One year as in the old days, an AAR testing a mod

[tripax]

As I'm working on graphics for governors, I'm testing my mod "As in the Old Days". Looking for bugs, I've found a few units without names and such, but everything looks pretty good. So I'm going to write up an AAR, hopefully it will be quick.

When the game starts, everything looks similar. PTG's forces outside of Fort Sumter are changed a bit to be a bit more historically accurate, but are basically the same. But after the first turn (in which Sumter fell), the political map develops considerably. President Davis arrives in Richmond, as does Governor Letcher. Lincoln arrives in DC and has the same abilities as Davis.
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Indeed governors arrive in all state capitals, confederate and union. All the governors have the same abilities for now. Here is Governor Moore in Montgomery, aren't my colorings pretty!
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Currently I don't have Davis in Montgomery at all, but I could have him start there and move to Richmond on May 29.

[tripax]

The game starts a bit slower, at least until Early July. Both large armies in the east (and in the West) start with larger brigades with more regiments (but mostly conscripts). However, I start both armies with slightly more red than before so early on there isn't much recruiting to be done, as both armies have to concentrate oh buying replacements. Perhaps I should give the players more free replacements or start the Armies fuller strength.
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The Union forces in the west secure Cairo with historically correct forces, including a troop of Zouaves from Chicago recruited by Colonel Ellsworth himself, the Chicago Zouaves. They try to cross the river, though, and they find trouble. Many of the early brigades on both sides are slightly larger and more accurate, here is the 1st Tennessee Brigade.
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In July, McCulloch and Pearce of the Army of the West unlock. Again, the brigades are slightly bigger and the regiment names tweaked for accuracy. Also, to reduce the command strain of the larger brigades throughout the map, I've given each army one new General early in the game. For the USA, I've added the hero of Fort Donelson, Charles F. Smith. For the CSA, that means Pearce. He looks very nice here, I'll be sending him towards Fayetteville.
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[tripax]

In August, the blood begins to flow in earnest. On August 1, Sumner takes an undefended Jefferson City, removing governor Claiborne Jackson from the map. I haven't put most of the images of governors into the right place yet, so they are all blank faces in this AAR.
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The Union hadn't reinforced Harper's Ferry, so I sent in Johnston's Army. You can't see clearly, but Patterson's (Mansfield's by now) Army of Northern Virginia has a lot more troops and is more accurate. All of the brigades in this battle represent the brigades in existance at the time of harpers ferry, and are a bit bigger and more accurate than they are in the game right now. Even so, I was repulsed from Harper's Ferry with two to one losses, not a good start.
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After controlling Charlston last turn, I sent an amphibious Zollicoffer leading a changed Army of Tennessee by water to Cairo. This change is a somewhat big deal, as I've gone with brigades from Shiloh to fill Zollicoffer's ranks, and thus his force is stronger than in the game, but there isn't a close by equivalent strengthened army (except in St. Louis, which the player may tend to send towards Southwestern Missouri). It will take a few tests to see if this is unbalanced or not. For this game, Zollicoffer won some battles, but didn't finish off the garrison, or at least not yet.
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The Union wasn't finished in the Shenandoah Valley, though, and on August 23, McDowell arrives in Winchester dealing more death to Johnston's Army. This time the numbers favored Johnston, though.
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[Merlin]

Did you mess with the Union generals to get them to fight for the AAR? McDowell at 4-2-2 and Banks at 4-0-1!

Actually, looking through the caps, they're all high: 5-1-1.

[Pocus]

You will probably want to indicate first why there are governors and what they do in actual game effect

[tripax]

Did you mess with the Union generals to get them to fight for the AAR? McDowell at 4-2-2 and Banks at 4-0-1!

Actually, looking through the caps, they're all high: 5-1-1.

Athena has the full activation bonus; I usually turn her all the way up. If I continued this AAR beyond April 1862, you would see my East crumble and I would lose. It always happens when I play as a confederate. Part of this test is to see if it still happens, which tells me that the changes don't greatly effect balance. I'm in mid 1862 now (and I've stopped taking screenshots, so I know this AAR will finish after a year in-game), and things are still going ok.

You will probably want to indicate first why there are governors and what they do in actual game effect

Governors are civilian politicians in states. I think I might set most as civilians (like Belle Boyd) who I think cannot lead troops, but some as generals. Right now they are all modeled basically as generals but that is a bug of mine. They are locked to their state capitals. Mainly I have included them as flavor. I think there could be various flavor NPCs (such as how Indians work now) and semi-NPCs (such as these governors, which are mostly stuck in a city, but do have effects) in the game, and governors are my first example. I'm not sure if I have it right, but my understanding is that a lot of the guts of the game are based upon tabletop war games. And in most tabletop war games, there are no NPCs. The only tabletop war game I've ever played is Risk, but I love RPGs. So after getting tired of changing unit names (and in this mod, I still have some fixes to make) I decided to work on NPCs. Writing a script which wrote the models and events for governors took about an hour, so the only really difficult thing is to do the graphics, but I've never played with graphics, so I'm really enjoying learning how to use paint.net. So yeah, governors are there because I decided it would be fun.

