I just wanted to share my impression of the DLC. I quite liked what I have played so far, and hope that the designers go on to cover more 19th century conflicts with this system. This includes some minor spoilers.
So far, I have tried the Paraguay war scenario once as the Coalition, the Pacific war once as the Chileans, and the Spanish-American war twice as the Americans/revolutionaris. I played on normal difficulty. I usually won victories, but was unable to match the historical achievements of the victorious side.
Each of these scenarios requires the attacking side to breach tough defensive positions. In the Paraguay war, I really enjoyed the long slog to Humaita, with plenty of setbacks as my forward troops outran their supply lines, were ambushed by the Paraguayans, or were ravaged by cholera in the swamps. It felt like a 19th century siege, but the immersion was spoiled a bit by the mismatch between the distance scale and the time scale. I guess I would have preferred for the entire war to be modeled rather than this particular limited campaign, although I realize that the Humaita front might be more exciting as a single, discrete tough challenge.
The Pacific war was more straightforward. As Chile, I managed to take advantage of the AI's shortcomings to win a victory at sea, and then it was a matter of descending on one coastal settlement after another. Arica, however, almost proved an impossible nut to crack, and I only secured it in the last few turns. I'm not sure how I would have been able to duplicate Chile's historical victory by capturing Lima. Maybe I would try to seize Arica very early in the game, bypassing other coastal strongpoints, though that would be a risk.
I entered the Spanish-American war expecting a relatively easy victory. I didn't think carefully about where I sent my fleets and ended up with the Spanish enjoying naval superiority around Cuba for much of the game, which obviously through off my timetable. We captured Santiago but no other objective. Luckily the Cuban guerrillas enjoyed enough success that they were able to wear away the Spanish will to fight.
I played it once again, being more careful with my fleets, but Santiago was still very hard to capture. I was a bit careless with the Cubans and was unable to bring Spanish morale to zero, ending up with Spanish minor victory.
I'm very much looking forward to trying the 1863 Civil War/Mexican scenario, and again, I really hope that there might be some more DLCs set in this time period. Maybe around the Black Sea area, with the Crimean War, the Russian war against the Murids, and a Russian-Turkish conflict? Or the Far East, with the Boshin War, Taipei rebellion, and Ruso-Japanese war?
Wars in the Americas impressions
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BiteNibbleChomp
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Re: Wars in the Americas impressions
Glad to hear you are enjoying the DLC!
The DLC campaigns are all designed to be a bit more challenging than the base ACW campaigns are, however I can confirm that it is possible to win all of them as the historically victorious side, using the same strategy (and your own skill at the game) by the time victory was actually achieved. Typically a strategy similar to that that worked historically will serve you well - however this is not a guarantee, as the AI has been taught a few tricks that don't exactly match what was actually done.
I did strongly consider representing the whole of the Paraguayan War with a bigger map covering the whole La Plata region, but ultimately felt that a more focused campaign centred around the middle third of the war (ie, the siege and capture of Humaita) would make for a more interesting game experience. A big part of this is dictated by geography: the first phase of the war saw the Paraguayan forces reach as far north as Coxim in Mato Grosso, and to the south almost as far as the Uruguayan border - with Buenos Aires and Montevideo as their ultimate objectives, and thus those places would need to be on the map too. As the crow flies, that's a couple thousand kilometres. On the other side of the coin, between 1866 and 1868, there was only two operations being conducted - a small Brazilian offensive into northern Paraguay that was thwarted primarily by disease (and I mean small - one unit at most at the current campaign's scale), and the Humaita campaign, which is what you play in the game. The Humaita campaign was fought over an area about 20km top to bottom, and was the sole focus of the war for almost half the war's length. On any map that includes the 2000km of space needed to represent the first phase of the war, the entire Humaita campaign would fit in the space of a single hex (maybe two hexes on a truly gigantic map) - which simply wouldn't do justice to the complex strategy that resulted in Humaita's fall, or the second third of the war as a whole. The final third, the Angostura and Caacupe campaigns, were meanwhile so lopsided that they just wouldn't be interesting to play.
