Strategic Hex Game McClellan's Last Command (custom GCACW module) - community playthrough

[Piedone]

Here´s what the southern press does....

General Lee wants to go to Maryland
just to resupply a little outside of Virginia, just to water his horses with some federal water -
and maybe to damp the political mood of the Yankees a tiny bit -

now take a look on the game conditions:

Take the White House! Take Baltimore!!! Stay in Maryland!!!! Smash the Federals!!!!
....

Somebody definitely has to tell those fellers to hold their horses....

 

[Saphroneth]

I think it's focused on what counts as a win for the North - which is to say, making Lee go away (as opposed to letting him get into a position where he can ask awkward questions like "why is there a star fort on my lawn")

 

[Saphroneth]

It might be interesting to know that one variant list of victory conditions for the Maryland Campaign actually places a VP premium on the control of Sharpsburg! This strikes me as the silliest kind of "map attractor" (i.e. it's a game about the Antietam period so put something there to attract people to it) and it's not something I tend to hold with.

Points that are actually important to control on the face of it (like Baltimore, Harpers Ferry or Washington) make sense as victory-point sources. But if somewhere really is important instead of where a battle "happened" to take place, then a battle will be likely to take place there anyway.

 

[Pat Answer]

This is a key difference between the tactical and the strategic (or operational) level simulation. Fighting a given historical battle means the campaign decisions have already been made, whereas a larger-scaled game should be more open-ended, based on historical force composition but really governed only by 'what will end the war in my favor' considerations and the road/rail/river layout.
It's a tricky thing for the game designer - and for us players - to remember that the course of a war was not set in stone as it was being fought. Our nods to what we now know as history are almost subconscious.

 

[Saphroneth]

Which is why this kind of thing can be so useful. It can - when done properly - let you explore the why of decisions being made (such as why the Confederates didn't try to hold a defensive line between Yorktown and Richmond).

 

[dgfred]

We did fight in the Gettysburg game around Gettysburg... I tried to move somewhat similar to what really happened.

The Maryland game has so many options for the Confederates that it is kind of scary. Both to choose and to carry the plan out.

 

[Pat Answer]

We did fight in the Gettysburg game around Gettysburg... I tried to move somewhat similar to what really happened.

The Maryland game has so many options for the Confederates that it is kind of scary. Both to choose and to carry the plan out.

Gettysburg is where some major roads come together in that area, so that makes sense.

 

[Yankeedave]

I'm going to be a historian and totally misrepresent the results.

 

[Lubliner]

It seems to me this game could be computerized entirely by setting up a spinner for the dice roll and hitting it to spin out and land on a number for each turn, instead of manually rolling dice. Am I making sense?
Lubliner.

 

[Saphroneth]

It seems to me this game could be computerized entirely by setting up a spinner for the dice roll and hitting it to spin out and land on a number for each turn, instead of manually rolling dice. Am I making sense?
Lubliner.

Not really, because the actual routes taken by the forces (and a lot of the interpretation work I do!) involves decision making. It would be possible to have a version of the game which is a two player game, though - the downside being that both players would have to be online the whole time to play it.

 

[Pat Answer]

It can be done, and would likely be fun - but also, as Saph mentions, probably take more time per session than many of us can commit.

 

[Saphroneth]

There are games out there which allow for hex-based combat where a lot of it is handled by the computer, but these tend to be IGO-UGO systems (which is to say, one player takes their whole turn, and then the other player takes their whole turn). GCACW is WEGO, which is interleaved turns and which either requires both players to be present at the same time or requires both players to lock in their plans before the start of the turn.

 

[Pat Answer]

The GCACW games I've seen played online are with both players or teams present. And, to your point, the average video is about two hours long...

 

[Saphroneth]

September 5


Battle of Berlin Ferry
Anderson's whole division (some 9,000 strong) launched an attack across the Potomac at Berlin Ferry, establishing artillery superiority on the south bank with a battery of rifles and then crossing in captured ferry-boats. The defending 87th Ohio and 8th New York Cavalry - the latter recently arrived - were scattered and effectively destroyed, and by noon Anderson's division was across the Potomac in strength.
(1,000 Union battle casualties)

 

[Saphroneth]

Battle of Methodist Church, September 8

After retreating from the approach of a Confederate body of infantry to Clarksburg, Pleasonton rallied Farnsworth's brigade around the Methodist Church near Damascus. This process was still ongoing due to command confusion, however, when Hampton and F. Lee's brigades of cavalry attacked the Union command from both northeast and southwest simultaneously.
Pleasonton extracted the majority of his command from the attack successfully, albeit disordered and demoralized, but several hundred men nevertheless became casualties.
(500 Union battle casualties.)

 

[Piedone]

I´d like to share some new experiences I had when playing the game together with @dgfred in a team.
I´ve got the impression that social factors are generally underappreciated:

I deem them very relevant and up to a certain extent even decisive:

@dgfred is seemingly a calmer and cooler personality than me and whereas I am tending to react rather hasty on developments on the battlefield he just stays confident most of the times. Hence I - under his influence - cancelled a lot of planned orders and spared the troops many unnecessary movements (and attrition).

On the other hand there is also a tendency to accept proposals just because a trusted person made them - to appreciate and to show respect.

It should have been hard to Lee (who is known as having been a rather sensitive person in his relations to his officers) to ignore proposals or to overrule them - hence maybe his tendency to give discretionary orders.
The loss of Jackson should also have been extremely detrimental - maybe the two of them made just a great team (as their personalities maybe were complementary?) - something Ewell and Lee never really were.

 

[Saphroneth]

The interpersonal relationship is a pretty significant factor, yes. One of the roles of a staff officer can be considered to be "parsing" the orders of his superior - turning ideas into concrete facts - for example, and then reading them back to see if they match what the commander actually wants.

It often also happens that a commander knows his senior subordinates have tendencies to do certain things, and allows for that in the orders he issues (at least to some extent). So if Lee knows Jackson is likely to act aggressively, he might spend more effort in laying out what Jackson is to do and why (so that Jackson's initiative-taking is less likely to act counter to Lee's intentions) while if Lee considers Longstreet more likely to fulfil his orders without reaching past them he'd (1) explicitly outline under what conditions Longstreet should push, and (2) give Longstreet tasks which are more vital to be done "as specified". (So if a place needs to be taken and held, without an extemporized offensive kicking off from there, that might be a good fit for Longstreet)