[Forum Game] Nation Torn Asunder

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It is July of 1861 in the United States.
Several Southern states left the Union and Confederate Armies are nearing a clash with Federal forces by a railroad junction in Manassas, Virginia.
The War Between the States is about to begin.
This is where you – the player – come in.

Welcome to Nation Torn Asunder (NTA).
You will fill the role as a senior commander fighting for your side – North or South, Union or Confederacy – in the American Civil War.
As a player in this game, you manage and guide a select group of Generals and their armies towards victory.
The GM does most of the 'grunt work' behind the scenes stuff for you.

Note: The use of ‘he’, and ‘his’ should also mean ‘she’ and ‘hers’.

The general game flow is that each turn you confer with the other players on your side, come up with a plan, and then submit orders to the units you control.
The Game Master (GM) takes those orders and implements them on the map. Units move, capture territory and battle the enemy.
You provide the broad guidance to your forces (go here, entrench, and such) while the GM handles the details of implementation.

Of critical importance is the player’s Avatar, for the values the player assigns to that character influence the course of the game greatly.
Will yours have great initiative, able to get moving despite obstacles?
Alternatively, will he be a master of battlefield tactics or even the domestic political scene?
You decide where your character shines.

If this looks like a game for you, please post in the forum a statement to the effect that you would like to join, and which side you will play on.
You may also add a short (if I have to scroll to read it, it is too long) character biography, an image, or other game color item.
There is no requirement to do so though.
The game plays the same whether or not you write something for flavor.

If you have questions, please let me know them.

Richard Borg’s Battle Cries is the basis for this game. MastahCheef117 and his War Between the States game in this forum also inspired me to this effort.

 

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Current Game State

Forces as of 01 July 1861:

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In the event this is too small a view, and clicking on the image itself doesn't help enough, try the following link:
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/2647/sbiw.png

Avatar Status:

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Link to the activities occuring last turn.


Link to Detailed Game Rules

 

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Introduction



Game Turns - are two times a week (M & F, orders due by 1900 hours Eastern Time), with each turn usually representing a month in the game.

Player Sign Up - Post in the game forum a statement to the effect that you would like to join the game, which side you wish to join along with the name of your Avatar and its attribute levels.
You may also add a short (if I have to scroll to read it, it is too long) biography, an image, or other game color item.
There is no requirement to do so.
The game plays the same whether or not you write something up.

Note that a side may not have more than one player above the number of players on the other side during enrollment.
Therefore, if four people sign up to be Federals and two jump in as Confederates, then the last Federal applicant will have to hope another Rebel signs on before the game start.


Avatars - Your in game character.
You build it to emphasize the important traits you see in a military leader, and during the game it uses those traits to implement the guidance you provide.

An Avatar has five attributes.
Each attribute helps in the game, and generally the higher the value, the better.

The Traits and their uses are:
Motivation - Helps rally demoralized troops under your command.
Aggression - Willingness to engage the enemy in battle.
Initiative - Ability to get your troops from point A to B, despite logistical obstacles.
Tactics - Ability to influence the course of a battle in your favor.
Politics - The player President assigns Activations to allow forces to move reliably.
Who receives them is at the President’s discretion.
Your political trait is how many votes you have to use in electing your President (or getting a new one if the current administration is not to your liking).


Avatar Creation -
You have a pool of 25 points to use for character creation, and at least one point must be assigned to each attribute.
Discard unused points at the end of the creation process.
The values of each attribute is the square root of the points assigned, rounding fractions down.

Examples:
Attribute____M___A___I___T____P
Points______1___6____1___16__1
Value______1___2____1___4___1

Attribute____M___A___I___T___P
Points______1___9____4___9___1
Value______1___3____2___3___1


NOTE 1: NO ATTRIBUTE MAY HAVE A VALUE GREATER THAN FIVE.
This applies mostly to advances during the game, but I thought you might want to know now.

NOTE 2: The Political attribute may not exceed the number of players on your side.
So if there are only two players on your team, then an Avatar’s Political value may not be larger than two.
Keep in mind that the numbers of players on each side are not final till the start of the game.
So if you want to have a big value with your Political attribute, you may want to hold off on submitting your values till required to do so.

