Ulysses S. Grant

[McNaughton]

Yap. That is it . Same idea here. So... Is it possible to mod that? If it is, would you try to make it historical (like Forrest-Bragg situation) or perhaps random, in which case every game would be different?

No way to represent it, as you cannot check (via event) if a commander is a corps commander under a particular general (you cannot even check to see if a general is actually commanding an army, or a corps).

What is needed are triggers for an event that check...

A) X Commander is commanding an Army
B) Y Commander is commanding a Corps
C) Y Commander's Corps is under the command of X Commander's Army

Then you could make an event that checks and changes the model of the commander(s) to a stronger or weaker version (the event can then check to see if the command situation is active in order to disable the bonus/penalty should a player disband the army or move the corps to another command).

[Linenoise]

Actually, Fort Donelson was nearly a disaster for Grant. In fact, it should have been, had Pillow not decided to retreat back to his defenses. While Grant was guarnateed the capture of Fort Donelson, he should honestly have lost the opportunity to capture the garrison. It was the timidness of Pillow, rather than the brashness of Grant, that resulted in the capture of the fort. Pillow out fought Grant tactically, but strategically did not exploit his victory and allowed Grant to build up his strength resulting in the surrender.

Is this genious on Grant's part? No, he led a credible siege. However, if anyone is really the 'star' of the siege it would be Pillow for leading a sucessful breakout attempt, against the odds of the situation (25k vs 16k, almost 2:1).

Remember (as I already mentioned) Grant failed in his initial attempts on Vicksburg. (so too did Sherman).

The thing is, Grant could afford his mistakes, Lee could not. Also, Grant made his mistakes with substantially greater resources at hand. I wonder how Lee would have fared given the resources that Grant had avaliable to him?

Pretty much agree with this assessment. I suppose Grant gets more credit than he is due at Henry & Donelson because he, unlike most Union Generals at the time, was willing to take risk and be aggressive. Not necessairly a sound idea from an application stand point but it was desperately needed from a political stand point. As such he was better appreciated for his attitude than his sound military decision.

About Grants first attempt at Vicksburg I would humbly suggest that had it not been for Forrest Grant would have probably taken Vicksburg, before or shortly after, New Years 1863.

As a Sherman fanboi I must take exception to placing blame at Sherman for the loss at Chickasaw. Grant left him in a lurch. When Grant had to retreat he was unable to warn Sherman that he was on his on. Granted Sherman could have performed better than he did in that encounter but considering the circumstances he was lucky that he was not totally destroyed.

Back on Grant, one thing I do notice from Foote and Grant's own writings is how well Grant learned from his mistakes (of which he made many). As such I would suggest he start with lower ratings and as he progresses in rank his skills improve to near Lee levels.

[berto]

Well, the same could also be said of Lee, that he made his mistakes early on (e.g., at the Seven Days; he was lucky to have survived his "mistake" of jeopardizing his army the way he did at Antietam). He, too, learned from them, quicker than Grant. But then McClellan with his incredible overcautiousness, and Pope and Burnside with their incompetence, allowed Lee plenty of classtime, didn't they? Should Lee also begin with relatively low stats and ramp up from there?

[McNaughton]

What is missing here is the differentiation between Grant and Lee. To say both are equal, and should be the same, is incorrect logic as they were both not 'equal' in how they were 'great' generals.

Grant's greatness is represented by his ability to be tenacious. He didn't win his battles through finesse. He out manoevered his opponents, which is not represented by combat stats (rather by Strategy as well as abilities). Grant on the battlefield was no military genious, but, strategically he was very good.

Lee, on the other hand, created very good battle plans. He got his army into some trouble, and probably should have lower strategic ratings than Grant, but, higher attack and defence ratings, as well as abilities reflecting his influence on the battle at hand (rather than manoevering in and out of battle which is the strength of Grant and Sherman).

In regards to moving the armies around, and putting them in the best places possible, Grant wins out. However, once battle is joined, Lee shines.

[anarchyintheuk]

Scattershooting:

Minor point but . . . the Union could afford mistakes to a degree. Grant could not. He would have been canned/demoted just like every other once promising officer if he lost once too often or badly, even though by the time he faced Lee he had built up a reserve of good will, as it were, w/ Lincoln by winning. Lee had the same level of goodwill w/ Davis for the same reason.

As far as the 'harmony of command' thing. It reflects poorly on Lee's leadership that he had such difficulty adjusting his command style after the loss of Jackson. In any event I don't see any difference in 'harmony' amongst Grant's AoT, (whatever you want to call the force at Chattanooga) and the AoP and Lee's ANV. The problems w/ the early AoP commanders and their corps commanders had more to do w/ quantity not quality. There were simply too many corps. Even in that case no Union army ever approached the level of 'harmony' that the Confederate AoT attained. If there was someway to add a cohesion bonus for an army commander and corps commander based on the length of time in that same chain of command I'd like to see that; however, doesn't seem that important nor would it be easy to quantify the bonus.

