Automatic Formation Change to Column

[Jack ONeill]

Jeff,

Indeed you are correct, Sir.

There are many people here who's opinion I value highly, (and you ALL know who you are ), who have never stood the test of battle. However, those folks have all exhibited a thoughtful and careful analysis of their informational content, with cogent arguments to support thier hypothysis. My reference to a DD214 in this instance comes up when I come across someone who's informational projection is based on what can ony be discribed as woefully deficient. Especially when it comes to explaining why or why not a unit would or would not do something at such and such a time. Anyone, be they an actual Soldier, past or present, OR even a re-enactor would understand troop movement speeds AND the proper formations to be used at which time. This would also include a knowledge of the mindset of the Commanders at the time, and how they were likely to be trained.

At this time I would like to add young Wlliam1993 to the list of those who'e opinion I now value. NOT because he , more or less, agreed with me, (or I him), but because his information shows a solid learning curve since he first signed on here.

NYC - Must disagree with you, but only slightly. 2 points - Battalion Units were trained to deploy under fire from lines to columns and back again. Divisions were also. It didn't happen very often, primarily because there were very few "meeting engagements" during the ACW. Most major battles in the ACW were "set-piece" affairs with each side knowing, to a degree, where the other was. Divisions deployed from column to line regularly. Example: Shiloh. Contemporary accounts mention Confederate Divisions and Brigades advancing thru the heavy woods in column, then deploying into line once the enemy (Federal) positions were at least vaguely known. Column formations were used to move up to the "line of Departure" and then units switched to line formations for the attack.

Completely agree with you re: Pickett's Assault. The three Rebel Divisions deliberately chose line of battle over columns of assault because they knew going in they would be under massed artillery fire in plain sight for a long time. The other side of the coin - columns of attack might have lessened the time under fire, BUT with commesurately higher casualties.

Jonah - nice hypothetical.

Jack "busy offending everyone in sight before leaving CONUS, (again)," O'Neill B)

[Saddletank]

@klightfoot

The formation movement speed bonus occurs immediately when the regiment is ordered to change formation. So regardless of where you're going, if you spend any of that time "nominally" in column, your flag will get there faster.

Its been a personal bugbear of mine that the game does this. Formation changes are instantaneous with the graphical sprites then participating in unhistorial maneuvers to make the change complete. The "expanding from the centre" motion columns make when forming line while still moving forwards is complete fantasy. The game would be so much better if a unit stopped, went from "march column" to "disordered" for a period of time, during which it did not move and finally was formed into "line" after several minutes depending on the experience level and commander competence. During that perio dof "disordered" formation which would represent the companies marching to their position and wheeling, the unit would take a negative morale modifyer for being under fire and should count as a dense target.

The game speeds up time considerably. Units march much too fast, muskets fire too often, formation changes are too rapid, battles are over too soon.

A designer however has to balance historical accuracy with the needs of its customers to be able to play out a battle in an hour or two hours rather than a day, so some time compression is unavoidable. It would be nice if there was a "grognard" setting though that gave a full simulation and the game ran at the correct speeed.

In one of the posts above someone wrote (I think it was NYC) about why Pickett's division marched in lines across 1000 yards of open valley and didn't use columns. Reducing casualties was one reason but the main one was because it was simply not thinkable to contemplate changing a whole division from march columns to lines when so close to the enemy because it takes so long.

One of the key reasons why Buford held his ground so long on the first day at Gettysburg was to force Heth to deploy his division, which would take 30 minutes alone. Thats a half hour just to get three brigades off a road, into the fields on either side and into lines facing the threat, in order to then begin the attack. Do not beleive what you see in the movie "Gettysburg" with companies coming off the road and trying to deploty into lines right in front of Buford's men. That never happened. Heth was forced to deploy much further back.

The manner in wwhich units change formation in the game and the speed with which they do it seems to have given some people here a completely distorted view of the ACW battlefield.

@ Jack - I'm very surprised at your post above. One does not need to be a soldier, ex-soldier or re-enactor to understand history, tactics and drills. That should be obvious to everyone. Each person's posts should be treated on their merits and klightfoot is right to question why this game defaults infantry formations to columns of fours (not even a tactical column for moving across country!) over such short distances.

