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By hard activation, I mean the option that says that no unit can move without an activated leader. What has been the effect of this in your games? Is this a major handicap for the U.S. side?

Are units allowed to move without leaders?

My last round as the Union against Athena I played with that option. Interestingly enough, sometimes I was allowed to move not activated leaders, so it is not as strict as the tooltip implies. And no, it seems not to affect units with no leader. But you can't take e.g. a division from a locked Corps because the divisional leader might be active.

Regarding the game, i guess it slowed me down a little bit (victory in April '64, taking Richmond and general collapse of the southern defense in the west), but I don't think it is as hard a constraint as one might think.

It can become a serious problem for deep raids, especially in autumn - I lost a couple of (mainly cavalry) divisions that way (though I can't just blame the activation for those losses :bonk

Otherwise I fought with the original army leaders, McDowell and Banks in the east, McClellan, Fremont and Rosecrans west and Butler around New Orleans. Grant took over in '63 from Fremont when he went for little Macs command as the latter decided to run for presidency. So I was often enough already hampered enough by my commanders anyway...

Hi!
Check this thread for more info about how the option work

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=14030&highlight=hardened+activation

I can't stand playing with it on, I've just had too many games where a stack would sit for half a year without doing anything. It's even worse in BOA2 when they seem to love freezing to death in the middle of nowhere.

While I thought the idea was pretty realistic at first, now it just angers me like few other things can.

As for the question of how it affects the Union, I'd actually think it hurt me as the CSA more. I really had things to do, and when my guys are sitting there doing nothing, it can really ruin everything.

I'm just wondering because in all three PBEM games I've played, it seems like the Union Army is a lot more active than it was historically. Seems like the Yankees are moving around pretty much at will, while historically they would launch an offensive and then sit around, as you say, for six months or so. And Confederate armies would do the same thing, at least those not commanded by Lee - remain quiet for months at a time, then become active, run around for a month or so, then go back into camp for more months.

I'm not a fan. You never know when you'll be able to move parts of your force around.