Geography doesn't have to be a deal-breaker on its own, as for instance the 1898 campaign demonstrates, but the first phase of the war quickly presented some other problems. First, Paraguay's entire naval strategy consisted of various attempts to capture Brazil's ships, and because they had only a badly outmatched force of their own, a Paraguayan player is totally dependent on the luck factor of whatever capture mechanic is implemented in order to gain victory (they failed historically, so it does have to be in some way chance dependent) - because the rivers are the only parts of this region with enough settlements to facilitate supply. Second, if luck is in Paraguay's favour, their only option for victory is to capture whatever objectives are used to determine victory as quickly as possible - anything else and eventually they will be ground down as the Allies have a colossal manpower advantage. Those objectives are probably Montevideo and Buenos Aires, and in the case of the latter Argentina had "no army" at the beginning of the war per George Thompson's memoir (he was a British engineer who built a lot of the Paraguayan fortifications during the war - I suspect he's wrong about the Argentines having no army but they certainly did not have a large one, as both him and members of the Brazilian government believed a capture of Buenos Aires was on the cards until the Paraguayan navy was destroyed in June 1865). That means a Paraguayan player has maybe a dozen turns to sweep into Buenos Aires more-or-less unopposed, and if they do that they win, and if they can't then they get ground down for 70 turns with no hope of victory. Whichever side wins in a game like that, the loser isn't going to be having a lot of fun.
It is true that the Paraguayans managed a stunningly successful defensive campaign for far longer than they had any right to given the force disparity between them and the Allies, which is why the war went on so long (the disparity between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance is roughly double that between Japan and the Allies in WW2, and without the complications of amphibiously invading tiny islands to boot, yet Paraguay lasted almost two years longer than Japan did). Yet that was in very large part due to the particularly difficult terrain of southern Neembucu (ie, where Humaita is) - everything from the swamps and lagoons to the direction of the river current favoured Paraguay, terrain that notably had never been mapped and was surrounded by regions considered impassable, giving the Allies no choice but to march through the Paraguayan defences at their strongest point. In most of the rest of the La Plata region, the terrain is much more conducive to an overland offensive - the Allies could, and frequently did, just go around the Paraguayan forces and then force them to surrender, and there's not really anything Paraguay could do about that.
Given how many things were working against a campaign covering the first phase of the war, and finding the Humaita campaign to be extremely interesting in its own right, I felt (and still do feel) that building the campaign purely around this part of the war would lead to a much better experience than trying to cram the entire war in just because it was part of the same conflict.
- BNC
The DLC campaigns are all designed to be a bit more challenging than the base ACW campaigns are, however I can confirm that it is possible to win all of them as the historically victorious side, using the same strategy (and your own skill at the game) by the time victory was actually achieved. Typically a strategy similar to that that worked historically will serve you well - however this is not a guarantee, as the AI has been taught a few tricks that don't exactly match what was actually done.
I did strongly consider representing the whole of the Paraguayan War with a bigger map covering the whole La Plata region, but ultimately felt that a more focused campaign centred around the middle third of the war (ie, the siege and capture of Humaita) would make for a more interesting game experience. A big part of this is dictated by geography: the first phase of the war saw the Paraguayan forces reach as far north as Coxim in Mato Grosso, and to the south almost as far as the Uruguayan border - with Buenos Aires and Montevideo as their ultimate objectives, and thus those places would need to be on the map too. As the crow flies, that's a couple thousand kilometres. On the other side of the coin, between 1866 and 1868, there was only two operations being conducted - a small Brazilian offensive into northern Paraguay that was thwarted primarily by disease (and I mean small - one unit at most at the current campaign's scale), and the Humaita campaign, which is what you play in the game. The Humaita campaign was fought over an area about 20km top to bottom, and was the sole focus of the war for almost half the war's length. On any map that includes the 2000km of space needed to represent the first phase of the war, the entire Humaita campaign would fit in the space of a single hex (maybe two hexes on a truly gigantic map) - which simply wouldn't do justice to the complex strategy that resulted in Humaita's fall, or the second third of the war as a whole. The final third, the Angostura and Caacupe campaigns, were meanwhile so lopsided that they just wouldn't be interesting to play.
Geography doesn't have to be a deal-breaker on its own, as for instance the 1898 campaign demonstrates, but the first phase of the war quickly presented some other problems. First, Paraguay's entire naval strategy consisted of various attempts to capture Brazil's ships, and because they had only a badly outmatched force of their own, a Paraguayan player is totally dependent on the luck factor of whatever capture mechanic is implemented in order to gain victory (they failed historically, so it does have to be in some way chance dependent) - because the rivers are the only parts of this region with enough settlements to facilitate supply. Second, if luck is in Paraguay's favour, their only option for victory is to capture whatever objectives are used to determine victory as quickly as possible - anything else and eventually they will be ground down as the Allies have a colossal manpower advantage. Those objectives are probably Montevideo and Buenos Aires, and in the case of the latter Argentina had "no army" at the beginning of the war per George Thompson's memoir (he was a British engineer who built a lot of the Paraguayan fortifications during the war - I suspect he's wrong about the Argentines having no army but they certainly did not have a large one, as both him and members of the Brazilian government believed a capture of Buenos Aires was on the cards until the Paraguayan navy was destroyed in June 1865). That means a Paraguayan player has maybe a dozen turns to sweep into Buenos Aires more-or-less unopposed, and if they do that they win, and if they can't then they get ground down for 70 turns with no hope of victory. Whichever side wins in a game like that, the loser isn't going to be having a lot of fun.
