Kansas forced to join

[LLv34Mika]

Hi @all

what drives me crazy (a bit)
I was pretty succesful in Kansas and was asked to if I wish to force Kansas to join the Confederates. I was hoping for some kind of reward for my efforts. But when I read the description of DE114 all hope was gone once more.

The union strikes everywhere. The forts just give free XP to the union, they get a morale boost and the South gets a small loss of fighting spirit. They have by far more navy so even trying to catch up in that part of the war is desperate and pointless (you will miss the points where you need it more). You are facing amphibious assaults everywhere and barely have the manpower to defend the frontline. Defending important cities is just a wet dream. As the manpower of the North grows and grows you can be sure you get smacked there with no mercy.

...and then DE114 even gives them 3 free units??? Really? That just means the little military presence in Kansas will be stuck there and driven back. Sure, you get 2000 points fighting spirit but you can count on the fact that you will lose the units there and the cities as well.

So in fact DE114 just makes the Union even stronger instead being a reward for the South?
I love the game and played WW2 europe and WW1 (can't get warm with global conflict somehow) but somehow I have a very very strong feeling that the civil war version is absolutely not balanced.

Actually my opponent allowed me to take many important cities and drop his fighting spirit like crazy. I am doing great on the rivers and the losses are higher for him than for me. By far. And he still has by far more troops and they are getting more and more. We have October 63 and I can be sure that summer 64 there will be a big union celebration in Richmond when all the Corps arrive in big numbers.

Is it really so unbalanced or am I doing something wrong here?
In fact you are reading that as a "whining post"... well, the other way around I have no problems crushing the South and that is also not really funny to play if you always win with that side.

Mika

[BiteNibbleChomp]

DE 114 doesn't give the Union a morale bonus, rather they get a morale penalty, which will weaken the Union if you say YES to the DE.
Also, Rangers are fairly weak units, only a bit better than brigades - if you've got a couple of divisions in Kansas they shouldn't be too big an issue (and if you've taken all of Kansas, I have to assume you've either sent divisions there or have gone real heavy on the Indians?)

Mathematically, the DE is a pretty good deal for the CS. Gain 2000 FS, give the Union equivalent of 675 MPP in free units (MPP translates 1:1 to FS in losses), plus the morale hit, effectively saying YES is about a +1500 boost to the CS.

As for balance, the Union did outweigh the CS by about 3:1 in most factors that mattered historically, in the game it is closer to 1.5:1 or so. The Confederacy is therefore never going to have an equal chance of taking Philadelphia as the Union has of taking Richmond. That's just the nature of the ACW. But, the victory conditions should allow for a 50/50 or so chance of each side winning the game, ie. the Confederacy shouldn't need to take Philadelphia to win, whereas the Union almost definitely does need to take Richmond.

- BNC

[LLv34Mika]

Actually I have no problem with being in defensive mode almost all the time. I just don't have the feeling that the victory conditions allow a 50/50 chance here

I love the game and love the idea of winning by other terms as just destroying units. I guess a few changes to rebalance the game would be enough. My first would be making Forts a bit stronger. At the moment they are just there to give free XP and morale boost/loss.

The really strange thing is that the Union should be the side that is on the offensive everywhere. My southern forces fought the way up in the West and hold the position there, I forced Kansas to join, took Kentucky in the opening via diplomacy, just captured Missouri again and the losses are by far higher for the Union than for me. I got behind enemy lines with two or three cavalry units raiding/capturing important cities and causing huge FS losses and keep moving and continue doing so. All that should result in a position that leads to a clear victory. In fact I still fear being steamrolled next summer.

But we will see...