The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath

by on August 30, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This is a scholarly look at American politics from roughly 1818 to 1832.

Maybe a bit too scholarly for me. Many parts of the book are very finely argued, and I tended to lose track of what the argument was. It is obvious in places that he also arguing for a different interpretation on events than has been common, but I’m not at all familiar with what he’s arguing against.

Even with my limitations, it was a very interesting read. One of Forbes’ main contentions is that President Monroe had more control of events than he is credited with. Apparently the usual look at the era was that he was nearly sidelined while events like the Missouri Compromise were going on. Here, the contention is that Monroe was aware that if he stepped into the debate, it would polarize the sides to the point where compromise was impossible, so he worked entirely behind the scenes to maneuver events to a stand down on all sides.

Forbes presents early American politics as a tension between ideological conflicts (generally, the role of the Federal government), and sectional ones (largely slavery). This is an unstable situation, as in the long run most political conflicts are going to want to turn regional, but the goal of several canny politicians of the era was to keep non-regional issues in play and force the parties into national, instead of regional, systems. This breaks down later, with the demise of the Missouri Compromise, and the rise of the Republican Party, which is strongly regional.

There is also a lot of look into the thoughts behind what is going on and being said, particularly, of course, various defenses of slavery. South Carolina comes in the for extra-special snowflake award as the bigger planters there generally felt that any change to their society would bring about utter collapse. This leads South Carolina to being in the lead of defenses of slavery, and more importantly (to them), the lead in making sure the federal government does as little as possible. It was felt that letting the government go around building roads, improving waterways, and just, you know, making commerce better for everyone would inevitably cause the kind of changes that they were desperate to avoid.

So, while it often looks like the subject of slavery had disappeared from politics in the 1820s, the argument over “internal improvements” and tariffs that lead to the Nullification Crisis are powered by a fear of change in the state with the highest proportion of black slaves to free whites in the country.

This book was a bit much for me as it juggled more things than I could entirely keep track of, but it is decidedly a well done scholarly look at the subject, and worth reading (along with other works) by anyone who wants a better understanding how the initial Founding Fathers’ idea that slavery would go away on its own failed.

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Immersive Cradle

by on August 26, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the twelfth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Europa Universalis IV. See the previous reviews here:
Europa Universalis IV: A Fantastic Point of View
Wealth of Nations: National Trade
Res Publica: A Tradition of the People
Art of War: Reform-Minded Patch
El Dorado: Expansion of Gold
Common Sense: Uncommon Changes
The Cossacks: Cossack Estate
Mare Nostrum: Paradox’s Sea
Rights of Man: Institutions of Man
Mandate of Heaven: Mandated Ages
Third Rome: First Moscow

The second regional “immersion pack” for Europa Universalis IV was announced on October 13, 2017, and released a month-and-a-half later with patch 1.23 on November 16. Cradle of Civilization concentrated on the Middle East, with a number of new features for governments in the region. Follow-up patch 1.24 was released on December 12th, focused on optimization.

Previously On

The most noticeable free update was a new startup screen. Similar to the one introduced to Crusader Kings II in patch 2.4 back in 2015, it has four tabs, the first of which describes recent history and what is going on in the area. At this point, 29 countries had individual histories, with everything else getting regional ones, and they’ve only added to this with every pretty much every major patch since.

The other three tabs talk about your religion and government, and features of the general area you are in. Any features particular to expansions you have will be pointed out with that expansion’s icon in the text (features from expansions you don’t have will not be mentioned).

This is a great addition for new players, and frankly can be very helpful for anyone when starting in an unfamiliar area. For example, the situation in the Timurid empire (mentioned below) is nicely spelled out, letting you know what’s coming.

Reworks

The map was refreshed in a number of places. One of the most obvious was the Arabian peninsula, where Yemen was split up into a number of competing states, as there were multiple claims to power and civil wars in the area in 1444, with Yemen itself still directly controlling a few provinces, but it is also formable by the other states in the region. The rest of the area got much the same treatment, especially the Hejaz.

Egypt was reworked into much better looking provinces along the Nile, while a couple new countries were added to Syria to represent some of the tribal confederations (the same was done in Arabia). Armenia was made a new formable nation south of the Caucasus, and Georgia is now formable (as well as historically existing in 1444, but now split up a bit).

