Defender retreats and forts

[tcampbell1950]

I had an interesting experience playing the AI at an easy level. I attacked Lee who had retreated to Ft. Sumter with 3 Corps all set to synchronize their attack. Lee had less than a full corps left but wiped out one full corps, much of a second and suffered relatively mild casualties. Union losses exceeded 50000 men while Lee had less than 17000 to start. I have never lost an entire corps before--why didn't they retreat? After the fourth day of battle, Lee was finally beat but remained in/at Ft. Sumter where his force was wiped out the next turn. Still, I don't understand how one can lose so many men in one battle.

[Coregonas]

@ Coregonas : the battles i reported involved at least 3 divisions in defense and between 5 and 9 divisions in attack in several corps. The difference was quite enough to overwhelm the defense after some days of fight but what really surprised me were the quick retreat (the first day) and the poor ratio of men lost (none element destroyed and those hit were around 30 and 70% of their fully strenght).

Seems to me more than a 20% (average 30-70 is 50%) of losses in a single day is enough to retreat.

In fact, even too high damage.

Gettysburg was an enormous battle with around 20 divisions (1:1 aprox) lasted 3 days, perhaps a 40% damage was sustained?

[Gray_Lensman]

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[berto]

Gettysburg was an enormous battle with around 20 divisions (1:1 aprox) lasted 3 days, perhaps a 40% damage was sustained?

At Gettysburg, entire-battle losses were: ~24% North, ~32% South.

[Captain]

According to the initial design, player built fortification represents the extensive fortifications like around Washington or Vicksburg to a lesser extent.They are level 2. Starting forts, like Sumter are much smaller and are level 1.

I think everyone accepts this. No one is arguing re Donaldson etc.

However coming to a close of a game where I tried to use forts strategically having built in NO and Richmond, I must say it was a total failure.

Despite resources allocated and forces assigned, I can't see anyway the game to date can reflect the seiges of Vicksburg, Atlanta and Petersburg. It simply doesn't happen for whatever reasons that have been discussed in this thread, retreats, entrenchments, fort effects etc.

Obviously players have prefered startegies but really that is not what is in question here. Simply this is a historical simulation game and therefore it should be possible (not compulsory but able to) replicate the actual incidents of the war.

Petersburg was almost a year. Yes you can argue they were entrenchments whatever, it really is irrelevant. Regardless of defences they were seiges that took time and were costly in men and materiel to both take and hold.

Now I'm interested if anyone in game terms has had long seiges like the historical ones ?
If not then maybe we are missing something fundamental.

The "Road to Richmond" seems far easier than it was historically and it seems a large part of that has to do with seiges/forts/entrenchment/prepared positions falling so easily.

[77NY]

Now I'm interested if anyone in game terms has had long seiges like the historical ones ?

Four-months later... part bump, part AAR.

Just finished my first PBEM as CSA. Like you, thought I had a "brilliant" strategic vision to fortify chokepoints: Fredricksburg, Richmond, Nashville, Vicksburg, Chattanooga. Total cost: 20 arty elements, 10 supply units. Expensive lesson!

Vicksburg with one elite division under Patrick Cleburne repulsed an ambitious river raid by a corps under Sherman in early '63 but when Grant plowed down with a full army (3-4 corps) 9 months later I put a corps-strength army command under Joe Johnston in the fort, they held out for 5 months (to answer your question above) before surrendering. -10 NM for CSA, +180 VP for Union. (~ -10% cohesion loss for ALL CSA forces from then on... not good.)

As a footnote, my opponent's river fleet was decimated rescuing Sherman from our "First Vicksburg." I mention this because the CSA had a very brief ahistorical river advantage until he rebuilt a massive ironclad fleet. As a result, he was delayed being able to blockade Vicksburg. The siege probably wouldn't have lasted 5 months under "normal" circumstances...

Lost a corps defending the fort in Fredricksburg in late '64 -- a coup de grace shot to CSA NM.

Ironically, even though I delayed the Union 6 - 12 months from his "historic" schedule (e.g., Vicksburg holding out until May/June 1864), the net result is that I am losing ~ 5 months AHEAD of schedule because of the terrible NM losses caused by defending forts to the death/surrender. Not to mention the complete destruction of two CSA corps and assorted leaders.

So I would agree that relying on choke-point fortifications strategically is probably a very poor idea in AACW.

Re entrenchments at Missionary Ridge/Chattanooga, mentioned above: my understanding is that the CSA entrenchments and artillery positions were poorly laid out under Bragg.

When the Union juggernaut gets rolling, IMO CSA forts are pretty much just "speed bumps." They do have some important situational value, but certainly not as a grand "Maginot Line" strategy. I have no problems with the historicity of this.

It just makes me have to work harder the next time to develop a dynamic defense approach in which I pay more careful attention to details like weather, terrain, cohesion, NM, unit composition, supply, RoE posture...

