Did you not look at anything posted by Garnier? There is no penalty in an unmodded game. That is the point we are trying to make. Sure your troops may be tired but in the unmodded game that doesn't impact anything except the fact they can't doubletime. If the troops arrive at the same point at the same time using the same route with no fatigue malus there is a problem.
I don't follow you. In the vanilla game the troops fatigue level is severely impacted. This affects their ability to fight. Exhausted troops won't hit a barn door at 50 yards for one thing. A tired or weary unit will inflict fewer casualties in a firefight against a fresher unit and the losses will make them fold and run sooner. Fatigued troops are almost useless and will always lose vs fresh troops.
Fatigue is everything.
Fatigue increases when you march across country (particularly if you make your troops cross numerous fences and walls).
Troops using roads remain fresh. This is the benefit of roads.
Last edited by Saddletank on Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
HITS & Couriers - a different and realistic way to play SoW MP.
Well, the discussion has progressed for long enough that I feel the urge to put in a thought. Or two. Or three. And so and so forth.
I'll start of by looking at the actual speeds of infantry in the unitglobal file. It says infantry marches at 4 miles per hour and double quicks at 8 miles per hour. Now, this is just plain wrong. Regulation Direct Step / Common Time says a soldier should march 28 inches per step, 90 steps per minute, a total of 2.386 miles per hour. Quick Time is 2.917 mph, Double Quick Time is either 5.156 or 5.625 (depending upon what drill manual is being used), and a Run is considered an all out sprint. Bear in mind that soldiers were well trained to march at these distances and cadences, for commands needed to be able to march in these precise times to conduct their formation changes efficiently.
So two things make sense here. One is that soldiers march at specific speeds regardless of whether they are fresh or fatigued because they have been trained rigorously to do so. The second is that SOW has boosted the speeds of Quick Time and Double Quick Time because the whole game operates at slightly faster than real time (and yes, Norb told me this). The only problem I have is that troops are excessively fatigued moving at the double quick (which really isn't all that fast, troops were known to double quick for a mile or two in the Civil War).
At this point I move heavily into my own opinions and less based on facts. As an elite cross-country runner (credentials of 2nd in State), I will agree with others that running/marching across fields is far slower and more exhausting than on a road. However, because soldiers are trained to march in cadence, I will suggest that they should move at the same rate regardless of what flat open terrain they are crossing, although they should become more fatigued than marching on a road. What should heavily increase the time needed to march cross-country are woods, fences, stonewalls, orchards, buildings, obstacles, ponds, you name it. Without pioneers to the front, troops must stop at each fenceline, hop over, reform ranks, then move on again. (Bear in mind that that is only in line, otherwise they would make a hole in the fence and march through, which would still take a bit of time.) They must march around buildings and attempt to avoid woods and orchards, which will lead to disorganization. So in short, although the cadence should be the same, even tactical road marching (even along country lanes) should be more effective because troops do not have to avoid obstacles and are significantly less fatigued by the end of the march.
I am aware that SOW attempts to take what I just said above into account by introducing fatigue and speed penalties for crossing terrain obstacles. However, I believe that because it is so much faster to march cross-country without significant delay or fatigue deficit, the stock game does not do a good job in accurately portraying Civil War troop movement.
Now I'm sure that statement is going to lead many people to say "So Mod it then!" In response, I say that you need to stop flipping sides when it comes to this game. Most people here will agree that SOW is attempting to create an accurate Civil War simulation that happens to be a fun game. Otherwise, why would they take the time to hand-craft the maps and uniforms to excessive detail. Why would they attempt to make the Order of Battle as accurate as they can? We can't say, oh, let this important detail slip by and then scream bloody murder if they get a formation or uniform slightly off. So if SOW is attempting to continue their tradition of creating the finest Civil War simulator ever made, there is always room for improvement.