The Timurids are split up into a central (still powerful) state, and a number of vassals, representing the various governors. It’s got modifiers to keep it stable, until Shah Rukh dies (which historically happened in 1446), when civil wars and breakaways become likely.

The Ottomans had already been detailed in Rights of Man, but now other Turkish countries can potentially claim their title of Sultan of Rûm and take over the Ottoman mechanics introduced in that expansion. Additionally, that government type gains the ability to assign pashas to states, which increases autonomy, but reduces costs.

Islam had started out with an extra mechanic of the type that was later instituted in various expansions for other religions. Piety measures a scale from mysticism on one end to legalism on the other. This was brushed up for the patch, with rewritten events, and then new abilities that can be triggered with the expansion. In addition, the expansion gives each Islamic country gets a school of law, which grants an extra bonus trait, but also affects diplomatic relations depending on how two countries’ schools get along (-25 relations if they hate each other…).

A last notable change of the patch was the addition of five new trade goods. Gems, glass, incense, livestock, and paper were all added to the trade network. They have no real outstanding qualities, but of course provide their own unique bonuses for controlling trade or production of these new commodities.

Military Reform

The expansion introduced two new mechanics for the military, both dealing with the transition to highly-drilled professional armies in the period.

Drill is tracked on every regiment separately, and high drill increases damage done and decreases damage received, so a force with high drill will have a substantial advantage against a force with no drill.

The problem is that drill naturally trends downwards, and replacing losses naturally sucks all the drill out (the replacements are considered completely undrilled). The only way to increase drill values is to… drill your armies. This requires the army have a leader, and reduces morale to low levels, and forces that army to full maintenance costs, meaning that a poor country won’t be able to drill often or effectively.

The good news is that drilling has a chance of increasing the leader’s abilities, and increases army professionalism, the other new mechanic. Professionalism makes mercenaries less desirable, as recruiting them is the main way to make that value go down.

Professionalism is another 0-100 meter, and every twenty points grants a new ability, such as building supply depots, which raises supply limits and lets you reinforce in captured territory as if it were the home country. At the same time there’s scaling bonuses to damage dealt and siege ability.

Overall, while it’s “just another mechanic”, it’s a fairly natural one, and naturally lines player motivations up with historical trends, which is really nice to see. However, the passive professionalism bonuses are a bit small to my thinking, while the drill does much more heavy lifting in combat. In general this is all fine, but I am concerned that armies lose too much drill after combat from replacing losses. The real problem is there’s no counteracting veterancy caused by having been through a battle.

Mamluks and Tribes

Part of the rework of the Middle East was the introduction of two new government types. The Aq Qoyunlu and Qara Qoyunlu (along with some smaller Arabian countries) are tribal federations, who get bonuses to conquering territory with a lower cost to take it in a peace, and less separatism once they have it.

All of this was in the patch, with the expansion adding the ability to gain tribal allegiance. (I believe this was later added into the base game.) Tribal allegiance is another 0-100 meter that naturally empties over time, but winning battles and humiliating countries in wars can drive it up fast, and then used to buy bonuses, much like principalities and veche in Third Rome. In this case, they can get a good general, a bonus to cavalry, or get six free cavalry units (which will need maintenance, but you don’t pay to hire them).

The Mamluks got the unique Mamluk Sultanate. While they have the normal legitimacy mechanic for monarchies, they do not use the normal rules with heirs and consorts. Instead, they always choose an heir when the current sultan dies, with one choice having high legitimacy, and having Circassian culture. The other choices will have a culture from within the sultanate, but their initial legitimacy will be quite low (and if you have spare military power, the strengthen government action can help with that…).

The sultan’s ratings for administration, diplomacy, and military also power government abilities of the same style that seen in the new Russian governments of Third Rome, but using them largely depends of having provinces of the same culture as the sultan, so the Circassian choice is safe (high legitimacy), but doesn’t have access to all the special abilities (as Circassia is outside the Mamluk’s initial borders).

Back East

Patch 1.24 added a fair amount of detail to the Philippines, with three new nations in the north, and another four in the south. There’s a mix of religions in play, and each region has their own idea groups. About half the area is occupied now, still allowing colonization to happen, but giving some of the more organized parts their due.

