Civil War Battles - Optional Rules Guide 1.3(4.04.1)

[BigDuke66]

Thanks for making this sticky and thanks for the feedback.

Quality Fire/Melee Modifiers
But isn't the usual Confederate Unit also smaller than a Union unit and doesn't the Union army also have more units on the field as it usually fielded more men in most battles?
I didn't check that out as I don't want to spoil me the fun to find it out but men shortage seem plausible especially in titles that cover later phases of the war.
The 10% bonus for melee & fire seem to be a counter for this, CS with smaller but better units vs Union the bigger but also worse units.
In the usual non-phased gameplay the CS units would surely at least once make defensive fire and so lose 10% bonus for melee while the union could hold their fire to keep that bonus.


Rout Limiting
I have a bunch of titles about the higher level in campaigns and titles with details about soldiers life, equipment, etc. but currently I miss something between it that tells me how warfare was conducted on a Division and Brigade level, maybe that would tell how it would be better to attack with these formations.
Currently I would simply say leave room between different brigades, the Overland titles already introduced a modifier of -1 Moral when units from different brigades are in the same hex.
Also the placement of leaders as speedbumps with there moral bonus to Moral checks could keep the rout from spreading.
Again extra attention is need to make an in-depth defense that can still hold even if the first line falls back.
Just a quote from wikipedia:
"Attacks were carried out in several manners, including single or double rank battle lines with individual regiments side-by-side in a line of battle, assault waves (with multiple regiments or brigades in successive waves spaced out loosely one behind the other), brigade columns (all regiments of a brigade in line one behind the other in close formation), and other formations."


Higher Disrupted Movement
Now that is interesting, on page 54 in the user manual it's said:
"Disruption is meant to include effects such as being pinned under fire and a general state of confusion resulting from combat."
That sounds not as "harsh" as that the formation is totally unordered with officers desperately trying to form it again and so resorting to a slower pace like one can assume for the Napoleonic series, OK you can still attack there but the modifier is 1/3 attack strength what makes melee with such a unit in 99 out of 100 cases a very bad idea.
I think it could very well be that the civil war units were better at disengaging even when under pressure.
On the other hand it seems that I can very well move backwards without penalty and still face the enemy and so every time he catches up I can fire at him, well but that be so no matter if 1/2 or 3/4 movement.


Partial Retreats
Now that is a good one, I totally overlooked that the optional rule "No Melee Eliminations" isn't in the CW series.
I have "Partial Retreats" OFF there because "No Melee Eliminations" is ON and so no units easily killed.
As this is missing here I think "Partial Retreats" has to be used to prevent whole stacks from being wiped out and have at least some escape.
I will change that in my first post.


Full Defensive Melee Fire
But isn't this only to provide 100% fire value(instead of 50% in case of computer controlled defensive fire) IF a defensive fire is triggered?
I don't read out of it that DF is triggered definitely when the enemy sets up a melee.
I guess even with this rule you could have bad luck and no defensive fire is triggered.
BTW what goes into to the calculation if or if no defensive fire is triggered? I still don't see a system behind this.