Proposal of PBEM scenarios

[aryaman]

Hi
The 1863 and 1864 scenarios are so unbalanced in the VPs that they are almost unusable as PBEM games, , it is practically no way a competent Union player to lose it on points, even 1862 starts quite favourably for the Union player so he can sit and wait calmly instead of being forced on the offensive, so my proposal is
-PBEM scenarios with modified VP locations or puntuation so that a CSA player has more chances to win it on points. As they would be only for PBEM you would not have to worry about AI behavior with the new locations/points , what do you think? I imagine that will not be too difficult to implement, or is it?

[Korrigan]

I don't think the AI is really a problem here.

However, we would appreciate players inputs here, how would you balance VP locations?

[aryaman]

I think the aim should be that both players start the scenario with the same number of acumulating points from cities. My suggestion would be to make the objective cities owned by the CSA maximum VP value and those owned by UNION minimum VP value, and if this is not enough, to eliminate from the list of strategic cities those Union cities away from the front line.

[runyan99]

I think the whole key is to put the VPs in the South predominantly, and along the border states. This makes the Union player forced to advance and take the South, or the CSA side will accumulate more VPs.

This would give the South an initial VP edge, which the USA has to erode and then overtake points-wise during the game. Simply maintaining a large portion of the South, doing better than the historical Confederacy did, would be enough to win the game by VPs.

Remove far north VPs like Philadelphia and New York, which the CSA does not have a realistic chance to take without the aid of Britain.

Without changing the number of objectives listed, here is how I would design the objective cities at the start of the April campaign:

CSA HELD
Richmond - 10
Memphis - 1
New Orleans - 1
Nashville - 1
Atlanta - 1
Little Rock - 1
Mobile - 1
Viksburg - 1
Charleston - 1
Galveston - 1
Raleigh - 1
Chattanooga - 1

USA HELD
Washington - 10
St. Louis - 1
Louisville - 1

Initial VP advantage then of 9 points per turn, which the USA has to first elimintate by taking 4 or 5 of the CSA objectives, then holding them until the end of the game to overtake the initial point advantage. Taking more than 5 objectives by the USA just makes this overtake in VPs easier.

Of course troop losses and expenditures of VPs on recruitment and such could sway the totals one way or the other, if one side is notably more successful in battle than the other.

[runyan99]

Actually, I didn't understand the VP system when I posted the above.

On second thought, I would eliminate a number of strategic cities like Albany, NY which are not going to come into play without a British invasion from Canada, and which only serve to give the Northern player free and secure VPs.

Or, I would simply increase the VP value of some of the Southern Objective cities, until the South has an edge. Or both.

A big change perhaps is not needed. I would simply swing the initial advantage from around +5 to the Union to +5 for the Confederacy.

[Carrington]

Agree, I'd love to see some fine-tuning of scenarios for PBEM.

I appreciate all the work that is going into the A/I, but (unlike most computer gamers) in the end I don't judge a game on its A/I but its ability to provide a competitive game with another human.

[runyan99]

I assume the reason the late war scenarios are totally balanced in favor of the Union is because they feature all of the same Strategic cities, including placed like Albany and Jersey City, which cannot possibly come into play whe the Confederacy has already shrunk in 1863 or 1864.

There needs to be a fresh look at the Strategic cities in each scenario, and their location and number has to be carefully considered.