Also, the Oda clan was added to Japan, with their own idea group. Nobunaga doesn’t show up until 1551, but they get some good warlord-oriented ideas, starting with better infantry, featuring extra pips for leaders in shock, fire, and siege, and a bonus to fire damage.

Conclusion

First off, I am always happy to see good map reworks that put in more historical nuance. And both patches did a very good job at that. I also think the new introduction screens are well done and overdue. The new trade items are nice (especially with the expanding number of provinces), but all the new events and nations are the bulk of the patch and very nicely done.

The main general expansion feature is army professionalism and drill. I’m a little mixed on that. It does nicely align player motivations with what they’re representing, which is great. But I think it falls down a bit as there should be some way for battle experience to factor into the mix (which would also keep mercenaries from never being any better than non-drilled troops, even though, as mercenaries, they were largely better experienced than early armies). Thankfully, it’s not a really big complication, though ignoring it may leave your military outclassed in the late game, when dealing with armies with high professionalism and high drill.

The religious and government mechanics are to be expected… and frankly just don’t feel that special. There’s too many special government types, and the Mamluks borrow a mechanic I didn’t care for from Third Rome. The tribal federations seem to be well done, but I don’t have as much experience with them.

So… at the very least I’m happy to have this to support all the non-expansion work that was done. I also do like the drill and professionalism mechanic, despite some reservations. But despite the low (especially on sale) price, I don’t think it can carry the expansion by itself. That just leaves completionism for religious and government mechanics. I’d more get it for the tribal federations in the Syria region than for the Mamluks, though even they get interesting decisions. If you aren’t playing in that part of the world… I’d give this a pass, despite army reform.

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Ancillary Mercy

by on August 22, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The third Ancillary book is a direct follow on to Ancillary Sword, picking up very shortly after the that one. The start re-introduces everything going on, which I needed.

However, while much more of a piece with the second book than it was with the first, plot-wise, we do have another change in direction. Ancillary Sword was much about a collision of cultures, and Ancillary Mercy is more about “When in the course of human events….”

This is also effectively circling back to the central points of Ancillary Justice. Much of human space is controlled by the Radch, which is headed by Anaander Mianaai. Multiple Anaanders, as they’re all clones of the original, and also act as provincial governors. And, for an unknown amount of time they’ve been in a violent argument with themself.

One of the results of this argument was a dead military ship, with one part of its AI surviving. A less homicidal part of Anaander put Breq (the surviving part) in charge of the system where the action of these last two books happen, but that background pops back to being important. Breq isn’t cheering for one part of Anaander to win over another, she’s wanting them all gone. Large powerful systems that survive a long time have an intellectual momentum that makes it hard to conceive of life without them. Leckie has done well enough here to give the reader some of the same surprise as the other characters when Breq reveals that her goal is to splinter off this system from control of any version of Anaander Mianaai.

Like the first book, events just go on for about half the book before this comes up. This isn’t to be any great crusade to ‘liberate’ Radch space; Breq’s concerns continue to center on the here-and-now. This also isn’t nearly the revelation that the discussion of personal identity in Ancillary Justice was, so this book holds a lot less weight. That said, it’s closer in spirit than Sword was to the first book, and also refuses to give pat answers to the questions it raises.

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UR1 Y78 Planets of Tripoli Region 5

by on August 18, 2024 at 3:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

This report has sat for way too long, but Mark and I got to the Region 5 battle in our SFB campaign a while back; this is the primary base battle, where I am attempting to clear one of the two YDKs on defense line 2. I had stuffed as much into my fleet as I could, leading with one of the WDNs, and using two CAs, a CL, and two DDs. USS Mare Serenitatis had taken two hits last year, damaging two out of eight armor, but USS Ney was a just-built destroyer leader, equipped with an extra point of armor as well as two cargo and an extra transporter, and USS Solek has a pair special sensors (unique to Vulcan ships in this era), to combat the EW abilities of the base.

Mark’s fleet wasn’t as heavy, but the YDK is quite large and has a BPV/EPV rating approaching double that of my dreadnought. However, Wolfbite lost all eight of its armor last year, and Glory Seeker had taken heavy damage and is permanently out three hull and the auxiliary bridge until it spends a year getting repaired. The important consideration for my tactics was that the YDK’s disruptor cannons, surprisingly, have a maximum range of 22 hexes. It’s more than large enough that I figured they’d have the full 40-hex range, but this leaves me a fair amount of the map where all the YDK can do is electronic warfare and shots with four banks of three phasers each (which is potentially dangerous enough).


