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Playing in the Far West for me has been an agonizing struggle with supplies. The South has Development level 20 in many region and/or roads in western Texas--even in regions with dev.lev. 10, which theoretically speaking can't happen, because you need Dev.lev. 25 to build road with the Build Road RGD during the game. At dev.lev. 20 movement and supply movement eases up a bit, but not again until 50.

The Union on the other hand has many region between Kansas and eastern New Mexico with dev.lev. 10 and not even track. This is a recipe for disaster once those long locked forces in the FW unlock and start using up supplies every turn.

So what do you do to keep the spice... I mean supplies flowing?

Well... I suppose it starts with the size of the force. If we are talking NM and the union, I'm not really going to try to maintain anything over a division of round 12-14 elements. If memory serves, the union leaders (Carson and Canby) have some nice traits that help with movement and supply.

Beyond that, I think building a Depot in Santa Fe is a must. It tendes it Hoover up the little GS that is produced in that part of NM. Beyond that, it is worth creating a stockade chain to Denver.

But really, the key in my mind is to keep the force size modest out there.

I build roads and depots. Even if you don't attack, they're relatively cheap and just playing Develop Territory, Clearing, Telegraph, and Build Roads telegraphs a huge Western offensive. Most CSA players seem to want to protect their previously safe industry in Texas, tying up troops they could use in the Trans-Mississippi. If you get nothing else out of it, the VPs associated with the RGDs help a bit.

For the Union constant cycle of development cards to develop the corridor south from California. If can break through El Paso and get a depot there everything gets easier allowing a link up.
Until then Santa Fe is tight. Last game a combo of development, a depot, a redoubt and a stockade next door stabilised everything in time and allowed for building a couple of units even. CSA had invested hard so needed it otherwise would have been overwhelmed and opened up a stockade spree for him. Worth it to commit him to building out there to no eventual avail.

As the Union, I build a series of depot's to the west. It takes a while, but it works.

The first time I played the full campaign to the end I went straight for the Hotel California strategy. I developed all the OMB's from Southeastern California to Eastern New Mexico an put a depot in each of them. It took like forever--gag me with a spoon--, but once completed I was sitting on like 500-600 supply in Pinos Altos. In the mean time Schurz was training every single militia to line-infantry and I had nearly 2 full division--heavy on the cavalry side--ready to take El Paso and keep it. And when I got there Longstreet was sitting pretty with a corps with 2 divisions and even more supply than I had ... ... ... ... ... ... ...


All I could do was pull back and pray that Longstreet didn't get the idea of striking at Penis Altoids, or even worse, straight into Toucan--you can march right in and bypass Western New Mexico from West Sierra, just north of Fort Cummings, because that would have been it.

It was now late '62 early '63 and I had gone into Missouri in force and pushed all the way into Texas. So I shifted part of that push--plus an invasion of the Gulf coast--to cut all supply going into western Texas, and that did it.

But my feeling was that I was basically paving a road for the South to take into California. If I had been playing against a human he would have realized that and the South would have lost everything from Missouri down to the Gulf, plus the Mississippi and the East down to South Caroline--which is when they stuck their colors--, but they would have had every thing west of Texas and could have declared the Republic of California.

Maybe as a bear I could have been happy about that

Apparently Longstreet and all that supply have gone to your head. Perhaps you should lay down for awhile, and re-gather your sanity, or at least your spell checker.

Because the game represents the land route from TX/NM to the Pacific as single boxes, it's much easier to defend for the Union. I *want* the CSA player to attempt invasion via that route.

As the Union, I never try to maintain a supply line from the Trans-Mississippi to New Mexico. As either side, I usually wipe out the line of western stockades closest to the front lines. By placing enough elements in California to eventually form a division, I can effectively halt any advance at San Francisco. It takes about three turns to sail that many troops out there, along with some warships. By the time that the CSA can make it to Los Angeles, they'll have to defeat an entrenched, trained and well-supplied division, with local fortifications and naval bombardment available. The cost to me as the Union is next to nothing.

If the CSA takes the bait they get territory, but very little else for the cost involved. If they don't advance, I can go about creating a gravy train from California to El Paso. It takes a long time but that's the result of the factors in that theater. It's small unit actions by default, and takes major effort to establish a significant supply line. Resources the CSA devotes to conquering New Mexico and further north means less available to defend Texas against Union strengths: coastal blockade and invasion. As either side, I'd rather have Galveston and Houston than Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

Everyone does know the two element wagons can be built in California, right?

With the Mojave trail getting stepped on by a Corps, which could have jumped in behind my divisions under Carsten and .. What's-His-Name, it could have spelled disaster.

If you can just pull 2 or three divisions from the east coast to send on a months long journey to California and not even notice that they're missing... that says something, but it's not good. It would certainly not be an automatic victory, but from Arizona to Dallas would have look terribly butter-nut colored.

