Why the national system is a bad idea

[Z74]

Come to think of it, this is to be added to the countless things I've mentioned about river/rail/wsu/manpower,etc,etc,etc. being built and handled at national level. For the moment let's forget you have Tennessee building WSU and these WSU go to the pool and you can build a gun battery in Texas without transferring those WSU beforehand... same goes for those conscripts that are produced (with bounties) in NY but you can use them to build militia in Missouri.

Now in regards with unit production and replacement that's an obious limit of this system. Needless to say a son of Virginia wouldn't go to fight for the Army of Tennessee, he would go to fight for General Lee, that means you can't buy replacements at the national level either. All right, as I said, forget it.

The EVIDENT limit of this system is in the transport of troops which really is completely ignoring the HUGE logistical difficulty the generals really had to surpass during the Civil War.

Imagine you have a new bde fresh built in NY. I know this is not the case but just an example. You want to move this bde to St. Louis MO. This is at all possible in CW2 as well as AACW. In reality that bde would have to take a dozen trains (rails on a single line so it's a lot more than the fast travel we see in the game), spend long time and EAT (consume supplies).

The game simulates this with rail point... now imagine a locomotive that goes from NY to St. Louis. Imagine a SINGLE locomotive. How many stops, how long, how much supply it would use for real to transfer that single bde. At the end of the turn that locomotive is in St. Louis... you can't use it to transfer another freshly built Bde from NY to St. Louis... but in the game... you can. That's BAD.

Nevertheless add to this problem that sometimes you'll have troops in transit throughout the turns (between turns a long move performed half on foot half on rail). That unit that is in transfer, has PAID for the transfer the national rail points but at the beginning of the new turn those points are regenerated. So you can actually transfer more than you paid for, to be added to the supply movement by rail.

All you need to think at this point to see why it's such an important change is about the fact every single rail line can be damaged locally and imagine the problems to repair it if the state has few WSU. Also remember that one of the most important changes I think this engine needs is the military control required to let a train pass. I think it should be near to absolute MC.

Would you send a train in a territory where there could be a bomb under a rail or a bridge and you could lose 1000men on the spot?

Transport and supply need to be made more in a realistic way if they are to simulate something properly. The Union and CSA had to overcome terrible logistical difficulties and this engine is well worth capable of handling these problems starting from the transport but I know this is a big decision to make and even bigger trouble to implement (and for the AI to handle).

[StoneWall Jackson]

I think the only way you could implement this type of system would be to have individual trains, or train asset units that you moved around the map?

Might be interesting, also, with this type of thinking, you might even want to have certain trains that could be used as supply trains. I am not sure if there is historical evidence to support this, but it kinda follows thru.

Interesting points you have made.

[Z74]

The MC issue is to force troops to march (and use supplies) rather than use the rail until the last available moment.
Can you imagine moving 50.000 men of an entire corps by train? Thats' impossible (it would take 5 trains just for their supplies)... but again there's the exploit of the points "in use" regenerated at the beginning of the next turn.

I think it's all about national pools and not single train assets. This thing has definite need for attention and I hope Pocus and everyone here says his idea on the subject.

[minipol]

The current system is there to abstract these kind of details. Abstraction means that there might be compromises.
To implement your system, the whole train system would have to be reprogrammed.
It would mean individual trains. How are you going to implement that when people expand the transportation system?
Do you have to choose on what track the trains runs? On busy tracks, you then should have to increase the rails from 1 or 2 tracks to more.
So there's a lot more to it than meets the eye.

[H Gilmer3]

The current system is there to abstract these kind of details. Abstraction means that there might be compromises.
To implement your system, the whole train system would have to be reprogrammed.
It would mean individual trains. How are you going to implement that when people expand the transportation system?
Do you have to choose on what track the trains runs? On busy tracks, you then should have to increase the rails from 1 or 2 tracks to more.
So there's a lot more to it than meets the eye.

And I bought Civil War 2 not Railroad Tycoon.

[GraniteStater]

If I want to get another level down towards operational and logistic realities, I play WitP:AE, then I can micromanage to my heart's content.

CW2 is a good game and a good gaming experience. Besides, it's fun.

[Pocus]

That's true, there are compromises and abstractions. We did not want to have regional pool of resources. We tried to mitigate that with regional pool of units for recruitment (so Texas can't recruit all units you need) plus there are concurrent build limits per region, a given region can't recruit too much at once, this is particularly true for small towns.

[Z74]

I think a national pool for resources and transportation is mandatory to keep the immersion level and realism.
Game is compromise and nobody wants a micromanaging nightmare, however, we do have the regional decisions here and it's just a color coded filter (this in regards with the transportation, the rest is automated once programmed, the engine takes care of production/replacement locations or delivery of state-state resources).

You can't omit to consider if Texas doesn't recruit, the manpower it produces can be used in VA. This is bad for CSA but a lot worse for the Union that has humongous resources in comparison. The level of abstraction you have picked, Pocus, is too high when compared to the level of immersion and complexity you have already built.

I've mentioned the problem of troops in transit (points are regenerated while the troops who use them are still moving), the logistical problems behind supplying entire armies moving by rail (which is completely ahistorical, i.e. moving 50.000 men from one region to the neighboring one in just one day means the use of 50 trains on a single-rail line, not to mention their supplies).

In regards with recruitment and replacement the change would be minimal in mechanics but great in strategies because it would force the player to invest in loyalty (to produce state volounteers the state must be loyal). That is bypassed by national conscription (Texas doesn't recruit this turn and its manpower builds in VA). A deeper use of political choices both at national and at regional level (and we HAVE that now).

I wouldn't think the current system to be bad in view of a less complex game such as FoF or WBTS but the complexity and immersion of AACW is already beyond the current system... so we're basically LATE with CW2. It's a problem that spoils a lot to me because it's not just the bad leadership and lack of initiative the Union had to face but also the logistical IMMENSE effort of moving troops and supplies that grinded them to a halt initially.

This is not represented and I am concerned because if Union player invests money + conscripts and then delivers everything on one side of the map, CSA can't stop him. Historically, the logistical problems would help CSA (defending on own territory).