Mark got a good roll for setup, and his ships started at WS-III (the attacker’s ships are always at that for base battles; they know they’re about to show up). I lined up at the range-35 limit and proceeded at speed 10, while Mark started stacked with the base and went speed 12. During the turn, the Carnivons broke into two stacks, and on impulse 24 WCA Wolfbite and WCL Rain of Terror launched death bolts. After that, I turned off of a direct attack run towards the YDK, and headed (roughly) to intercept the enemy fleet. On impulse 29, YDK Bowl of Meat (A2B2) fired 6xphaser-1s at WDL USS Ney (SF-96), doing three damage at range 26.

Turn 2 saw similar plots to the first turn, but Ney slowed down to speed 8 to start repairing the #2 shield. By impulse 6 the entire Carnivon force was running on a parallel course to me, but much closer to the base, ahead of me, and faster, and by impulse 16 had turned off completely, orbiting the base at range 12, before turning in even closer in the second half of the turn. The death bolts came into range on impulse 24, and WVC USS Solek (SF-62) used her special sensors to break the lock-ons of two of them.

At the very end of the turn, I turned in, and declared speed 1 for everyone on turn 3, as I was just outside the range-22 limit. In return, Bowl of Meat fired 6xph-1s at WVL USS Stalwart (SF-65) on impulse 32, doing 2 damage to the #1 shield after reinforcement. This set me up for a potential bombardment of the base if the Carnivon fleet continued to stay away, or a combined bombardment of everything if the Carnivon ships sat close to the base. Without proximity photons, this was unlikely to be a winning strategy for me, but I figured lucky photon volleys could force Carnivon ships off the line, while I could hopefully take the ph-1 bombardment for a while.

As it was, Mark launched a full volley of death bolts on impulse 9, Solek used one channel to break a lock on from the first volley, and Stalwart shot down the remaining one on impulse 21. The Carnivon ships turned to approach around mid turn, and on impulse 25 he fired all the ph-2s and 6xph-1 at WAD USS Breaker (SF-77), doing 2 damage to the #1 after the low speed ‘brick’ and batteries. Bowl of Meat tried again with another 3xph-1 two impulses later, but couldn’t hit. On impulse 30, Breaker and WCA USS Mare Serenitatis (SF-25) fired 2xph-2 each at WCA Wolfbite (201) for two points that did not register on the shields. On impulse 32, I sideslipped to maintain range from the base, and the Carnivon fleet started turning off. Ney fired 2xph-2 along with WDN USS Venus’ (SF-38) 2xphasers and three photon torpedoes at Wolfbite, doing 1 point from poor phaser and photon rolls (taken on battery).

With the Carnivon fleet headed away again, I stuck to speed 1 and a bombardment profile for turn 4, while Mark slowed to speed 9 (7 for Rain of Terror). The base put another three ph-1s into Breaker on impulse 7 but missed (all 3s at a range where damage requires 1s and 2s). The fleet then turned in, and started approaching the Star Fleet force again. Solek turned off two death bolts from last turn’s volley, and the Carnivons got to the oblique around impulse 18, and turned in on 22. USS Breaker fired her photon on 25 and hit Wolfbite (in the lead) to take out nearly half the #1. Bowl of Meat fired three more ph-1s at Breaker on impulse 28 doing 1 point to the #1 on much better rolls after batteries. On 31, the Carnivons launched another full volley of death bolts.

On impulse 32, part of my fleet turned to face the Carnivon ships (Breaker did not to keep the weakened #1 away, and Solek did not as her special sensors didn’t require it). The Carnivons volleyed 6xph-2 at USS Breaker (two from Rain of Terror from outside range 8), and 6xph-1s and 2xdisruptor cannons from Bowl of Meat (she had just hit range 22, and these were on the #1, while the fleet was hitting #2) to do 8 points each to two shields, collapsing both for no internals. Meanwhile, Star Fleet answered with five photon torpedoes at Wolfbite, hitting with two to punch three internals through the #1, including a warp and phaser.


