One of the strengths of For The People is that it seems to have transformed Union players into near-copies of real-life commanders from the 1860s, despite them having more than one opportunity to refight the war. Perhaps a rare element of design success is whether a game evokes the ethos of the period. For The People certainly does this, and when I read comments like "however can I save Washington" and "once beaten the Army of the Potomac must retreat to avoid a total pasting" I feel some strange forces must be at work somewhere. So the game follows history in this respect, inasmuch as it poses a military question that apparently tends to overwhelm the hapless Union player. An extremely important point generally missed is that a winner can continue attacking if he started his attack with 2:1 odds. This means that on turns one and two, Beauregard cannot afford to lose a battle, even after a strength-sapping victory, as he may then run out of men and lose Richmond and ultimately the war. Even on turn 1, with both sides on +1, the CSA faces total disaster if the USA rolls a 5 or a 6 to win a battle, in combination with two or more attacking cards. Previous analyses of combat appear to consider one combat die roll in isolation, which is not helpful. Thus the significance of the 2:1 effect is lost, as is the all-important leader-loss rule and the nature of the casualty table that tends to create 2:1 situations. Most importantly such situations develop over the course of successive battles and their aftermaths, usually occasioned by two or more cards played sequentially. Here are a few opinions: Winning battles means nothing in itself. Confederate casualties are everything. The Navy is more important than the chaps who stagger, trot, and get stuck in fords ashore. The Confederate States appear to have little hope at game start. I suppose this last point is the most important since it can turn For The People into a police action, though this happens just rarely enough for it to be believable and not to detract from the game in any way. The big point in the opening game is that the Confederates get no reinforcements on turn 3. The addition shows that the Union player starts with eight strength points in the east, gets eight more in DC, and can transport 15 on turn 2 to the DC area which makes 31. The CSA starts with five SPs [strength points] can transport only seven on turn 2 plus the distant possibility of two SPs of local reinforcements with which to defend Richmond. 31 versus 14 [at best] looks terribly unfair, especially with a glance at the battle table. Whatever may befall the Confederacy during turn 1, the first battle of turn two will be a major one, with major losses, but after that we fight medium battles which will favour the Union attacker. The CSA must never be allowed to concentrate 5SPs in Beauregard's Corps so that it can become the Army of Northern Virginia [ANV], but this is not difficult with the CRT so firmly on the side of blueness. Most of the turn two Union generals go to the Army of the Potomac to maximise chances that they get the highest possible die roll modifier here. Actually losing a battle at this time, which is not unlikely given the similar die roll modifiers extant, is a disaster for the Confederacy made worse if the Union has the movement points to attack a second time off the same card. This is hardened further if that battle is a major one or if a Confederate general is removed as a result of a modified ten die roll. Deaths among the Union are less likely to be significant due to the confederacy of dunces in McDowell's tent, and this can even be beneficial to the Union cause if a poor general with a high political rating, such as Banks, is eliminated. The game within a game here is to reduce the CSA to fewest SPs by the start of turn three. On turn 3 the CSA will hopefully be trying to forestall the loss of Richmond by scraping together whatever is left in the states under their control, and transporting them to the capital on the creaking railway system. The only factor which mitigates against all this is a dearth of "3"-operation and/or campaign cards, not forgetting events like "Forward to Richmond" which are always useful at this time, among the four cards dealt on turn 1 and five cards on turn 2. A flippant answer to this is that if you are unlucky you are going to lose anyway. Even in the worst case situations, your cards can be used to further the Union cause by PC marker placement, fort-building, event playing or - as an absolute last resort -- replacement of McDowell with a more energetic but seriously less able general such as Pope. However it could be argued that any such action is treason, especially if you get lots of "3" cards on the next turn. A recent game saw four "2" cards on turn 1, but a campaign and three "3"s on turn 2. The ANV formed after losing a third of its strength, and then it was crushed by five attacks in three cards, greatly helped by Joe Johnston and Jeb Stuart leading many of their comrades through the pearly gates. As for the Union losses -- so what? I couldn't be bothered counting! And this is by no means a highly unusual result it was merely very good albeit being delayed until turn 2. Brilliance The brilliance of this game lies in the manner in which it affects the players. It is all there, it is not very obscure, but as in certain other games players seem not to want to do the obvious, and in this way the game has them acting in manner not unlike the real thing. This is true design perfection. The one