Jonah's hypothetical is without any value as it forgets completely that both sides would have put out picket lines and skirmishers, and possibly cavalry patrols as well. Any general who blindly marches a column of fours round a bend in the road to find a deployed enemy 400 yards away would have his command destroyed as it tried to deploy and would most likely find himself in some dustbowl of a command way out west a few weeks later, if not facing a court-martial.

Among many other issues the game is woefully unable to represent how long it takes to deploy units right now.

@ Reb Bugler - I'm really exited to hear that a new game engine is in development. That's awesome news. I really hope it takes on board much of the feedback from these forums, both from the SP and MP players. I do hope that a simple change can be incorportaed on the toolbar "move in this formation" as opposed to just the "take up this formation on arrival" which we have now. Such a change would of course need to be balanced against the move speeds of different formations, how vulnerable they are to artillery and musket fire and most important, how long one takes to change to the other. I would very much like to see a unit be very vulnerable while changing formation requiring the stationary "disordered" state I mentioned above. These features would do much to actually have this game educate people on how ACW battles were fought, the spatial and temporal constraints officers worked under and the kinds of decisions commanders made and why.

Its these kinds of things that well-designed computer simulations can teach us as a sideline to also being great fun.

[klightfoot]

I completely agree with your observations Saddletank. Also, as a game designer I know about all the compromises that a designer must make to make a game work. I wish I had kept all my SPI Moves and S&T magazines from years back because their game designers wrote many articles on the comprimises a game designer must make to balance playability against simulation. SoW has made many simplifications of complex actions. The Line/Column/Line movement just jumps out at you. But if you compare SoW to a hex based game like HPS's SoW looks like a Flight Simulator in quality of simulation.

In reviewing the game I will point out these problems but they are more in the category of wish list for the ultimate Civil War game that is yet to be. In this posting I merely want to be sure what I saw wasn't a misinterpretation. SoW as a simulation is a huge step forward for the Civil War gender of games but hasn't reached the simulation quality of many of the WWII and Modern War tactical games.

[NY Cavalry]

This game needs no defense, but I will make a few points.

Who else out there is making Civil War games? The market has its own nitch and who else is out there making a truly quality Civil War game that is its own design(not just an engine with different sprites)? Anyone who has been around the last two years will know the commitment that Norbsoft has made to improved gameplay and options.

The game was designed to be completely modable. Even though this has not fully been opened up what we can do furthers the gameplay possibilities while satisfying individual players tastes.

While, with the coming of computers games fog of war has been introduced and is a must in all modern computer games, this game has taken the next step in introducing a feel for battlefield confusion in that with limited sight and couriers C&C has become a new dimension in modern computer games. Instantaneous commands are still an option, but for the gamer who wants a truly challenging experience couriers and restricted sight on many levels are available.

[RebBugler]

SaddletankIt would be nice if there was a "grognard" setting though that gave a full simulation and the game ran at the correct speeed.

There is a mod I built specifically for this. Simple design, halves run and walk speeds:
http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/modifi ... ealism-mod

Still, I can't stand it, maybe it's more realistic, but I lean more to gameplay standards, I'm just too old, my remaining time is too fleeting as is. SOW strives for historic and realist representations, then balances it with GAMEPLAY necessities. If players want to have it more one way or the other, one answer, MODIFICATIONS. This is why modifications are important to the longevity of SOW, and why SOW makes them a KEY ingredient within it's makeup. Folks who are wary of mods, and are timid about experimenting with and building them, even simple ones, are missing out on much of SOW's purpose. Folks that reject mods are clueless, it's all about options...period, so that 'each to their own' is the standard.

[con20or]

RB - 100% agree.

Everyone else: RB's 1x mod is awesome. If you try changing formation when moving through difficult terrain (like a cornfield) in front of artillery then you are dead. Larry and I did some unit speed research to validate it way back - and even though RB doesn't have enough 'remaining time' to enjoy it (or wait for couriers) it's a must have SP mod :laugh:


.........Unfortunately.....it uses the 'unitglobal.csv' so cannot be played in MP.