Beginning of Turn 5, showing movement through Turn 4.

For turn 5, the Carnivons sped back up to speed 12 or better, while I went speeds 8 or 9. Breaker and Wolfbite both turned fire control off, and Bowl of Meat lent ECM to Wolfbite and Rain of Terror (for a total of 5 on each). The first part of the turn was nail-biting for me as while Breaker had repaired a box of the #1 shield at the end of the turn, #2 was down, and she had to turn that shield past the base, or go charging into the middle of a bunch of death bolts. Thankfully, she was near a shield boundary, and hit that an impulse before the base’s pre-rotation, giving it a shot at the #3 instead.

Solek managed to turn off two of three of the death bolts in the best position to impact, and on impulses 8 and 9, USS Venus fired, hitting with one photon through a shift, and doing three more damage with phasers, just knocking down Wolfbite‘s #5. The rest of the turn was fairly calm as I worked by the death bolts, and ranges opened up again. Four shields had gone down across two ships, but only three internals had been scored.

I split up to avoid the death bolts, and the Carnivons headed back towards the base, both fleets turned clockwise in the second half of the turn, with Wolfbite continuing towards the base. The Carnivons slowed to speed 6 (except for WFF Sharp Claw (25) which went 9) for turn 6. I spent the turn getting Solek back to the rest of the fleet, turning off a couple death bolts (I continued to succeed about 1/3 the time) as she came back into range. The bulk of the Carnivon fleet followed at a distance, and Breaker was still headed away, trying to get two shields repaired.

I went up to speed 11 for turn 7, and the Carnivons went back to speed 12. As I started clearing impact range of the death bolts, I turned back, eventually aiming towards a range 9 pass at the base, and the Carnivons paralleled me at about range 15+. I got into range on impulse 30, and Bowl of Meat fired the disruptor cannons and 2xph-1s at USS Solek, hitting with one cannon and one point of phaser damage (largely ‘middle’ rolls again, not good enough here), for one point to register on the #1 after batteries.

Turn 8 was much the same, I was slowly heading in for my run, while the Carnivon ships ducked behind the base and headed away. Bowl of Meat and Sharp Claw launched death bolts on 23, and 3xph-1s fired on 27 to do a point of damage to USS Ney‘s #6 after batteries. The turn ended with my main force 11-12 hexes from the base, and speeds went all over as I arranged for photons and everything else to be ready. The Carnivons stayed at 12, with Sharp Claw going 15, and Wolfbite turning off fire control to go 14. On impulse 6, rotation effects let Bowl of Meat fire everything (short of ph-3s) at USS Ney (range 11 down the chord), hitting with one disruptor cannon and good phaser rolls to do 25 damage, punching through the #6 and armor for 14 internals, taking out three power and phasers #1 and #2; leaving the 360 mount, photon and 7 power.

On impulse 9, USS Mare Serenitatis slipped into range 8 and hit with a photon and decent phaser rolls to do 14 damage, 4 of which registered on shield #6. On 13, Venus got into firing position and hit with two photons, with poor phaser rolls to do another 22 damage, bringing shield #6 down to four boxes. One of the latest death bolts caught up to Venus on impulse 28 and hit for six damage on the #5 (after batteries). The other was apparently after Mare Serenitatis (three hexes further away), and the one from Sharp Claw was turned off by Solek (taking all three attempts from a channel).

This largely ended the “active” portion of the battle. Ney turned off after getting pounded, and spent time putting the #6 back together while repairing the #2 phaser. Breaker was trailing well behind the rest of the fleet, and worked on rejoining them while photons rearmed, and took fire from Bowl of Meat at the start of turn 11; both disruptors missed, and the #6 shield took 2 points from phaser fire, and another 3 on impulse 6 as the next bank rotated into arc. The Carnivons had also split up, with Sharp Claw separated from everything else and running ahead of my main force. I determined to run her off the map at the very least, and she exited the map at the very end of turn 10. The rest of the Carnivons were in the upper right corner, and also headed for the map edge, with Wolfbite disengaging on impulse 16, and the rest at the end of turn 11.