The 2 element supply train can be built anywhere you can build the 4 element supply train. And ....? Don't make me pull it out of your nose

Captain_Orso wrote:The 2 element supply train can be built anywhere you can build the 4 element supply train. And ....? Don't make me pull it out of your nose

Pretty much everywhere else. They're not as universally available as flatboats, but it's close.

The Far West inclusion in this game has troubled me from the first, but if you only play with the units allocated historically, it plays very well. If you wish to commit additional resources, have fun as it will not impact the main action.

The Far West inclusion in this game has troubled me from the first, but if you only play with the units allocated historically, it plays very well.

Many units in the Far West, especially the original regular army, are not represented. Much of the 3rd US Artillery were stationed at Alcatraz until fall of 1861, and some stayed the entire war.

http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/unrgarty3.htm

If you can just pull 2 or three divisions from the east coast to send on a months long journey to California and not even notice that they're missing... that says something, but it's not good.

I mentioned one division, not two or three, and I cited enough elements to create a division. The Union starts with several regular army elements already on the West Coast. It doesn't take much to produce a few California militia, and the rest of the division can be made up with a very few regiments from the East Coast, plus a couple of artillery batteries, which I assure you will not be missed.

Durk wrote:The Far West inclusion in this game has troubled me from the first, but if you only play with the units allocated historically, it plays very well. If you wish to commit additional resources, have fun as it will not impact the main action.

The Far West has always been a fun "what if" distraction. One time I even managed to take
Los Angeles. Sure, it might have been a waste of resources, but I was already doing well in
other theaters so I felt like I could afford it. I'm glad it got expanded for CW2.

Merlin wrote:Pretty much everywhere else. They're not as universally available as flatboats, but it's close.

You can build Flatboats in any city you control. You can only build Supply Trains of either size in a city within the Union, which excludes the territories of Arizona and New Mexico. There is no difference between where you can build large and small Supply Trains.

grimjaw wrote:The Far West inclusion in this game has troubled me from the first, but if you only play with the units allocated historically, it plays very well.

Many units in the Far West, especially the original regular army, are not represented. Much of the 3rd US Artillery were stationed at Alcatraz until fall of 1861, and some stayed the entire war.

http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/unrgarty3.htm



I mentioned one division, not two or three, and I cited enough elements to create a division. The Union starts with several regular army elements already on the West Coast. It doesn't take much to produce a few California militia, and the rest of the division can be made up with a very few regiments from the East Coast, plus a couple of artillery batteries, which I assure you will not be missed.

Sorry, I read into your post what you didn't say. My bad .

My point is, that the CS doesn't have to do anything to have enough supply to support a very large--for the Far West--force, which the Union has to work hard for it and everything it does could fall victim to the South; essentially making a present of all the money and effort.

DrPostman wrote:The Far West has always been a fun "what if" distraction. One time I even managed to take
Los Angeles. Sure, it might have been a waste of resources, but I was already doing well in
other theaters so I felt like I could afford it. I'm glad it got expanded for CW2.

Well, if you get that far, Northern California (Sacramento) is one of the highest paying regions for the Union, second only to New York. Those gold mines up there will pay for a lot of shoes.

Playing the Sewing Machine RGD in Santa Fe or Albuquerque is always a good idea. Wouldn't want to go into battle without fresh uniforms! If only Canby had had some cans of SPAM to bring along his supply problems would have been solved!

ArmChairGeneral wrote:Playing the Sewing Machine RGD in Santa Fe or Albuquerque is always a good idea. Wouldn't want to go into battle without fresh uniforms! If only Canby had had some cans of SPAM to bring along his supply problems would have been solved!

I hate spammers. Reported him and those posts should disappear.

Dead, banned and nuked!

Dang, I seem to have missed all the excitement o.O

Captain_Orso wrote:Dang, I seem to have missed all the excitement o.O

Meh, it was just some idiot who posted the same single sentence about sewing
machines 3 times in a row. Didn't even know how to put a url into their post to
point people where to go. Spammers are born stupid, but there are those who
are born dumber that buy their crap so they keep at it.

[video=youtube;rIV9FvzFnM8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIV9FvzFnM8[/video]

it posted 71 messages overall...

I guess that's what I get for starting a thread about starving... SPAM

Invading PC?
'P' -> 'TE'
http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/advert_for_steam_in_a_last_patch/post2

DrPostman wrote:Meh, it was just some idiot who posted the same single sentence about sewing
machines 3 times in a row. Didn't even know how to put a url into their post to
point people where to go. Spammers are born stupid, but there are those who
are born dumber that buy their crap so they keep at it.

actually some spam just wants to exist, the spreading of key words is their goal not the creation of clickable links. Its something about the more sites that contain certain text the more important they become in search engine terms

True Google might use something like that. The more your site is referenced, the more important it might be.