CSA War Supply shortage

[Jerzul]

I'm in a PBEM and my confederate opponent is having difficulty building much in the way of brigades and other land units due to a crippling shortage of War Supply. I'd like to take credit but it's only the summer of 61, so I have not done much damage. Any suggestions for him?

[fiddlers25]

CSA just needs to build the Iron Works once. Save a little cash so you can do it as early as possible in 1861 to get the maximum benefit and avoid the WS shortage. I choose the one in the 'coastal' area which includes NO and an area next to Richmond. It takes a few turns to come online but then I think it gives +24 WS per turn.

[DrPostman]

Build both ironworks as soon as possible if there is to be any hope for the South.

[Ace]

One is enough, two is ideal. Build them away from the coast, because they can be wulnerable to invasions and will get penalty from blockade, both from brown and blue water blockade.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Definitely +24 WS, (+8 for each structure) and the region next to Richmond the IW gets built in does not have a harbor and cannot be blockaded (at least not directly, not sure if blue-blocking affects it or not). The Tennessee/Georgia IW locations can't be blue-blocked and brown-blocking either can't be done at all or won't be feasible for the Union for a while, but they are vulnerable to capture if things go against you in Tennessee.

Against the AI I only build one and take the rest of the WS I need in battles, but against a human I would consider trying to get both since captured rifles will presumably be harder to come by.

Blockade runners are inefficient, but you start with a bunch of brigs that can at least help get you through the early-game bottleneck; don't forget to repair the ones that start understrength by putting them in Passive posture in a size 4+ harbor; there are enough replacement chits on hand to do this without spending anything.

You can also work on loyalty in regions like New Orleans and Mobile to increase production. It doesn't amount to a huge difference in resources, but you can raise loyalty without spending anything, and every bit helps (and adds up over the course of the game). Plus loyalty affects $$ production as well as WS. The best way to find places to work on is by using the regions tab in the ledger and sorting by WS or $$ and looking for high production cities at less than 100% loyalty. (As far as I can tell the Defensive Works RGD no longer affects loyalty, although the tooltip still says it does.)

[ArmChairGeneral]

Ace,
Long time no see, good to hear from you!

[Rod Smart]

There's always a bottleneck during that time period.

Do the things already suggested.

Regardless of how many brigs and Ironworks you start building, during the early summer of '61, you simply don't have the WS to build anything. I know that, so use that time to build flatboats to fill in my supply network.