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!

[Plain Ian]

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

[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?

[-72-]

I don't know what all his plans might be, but I do know that Paul Bruffell, who is the driving force behind Marching Eagles (also does the programming I am pretty sure), was listed in the last WDS blog post/newsletter on the Quarterly Update.

I don't know what all that exactly means in terms of developing material at HPS at a publisher, so it is probably one of those 'stay tuned' situations.

Fwiw, I'd imagine the more limited amount of terrain that you'd need would make the maps pretty doable, by comparison to the current grand tactical scales.

There was also a company that started out trying the Revolution at a similar scale- think their one offering was called: Washington's Crossing - or something similar (on the Trenton -and I assume Princeton) campaigns of the Winter 1776-77. IIRC that was 1 mile per hex, although I'm not claiming that it is a Revolution version of the Great Battles of the American Civil War Series. I do have a couple of those - Roads to Gettysburg II, and the older Grant Takes Command (both unpunched- in one case, was 'holding out' for the reprint of Stonewall Jackson's Way II -although probably closer to the truth is that I simply have nowhere big enough to play them).

I don't think that the map sizes would be all that onerous, although I don't know that doing the entire war at 1 mile per hex is actually all that realistic, but probably more so by theater.... so like Virginia - southern Pennsylvania - that probably is, as is The Mississippi from around Cairo through to New Orleans maybe, and Nashville past Atlanta. And add on areas that connect places - like the Tennessee/Cumberland River valleys - starting around the Cairo to Memphis area (I imagine you can envision some connecting points) just by that.

Man if you can do that much .... maybe it is doable as a whole. Or maybe have connection pints between major theaters. A lot to think about, to be sure. At the moment I am working on a submap from the Shenandoah title -and that one is 659 x 1127 hexes -so I mean space seems to work out reasonably well.

I am not sure about production, but as it applies to logistics, -I can see that too - how do you produce and get ammo/powder to your armies.  Transit -so railing around (And rail capacity limitations).

-I think I know what title it was from another publisher -and you know in all seriousness, all I saw was another version of Panzer General, and what you are talking about is an entirely different animal :). I like the idea.

[Plain Ian]

Well I do think this is an interesting idea. I wasn't trying to pour water on it.

My concern was how you would implement combat but I guess all attacks would be resolved 'in hex' so basically the equivalent to a PzC/ACW assault. No ranged attacks with 1 mile per hex?

I never had an AH/MMP game but I have had plenty Bde level ACW games. How many Brigades would you be able to stack in a mile?


Ian in Dundee

[2-81 Armor]

Well I do think this is an interesting idea. I wasn't trying to pour water on it.

My concern was how you would implement combat but I guess all attacks would be resolved 'in hex' so basically the equivalent to a PzC/ACW assault. No ranged attacks with 1 mile per hex?

I never had an AH/MMP game but I have had plenty Bde level ACW games. How many Brigades would you be able to stack in a mile?


Ian in Dundee

Right. Attacks would have to be in hex as you say. Ranged attacks would be impossible really, given the effective ranges of ACW artillery (even ships). Stacking would have to be based on either total men/guns or maybe strength points. (This should be pretty generous - I live about 20 miles from the Gettysburg battlefield, and a lot of people express "amazement" at how small the battlefield actually is in proportion to the number of troops engaged - it was well over 100,000 or so combined I believe. Even Napoleonic affairs that were huge like Leipzig didn't occupy as much space as we might think.)

Here's a link to the Boardgamegeek (BGG) entry for Stonewall Jackson's Way that also has internal links to some reviews both written and video. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9935...s-bull-run

I think the link and reviews do a much better job than I ever will describing things. Of course, any developer would have to make changes and implement his own ideas to avoid any legal issues. This series should be looked upon as an inspiration of concept only.

Anyway, I'm just a player with a few thoughts, certainly no programmer or developer. Others (if anyone) would have to decide if this idea is even feasible.....my bet is it'll never see the light of day.

[krmiller]

On the march at 4 abreast a 125 yard hex can hold about 500 men, since the average regiment would normally be 3-400 men say 1 regiment plus wagon per hex. At 1750 yards per mile say 14 hexes per mile or about 5-6000 men, about the average sized division.

Deployed for battle is another story, at Gettysburg Longstreet's Corps of Hood & McClaws divisions and 2 battalions of artillery, close to 15,000 men, were deployed in an area about 1.5 miles long and a half mile deep.

[Plain Ian]

On the march at 4 abreast a 125 yard hex can hold about 500 men,  since the average regiment would normally be 3-400 men say 1 regiment plus wagon per hex.  At 1750 yards per mile say 14 hexes per mile or about 5-6000 men, about the average sized division.

Deployed for battle is another story, at Gettysburg Longstreet's Corps of Hood & McClaws divisions and 2 battalions of artillery, close to 15,000 men, were deployed in an area about 1.5 miles long and a half mile deep.

Well to continue the dream here is a quick map I did. I took a snap of the MMP game Roads to Gettysburg on Boardgamegeek and put it on the ACW Gettysburg map. 

I blew up hex outline by 600% and added a few to see how it looks. The hexes in ACW are 125 yds across so this is still short of a mile but seems to come close to the MMP boardgame? 

Funnily enough the map/scenario I used is the Terrible Swift Sword Variant 1 with Devins Bde on the Chambersburg Pike and Gamble just below him to the left of Gettysburg! It kinda matches the boardgame!

[Plain Ian]

Actually looking at the hexlines I made they must be just under a mile and half? I count roughly 20 small hexes at 125 yds from centre to centre. That's 2,500 yds or 1.42 miles.

I'll have another go tomorrow night.

Ian

[2-81 Armor]

I'll have another go tomorrow night.

Ian

I'll be looking forward to what you come up with.

Oh, just curious. When you said you used the Terrible Swift Sword variant 1 scenario for the map, are you referring to one I did that's in the Gettysburg package and can be downloaded here at the Blitz? If so, you're the very first person to ever say you used it for anything.