After this, Mark gave me notes on the base, and I ran the siege solo. My first job was to collect my scattered forces back together for a more concentrated burn-down. On the other hand, Bowl of Meat was making good progress repairing the #6 shield, undoing what little I had done. A YDK generates 28 power, but also has 10 batteries, which is great short-term, but means power is a problem once its gone, since housekeeping plus shield repair and EW comes to about 2/3rds the power generation. Add in phasers and disruptor cannons, and batteries might become a luxury. As usual with a base, a Power Assist Module can be a great help.

At the start of turn 12, #6 was still down 20 boxes, batteries were nearly full, but there was only 3 power in the capacitors. Bowl of Meat tried a phaser volley on Mare Serenitatis for one damage (bounced off her brick). A long range photon volley got lucky (1 hit out of 5 while needing 1s) to suck down 8 batteries. Follow up phasers from USS Venus did 4 more to do two more damage to the #6. Bowl of Meat ended the turn up one box (from repairs), but with drained batteries and 5.5 in capacitors.

Turn 13 was quieter, with the disruptor cannons firing at USS Breaker for one hit doing 2 damage to the #4. USS Stalwart hit with one photon to mostly drain the batteries again. Bowl of Meat ended the turn up one box (all it could afford), two batteries, and 6 in capacitors. Turn 14 saw Venus and Mare Serenitatis‘ photons online, and a hit drained most of the batteries again, letting Bowl of Meat repair two more boxes and get up to 6.5 in capacitors.

The problem with this bombardment was that I didn’t have the firepower needed to do more than slow the YDK down at this range. With proximity photons, damage is halved, but the odds of hitting are tripled, so the average damage would work out much better. Here, I was getting lucky, but not getting anywhere. On the other hand, there’s not much going on the EW front as once Bowl of Meat announces something, Solek will just counter it an impulse later. Extra EW would kill the budget on batteries, and Solek doesn’t have to do much else, so she can out-loan the base right now. I had also been planning on holding out for Breaker and Ney, but it was taking them forever to rejoin the fleet while repairing shields (at speed 3, they’d need another seven turns), so it was time to engage the YDK more closely.

Not that you could tell on turn 15, with everyone going speeds 2-3. Stalwart got lucky again with one photon hit, and Breaker turned in for distant fire support, and Bowl of Meat fired the disruptor cannons at her (following a strategy of getting rid of the more fragile ships first), and hit with one for 2 damage to the #6. Bowl of Meat ended ahead another two shield boxes and with 7 power in capacitors. Turn 16 saw very good rolls, with two hits from the every-second-turn volley of five photons, to do six damage to the #6 after all batteries. The bombarding force started getting to the 13-15 bracket this turn (no help on photons until 12, but phasers get better), and another set of good rolls did five damage to the #3 shield near the end of the turn. After repairs, batteries were out, and #6 was down four boxes.

During turn 17 Stalwart hit range 12, and fired near the bottom of the turn, hitting with one photon (absorbed in batteries again) thanks to the better range bracket. A phaser-1 missed, and Bowl of Meat‘s two disruptor cannons missed, with a bank of ph-1s only doing one damage (absorbed on battery). Turn 18 saw more good luck with 2 out of 5 photon torpedoes hitting, and two more damage from phasers to do 8 damage to the #6; Bowl of Meat switched from disruptor cannons to increased phaser power, but could not punch any damage through.

Turn 19 was when things finally went wrong for Star Fleet. Both of Stalwart‘s photons missed, as did the ph-1. Meanwhile, with ships in about one-turn travel range of the base, Bowl of Meat fired off a pair of death bolts, with an assumed target of Stalwart. Since I was soloing this part, I rolled at various points to see which way they went, and learn about actual targeting that way, and they went after USS Breaker, just entering the area. She also was a lower shift for the dock, so phasers fired at her, doing three damage to the mostly repaired #6 after batteries at range 13. USS Venus expended 3 phasers killing one of the death bolts (the main point behind this…), leaving one for cleanup by Solek; on impulse 32, the death bolt hit range 10, and she had an unused (and powered) channel which turned off tracking.

Not getting the batteries drained let Bowl of Meat start charging disruptor cannons while nearly filling the phaser capacitor, and self-loan a fifth point of ECM. The latter was immediately countered by Solek loaning extra ECCM to Venus and Mare Serenitatis. Turn 20 saw 1 of 5 photons hit, despite USS Venus firing from range 8. Phasers did another 6 (taking four off the #6, three of which were repaired; at this point there were only 5 boxes left), while Bowl of Meat fired on Mare Serenitatis at the end of the turn, when she slid into range 8, but the low-speed brick blocked almost all of it.