 

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Display Tour


The current map state and Leader status shows up on the page with the big ‘Current Game State’ marked on it.
The GM updates it with the latest information each turn.




The ‘Activities’ link is for detailed information on what happened during the previous turn.
The Activities section (below) of the Tour goes into a bit more detail.

The ‘Detailed Game Rules’ link is just that.
For those who just have to know every little detail of the game mechanics.
For the most part, just looking over the summaries for each rule is adequate.
This section in the spoilers is not required reading by the players as far as I can tell.



'Activities' Display
Each turn the GM publishes the actions of the turn in an ‘Activities’ post, linked to the ‘Current’ page.

Note: Until game start, the images displayed are from testing sessions.





There are five spoiler sections. Selecting each will display more details about what happened in the previous turn.

‘Turn Activity’ displays a map showing the movements of the forces during that turn.

‘Headlines’ summarizes significant activities; such as cities lost, brigades destroyed, and other such.

‘Orders’ accounts for what each Group tried to accomplish that turn.

‘Narrative’ provides a description of what each Group actually did that turn.

‘Preparations’ gives a heads up for the upcoming turn, with things like the number of Activations, Invasion authorizations, new forces arriving, and other such.
This is of key importance to each nation’s President, since they make the allocations of resources.

 

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June 1861 Turn Activity

Spoiler

In the event this is too small a view, and clicking on the image doesn't help enough, try the following link:
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/903/psyp.png

Headlines

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Union assaults at Winchester and Leesburg turned back!

Heavy casualties in the two battles, one Confederate and two Federal brigades destroyed in the fighting.

The boys in blue invade Kentucky at Lexington!

Orders

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Confederate

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Player: Bugwar

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Player: NGO33

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Player: AshHat

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Union

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Player: Ebert

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Player: Malicious

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Player: Rimsberg

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Narrative

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Confederate:

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Group A - Army of the Valley (Hood*)

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Starting in Strassburg and using his Activation, Hood and his army marched to Winchester, showing up just before a Union force under General Grant did, who was also trying to capture the city.
Grant then attacked Hood, and in the battle both sides lost a brigade and were demoralized.
Grant returned to Harper’s Ferry to recover, while Hood maintained control of Winchester.
Hood recovered from the demoralization using his Motivation skill, but Grant did not.
Both gained skill in their Aggression and Motivation, while Grant also gained in his tactical ability.
Hood gained two Victory points for defeating a Union medium sized force

Group B - Army of Northern Virginia (Lee*)

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Begining in Manassas with his Activation, Lee marched his army to Leesburg, arriving before a Union force under the command of General Lyons could do so.
Lyons then attacked Lee, but lost a Federal brigade in the battle and retreated back to Frederick.
Both gained skill in their Aggression and Motivation.
Lee gained two Victory points for defeating a Federal army of medium size.

Group C - Army of the Potomac (Beauregard*)

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Begining in Fredericksburg with his Activation, General Beauregard marched his army to Manassas.

Group D - Army of North Carolina (Hardee)

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Using reduced Initiative, this Group in Hood’s command railed from Charleston to Weldon, via Wilmington and Goldsboro. He did not gain any Initiative skill.

Group E - Army of the Tennessee (Polk)

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No Activation and failed with Initiative, so the Group remained in place at Atlanta.

Group F - Army of the Gulf (Bragg)

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No Activation and failed with Initiative, so the Group remained in place at Mobile.

Group G - Army of the Mississippi (A. S. Johnston)

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No Orders, so the Group remained in place at New Orleans.

Group H - Army of the Missouri (Price)

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Passed reduced Initiative roll, moved by road towards Rolla.
Encountered a Union force reported to be larger than his own, and returned to Springfield without risking battle.
Failed to gain skill in either Aggression or Initiative.

Union:

Spoiler

Group A - Army of the Potomac (McDowell)

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No Action. Idle in D.C.