It's a good replayable game IMO precisely because there are no magic sure-fire solutions.

[Chertio]

I can see the point of forts but they don't in any way represent the permanent trenches McLellan build around Washington or Lee around Richmond. The idea being in both cases, I believe, that forces could move out to fight and still have a secure field position to withdraw to.

In the game, especially in balanced positions like these, I think generally the first person to move loses. There are ways round this tactically but they are disadvantageous to the attacker. Putting a militia dug in for the attackers to fall back on and get entrenchment again is impossibly 'gamey'.

Would it be possible to mod the game so that with 4 cannon and 2 supply, the player can build a permanent field entrenchment instead of a fort, such that any force starting the turn in the region would get an immediate, say, level 5 entrenchment (if capable of reaching that level or greater) rather than level 1 to start digging in from? Which trenches would cease to exist once the enemy had captured the region.

In my recent PBEM as Union, once my initial attacks had started to dislodge the CSA around Richmond, the CSA were overrun very quickly (a few turns or so), the Union having greater numbers and the CSA being forced to lose entrenchments and manoeuvre.

I can't see any way of reproducing the proto-WW1 trenches in the (as I remember) Petersburg/Richmond area that dominated US strategy in 1864-5, a great disadvantage to the CSA when they are outnumbered in the later years.

Another problem I found was supply - enclosed in a small area there isn't enough supply for the CSA forces and I suspect my opponent's army started to starve. No need to attack the CSA around Richmond, just surround them, cut the supply lies South and wait for them to die. So it would be an idea if forces in a permanent trench were kept at a minimum of, say, 1/4 supply regardless of actual supply levels: the enemy would be forced to take them by military action.

Edit: the Petersburg Campaign in Wiki and another account here, Lee was able to hold out for far longer than his game counterpart would be able to do, I think.

[Chertio]

An AAR addition to 77NY's comments - at Vicksburg four or five ironclads out of thirty were lost when they retreated from a CSN fleet up the Tallahatchie rather than up the Mississippi towards Cairo and safety - they couldn't get back past Vicksburg and starved on the river. The rest got home damaged and the repairs took time while Vicksburg got resupplied.

A real problem was that river boats lose cohesion very quickly, after a few turns they are likely to evade combat or even retreat faced with a fresh enemy.

Putting the entire ironclad fleet into Joseph Run and leaving it there was a bit of a bluff to deter the CSN, the seige could have gone on longer if the CSN had planted some ships in Joseph Run to negate the blockade effect or even drive the blockaders away.

[Major Tom]

Putting a militia dug in for the attackers to fall back on and get entrenchment again is impossibly 'gamey'.

I have to disagree. Yes, it does seem pretty "gamey" to leave a single militia element to hold entranchments open to retreat into. But, if you don't leave that militia element the entrenchments just disappear into thin air. That's not realistic in the least.

Now, I do think it's gamey to let a single militia element build trenches that an army can move into later and gain the full benefit of. This could be reduced if when you combine stacks the game engine assigned a new entrenchment level that's the average of the two stacks' levels. So if your militia is entrenched to 4 and you move a Corps onto it and combine them, the new entrenchment is 2. The Corps would still get some benefit from the advance work done by the militia, just not the full benefit. Just an idea for AACW 2

[77NY]

MT, how do you feel about Chertio's idea to either add automatic entrenchment levels to friendly units in Richmond or Washington or create a special "permanent entrenchment" feature? I think it's a good idea.

Earlier in this (old) thread Pocus suggested that the level 2 fort was intended to represent Richmond or Washington-type fortifications. But I think Chertio's point is well taken that these were arguably more like permanent entrenchments suited to corps-sized units than forts in the classic sense.

[Chertio]

MT - agreed, but I was thinking of a higher starting trench level than 2 or 4, the forces are falling back to heavily (and expensively) prepared trench systems rather than re-occupying their old field positions.

Also entrenchments don't (as far as I know) prevent an army from starving quite quickly if it is cut off from the national supply system.

My suggestion for a permanent trench system is aimed at doing something more than the dug-in militia would achieve.

Edit: some views of the trenches from Harper's and some photographs of the works.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[Banks6060]

This "entrenchment being tied to the region" idea is something I've been wanting to see for quite some time now. The current model forces a player to set up those small militia regiments in regions for months to dig deep trenches and do the "gamey" thing.

You have no choice but to do it to achieve rather authentic trenchworks.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[77NY]

It's not something I can do by myself. AGEod has to do a significant rewrite of the game/data code and then there would probably be a column added to the "cities" tab of the scenario databases for "initial" entrenchment levels. That way when the intial scenario is "compiled" there would be an entry for each region consisting of its entrenchment level. That solves the saved game entrenchment level storage... but it doesn't even near solve the how-tos of the in-game building/decaying of these levels. It's probably why it has not received attention just yet... Programmer time being at a premium for the newer games under development for the time being.

