Thomas Prowell - 01:58pm Oct 28, 1997 PST (#876 of 924)
Playing: War for the Union (CoA), Omaha (The Gamers), Marengo (The Gamers)

Somebody, some posts ago, asked for house rules for VG's The Civil War and I
promised to deliver. Here they are. 

Most of these ideas appeared in Paper Wars #20 two years ago. There were some
other variant ideas, including an extensive section on Untried Leaders, that
were useful that I don't have the time or energy to repeat here, as they
required extra counters. 

Leader Promotion This is NOT automatic after every battle. Instead, a one-star
leader is only promoted on a casualty dice roll of 8 or higher. Two-star and
three-star leaders are promoted on a 9 or higher. 

Confederate Leader Casualties In 1861 and 1862 (ie., through Game Turn 9),
Confederate three-star leaders are threated as two-star leaders when checking
for casulaties. That makes them more vulnerable, just like A.S. and J.E.
Johnston. 

Banks and Butler To reflect their importance as military generals, add 5 VPs to
the total Lincoln needs for re-election on Turn 17 for each of these bozos that
does not command an army. (eg, if they're both playing Hearts in Boggy Depot,
Lincoln needs 60. If Butler commands the Army of the James and Banks is in cold
storage, Abe needs 55). 

McClellan Little Mac has a variable initiative rating. He is a 2 for rallying
troops, a 3 on Union and Neutral soil, and a 4 on Confederate land. The Union
player also loses 1 VP for every turn after 9 that Mac hasn't been removed, to
reflect his opposition to Emancipation. 

Army Leader Removal The current rules doen't go far enough to recreate the
personalities and politics that Lincoln and Davis faced. Here are some ideas. In
order to remove a leader, certain conditions have to be met, but the CP
cost is lessened to one. 

Union Conditions 4-rated leaders (Fremont and Halleck) may be removed at any time.
Other army leaders must fight a demoralizing battle before they can be removed.
More senior leaders can move in and take command without this condition being
necessary. 

Confederate Conditions The CSA player may remove an army leader when he satisfies
one of two conditions. 1) the Union player occupies a Southern city with a VP
value of 3 or more that is adjacent to or was immediately held by the Confederate
army, or 2) after the army is involved in a demoralizing battle, the player may
roll for removal. Roll a d6, if you roll less than or equal to the number of DM
battles that army leader has fought, you can dump him. Obviously, you'll have to
record the number of DM battles fought be each leader. 

Confederate army leaders ignore seniority -- a leader does NOT lose his army when
a more senior commander moves in. This recreates the situation JE Johnston was
put in as "theater" commander in the West. 

JE Johnston receives a DRM for reaction movement. Whenever he is attempting to
avoid combat, or use reaction in a way that will not lead to combat, he gets a
favorable -1. When he wants to bring on a battle, he gets a +1. Also, to recreate
his feud with Pres. Davis, whenever the CSA player can possibly remove JE Johnston
(he satisfies one of the two conditions above), he MUST remove him. 

Bragg on the other hand has Davis's support, so the CSA player must meet the
conditions for removal TWICE (you can't dump Braxton at first opporunity). But
after the conditions have been met once, lower Bragg's re-roll rating to -2
to reflect the loss of confidence felt by his subordinates. 

Players may reinstate a leader after he's been removed, but then you have to meet
the conditions for removal all over again if you decide to later dump him. 

Thomas Prowell - 02:19pm Oct 28, 1997 PST (#878 of 924)
Playing: War for the Union (CoA), Omaha (The Gamers), Marengo (The Gamers)

Oh, one more idea: 

It takes only 1 CP to initiate any cavalry leader, but then you have to roll that
a d6 that is higher than the leaders' initiative. If you roll less than or equal,
you can spend the remaining CPs it would tkae to normally activate that leader
or just write off the 1 CP. 

This makes cavalry operations more economical vis a vis other operations ("hmm,
spend 3 CPs to move Stoneman and 1 SP, or spend 2 CPs to move Grant and the whole
army?"), and gives players something to do on turns where the dice differential
is 1.