it by a single icon. An extra corruption icon usually has no effect on either income or science. In such cases, who needs the courthouse? Similar arguments apply to harbors in cities where there is no production from ocean squares, city walls in Confederate cities and so on.

In Post 73 on this thread, tech indicates that he is rescinding the ban on selling improvements in the version of the scen that he is working on. IMHO that is a step in the right direction.


@McMonkey

The ban on selling must have been in something that he e-mailed to you, it is not mentioned in any of his posts.


EDIT: Finally figured out what is meant by "sell and rush". Duhh!!!

[McMonkey]

Oh, no! I just realised the Confederacy must have the Great Wall wonder and therefore I wasted some of my precious cash building walls in vulnerable border cities at the start of the game I think I only built a few so its not as bad as it could have been!

It might be worth mentioning this in the read me Techumseh so that simpletons like me don't waste their limited resources

[AGRICOLA]

Ooooooh! That really hurts!


What I use are two archived 2-column Word files, each column ~half the width of the monitor screen, where the right column contains the @IMPROVE list from either vanilla MPG or TOT, and the left one is blank. Whenever I start a new scen with unique improvement names, I copy the scen's @IMPROVE list into the left column for instant comparison. I save it as something like ACW IMPROVEMENTS and keep it in the ACW game folder. It saves a lot of confusion when improvement/wonder names in a scen give little or no indication of what an improvement actually is.

In a few cases, I've simply said to heck with the scenario flavor and replaced the scen's @IMPROVE names with their vanilla equivalents.

.

[McMonkey]

Thats a good idea! I'm usually take quite a thorough look through the read me and rules before I start a new game but somehow I missed this. I also built city walls in some of the units I captured