Maybe something to think about (WDS or another publisher?)

[2-81 Armor]

On another publisher's website, I wondered whether an upcoming ACW title might do better with a different scale.

I was thinking in terms of the old Avalon Hill/MMP boardgame series that has titles like "Stonewall Jackson's Way" and "Here Come The Rebels!", where the ground scale is 1 mile/hex, a turn is one day, and basic units are brigades, and sometimes divisions.

The only change I might make is to have turn length become half day, or maybe 8 hours. Otherwise I think such a system would allow depiction of entire campaigns or theaters that could be played in a moderate amount of time.

HPS has something like this with their "Marching Eagles"' but that uses area movement.

Maybe this might be something for another publisher like WDS to consider?

Edit (because I get overly enthusiastic): Other ideas for this- Weather should be included (it is in the AH/MMP games). Leaders rated for command and rally purposes, and command radius. Units can be either in "march" or "deployed" modes and take casualties by either individual men/guns or by strength points. Unit morale/routing based on casualties. Supply wagons can be captured, and supply depots are present on map. Units can build breastworks (or entrench) depending on the year. Railroad movement should be possible (based on rail capacity per side). Engineering units to build bridges, assist with entrenching. River/sea movement possible, with gunboats depicted.

Basically this would be a hybrid of the existing Tiller ACW system but operational/strategic in nature vs the current tactical/operational one.

Doing a complete Civil War campaign with production might be possible, but I think that may be just a bit too much. Better to concentrate on specific campaigns the way the AH/MMP series does.

End of wild and random thoughts!

Mmmmh not really sure about this. They tried to do something similar with Panzer Campaigns and created the Strategic War series. The bolted on combat system didn't work or feel right to me?

Plus you would need some kind of new production system?

Ian in Dundee

WDS say they are trying to fine tune and improve the Strategic War system, so I guess the jury is out on that and we'll see.

For the proposal I make here, I don't really think a production system would be needed at first, and maybe not ever. Better to concentrate on specific campaigns and Theaters first. Also, I can't imagine what a 1 mile/hex map of the entire War would look like....sounds good, but I suspect it's way too much. The map for the Eastern Theater in the AH/MMP board game system runs from about Baltimore in the north to just past Richmond in the south, and out to the Shenandoah in the west. That's pretty big, but I think playable. Examples can be viewed over at Board Game Geek, or the MMP website, and things are explained much better there than I'm doing here. 

What I'm proposing is a system that bridges the gap between strategic and tactical, where command control and maneuver are the primary focus, and the scale is still small enough to keep things from feeling too abstract. 

I believe there might be a market for an ACW series at this scale. It may not be anything WDS wants to try or even have an interest in. Maybe HPS would? They do the Marching Eagles series already, so that developer could maybe adapt that to the ACW?