From: Fredrik Arsaeus-Nauckhoff Subject: War for the Union Gentlemen, As the second American Civil War (online version this time) rages, I thought I should discuss a game on the first (offline) one; CoA's War for the Union. I've played it twice now, enjoying it very much. When I first bought it I was kind of biased towards VG's Civil War, but have come to think of the two games as equally good, even preferring WftU. They are equal in scale, but WftU has lots of "micro"-management CW has abstracted, mainly river/coastal batteries. A few questions/opinions: 1. In CW forts are very effective in that they if properly manned can stand against repeated attacks; they let the defender ignore retreats. As the maximum loss for in a battle is 3 SP's, a fort with 4+ SP's would need to be attacked twice to fall. In WftU, however, the first one learns is not to trust a fort. Sure, it gives a -2 on defence, and you can choose to defend outside with -1 and then retreat inside if needed, but they don't have the same stopping power at all. What is the general opinion on this; CV overrating or WftU underrating te fort/fortress effectiveness? 2. The main strategy in both games for the union would be similar, with division of CSA very important, capturing ports and forcing battles to bleed the rebs to death. However, in our last game af WftU, we noticed a rather surprizing feature: during the first few months of 1863 the union gets 16 SP's in reinforcements, and then in april or so has to withdraw 16 SP's. Then they don't get any more SP's until october. And this year saw some heavy fighting on all fronts. So what happened was my opponent (US) who was used to his enormous manpower advantage, kept attacking to bleed me away. But the effect (since the CSA relies on recruiting instead of reinforcements, and the amount of recruits is based on CSA supply capacity) was that after a few months of no new SP's and actually having to remove some, he just did not have the men to do any offensives. OK, a few invasions here and there along my coast, but that meant less strength somewhere else, and I countered these invasions by railing men from the quiet areas that now appeared. By the time the US got more men it was too late to catch up with his lagging and I won on the sudden death rule (after every dec. turn from '62 and on you check the CSA's victory points, if above a certain level the game is over as a desicive CSA victory). So, the important thing to do as the US it seems, is to lower CSA supply capacity rapidly before this lull in reinf. and split the CSA as fast as possible. This is nothing new, of course, but it seems hard to do it as fast as needed. Maybe it was an error of my opponent, he prioritized taking Nashville over taking Memphis, and Memphis with a good battery is a rather sure stopper for any naval operations southwards. It is located at the spot where Mississippi river changes from navigable to tidal river, and this is very important as each wave of ships trying to attack the battery can only include two units on a navigable river (compared to three on a tidal), which makes it very hard if not impossible to suppress the battery that way. But still, the US can't leave eastern Kentucky too open either, if the rebs take Louisville for example they get important VP's, which don't go away even if it is recaptured. So, a few questions: a. Is the sudden death rule not too harsh on the US? I suppose it is there to simulate war weariness if things go too slow in the war, but I didn't feel that I did very much better than historically in the west. Well I wasn't divided, that's true, but it was just a question of time. The "front" went through central Mississippi to Chattanooga, and Vicksburg wouldn't be that hard to take. Then it would only be a question of blocking a few more ferry points by marching south on the west side of the river and garrisoning these places. b. It feels like it is too easy for the CSA to build up the defences on Mississippi river, I don't really know how much was done historically, but by the time my opponent gave up (sept. '62) I didn't have anything left to build with my resource points (used on forts, batteries and ships). We had almost parity of naval forces on the river, and he was burdened with the offense. Of course I also had to keep about half my fleet at New Orleans, but with good batteries at the "ends" of my river defense, and the limit of ships that can attack each wave, this seemed to equal out at the very least. c. What about the lack of union reinforcements for the first 9 months of '63? Didn't they recruit anything at all for about half a year? 3. The different leader systems used in the two games leads to very different uses of leaders in armies. In CW one wants 6 tactical points (not always possible of course...) of generals under the army commander. The subcommanders give you the pluses on the CRT, the army commander the rerolls. In WftU if you have an army general who is good, like Lee or Grant when promoted, you don't really care who is under their command since you only can get +2 for leaders, commander and subcommanders (average value) added together. In the game described, my three armies maxed out at +2 each which would be impossible in CW. As a conclusion I think WftU is more interesting to play as it doesn't suffer from the same stalemate situations as CW does. Sure, lulls in fighting occur, but they are more dependant on recuperating from fatigue levels and rebuilding army strenghts, how safe your supply line is and things like this than upon command points/the union's pathetic leader situation making a battle victory almost impossible sometimes. As the CSA player in WftU you really think twice before going to the offensive because of the manpower costs, and only attack when an opportunity has arisen and something important can be achieved from it. This feels realistic, while in CW I feel one attacks to CREATE an opportunity, and losses aren't as hard to replace where they are needed which makes you care less about them. Any opinions on these thoughts/games? WftU is seldom mentioned, which I think is sad because it really is a good game, CW seems to have a rather numerous following though. Pheew!! That was longer than I intended... :-S Have a game! Fredrik Arsaeus-Nauckhoff, Stockholm, Sweden (fredrik.arsaeus@mailbox.swipnet.se) "Is he lucky?" Napoleon Bonaparte Recently played: The King's War War for the Union War for the Union again!