Right now, the player needs to pay attention to governors because they have a VP cost and have the good population administrator ability. The good population administrator ability won't do too much, but if the Union can establish a governor in a confederate state, it can make a difference. The VP cost makes saving state capitals more important, since I think it works that losing the element gives your opponent that amount of VP. Also, I think the VP cost may influence the seniority gained for taking a region, so it might make saving state capitals even more important.

Governors are removed and installed in state capitals based on the dates they were historically elected. Many Southern states eventually did have Union governors, so if the Union controls a confederate state capital on a certain date, a USA governor will arrive. Eventually I'll probably add some text around these events (elections) and more text to talk about Lincoln's 10% plan and Union governors in the South. If a governors term did not end with an election (in the case of a Southern governor who was chased out of the state), I don't have an event that removes him. If the capital is captured by the other player, only then an event may add a governor for the other player to that capital. If a governor is not killed when a capital is captured (since the game treats him like it treats any unit in a battle), he is unlocked (or injured then unlocked) and can run around the board as a governor in exile.

[Merlin]

Athena has the full activation bonus; I usually turn her all the way up. If I continued this AAR beyond April 1862, you would see my East crumble and I would lose. It always happens when I play as a confederate. Part of this test is to see if it still happens, which tells me that the changes don't greatly effect balance. I'm in mid 1862 now (and I've stopped taking screenshots, so I know this AAR will finish after a year in-game), and things are still going ok.

Ah, okay. Please continue as I would like to see where this goes.

EDIT: I'm really curious to see how Athena responds.

[tripax]

September and October were a bit slow, except in Cairo. I left Johnston on defensive, as I saw Fremont approach and had plenty of supply. I figured I'd be able to beat Fremont, who arrived in early October. Tragically, on October 5, Albert Sidney Johnston was killed along with 860 men. Polk arrived October 15 and helped finish off the garrison.
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In early November McDowell attacked Beauregard at Fredericksburg. Mcdowell had just under 2:1 forces involved and lost just over 2:1, being repelled violently by the confederates. Holmes and Jackson were commended in command of their divisions.
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My main strategy in this game will be to be offensive in the west and defensive in the East. I will try to delay the march to Richmond until Lee is unlocked (no change is made to that script) and probably remain on the defensive after. In the west I think Polk will march north through Illinois at least as far as Salem. I also have a force in Missouri with which I hope to secure the state. Price and Shelby are currently easing their way through southwest Missouri, Rolla and Jefferson city fell with little struggle in October and November and are joining forces outside of St. Louis.

Also, Texas Governor Edward Clark was removed in November in Austin, replaced by Governor Francis Lubbock. On one hand, this is confirmation that the new governor election events are working. On the other, as you can see, a bit of text could be added to clarify the election event. Both Clark and Lubbock had military careers after serving as governor. Lubbock's brother, Thomas, organized the 8th Texas Cavalry but died in 1862. Lubbock county and city in Texas are named after Thomas.
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[tripax]

Fremont fled north from Cairo and Polk gave chase. In Pinckney, the Union forces were well commanded. But when they arrived in Salem, the Union forces had run out of ammo and were in disarray.

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The chase ended in Salem. Fremont managed to escape after taking even more severe losses.

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Also in early January, the Union began its customary coastal raids, this time in Pensacola. Evan's had little problem with this initial force, but will continue to struggle with this vector of invasion for the coming months.

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At this point, I feel pretty comfortable with the game as it has gone - things seem familiar. The Union seems to be utilizing their new forces in the west in a standard way. Not much has happened in the east, though. In the next few turns, this changes a little bit, but Athena has definitely been conservative in the east.

[tripax]

Late January 1862 was extremely violent. A weakness in the way I play is that I always seem to be too offensive in the winters. I guess this is fine if I'm going to win, but it can cause a lot of problems. On January 18th a scrappy bunch of Kentucky volunteers pushed general Porter out of Munfordville.

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In Lexington Missouri, Gates Brigade arrived on January 21 fighting a small skirmish against 3 regiments of militia, both sides losing about 100 troops. General Churchill followed 6 days later and pushed the militia out of the city, stretching confederate control of Missouri into the Western part of the state.

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In the Shenandoah, Irvine McDowell dangled himself and Stonewall attacked. In the initial attack, McDowell stood firm, but retreated. The late arriving Burns Brigade was captured the next day, on January 27.

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[tripax]

Late February came the first amphibious attack by the Union. Gunboat squadrons and ironclads from the Mississippi moved down to the Mississippi delta and fought three engagements with a frigate, some merchant ships, and the gulf blockade squadrons backed by a number of other boats. These attacks were relatively successful for the Confederacy, but a number of troops did land in March.

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On February 28th, I felt a bit overeager and attacked Fort Pickens with General Evans. I won the battle, but lost more men (276 versus 184) and didn't capture the fort.

