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Does anyone have any advice on taking these objectives during 1862 as the Union? No matter how hard I push, I can't seem to get either before the end of summer. In my current game (early Aug), I have an Army under Grant, split into 2 Corps of slightly over 2000 CP each. Both Corps are artillery heavy and have siege artillery. Both Corps crossed the river, one above Donelson, and the other below to assault from land. However, I just can't seem to take the fort before the inevitable CSA supper-stacks show up and I have to go on the defensive. There are currently at least 3 CSA stacks of 2000 cp in the area, and several Division sized stacks of between 400-600 CP.

The nearby rivers are patrolled by several mixed fleets, yet the CSA continually manages to slip Division sized forces across the river to get behind Cairo. One of them is currently north of St. Louis (no idea how it stays supplied).

Any advice?

I do not know much about playing AI, but in pbem the deal is to take the Mississippi forts first. Once Memphis falls, Henry and Donnelson will fall. The other option, still ignoring these forts, move to take Chattanooga. Both of these move deprive the CSA of supply.

Mein Lieber Durk, you are trying to pass highly difficulty concepts onto some body still trying to figure out how the enemy got across the Ohio and what he can do about it. We all have to learn to walk before we can run.

Guardsman, You have a number of issues your are trying to deal with, forts which are 'preventing' your advance, enemy forces infiltrating across the Ohio River and into what should be your hinterland making it the battle ground. But your solutions start at the beginning, so that's were we have to start.

The very first thing you should understand is that the Union has more money, resources and and manpower than the Confederacy, and the further the game progresses, the larger the difference will grow.

So if the Confederacy is over-rolling your forces in the West--between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains--that means that the South has allocated larger amount of his limited resources for troops in that theater than you have. This means one of two things, or both:
- He's not strengthening other areas of the war and making the West his focus of attack. So he's weaker in the East than he should be.
- You are not investing wisely in building up your forces.

* There's no cookbook for building-up your forces and playing the game. Anybody who tells you there is is lying.

The game is extremely dynamic. You may not see the Confederacy putting it's focus in the West for another 10 games. Maybe your actions can cause Athena to move troops back to the East. What ever happens, it's rarely the exact same thing. So you have to learn to think on your feet and make do with the resources you have in each theater.

Let's get down to the nitty-gritty. The Confederacy is putting troops across the Mississippi and Ohio into your hinterland, because you are letting him. You can block his movement across major rivers by patrolling them with gunboats. For each gunboat you have in a river region there is a 23% chance of it blocking any force from crossing that river region, up to a maximum of 90%. You cannot build enough gunboats to cover everything from Wheeling to Saint Louis by winter '61 even if you spent no money in any other troops in the West, but you will have to invest if you want to stop crossing and use those boats wisely and you will have to continue investing in gunboats until your brown water fleet is sufficient to the task at hand.

Since you cannot control all of the Mississippi and Ohio you need to, you will have to make do with controlling there were it is most important. Generally this means protecting Cairo above all other areas, although I have to say I've played a number of games having lost Cairo for more than just a turn or two. It was an interesting and difficult exercise, but you should always be able to take Cairo back at some point.

How to take a fort. The answer is, it depends. Mainly on what the enemy has inside and outside the fort protecting it. If Donelson is garrisoned only by it's original garrison--one or 2 regiments of infantry plus a fort battery, and the CS has large forces looming in the distance it will only make sense to assault Donelson to take it as quickly as possible. But be aware that you may not be able to hold it and making it your strong-point will restrict your mobility greatly.

To siege a fort into submission is a complex issue. To understand it you must understand this: Manual:Siege_combat. In short, if Donelson or I10 have been more than just lightly reinforced you should probably siege, and to do that you have to be prepared in case your opponent tries to take advantage of your waiting at Donelson for the fort to fall. You must be prepared to abandon the siege to fight in the field.

Lot's of artillery during a siege is a must, but it also must be the correct artillery. Siege artillery is the very best for this, but it's very expensive, takes forever to build and is slow in moving, so it's not a very versatile unit. Grant is your best field commander, but he also has the Siege Expert ability, so he is you're most logical choice, but you must also be ready to send him off to fight in the field because he is also your best commander at all. All 'silver' artillery units are better than bronze units. Silver are rifled and better on the offensive/siege than smooth-bore bronze pieces. Smooth-bores are cheaper and better on the defensive. Having an engineer in your besieging force is also good for a siege.

One last tip, it is almost impossible to march into the Island Number Ten region, but just as easy to invade from transports as to invade any other--even clear-region.

Hope this helps

I have never tried, but is it possible to take a fort (river or ocean) with just ships? Or, perhaps, not "take" (occupy) but force the surrender of the fort?

donagel wrote:I have never tried, but is it possible to take a fort (river or ocean) with just ships? Or, perhaps, not "take" (occupy) but force the surrender of the fort?

