I believe what Saddletank said was that roads have strategic value for moving large formations of troops long distances but when the battle is joined they become tactically insignificant. That is a true statement. Once the battle was joined at Gettysburg, the roads lost their value. The Union 1st corps moved cross country to reach Seminary Ridge. There was no battle for possession of the Emittsburg Road.
But this discussion, though interesting, is really much ado about nothing. Since the speed and fatigue can be adjusted to suit anyone's taste, taking Norb & Co. to task for picking the 'wrong' numbers is pointless. Change them to the values you feel are correct.
That may be what Saddletank meant, but that isn't what he posted. He posted that:
I don't know whether you are missing the point but road marching wasn't necessarily quicker but it was logical because it was easy to describe "take the Hagerstown road" and you know that if you needed to find that formation, to send it new orders, say, you just rode along that road until you bumped into the troops because you knew they'd be somewhere along it. Formations could easily "follow this road to Mummasburg" rather than be told to strike out across country to Mummasburg and hope they bumped into it.
Units didn't take those roads so they could march around until they bumped into something. They took those roads because they needed to get to Gettysburg as fast as possible. The quickest way to achieve that objective was to march on the established road network to/from Gettysburg. I am sure a unit could have walked in a direct line from a location and marched less miles cross country, but they wouldn't get to Gettysburg faster.
As for the issue of units walking cross country, you are correct the Iron Brigade moved cross country a relatively short distance to get to Seminary Ridge. But that is not the situation I was discussing nor was I claiming in those instances units shouldn't tactically deploy quickly cross country to key locations.
In
SP I changed this as I was referring to SP/stock play and the GCM mod which IMO makes much more sense play, because there is no fatigue or speed malus, players rarely use the road network because it is just as fast, for example, to march up and over LRT as it is to take the existing road around it. That simply doesn't make much sense. If a player was taking up a defensive position in LRT, of course it makes sense to go straight up. However if you are heading to points further east towards Emmitsburg/Peach Orchard it should be the faster road movement of using the Wheatfield road vice going over LRT and through DD. On a larger scope with different/larger scale maps, this minimizes the importance of utilzing the road networks as there is no advantage to moving 5 miles on the roads when you can simply move 4 miles cross country just as fast.
I don't think anyone is taking anyone to task at NSD. The fact that we are still here playing SOW on a daily basis and providing suggestions for the continual improvement of the game and game engine is a positive sign. The answer that we can mod "the values you feel are correct" isn't the issue. We know that certain values can be modded but there are still certain things that cannot be modded. The issue isn't that we can/can't mod, the point is that we are raising some additional suggestions for improvement for the stock game.
Although I don't agree with all the changes in GCM, there are some that are improvements over the stock game that many of us would like to see incorporated in future game iterations. I think part of the frustration stems from the fact that MP play is very different than SP play and because the MP community is much smaller, we can feel a bit disenfranchised. That being said, although we all in MP may disagree on how best to fix certain issues, I think in general terms we have all identified issues that still need to be fixed.
There may be limitations on what can/cannot be done with the existing engine and that is certainly understandable. However, as I am assuming the development of future products is ongoing given the release of the screenshots, I would also assume that NSD is seeking feedback in developing the best possible product.
In my particular case, I have posted multiple times on issues impacting artillery. However, we have never really received any explanation on what the future lies in this regard. Many of the fixes may not be possible now with the current game engine, but by discussing future design decisions now it may help in generating ideas for future improved game engine iterations.
