AGEOD Forums

Hey guys thanks for welcoming me to the forum. I appreciate the responses iv had so far. This game is starting to frustrate me. I had a force of around 500 in Fredricksburg VA (confederate), and all of a sudden on the next turn a union force of about 1800 appears just south of Fredricksburg ( I have no idea how he got across the river and got behind me). So I was like ok...... so I let it play out to see what happened next. The next turn my force just surrenders without a fight. Is this normal. I need help with this game , I am a moderate civil war buff and very much wants to play this game and have some fun but weird things just keep on happening. The previous scenario I played the union had not invaded the south at all and on the next turn somehow they had a force in warrington NC and took the city. What is wrong with this game? is there something I am missing. Anybody who would help would be awesome ........ hell maybe we could talk on the phone and I could get some good info if anybody is willing.

lightbrave wrote:Hey guys thanks for welcoming me to the forum. I appreciate the responses iv had so far. This game is starting to frustrate me. I had a force of around 500 in Fredricksburg VA (confederate), and all of a sudden on the next turn a union force of about 1800 appears just south of Fredricksburg ( I have no idea how he got across the river and got behind me). So I was like ok...... so I let it play out to see what happened next. The next turn my force just surrenders without a fight. Is this normal. I need help with this game , I am a moderate civil war buff and very much wants to play this game and have some fun but weird things just keep on happening. The previous scenario I played the union had not invaded the south at all and on the next turn somehow they had a force in warrington NC and took the city. What is wrong with this game? is there something I am missing. Anybody who would help would be awesome ........ hell maybe we could talk on the phone and I could get some good info if anybody is willing.

First question - did you download the patches? Also were your forces inside or outside of Fredericksburg?

i just bought the game, I assumed all the patches are downloaded. Where are these patches? and yes, I was in the town

lightbrave wrote:i just bought the game, I assumed all the patches are downloaded. Where are these patches? and yes, I was in the town

Latest beta patch is here. http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?35823-Public-Beta-Patch-1-04-RC6

You might want to start with a basic tutorial series on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0elpXyl8LDXJxQTNGdvk_zwB_ZYGv-0A

i went to your link and it took me to some blue page. wouldn't it show on steam if I needed to update a patch?

lightbrave wrote:i went to your link and it took me to some blue page. wouldn't it show on steam if I needed to update a patch?

This beta link is has been deactivated. We have been told that the final official version will be available within a week.

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As to your force surrendering - if you are inside a city and there is an enemy force in the same region, the force inside the city is besieged. During a siege there is a die roll at the beginning of each turn to determine if the besieged force surrenders.

There are a lot more details about sieges in the manual and online wiki.

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CW2 does have a hefty learning curve - I'm still learning!

Being in a city is great if you need to restore a unit's cohesion or get replacement troops. But, if you have forces in a city when it's attacked, you're in a bad spot, tactically.

They surrendered because, in plain English, they were screwed.

Which scenario are you playing? When you say a force showed up in Warrington NC, what sort of force are you talking about? 1 unit of partisans, or 1 unit of cavalry, or an army?

As to your question, this is a game, with a set of rules, which sometimes give results that people are not expecting (for example, why/how units surrender for example) sometimes the rules are straight forward. For information about battles for example, I would look here. There are also some really confusing issues (such as the dreaded DAR - double adjacency rule).

We forumites are glad to help each other, as we find out a lot of information this way.

Also, if you are new to the game, it might be a good idea to play with FOW turned off for the first few times to get an idea how the AI moves troops around.

Special rules apply to defending structures like cities.

Enemy units attacking a city have a 25% reduction to what is called frontage. Frontage is the maximum amount of elements (regiments of infantry or cavalry and batteries of artillery) that can attack in any combat round. So a small force actually in a city can hold off a larger attacking force because the attacker gets bottlenecked.

However, a city also has a frontage restriction. You can garrison a city with 10 elements (regiments or batteries) times its size without exceeding the city frontage. So a size two city (frontage 20) can hold a Division (frontage 18) with a few extra batteries. In the right hand corner is a menu when the unit in the city is clicked that has a sort of bullseye shaped icon at the bottom of that menu. If you cursor over the icon you will get a script telling you if the unit is overcrowded in the city (or fort, etc.).

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Supply plays a big role during a siege. If the units in a city have no supply wagon unit with them, then they may surrender outright. With a supply unit (even one with only two wagons), this chance to surrender is only 5%. Also, units without a supply stock from wagons or a depot, will eventually starve if the siege continues.

