Naval Rules
Topic: For The People Material
Naval Rules Philosophy
The easiest solution to the Union naval forces is what has been used since Dunnigan's ACW game, which has been copied in every ACW Grand Strategy game, including VGs Civil War, in that you have naval counters that move on the river hexsides and have zone of control for a distance along the river.
What the player is then forced to do is arrange his boats like a puzzle until he has the optimal positioning that interdicts the river. I was looking for a more visual and less mechanical solution to this historical dynamic. My solution in a nutshell was wherever the Union naval forces could move unobstructed they had naval control. In a perfect situation, if there were no CSA forts, the Union had naval control everywhere. The CSA strategy would revolve around canceling, what was essentially a ubiquitous Union capability, by judicious placement of their interdicting forts, which is the kind of strategic decision they made historically. See my posted article for details.
The simple naval rule is the Union player has control over all CSA riverine and Coastal ports unless there is a CSA controlled fort present in the space (or associated coastal fort). There is a small set of cases that allow the CSA to deny Union naval control over a section of riverine ports if they can ENTIRELY block off Union naval pressure from ALL directions. One of those cases is the opening position in the game.
This is what the key rule states in the Design notes and case 1. Cases 2, 3 and 4 outline some of the other situations that can arise, which are all true at the beginning of the game for the CSA, but are hard to maintain thereafter.
Mark
Posted by markherman
at 7:34 PM EST
More Naval Analysis
Topic: For The People Material
Amphibious Assault vs Forts
I would reference folks back to my msg 6732 where I laid out the designer intent and analysis behind these interactions. From a pratical point of view I went back and made a matrix of all possible situations just to make sure that I had it right. I will include that here, so the details are evident and then the broader way to easily rule on this should become evident.
There are two basic cases, ungarrisoned fort and garrisioned fort. With three exceptions, the outcome doesn't change whether there are 1, 2 or 3 Union SP. The results are written result versus attacker/ defender.
Ungarrisoned Fort
1-0: In this case the Amphibious invasion fails because the fort wins the battle under rule 7.32, and the Union loses 1sp.
0-1: In this case the Amphibious invasion wins, due to 7.32, the Union SP survives and remains in the fort space.
0-0: In this case the Amphibious invasion wins, due to rule 6.81, where the Amphibious invasion wins ties and has a surviving SP.
1-1: This is a case for ungarrisoned forts, where the number of invading SPs makes a difference in the outcome. If there is only 1 Union SP the Amphibious invasion fails, due to rule 7.32, and 6.81 does not apply since there are no surviving SP. If there are 2 or more Union SP, then the Amphibious invasion suceeds due to 6.81 since there is a surviving Union SP.
1-1*: If there is 1 Union SP, the invasion fails, because 7.34 does not apply, but 7.33 does, since there is a surviving defending zero SP. If there is 2 or more Union SP, the Amphibious invasion suceeds due to 7.32. The asterisk breaks the tie in favor of the attacker and there are surviving Union SP.
2-Any: This result is rare, but the Amphibious invasion fails due to 7.32.
Garrisoned Fort
1-0: The Amphibious invasion fails, due to 7.32.
0-1: The Amphibious invasion suceeds due to 7.32.
0-0: The Amphibious invasion fails due to 7.32.
1-1: The Amphibious invasion fails due to 7.32. Rule 7.34 does not apply because the defender is not eliminated due to the zero SP fort.
1-1*: This is the one case for garrisoned forts where the number of Union SP changes the outcome. If there is 1 Union SP, the invasion fails, because 7.34 does not apply, but 7.33 does, since there is a surviving defending zero SP. If there is 2 or more Union SP, the Amphibious invasion suceeds due to 7.32. The asterisk breaks the tie in favor of the attacker and there are surviving Union SP.
2-Any: The Amphibious invasion fails due to 7.32.
Broad Rules of Thumb
Having written this all out, there is no case where 1 Union SP can capture the fort (garrisoned or ungarrisioned) if it is eliminated. In the ungarrisioned fort case 1 Union SP can only win if it survives because the fort rolled a zero attrition result (only possible if the fort modifier is totally neutralized). The only times that having two or more Union SP changes the results is versus an ungarrisioned fort in a tie battle outcome (0-0 or 1-1) OR a 1/1* result AND a garrisioned fort where an asterisk result occurs, as in any normal battle. The first of these two differences is an important one since a 1-1 result is a common outcome in 2SP versus ungarrisioned fort battles.
I hope this clarifies and unknots this issue. I do not believe I have ever ruled differently, but this analysis covers all cases and is internally consistent.
The one extra point that I will add is the way in which 6.42 supercedes 7.33. This has unique situation and has no bearing on any of the fort cases. It applies specifically to when you invade a non-fort space that is defended by 1 CSA SP versus 2 or more Union SP. If the CSA wins the battle, but the CSA SP is eliminated, the surviving Union SPs retreat instead of taking the space ala 7.33, because 6.42 whereby an Amphibious invasion that loses is retreated, takes precedence over the fact that there are surviving Union SPs in the now vacant space.
I hope that covers the waterfront. Let me know,
Take care, Mark
Some additional thoughts...
I wanted to write a seperate addendum to the above case analysis that brings probability into the game. Some of the cases are not possible, but I included them to show the internal logic of the rules and for completeness.
