Victory Points

[Hancock the Superb]

What the hell are you talking about. HOLD THOSE PLACES TO THE LAST MAN SOLDIER!;)

[Gfran64]

Hey Hancock,

You're right. You have to jump on the VP's if you want to score well. Problem is that in the pursuit of the VP, you move away from the historical nature of the game. Champion Hill Scenario 11, You, (Barlow), have orders to support the left of Lee's Brigade. You are the extreme left of the rebel army. The VP is 800yds to your South at a cross roads in the other direction. Stevenson's division, (3 brigades with arty), which you are a part of, must to hold back 2 Yankee divisions coming up the Clinton Road. Now what do you do? If you jump on the VP and bail on Barlow then his left flank is in the air and he'll get crushed but you'll score 400 points easy, then you bail on the VP when the Yankees come up the Clinton Road, and then get a major victory without ever engaging the enemy.

If you follow your orders then you'll never get any credit for the VP and will probably have a minor to major defeat but he Yankees won't get the VP either. So what is the proper way to play? Shouldn't I get some credit for tying up 2 Yankee brigades with my 1 brigade and drawing them North, away from the VP and killing more of them that they did me, (that resulted in a minor defeat as far as scoring went). Or, should I get 490 something points for bailing on my orders, not supporting Barlow's flank and causing more casualties on our side than was needed. I played this scenario both ways and won, (major victory) playing the jump on the VP style and lost (minor Defeat) playing the militarily accurate style. I felt better about the second way even though I lost because I accomplished my orders, "Support Barlow's left." It would be like General Vincent pulling his brigade off Little Round Top on day 2 of GB and Jumping on a VP at say Devil's Den just because it was there. It would make no military sense but if the game puts a VP there then you've got to go get it if you want to score well.

Regards,

Greg

[chantilly]

The solution is much simpler than you would think. The VP's are the sole responsibilty of the scenario designer. With the option of making a VP a waypoint ,a minor or major objective, the scenario designer can put time restraints on such VP's. Hold point X for Y amount of time, then move on as you please.

Greg, when you get a little bit of modding experience, you will see how flexible this game engine is. But now the bad news ( and different can of worms ); when some mods were released in .mmg format, we modders can't crack them. It would take me a few minutes to adjust those VP's in your Champion Hill scenarios to make them more historical ( or even make them to your liking ), then ship them to you, so you could play them.

Hope this helps.

[Gfran64]

Please don't get me wrong. I love playing these scenarios. They are 1/2 hour of pure fun. They are well designed and the map is really, really great. I just think the VP locations for the defensive battles conflict with your orders. It is arranged such that if you try to do both, you'll do neither well. I think that if your orders are to support the left of a brigade then the VP ought to be near the left of the brigade you are to support not 800 yards away. If you are to defend a crossroads in a delaying action then the VP shouldn't be placed 400yds behind the unit tasked to defend it. Rather, put it 400yds in front of the crossroads, where the brigade (Cumming) is located at the beginning of the battle, for 10 minutes then back it up to the crossroads and put it there for the remainder of the contest.

Now if that can be fixed with simple modding great. With that said, I'm scared to death of modding myself. I'm afraid I'll screw the whole game up. I'm by no means stupid, unless of course you talk to my wife. So if someone can point me in the right direction, I'll take crack at it. The forums have been a great help so far.

Thanks,

Greg

[Hancock the Superb]

The only thing I have trouble in the Champion Hill scenarios (off topic, I know) is that you can't move around a lot, and with the terrain, I really need to move around, especially within a division!