It is true that the Paraguayans managed a stunningly successful defensive campaign for far longer than they had any right to given the force disparity between them and the Allies, which is why the war went on so long (the disparity between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance is roughly double that between Japan and the Allies in WW2, and without the complications of amphibiously invading tiny islands to boot, yet Paraguay lasted almost two years longer than Japan did). Yet that was in very large part due to the particularly difficult terrain of southern Neembucu (ie, where Humaita is) - everything from the swamps and lagoons to the direction of the river current favoured Paraguay, terrain that notably had never been mapped and was surrounded by regions considered impassable, giving the Allies no choice but to march through the Paraguayan defences at their strongest point. In most of the rest of the La Plata region, the terrain is much more conducive to an overland offensive - the Allies could, and frequently did, just go around the Paraguayan forces and then force them to surrender, and there's not really anything Paraguay could do about that.
Given how many things were working against a campaign covering the first phase of the war, and finding the Humaita campaign to be extremely interesting in its own right, I felt (and still do feel) that building the campaign purely around this part of the war would lead to a much better experience than trying to cram the entire war in just because it was part of the same conflict.
- BNC
Ryan O'Shea - Strategic Command Designer
https://www.youtube.com/@bitenibblechomp
https://www.youtube.com/@bitenibblechomp
Re: Wars in the Americas impressions
Thanks for the extended explanation!
It does sound reasonable to have focused on the Humaita campaign, given the huge variations in troop density and tempo. It sounds like the US Civil War's contrasts between, say, the DC-Richmond theater and the trans-Mississippi theater, except more so. I guess that's what makes games on wars in the Americas, which so often span both wilderness and settled areas, challenging to design.
It does sound reasonable to have focused on the Humaita campaign, given the huge variations in troop density and tempo. It sounds like the US Civil War's contrasts between, say, the DC-Richmond theater and the trans-Mississippi theater, except more so. I guess that's what makes games on wars in the Americas, which so often span both wilderness and settled areas, challenging to design.
Re: Wars in the Americas impressions. Spanish Navy
The 1898 Remember the Maine scenario sould improve several technical aspects on Spanish fleet:
The Spanish cruisers Maria Teresa, Vizcaya, Oquendo and Cristobal Colon were armored cruisers and superior to the American protected cruiser, such as USS Baltimore, except for New York and Brooklyn. Cruiser Cristobal Colon lacked of her heavy guns when war began. The battleship Pelayo was better than Texas. Spanish destroyers, such as Terror, Proserpina, Furor, etc. were better and modern than American torpedo boats.
The Spanish cruisers Maria Teresa, Vizcaya, Oquendo and Cristobal Colon were armored cruisers and superior to the American protected cruiser, such as USS Baltimore, except for New York and Brooklyn. Cruiser Cristobal Colon lacked of her heavy guns when war began. The battleship Pelayo was better than Texas. Spanish destroyers, such as Terror, Proserpina, Furor, etc. were better and modern than American torpedo boats.
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BiteNibbleChomp
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Re: Wars in the Americas impressions. Spanish Navy
I agree with what you're saying here with regard to the Spanish fleet's capabilities on paper, but in practice the Spanish fleet's performance in the war was atrocious. Their crews were poorly trained, morale was low, gunnery was either outranged or otherwise ineffective, Cervera's fleet was paralysed by a coal shortage, the list goes on. The results of Manila Bay and Santiago taken together were two Americans dead (one of heatstroke), and a dozen or so wounded, against the loss of virtually the entire Spanish Navy, despite the opposing fleets being roughly equal in size at the outset (and the best Spanish ships took on the best American ships, so the results shouldn't be skewed too much by certain ships outclassing their individual opponents - I'm interested in the fleets as a whole here). Luck undoubtedly played a role, as it does in all battles, but it takes a lot more than good luck to get to results this lopsided - there's been plenty of battles throughout history where an outclassed side has inflicted some damage to their opponent before being ultimately defeated - but clearly something (or really, many somethings) went very wrong on the Spanish side to get to that point.Duxgus wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 4:26 pm The 1898 Remember the Maine scenario sould improve several technical aspects on Spanish fleet:
The Spanish cruisers Maria Teresa, Vizcaya, Oquendo and Cristobal Colon were armored cruisers and superior to the American protected cruiser, such as USS Baltimore, except for New York and Brooklyn. Cruiser Cristobal Colon lacked of her heavy guns when war began. The battleship Pelayo was better than Texas. Spanish destroyers, such as Terror, Proserpina, Furor, etc. were better and modern than American torpedo boats.
