First, let me state that this is not a short post. After reading some discussion on Victory in this game, I felt moved to write. My background? I'm a veteran of the infantry, I was a medic in a rifle company. I've been playing this game for about a month or so. Some of what follows is my opinion, but, I hope, well informed opinion. My mastery of AACW is adequate now, where I feel like I can form a rational plan. Have played nothing but the Union, mostly from April 61, but am now playing a July 61 Campaign and a 62 Campaign. Started one April 61 game as the CSA, just to take a peek. The July 61 and 62 games are definitely different from the April start.
Now - victory, victory and history. IIRC, the North won. The attempt to obviate the election results of November 1861 and rebel against the lawful authority of the United States was suppressed. An amendment to the Federal Constitution was passed in 1865 outlawing the primary social cause of the conflict. The organization styling itself the Confederate States of America was extinguished.
When you look at these events in detail, the most amazing thing is not that the CSA lost, but that they actually lasted as long as they did. IIRC, the game models troop numbers at about 3 to 2. In actuality, it was closer to 2 to 1. It was roughly 22 million total population for the North and about 9 million for the South. Just trying to recall figures off the top of my head, I would hazard that the South, on its best day, had no more than about 600,000 under arms, this figure including everyone who reported to any kind of officer or authority. IIRC, the North, by 1865, was supporting about a million men under arms.
In the modern world, the rule of thumb is that a nation can field about 1% of its population for its military. In the ACW, as is obvious, it was closer to 5%. The disparity arises from the fact that a modern army has logistical
and technological needs that dwarf the requirements of the 19th century. Keep in mind that the participants in WW2 did end up with closer to 10% in uniform, but the vast majority were "clerks" doing work that could've been done out of uniform, i. e., the logistical tail is much, much bigger in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The South was severely outnumbered.
I need not remind you that the North had an overwhelming advantage in industrial prowess. Unfortunately for the South, they were attempting their rebellion in 1861 and not 1761. Cannonballs don't care about valor.
Now, although the ACW has been referred to as the first modern war, that is a trifle misleading. It demonstrated certain things and foreshadowed what was to come in the European conflicts of the next fifty years, but the pattern of fighting, for instance, is totally unlike that of the experience of a modern infantryman. It is useful to note that the term "shell-shock" was not coined until WWI. Why? It was because soldiers had not been asked to expose themselves to combat constantly, unremittingly, until the 20th century. Units in the US Army in the ETO in WWII landed in France in June of 1944 and did not stop until eleven months later. Some soldiers experienced as much as 180 days of continuous front line duty.
This did not obtain in 1861-1865. They drilled, they trained, they pulled picket duty. Then they fought a battle - not a skirmish, not a raid, a set piece battle. The longest one lasted three days. Then they disengaged, recouped, and waited for the commanders to plan the next move. More drilling, camp duties, picket duties, patrols, etc. But they didn't have to worry about a 155mm howitzer planting a round in their beans from ten miles away. OTOH, the casualty rates they suffered when in battle are stupefying from a modern perspective. In another thread, take a look at the table so kindly provided of some percentage losses. Leading the list is the 1st Minnesota, which happened at Gettysburg. That 80% casualties suffered was in half an hour - unbelievable. To this day, it remains the highest rate suffered by a single unit in a single action in the history of the US Army.
What's the point? The point is, particularly in Virginia, a Union general would march south, encounter the ANV, get beat, and march back to DC. After the Wilderness, it is recorded that the columns of the Army of the Potomac were approaching a certain crossroads - they expected to turn to the northeast, but, as they passed, they turned to the southwest, and, as they did, a short man in a general officer's coat was sitting on a horse as they marched by. They cheered and cheered, although a great many knew thay might not live to see the summer; at last they had a leader who knew how to win - to not let go of Lee. Grant invented modern warfare in 1864 - continuous contact, not to be relinquished until a decision was achieved. In his case, such a state of affairs could only end but favorably for him.
The Union, as Shelby Foote has observed, fought that war with one arm tied behind its back. In Ageod's game, why should the South win? Take a look at R. E. Lee, a good, cold hard look - his entire reputation rests on one calendar year, really. Tactician? None better. Chancellorsville? Audacious and brilliant - "He will take more chances, and take them quicker, than any officer in the US Army" (prewar comment). Unfortunately for him, though, once Grant took a hold of him, he was finished. No matter how clever the fox, he can't do much trapped in a hole, and Petersburg was that hole.
The only hope for the South was a political solution or intervention by the European powers. After the Emancipation Proclamation, the war was a moral struggle as well as a political one and any hope of the UK or France helping the slaveowners was nil. That left November 1864 and after Atlanta...well, it was hopeless.
McClellan wired Lincoln after Antietam that "the invader has been driven from our soil." That was the last straw - George Brinton truly didn't understand that they were all the United States, it was all our soil. It wasn't a struggle for territory, it was an effort to put an end to rebellion and defiance, to make the South surrender. The occupation of territory was incidental to the end, not the primary goal.
That is difficult to model in a game. The NM system is pretty good, along with the Objectives, but...
set your own Victory conditions. Personally, my experience witht the Union is that Ageod has done a good job - playing the US from 61 is frustrating, and, to some degree, tedious. Heck, I advance into FOW with inactive Leaders 'cuz I gotta - half of all my generals, or more, many more, are inactive on any given turn! By June of 1862 the North controlled Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans and was threatening Richmond. That's a tall order in AACW. I lose battles constantly, doing the very best I can, but the tide does turn. The troop numbers begin to tell, the amount of artillery begins to tell, the blockade becomes more effective, the Union starts to win, and there's nothing the South can do to stop it.
I suspect my first real CSA game is going to be an awful experience, because no matter how I bob and weave, those Northern columns will crush me. Personally, I'll probably go for the 'capture DC' route and see what happens. If I can do that, or isolate DC and starve it (keep in mind that no major army was 'wiped out' in a battle, with the exception of Franklin) for a couple of months, that's a win.
Well, just wanted to ramble. Sincerely hope that this doesn't come across as provocative.
Read Grant's Memoirs. Invaluable. As a professional writer, I agree with the statement that they are the "greatest work of expository prose at length by an American in the nineteenth century." So clear, you don't even need the maps.
My rock bottom opinion? As Grant wrote of Appomatox [close paraphrase] - "Never did I feel less like exulting at the defeat of a foe who had fought so gallantly and so long against such odds; who, however, had fought for one of the worst causes, and with the least excuse."
May they all rest in peace.