Minister X wrote:Regarding bonus-on-drop: in looking over what I'd have to do to eliminate the chances, I realized I made a mistake in my calculations. They're really about half of what I said they were. (I forgot about some of the neutral starters I already had!) Still, if it would be easy enough to reduce the odds still further, why not? I'm sitting at 68 deployable out of 79. The golden numbers below 68 are 67, 66, then it skips to 59. There are only three droppable continents that consist of four terts: Hagerstown Rd., Carlisle Rd., and the Confederate Left. I can put neutral starters on the first two -- it would look consistent with the other neutral starters we've created on the other roads -- and stay on a golden number. It leaves just one continent of four or fewer terts that doesn't have a neutral starter on it preventing a drop-to-bonus. I think that will be fine.
Agreed. I'm honestly a little too lazy to do the exact math here, but if bonuses get dropped more than a couple of times during Beta you might want to consider lowering the values overall as a last resort, to mitigate the effects.
Minister X wrote:According to the maps I've researched The Angle lies exactly halfway between Emmitsburg Road and Taneytown Road, so I'm going to say 'no' to this suggestion unless you can provide some compelling argument. Why did you suggest it in the first place? You provide no rationale or explanation.
Perhaps jefjef knew that the Emmitsburg Road ran directly over Cemetery Hill, and thought that the Emmitsburg Road was being shown as parallel to Cemetery Hill. In reality, since it can't have two names at once, the final stretch of the road is simply labeled as 'West Cem Hill' on this map.
Or maybe jefjef is proposing that the West Cem Hill region should be designated as part of the Emmitsburg Road bonus. That would be another case entirely, and up to the mapmaker's discretion I think. It might tie a record as the region would then be part of 3 separate bonuses (!).
In any case, the map is accurate as shown.
Minister X wrote:NEXT: I've had two PM's from a constructive critic who obvious has poor command of the English language. I think maybe he PMed me instead of posting here because he's embarrassed by that so I'll protect his identity. He wants, if I understand him correctly, where I've got red and blue army boxes corresponding to Confederate and Union forces, to have then IDed as cavalry, infantry or artillery. It's a fascinating concept that I want to consider. [He also warns me that if I fail to do this the map will be unable to qualify for inclusion in a collection of "Greatest Battles of the Civil War".]
I had responded above to one request for artillery: the range at this scale was short (essentially just to the next tert) and the guns were spread amongst the divisions. That said, there are a few places it would make sense to put artillery, and if, instead of ranged attack they were given one-way attack, then we could actually set up artillery duels. Cavalry: most of the significant cavalry action took place off this map, and cavalry mostly fought dismounted. Still, cavalry played a role in the battle and if I could find places on the flanks to put a few units, having them be able to access two terts as in Austerlitz, it would provide a taste of their importance. In each case we'd be sacrificing geographic authenticity and accuracy but gaining, IMHO, flavor-of-the-battle authenticity. [Plus I'd retain eligibility for inclusion in that collection! ]
I think that the added complexity would lower the map's popularity on this site; although I personally like involved rule sets I know that they mostly cater to a niche market on CC. If your goal is to keep the gameplay straightforward, then I think that no further gameplay elements should be added. As for the other site, you could always add those elements in for a different version of the map as I see no reason why the CC map and the 'collection map' need to be the same.
If the map does take a more complex route however, I might have some comments on the artillery in particular. The effective range of some emplacements was considerably longer than others, based in part on visibility and the time that the units had to prepare and mark the various ranges in their field of fire. The artillery on Cemetery Hill, for instance, bombarded targets accurately as far away as Benner's Hill and Seminary Ridge on the map. And of course the artillery on Seminary Ridge bombarded Cemetery Ridge and the Angle on Day 3 (and overshot it shortly thereafter). Finally I think that bombardement rules, rather than 1-way attack, makes more sense for an artillery duel.
-- Marshal Ney