Why is play as CSA so nerve wracking?

[ArmChairGeneral]

Building miltia pairs is a bad choice without a Training Officer to upgrade them, and as the CSA you only get one and he doesn't show up until halfway through the war. Militia/volunteers have low total cohesion and very low discipline and they break easily from just a couple of hits. When they rout other elements can rout too causing a cascade of bad results. Much better to buy real line infantry, or better yet, more artillery (lots and lots of artillery!). Get that Ironworks up and running in the summer of 61 and focus your builds in the East and you will have no trouble keeping up with or even surpassing the Union stacks in the Mid-Atlantic. The decisive game winning blow is pretty much only going to come from taking the capital. In order to make this possible you will need to win a couple of large battles in the theater to wear Athena down, the kind where you inflict hundreds of hits (hearts). You will almost never get this kind of result if you have to be in offensive posture, so limit your attacks to places that you really need to have. If more than a third of your battles occur with you in Orange or Red postures you are attacking WAY too often and are burning through men and materiel too quickly. The trick is to hold the positions that your opponent must attack, then you will get to use your units's defensive stats and have entrenchments working in your favor instead of against you.

[LCcmdr]

This is good to know. I thought that training officer icon meant an improvement in cohesion and fighting stats for the CSA; while, the Union gets 3 fantastic teachers that upgrade completely to Line troops. Too bad the South didn't possess these generals, too.

[ArmChairGeneral]

There are leader stats that increase cohesion, (like Elite infantry have, the grid/plus sign icon) ones that increase the stats of militia in their states or stacks (neithier of which is completely working and wouldn't do a lot of good even if they were) ones that increase movement speed, etc. The two training abilities are Training Officer (the ones who upgrade two volunteers to infantry per turn) and Training Master (who add an additional XP per turn to every element in their stack when not moving). The HQ unit has the Training Master ability (the XP one). The CSA gets three turns with a Training Officer locked in Richmond in the summer of 61 and then doesn't have another until halfway through the game (I can't remember exactly when, maybe he shows up in 62 sometime). IIRC the CSA has Bragg and Hardy with Training Master right from the start, which is good because those two are already decent commanders and will usually be in the big stacks anyway, and the CSA can buy HQs to put in other stacks. The Union gets three total Training Officers (Halleck, McClellan and Sigel) and no Training Masters other than their HQs (they might get one later in the war, but it wouldn't matter if they did, TMs are only going to help you if you get them working early enough).

[Cromagnonman]

Rufus King is a Training Master that spawns with the Iron Brigade in mid '62; honestly, it should be Gibbon who spawns with the Black Hats and gets the trainer ability

[grimjaw]

The CSA gets Richard Taylor (training officer) as early as 1862/07/28. Also, Hardee doesn't retain his master driller ability past 1-star rank. So you've really only got Taylor + Bragg to work up idle troops, and Taylor is too good a commander to leave in the backfield.

[darioVMannstein]

Building miltia pairs is a bad choice without a Training Officer to upgrade them, and as the CSA you only get one and he doesn't show up until halfway through the war. Militia/volunteers have low total cohesion and very low discipline and they break easily from just a couple of hits. When they rout other elements can rout too causing a cascade of bad results. Much better to buy real line infantry, or better yet, more artillery (lots and lots of artillery!). Get that Ironworks up and running in the summer of 61 and focus your builds in the East and you will have no trouble keeping up with or even surpassing the Union stacks in the Mid-Atlantic. The decisive game winning blow is pretty much only going to come from taking the capital. In order to make this possible you will need to win a couple of large battles in the theater to wear Athena down, the kind where you inflict hundreds of hits (hearts). You will almost never get this kind of result if you have to be in offensive posture, so limit your attacks to places that you really need to have. If more than a third of your battles occur with you in Orange or Red postures you are attacking WAY too often and are burning through men and materiel too quickly. The trick is to hold the positions that your opponent must attack, then you will get to use your units's defensive stats and have entrenchments working in your favor instead of against you.

Wow man this is very good stuff, thanks!!!

I am so glad that the most of these things I did by my own because of the reasons you have mentioned, allthough I bought some militia for some importent western citys where I wanna hold.
Most of the building purpose focuss on the eastern front and building militia for that is probably a bad choice.
The problem is just time, as CSA you need to push in eastern front very quickly. As I always say economy wins war longterm! CSA is just huge underdog here but has very good other advantages like good leaders, army etc.

Good advise with the posture orange/red, something I mostly use and wonder why I burn so much men and materiel ^^

[ifailmore]

just won as csa in JAN 64 it was really fun playing (liuetenant ai,+2 activation, medium aggressive, and low bonus ai) with +2 activation you will get multiple ai landing south! I managed to trap grant landing in galveston with a rag tag Bragg militia army!. Luitenant ai to give USA more troops I won by battles did not even managed to take washington dc.

I did send Lee in kentucky and was about to take cincinati whilst Albert johnston just took St louis. I also had 2 army in virginia one in shenandoah (Johnston with Jackson,Ewell,Forney) and one sieging washington (Beurogard, Longstreet, Smith, Hood)

Although I mite try medium bonus detection next time but last time I tried that the USA army tried to march to the sea without capturing towns only a town here and there which allowed me to trap them and kill them ( the war becomes hide and seek )

[ArmChairGeneral]

Taylor is good, but the CSA has so many good generals it's not a big deal to underuse him. He is really useful commanding Vicksburg forces in the 1863 Triumph and Defeat Scenario, where he leads a lot of defensive battles while upgrading.

Training Master goes away for Hardee, but the first turns are when it is most useful to have the trait, which can later be replaced by an HQ. The XP path of improving troop quality takes a lot of time to bear fruit so you have to start early. Hardee has time to get lots of conscripts their first star and even a few regs some stars before he pops, which goes a long way toward strengthening the West.

It is slow, and I would much rather have extra Training Officers than Masters, but if you work at it you can give a decent boost to your forces as a whole by using TMs, and if you neglect to do it you are leaving free war-fighting capability on the table.

[darioVMannstein]

If you feel under -challenged then give the AI Veteran instead of higher detection bonus because I think it just gives them a better chance to see your troops even better then yours but not sure how much this will effect them to play better.

[Temgesic]

I physically get tense when playing as the South. Probably has to do with the continual "spanking" that Athena gives me.

Haha i agree with you. I always sit and move around on my chair, thinking about my moves etc etc. Maybe a time to try the Union as i haven´t done that yet.