Can you capture Richmond without winning the game?

[Captain_Orso]

I've started a whole bunch of games until now. Most of them I abandoned because of making capital errors from not understanding the game so well. I've played three games to the end, and each one ended with me taking Richmond. The last one, the longest, ended in March '64. In it I even took a lot of time to capture Richmond because I wanted to give the CSA the chance to realize that they had no chance of holding Richmond and move it so that the game would continue and I could play-out the other theaters to their fullest.

The main reason that the CSA played so poorly this time, was a quirk. They didn't manage to capture Ft Sumter at the beginning and I reinforced it. In the end I held it with a corp with two full divisions -yes, I sent McDowell as commander of the Army of NorthEastern Virginia down to Fr Sumter just to form that corp after having formed the Army of the Potomac with Meade and giving him all of the AoNEV corps- and they constantly had 2 to three corps running up against it to absolutely no avail. The last year of the game I had 9 breaches and was taking 10 hits per turn. But each time I looked at Hooker's corp in Ft Sumter, it had no troop loses and cohesion was full. They never even scratched it.

Does the CSA ever actually move Richmond? Does the game ever continue beyond capturing it? Once the original 'march on Richmond' even has fired, are there others along those lines later forcing you to attack Richmond?

I know that it has to do with the CSA's loss of NM, but until now, by the time I've gotten so far, they'd already lost a lot of NM from all of the fighting until then. In the last game I'd only taken Memphis and Little Rock at the end '63 and hadn't even moved toward New Orleans.

I know that I could just leave Richmond more-or-less alone and work on the other regions, but having the front so close to Washington is a PITA and in the end it's little fun just putting up defenses to hold the CSA off Washington while working on the other theaters. Besides, Athena is a master at finding and exploiting holes in defenses. I'd rather not try to put up a line of impenetrable defenses along the Washington-Strassburg-Grafton line because it would cost so much to do that, that I'd have few resources to fight the other theaters too.

Anybody have an idea?

[Jim-NC]

The game can last beyond the fall of Richmond. In my current game vs. Athena, I took Richmond in late 1862, and am still playing in late 1863. IIRC, the NM gain for Richmond was 50 pts to the Union (or close to it). So if you are further than 50 NM points away from winning when you capture Richmond, then the game will not end. If you space out your victories enough, you can take almost all of the CSA's cities without getting a victory (if you are high enough, each round you lose 1 NM, and if your enemy is low enough, each round he/she gains 1 NM). So if you are at 160, 10 turns later you would be at 150, and can capture an important city without winning.

[DaemoneIsos]

I've had it work both ways. The impact on NM is huge, but not necessarily sudden death. Either way, the balance of power is so shifted by the NM reversal that I can't imagine recovery: just a dragged out conclusion.

That is without moving the capital of course. I have also taken DC as the rebs against Athena, and it is typically decisive. Once, she moved the capital while it was under siege. Honestly, that seemed gamey, but I can't blame her. I had to take every town along I-95 to win (which isn't very practical either militarily or politically).

I can't imagine the Union quitting just because DC was taken; I do see how it would throw things upside down. My gut tells me that accomodation would not have taken place, but neither would the Union be strengthened. There is a dimension here where a spiral of combined weakness and intransigence could have been ugly. Uglier.

The CSA did not surrender when they let Richmond go; they fell back. No one was proud, but it was not unexpected. I don't think it by itself changed much about people's political or personal motivations.

Unlike simpler games where taking capitals is the end of the story, AACW excellently highlights other key dimensions (e.g. NM and VP not being entirely correlated). Perhaps AACW 2 can resolve the missing dimension of moral division between the opponents. Without the fundamental elimination of one side's ability to wage war, some political accomodation would have to be developed. Otherwise, get ready to march to Atlanta, just like Sherman predicted at the very start of the war.

[Big Ideas]

In the two PBEM games I lost they continued on about 18 months after the lost of Richmond. In both I lost Richmond in May 1862 and it was impossible for me to recover from its loss, but we played on anyways until the defeat screen came up. Only one other player has captured Richmond from me, and that was against the flow of play as I was brewing to take Washington (having already captured Balitmore) in Dec 1863. I redeployed and took back Richmond in Feb 1864 having kicked Hooker out, but Washington was saved. As the Union moved was against the flow of play I had still left the capital in Richmond- not expecting its fall. So I took a big NM loss. Now I move the capital if there is danger of it's loss to limit any NM hits.
This screen shot shows the NM is still only 89 after recapturing Richmond- even though I had never lost Nashville and- recaptured Memphis in early 63 and captured St Loius in late 63. Fewer NM would have been lost if I had moved the capital earlier. NM was in the low 70s the turn before. This game wasn't finished as the opponent quit. I have six wins and only two losses and three drop-outs by Union players. And two on-going.
Long live the Rebellion.

[Captain_Orso]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your replies. From what you say and from my experience either Athena didn't realize how threatened Richmond was in my last game, though I don't know how not, or has only a rather small chance of moving it.

Maybe it has to do with the bug which Pokus discovered that prevents Athena from using the full potential of the AI with patch 1.14c. See 1.14x code patch with AI improvements inside!

I've started a new campaign with the 1.14f patch and quickfix6. Maybe I'll see a difference when I get close to Richmond, and maybe I'll get my family jewels handed to me on a platter and the case won't come up again .

[Generalisimo]

I've started a new campaign with the 1.14f patch and quickfix6. Maybe I'll see a difference when I get close to Richmond, and maybe I'll get my family jewels handed to me on a platter and the case won't come up again .

You should NOT apply any quickfix to that version... look in here:
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showpost.php?p=160151&postcount=20

[Captain_Orso]

I just found that out too leure:

<sniff>
</sniff>

Back to the drawing board

[Heldenkaiser]

Well, I just won my first and so far only PBEM by capturing Richmond. Raised my morale from 148 to 196. So no, I couldn't do that without winning.

Could be though because all cities to which the Rebs could have moved their capital were already in Union hands ...

[Captain_Orso]

Well that would do it wouldn't it .

In my game they still had the whole eastern US except for Ft Sumter and Ft Pickens. They were just being obstinate, those ornery rebs.

Davis: No suh, we will not move from our beloved Richmond until ...

[SIZE="5"]*BOOM* BOOM* *BOOM*[/size]

Lincoln: I'm sorry, were you saying something?

[enf91]

Davis: No suh, we will not move from our beloved Richmond until ...

[SIZE="5"]*BOOM* BOOM* *BOOM*[/size]

Lincoln: I'm sorry, were you saying something?

[Heldenkaiser]

[SIZE="5"]*BOOM* BOOM* *BOOM*[/size]

From Baldrick's poem "The German Guns"?

[Captain_Orso]

LOL I don't remember that one, but while playing I often catch myself saying to myself, "I've got a cunning plan"

[Franciscus]

Haaa, Black Adder
One of my favorite all time TV series. Pure genius.