The game would be so much better if a unit stopped, went from "march column" to "disordered" for a period of time, during which it did not move and finally was formed into "line" after several minutes depending on the experience level and commander competence.

One idea idea could be to change all formation orders in the csv to have a stop command then a change formation order. To be honest, there are several states there, one may even be disordered...you could have a 'stop-change formation-ready for battle' option in the csv.

[KG_Soldier]

One of the key reasons why Buford held his ground so long on the first day at Gettysburg was to force Heth to deploy his division, which would take 30 minutes alone. Thats a half hour just to get three brigades off a road, into the fields on either side and into lines facing the threat, in order to then begin the attack. Do not beleive what you see in the movie "Gettysburg" with companies coming off the road and trying to deploty into lines right in front of Buford's men. That never happened. Heth was forced to deploy much further back.

The manner in wwhich units change formation in the game and the speed with which they do it seems to have given some people here a completely distorted view of the ACW battlefield.

Jonah's hypothetical is without any value as it forgets completely that both sides would have put out picket lines and skirmishers, and possibly cavalry patrols as well.
Among many other issues the game is woefully unable to represent how long it takes to deploy units right now.

You can mod the game so regiments keep their ordered formation throughout the entire length of the movement. Garnier did this months ago for the GCM comunity. I'm sure MTG can do the same in his Hits and Couriers mod.

Games with picket lines and skirmishers and cavalry patrols would require bigger maps and perhaps smaller scaled units and would probably take so long to play that only a few players would want to (or even could) participate in 6 hour MP games.

I'm pretty sure you can't yet mod formation change speeds. And I agree they should be modable for MP use. Now. . . the game is compressed, so while I wouldn't mind at all formation changes to take A LITTLE longer, I'm bound by time constraints to not wish for historically accurate times.

"The manner in [which] units change formation in the game and the speed with which they do it seems to have given some people here a completely distorted view of the ACW battlefield." -- Digby

Now come on. . . there's no reason to insult people. I mean. . . really? You think "some people here"
have been influenced by a game mechanic so much that their view of the ACW battlefield has been completely distorted? That's quite a bold statement of disrespect toward whomever these "some people here" are (IMHO).

You may disagree, but I think everyone here can distinguish between this game and how real CW battles were fought and understand that some game mechanics (such as fast formation change speeds) do not represent a lesson in history.

I understand what you want from the game. I don't have any problem with that nor do I wish you not to have it. But I think you need to understand that while many of us long for as much historical accuracy as possible in a CW game, we are more concerned with having excellent, strategic battles that are fun and take two hours maximum and we do not mind the concessions made to achieve that.

[Blaugrana]

@ Saddletank - thanks for your post. I couldn't agree more.

You can mod the game so regiments keep their ordered formation throughout the entire length of the movement. Garnier did this months ago for the GCM comunity.

@ KG_Soldier. This sounds good. Does the unit have to be TC'd?

[KG_Soldier]

@ Saddletank - thanks for your post. I couldn't agree more.

You can mod the game so regiments keep their ordered formation throughout the entire length of the movement. Garnier did this months ago for the GCM comunity.

@ KG_Soldier. This sounds good. Does the unit have to be TC'd?

No you do not have to tc units, perhaps the brigade commander(s), because we all know how they act when not tc'd.. For several months, in GCM games, if you give a division or brigade or regiment a move to orders in double lines or whatever, they hold that formation for the entire movement, or until they make contact.

[RebBugler]

@ KG_Soldier. This sounds good. Does the unit have to be TC'd?

If I may, yep. For regiments, the regiment...for brigades, the brigade CO, for divisions, all the CO's. Once TC Off happens, units revert to the default.

KG_Soldier
You can mod the game so regiments keep their ordered formation throughout the entire length of the movement. Garnier did this months ago for the GCM comunity. I'm sure MTG can do the same in his Hits and Couriers mod.

ahem...

B&F...HELLO :whistle: credit where credit is due please...
Granted, I did have an edge by getting a head start, much of B&F was built before the game was released.