What is This?

Lessons Learned is a phrase used in the U.S. Army for 'how did it go and why did we lose?'. In full, in U.S. Army useage, they're called "Operational Reports: Lessons Learned" (or ORLL; you know how armies love abbreviations ). I invite folks to post here the things they've learned about both tactics and game mechanics from playing battles in SOW and what we think we ought to be doing to do better in battle and in use of the game mechanics.

Was in an unrated battle today, accessed via the Lobby, with eight of us playing four on each side, using something like what we're trying to do: HITS, couriers down to brigade, couriers to other teammates only - can't use the TS as a radio - and it was fun and I learned quite a bit. Using couriers - no matter if you "click on destination, on formation and use roads" or the full screen - it takes quite a long time to form up and maneuver troops. And that's good, as I understand from my readings on the ACW that that was the actual circumstance. The program seems to start off the formations and units too close to one another - in my opinion, of course - as there's little or no time for securing any tactical intelligence whether you have cavalry or not and you've just barely got your units shaken out and moving when - bang! - we have contact with enemy forces. The maps seem to be large enough to allow more distance between each side's start locations, giving a chance for tactical scouting and screening to at least begin to produce results as well as time to get formations moving in the right direction.

Lesson Learned? When I make up a mod for the campaign - or for a tourney - make the start locations farther away than the stock scenarios. How much farther? I don't know, but I can experiment with slightly modified scenarios - modded to change start locations only - and see what happens. And of course, have other players trying them out and together reaching a useful conclusion that we can use in campaign and - if we want to use them - tournament mods as well.