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CSA Points to Know (open to comments)

Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:10 pm

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CSA - Points to Know


Strategy
• After 1863, the CSA will face a building and overwhelming blue tide.
• The CSA player has two options: the "Hold em" or the "Go for Broke - Get Washington" strategy.
* The basic eastern offensive strategy for the South should be an invasion north of the valley to Fredericktown.
- Threaten DC, Annapolis and Baltimore. Be careful while doing so; fighting in enemy territory can lead to disaster.
- The spearhead of offensive Southern strategy is to destroy Union morale. Taking the capital is the best way to do this.
- There is no way the CSA can defend everywhere, so don't try.
- Even if you have no intention of assaulting Washington, it may be best to pretend that you are. Losing D.C. is the biggest threat to the Union in the early war. If that threat is off the table then those resources normally devoted to the defense of the capital may find their way to New Orleans or some other vital location.
- Early in the war, before the North really mobilizes, take calculated risks and be aggressive. Use your better generals before the Federal leadership catches up.
- Don't grant the enemy time to entrench, reinforce, and prepare.[/color]
* Southern “Hold em” strategy in a tea cup:
- The East is a solid defensive line at risk of being outflanked by sea.
- The West is a mobile fight along rivers and rail lines with fixed points of defense that serve as fly paper.
- There are two points of attack in the West- down the rivers, and by land from Cincinnati to Bowling Green into TN. Put cannons on the rivers and an army in Bowling Green.
- The Transmississippi is a holding game that strives to tie down the maximum enemy resources possible.
- The highway west of the Mississippi is from Fayetteville to St Louis, with a stopover in Springfield. Don't get distracted fighting for Oklahoma or up into Iowa.
- The Far West is raiding and burning.
- If you minimize builds and effort in Far West; burn everything.
- Burn the Union stockade highway in '61, then hang out in El Paso till the war is over.
- The Coast is a naked, one armed, lady trying to cover herself.
- Lee was right - don't defend the coast at the point of attack. Keep your strongest, fastest, meanest 1,000 power division camped out on a rail line in the Deep South. If you move fast enough, you can get that beast anywhere from New Orleans to Jacksonville to Wilmington in 14 days.
- If you decide to defend on the beaches - strategic, coastal cities should be garrisoned with at least a division, leader and a supply wagon.
- Defend New Orleans; the first attack will most likely come in the winter of 61-62.
• Abandon West Virginia before it snows.
• If pressed too hard in the west, trade space for time.
• Railroads in the Deep South are sparse enough to force single attack axes. This can work to your advantage when slowing advances.
• In the West, the South needs to garrison strongly anywhere she wants to maintain and have a mobile force ready to strike back at an invading force.
• When limited to 3 armies, placement is usually: 1st army holding Virginia and the capital; the 2nd army in Mississippi holding the Big Muddy and Western Tennessee; the 3th army in Eastern Tennessee holding Nashville and a recruiting area in Kentucky.
• Get used to flipping the board, so to speak, and trying to figure out what you would and wouldn’t do, as well as what you wouldn’t want to have happen to you.
• The simultaneous nature of CW 2 movement plotting and resolution segments means that players must anticipate their opponent’s activities.
• Athena receives increases to money, conscripts, and war supplies at each higher difficulty setting, +50% resources at Captain and +100% at Colonel
• National Morale has a normal value of 100. Each turn, if either faction is above or below 100 NM, there is a chance their NM will stabilize toward 100. The game rolls a d100 and checks it against the factions NM. If they are below 100 NM, then a die roll greater than their current NM will gain them 1NM. If you have more than 100 NM, then a die roll greater than your morale above 100 will cause you to lose 1NM. The Union makes 4 rolls a turn, and the CSA 7.
• On the Scores & Objectives page, F9, under cbt. power, the first number is actual combat power in relation to you; the second number is a naval power comparison.
• Each green or blue dot below a structure represents the presence of 3 units.