Group B - Army of Maryland (Lyons*)

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Used Activation to move by road from Frederick to the outskirts of Leesburg.
Meeting a Rebel force there, Lyons gave battle.
After losing a brigade in combat and with a demoralized force, Lyons left the field and returned to Frederick.
He gained a level in Aggression and Motivation after recovering from the demoralization.

Group C - Army of the East (Pope*)

Spoiler

No Action. Idle in Baltimore.

Group D - Army of the Valley (Grant*)

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Used Activation to move by road from Harper’s Ferry towards Winchester.
Grant then attacked Hood in the city, and during the battle both sides lost a brigade and were demoralized.
Grant returned to Harper’s Ferry and failed to recover from the demoralization.
His failure did have a postive aspect of raising his skills in Motivation and Tactics.

Group E - Army of Pennsylvania (Heintzelman)

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Passing the reduced Initiative level, Heintzelman embarks his Group on trains in Pittsburg, then rails through Wheeling to Grafton.

Group F - Army of the Republic (McClellan)

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Failing Initiative, McClellan and his Group stay in Columbus.

Group G - Army of the Ohio (Anderson)

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Using an Activation, Anderson and the Army of Ohio march to seize Lexington, KY.

Group H - Army of Indiana (Buell)

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Failing Initiative, the Army of Indiana stays in Ft. Wayne.

Group J - Army of Freedom (Halleck)

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Failing Initiative, General Halleck and troops stay in Dayton.

Group K - Army of Illinois (Patterson)

Spoiler

Passing a reduced Initiative check, General Patterson loads his group up for an express rail ride to Rolla, passing through Normal, Springfield and St. Louis enroute.
Once arrived, he detects a Confederate advance on the city.
He elects to stay and defend, though the attack never materializes.
He does not gain a skill level in Initiative though.

Group L - Army of the West (Hunter)

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Failing Initiative, the Group remains in Normal.

Group M - Army of Missouri (Butler)

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No orders, so Butler and forces remain in St. Louis.

August ’61 Preparations

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1. The Union gets three Activations, the Confederates get four Activations.

2. Mr. President's, please tell your commanders who gets which activations.
And be so kind as to let the GM know also, as a double check.
Thanks!

3. The Federals can also choose an additional Southern port to blockade.

 

[Ab Ovo]

Might I be President Davis?

 

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Politics



Interest Check in a “Dawn of War: Dark Crusade” Game?

I am looking at the Interest level for a cooperative play of a Warhammer 40K scenario using the “Dawn of War: Dark Crusade” computer game.

In this forum game the Players take command of the various units in one faction striving (along with the other players and allied AI factions) to
accomplish the mission while staying keeping their forces alive in a grand eight faction battlefield.

Course of the game:
The scenario runs in a series of short intervals, with each active player providing instructions to the forces they control, the Game Master (GM)
then implementing those instructions and running the game for ten seconds. At that point, the GM provides annotated screen shots updating
the players on the status of their units, and awaits the next set of instructions from the players.
As new units show up, the GM assigns them to the players on a rotating basis, so that the player with the fewest units is the one to receive the next created unit.

One player at a time is the General, controlling the buildings, construction units as well as the research and resource allocations.
He does NOT control the combat units. That is the prerogative of the other players. The position of Manager rotates among the game players,
with each player filling the position for two game minutes at a time. Then the next player in rotation takes over.
The remaining players manage their individual combat units, deciding where they move as well as how they fight.

Players send orders for their unit activities via Private Message to the Game Master (That saves me from having to scan the forum for them).
Orders are due every two days by 0100 GMT, so if one turn is due Monday, the next is due Wednesday.

Unit orders should be simple, like go North East, change Combat state to Hold, and so forth.
Elaborate movement orders, and any conditional ones will most likely not be implemented, since instructions are invoked only once every ten seconds of game time.

Corrections to orders should be in the format of a complete set of orders using the latest revisions to the instructions. Sending partial orders will
most likely result in just the latest message being implemented, ignoring the earlier order sets.


Prototype Player Updates

Strategic Map

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Player One

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Player Two

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