One feature a day serie: #6 Scope of the game

[Pocus]

The Game mapis divided into more than 1500 regions, each being hand-drawn in normal and winter mode, for a whopping 120 millions pixels surface (handled dynamically by a caching technique), with a great diversity of terrain and climate as well as development/infrastructure items and levels. It includes the ability to use most of the major navigable rivers, which played a crucial role during the Civil War. The mapcovers all of the USA, from the Eastern seaboard to Indian Territory. Scenarios:there are mainly two camps fighting each other (with possible foreign help) in the game's yearly or monthly campaign scenarios or the multi-years campaigns, as follows:
• 1861 – First Manassas
• 1862 – Shiloh
• 1863 – Gettysburg
• 1864 – The Wilderness
• 1861 – Eastern Campaign
• 1862 – Western Campaign
• 1863 – Eastern Campaign
• 1863 – Western Campaign
• 1864 – Eastern Campaign
• 1861 – The Early Battles (2 theaters campaign)
• 1862 – The War expands (2 theaters campaign)
• 1863 – Year of Decision (2 theaters campaign)
• 1864 – The Union Onslaught (2 theaters campaign)
• 1865 – The Last Shots (2 theaters campaign)
• 1861-1865 – Eastern Campaign
• 1861-1865 – Western Campaign
• 1861-1865 – Fullmulti-theaterGrand Campaign


Game turnscorrespond to one fortnight (15 days) of historical time. Scenarios vary from a few months to almost 5 years with players primarily controlling the military action of their nation.
This includes such activities as drafting forces, building forts and depots, sieges and blockades, raiding enemy cities, supply lines and rail network, building ironclads, raiding commerce, escaping blockade, and battles, both on land and at sea.

Troopsare depicted down to the individual regiment and battery level with the basic manipulable unit being the brigade. These can be arranged into various needed organizations such as divisions, corps and armies, handled by a realistic yet easy to understand Command Chain rule. Naval units come in the form of warship squadrons and flotillas. You can also manage supply lines and wagons, water transport, forts and depots. Wide diversity of troop types is implemented, including: light infantry; sharpshooters, engineers, railroad and medics units, balloons, coastal and siege artillery; Rangers (Texan or not!) and irregulars; marines; militias; monitors and ironclads, ships of the line; frigates and transport flotillas, timberclads and cottonclads, etc. There are more than 250 different models of units in all. All are rated for various aspects such as offensive and defensive strength, morale, experience, cohesion, troop quality, geographical origin and movement type. Foreign units include the British, French, Indians and Mexicans.

A large array of historical leaders (over 300)is included, most feature unique abilities based on their historical performance. Over 50 different abilities are included, some examples of which are: Charismatic, Hated Occupier, Stealthy, Expert Seaman.

Population-based (i.e. political) aspects of the conflict (especially during the Grand Campaign) are taken into account, impacting militia and guerrilla levies, Foreign intervention, shifting loyalties, information gathering, reconnaissance, etc.

[Jonathan Palfrey]

Thanks for the information.

1500 regions, fortnightly turns. I think this game is going to take a very long time to play. The scenarios will of course be shorter, but my interest is in fighting the whole war.

Some players will appreciate the length and the detail of it. I'd probably prefer a quicker game with less detail, myself. But that doesn't mean I won't give it a try.

[Pocus]

a fortnight a turn seems a rather common scale for ACW games these times - It justs make the campaign a 120 turns affair, and don't forget that we propose also small campaign for each year.

As for the 1500 regions... Does it means that you will play on all of them (Kansas, Indian territory, ...), or that it takes longuer to play a turn on a detailed map compared to another? I don't think so. It just add needed precision. That depends if you want a Richmond-Washington distance of 6 regions or if you prefer 2.

[Jonathan Palfrey]

Indeed, Frank Hunter's game had three turns per month and I played that. Forge of Freedom will have two turns per month and I expect to play that. The future ACW game from 2 By 3 Games will apparently have one turn per month.