What would happen if you modded a unit event in 1862 that introduced one VA militia regiment outside of Richmond at entrench 8 -- i.e., before level 8 is "unlocked"?

[Chertio]

There is also the supply question: once for instance the CSA are confined to the Richmond/Petersburg/Fredericksburg area and cut off from the nation as a whole, the depots dry up and CSA forces are pretty well doomed within two-three months, with little effort from the Union necessary.

I was looking for a solution to this as well as the entrenchment question. I think there should be some cost to the player to build such positions (given the limited benefits maybe only 2 guns 1 supply or something). If the player decides to build them (anywhere on the board) at a cost, supply and entrenchment benefits follow.

If the entrenchments that a force builds up over time just persist after they have left, there is some risk of losing a major decision element in the game - manoeuvre or stand? - being lost, and maybe a risk that the game would start to bog down around entrenchments.

[soundoff]

There is also the supply question: once for instance the CSA are confined to the Richmond/Petersburg/Fredericksburg area and cut off from the nation as a whole, the depots dry up and CSA forces are pretty well doomed within two-three months, with little effort from the Union necessary.

I see no problem with this or am I missing something? Surely if Richmond and its environs had been cut off from the rest of the confederacy at any time during the war those trapped in the salient would have indeed starved....would'nt they?

Its for the player, CSA or Union, to ensure the integrity of supply lines.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[Chertio]

Its for the player, CSA or Union, to ensure the integrity of supply lines.

Entirely agreed, Soundoff.

But if Lee were put, in the game, in the positions he held in summer 64 I doubt very much he would still be there in spring 65, because the supply system alone would have killed off his forces long before.

In my PBEM the Union and CSA arrived at fairly similar positions at roughly the same time and the CSA position collapsed very quickly - a few weeks.

Partly because the CSA depots emptied down to bare boards almost immediately and the armies seemed to weaken rapidly through lack of supply.

Also because once the CSA got levered out of part of their position they had to start moving - and having lost their entrenchments they were helpless.

So I was wondering what could be done to allow the CSA in this case to build pre-prepared positions (not forts) to move amongst, and also to make the most of a limited supply area.

In the game this did not and I think could not happen.

[Major Tom]

Several months back there was a discussion beteen me and Pocus concerning entrenchement levels and how they are currently implemented in the game.

Nothing has come of it yet for AACW, but the idea was to tie the entrenchment level to the region itself with the build rate affected by the size of the unit doing the building. Also, there was to be a "slow decay" of the entrenchment when abandoned instead of the immediate loss.

Since they are busy with new games, it could be that they might be implementing these ideas into the new games and maybe they will be backfitted. One can only hope.

This would be a good solution. Maybe we'll see it in a future game. I sure don't expect Ageod to make a major modificaiton like this to AACW.

[77NY]

This would be a good solution. Maybe we'll see it in a future game. I sure don't expect Ageod to make a major modificaiton like this to AACW.

Since we're talking about a wish list (AACW 2 or later patches) at this point, I would suggest factoring in leader defensive rating into entrenchments. So a lone militia unit might entrench at a "0" defensive rating (penalizes "gamey" trenches) while a unit led by Patrick Cleburne or George Thomas would do a much better job selecting good ground, FoF, etc. Stack commander ability should trump, to reflect chain-of-command politics, as at Chattanooga. I raise this only because we're now talking about semi-permanent positions.

You read many accounts of CSA and Union army commanders sending General X to oversee construction of fortifications/entrenchments at various strategic locations, so creating an incentive to use Lee, Pemberton, Cleburne, Thomas, and others in this kind of role would be a nice enhancement.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[W.Barksdale]

Ya'll are trying to complicate the game! Leave it alone!

[Gray_Lensman]

Ya'll are trying to complicate the game! Leave it alone!

After 2 years you should get used to it. The game is continually evolving as they backfit new features from the new games back into AACW.

The solution if you don't like new features is for you to personally stop updating the game at the point in which you are happy with it. No one is twisting your arm to apply updates patches.

edit> I should add that frequently, I'm not told about a new backfitted feature until they've actually already been added to the AACW.exe code. At that point, I have to adjust the data to accomodate them. This is due to the fact that AACW shares a lot of its code with the other games and when they get changed/updated... Voila! So does AACW. It's the nature of the game design that AGEod is using. Telling them to stop changing AACW is tantamount to telling them to stop working on their new games and it ain't going to happen.

[77NY]

That would be a function of specific leader attributes not defensive ratings.

Probably be a royal pain to implement, since all leaders would need to have that as an inherent "special ability" to get the result I had in mind. And how the AI would ever be able to manage that kind of nuance . . . the idea would probably only have PBEM value anyway.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Banks6060]

I must echo the desire of several posters on this thread that the entrenchment function of the game could use a little attention. The fact that trenches literally "dissappear" when you leave them is not only ahistorical....it's very un-realistic.

This would probably be one of the only other major changes I'd like to see made on the game.