clear downside to the game is that it is more interesting to play the Union side. The Confederacy has its fans, but it is essentially a punchbag that must hope to exhaust its assailant before losing its stuffing. Playing the game reveals the central and perhaps most brilliant mechanic of it:- the leader-loss rules. I don't care whether the demise of Stuart was caused by him being struck by a meteorite, falling off his horse or joining a monastery, or even all three -- it doesn't matter. Seeking a rationale, beyond the danger of combat, for the nature of the leader-loss rule is not important, what is important is that generals die off at a historically appropriate rate. The point is that one really should prepare for and be aware of the likelihood of these occurrences. Previous articles state that the Army of Northern Virginia is all-powerful in one sentence then bemoans the loss of a general that made them so in the next, an effect caused directly by this rule. One might ask where they got the rebs to fight with, but we can be sure they had fewer after putting their assembled generals' modifiers to the test. Forts do nothing to limit losses, and tend to increase those of generals, so similarly fort building should be done with an awareness of the character of last-ditch defence. "Washington must inevitably be taken". What we can agree on is the Way to Win: all three border states, the big river, the trans-Mississippi states and Richmond will take the Confederate Strategic Will to zero. Does losing Washington affect this? Only if it is exchanged for Richmond, which is the hardest target on the list, whereupon the defeat of the Confederacy is hastened. The main problem of losing Washington is the need to retake it [and the SW loss] but in so doing the occupying Confederate army tends to come off worse. Protection of Washington can generally be secured by blocking spaces and threatening interceptions onto them, which the ANV cannot afford to risk. The ANV's limited reserves of strength will not stand being brought to battle on both its own and its opponent's turn indefinitely. Conversion of PC markers will also slow the advance of either side, and many Army of the Potomac activations will engender PC markers as a side effect of their main activity. Losing Washington is a consideration, perhaps something that gives some hope to the disadvantaged Confederacy, but it is only a hope for them, and not a dull Union inevitability. The rebels can knock down US SW via winning major battles, raiding into Union-controlled states, and taking resource spaces, which apart from DC is not a significant effect. Union war weariness is significant [its interesting to compare this to the We The People situation where PC markers become vulnerable as most spaces contain PC markers toward game end]. Two other important effects that will benefit them, or reduce the Union SW are "changing fortunes of war" and event cards, which thus should always be played even though [and this is a recurrent game feature] other uses of the card seem more pressing. Even a loss of two or three points of Union SW may extend the game to the end of 1864 and force the Union to concede to an otherwise devastated Confederacy. However the Confederacy rarely if ever get the big SW benefits of state, resource space and river control, nor the blockade, and they cannot effectively prevent the majority of these benefits being garnered by the Union side. Incursions in Union states can generally be prevented if the desire or necessity to liberate Tennessee or Virginia can be avoided [unless the considerable SW benefit for controlling them tips the Confederacy into defeat either immediately, or within a turn or two]. There is a single blue event that reduces Confederate SW and this should be played as an event if it appears in a Union hand. During the war the USN could put a naval shell through most rebels' front doors, as most of them lived within naval artillery range of navigable waters. Part of this naval dominance is demonstrated by the blockade rule. The CSA is enveloped by a double-canopy of barriers, the first is the blockade track, and the second layer is developed during the game by Union amphibious landings that take Blockade ports, and the coastal forts that protect them. This is an enormously important effect, since as the canopy becomes impermeable, the CSA can lose up to 4 SPs and 11 SW [Strategic Will] a turn, and even half this maximum will cause the South to lose the war faster than any other effect. Thus the most important card in the game, the one with Admiral Farragut's portrait, allows an amphibious assault past a garrisoned fort to attack its port directly. This is in the style of a type of German game, where various special abilities will confer the ability to break or ignore certain rules. Gaining Farragut twice in the first few turns as the result of a reshuffle can be a major factor in winning the game, and his obvious first target is not Mobile but New Orleans, whose importance will cause the Confederate player to make it the first garrisoned coastal fort. Otherwise the first amphibious landing will be at the other blockade port of the Western Gulf zone, Sabine City, TX, as this is undefended and also threatens the loss of Texas. The next naval target is Morehead City, as it is also undefended, and allows the rail line to be cut at its weakest link, Weldon, NC, as well as giving an opportunity to take Wilmington by the back door. Florida looks easy but is probably a dissipation of effort easily forgotten