seige or capture cities.

[solcrates]

I started as the south and tried to take Norfolk , I siege it for a year bombarding the land and nothing. Longstreet corps march to Gettysburg and instantly captured the city. I don't no why. Jackson was doing the same in Morgantown for months. I don't understand how to take cites? I tried entering the structure, not sure what that is either. I used cards on Norfolk also and brought in gunboats but there was a ship battle and my ships disappeared not sure where they went. I assume destroyed but there was no info on it.

[ArmChairGeneral]

It sounds like Gettysburg did not have any Union troops in the structure, whereas Norfolk and Morgantown did. If there are no enemy units present, you automatically capture a city when a line element (not a Cav or Irreg) in Offensive (Orange) or Assault (Red) posture enters the region.

When there are enemy units present there are two cases, they can either be in the structure (in this case the city) or in the region. If they are in the region you will usually see their unit icon in the region if you have good enough detection; you may or may not be able to tell exactly what is there, hover over the region to see the info you have available, being sure to look at the bottom of the tooltip for "Also Here" units. If they are in the structure, their map icon does not show, but you will see a number of green dots next to the city in a little box, and again, if detection is high enough, hovering over the structure (or maybe the region, just hover over everything and look at what it tells you) may tell you more precise info about them if you have good enough detection.

If they are in the region, you enter in Orange, Offensive, posture (the top button is Posture, the bottom button is Rules of Engagement) and a battle will ensue or they will retreat before battle starts. If you win the battle (the enemy retreats from the region) then you capture the city unless they also have troops inside the city. You only engage troops inside the city if you are in Red (Assault) posture.

If they are in the structure when you enter the region in Orange posture, you will not engage them, but will initiate a siege, and the golden mortar icon appears showing that they are besieged. Once the icon is on the map you can switch to Blue (Defensive) posture while still maintaining the siege. Besieged structures do not produce anything, cannot receive supplies from the outside world, and cannot receive replacements for the elements inside. If the region has a harbor then they can still receive replacements and draw supply through the (water based) supply network(s), but do not produce on their own (I might be wrong about producing, but they definitely get supplies and replacements). To cut off supply and replacement you must blockade the harbor. Hover over the harbor, and it will say in the tooltip which water region the harbor is connected to. Hover over that water region to find out how many naval combat elements are required to establish a blockade.

Each turn you besiege, the engine will make a random rolls for each side modified primarily by artillery power. If your modified roll is higher than the defenders by a certain amount you succeed in breaching the fortifications, and they no longer receive a defensive combat bonus from the structure. Sometimes they will take hits. I think but am not sure that if you make a second breach they do not get their entrenchments either, but not 100% on that. I think it is a d10 roll. You get plus one for every ~30 power of artillery you have, and some leaders and units have abilities than give bonuses to the siege roll.

If you have considerably more troops besieging than the defenders have there is a chance that they will surrender without a fight. If they do, you typically win VPs and NM and do not suffer any losses. This can take several turns, depending on force sizes and other factors. They will very rarely surrender even when outnumbered if they have a wagon with supplies in the structure. So if they have an unblockaded harbor and a wagon they will probably never surrender because the wagon will keep getting supplied through the harbor. You can try to starve them until they are weak, but many cities have large supply stockpiles which may make starving them into submission practically impossible even if there isn't a harbor or you have it blockaded. Depots are especially problematic, as they usually have very large supply stockpiles, and a besieged depot with an unblockaded harbor allows the defenders to receive replacements at the maximum rate.

In order to engage units inside a structure directly, set your posture to Red (Assault). This is basically the same thing as Orange (Offensive) posture, but you have specifically given leave for your forces to attack enemies inside structures. You will fight a battle, and if you destroy the enemies then you capture the city. They cannot retreat from your assault, so remain stuck in their structure even if you do not wipe them out in one go. They get a lot of combat advantages, so expect higher casualties than normal when assaulting. A good rule of thumb is that you need three times their power to be sure of winning. If you besieged them for a while and made a breach or they run out of supplies then they will be weaker when you assault them. (If they have run out of supplies you might want to hold off the assault and see if they will surrender first to minimize casualties).

