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"My opponent was quite upset to find McDowell inactive after Manassas control was shifted 100% to Union and the Confederate army between him and Washington; well, before 1861 Early Sept."

Regards,
CptCav

Saw this post and couldn't help say.

This is why I don't play with the activation rule. While I see the point of it. When playing a game like this where a single turn can spell victory or defeat (in a PBEM) is kind of unrealistic. And with the scale of the game to many things can happen over the 15 days that a turn represents. I perfer to win/lose cause of my own stategic success and blunders.

While people will point out that its historical for the Union. Then you should also point out that the CSA didn't invade north until it was obvious that the Union wasn't going to just leave them alone(well into 82').

And sense there is nothing about improving the Union Armies performance when CSA invades (like how the AotP nearly quadrupled their movement speed to react to Lee's invasion in 83'). I'll just keep Generals for the combat bonuses.


Thoughts? And does anyone play with activation turned off? Or is it to much of a Union boost to use in PBEM?

Sorry dont agree, as the union you have enough men to leave 2-3 divisions gaurding your capital early game especailly when your first year objective Manasass relatively simple to achieve, unless your opponent wants to give up another key location early on.
Blaming inactive generals because you failed to defend your capital correctly is pointless, station troops there to defend your capital like the union did in real life or be prepared to lose. Dont cry if your steamroller is outflanked or out positioned.

Its more along the lines -enemy does a long march around your position and seiges an important town. Now your general is inactive which can result in a 35% combat penalty and when you combine the fact Union Generals ussually have a 3+ lower lower stat then the CSA general. I've had a 1.6k+ size force lose to a .7k force. (EDIT:And I've tested this by repeating the same battle serveral times while active, which was a 8-2 ratio, and changing some random thing to make him be inactive which gave a 0-10 ratio) While I know that other factor can add up. I shouldn't have to wait for the penalty to go away while I trail this force as it ravages the eastern seaboard. Especially when it hasn't been uncommin for it to happen several turns in a row.

Plus nothing "grinds my gears" when a general in a active Army stack can't organize into a Div when that individual isn't active. Or I can't relieve a general when he is inactive. I had good oh little Mac lockdown AotP for 5 turns and couldn't even transfer command to another 3 star in the stack.

Like I said I want to lose because of my own blunders.

How else can the game represent the unions slow motion movements in the early years of the war? Later in the war you get better army leaders and your army becomes a lot more effective, this game is ment to be the long war, not the war of 1861.
Otherwise the game would represent no challange to the union and southern player, who is under much more strain than the northern player, would lose preety much all the time pre '63 imo.
You know what the limitations of your generals are, and they preety accuratly repesent the real life failures of the union or rebel generals, for me its as close to perfection as you can expect for an early series game.
Play to your sides strengths cosolidate and advance dont expect to be in richmond by the end of the year.l
Like the public and goverment of the union you have different ideas of what your army should be doing compared to the generals, adapt too it or play the non historical settings.

Removing activation completely unbalance the game in faor of the USA.
The only CSA advantage is their good leaders, that use to be activated.
The inactive USA leaders are surely frustrating, but that the point of the rule: for you to experiment the frustration Lincoln experimented when their high ranking generals commanding huege armies just refused to defeat weaker CSA armies.
Of course its your game and you can play i as you like but without activation its unbalanced and losses a high part of the ACW flavor.

If you can't stand inactive leaders, try playing as the CSA, It's less frustrating in this regard... but you are piss poor on resources

Cheers
PS: by the way, on your quote i think capcav is not complaining about the activation system, but reporting a possible bug with one o the new events which should keep McClellan activated 100% of the time until a give date.

I was faster mr playmobil!

MrT wrote:I was faster mr playmobil!

Hmmm. I guess I need to get used to it cause PBEMers aren't into it being the obvious unbalace to the USA. And without the buffs Athena gets on Hard settings, it shouldn't change what I know by to much?

And I was using CPTCAV post as my reason for mentionng not as an expresion of his/her view.

I can tell you that one way to adapt to it is make little mac "an army of 1" hehe sorry I couldn't resist being a vet. In all seriousness he would make a good traning camp general at D.C.

But sense I got some attention. I've been trying to find someone for a PBEM, but haven't had any replies. Should I be looking more for a community? Cause I'd like to get into the next tourny if there is one, but I would think I'd have to establish myself first. Thoughts?

