Civil War Historical Accuracy Pre-Patch

[Maqver]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maqver
If you want the Union to be more aggressive then they need commanders with higher strategic ratings. Most of the time one is active and two are inactive. Even if the Union player wants to attack and be aggressive he (or she) can't do it.

Unfortunately, we will NOT change the "official" vanilla game's Leaders strategic ratings. That subject is closed and not up for debate.

The following is for informational purposes, any further attempt to promote a discussion of changing the Leader stats in the context of the vanilla game will be expunged. (deleted). Read on to understand why.

This topic was an extremely hot item over a year ago and almost led to flame wars, due to several different individuals selfishly wanting their "pet" generals rated higher. Subsequently, it was decided by ALL AGEod programmers, developers, moderators, and coordinators that the original AS DESIGNED statistics would be retained. The only thing that can be changed obviously is new generals that might be added now after the fact. And yes, they have to be new, not just a redefined unit of a pre-existing general.

This does not apply to MODs however. Gamers are always welcome to mod the game for their own and others individual use. There's even an old but popular MOD, which you might find, called the "Leader MOD". I'm not sure if it's totally compatible with the latest official updates however. You'd have to check it out for yourself. Note: The inflamed discussions were in fact started when I wanted to bring the "Leader MOD" changes into the "official" vanilla game files, so as you can see, this was not because I was in any way opposed to changing the Leader stats.

Yes, I should have been more clear. The intention was not to campaign for higher ratings for favorite generals (Gotta love my man Milroy - jk) but to reconsider the idea of making mandatory attacks by the Union, with some sort of penalty applied if they are not attempted, a part of the official campaign.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[Maqver]

I'm already looking into some sort of additional "Threaten Richmond" type events for 1862. This was indeed suggested earlier and I considered it a fabulous suggestion.

Alright. With the strategic ratings of the Union generals as they are then it is highly probable that it will result in a moral hit for the Union.

Once finished, I hope to add something for 1862 at least, that penalizes National Morale in a large enough way to cancel all the freebies

Does the Union really have to nothing for these or is some action required?

Probably because I am not a very good PBEM player who always seems way behind in the NM battle (even with all the "freebies"), but I will guess that this change will have a more signifiganct effect than you might think.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Rafiki]

While looking over the original event, I discovered an interesting fact, which is available for right now to exploit, but only until the next patch (v1.12b). (It's probably to late to get this in to v1.12a). Anyhow, the Close to Richmond event in the summer of 1861 has the following requirements, (which surprised me):

You must have 10 or more units (Leaders don't count, everything else does), threatening Richmond, by being within 2 (Yes two), regions from Richmond in any direction for one turn. This does not include River regions, so Naval units can't be counted either. This can be exploited by quickly moving into one of these regions and moving right back out the next turn, generally with Cavalry units if you have enough. HOWEVER... (I just love squashing exploits, hehe) It's like a clash of "Titans" between me and the "Ole Jabberwock, Mr. Exploiter Extraordinaire himself.

While you're at it, perhaps you could look at counting elements rather than units? There's a very large difference between 10 one-regiment militia brigades and 10 full-fledged divisions, though both count as a unit.

(Though, making the requirement to stay for 2 turns does make for a certain force to be used, rather than the bare minimum )

[Maqver]

The problem with 1862 and possibly into 1863, is that USA player/gamers tend to lay back and not initiate any sort of battles, preferring instead to build up an unstoppable war machine. This behavior is totally ahistoric and the northern press not only didn't like it when it happened in 1861. They most certainly would not have liked it in 1862 or 1863. By designing some new events negating 20 of the 21 "freebie" NM points if the USA player sits back and doesn't attack, it will take some of the punch out of what he thinks is going to be an unstoppable war machine. This should make him come out and fight at least a little to insure that he gets to keep his "freebies".

Yeah I am with you as far as the motivation for this goes and you guys don't implement things willie nillie and you all test things out so I look forward to it.

One thing to watch for I think is the strategic ratings of the commanders and how that effects the situation. Also, the loss of morale could make the union player even more cautious instead of more aggressive. I send one of my activated commanders off to battle....they get hammered and the other commanders are still inactive so they can not help and I lose more morale.

[Maqver]

Would it be possible to improve strategic ratings of the low strat commanders during the time period of the event? IE Those with a two rating go from a 2 to a 3? Then after the event they revert to their regular ratings?

[aryaman]

There is a similar event in NCP linked to offensive option in which leaders increase their options to be activated

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[Maqver]

Since the game has been out for a while, it is much easier to get a handle on correctly designing new events to fix what was overlooked in the initial rush to get it to market. I consider the lack of any motivation for the USA player to initiate any sort of aggressive action in 1862 to be one of these "overlooked" situations. There is no way historically, that the Union would have sat still through all of 1862, waiting to build an unstoppable war machine. This is a behavior only done by player/gamers because of historical hindsight.


