American Civil War (McMonkey vs Techumseh)

[techumseh]

One militia and one cavalry unit mopped up in south-central Tennessee. Conscription imposed in the Confederacy.

[McMonkey]

Union October 1862

Edenton captured

3 Militia killed for 3 Conscripts lost

SE of Nasville a Rebel Volunteer Regiment destroyed for the loss of a Conscript Regiment

[techumseh]

After the "Bloody Summer" of 1862, a strange quiet descends upon the theatres of war, as both sides lick their wounds and prepare for the next round. Civil unrest in a number of southern cities - caused by the imposition of the military draft - has been suppressed, while the Confederate Congress considers imposing Martial Law.

[McMonkey]

Union November 1862

West of Tallahassee one Rebel Conscript and one Volunteer unit are destroyed as well as one depleted Volunteer unit in the woods south of Nashville.

[techumseh]

Little action to report, except one Yankee infantry unit captured on the Richmond-Chattanooga Line.

[McMonkey]

Union December 1862

Rebel Fortress on the Tennessee river captured for the loss of two River Gunboats.



In the east Williamsburg is captured. One Rebel Conscript and one Militia unit destroyed for the loss of 3 Federal Conscript units.

[techumseh]

New Year, 1863

A New Year dawns, after twelve months of some of the bloodiest fighting in scenario history (81 units lost for the Confederacy and 145 lost for the Union since the start of the scenario, most in the summer and fall of 1862).

Two years have passed since the scenario began, and three years (36 turns) are left. In the remaining time, the Union must capture at least 12 objective cities for a marginal victory, or 16 for a decisve one (there are 20 all together). So far, they have managed to capture only one (Nashville). Still, they are not too far behind the historical result of the Union at this point in the real Civil War. So far, the scenario is delivering near-historical results.

Two US frigates are missing off the Bahamas. They are the USS Gorilla and the USS Lemur. Confederate agents report than the Neutral States will no longer join the Confederacy, even if the Union issues the Emancipation Proclamation.

[McMonkey]

Union January 1863

One CSA Cavalry unit on the Tennessee River and one on the road between Nashville and Decatur destroyed.

Dacatur captured



1 Militia, 1 Conscript and 1 Zouave unit killed for the loss of 2 Conscripts.

One CSN Transport caught of the coast of Wilmington and sunk along with its cargo.

[techumseh]

A Yankee warship, and several other unidentified units are sunk by a mysterious Confederate ship, in a confused night battle off the port of Apalachicola.

The Governor of Alabama has written to President Techdavis, expressing alarm about the capture of Decatur by the Yankee army.

[techumseh]

Evaluation of scenario mechanics

Hi Drew,

How does the game work for you mechanically, so far? Does it have the right balance between offense and defense? Casualties and production? Movement and terrain costs? Is the tech tree interesting, with realistic progress? How about special units, ie. engineers, slaves, spies and trade units? Role and function of leaders? City improvements and wonders?

Anyone else who may be following things is welcome to comment too.

[McMonkey]

So far I would say that the game works very well and is giving historically accurate and fun gameplay. I would spend a little more time working on the cities food and shield production rates. Some of my large industrial cities have been starving and their production is low, whilst other cities I have never heard of before grow at a fast rate and have better production.

I still think that adding a few more engineers and slaves and allowing them to build railroads (roads) would be realistic. If you only had half a dozen engineers half of them would be tied down repairing pillaged RR whilst a few could be put to use building small extensions to the RR system to ease communication problems etc... There wouldn't be enough of them to allow vast new railroad systems to be constructed, just some minor branch lines.

I'm having a blast, even though my plans are being stymied and I would probably do it all differently if I could start again

[AGRICOLA]

Ouch, this really hurts. I was saving these for the rainy day when I broke my vow to stay away from playing PBEM's and used them to sucker punch someone playing the Damnyankees.

1. The brave Confederates can almost certainly capture Key West at the beginning, complete with its strange barn-like structure containing a huge brass contraption of cogs, gears, pistons, wheels and other strange devices. A steam engine seems to drive the wierd machine. I estimate that, once the thing is cut up and melted down, there is enough brass for more than 1000 Reb field guns.

2. I wonder if the events to obtain British recognition are working quite as intended. Unless I was unbelievably lucky, capture of any trigger city seemed invariably to bring up the recognition popup. Simultaneous capture of more than one trigger city resulted in a corresponding number of popups. I'm not 100% sure of this one.

3. Very interesting game.

[McMonkey]

In my game as the Rebs at Civ Webring it took a few turns after the capture of St. Louis for the British Recognition event to kick in. I think that after that I got the message again on another turn, though I can't guarantee that.

[McMonkey]

Union February 1863

One Tiger Zouave unit surrounded and forced to surrender north of Decatur and one Rebel Volunteer unit in Corinth destroyed.

[techumseh]

Good point about Key West. I did consider a descent at one point, but Drew found my transport. The Confederates only start with 2, and can't build more. Still, I think I'll add a fortress. John, are your cryptic references to pistons and gears possibly referring to the Key West International Airport, with direct flights from New York and Boston?

I'll check the British recognition events, though it's unlikely to be triggered in this game.

Also a good point on city food and shields. There are some anomalies, and if you could keep a record, I'll try to fix them when we're done. Having said that, big cities are harder to feed than small ones, something that's built in to Civ2 and intended in the scenario as well. I usually build a few food caravans to feed New York and a few other big cities.

Are you using many trade units, btw? Trade with Canada can be quite lucrative for the Union, as can trade with the Bahamas for the south, if you can ever get there. Have you found spies useful? (you can answer these questions later if you wish. )

Still no on building new rail lines, though. Sorry. If you've ever seen Aggie's close attention to infrastructure to support his single-minded offensive thrusts, you will appreciate how much potential for ahistorical, balance-destroying, brilliant mischief there would be. (See my paper "Frustrating Agricola")

For me, the trickiest parts of the design are balancing offensive and defensive, and production and losses. So far, I think it's about right, although the Union army seems mighty big, and growing much faster than I can kill it.

Leader casualties are too high, at least for the Confederates. Given the size of the Union armies, even the most carefully executed Rebel offensive can only kill a fraction of one, leaving the attacking generals very vulnerable to a counter-attack. I originally included one-time resurrection events for the named leaders, with a 6 month delay (eg. Gen. Lee is only wounded). I took it out, and cranked up the random generation of generic leaders to compensate. I think it would work better the way I had it at first. What do you think?

So far, I'm fairly satisfied with the design, and having fun.