Some More Observations from Experience

[GraniteStater]

I haven't d/l'ed BRS yet & am waiting on the 1.03 patch, so bear in mind. These thoughts are the result of a half-dozen games under 1.01 & 1.02.

* First games at SGT Diff; no advantages to Athena for Activation; Low Detection for her; Hist Attrit Player Only. 1.01 went good as the Union for a learning game - CSA game started & abandoned for 1.02.

* 1.02 LT Diff, Low, then Medium Detection, much the same Settings, idea being a 'level' field for PbeM training purposes.

* Then a Colonel game as the Union.

&&&

* Athena still is enamored of Fort Monroe - *sigh* - and Pickens, too. She is not content with blocking & observation forces but wants to attack both. A tad disapponting, IMO. Seal them off, yes, but investing serious PWR here? More below, in re the Colonel game.

* Build times are longer than AACW, I think. One must anticipate & plan more.

* If left relatively undisturbed, the CSA can actually Industrialize (ahistorical but arguably needed for game balance; fact - the entire industrial output of the South in 1860 was 1/3 that of...wait for it...New York State; more than a few historians are amazed the CSA staved off defeat as long as it did).

* FI out of the blocks is a crapshoot, it appears. Also, the Numbers may have something to do with Player's side. I have had Union success with FI approaching 75; I have had at least two CSA games with abysmal Numbers from the start; I have had one (1) Union game where FI was small. Small sample stats.

* I have dealt with everything west of Topeka, KS only when I had to. Largely benign neglect. I would recommend building a Depot at Santa Fe, BTW, in fact, I urge it. Other than that, I have been unspectacularly unambitious out West. Tried an AZ Overland Expedition with Canby & Carleton (one stack) - went largely nowhere past Western AZ - too much time, not enough payoff for my tastes. Bring the Wagons.

* Supply looks like it could be more than a little problematical out West. Nearest Wagon builds are St. Joseph, no? Not great.

* Some very nice ripostes by Athena in NoVa and the Central front. Methinks the devs incorporated some player's tactics and gave Athena a couple of new ideas.

* Union Athena seems sluggish, even with goosing her up a notch or two.

* Played through to a Win on LT as the Union. Took Richmond in '63, IIRC - AI played on & well. CSA NM started tanking about late '63 - won in early '64 with New Orleans, Tennessee & Atlanta (and Richmond).

* CSA Athena gets confused and starts dreaming Big Naval Dreams - cut it out, willya? OTOH, gave me a couple of good punches and a Defeat on the waves with her Ironclads. Still, she should tone down the Naval nuttiness, it's just taking Stuff away from the Army, although the 'New South' maybe can afford it to some degree - maybe, maybe.

* When the ole NM starts going, watch it, although ignoring Northern papers seems to have little or no adverse consequences. Union NM has not been hard to maintain in the 90s - when in the 80s, rebounded quickly. Being able to issue EP not a big problem. Seems much easier than AACW.

* Just a couple of rounds of the most expensive Industrialization choices seems to be Enough for the North - AFAICS, you don't need 2000 WS on hand. 1500 or less seems plenty.

* Smacking the early Union around and getting to MD - KY - MO in strength for a long term occupation is not hard. Settings, maybe?

* COLONEL: Union - +2 Activation, Very High Detect, Low Aggression. Played Very Slow & Steady. Not sure if this will, indeed, work against Athena. Monroe & Pickens - she went for it, big time. I said, 'OK. if that's what you want...' - uh, Pickens eventually surrendered in early '63 (two full Divs!!!) - oh no, it's Bette Midler! (Simpsons allusion) Lee attacked at 5:1, 4:1, 3:1 - Butler with two Divs is still there, bleeding but there, and his and the Div Leaders Experience and Stats are not bad; they got better. Frontage, here, I suspect. The Pickens Surrender was surprising, though, even shocking. Finally, in VA, got three good sized Corps (under McDowell, I never move G. B. Mac, let 'im stew & Train) on the spit from C-ville to Richmond,and found out that Athena has about 6000+ PWR in the neighborhood, in three stacks (one in Manchester, VA) - I have about half that in local PWR. Letting Athena build up on Colonel may not be good at all, 'cuz she has about 2200 at Monroe, not that far away. I took New Orleans (in very late '62), and that has been about it. Grant & Co have been playing Back & Forth and CYA with playpals in Paduchaland, although Grant amphibbed at #10 - and destroyed the Fort, although I didn't ask for that. A very instructive game, although not much combat.

&&&

* I want More Cavalry - I just want it. Not Enough for all you might wish to do. My biggest failing is not enough recon. I'm working on this.

* If ya got the resources, ya might as well build 10 lb Parrots & skip the Napoleons - build times give you no big difference here (actually, no diff). 60 Day for both - why bother with the 12s? Maybe a patch here?

