Mentor wanted

[Palantir]

Hello to all designers.

I've been waiting a long time to see a strategic American Civil War game put out there (by anyone) but none have been forthcoming. I would really like to see a TOAW scenario design as in the Europe Aflame mode.

That said I'm willing to give one a go myself. I did design a regimental sized strategic civil War board game many, many years ago and I still have the data, stats and maps. What I don't have is any TOAW scenario design experience.

What I need is someone willing to field questions and answer what will be some very basic (and I hope advanced) scenario design elements.

I expect it will be a long slow process.

Any one with design experience care to be a mentor?
Thanks,
Kerry

[Stauffenberg]

Originally posted by Kerry
Hello to all designers.

I've been waiting a long time to see a strategic American Civil War game put out there (by anyone) but none have been forthcoming. I would really like to see a TOAW scenario design as in the Europe Aflame mode.

That said I'm willing to give one a go myself. I did design a regimental sized strategic civil War board game many, many years ago and I still have the data, stats and maps. What I don't have is any TOAW scenario design experience.

What I need is someone willing to field questions and answer what will be some very basic (and I hope advanced) scenario design elements.

I expect it will be a long slow process.

Any one with design experience care to be a mentor?
Thanks,
Kerry


Kerry,

One of my favorite quotes. ACW is a passion of mine and I seriously thought about trying it with TOAW but I really didn't feel it would work out well at all.
There is a superb, although flawed, strategic ACW game out by Interactive Magic, by Frank Hunter I think it was. Very much dated screen action but the design itself is brilliant, incorporating a huge number of relevant issues into game play, from leader ratings to industrial capacity and so on.

The problem with ACW in TOAW is the scale: 2.5 km will miss the tactical intensity involved. Even worse, the supply dynamics in TOAW would not lend themselves to replicating things at all well. The issue of leadership and initiative is another key aspect that would be lacking. Still, it might be done on a larger scale--at 15 or 20 kms per hex with possibly decent results.

Hope this doesn't put you off, but its my take on that.

Regards,

Daniel

[Chuck?]

I've got a map of the eastern United States in the 1860's about half done. The scale is 10km/hex and ranges from New York City in the northeast, the Florida Keys in the southeast, Texas in the southwest, and Iowa in the northwest. All the northern states are done as well as Missouri, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, and half the Carolinas. I will send it to you if you want to look at it.

As for the game design this hasn't been touched upon. What I need are accurate figures to how many men/divisions there should be at certain during the war. I've got data on how many troops each northern state contributed.

http://www.civil-war.net/Dyers/dyertroopsfurnished.htm

However spliting this up into divisions is problematic. For example Indiana furnished 193,748 white men to the Union Army. Obviously these all didn't serve at the same time so how many divisions should Indiana contribute?

A side note on unit scale. Although divisions weren't really furnished on a state by state basis, regiment or brigade scale is too small and would more likely cause too broad of a front. Additionally, Corp level seems too small, especially at 10km/hex.

A good house rule to have for a ACW scenario is no digging in by units. Fortified infantry divisions just can't be dislodged.

[Palantir]

Hi Chuck, and any other designer!
I've been doing ACW research for a game for decades; real life has been very intrusive. ;)

I know those numbers by Dyer- I have his books. I also have each Northern States Regimental Histories plus many Southern States, as inaccurate as some are. And I think information on almost all the major & minor naval vessels built or that were under construction during the war.
I've also researched (for game terms) most of the officers both north & south that obtained or were nominated for a generals star (and many Cols that were KIA). Giving me a good (personal) idea as to their command & combat abilities by rank.

My maps are @ 12 miles a hex (1:1,000,000 scale- I did by hand) covering basically the same area as yours. I have population, industrial and agricultural numbers (converted to supply #'s) by city, region/location in each state for the 1850's-60. I also have detailed forage equations down to wagons required per 1000 men.

The problem with coming up with divisions based on regimental numbers is that neither side ever had a uniformed number of reg's in them. At various times some "divisions" had only one regiment, some had 8 or more. It will have to be based purely on game design. I may actually have northern regimental numbers by state by date somewhere in my notes, I'll have to do some deep digging!

I had planned on designing it at brigade scale, but TOAW & reality will be the determining factor. I was having some problems working out naval command, combat & movement but using TOAW will simplify that problem.

What I have in a nutshell is a ton of information (all hand written) for a boardgame. Now what I need is how to transfer it to TOAW and someone who can help me get it there. :halo:

[Palantir]

Originally posted by Stauffenberg

The issue of leadership and initiative is another key aspect that would be lacking. Still, it might be done on a larger scale--at 15 or 20 kms per hex with possibly decent results.


The scale 15KM is about what I wanted, and you're correct that leadership is the key issue in the CW and any game thus created. Just put a Grant in charge on the Penisula or at Sharpsburg= a major change of history.

How to do that is going to be a tussle unless someone (which is what I need) knows how to get leadership values to change after a campaign / time in the TOAW system.

[Chuck?]

Originally posted by Kerry
How to do that is going to be a tussle unless someone (which is what I need) knows how to get leadership values to change after a campaign / time in the TOAW system.

I don't know how this can be done easily. One idea would be to add better (or worse) units to reflect a change in leadership.

[Panzerpelle]

One crazy idea:

Make the leaders into arty units. The effect they had on the battle was to add to the combat power but ony locally. check out the waterloo scenario by Bob Cross on how to modell the TOEs of units during that time...

[lascar]

Originally posted by Stauffenberg


One of my favorite quotes. ACW is a passion of mine and I seriously thought about trying it with TOAW but I really didn't feel it would work out well at all.
There is a superb, although flawed, strategic ACW game out by Interactive Magic, by Frank Hunter I think it was. Very much dated screen action but the design itself is brilliant, incorporating a huge number of relevant issues into game play, from leader ratings to industrial capacity and so on.



Frank Hunter has been upating his ACW game and it is available as a free download from his web site at http://www.adanaccommandstudies.com/
He is also in the process of developing a new ACW game, as well as other strategic/operational level games of pre-20th century wars. His "Trench" WW1 game should be released in a few months.

Lascar

[Stauffenberg]

Interesting--thanks for that.

[Thomas Hobbes]

I know this is an older thread but... How is the project was proceding?

Or was it too ambitious?

[General Staff]

Actually you might want to talk to Bob Cross, who designed Killer Angels 1863 on the Gettysburg Campaign- as well as Waterloo already mentioned here.

[a white rabbit]

Originally posted by Stauffenberg



Still, it might be done on a larger scale--at 15 or 20 kms per hex with possibly decent results.


Daniel

..disagree, do the map as big as possible in toaw300, anything smaller and the scen gets really constipated, part of the ACW was the spaces between the Fronts and the inability of the CSA to guard all their frontier, particulary the sea-coast..,

[Ben Turner]

Originally posted by a white rabbit


..disagree, do the map as big as possible in toaw300, anything smaller and the scen gets really constipated, part of the ACW was the spaces between the Fronts and the inability of the CSA to guard all their frontier, particulary the sea-coast..,

However you model it you're going to have problems. Personally I would prefer Daniel's method as it's at least possible to have battles of the sort that happened in the American Civil War- just you'd need two very co-operative players for them to actually happen.