Tactics
• Know the points of attack and know where the enemy is coming from.
• Defend objectives and anything the enemy values.
• Under the game rules, it is extraordinarily difficult to win an offensive battle against an equal or larger sized force.
• Defending with a good force on good terrain is the best way to bleed an enemy.
• When dug in and defending, 1 to 1 ratios are not necessary. Don't forget to factor in terrain and river crossings. In hills, across a river, 3 to 1 odds might be enough to hold.
• Form a continuous line of well entrenched stacks in the East; use small units to entrench 2nd row fall back positions.
• In the East, the CSA should try to avoid a defensive line wider than 3 provinces. All ANV corps should be in a position to support each other.
• Once you spread beyond adjacent areas, there's no way for MTSG to work.
•Take advantage of the March to the Sound of the Guns and concentrate at the right place.
• Maximize the chances of adjacent forces MTSG by putting them in an offensive posture with active rail movement.
• An army moving at Conservative Attack, Blue/Orange, will attack at a slower pace; this may allow its neighboring corps to March to the Sound of the Guns and deliver a crushing blow.
• The Rappahannock line is the strongest defensive line for the CSA in the East. (Culpepper and Spotsalvania regions) On day one, have the fixed units in those regions start on entrenchments; don't let the Union cross that line.
• If you can take Alexandria, defending Virginia in 1862 becomes a whole lot simpler with 3 corps at Alex-Leesburg-Harpers, with rivers in front and rail linking 2 of the 3 regions. [/color]
• Hide behind rivers.
• Keep an eye on the weather and its effects.
• When the Federal invasion force first comes it will be in its most consolidated and strongest form. Eventually it will breach your lines. Zen-out with a cup of tea; maintaining patience while the blue tide spreads is tough. Avoid coffee and over anxious counter-attacks. Wait till you can see the whites of their eyes...
• Out maneuver your opponent; use ground to your advantage; “Get there first with the most.”
• Trying to estimate how much a weak enemy stack could recover before you engage them is really tough. Especially against a charismatic commander with HQ support. And then there is also the cohesion your force loses each day it marches. If you play with the traffic option it is even worse. Be cautious when launching attacks that will happen after the turn's day 8. Much can change by then; it is possible for weak stacks, given 10 days to recover cohesion, to more than double their power rating.
• If you are looking for a decisive battle, hit with Lee/Jackson in open terrain and clear weather. Lee/Grant can attack in open terrain with over a hundred extra elements above the footage normally allowed.
• Follow up defeated stacks.
• When NM is low, it is difficult to successfully attack.
• You can't always pick which units will defend, but you can choose which unit attacks.
• Small independent stacks avoid CP penalty, but risk defeat in detail by a concentrated force.
• Supply is key: control/destroy supply sources; block supply lines using MC/guerillas/cavalry; keep your foe hungry.
• Invading divisions can have tenuous supply lines; find ways to disrupt them to put a crimp in Union operations.
• Use mobile forces to slip behind enemy lines to re-establish MC and to destroy the rails linking their forces to coastal depots.
• Before a battle, use partisans and the destroy depot card to wreck your opponents supply chain and to cut critical RR lines leading into key areas.
• To secure the capital, act as a fire brigade, or to reinforce with fresh troops, keep a division in Richmond.
• Always have a mobile reserve with some punch behind your front to respond to the unexpected.
• Grow and keep reserves to swap out with stacks in need of replenishing.
• Send fresh divisions to reinforce after attacks and to protect units with low cohesion.
• Keep reserve divisions positioned on rails for quick moves.
• If possible, try for 3-1 when storming a structure.
• The problem with forts/redoubts/stockades is you have to decide on keeping forces outside or inside. If the troops are inside, amphibious forces can land units without opposition. This is a major reason to keep units in the field.
• The value of being in a fort, city or redoubt is the defender frontage is as clear terrain and the attacker has 25% less.
• Have 1/3 to ½ of what the Union can muster to hold against amphibious attacks.
• Defend Suffolk just west of Norfolk from amphibious assault.
• Reinforce important forts, ie protecting New Orleans, and Mobile with a brigade or two.
• When threatened, move the capital at the last moment.
• Defending forces can be blended with fixed troops and new unit builds; but fixed units will limit a force's ability to retreat before destruction.
• The chief advantage of militia is that their brigades have a command cost of 1, making them the cheapest to command. This suits them best for independent commands i.e. garrison duty.
• Militia does not hold up against regular troops.
• Ambush only works for stationary units.