Point taken about Grant at Shiloh; however, it wasn't like his cavalry reported "40k rebels are coming down the pike, general". The nature of the terrain and the limitations of his cavalry didn't help matters either. He had also made the same mistake of not designating a second in command while he was gone at Ft. Donelson.

J.E. Johnston was at least equally responsible for the organization and effectiveness of the Confederate cavalry as Lee. Poor Union organization and use of cavalry by McClellan didn't help.

That Lee noticed the advantages of artillery concentraion after watching Malvern Hill and sought to do the same in the ANV is commendable; it wasn't a novel idea. Mac and Hunt had already done that in the AoP.

Haven't anything about Grant's unwillingness or slowness to adapt to sharpshooters in the East. Anyone have any references?

I may not be remembering this right, but I thought Pillow was the one who delayed the break-out at Ft. Donelson by a day and then ordered the troops back to the start line the next day after opening up an escape route? Or am I thinking of Floyd?

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

[Clovis]

What is missing here is the differentiation between Grant and Lee. To say both are equal, and should be the same, is incorrect logic as they were both not 'equal' in how they were 'great' generals.

Grant's greatness is represented by his ability to be tenacious. He didn't win his battles through finesse. He out manoevered his opponents, which is not represented by combat stats (rather by Strategy as well as abilities). Grant on the battlefield was no military genious, but, strategically he was very good.

Lee, on the other hand, created very good battle plans. He got his army into some trouble, and probably should have lower strategic ratings than Grant, but, higher attack and defence ratings, as well as abilities reflecting his influence on the battle at hand (rather than manoevering in and out of battle which is the strength of Grant and Sherman).

In regards to moving the armies around, and putting them in the best places possible, Grant wins out. However, once battle is joined, Lee shines.

Disagreeing here. AGEOD attck and defense ratings don't concern only skill in battle. They represent too operational moves prior and after battles were joined, like the choice of the battle location, capacity to put together units into this battle location. To take the Gettysburg example, neither Lee or Meade made the choice to fight here but both ware able to reinforce their initial forces on the field. On the contrary, the Peninsula campaign was made by Lee choices about points of attack, which in AGEOD are in the same regions.

Strategic level is just factoring the rate a leader had to begin Offensive operations. He doesn't indicate any other skill level than this capacity of taking the risk of offensive. So this rating doesn't change the power strenght of units.

So, for Lee, Grant and the others, we are forced to play with the lone attack and defense ratings to estimate both operational and tactical skills. So the need to let Grant at a rather high level to take into account his operational abilities but lower than Lee who had roughly the same but certainly a slight edge in tactics.

And the overall strategic capacity, ie the sense of developing high level strategy for the whole war effort....in AGEOD is and will remain the player's strategic ability as the general strategic rating is used to a lone narrow point,: the offensive desire of the actual leaders.

[McNaughton]

Scattershooting:

Minor point but . . . the Union could afford mistakes to a degree. Grant could not. He would have been canned/demoted just like every other once promising officer if he lost once too often or badly, even though by the time he faced Lee he had built up a reserve of good will, as it were, w/ Lincoln by winning. Lee had the same level of goodwill w/ Davis for the same reason.

But, Grant did make 'mistakes', he lost battles, but, he knew that Lincoln wanted a fighter. Had McClellan lost more battles than he won, but showed determination to stay on the field, Lincoln's opinion of him would be much greater as a battlefield commander. As I said, Grant had determination on his side, which was why he was chosen as the army commander.

As far as the 'harmony of command' thing. It reflects poorly on Lee's leadership that he had such difficulty adjusting his command style after the loss of Jackson. In any event I don't see any difference in 'harmony' amongst Grant's AoT, (whatever you want to call the force at Chattanooga) and the AoP and Lee's ANV. The problems w/ the early AoP commanders and their corps commanders had more to do w/ quantity not quality. There were simply too many corps. Even in that case no Union army ever approached the level of 'harmony' that the Confederate AoT attained. If there was someway to add a cohesion bonus for an army commander and corps commander based on the length of time in that same chain of command I'd like to see that; however, doesn't seem that important nor would it be easy to quantify the bonus.

I agree with this, represented probably by a lowered Strategic Rating, with Lee relying on strong subordinates to have a high enough strategic rating to make due. IMO, the North and South were at polar extremes, the North had too many corps, the South had too few.

Point taken about Grant at Shiloh; however, it wasn't like his cavalry reported "40k rebels are coming down the pike, general". The nature of the terrain and the limitations of his cavalry didn't help matters either. He had also made the same mistake of not designating a second in command while he was gone at Ft. Donelson.