1500 regions -- well, I suppose the number of regions is not directly related to the length of the game. Frank Hunter's game was on a hex grid, with well over 3000 hexes in total.

I'll have to wait and see. It's not really fair to judge a game until you've played it.

The number of scenarios you're providing suggests to me that the full game may be long...

[Generalisimo]

The number of scenarios you're providing suggests to me that the full game may be long...

The great campaign will surelly be long for some players, but that doesn't have anything to do with the ammount of scenarios.
You have to consider that it is a lot easier for new people to get into the game in a smaller scenario rather than on the big campaign... so, it is better to offer them many possibilities.

[bountyhunter]

[quote="Pocus"]a fortnight a turn seems a rather common scale for ACW games these times ]


The size of the map always seems to be heavily debated... Just becuase the Army of Northern VA never invaded New Mexico territory doesn't mean that territory shouldn't be on the map. Some folks always seem to argue that those areas weren't significant. I ask the naysayers was there potential for significance? I think yes and whenever there was historical potential that potential should be represented in the game! The western (and midwestern)states did participate in the war and the management of that territory did draw resources away from the Northern war effort (especially Indians). So my vote is for a map as big as you can make it - and at a minimum if you aren't to put it all on there - include an editor/creator so those that want to add in territory can do so. I see some great potential in this game especially since I've waited nearly a decade for some grand ACW games to come out... and finally!!

[jelay14]

Yes, go all out, and size is no matter. And that's cool that you're making the distance between Richmond and Washington 6 zones instead of 2. A lot of battles were fought in that little 100 mile area, and the player controlling the Army of the Potomac should experience the effort of slogging through those 100 miles.

[Pocus]

Some further details: in case of French intervention, they come from Mexico.

We also have a feature named Off Map Boxes, eg some distant US states are represented by a big box a bit outside of the main map, with transition links to allow force movements in/out. So you have California for example (and with California comes??? ).

[jelay14]

...Gold?

Are these off map boxes not unlike the boxes to show New Orleans, Florida, and the West Indies in BoA?

[Pocus]

yup gold But I don't think the CSA can really reach California, don't dream!

Yes these are functionning like the boxes in BOA, but as I'm also speaking for people who have not played the game there, so I explain everything

[Florent]

With 6 regions between Richmond and Washington, i suppose that the campaigns in the valley in 1862 (Jackson)and 1864 (Early) are possible.

[1942]

Did you ever hear of the battle of Valverde? They were trying to take the silver mines in Colorado and maby go on to california, addmitedly a long-shot at best.


1942

[oi_you_nutter]

with a total of 1500 regions, and Army units down to the size of Regiments...

what is the expected PC Hardware requirements for the game ?

same as or higher than BoA ?

[Korrigan]

Hi 1942!

Nice to see you're posting.

Do not hesitate to contribute and share with us your knowledge of the ACW!

[Pocus]

with a total of 1500 regions, and Army units down to the size of Regiments...

what is the expected PC Hardware requirements for the game ?

same as or higher than BoA ?

The basic unit is the brigade or division, with individual elements in them the regiments, but you still manipulate things at a higher level, as in BoA.

The map surface is now 12.000 x 10.000 pixels long (compared to BoA: 9.000x8.000). It does not mean you mean 50% more RAM, because the caching technique kick in here. AACW is still developped on a one gig RAM computer, with the development environment added into memory what's more, so you see, 1 gig is sufficient.

That's does not mean that you can't experience an occasional stutter if you jump from Louisinia to Wyoming with the minimap, but once Wyoming is loaded, with one gig of RAM, you keep it in memory.
True, if you have only 512 Mb, then the game is playable, but the RAM will have from time to time to rotate out some regions to make place for the ones you want to see, so you can experience a bit of choppiness if you scroll often in areas which are distant from each others.

[bountyhunter]

I'd just like to applaud the fact something farther west than Arkansas (and a little piece of Texas) is in the game!!!

I cannot wait for this game to come out!