Civil War multiplayer?

[techumseh]

My eyes tend to glaze over more than usual when I see the terms multi-player or pbem.

-AGRICOLA, declining to playtest my scenario.

Before I release the final version, would you mind sending me an uncensored version of your playtest strategy?

Regarding the selloff of improvements, what I actually said, was that in version 2 selling improvements would be allowed and that basic improvements would be made less expensive to compensate.

Here's a sample from the new Rules Text:


Granary, 1, 1, Tra,
Church, 1, 1, Cer,
MarketPlace, 1, 1, Tra,
Library, 1, 1, Wri,
Courthouse, 1, 1, CoL,
City Walls, 0, 1, Bri,

What would be most helpful is to know what improvement building and maintenence costs should be so they are not worth selling off en mass in order to rush build masses of units, something that would have been impossible in real life.

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

-McMonkey

Will do, but here it is in the Rules Text:

Rebel Defenses, 30, 0, Amp, ;Great Wall (Atlanta)

[McMonkey]

That doesn't make me feel any better

[AGRICOLA]

-AGRICOLA, declining to playtest my scenario.

Welcome back, Brian. To quote an ancient Chinese proverb: "When the cat's away the rat will play".

It seems that I have a soft spot for underdogs and an irresistible urge to see if I can make their bite worse than their bark.

The info you requested plus some other, probably unwanted, stuff and comments have been sent .

[techumseh]

Thanks for the feedback document, John. I'm convinced I must to do something about shore bombardment. I'll try adjusting the combat factors of various ships. I'll also take a look at the build costs, esp. for Confederate ironclads. Adding a transport in Texas is a good idea.

Yes, you do have to start and end your turn in a square being pillaged. Otherwise, the railways get torn up like mad, given the speed of cavalry and the lack of continuous fronts in the west. I would also keep a few slave units to repair rail lines.

Nor would I give up on CSA trade. If you set 2 or 3 cities building wagons, esp. in remote areas like Florida and Texas, the 50-100 or so gold each one brings in from trading with Richmond or the border cities is helpful as the blockade tightens. In the 2nd version, blockade runners will be buildable, so you can get to the Bahamas, or even northern cities. It should add a new dimension to the game.

[AGRICOLA]

I hope I did my homework on trade correctly but, just in case I messed up, I just ran a test of a wagon from Raleigh delivering a demanded item to Houston for 201 gold and a demanded item to Freeport for 552 gold. It is very difficult to beat the foreign civ + ocean voyage bonuses.

Also, 80 shields for a caravan seems a mite expensive. That's most of an Ironclad or 1.6 good Infantry units. Have you considered that if, a city builds capitalization, it would have generated 80 gold in the same time as it took to build a wagon. Depending on how many turns it then takes to deliver the goods and considering the present value of money vs. money received in the future, I suspect that if one trades with other Reb cities, only the delivery of demanded items might be worth the resources expended.

Thanks for the word on pillaging. So, a unit has to start the turn in the square it intends to pillage. Good idea.

Am I correct in assuming that privateers will be able to carry at least one unit?

[fairline]

Thanks for the feedback document, John. I'm convinced I must to do something about shore bombardment. I'll try adjusting the combat factors of various ships. I'll also take a look at the build costs, esp. for Confederate ironclads. Adding a transport in Texas is a good idea.

Nor would I give up on CSA trade. If you set 2 or 3 cities building wagons, esp. in remote areas like Florida and Texas, the 50-100 or so gold each one brings in from trading with Richmond or the border cities is helpful as the blockade tightens.

I'm kind of banking on that in our game; rather more than just a couple of wagons though. If this doesn't work I'm screwed financially...

[McMonkey]

That's interesting. Before I started my game I tested a few wagons to the British Caribbean ports and concluded that it was more trouble than it was worth and that the Union would have little trouble cutting the routes if they discovered what I was up to. Maybe I should have been more thorough and tested the inter Confederate possibilities. It will be interesting to see how Gareth's and my own economic strategies stack up against each other once the games are finished. Good for comparison!

[techumseh]

Blockade runners will be able to carry one (1) unit (not a combat unit), have 0 attack and a modest defense, and be able to almost reach the Bahamas. I'll add a graphic marker for British territorial waters, which Union ships will be prohibited from entering.

I may add Bermuda as well, but due to map boundaries, it will not be in the right place. If I could add Havana too, I would.

The value of trade for the Confederates is marginal on purpose. For them, it's a struggle just to survive. If they hold just a few objective cities (8 or more) at the end of the game, they win.

As the CSA lose ports, their event-created gold is steadily reduced, placing them in an increasing deficit position. Some long term fiscal plan is needed, and if it's not trade, I don't know what it is.

[techumseh]

I've added Bermuda and Havana to the British Empire. Because of the limitations of the original map, neither are in exactly the right spot. Bermuda is somewhat south and quite far west of it's actual position, and Havana is somewhat north and west of it's actual coordinates. (I know Havana was Spanish, but I'm out of civs - besides, it's only a trading city.)

These cities, plus Nassau and Freeport (Bahamas) are trading cities for the Confederates only, as they are the only civ allowed to enter British waters. The Union is able to trade with British cities in Canada.

[Gelion]

Just an idea, but you could use the "walled"/"unwalled" trick to add another city style....

[techumseh]

Just an idea, but you could use the "walled"/"unwalled" trick to add another city style....

Good idea.

