Do we have an ACW problem?

[Sark]

I noticed when reading Singleton Moseby's excellent Japan AAR that the US civil war fired off in 1849. Not that I have a problem with that - after all it's nice that the game isn't locked into specific dates for things like that. But it did seem odd to me because the date seemed familiar. As it turns out, 1849 is also when the US civil war fired off in Darkrenown's earlier American civil war based AAR. Looking further, the only other AAR that has gotten that far was Jarkko Suvinen's Germany AAR. While he didn't ever mention events in the US, the world map from 1852 shows a seperate CSA. So 3/3 on early ACW events.

That seems odd to me, that the ACW has fired off early in all three examples. And you can't blame it on beta versions either, as Moseby is using a release version of the game for his AAR. I mentioned my concerns in the comment thread for Moseby's game but nobody responded.

Today I was involved in a discussion about Vic2 on another board (QT3) and provided the above examples. Johan even responded, as he posts there on occasion, but he seemed to interpret my comments as being critical of the idea of an early ACW instead and didn't address the "always early" implication.

So here's the kicker: Tom Chick (reviewer, blogs at Fidgit.com), who has a version 1.1 of the game, saw my comments. Here's his response on QT3:

It looks like the American Civil War is pretty rigidly coded in version 1.1. I just ran five test games, letting the clock run until the CSA formed. It happened in the first half of 1849 without fail.

Okay, I lied. In one game, the CSA formed in December 1848.

-Tom

If there is a glitch/bug involved here, I hope Paradox has already addressed it in whatever day one patch is planned.

 

[unmerged(23205)]

I thought that it was assumed that the Civil War would be broken. The game mechanics themselves can't properly model it, so it always ends up flying off into fantasy land. Even with VIPR.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Hmm, now that's odd. Might need some tweaking.

 

[Vox Imperatoris]

This does seem like a problem, and they ought to look into it. However, it's not any stupider than having the Civil War break out in 1860 like clockwork; in fact, 1850 (or close to that date) is perfectly conceivable if the Compromise of 1850 hadn't gone through as it did. Still, it shouldn't automatically break out in any one year.

What I really want to know (though I suppose we'll find out soon enough) is what happens when the federal government goes relentlessly pro-slavery to the point that the North rebels. King said that this was a possibility, but it would be a shame if it was represented by the South seceding anyway, when they would have no reason to do so. After all, if the Democrats had stayed unified in the election of 1860, they would easily have beaten Abraham Lincoln, and Dred Scott (slavery is legal everywhere) would likely have been actually enforced. It's easy to imagine that at least some states would find this intolerable and secede (especially since it was the North who railed for states' rights and nullification during the 1850s against the South who wanted a strong enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law).

Also, sometimes, there should be no secession at all, as it was by no means an inevitable event. And when there is secession, there should only be a chance of war breaking out over it, not an absolute guarantee.

 

[SAS]

From reading some of the AAR's it looks like it will happen sooner if you do not use the "house gag rule" decision. From what I have seen it looks good to me. But who am I, I don't even have the game

 

[semaphore]

Because a sample size of 5 is totally statistically significant.

That said what are the conditions for ACW?

 

[Vox Imperatoris]

I just thought of another thing: people tend to think of the Southern secession as one big event, but it actually happened in two stages. First, the Deep South seceded, starting with South Carolina, immediately after the election of Lincoln. However, Virginia and the other "northern Southern" states did not want to secede until it became clear that Lincoln wanted an aggressive response and ordered them to raise the militia, which they were not willing to use to fight the Confederates. So, it occurs to me that when secession happens, if you choose an aggressive response as the Union, you have a large chance of expanding the Confederacy, as opposed to leaving them alone. If they are left alone, and the Confederacy is just a small number of states, then they should have a fairly large chance of eventually rejoining the Union once tensions settle down. Perhaps that is mod material, though.

 

[Ex Mudder]

I wonder if there is a decision that becomes available then that the AI always chooses "wrong". Have any games with the US played by a human had the ACW kick off on that date as well? I think King posted about one where he used a NF to jump start the North's Armerments industry, but I forget the date.

I had noticed the early ACWs, hadn't noticed they all hit on the same date though. Perhaps a borked mtth could be to blame. Or, like I said, a broken decision, possibly the compromise of 1850.

