California - Southwest connection?

[TheDoctorKing]

In v 1.10a it seems that California and the Southwest are not connected. You have to go by way of Rockies and it takes forever. I don't think this is correct. The US had plans before the Civil War to build a rail line across Arizona and New Mexico, though the actual first line was built through Utah, i.e. Rockies. There was a land purchase from Mexico (the Gadsen purchase, now the southern counties of Arizona and New Mexico) and a lot of effort spent on building roads and such. I'm sure bodies of troops could have used that route.

It might be better to have two California regions, one for north and one for south, with the at-start Union troops in the northern one if there is a desire to keep too many reinforcements from reaching the southwest too quickly.

[PhilThib]

Technically you are right, but fact is that it never occurred during the war and militaty operations of any importance along that 'route' was, IMHO, tantamount to impossible.
But in terms of gameplay and AI management, such a connection would open possibilities that I feel are totally ahistorical (a major CSA invasion of California via TX and NM )

Therefore I made the design decision to NOT include that connection.

Now you can easily mod it to create the route...and see how it changes gameplay

[GShock]

I approve, whatever west of the indian territory wasn't participating in the ACW, at least as far as i know. I don't doubt they would produce and send resources and men but it should be impossible for CSA to get those territories, which i regularly get, as CSA up to the northwesternmost territory itself.

Approve

[Gray_Lensman]

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[PhilThib]

My mistake indeed ... I forgot about the long transition link...most likely I had yielded to public pressure, and this was not in line with my original design intentions...

[Gray_Lensman]

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[TheDoctorKing]

Historically, the Confederacy did invade the southwest. They were defeated in a battle in New Mexico but had plans to go on to southern California. The issue of Confederate invasions of Oregon and such is a problem with the AI, not the map. The Confederates were waging an essentially defensive struggle. Their very few, limited invasions of the north were controversial -- many of Lee's soldiers refused to move outside Virginia on the invasion that led to Antietam in 1862. I think any Confederate general should have to make a separate activation roll at a big penalty to move his forces outside those areas claimed by the Confederacy -- which would include California (since you don't divide the state into two areas), Missouri, IT, Kentucky, West Virginia, maybe Maryland. But not Oregon, or Illinois (in the game I'm playing right now, Leonidas Polk got 5000 rebel boys slaughtered attacking Cairo.

[Director]

The Confederate 'invasion' consisted of a very tiny force, little more than a thousand men on each side. Why? Because a larger force could not be supplied off the land and there was no railroad. Indeed, Sibley's force nearly disintegrated from lack of supplies after the battle. It wasn't from lack of interest: seizure of the California gold fields would have financed the Southern war effort. There were enough men of Southern ancestry in California that the state legislature had petitioned Congress to divide the state in two, but the Civil War broke out before it could be acted on.

Before the Transcontinental Railroad, moving troops to the West Coast took forever and was very expensive (civilian passage took about six months and cost roughly $1000 per person - a very large sum in those days). The usual route was by ship because marching overland killed men and horses, and stirred up the Indians too. See the Memoirs of US Grant for the horrors of this trip.

The railroad could carry its own supplies (even water) and could make the run from Omaha to Sacramento in less than seven days (five IIRC) for a cost of about $100 per person. It was financed with enormous land grants, government direct payments per mile and bonds issued on government credit. Despite the horrendous cost the railroad turned a profit and the government saved more IN ONE YEAR on troop movement and supply costs than it spent on the railroad!

Fun fact: when chartered, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific became, overnight, the two highest capitalized and largest corporations in the world... and they both nearly went broke trying to get it built. The job required thousands of men, expert logistical and supply and massive amounts of material. Please remember even the first crude railroad across the country was built entirely by hand with black powder, shovels, picks and hand-powered drills.

There shouldn't be a link from the southwest to California unless it requires six months and attrits the force by 33 to 50 per cent.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Turbo823]

Are the jumplinks 'fixed' now in the latest patch? There was a problem earlier with too fast a travel. I still see some strange behavior with those jump boxes particularly if you occupy a nearby region. In my AAR game Athena has 2 divisions just sitting there in Tucson when they could easily sweep through Texas.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[chainsaw]

...I may change this "Long Transition Link" to a "Very Long Transition Link" which will double the time to approx. 2 months (the longest time link possible in the game).

Can you limit the size of units moving through these links? Or does that require a major coding change? Historically the lack of fodder and water limited units to a few thousand men and horses. The vast distances and lack of roads would not allow the normal use of supply wagons as we use them in the game today.

For our European friends the scale is hard to understand...but having lived in San Antonio Texas I know it takes 10 hours by car to get to the New Mexico border at El Paso across some of the flatest, driest and roughest country I've ever seen. In the game it's a short hop from the Tucson region to Dallas Texas, while it would take half a year for a column of soldiers to make the trek.

From a European perspective think of Napoleon trying to invade Ethiopia overland from Tunis without the aid of shipping...or heading south across the Sahara with an army. It could be done, but only with small units who would not overtax the watering holes (what's plural for oasis?)...

[chainsaw]

Related to the above posts I found a couple interesting sources of information about California's role in the war.

This one has some very good info about the history of the war in the far west - scroll to the bottom of the page and it shows unit histories;

http://www.militarymuseum.org/HistoryCW.html

Books:
Confederate Invasion of New Mexico and Arizona:

The Civil War in Arizona: Story of California Volunteers

[Gray_Lensman]

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[TheDoctorKing]

I'm still concerned about the other issue I raised that nobody seems to be addressing -- the way the Southern AI invades the North at the drop of a hat. Historically, the Confederacy didn't want to conquer the North and preferred to stand on the defensive most of the time. The AI should refrain from its endless invasions. This would obviate most of the argument going on in another thread about how many gunboats it takes to block a river crossing. If not stopped, the Confederates in this game would be invading not only California and Oregon but Massachusetts.