So in conclusion, I will agree with some of those out there: SOW should re-look their portrait of Civil War movement and attempt to improve it. I'm not saying now, but it is something, along with many other things, that could be improved at some point. At the moment, SOW is the greatest Civil War Simulation out there, but I do not believe that is a good reason for complacancy. Continuing improvement, scattered in with new releases, is something the team should look into. Some day, without improvement on the behalf of SOW, another company will come along with a more accurate portrayal of the Civil War and take over this niche market. I believe the SOW team understands this, and will attempt to continue their tradition. I believe that SOW should take a fond look at all this squabbling, for it shows that there are a number of people out there who are dedicated to the improvement of this game.
Other people could mod the pipe creek maps to play like the rest of the maps in GCM.
Fatigue does affect combat ability slightly in stock, and also in GCM (far more severely).
MTG has spent weeks fixing these
Just to poke fun -- with a certain mod tool these should be fixable in a matter of minutes, unless the tool doesn't work right, in which case I want some feedback.
Finally, to those good people who make the really long posts I avoid reading:
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
Last edited by Garnier on Fri Jul 13, 2012 6:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:fixed quote tags
I don't follow you. In the vanilla game the troops fatigue level is severely impacted. This affects their ability to fight. Exhausted troops won't hit a barn door at 50 yards for one thing. A tired or weary unit will inflict fewer casualties in a firefight against a fresher unit and the losses will make them fold and run sooner. Fatigued troops are almost useless and will always lose vs fresh troops.
Fatigue is everything.
Fatigue increases when you march across country (particularly if you make your troops cross numerous fences and walls).
Troops using roads remain fresh. This is the benefit of roads.
A fatigue level that doesn't impact the speed of unit is not a malus.
A fatgue level that doesn't significantly impact ROF or acuracy is not a malus.
I agree fatigue should be an impact but you are significantly overstating the impact in the stock game.
Did you not look at anything posted by Garnier? There is no penalty in an unmodded game. That is the point we are trying to make. Sure your troops may be tired but in the unmodded game that doesn't impact anything except the fact they can't doubletime. If the troops arrive at the same point at the same time using the same route with no fatigue malus there is a problem.
I don't follow you. In the vanilla game the troops fatigue level is severely impacted. This affects their ability to fight. Exhausted troops won't hit a barn door at 50 yards for one thing. A tired or weary unit will inflict fewer casualties in a firefight against a fresher unit and the losses will make them fold and run sooner. Fatigued troops are almost useless and will always lose vs fresh troops.
Fatigue is everything.
Fatigue increases when you march across country (particularly if you make your troops cross numerous fences and walls).
Troops using roads remain fresh. This is the benefit of roads.
In the stock game, fatigue hardy impacts a regiment's firepower. An exhausted regiment still kills. In the GCM, an exhausted regiment is pretty much useless.
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
My Harvard educated English teacher suggests that any work of literature should be as long as the writer deems necessary to get the point across. In terms of what people have written, I believe it to be pretty concise. Perhaps people are getting to the point where long blocks of text are not read because those individuals are too used to reading text messages and facebook posts.
Of course, I'm assuming your comment was a jest, and I would extend the same principle to mine.
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
My Harvard educated English teacher suggests that any work of literature should be as long as the writer deems necessary to get the point across. In terms of what people have written, I believe it to be pretty concise. Perhaps people are getting to the point where long blocks of text are not read because those individuals are too used to reading text messages and facebook posts.
Of course, I'm assuming your comment was a jest, and I would extend the same principle to mine.
There's a difference between literature and making a point on a forum.
Just to poke fun -- with a certain mod tool these should be fixable in a matter of minutes, unless the tool doesn't work right, in which case I want some feedback.
Yeah, my phrase did imply that was continuous effort didn't it? It wasn't. He just took breaks between runs of his road-fixing tool while working on other aspects of his mod such as having all the map contours drawn and other bits and pieces
The actual fixing was a minimal task, but it is now done and saves others doing the same job.
I agree fatigue should be an impact but you are significantly overstating the impact in the stock game.
Odd because I notice its effect in the vanilla game significantly, if I don't have my units well rested before combat I can almost predict I'll have trouble in any firefight with units getting twitchy and falling back.
Last edited by Saddletank on Fri Jul 13, 2012 11:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
HITS & Couriers - a different and realistic way to play SoW MP.