Ungarrisioned Fort The only result that can usually occur is either a 1/1, 1/1*, or a 0-1. The 0-0 and the 1-0 cannot occur because any force versus an ungarrisioned fort gets a +4 modifier. Consequently, if the fort is not neutralized a single SP cannot win. If the fort is neutralized there is a 1 in 6 chance of a single SP taking a fort. If the Union has 2 or more SP then it always wins.
Garrisoned Fort There are a variety of situations here because there are many situations where the defender can have more than 1SP defending. Because of this all of the cases above become probable in some circumstances.
I hope that adds to folks understanding of these situations when they crop up in the game.
Mark
Posted by markherman
at 7:31 PM EST
For The People Material
Topic: For The People Material
This topic is a collection of some pretty deep analyses that I wrote for the CSW FTP topic. I wanted to collect some of the longer pieces in this location, so I can reference them when I need them.
I wanted to give some perspective on the FTP naval game. First off the tactics.
There are two situations ungarrisoned and garrisoned coastal forts. In the ungarrisoned fort case if the Union amphibious modifiers are 0 or +1 then 1 sp always loses due to 7.33A and 2 sp always wins due to 6.81. In this situation 3 sp is overkill. This was the basic historical model that I used. I could have made it possible for a more varied set of results, but there was no historical model to draw other results from. CSA coastal forts never held out very long unless they were backed by strong infantry forces. The two key historical models were the many small coastal actions, Ft Pulaski, and Ft Sumter (Charleston). If you throw more Union modifiers into the mix you can have a 16% chance of winning with 1 sp (because you cancel the benefit of the fort, so the South can roll a one and get a zero result).
The basic idea behind the CSA amphibious modifiers is that they reduce the Union chances of getting an "*" result in garrisoned fort situations.
If the fort is garrisoned, and the Union amphibious modifier is 0 or +1 then Union attacks with 1 or 2 sp always lose and the only probability is whether the CSA sp is elminated also. If the fort is garrisoned versus 3 sp, then the probability is 33% chance for success (force ratio modifiers are after amphibious, so they cannot be canceled - this is the Ft Pulaski model - a short siege).
If you increase the Union amphibious modifiers to 2 then you cancel the fort which brings in the 16% chance of a CSA dr of 1 in the 1 or 2 sp case. The 3 sp case gives the Union a 42% chance (doing this in my head, but its something like that).
If you increase the Union amphibious modifier to greater than 2 then a 2sp attack has a chance of victory, and a 3 sp attack becomes a very viable assault.
That is the tactical situation. The key to the naval game is understanding the tactical cases coupled with the Anaconda part of the game. Their are 12 blockade runner ports, but effectively there are 10 since Pensacola begins closed (I made it a marker for a future optional set up) and Ft Monroe starts Union controlled (and historically remained that way - although it can be recaptured by the CSA). The Union should try to close around one blockade runner port per turn to ensure shutting down the Southern blockade runner sps by the end of the game.
The South has three basic options for defending its coastline. The first option is to basically ignore it and use all of the sps it saves for other purposes. This puts the onus of exploiting the situation on the North. If the North doesn't do anything about it, the South comes out ahead.
The second option is to quickly garrison all ungarrisoned forts on gt 2 with a cordon defense. The only downside here is the South early in the game has alot fewer sps on their border which if the Union is aggressive can cause some significant early game problems. The South can also do this more gradually, but this leaves more coastline undefended longer.
The third option is the selected defense in depth. In this option, the South forgoes the cordon defense since it is equally weak everywhere and garrisons a key blockade runner port in each section. I usually favor Wilmington, Charleston, Columbus GA, and New Orleans. On gt 2 the CSA usually gets 13 sps which leaves me with 4 sp for coastal defense, since I can only rail 7 with two already up front in TN and VA. The basic idea is to get each of these locations with a garrisoned fort and an sp in its associated port.
If the Union attacks and captures the fort, the defended port prevents the Union from sending an easy follow up attack to get troops ashore deep in the South. If the Union attack fails, but kills the sp, then I use a 1 OC to move the port sp into the coastal fort to reestablish the defense. If the Union gets ashore at one of the ungarrisoned fort points, I will need to get a general with some sps to fix those situations. The goal is to keep one port per zone open so the only way to lose sps is through unsuccessful blockade drs which vary from turn to turn and game to game. If the Union doesn't aggressively pursue the naval option due to inclination or cards, I will gradually garrison all of my coastal forts.
Regardless of which plan you choose the Union will expend on average around 2 cards per coastal space to totally shut down all Southern blockade runner ports. This equates to around 20 cards (all 3 OC, Campaign activations, or Naval event cards). This number assumes that ungarrisoned forts take one card, ports with out coastal forts take 2 (one recapture each), and defense in depth spaces take 3. Obviously results will vary a bit here.
The Union will get 85 cards over the course of the game, so to accomplish shutting down the Southern blockade runner ports (when you include Blockade cards) equates to around 25% of the Union war effort. Of course the Union can use less cards than this to get good results from his naval campaign, such as relying on blockade runner cards alone, but that option varies in effectiveness from game to game (due to cards), so you can't count on it.
I hope this overly long note helps players to understand the historical model I applied to the game.
Good luck to everyone in the tourney,
Mark
Posted by markherman
at 7:27 PM EST
Updated: Sunday, 27 January 2008 10:50 PM EST
