How to win at Shiloh

[Kozak101]

Hey all, sorry if I shouldn't be posting this but I recently bought the game and I am trying to get used to it by playing the Shiloh scenario (after the tutorials) and cannot find any lets plays or threads that solve my problems.

My problem is that I just cannot defeat the opposing armies as either side. I'm mostly getting stuck on how to coordinate an attack with all the various stacks at my disposal, regardless of whether I reorganize them for CP purposes or synchronize movement.

As a result I'm finding the prospect of the main campaign to be quite daunting if I cannot master this scenario or the basic concepts, so any advise would be appreciated.

Cheers

[Durk]

What is deceptive about the organization of the Shiloh campaign flows from the complete historical organizations of both armies. To maximize your command you will need to reorganized base upon the game's logic. Organize based upon your best commanders of divisions, corps and armies.
For instance, look at Grant's command. Find your two star leaders, McClernand would be a good example. Under the command tab, use the minus button to strip him of divisional command. You will see the corps command option is now highlighted. Make him a corps commander of Grant's army.

Now put all your units except McClernand inside of Grant's army. Next, strip the command of all your division commanders. Find your best, maybe Sherman, and click on Sherman holding down the control key and begin selecting regiments to join the division. Keep adding them until the red plus sign blinks out. Then unselect the last unit and hit the now red plus sign. All these units will join Sherman's division. Now find you next best division leader and do the same. Keep building new divisions until all units are in divisions.

Now place your divisions evenly between the Army and the Corps. If you wish for them to move together, use the button on the first tab, movement, and select the parallel lines for both. Move the division. If you have done this correctly, the corps will move the the region where you have moved Grant.

See if this all works.

[Kozak101]

Thank you! Can't fathom what I must have been doing before hand but atleast I can organize the army.

Also wondering if there are anymore officers/generals that you can get access to in the scenario as I find that there are still a lot of units floating around outside of divisions. Best I can do is divide up the various random bits of artillery between the corps.

[pgr]

Find your best, maybe Sherman, and click on Sherman holding down the control key and begin selecting regiments to join the division. Keep adding them until the red plus sign blinks out. Then unselect the last unit and hit the now red plus sign. All these units will join Sherman's division.
.

Nice trick that!

[ArmChairGeneral]

And since you are already holding down the Cntrl key, it makes sense to use the Combine (Cntrl-C) and Uncombine (Cntrl-D) hotkeys to zip and unzip divisions rather than clicking the + and - order buttons.

When I am reorganizing divisions (like say transferring elements to a better led division, or stripping one of its Arty/Cavalry) I create a new stack with them so that the unit panel is not crowded with extraneous units while I am unzipping and re-combining the divisions. Then I just drag them back to the original stack when I am finished.

[Durk]

Thank you! Can't fathom what I must have been doing before hand but atleast I can organize the army.

Also wondering if there are anymore officers/generals that you can get access to in the scenario as I find that there are still a lot of units floating around outside of divisions. Best I can do is divide up the various random bits of artillery between the corps.

There really are no more officers readily at hand. It is ok to have loose units in an army. The key question is if you have a command penalty. Have you seen the percentage sign toward the right of the bottom screen? It shows the command penalty. Your goal is no command penalty. So if you are in balance, there will be no penalty.