Bowl of Meat unleashed everything it had on Stalwart near the top of 21, hitting with both disruptor cannons and decent phaser rolls to punch 5 internals through the #1, some reinforcement, and batteries to take out a phaser and a warp. Breaker had finally come up, and added her photon (which missed) to Stalwart‘s volley, with a great phaser roll and one hit to get 2 damage past batteries, beating the one box repaired. The main three were all sitting at range 8 now, so Stalwart tacked a fresh shield right after taking damage, though the base was shot out.

The top of turn 22 saw the main volley do well (four photon hits, plus good phaser rolls) for 42 damage that translated into 18 internals after armor, generally hitting fluff, but getting the two special sensors. A follow-up phaser volley also rolled well for another 10 internals, taking out a phaser, death bolt launcher (empty, but being reloaded), and disruptor cannon. Turn 23 saw the base fire 9xphaser-1s at USS Stalwart through a +2 shift for 7 shield damage, while the bombardment did just enough to drain batteries. Turn 24 saw the main volleys do 19 internals, still mostly the insane amount of fluff (but center hull did run out), but got three phasers and the remaining heavy weapons.

Turn 25 was less active. USS Ney and Breaker stood in for Stalwart, but at slightly longer range, all they did was four damage taken on batteries. Bowl of Meat tried a heavy shot at Ney, but only did 1 damage. Turn 26 saw Ney take a point of shield damage, but despite only hitting with two photons, and a brick from leftover power, phasers got in for another 18 internals, including three phasers (which were now disappearing quickly from the front side of the base). Turn 27 saw 5 shield damage to USS Ney, while Stalwart and Breaker managed to get one internal past batteries and the regenerated shield.

Turn 28’s bombardment saw four photon hits, and solid phaser rolls for a total of 38 internals. This finally ran out the repair, and started taking out the cargo (there had been an amazing dearth of 7s, and everything else was a hull hit which translated to repair after that was gone), and allowed the first power hits—2 APR. USS Venus had been moving slowly forward, and was now in the 5 range bracket of phaser-1s, so Bowl of Meat turned its attention to her, but couldn’t get through the brick plus batteries. Turn 29 had Stalwart and Breaker get one more internal through.

By turn 30, USS Venus was re-parked at range 3 on one of the chords. This meant an intact weapon pod could target her at the top of the turn (usually Bowl of Meat had to wait on the even turns for them to swing around), and at range 3 the three ph-1s got through the brick and forced use of two batteries; at the end of the turn the other pod came around and did 6 shield damage. Meanwhile Venus and Mare Serenitatis hit with three photons, and had mediocre phaser rolls to do 36 internals. This finished off the cargo, which exposed the batteries to damage (three were hit), the lab started going fast, and another six APR were destroyed, along with all the L+RA phasers.

Afterword

I called it after that. The point was to see how much damage I’d take in the process of beating the base down, and with 3xph-1, 1xph-3, and a steady loss of power, the writing was finally on the wall. Only Wolfbite, Stalwart and Ney had taken internals; the first two could repair everything (that hadn’t already been destroyed), but Ney was out both cargo, three hull, a lab, a transporter, auxiliary control and the armor after repairs.

In general, firepower in the early era is lower compared to defenses later. And this showed it off well, the YDK has a lot of bulk, and is something I’m not likely to be able to deal with as long as there’s a friendly fleet in the area. I’m not looking forward to taking on the four other docks that exist. It is under-powered, but give it a couple turns and it can get everything up and going again, which is why the constant bombardment was important. I got very lucky early on with more photon hits than the average. Once I settled down to the siege, it was more a case of how long would it take to get the couple of lucky turns needed to start breaking it apart. And then it still took forever, because outside of the once only hits, DAC rows 3-6 and 8-11 resolve to hull, meaning there was 22 hull and 40 repair to break through before a power generation hit was possible. 7s aren’t any better, as they start with cargo (20 internals), and then go to hull.