Quote:
One thing to watch for I think is the strategic ratings of the commanders and how that effects the situation. Also, the loss of morale could make the union player even more cautious instead of more aggressive. I send one of my activated commanders off to battle....they get hammered and the other commanders are still inactive so they can not help and I lose more morale.

This vanilla game is a good model specifically because of this reason. I realize that you as a player/gamer wish to have absolute authoritarian control, but this is how it was in the majority of Civil War battles in regard to leaders not performing in the way expected. Under the "Game" tab of the "Options" is an "Activation Rule" selection that provides a choice of 3 different activation selections. You can very easily change this to the way you want the game to handle activation. My work is specific to the historical behavior itself.

Lol. I am not attempting to covertly gain an increase in generals' strategic ratings for its own sake or get more authoritarian control (Alexander Haig anyone?).

The intention, as I understand it, is to get the Union player to attack and not just sit back and tally up free NM. It could be the union player lacks motivation to attack or it could be that he would really love to attack but can not reasonably do so given the strategic ratings of the generals. It could be hindsight that the player does not attack, as you note, or it could be they would like to attack but a very reasonable conclusion on their part shows that it would be foolish to attack with their one activated commander.

If one wants the union player to attack then a temporary increase of their strategic ratings in addition to the threat of losing NM (pressure to attack from Washington) would do it. Without the increase then it is possible (probable? not likely? who knows until it is tested) then the result will just be a loss of NM without the attacks. An attack in this situation, with limited chances for activation, is just suicide which could likely result in more NM loss. Rather than risk going further in the NM hole, it would be better just to eat the loss you know rather than risk more in a suicide venture. In other words, if the intention is to get the union player to attack it could have the opposite effect. If the intention is just to soak up the free NM the union player gets, well then it would do the trick.

[Rafiki]

It is quite possible to go on the offense even if you have somewhat inactive generals; you just face some difficulties in doing so.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Maqver]

Your understanding it incorrectly then. The intention is to provide an incentive for the USA player/gamer to move a sizable enough army forward out of their trenches/fortifications to "Threaten Richmond" regardless of whether they attack or not.

Fair enough. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to these concerns. I think it is great that you and others keep looking for ways to improve an already great game. Thank you.

[wpurdom]

East Tennessee loyalty figures need profound adjustment in the vanilla 1861 versions. Tennessee had a referendum on secession after secession had been effectuated and troops sent to Virginia. The 26 East Tenneessee counties voted 2-1 against secession (69%).

"Governor Harris angrily refused to abide such an effort. Believing that Tennesseans now preferred joining the Confederacy to preserving the Union by force, he promoted a renewed effort to depart from the United States. This culminated in another referendum four months after the initial defeat of the convention call. This time Tennessee voters were directly asked if they favored or opposed "separation." The result of this second election, June 6, 1861, approved exiting the Union. A comparison of the February and June returns reveals that there was little change in opinion in either the west or the east. The former remained in tune with secession, although Weakley, Carroll, Henderson, Decatur, and Hardin counties did defeat the proposal and went on to provide significant numbers of recruits for the Union Army. In the east, only five counties (Rhea, Meigs, Polk, Monroe, and Sullivan) favored abandoning the old flag. It was in Middle Tennessee where the greatest shift in opinion occurred. There, twelve counties that opposed a convention call in February, suggesting a reluctance to secede then, approved secession in June. These twelve (Jackson, Overton, Wilson, Smith, Putnam, Williamson, Rutherford, DeKalb, White, Cannon, Bedford, and Coffee) had the balance of power as they accounted for the different outcomes of the two elections.6

6Nashville Union and American 25 June 1861."

http://spider.georgetowncollege.edu/htallant/border/bs11/fr-cope.htm

(There is also info in this paper about different levels of support in Kentucky and the counties which provided union volunteers and didn't)

Tennessee also provided 31,000 volunteers for the Union army - 3.19% of the population (compared to a high of 12.56% in IL and a low of 8.95% in NJ) and 100,000 for the Confederacy. 44 TN counties voted for secession by more than 2-1. East Tennessee political figures then attempted to seceed from the state and confederate troops basically had to occupy the region. Lincoln repeated tried to refocus Union strategy on East Tennessee but Union commanders resisted due to logistical considerations.

Also see War at Every Door: Partisan Politics and Guerrilla Violence in ... - Google Books Result
by Noel C. Fisher - 2001 - History - 264 pages - the Google section contains a map of the election results.

The regions which should be effected are 568-69, 592-608. I alter 569 and 592 to 55% loyalty and the rest to 45% to be conservative, but given the atmosphere under which folks were openly voting against secession (no secret ballot yet) 33% Confederate is probably more accurate for most of east Tennessee.

[*Buzzsaw*]

Salute

Sounds like good modifications included in this one, however...

Where is the download for this mod?

The links on page one do not work.

Thanks in advance Buzzsaw

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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