EDIT: and yes I've posted in the matchup/PBEM forums

Dont know if you'll have much luck finding an opponent to play the rebels when you've got no activation penalty enabled.

MrT wrote:Dont know if you'll have much luck finding an opponent to play the rebels when you've got no activation penalty enabled.

+1 on that sentiment Mr T

Similarly randomised generals, even on a low setting, tends to favour the Union. As a final aside, unless the CSA player says different IMHO it should always be the rebel player who hosts a PBEM game.

soundoff wrote: IMHO it should always be the rebel player who hosts a PBEM game.

Just curious why is that?

It's a Trap wrote:Its more along the lines -enemy does a long march around your position and seiges an important town.
...
Like I said I want to lose because of my own blunders.

You did. Don't leave the regions undefended, allowing the CSA to march around your lines.

So when you play PBEM, you play with the activation rule and no randomized generals? Is there a consensus about this?

TheDoctorKing wrote:So when you play PBEM, you play with the activation rule and no randomized generals? Is there a consensus about this?

Don't know about a "consensus" but those are certainly the "standard" game rules

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Gray_Lensman wrote:You don't have to wait for 100% USA MC control. Specifically, the event calls for USA MC to be greater than 25%. (any turn up to and thru 1861/09/15)

My Union opponent got a draw when he attacked Manassas. He attacked with 59,000 troops against my 9,000. Gen Beauregard couldn't get there in time with the AotP (21,000). The CSA general commanding wisely withdrew after the battle without orders (good job on the programming). By the second turn, the Union had 100% control. That is why I thought that 100% control was needed. 59,000 troops gain MC real quick!

So, the AotP attacked Alexandria and won. However, everyone (Union and CSA) went inactive after that and my opponent was upset because he thought that he was going to have at least three or four more turns of McDowell being active to kick the AotP's butt and protect Washington.

Regards,
CptCav

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Gray_Lensman wrote:The only reason for the initiative rules being overridden is to somewhat simulate the direct political prodding to accomplish a specific goal going on behind the scenes overcoming a general's normal initiative behavior. As soon as the condition for that "prodding" is done we revert the general back to his normal initiative behavior. If we don't do this, we'll have "super initiative" leaders being somewhat exploited for other purposes.

Agree and I like it. I am only voicing the sobs of my opponent.

Regards,
CptCav

I play against nephew with activation rules in place. Playing CSA agaisnst a human opponent is hard enough as it is. The rule is simple - defend your Capital and other strategic locations. Yanks have enough advatages as it is without giving them one more.

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If you play CSA you have this massive evasive plenty monster armies dancing all around you. The game is not ment for humans to win against the AI.
Its more ment to test your own endurance capability of frustration. Whatever side you play.

Gray_Lensman wrote:I'm not giving any more details until the AACW.exe is fixed and working properly.

Thats not fair :/ your like the teacher whos holding the end of the book back till tomorrow!

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Gray_Lensman wrote:<snip>

I particularly like the Tiller series of Civil War Battles and Sid Meier's Gettysburg/Civil War Collection.

One of the greatest games I've played. I wish someone would do something like that game again. It was so epic for its time.

It's a Trap wrote:One of the greatest games I've played. I wish someone would do something like that game again. It was so epic for its time.

Try Mad Minute Games "Take Command" series of games. They're even better than Sid's in my opinion.

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I am amazed you only found out about Take Command 2nd Manassas now, Gray. To me it is one of the best PC games ever made ( I think you know at least one other ).

if you liked that tip you will like even more to know that one of the developers (Norb - the other one, Adam, the last time I knew had a very serious illness and had stopped working, unfortunately ), made a new company - NorbSoftDev - and is currently developing a new tactical ACW game - Gettysburg - that I am sure will be even better than TC2M

Check it out, folks:

http://www.war3d.net/Portal/index.php

The screenies are superb !

(and they say it will be fully moddable, too )

I'm waiting for the day that the Total War series goes to ACW. I played the newest Empire installment (I have to get my explosion fix somewhere:cool , but was HUGELY disappointed. That game was a prime example of developers being forced to launch a game that wasn't ready. It was a running joke that they shipped the beta. I shelfed it after about a week and waiting for about the 6 month mark to get back into it. I will say I will never buy a sega brand game until I've read public feedback.

Anyway if you've never heard about it I would still suggest looking at it. The roman and medieval 2 games were awesome. Just the action parts, the strategic parts gets bland pretty fast.

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