If we look at the Spanish naval capabilities as a whole in the campaign, they're already quite generous compared with what Spain achieved historically - it's not unusual for Spain to sink at least a few American ships, and as an extreme example, in my game on Youtube against the Colonel as the Spanish I was able to sink the majority of the US Navy. I have managed to win the game as the Americans with no US ship losses, but no losses and negligible damage (as was historically the case) is pretty well impossible.
The difference between the combat stats you see in the game and the Spanish fleet's paper capabilities is there to reflect those other factors (training, fuel, morale &c) where the US excelled and the Spanish fell short, and thereby better reflect the results of the war.
- BNC
Ryan O'Shea - Strategic Command Designer
https://www.youtube.com/@bitenibblechomp
https://www.youtube.com/@bitenibblechomp
Re: Wars in the Americas impressions. Spanish Navy
I agree with you say about the preparadness, training of the crews, maintenance of the assets and resource problems of the Spanish Navy. I understand that all this is already reflected in the factors that reduce the combat effectiveness of Spain in the game, so it is already penalized. However, the characteristics of the warships are badly reflected in this game in several facts, because, for example a cruiser like the San Francisco cannot be superior to the Vizcaya cruiser, because one is a protected cruiser and the latter is an armored cruiser and it is not possible change these facts. The Spanish Philippine Squadron were inferior to Adm. Dewey Squadron. Adm. Montojo,s cruisers were designed for colonial duties not for combat, and it is well reflected in the game, including the problems of the cruiser Castilla had before Manila Bay battle, but Cervera had better assets, despite of they were used inappropriately in war. Therefore, Spain is penalized twice in this scenario so it is very difficult to win with.
The problem of Spain in that war was the lack of strategy, inappropriate use of their few best assets, lack of resourses and unpreparedness for the war. but that depends on how you play the scenario and being able to change the results.
Thank you
The problem of Spain in that war was the lack of strategy, inappropriate use of their few best assets, lack of resourses and unpreparedness for the war. but that depends on how you play the scenario and being able to change the results.
Thank you
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Trismegiste
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Re: Wars in the Americas impressions
Hi !
I was wondering whether there would be other dlc representing other conflicts such as thé crimean Wars or thé Italian Independence Wars ?
Any plans or should i start learning how to mod ?
Finale, would thé Map editor allow for thé représentation of colonial conflicts ? By allowing me to mod south east Asia for instance ?
Thank you !
I was wondering whether there would be other dlc representing other conflicts such as thé crimean Wars or thé Italian Independence Wars ?
Any plans or should i start learning how to mod ?
Finale, would thé Map editor allow for thé représentation of colonial conflicts ? By allowing me to mod south east Asia for instance ?
Thank you !
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BiteNibbleChomp
- Posts: 544
- Joined: Mon Sep 12, 2016 1:52 am
- Location: Australia
Re: Wars in the Americas impressions
We're always working on new content, but I can't say any more than that at this timeTrismegiste wrote: ↑Thu Apr 06, 2023 11:59 am Hi !
I was wondering whether there would be other dlc representing other conflicts such as thé crimean Wars or thé Italian Independence Wars ?
Any plans or should i start learning how to mod ?
Finale, would thé Map editor allow for thé représentation of colonial conflicts ? By allowing me to mod south east Asia for instance ?
Thank you !
The editor is very flexible - ACW is built on the same editor (with a few tweaks of course) that was used to create the WWI and II games, and more recently we've extended it to more diverse settings in WITA. I did write a Napoleonic mod for SC2 a number of years ago, and the SC3 editor is considerably more powerful than the SC2 one was, so there's a lot of possibilities out there.
As for colonial campaigns, I've designed one of these (at least sort of) with the Cuban theatre of 1898, and I'd be confident in saying that any 'conventional' colonial conflict would be doable with a bit of creativity (Anglo-Zulu war anyone?). I suspect wholly counter-insurgent conflicts such as Philippines 1899 or Vietnam in the 1960s would be more challenging, though probably possible if you think it through carefully.
There was a fairly well developed mod proposal (though I think it's since been abandoned) for a futuristic space battle campaign a while back, with capturable planets and fleets of starships. If someone was able to make the editor do that... well I'd say the sky's the limit, but that mod made the saying obsolete
- BNC
Ryan O'Shea - Strategic Command Designer
https://www.youtube.com/@bitenibblechomp
https://www.youtube.com/@bitenibblechomp
Re: Wars in the Americas impressions
Russian Civil War, Taiping Rebellion all have great number of factions and diplomacy possible in a typical SC game. Looking for a designer for this project.. 