Wondering about fatigue........

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

It seems in ACW, if you move during a certain night turn, you gain 50 fatigue, yet you can march all day and gain 0? Seems there should be different variances of fatigue for any activity a unit conducts whether it is day or night. I figure less during the day than night though since it is easier to see things in day than night. Even when I was in the Army doing any one of numerous 25 mile road marches, the standard was resting 10 minutes every hour, but one still fatigues during the whole process. I would think this for ACW, Naps, PzCs and EAW. Even riding in a wagon or motor vehicle of any kind can gain fatigue because of the limited confines of not being able to move around much.

[TheGrayMouser]

Hmm, no doudt what you say is true but I wonder how that would effect gameplay, having all your units faitugued before they fire a shot. Also , none of these games really has the concept of march columns, column is a kinda hybred march/combat formation. Maybe if they added a forced march option that increased movement with apropriate fatiuge penalties ? Another JT game had this: the Campaign Series games

[Dog Soldier]

Fatigue is not physically being tired. It is a measure of unit cohesion. Thus a unit during the day can march and remain cohesive (armies do practice this). Night maneuvers are much more difficult resulting in greater numbers of stragglers and loss of the unit functioning as a whole unit.

The Scots on the night before Culloden (April 16, 1746) attempted a night march to surprise the British encampment at Narin who were celebrating their commander's 25th birthday with extras rations and plentiful liquor.

What resulted was a disaster as the entire Scottish force got hopelessly lost in the dark. By dawn the two columns of Scottish highlanders had completely lost contact with each other. Lord George Murray found himself still 3.2km from Narin with too few men to attempt the surprise attack. In game terms this would be disrupted units.

By the ACW, night marches on roads might have been possible with excellent leadership. However, fatigue gained would model a partial "disruption" of the ACW unit from the night maneuver.

Dog Soldier

[Al Amos]

You know you can fiddle with the pdt file to make more night turns so fatigue for movement appears. With thought and creativity, one can use the weather lines to help with visibility issues that would crop up.

[Liebchen]

"Fatigue" in these games does not literally mean "soldier fatigue" exclusively. It more generally means unit stress, disorganization from movement that doesn't rise quite to the level of disruption. That's one reason why movement at night causes so much fatigue: can't necessary keep your lines straight.[/align]

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I'm understanding that to a point. That stuff can happen in the day as well as night but would think it would be a lower level during day. Maybe something where the night movement is 50 per turn like it is now, but day would be 5, something like that so that at some point a unit may have to stop and rest even though the sun is still shining. Just because the sun is up doesn't mean a unit doesn't suffer fatigue in what they do, I would just figure less so because of it. Just a thought.

[Al Amos]

The night fatiguewa added to prevent players from marching all night on multi-day battles.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I understand that, but things can be disrupting during daylight as well. Another thing I was wondering is when a unit is in column and disrupted, why it can't go to line formation. Surely a disrupted unit could still form a line formation, although a disrupted one?

[Liebchen]

Disruption represents local command failure, if anything.