Crazy idea!

[Wandering1]

2 hours ago, A. P. Hill said:

Not really so crazy.

I've said all along that I want an overview map of the entire part of the U.S. where the ACW was fought with all the battlefields as selectable locations that once selected take you to the maps that exist in game to battle it out. 

Perhaps like Tom Clancy's Endwar UI? Even though the game itself wasn't too spectacular.

[Keepbro]

What about a massively multiplayer version of this game? So you could have massive Civil War style battles but have players as officers controlling small bodies of men - higher ranked officers are players with more experience and whilst they too control groups of men they also are the ones who give orders and are in charge of supply and medics and so forth. In fact you could even have players working small ambulance groups healing soldiers and players acting as supply officers handing out ammo and cartridges. You could even go further and have reconnaissance, spying, chaplains and the like so that the feel of an actual army is portrayed. Finally you get Generals and their staff with runners and aides running around passing orders back and forth which I think would give a much more realistic feel to a battle.

[waldopbarnstormer]

I like the idea of using the endwar interface, that way you could replicate the western campaign in more detail without the map jumping from Fredericksburg to stones river and you get to reuse the army of Virginia in Tennessee.

Another way to go would be like the close combat series later games like 4 and 5 with the campaign map split into sectors.

[Squadron HQ]

If you set max brigade size to 10,000~, the player could combine & uncombine divisions at will (and the division commander would appear). The problem would be tlhe AI. 

If you combined *all* the maps in the game, with random generation strategic points (or maybe devs set strategic points and x% of them actually appear) and made it a multiplayer game, in which you buy and equip your army at the start, it would be really cool. 

The game can run on a day/night cycle already, so simply run it from the hours of 5am to 8pm and have it stretch over a # of days set by the player. Reinforcements & cash flow can be set too. If you wanted you could super simplify it by giving the confederates high reinforcements & cash flow at the start, falling over time, and the union having higher reinforcements & cash flow as the battle progresses by days. 

You could then fight a 150,000 man battle over the whole map over a period of three or four days. Or, perhaps a week! Then it might be... a seven days battle.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Personally, the smaller battles are far more enjoyable. I prefer micro-managing 10 brigades than macro-managing a hundred. Not that managing a hundred isn't fun, but sometimes less is more. 

I look forward to Civil War 2.0 where you have 2-4-6-8 player battles, each player with a few divisions or a light corps on historic battlefields; both co-op and pvp. Please, make it so. 

Edited January 31, 2017 by Andre Bolkonsky

[Ohen]

5 hours ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

Personally, the smaller battles are far more enjoyable. I prefer micro-managing 10 brigades than macro-managing a hundred. Not that managing a hundred isn't fun, but sometimes less is more.

There is a thing called "The Paradox of Choice" which is just what you are talking about.
And i know that exact feeling. My threshold for enjoyment is between 15 and 20 units. Anything more than that and after i while i just say hello kitty It! And just charge my units in willynilly. Not becouse i feel like i lost a grasp of the tactical position, more becouse with that number of choices prioritizing becomes a problem and without prioritizing all units lose their value.

This is the reason i enjoy the small engagements alot more than the grand battles. Sure it looks cool with thousands upon thousands of little dudes running around shooting. But it very quickly becomes stale becouse i lost intrest in the units themselves.

One thing i would like with the small engagements is bigger maps. Not alot bigger, just a little little little bit. Sometimes they can feel crowded, even with 10-15 brigades on them. Not alot of room for flanking, or massing troops at specific points for breakthroughs, etc.etc.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

8 hours ago, Ohen said:

There is a thing called "The Paradox of Choice" which is just what you are talking about.
And i know that exact feeling. My threshold for enjoyment is between 15 and 20 units. Anything more than that and after i while i just say hello kitty It! And just charge my units in willynilly. Not becouse i feel like i lost a grasp of the tactical position, more becouse with that number of choices prioritizing becomes a problem and without prioritizing all units lose their value.

This is the reason i enjoy the small engagements alot more than the grand battles. Sure it looks cool with thousands upon thousands of little dudes running around shooting. But it very quickly becomes stale becouse i lost intrest in the units themselves.

One thing i would like with the small engagements is bigger maps. Not alot bigger, just a little little little bit. Sometimes they can feel crowded, even with 10-15 brigades on them. Not alot of room for flanking, or massing troops at specific points for breakthroughs, etc.etc.

Well said. 

[Wandering1]

It's the same issue that is elegantly dealt with in an old game called World in Conflict.

It had a mix of strategy and tactics, but the player had the choice of basically figuring out how much micromanagement they wanted to do at the end of the day. Infantry being the most micromanagement intensive, whereas air (helicopters) had the least amount of micromanagement.