HOLF Players' Guild Forum

John Sanders has asked that I make a post presenting the development of the ROTD land combat module for the Civil War era. About two years ago, HOLF asked me to consider the possibility of a Civil War variant of the NWOL software, or at least, of the land combat module, GITM. I replied that I was interested, and in the course of discussing several approaches, John and I decided that the best thing to do would be to create a Civil War version of the NWOL software. Work didn't get underway for a little while due to the pressures of completing NWOL 1 and launching NWOL 2, but by the summer of 2008, I had produced (with considerable help from Jim Voege, without which it probably could not have been done) an American version of GITM, and a small group of play testers ran a campaign in northern Virginia. The next stage was to add Civil War specific features like railroads and river transport; the addition of river transport required the addition of river gunboats and river defense batteries, and also required some extensive modifications to the supply system to reflect the use of railroads and boats, and the relatively poor American road network. In the summer of 2009, a somewhat larger group of play testers ran a second campaign in Kentucky and Tennessee. Those changes have created a module which is recognizably a Civil War game at the operational level rather than a copy of a Napoleonic game, and while there is a little more work to do, the land combat module is, I have concluded from the two test campaigns, essentially ready to be used in a full game. River warfare is not quite at that stage yet, partly because of one or two issues that need to be ironed out and partly because it needs to be interfaced with the ocean navies, but is close to being ready for use in a full game as well.

The next stage is to finish porting the naval module to the Civil War era, with suitable rules modifications for ships with steam power (and the attending fuel issues, which is not a matter with which sailing ships must contend). After that, the financial module needs to be ported, and will probably have some expansions to reflect the particular economic problems of the Civil War era. Once that is done, a full CWOL using the new software will be feasible - as John noted, we are hoping (perhaps somewhat optimistically) to do a multi-module game in the second half of 2010 and, if all goes well, a full game in 2011. Work is going to temporarily go on hold while I prepare NWOL-3 (my outside commitments do not permit me enough time to work on both projects at once). I anticipate that the next game, a test of the integrated land and river naval module, will be by invitation only, but that games after that will be open to the public, up to the number of players the test designs can accomodate.

I'd like to take a moment here to thank all of the people who have participated in the two test campaigns, and in particular, John Sanders and Jim Voege for their assistance.

Steve Schmidt