Topic: For The People Material
This was in response to a thread around Campaign Card distribution…
Great thread unfortunately based on one of our brothers experiencing campaign distribution syndrome (CDS).
What I would like to contribute to this debate is how I believe multiple CCs give an advantage, but are not a show stopper in it of themselves. I have had to think deeply on the issue of multiple campaign cards and over the course of time I have come full circle back to where I began in the AH version of this game, no CC limits.
It is important to note that there is a basic assumption that a skewed distribution of CCs is a decisive advantage. There was also a good point made that the Southern railnet and logistic conditions would have prevented this during the real war.
FTPs military model runs off of two key factors: maneuver and logistics. The Union won the war by prosecuting a persisting logistic strategy. The CSA was trying to win by prosecuting a raiding combat strategy. FTP is built around this set of assumptions and concepts as interpreted by me from a generic model articulated by Archer Jones.
The maneuver rules are expressed through the play of cards in combination with general ratings and board position. How much maneuver a side can sustain is based on its logistic position over the course of the game.
One of my goals when I did this game was to design logistics into the core of the system, so the players would abstractly deal with it without any mechanics. I focused on SPs as the integrated logistic system for the game.
The relative reinforcement rates of the two sides is the basic logistic production model for the game. The Union has a large and relatively steady rate of SP production and the ability of the CSA to impact this rate reflects a successful application of their raiding combat strategy. The CSA SP production rate is represented at a more granular level. If the Union applies its historic persisting logistic strategy, the South will reflect the historical collapse. If the Union fails to steadily take the Southern logistic system apart (blockade, ports, state bureacracy and manpower), then the South does not collapse. This is not the historical outcome, but neither is the CSA player achieving a more than historical level of logistic cohesion.
The attrition rules reflect operational logistics by causing players to disperse their forces at the end of a turn if they do not have a good offensive option. This is exactly what Lee did several times during the war for logistic purposes. If you spread out attrition goes down (broader access to local logistics). You stay concentrated, disease and logistic considerations wears your force down faster. Since the CSA usually goes last, the Union has to remain concentrated more of the time, simulating, without overhead many of the war's logistic dynamics.
What should and does happen is the ability to score on your opponent with multiple CCs requires that you have sufficient SPs to expend in combat and maneuvers. Without sufficient SPs having multiple CCs will not yield decisive results, just a maneuver advantage. Having a 10-1 advantage in CCs is possible, but without considering the context of relative SPs and board position, it is very hard to evaluate how much of an advantage this really is. The fact that Dirion has not yet put the Union away by this point indicates that he hasn't been able to fully capitalize on Taylor's CDS problem.
As far as the point that the South couldn't accomplish this during the real war, the answer is the game supports this under certain circumstances. FTP is a model of the war, but players effect the model. If the South is allowed to have a surplus of SPs, this is due to the Union failing to reduce the CSA logistic infrastructure. In this case the historical result is no longer valid for that particular play through, because one of the key historical factors has been altered.
It is true that the Southern rail network was inefficient and poorly laid out for military operations, but somehow the South was always able to pull off concentrations when they wanted to during the war. The game only has two strategic concentration cards (Shiloh, Chickamauga), so statistically in a standard game, the CSA should get two of these per game matching the historical record. However this is a simulation (game) not an emulation (book) of the war, so variation is both intended and desirable.
The bottom line is if you pay attention to SP management, multiple CCs can be very useful, especially to the CSA raiding combat strategy. If the Union works to first gain logistic superiority via a persisting logistic strategy as happened in the historical model, it will not matter much how many CCs the South gets late in the war, because they will have insufficient SPs (as they did historically) to do much with them. This inability to do anything useful with the extra CCs simulates late war logistic problems (Richmond calls for action, but not much happens).
The opposite also applies, in the late war when the Union can do alot with multiple CCs, since their reinforcement rate (logistics) is large and steady under most circumstances.
I hope that helps. I am going to look over the game in question just to be empathetic, but FTP isn't chess and chance plays a role in the outcome. However, unlike chess where no matter how many times you play Kasparov you are guarranteed to lose, in FTP hope can spring eternal; at least once and a while. James, one of these days...
Mark