Ships may blockade a fort, but can not besiege a fort. As such, a naval force would be unable to "take" an enemy fort.

The OP wants to deal with a deep raider, overcome a stubborn enemy defensive position quickly and then hold it against a threat that outnumbers his force.

#1. Get your house in order before you attack. Defend your supply base and perhaps build some riverine transports so that Grant's supply line is secure. Then a deep raider has nothing to do that will affect your strategic goal and can be ignored.

#2. Have Grant lay siege to Fort Henry & Donelson and slowly starve them out. Ft. H&D is in a woods region. I show Grant able to fight with 30 infantry/cavalry and 9 batteries of artillery in that region. Entrench his force and let the 2000 power CSA stacks attack Grant's defensive position.

#3. Like Caesar at Alesia, you can let the enemy relief force smash themselves against your defenses while you defeat the garrison of Fort H&D without a fight. Once the CSA have wasted their strength, take Island 10.

Clausewitz noted that a great commander can defeat his enemy with a flanking movement and win praise. However, the lowest captain should know how to outflank an opponent. The commander is great, because he knows to ignore everything else and focus on what matters most.

P.S. Island 10 is in a swamp region (max range 2) and as I posted, Fort H&D is in a woods region (max range 3). So rifled artillery won't have any range advantage over bronze cannon, or muskets for that matter. Good luck!

Allocate a full division to elastic defense. If there's an enemy in Indianapolis, send him there. If Stand Waitie is up in Iowa, send him there.

You say "go on the defensive" like its a bad thing. Getting a 2500 enemy to attack your 2000 stack is a victory.

What is your real goal? You seem overly fixated with capturing Island number 10. Is that really what you want?
- If you can get 2500 stacks to attack your entrenched 2000 stack, that's better than taking Island number 10.
- If you can isolate 500 power divisions with your 2000 Grant stack, that's better than taking Island number 10.
- If the path to Bowling Green is wide open because there's a 4,000 stack in New Madrid, that's better than taking Island number 10.
- If you can control the pace of the game, while the south wastes troops on pointless positions while you build up the Union juggernaut, that's better than taking Island number 10 by August


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The force deep in your countryside can easily supply itself if it has a depot and a farm. I once cornered a three division CSA army in Columbus for the winter, yet it never ran out of supply because of the depot and the natural production of the province.

The Union has enough transports to send 2 good sized divisions to take Donaldson by invading
it. Don't waste ships on bombarding, just land there in Assault posture. At least that's what
I do. Same for Island 10. In one game I sent my force in passive and evade all the way to
invade Memphis and took it the turn after landing. If you do that send at least 3 full supply
with them, just in case.

DrPostman wrote:just land there in Assault posture

In a PBEM, ensure your move is not predictable and the CSA won't bring a force in defense when you'll attack : I have seen landing ending in a blood bath and the assaillant utterly wipped out.

"- If you can get 2500 stacks to attack your entrenched 2000 stack, that's better than taking Island number 10.
- If you can isolate 500 power divisions with your 2000 Grant stack, that's better than taking Island number 10.
- If the path to Bowling Green is wide open because there's a 4,000 stack in New Madrid, that's better than taking Island number 10.
- If you can control the pace of the game, while the south wastes troops on pointless positions while you build up the Union juggernaut, that's better than taking Island number 10 by August "

- I'm not sure getting attacked by a CSA 2500 cp stack to my 2000 cp stack is a good thing in 1862 since it results in a significant defeat for me over 70% of the time.

- How can you isolate 3-5 Divison stacks with only one stack? The CSA seems to have magical mobility. As soon as I get one stack cornered, another pops up behind me somewhere and I have to either move to protect my force or protect an objective.

How can I control the pace of the game when the CSA seems to have superior quality forces, more of them, and magical mobility? I clearly must have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the game mechanics actually work.

It's not magic, its WAD. The CSA has better leaders until later in the game, which translates into faster movement times and less inactivity (inactivity slows movement and degrades combat effectiveness tremendously). Also the "difficulty" setting (Sgt., Lt., etc.) gives the AI additional movement and cohesion recovery bonii. Another thing to watch out for is that the CSA recovers hits in the field at twice the rate of the Union (hard-coded) and their higher quality troops have more base-cohesion and so can move for longer periods of time before they are exhausted and have to slow down/rest.

The CSA does NOT have more troops than you, but they can keep parity at least until mid-62, unless you are losing a lot of battles, in which case they can definitely get ahead of you or at least stay at parity for longer. It SEEMS like they have more troops because so many of yours are tied up in Northern VA eyeing Manassas, protecting DC and because the CSA's superior initial quality means they can do more with less (plus the AoP is standing around waiting for a decent general to arrive to lead them). Especially in the West theater (what modern Americans would call the Mid-West) the CSA can often get local superiority if the Union does not focus on it. Overall, your troops are lower quality than theirs until part way through the war: you need to have a sizeable advantage if you expect to win offensive battles, and it is notoriously hard to pin them down and force them to fight on your terms.