[AGRICOLA]

After closely monitoring the two ACW PBEM games and messing around with the version of the scen that techumseh kindly sent me, I have a few items that merit comments.

LEONARDO'S
The commander of the Union Army of Ohio is reported to have said: http://apolyton.net/forums/showpost....8&postcount=29

"I was a little bit miffed to find that Conscription "upgraded" all of my Volunteers to Conscripts."

What the highly irate senior general really said was:

The same happens to the Rebs if they take Washington . . . . . any volunteer Inf-v units that have survived the Confederate discovery of Conscription are downgraded to conscripts. The position of the units in the units table in Rules and the Lincoln Administration (Leonardo's Workshop) wonder combine to cause both the Union and Confederate downgrades.

I'm not certain why this is necessary. All it does is downgrade good volunteer infantry regiments to conscript status rather than doing something useful like upgrading militia to conscripts. Why are volunteer regiments eliminated? The Union continued to raise volunteer regiments throughout the war and even raised a 20,000 man Volunteer Corps in 1864. Although I could not find a comprehensive source about the Confederates, several websites suggest that the South also preferred volunteers to conscripts. Both armies certainly contained both volunteer and conscript units throughout the war. Members of volunteer units took pride in the special patches they wore on their uniforms and volunteer unit names (invariably?) included the term 'volunteer'.

Why not simply keep both Inf-v and Inf-c buildable? The 'Can Build' table in city windows is hardly overcrowded with units.


DRAFT RIOTS
From my copy of the Readme:
"If the CS research "Draft Riots", the US loses the "Conscription" tech, but can re-research it, without again making the happiness wonders obsolete."

a. There is no "Draft Riots" tech in Rules.

b. If there were, it would provide the Rebs with an opportunity to temporarily screw up the Damnyankees. I'm sure they would like to but it does not sound very realistic.


EXCLUSION ZONES
Judging by the respectful distance that Union naval units keep from British ports, I surmise that there exist Zones of Exclusion (verbal/written agreement between players?) although the Readme is mum on the subject and the map does not show the boundaries of such zones.

May I suggest that it would be helpful if the boundaries of ZOE's were marked in some such fashion as shown below. For simplicity, I've used Militia B units. However, as Militia B are immobile and cannot move outside British cities, they are never seen by players unless a Reb general wants to waste a Spy. Consequently, it does not really matter what they look like and their present icon could be replaced by a small British flag. Using British flags to define ZOE's might look better on the game map.



GREAT ACW SITE
In case anyone is interested, there is an absolute treasure trove of information on every aspect of the ACW armies and battles at http://www.civilwarhome.com/
I was completely engrossed in the website for a couple of hours.

[McMonkey]

That is a cracking ACW site. Really detailed and set out in a very logical and user friendly manner. I have made up loads of text documents to print out and read at work tomorrow

Re: Comments on the game

I agree about Leonardo's!

The civil unrest after introducing Conscription has caused me a real headache as it probably should. I'm not looking forwards to the Rebels imposing Draft Riots on me at some unexpected point, but that's part of the game I suppose.

Do you have the most up to date version of the game Agricola? There are little Union Jack flags around Bermuda and the other islands.

[AGRICOLA]

That is a cracking ACW site. Really detailed and set out in a very logical and user friendly manner. I have made up loads of text documents to print out and read at work tomorrow

Glad you like it.

I agree about Leonardo's!

The civil unrest after introducing Conscription has caused me a real headache as it probably should. I'm not looking forwards to the Rebels imposing Draft Riots on me at some unexpected point, but that's part of the game I suppose.

It would take the Rebs at least 2 turns to research Draft Riots whereas the Union could research the fix in one turn. I don't consider that to be a particularly favorable exchange for the South.

Do you have the most up to date version of the game Agricola? There are little Union Jack flags around Bermuda and the other islands.

I have what Tech sent me on March 2. I expect that he is not using units but terrain to generate the ZOE flags. That is why I don't see them when I download a PBEM save. I bet that a minor mod of my Terrain 1 file will fix that.

[techumseh]

John, you've found a couple of relics from earlier design efforts that turned out to be dead ends.

Lincoln Administration (Leonardo's) was originally intended to upgrade (regrade?) Union generals; specifically the commander of the Army of the Potomac - as the Union player madly researched his way through a series of incompetents to get to Meade and Grant. However, I forgot that Leonardo's only works on buildable units, so it had to be scrapped.

I think the best way to deal with this is simply to make the wonder obsolete. You make a good point about volunteer recruitment continuing after the draft, however volunteer recruitment in both North and South fell off dramatically after the first couple of years of the war. To simulate this, I'd have to find a way to significantly increase the cost of volunteer infantry partway through the game to force the player to introduce conscription, with all it's unpleasant consequences. So I think the compromise is to allow both players to keep their volunteers, but only build conscripts once the tech is researched.

Draft riots was an idea never implemented, and probably better left that way, since, as you suggest, it may not be that realistic. I'll fix the readme, thanks.

As Drew says, the British territorial waters are represented by a small British flag. They Brit islands (not Canada), are surrounded by fortresses, with the flag as the graphic. The rule is that Union naval units may not enter or attack into British territorial waters. Confederate naval units may, but if they start a turn inside British waters, they must end it outside. I think that's fairly realistic, and should create some fun 'cat and mouse' games at sea.

Thanks for the feedback. As always, it's very helpful.