Thomas Meagher landed in New Orleans and fought a series of battles with General Maury. The Union won each battle, but did not kill an enormous number of men. It took some time for the Union to be forced out of Louisiana, I chased forces around for some time, with the last of the forces finally starving out while besieging the coastal forces in October of 1862. No other large battles were fought in the area during this time.
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[tripax]

In the same month, on March 6, General Charles Ferguson Smith found himself in the East, leading an infantry group of 3 divisions against a large cavalry division under General Charles Winder. Winder took more losses but repelled the larger force. This was exciting, because it was the first time we see the real life hero of Donelson in this game.

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Also, Evans retreated from Fort Pickens, but was defeated soon after arriving in Pensacola by an invading pair of divisions under General Mansfield.

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[tripax]

In early April, the Confederacy's hold on southern West Virginia ended when Schurz full strength full cohesion single division defeated two quarter strength half cohesion divisions under Johnston. I hoped that Johnston's defensive statistics would be enough to hold, but no luck. You can see that I didn't figure out who was Wise's quartermaster (which surprises me, I wonder if I didn't look hard enough), but I have Leroy F. Johnston (in real life chief quartermaster of the second corps at Shiloh) as in charge of Eastern supplies arriving in Atlanta.

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Skipping ahead, I destroyed the rest of Johnson's division on April 17, 1862 at Cairo with Polk's force supplied by Lemuel O. Bridewell (in real life chief quartermaster of the third corps at Shiloh).

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[tripax]

April 1862: Confederate forces remain in the vicinity of Bull Run with nearly 40,000 men, 12,000 horses, and 134 artillery guns under the hero of Fort Sumter, General Beauregard. Union Major General Benjamin Butler lined up across the way with over 90,000 men, 9,000 horses and almost 300 artillery guns. On April 15, 1862 the long awaited northern offensive began, the delayed first battle of Manassas. That first day, 9440 Confederates and 17281 Union men fell and the Confederates won the day. However, the weight of numbers told, and Confederates made to withdraw. The next day, Butler attacked again. Beauregard's forces stiffened, again avoiding the route, but forced off the field. The battle was over, the Union had won.

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[havi]

i was looking those troop man sized sand it looks that in second fight union had 40000 man less than the first one and PGT had almoust same sized troops?! so what happend?

[tripax]

My guess is that in the first round, a corps MTSG'd. The first round fight reduced its organization (cohesion) and it didn't have the fitness to come to Butler's aid. You can see in the first round, Butler has 33 groups and in the second he has 30.

[tripax]

There you have it, a year as in the old days. I'm still working on the mod, but I'm happy with where it is right now as a playable mod. I'm not happy in the sense that I'm done (or anywhere close), but I'm happy in the sense that I'd be willing to play this as a pbem (except I'm supper busy over the next two weeks so don't ask). By the way, I'm uploading the next version soon: here. I continued playing the game for about a year after I stopped here. Things went the way that many of my other CSA games have gone, and I made a post about it that you can read, that post is a afterward or conclusion for this AAR.

As an AAR, here are some things I learned about the game (and about the mod):

You can sail up the Tennessee before Kentucky opens up. The Union can use this to attack Nashville and the Confederacy can use it to attack Cairo. In the mod, Zolicoffer's force is substantially stronger, so this is a real risk. Maybe I should lock Zolicoffer in place a bit longer, but it really would have been easy to repulse Zollicoffer for a human, Athena doesn't always repulse sieges very well.

Athena does seem to know which of your Atlantic ports are defended. I turn up her detect, so this could be my fault. But when defending coastal cities against Athena, you need to be very disciplined as sending a force inland will often lead to an attack on your coast (this happened to me in Wilmington).

I knew that Athena doesn't protect her supply route well and doesn't really forecast weather well. I learned that counterattacks can be effective. When she attacks in the West, if you can hold her off then cities in her rear are often undefended.

Specific to this mod, Pearce's foraging in Missouri is very valuable. An extra forager, even a statistically weak one, is useful in the west. In real life, Pearce was a general in the Missouri State Guard and served in the Commissary once his troops were converted to Confederate troops. He was a merchant and land examiner later and a smart guy, so I think forager is fair, but I'm not sure. It simulates his working in commissary I think, but maybe it suggests that he was an active general in the field when he wasn't. Certainly he isn't a first choice CSA general to add to the game, he was simply the earliest CSA division commander on my list (and it wasn't a regular division). So he might not stay in.

In the first turns the units that arrive are more underpowered than in the regular game. You might consider putting them on passive an in the depot so that they fill up a bit. Its a bit of extra micromanaging, but I think it is ok. Leave a few units outside to dig trenches and there is no difference (except the greater use of replacements).

Losing capitals is sadder than before because the governor dies/is captured/flees. Governors with good population administrator are going to change things a bit. For the Union, it makes it easier to get loyalty up in Lexington, Washington DC, Jefferson City, Northern California and certain Confederate state capitals where Union governors were installed after they were captured. For the Confederacy, the difference is mostly in Lexington and Jefferson City, I guess (I'm not as familiar with the typical loyalty levels in the CSA).