You have more of all three resources throughout the game; they will never be able to match your long-term numbers, and trying to do too much too early is a recipe for disaster as the Union. By the time you get a sizeable advantage in numbers, (mid-62 onwards) you will also have parity/superiority in leadership and troop quality and you can start steamrolling across the entire map. (And, as Gray Fox will point out if I do not, Richmond is by far the most important objective in the game, and mucking about in Tennessee too much can easily divert resources and attention away from what could be an easy win: rebs in the West are rebs that are not standing between you and Richmond!)

The thing to do is to keep your eye on the ball and ignore things that are not truly threats. The game is won by controlling strategic and objective cities, and by winning battles. Do not be distracted by CSA divisions crossing the river and running around in Illinois and Indiana unless they are truly threatening to take AND hold VP/NM cities like Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, etc. Protect your supply lines, but focus on the goals that will win the game. In Tennessee, that means Nashville and Memphis, and the best way to invade is along the railroad running from Louisville->Bowling Green->Ft. Donnelson. If you land amphibiously before taking Donnelson your supplies must come via river and are easily interdicted either by the forts at Donnelson/Pillow/I 10 or by the surprisingly large riverine force the CSA can gather and operate in and around the Confluent. Take Donnelson as soon as you can not because of river control, but because of the rail-supply line from Louisville/Cincy into western TN. Taking (or at least seriously threatening) Memphis or Nashville will then put an end to any shenanigans north of the Ohio, most of which are only a nuisance anyway. Even Cairo is not that important if losing it means you can get Memphis/Nashville, since you can always get it back later without too much effort (Cairo is only somewhat strategically valuable: it does not produce VP and will not give the CSA NM).

If you are losing in defensive posture with a 2000 PWR stack vs a 2500 PWR stack then you are not adequately entrenched. As the CSA I would never attack a Union stack and expect to win with those odds unless I could catch them on the move or one turn after (i.e. before they can entrench to lvl 2+) and even then would not necessarily risk it, especially if it was against Grant or Lyons. Look carefully at your troop composition: those volunteer brigades you have all over the place fold up like a tent in combat against regulars, which is only partly reflected in the PWR rating of their stack!

I strongly advise new players to play the West Campaign scenario as both sides before getting into the Grand Campaigns. It is a crash course on how to invade/defend Tennessee, is relatively short, and gets you right into the thick of the Corps vs. Corps action without having to wait around for two dozen turns before you get to do anything fun. The learning curve is steep in CW2, but a lot of that is because the Grand Campaigns (like the RL war) take so long to get going that you are five to ten hours into the game before you are able to start making the kinds of mistakes that really teach you how the game mechanics work. The West Scenario gives the best learning ROI for the time spent playing, IMO.

Mickey3D wrote:In a PBEM, ensure your move is not predictable and the CSA won't bring a force in defense when you'll attack : I have seen landing ending in a blood bath and the assaillant utterly wipped out.

Oh yea, I don't think I'd try that against a human.

How does one take Fort Henry and Donelson in the summer of 1862? One starts in April 1861.

Grant is your best commander. Your best commander deserves your best troops. His stack should have an HQ unit for the medical, signal and master trainer abilities. He should have a pontoon element to speed river crossing and an engineer to speed entrenching (the two work together to give the best bonus for entrenching), a balloon for the detection bonus and a pure artillery Division led by French (artillery bonus) with a dozen 20 lbers. His Division commanders should be the best, Lyons, Meagher, Hooker, Sherman and/or Thomas. Each infantry Division should have a sharpshooter(initiative bonus), a Marine (additional river crossing bonus), an early cavalry element for the detection bonus, a conscript cavalry element for the extra horsepower in screening and pursuit and a dozen line infantry with one of the brigades granting the elite cohesion bonus to the whole Division. If you scrutinize the Military Recruitment lists you can find enough brigades to make 12 of these Divisions. I typically have this done by spring '62. If you assign Grant as Division commander of the first one of these Divisions in the fall of '61, you can use him to launch an amphibious assault on Fort Clark off the coast of North Carolina. It is an island fort that the CSA cannot reinforce and taking it will prevent CSA ironclads from sneaking up the coast to VA. Taking it will also get Grant promoted to 3-star. Kearney makes a good Corps commander for a second stack as above in Grant's army.

So now you have an army of uniformed razor blades led by U.S. Grant. If for some reason you still want to attack Fort H&D instead of Richmond, then don't poke it with your finger, smash it with your fist (Guderian). Good luck!