The fact of leaving his army in such a poor strategic position, so far into Confederate territory, in my opinion was a mistake. His forces were not mutually supported, nor gained the protection of the gunboats. On the defensive, Grant chose very poor ground in which to 'defend', and did not necessarily prepare for the possibility of Confederate counterattack (unreadiness was high).

J.E. Johnston was at least equally responsible for the organization and effectiveness of the Confederate cavalry as Lee. Poor Union organization and use of cavalry by McClellan didn't help.

That Lee noticed the advantages of artillery concentraion after watching Malvern Hill and sought to do the same in the ANV is commendable; it wasn't a novel idea. Mac and Hunt had already done that in the AoP.

Organization is in the hands of the player, something that we cannot represent according to a specific commander (for example, we cannot restrict cavalry to independent brigades and under the command of infantry corps when McClellan is in command).

I may not be remembering this right, but I thought Pillow was the one who delayed the break-out at Ft. Donelson by a day and then ordered the troops back to the start line the next day after opening up an escape route? Or am I thinking of Floyd?

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Actually, it was Buckner which was late attacking, Pillow was on time and actually was the one who pressured Buckner to move along with him.

[Linenoise]

Well, the same could also be said of Lee, that he made his mistakes early on (e.g., at the Seven Days; he was lucky to have survived his "mistake" of jeopardizing his army the way he did at Antietam). He, too, learned from them, quicker than Grant. But then McClellan with his incredible overcautiousness, and Pope and Burnside with their incompetence, allowed Lee plenty of classtime, didn't they? Should Lee also begin with relatively low stats and ramp up from there?

Well, I will not argue that Lee did not make his share of mistakes. The Seven Days, in particular, his mistake was relying too much on coordinated attacks. In theory this was a damn good conception and very cutting edge in how he planned it. The problem was mostly Jackson and his failure to be where he was supposed to be for the entirety of that battle. Had Jackson been where Lee asked him to be I think the Union Army might very well have been destroyed. Despite Jackson's failures at Richmond had it not been for Keyes (I think it was Keyes, correct me if I am wrong please) the Union forces might very well have taken some major losses, if not outright destruction.

On the other hand, had McClellan not been so damned cautious he could easily have destroyed Lee but we all know better than to expect McClellan to take any chances.

I suppose it is difficult to really compare Grant and Lee accurately. Despite McClellan 's shortcomings and lack of initiative, he was technically one of the Unions best generals. According to Lee he thought McClellan was the best of all his opponents. I sometimes think McClellan would have been better served had he not observed so much of the Crimean War. Sure Burnside and Pope sucked, but Hooker was good. So the skill of Lee's opponents was generally much better than those of Grant's.

I think Lee losing Jackson was sort of the final straw for Lee. He lost a lot of confidence after Jackson died. I think Lee only served the CSA because he was a patriot and would do anything for his country (Virginia). The death of so many of men he loved and respected really shook Lee and I think he started to lose the spirit of the fight, especially against increasingly unconquerable odds. Case in point, at the end of the war Lee was a big proponent in peaceful reunification with the North. He was unwilling to support and spoke out against guerrilla fighting. Too many men had died already.

Lee was forced to fight in a manner he did not like. He was an Engineer (like McClellan) and had he been in McClellan's position he might very well have acted much the same way McClellan did (although I like to think he would have been at least a little more aggressive ). But since the only way for Lee to ever hope to win a battle was by fighting the Union piecemeal he was forced to try unorthodoxed methods. Thanks to the inaptness of Union generals and the constant pestering from Lincoln it worked out well for Lee. Had McClellan stayed in command I do not think Lee would have had as much success because there was no way in hell McClellan would attack in anything but optimal conditions and under vastly superior odds. Of course the War would have probably lasted 20+ years had that happened

[Linenoise]

What is missing here is the differentiation between Grant and Lee. To say both are equal, and should be the same, is incorrect logic as they were both not 'equal' in how they were 'great' generals.

Grant's greatness is represented by his ability to be tenacious. He didn't win his battles through finesse. He out manoevered his opponents, which is not represented by combat stats (rather by Strategy as well as abilities). Grant on the battlefield was no military genious, but, strategically he was very good.

Lee, on the other hand, created very good battle plans. He got his army into some trouble, and probably should have lower strategic ratings than Grant, but, higher attack and defence ratings, as well as abilities reflecting his influence on the battle at hand (rather than manoevering in and out of battle which is the strength of Grant and Sherman).

In regards to moving the armies around, and putting them in the best places possible, Grant wins out. However, once battle is joined, Lee shines.

This is pretty much how I think of it as well. I think people tend to give Lee more credit for his moving on the Army, but at closer examination he is always getting himself into a jam. Somehow he always managed to make the best of his situation. Perhaps what is needed is some sort of Luck trait or special ability. That said, I do not mean to dismiss Lee's greatness to luck. Sure the cliche is "I would rather be lucky than good" but Lee definitely was a master at battlefield level combat.