phoenix
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novice question - units become fixed again

Mon Feb 19, 2018 6:01 pm

Trying various different starts to the full campaign from the Union side I decided to be aggressive at the earliest opportunity and moved what I had of the Army of NorthEastern Virginia, led by McDowell, into Manassas, whilst the CSA had only a very small force there during the early May 61 turn. Not historical, I realise, but.... Result was a siege situation - plus my army became fixed there for 2 turns!??? Is this WAD? They had all only just become unfixed.

Thanks.

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DrPostman
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Re: novice question - units become fixed again

Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:38 am

What activation level are you playing with?

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ArmChairGeneral
AGEod Grognard
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Re: novice question - units become fixed again

Tue Feb 20, 2018 5:01 am

It sounds like you have your Activation Rules at one of the settings that allow a chance that your stack becomes fixed-in-place if your commander fails his Activation Roll. (Good for you!) When a general rolls inactive under these settings, he is forced to make a second Activation check: if he fails a second time his entire stack is fixed in place for the turn (he gets a red stripe on his portrait that turn).

McDowell, like most early Union generals, sucks because of his low STRAT rating, which Activation checks are based on. Early Union generals are rarely active two turns in a row and regularly get fixed in place. Generals who were inactive on the previous turn get a penalty to their next activation roll, so it is common for 3 STRAT or lower generals to become inactive or fixed for several turns in a row.

Early Union aggression is constrained by their constant inactivity. It is easy to lose stacks by overextending and being unable to escape when your semi-competent commander becomes fixed in place for two turns.

Turning this rule off strongly favors the Union, as it negates the CSA's main early advantage (Activity).

phoenix
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Posts: 157
Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2015 11:24 am

Re: novice question - units become fixed again

Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:57 am

Ah! Thanks. I have the activation setting over to the far right, as I thought that would be most challenging, but hadn't realised it resulted in fixing as well as them being periodically unactivated. Many thanks for the clarification. I'll expect it when it happens now!

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ArmChairGeneral
AGEod Grognard
Posts: 997
Joined: Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:00 am
Location: Austin, TX, USA

Re: novice question - units become fixed again

Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:08 pm

My preferred Activation setting is the second from the right (not Veteran). The rules are the same, but Veteran also hides the current activity status from you (although if a stack is fixed in place then its leader must be inactive, right?). The idea is that you won't know when you give orders whether the commander is capable of undertaking them or not. Uncertainty of war and all that.

I personally don't use this setting because I don't think Athena handles being in the dark very well, and I find she performs better on the "lower" setting (YMMV, I didn't have a large sample size). Veteran Activation was added in a patch: under the original rules the second from the right setting (the name escapes me) was the "hardest" setting.

A lot PBeM players say they like Veteran, which makes sense to me.

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