Battlefield Re-cycling

[Ingles of the 57th]

One thing that quite often happened during the civil war battles was the mopping up and utilisation by units of friendly troops “milling around lost” from other routed regiments.

Would it not be an idea to retain stationary routed troops, or a proportion of them, say 40%, on the battlefield map and then allow them to be subsequently absorbed into the strength of any appropriate active unit that approached within a specified distance of their flag-bearer.? This action should be optional.

Perhaps one morale point deducted from the acquiring unit to reflect the extra rallying that might need to be done to restore the lost sheep to effectiveness ?

Geoff Laver
Late of Her Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot

[norb]

Interesting point. This is something that I've been working on for a campaign design. If a reg has lost their number, what is the effect of bringing them into another reg, or what is the effect of bringing untrained troops into that reg.

[GShock]

The very same Gettysburg battle could be built into a dynamic scenario based on what ifs (of course, all multi-day battles could). Once losses are computed and, according to the achieving of preset strategic objectives and scores, a new scenario could come forward taking into account this feature.

For example if the goal of first scenario is to hold the farm and Buford fails, the second day battle would NOT be on little round top... much easier for CSA.

[Shirkon]

norb wrote:

Interesting point. This is something that I've been working on for a campaign design. If a reg has lost their number, what is the effect of bringing them into another reg, or what is the effect of bringing untrained troops into that reg.

The opposite also can apply. What is the effect of veterans being put into an untrained unit?

[BOSTON]

Shirkon wrote:

norb wrote:

Interesting point. This is something that I've been working on for a campaign design. If a reg has lost their number, what is the effect of bringing them into another reg, or what is the effect of bringing untrained troops into that reg.

The opposite also can apply. What is the effect of veterans being put into an untrained unit?

Have an OOB of routed units you can pick and choose from to be assigned regs., vet to vet, good to good, ect. or whatever you please.

[Shirkon]

BOSTON wrote:

Shirkon wrote:

norb wrote:

Interesting point. This is something that I've been working on for a campaign design. If a reg has lost their number, what is the effect of bringing them into another reg, or what is the effect of bringing untrained troops into that reg.

The opposite also can apply. What is the effect of veterans being put into an untrained unit?

Have an OOB of routed units you can pick and choose from to be assigned regs., vet to vet, good to good, ect. or whatever you please.

You might have misunderstood what I meant about bringing veterans into an untrained unit. It should have the effect of actually raising the level of the unit since the men will learn from the veterans. Sort of like adding leavening to bread. On the otherhand, adding untrained men to a veteran unit would have no real effect since the untrained men would again learn from the veterans.

[BOSTON]

Shirkon

What you were saying was not lost on me, I knew exactly where you were coming from!
What I was referring to; was a known lobby of routed units to work with, instead of scrolling through the whole OOB looking for canidates to re-cycle. I don't expect for these ideas to come to fruition, however, I think it's something worth kicking around.

BOSTON

[Ingles of the 57th]

Thanks for the responses.

I hadn't envisaged anything quite as sophisticated as the latest thoughts. Troops from a veteran unit would be less likely to rout anyway ... they would probably retreat in good time.

I was thinking of simply absorbing a number of "men" onto the unit strength at whatever experience level the "collection" unit held. I hadn't thought of incorporating the unit intact into a brigade or battery as I thought this would foul up the OOB. Dynamic OOB's during a scenario would, I think, be a programmer's nightmare.

It would certainly encourage you though to favour sending your veteran units on recruiting or "press-ganging" sweeps around the battlefield. A sort of human supply wagon.

Geoff Laver
Late of Her Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot

[BOSTON]

Ingles of the 57th wrote:

Thanks for the responses.

I hadn't envisaged anything quite as sophisticated as the latest thoughts. Troops from a veteran unit would be less likely to rout anyway ... they would probably retreat in good time.

I was thinking of simply absorbing a number of "men" onto the unit strength at whatever experience level the "collection" unit held. I hadn't thought of incorporating the unit intact into a brigade or battery as I thought this would foul up the OOB. Dynamic OOB's during a scenario would, I think, be a programmer's nightmare.

It would certainly encourage you though to favour sending your veteran units on recruiting or "press-ganging" sweeps around the battlefield. A sort of human supply wagon.

Geoff Laver
Late of Her Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot

Whatever your train of thought is in recyling would have an effect on the OOB, one way or another, by adding or subtracting from regiments. I agree that it could be a programmers' headache, thus it would be like beating a dead horse if they are not interested in such a change to the game. It's obvious they have enough on their plate as it is, nonetheless it is an interesting idea.

BOSTON

[Shirkon]

I can't see any of this being applied to a game in progress. It's more apt to be applied between battles or during a campaigne. The most that could happen during a game is for some of the units that have come close to routing to rally and return to the battle lines and that is already in the game. Routed units unfortunately all either head to Washington (Union) or Richmond (CS).