Finally, units in a city under siege can "sortie out" to meet a relief force and win their freedom. Just use the appropriate combat icon to synchronize the attack.

Troy was of course defended from within its walls. Some players would rather defend a city with a unit entrenched outside in the region, because of a bad experience such as the one you had. However, an entrenched force in a clear terrain region with clear weather can be attacked by a force with three times the frontage that could attack it within the city. This is because leader rules increase frontage in this case that would not otherwise apply. I believe that if the rules of defending in a city are understood, then the best choice can be made with reason.
Good luck!

P.S. As to the loss of Warrington, do you mean Warrenton or Wilmington? I was able to move a force from Annapolis to NC by sea transport in one turn. If you don't have a garrison of at least a militia element, then the Union can land quickly from seemingly out of nowhere and take any undefended structures in the region. Perhaps this is what happened?

Grey fox, thanks for your post. Im sure ill have a lot more questions as I keep figuring out how to play the game. If union troops can come from Annapolis to NC then I guess that is what happened. (Warrenton is a city in northern part of NC) As far as the force that surrendered, I never saw a message that the city was under siege. Mabye I need to play the game a little slower and try to pick up on things more. As far as the corps/army structure, its just annoying when you try to have them in one region and you accidently stack corps back into the army and then you have to reform the whole corps again. some regions have very little space to play around with. Also, if you have your force right outside the city and your on defensive posture, can the enemy just go and take the city. Is there a way to keep your entrenchment bonus and still defend the city? Thanks again Grey Fox

You can lock units so they won't combine if you drop them on top of one another. Just right click on a units tab to lock/unlock a particular unit. Or
you can press Crtl+L to lock/unlock all units. That way you can drop them in the same area without combining them.

Can I ask how you folks have managed to turn on the option to show the number of elements on the upper left hand side of a unit? Mine don't do that and I can't find anywhere how to do it. Thanks.

You may want to try reading through the threads on this forum too:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=1256

After release lots of new players posted tons of questions here, so there is a lot of good info to gather by reading through the threads from around the time the game was released.

Jim

Just a couple of points to round things out.

If you want to understand Sieges you'll want to read these two articles: AGE-Wiki: Overcrowding Rule and AGE-Wiki: Sieges and Breaches.

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The Sortie Out Special Order only works in conjunction with other friendly stacks attacking your besieger.
- When you press the button for one of your stacks inside a location, they will wait for a battle to start outside that location.
- When a battle has started, they will Sortie Out to join that battle.
- Depending on the forces involved the battle could end before your sortieing force has to enjoin the battle. In this case they simply remain inside the location.
- If the sortieing force is lead, the leader must be activated to sortie.

If you want to attack a besieging force without another force attacking within the region at the same time, simply Drag-n-Drop your attacking stack into the region outside the location without them being in Passive Posture and they will attack.

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The chevrons that used to be on the upper left side of units in the Stack Display are "missing"; that's all I know about their not being there, other than that I have already reported this weeks ago in the beta forum.

BTW, the chevrons have never had a 1-1 relationship to the number of elements in a unit, it was always a 1-2; 1 chevron to 2 elements.

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And one tip: If your smaller force is going to, or being besieged and you cannot relieve them immediately for another region, get them the hell out of there, otherwise you will just be sending them on a long vacation to sunny Andersonville. If you are going to lose the location anyway, just let it go.

Without knowing when to lose, you will not know when to win.

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Have at'em!

In my game with Micky3D, St. Louis has been under siege for several turns. He even has three breaches, rendering the city defense bonus nil. However, my garrison are still entrenched to level 6. I had the foresight to build a depot there right away in 1861, so the defenders have enough supplies for two more years. A relief force is under way, but it's not an emergency.

When you want to defend a location, you entrench your units because you gain an advantage. You also gain another advantage when you entrench in a city or a fort/stockade. Defenders will need a stockpile of supplies, so build a depot and give the defenders a unit of supply wagons. Have a force in reserve to protect all of the defended cities so that you can relieve one as needed.

If you try to defend everywhere, then you will be weak everywhere. Choose those locationas that you must hold and do all the right things to hold onto them.

I agree but it is still difficult. If you garrison to much, your forces are to spread out as you say. But often, important cities or depots are attacked by very large forces and a 500 pwr stack often isn't sufficient.
Then the reserve troops can't get there in time as the enemy assault right away.
Those are the fun dilema's to solve in the game: where do you build bigger stacks to protect the cities/depots, where do you place a relieve force, and so on