 

[jinif]

Sounds like there should be some kind of "Compromise of 1850" event, to deal with the aftermath of the Mexican war,

 

[gamer42_au]

Surely the Mexican war of 1846 is not inevitable in 1836.
Many in the North felt that the Mexican War was prompted largely by a desire to expand the potential slave states (more territory south of the Mason-Dixon line). There was a proposal to invade and annex Cuba on this basis.

Fundamentally, the South was concerned about that demographic expansion of the North (in conjunction with its anti-slavery attitude). Eventually, they would lose their filibuster and slavery could be outlawed.
Most people in the North disliked slavery, but didn't care that much. The Fugitive Acts (which forced northern states to assist in the return of fugitive slaves) were deeply unpopular. The expansion of slavery into new territories was more strongly opposed.

Civil war as early as 1849 was certainly possible, though probably unlikely. The fighting in Kansas over whether it was to be a slave or free state hardened attitudes on both sides, and made war ultimately more likely.

 

[wilcoxchar]

If the US doesn't invade Mexico, I can definitely see the South breaking off that early as Congress is inevitably going to be overrun with abolitionists as the rest of the Louisiana Purchase becomes states.

 

[Orinsul]

does Virginia have to join the south? i mean how much control you do have over which states rebel?
as if virginia wasnt in the border would be this nice straight line
and if were talking ahistorical, we might as well get tidy

 

[Sark]

If the US doesn't invade Mexico, I can definitely see the South breaking off that early as Congress is inevitably going to be overrun with abolitionists as the rest of the Louisiana Purchase becomes states.

In one of the AAR's the US had defeated Mexico and acquired it's historical territory from that and the civil war still broke out. So it almost seems like it doesn't really matter.

Johan has responded on QT3 to the discussion related to this issue. The implication of his comments seems (as far as I can tell) to indicate that an 1849 firing of the ACW is very likely and that the only way to delay that would be for an active US player to make the right choices. I'm not sure that's how I would have preferred they had dealt with the event.

There is a chain of several dozens of events and decisions that guide you through the pre-civil war conflicts.

Exact dates of when a us civil war breaks out was completely irrelevant for us in the development process. What mattered to us was to make it interesting to play the USA and that avoiding a civil war should be a challenge.

 

[King]

We are looking at what we can do to slow down the ACW a bit in the next patch. At the end of the day given the choice between an early ACW and no ACW, guess which we went for?

 

[Sark]

We are looking at what we can do to slow down the ACW a bit in the next patch. At the end of the day given the choice between an early ACW and no ACW, guess which we went for?

While I certainly don't know the details of how the event fires (and the multiple factors involved), in a case where the player isn't involved I would have thought that an American civil war event would neither be automatic or most likely to fire at an early date. Instead I would have expected a range of possibilities and even a chance that it would never happen. I expect the same thing from most of the games events. To me having that event fire pretty consistently in 1849 would be similar to Germany always uniting in 1848 in a hands off game or something equally significant. If nothing else, knowing that something will probably happen allows the player to "game" the event to their advantage.

 

[SA_Avenger]

That's why people should vote for vic2 expansion with ACW focus

 

[Syt]

I like that it's hard to avoid the ACW as human player (and hop there's a few bullets to bite if you want to do so). I guess the AI "only" needs to learn how to avoid it, too.

 

[King]

While I certainly don't know the details of how the event fires (and the multiple factors involved), in a case where the player isn't involved I would have thought that an American civil war event would neither be automatic or most likely to fire at an early date. Instead I would have expected a range of possibilities and even a chance that it would never happen. I expect the same thing from most of the games events. To me having that event fire pretty consistently in 1849 would be similar to Germany always uniting in 1848 in a hands off game or something equally significant. If nothing else, knowing that something will probably happen allows the player to "game" the event to their advantage.

What are you trying to say here? That we deliberately set the ACW to fire early to ruin your game?

 

[SAS]

We are looking at what we can do to slow down the ACW a bit in the next patch. At the end of the day given the choice between an early ACW and no ACW, guess which we went for?

+1

 

[Sark]

What are you trying to say here? That we deliberately set the ACW to fire early to ruin your game?

Unless I'm misunderstanding him, Johan's comments on QT3 make it sound like the ACW is set to fire early barring player involvement. Sounds deliberate to me.

I'm just expressing my opinion that the ACW should fire over a range of time in situations where the player is not involved and not fire early instead by default.