* Fremont in St. Louis survived a hellish assault by McCulloch & Co. - really surprised me, he did well, for a next to zippo stats Leader. All by hisself, too. Good boy, Fremont! Now go fetch.

* Autospawn garrisons changes things. Your campaigns are going to be a bit slower if you want your flag over that town. Bring More Guys & Stuff when you leave home.

* Armies, Corps, Divs are Free. This is a Game Changer. Now, I create Armies with every 3*, ASAP. Then I build HQSupp for the Favored Ones. Then I grab every 2* I can for Corps, no matter how minor. MTSG is why I play this game, among other points - even modest, shy, blushing lil' Corps that never met a man before can have their uses.

CW2 is better than AACW, doubtlessly.

[soundoff]

CW2 is better than AACW, doubtlessly.

I'm not so sure. Yes on graphics yes on regions but on gameplay I'm remain in the camp of reserving judgement. Then again that's in PBEM mode against Athena I have and will never have a clue.

[GraniteStater]

PbeM & AI are two different experiences.

PbeM: no dialed in or dialed up advantages, other than what players agree to. No "Extra Extra Fast" for Jackson, for example. OTOH, a human can think. Probably more enjoyable, but not vastly so, speaking from AACW experience.

AI: can give Athena significant advantages. Not sure if training for PbeM against a heavily advantaged AI is as useful as it may seem. The Colonel game has been challenging. Haven't given Union AI a whole lotta Advantages - need more experience here to make some good calls.

[Keeler]

* Armies, Corps, Divs are Free. This is a Game Changer. Now, I create Armies with every 3*, ASAP. Then I build HQSupp for the Favored Ones. Then I grab every 2* I can for Corps, no matter how minor. MTSG is why I play this game, among other points - even modest, shy, blushing lil' Corps that never met a man before can have their uses.

In 1.03 they're still free, but the number of armies is capped by year. Which is an improvement.

Before 1.03 came out I was able to beat Athena as Union with the hardest settings possible. Post 1.03 Athena is thrashing me. I haven't made it too far into any one game yet, but she did bring the hammer down on Fort Pickens pretty quickly. I occasionally load up the AI side to get a generalized sense of how it is behaving. Kind of hard to tell so far if it's still building up large naval forces. Part of the issue might be that on harder settings it gets free replacements, has huge amounts of resources, and doesn't feel the need to focus on land units when it has stacks of 4000+ power running around.

I'm not sure about cavalry being scarce. If you use the brigades with cavalry to fill your divisions, you can still field a couple cavalry divisions between free units and independent cavalry units. And on harder settings you're likely to get raided a bit more often which usually results in free defensive forces appearing, and those typically include cavalry. That being said there probably could be a few more cavalry units available to allow for different play styles. Overall I wish there was a little more variety in brigade builds, especially since brigade artillery is currently stuck at 6 lbs the whole game.

[GraniteStater]

Yes, I read your remarks in the other thread about Inf/Inf/Cav brigades. Started me thinking, in AACW I was a really big Inf/Inf/Arty builder.

Losing Cav regiments can be a royal pita, though. We get only so many, right? The 'integrated' Cav still performs screen/scout, I would like to think, but I'm afraid I could be entirely mistaken here.

I'm impressed if you beat Athena on Colonel without too much difficulty. Blundering into Richmond and encountering the Soviet Army was a Rethink Moment, fer sure.

[Keeler]

Losing Cav regiments can be a royal pita, though. We get only so many, right? The 'integrated' Cav still performs screen/scout, I would like to think, but I'm afraid I could be entirely mistaken here.

I'm impressed if you beat Athena on Colonel without too much difficulty. Blundering into Richmond and encountering the Soviet Army was a Rethink Moment, fer sure.

I assume that the cavalry functions as normal. Otherwise there'd be no point to its existence. But that is an assumption.

Well, I got to Richmond but that is only half the battle with hard activation. A long, long siege followed. In the meantime I took Memphis, Nashville, and New Orleans. Richmond finally surrendered and it was over. I am pretty sure Athena could have attacked and drove me off Richmond, but she never did. I don't think this timidity would happen in 1.03 (I don't know that I can even get to Richmond in 1.03)

Also, I had to contend with a 5000+ Power Army of Tennessee by late 1861, so I think that was Athena's main focus in that game. There were some pretty big battles out there but I had the better generals and was able break through eventually. I think it ended about November 1863.

[ArmChairGeneral]

AFAIK, lost brigades are returned to their original force pool if you built them. Scripted brigades are gone for good. So cav elements that you have bought individually should be rebuildable. I have witnessed this directly in Sibley 1.02 as CSA (although I guess that could have been a scripted addition to the force pool), but cannot confirm it in Grand Campaigns because I haven't specifically looked for it. I am guessing that if you lost a cav element that you attached to a division that it will show a white chevron on the div-counter and would use a replacement chit to return to the map rather than going back into the force pool. But you're out the money either way, and there's only so many replacements....