I could have run the base better. I kept in passive ‘turtle’ mode, but switching things up with occasional 0/4 EW to blast something without a shift would probably have caused more casualties. But the base would take more unshifted phaser shots in return. The real problem is doing that part solo, I don’t outguess myself easily. And the WVC could handle most anything the base did (especially late, it was close enough, and should have just loaned 4 OEW to the base). Sitting nearly still Solek could self-generate 4 ECM, power both channels, and have a full pool of 8 EW to loan.

I think Mark could have done more in the early fleet action phase of the battle. However, I did get the lucky photon hits, leading to Wolfbite taking internals and losing two shields. Without a heavy cruiser present he was at a decided disadvantage, and having it there meant she would likely take a lot more damage, and probably leave the map nearly crippled. That said, accepting even that battle could easily have done enough damage to me so that I couldn’t take on the dock.

All my ships did fairly well, though Ney took serious damage early enough to not have done much. The extra armor and cargo on the leader variant helped at that point. The WDN is an amazing ship for the period, Venus was generally keeping an 8-point brick up for the entire bombardment.

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Wedding of the Waters

by on August 14, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

For a long time, waterways were the only meaningful passages from one place to another. Roads might do in a pinch, but water was much faster and easier. Canals have been used throughout history to get this fact to work for you when nature had been ungenerous. The Erie Canal is one of the more spectacular successes of these projects, and important in the early history of the United States. Bernstein’s Wedding of the Waters is a good popular history of the creation of a 363-mile long canal through upstate New York.

He starts out with lots of background, including the general mechanics of canals, how and why locks work, and various high points in the development of canals, including the Manchester Canal in England, which inspired a lot of further canal building at the time. This section is definitely appreciated, but I wished for more. There’s a good map of the canal, and a side elevation of the canal showing how it goes up and down, and where the locks are, but that is it. No general diagrams of a section, or the locks, or illustrations/photographs of some of the more impressive features. And some of it is really hard to picture on your own.

After the introductory parts, Bernstein starts talking about the idea of a canal linking the East Coast with the interior, namely the area across the Alleghenies. The Founding Fathers, and Washington in particular were aware of a need to tie the economy of the area to the east so that there would not be a drift toward independence, or dependence on whoever held the Mississippi. Washington tried a scheme to clear the Potomac towards such a goal, but did not get far. Meanwhile, the fact that there was a practical route across New York to the Great Lakes was becoming more obvious. An initial attempt was to clear the path of the Mohawk River westwards, but the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company soon found it was spending all the money it could raise on trying to keep a relatively short section of riverbed clear. (There was also a Northern Inland Lock Navigation Company to improve conditions between Albany and Lake Champlain, but I can’t find any mention of its fate.)

These false starts, thanks to a number of influential people, fail to stop all support for such schemes, but instead focus support on the most ambitious option of all: Building a brand new waterway the entire length of modern New York state. One of the nice parts of the book is the earlier sections talk about the evolution of these ideas through colonial times as well as post-Revolution. Bernstein even talks about the initial exploration of the Hudson (which was part of looking for the fabled Northwest Passage). But of course the later parts get more detail and attention, as they focus on the actual subject of the book.

Bernstein also points out that there was no one in America at the time who could be termed a Civil Engineer, even by the standards of the day. Other than the politicians working for budget appropriations, everyone involved in the project is an amateur. A number of different technical problems are discussed, and some of them were solved by workers on site, and we’ll never know who came up with the idea.

There is, of course, a lot of discussion of the politics involved. New York had the most developed political scene of the era in the US, so the infighting was also more developed. First, fighting over the proposal, and if it should be funded, then when things went well, fighting over the credit, and who is in charge. As I have been reading a few other books on the era, there are names who appear elsewhere, especially De Witt Clinton, who was the person who pushed through plans for the canal.

There’s also a good amount of material on travel through the area before the canal, and what travel on the canal was like. Finally, there is discussion of the financial implications. The entire motivation for the canal was of course financial, so a good accounting of its effects is essential. Like the technical side of the canal, this is limited by its broad-market aims, and the relative lack of records of the time. There’s good discussion of the flow of goods along the canal, and the fact that England started importing food from the Midwest in a major post-Napoleonic economic shift.

Overall, it’s an informative book, but I did find it lacking, especially on really showing the physical side of the canal. It left me wanting more, which is often a good thing, but here I really felt I’m wanting things that should have been in the book.

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