about when there is much to do and too few cards to do everything -- and anyway it is pre-occupied in some of the scenarios, so why make the effort? Mid-Game The mid-game is a period of superior Confederate generalship, where the benefits of winning battles can be gained if they are willing to pay the price in blood while facing an enemy whose lavish reinforcements will have been on-stream for a number of turns. However, apart from a lack of SPs, the Confederates also lack transport, and so cannot waste it in destination theatres like Tennessee. If a Confederate army is eliminated there it is not so much the loss of men which is the limiting factor, but the impossibility of transporting the SPs of a new army into this theatre on the low-capacity rail net. Out west the Mississippi-Missouri riverway cuts the states of Texas, Arkansas and Missouri off from the rest of the world [Louisiana too, as travel in or out is mostly marine or riverine which by default is USN-controlled]. There are only a few crossing points for rebel units, which must also be controlled by Confederate forts. Thus the Union Army of the West can storm though this area remarkably quickly, and once they and their local forces are lost to the Confederacy, the Confederate defences along the big river will fall also, sealing them off and preventing the enormous political damage caused by rebel re-occupation. The ease of this conquest is due to the usual reason -- lack of strength points - made even worse by the sickening effect of attrition, which will always devalue any attempt to concentrate men in gray [or "grey": it appears many gentlemen of the Confederacy spelled the same way as their Scottish governesses]. Attrition also goes a long way to evening out battle losses in percentage terms between victors and losers, but every strength point lost to the Confederacy is another nail in each of its coffins. How to play the Confederates: Interception is often the most powerful option, if opposition is unlikely to win a 2:1 battle, and you have enough SPs. Using this two armies can protect North Carolina during the endgame. Half the Confederate war effort is on the cards in the form of events, and any such cards that reduce Union SW should be played if at all possible. Try not to lose men. Survive to win on SW in 1864. 900-pound gorillas need a lot of bananas and tend to be shot dead by myopic hunters at long range ie. they are very fragile. My conflicting impression of these impressive conflicts is that "all-powerful" armies merely put their men and their generals at greater risk. The Union will not complain if the CSA is losing men even on its own card plays! So don't put all your 1-3 leaders in the same army, I wouldn't have thought it needed to be said for if you do, the monastery beckons. Try to armour the coast, indeed do the Atlantic Wall 80 years early, Fort Philip-Jackson first. Try to take a border state. Raid any and all Union states where raiding, controlling three spaces and cutting supply lines, is possible. Time is on your side and survival will procure a default victory. The West is a tricky game, the inevitable can be delayed but usually only at the expense of limiting reinforcements to the ANV. How to play the Union: Kick off by attacking Beauregard [with McDowell] at every possible opportunity. Keep attacking until you have 2:1 odds where you can attack on every movement point. Roll a 5 or a 6 and you really stuff him. Keep his corps under five SPs to prevent formation of the Army of Northern Virginia. Kill rebels. If you can't attack, look as if you can; place PCs in West Virginia, and in Kentucky or Missouri to prevent them from being controlled by the rebels, and guard Washington's right flank. Send all reinforcements possible to Washington and always try to have a 3SP in surplus as a naval landing force. Don't do anything silly, like building forts or changing commander, unless absolutely necessary, then count yourself unlucky. On turn 2 put all generals and reinforcements into Washington DC. Keep attacking and regard as a prize for your labours the removal of any Confederate general. Try to prepare the North Atlantic and Western Gulf Blockade zones for permanent closure. From the start play all blockade cards; leave Amphibious Assault modifier events until they are definitely required. Overrun the river forts, exploit the inability of the CSA to bridge rivers in this area to its utmost, take Nashville, and canter through the trans-Mississippi states. Trade SPs two for one and see who wins. Taking Richmond is hard but take the exchange if it is offered, take it, if it is also possible to destroy the army in DC. I think this is one of the most brilliant designs ever produced. It allows the ACW to be played out in a short period of time, which is very short in comparison to other games on the same subject. There are numerous sub-games in which the Union player can immerse himself such as reducing CSA SP by turn three, landings along the coasts, controlling states, taking the river forts, cutting up the Confederate rail network and so on. The Confederate player is cast in the role of antagonist, and an underdog in terms of play balance, but one with powerful forces of counteraction on the board and in the cards. This ensures maximum player enjoyment in a historically accurate setting with great repeat play value. For the People Strategy (PA#99) For The People Review (PA#98) For The People Review (PA#97) Back to Perfidious Albion #100 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com