AGEOD Forums

I've played the early game a couple times head to head to learn the engine. I've found that it's not easy to hold D.C. against the Rebs. It takes an all-out effort to build a large enough army to secure it. Has anyone found the same thing?

The issue to me is that the Confederates are able to build forces quicker than the Union. Without significant NM changes due to battles, the South was quickly outproducing the North in conscripts by about 20%. Yanks have to overcommit to get a numerical advantage, really important because of the large leadership gap early around D.C. This hurts production in other areas.

I wonder if Reb conscript production is too high. Historically, the south put a greater percentage of men under arms, but started at a 3-1 disadvantage in total population. It only became worse when the Union started colored troops.

Anyway, I may be off here, but wondering if South has too much manpower production.

Anyone agree?

I very much so am in agreement. The same thing occurred during my games several times. Several turns in and theirs old Johnston on his high horse shouting: On to Philadelphia!

Every volunteer call South is receiving half the North is receiving. North has more money to pay higher bounty for even more volunteers.
Base conscript production from cities is higher for the Union.

Starting CSA armies are slightly larger and much better in troop quality. The pwr number displays all - numbers, troop quality, and most important leadership quality. That is why you feel you are overwhelmed. Union must pay for its volunteers the highest bounty, train up its militas and prepare for showdown in 62. That was the case in history as well.

Actually CSA has trouble getting to its historical numbers..

1863 they fielded in different departments.

Virginia 122.000

North Carolina 15.000

South Carolina and Georgia 15.000

Florida 6000

Tennessee and Mississippi 116.000

Trans Mississippi 50.000 +/- this is the most open I think, Texas was a big military camp.

I want to run it more, but this bears watching, IMO. For fun, I opened a game in 1863 I had against AI until I dropped it. Union NM=149, and Reb NM= 58. The CSA was receiving about 70% of the per-turn conscripts the Union was. Seems a little high.

It's true the Union gets more cash that can be converted into conscripts. I want to see how that balances out over time.

I do think the Rebs have trouble getting to historical numbers, but I think that's true of both sides

Turn conscript production is not the main way of getting conscripts. Volunteers and mobilization are. And US gets double conscripts from those options. And Union has more draft RgD cards. So pretty much 2:1 ratio is achieved. When you look at mayor battles fought, 2:1 ratio was not always achieved by the Union, and it was often below that ratio.

The “Numbers” in the Army are misleading.

The Union had large garrisons in almost every part of the country, because the country had been placed under martial law. It also had a huge supply apparatus to feed those troops in the field.

You can figure that only about 25% of the troops saw combat and all the rest were in support, and that is a conservative number favoring combat strength. It may well have been less.

For the south you can also figure that less than 50% of total numbers were front line combat units.

We may want to look at about a 3 to 5 ratio. 1 to 2 does not show that drain on manpower and it is not modeled in any other way.

It is indeed quite complicated. Even in the south a big chunk of the troops were state militia that the states were very very reluctant to see used outside of their borders.

veji1 wrote:It is indeed quite complicated. Even in the south a big chunk of the troops were state militia that the states were very very reluctant to see used outside of their borders.

This is it for the CSA, the lack of the state troops for local defense roles.
The Union has too easy time in the coastal areas as CSA lacks militia troops tp build.