[ArmChairGeneral]

I started as the south and tried to take Norfolk , I siege it for a year bombarding the land and nothing.
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I used cards on Norfolk also and brought in gunboats but there was a ship battle and my ships disappeared not sure where they went. I assume destroyed but there was no info on it.

In the April 61 Campaign Norfolk is usually a freebie for the South at start. The militia that spawns in Suffolk one region West of Norfolk should be able to take Norfolk on its own if you make the move (set to Orange posture) right away. After that you will need to reinforce it to keep those Bluebellies at Fort Monroe from taking it back. The other freebie of course, is Ft. Sumter.

Across the river from Norfolk is Ft. Monroe, and it is a major thorn in the CSA's side. It is heavily fortified, has a fair number of troops in it right at the start and has coastal artillery that controls the James Estuary. Because it controls the mouth of the James it is blockading Richmond, cutting its production in half. It is located at the end of the Peninsula and is a potential base for the Union to threaten Richmond from. Most importantly for your purposes, it will bombard your fleets when they are passing through the James Estuary, so even when you capture Norfolk it is not safe to move anything in and out of the harbor. A bombard icon shows on the map during the inter-turn animation and the number of hits you take from the bombardment is shown in the message window.

In your case, they also have Norfolk, which comes with a lot of guns that will also bombard the James Estuary once they are well enough entrenched. (You capture these when you take Norfolk with your militia). If you have a fleet in the Estuary set to bombard, then they will take even more hits from the shore batteries when they try to bombard because the emplaced guns get to shoot back and often do more damage to you than you can do to them. It is almost never a good idea to bombard with fleets, even though you have the option to do so; you tend to take a lot of (very expensive) hits or lose ships altogether from the counterfire.

You said there was a ship battle, I am assuming that your fleet was not destroyed according to the battle report. If the ship combat did not destroy your fleet, the combined bombardments from Ft Monroe and Norfolk did, or if your fleet survived both of those then they were destroyed when you tried to bombard Norfolk. Unfortunately the message window only tells you how many hits you take during the various bombardments, it doesn't specifically tell you if you lost any units, so this is probably why you did not see anything about it. The way to know for sure is to click on the crossed swords on the bombard line in the message window to jump the map to the region the bombardment occurred; if you can't find your fleet anymore then the bombardment sunk them.

[GraniteStater]

Unfortunately the message window only tells you how many hits you take during the various bombardments, it doesn't specifically tell you if you lost any units

I've seen that message, in AACW, too; "USS Kearsarge has been sunk," to use an example.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Hmm, I can't recall getting a message like that in CW2, but then again I play the CSA so don't have a lot of fleets and am careful to keep them out of harm's way, so maybe I just have not seen it happen recently enough to remember correctly.

What happened to the disappearing fleet? The most likely explanation to me, based on the original post and that particular location, seems to be that it was sunk by bombardment. If he retreated from a sea battle he would have been moving in the Estuary and so would have come under fire from Monroe/Norfolk, but if that would have generated a message alerting the OP to sunk ships, then I am at a loss. Maybe solcrates just missed the alert in the messages?

Not 100% sure how fleet bombardment works, it only shoots/gets-shot-at by the enemy when you actually fight a land battle right? If he wasn't assaulting the structure with land forces, then Norfolk wouldn't have fired back at him so the normal shore-battery bombardment would logically be the culprit for the disappearing fleet.

(Just to make sure of the terms I am using here, there are two kinds of bombardment, fleet and shore. Fleet bombardment is when you select the special order for a fleet and tell it to fire on land forces in support of friendlies. Shore bombardment is when forts, redoubts or sufficiently entrenched cannons automatically attempt to fire on passing ships.)

[solcrates]

yes I believed my fleet was sunk, I was bombarding either Norfolk or the Fort can't remember. I know my troops where set to at least orange if not red. I didn't see any enemy unit stacks in Norfolk or Gettysburg. I did drive troops out of Morgantown but still was no in control of the city.