Target
• Washington DC
• Objective cities, strategic cities and tent cities.
• Cities with stars create VPs.
• Destroy elements in battle to win NM.
• If you can’t hold Tucson, burn it. This will deny the North a cheap source of VPs.


Military Control
• Use units to raise MC to >75% and deny rail use and supply to the other side.
• Supply movement is blocked by <25% MC.
• Fan out units in surrounding areas to grab MC in areas of interest or possible supply routes.
• Watch MC, if below 5%, units will shift to Orange and will attack.
•If you have 91% MC in an area, you will force the enemy into a river-crossing under fire; If you have MC 10% or higher in an area, then you are considered to have a bridgehead/beachhead and can enter the region and fight without a crossing river penalty.
• Garrison objective and strategic cities to gain VP and limit creation of enemy units by RDC.
• To collect VPs you must control the location, and to control a location with <50% loyalty, garrison with either militia/irregulars inside the city or line infantry out or inside.
• Mounted volunteers can take cities; early cavalry cannot.
• Loyalty under 50% in east TN will allow Union partisan creation. This can be stopped by using martial law and entrenchments to raise loyalty in key areas.
• If both sides have troops in a region, neither may increase military control until one side assumes an Offensive Posture.


Movement
• The speed of movement is based on cohesion.
• Pay attention to weather; moving in bad weather destroys cohesion.
• Avoid movement in the mountains during winter.
• Snow can block travel in mountains, both foot and rail.
• Mud, often in the spring and fall, wrecks movement, especially for cavalry. Plan accordingly for deployment or retreat.
• Red areas mean you may not move into that area as you do not have sufficient power or MC to enter the region.
• Movement is blocked through a region by the Patrol value of the defender compared to the evasion value of the moving stacks factored through a formula.
• Each element has a Patrol Value that represents the ability of the element to block or interrupt enemy movement. To calculate, the Patrol Value belonging to friendly elements are added to the Patrol value of friendly fortifications in a region. This value is not modified by the Military Control value in the region. The resulting value represents the strength of the Zone of Control that friendly forces exert in the region.
• When moving into an area that contains an enemy stack, if your MC is below 5%, your units will shift to attack.
• Count the distance in days to plan and control your moves.
• A CP penalty of 5% may cause no movement effect and little if any combat effect. However, a large CP penalty may slow a stack to a crawl and cause them to suffer firing last in combat.
• With a stack comprised of standard conscripts, the maximum movement penalty is a 50% increase in movement cost.
• The movement penalty at -10% CP seems negligible and it doesn’t apply a negative to combat until units fall to 40% of maximum cohesion. A well-rested force that spends a few extra days marching in clear weather will not have their combat performance hampered much.
• Inactive units or Forces suffer a 35% reduction in their movement speed.
• Out of state militia units suffer a major movement penalty.
• To join two moving forces together, drop the faster force on the slower.
• Moving land or naval stacks can try to intercept a passing targeted enemy unit.
• Don’t target a unit unless combining or intercepting; instead, target the area to avoid canceled moves or having your force follow the target into areas you do not want to be in.
• Move troops in Green/Green to limit travel attrition.
• Separate units traveling to the same area on Green/Green can form up and assault next turn.
• Always stack leaders with a unit when ending a move in a territory containing an enemy force.
• To areas linked by rail, strategic redeployment can instantly move generals, wagons, or support units.
• Supply units, pontoons, engineers and HQ's etc. move at the same speed as marching infantry.[/color]
• Supply wagons move slower than cavalry.
• Guns larger than 20 pounders slow movement.
• Transport heavy artillery by ship or rail.
• If you control the railroads in a theater, and the lines you need are not cut, you can easily outmaneuver your foe.
• Invest heavily in the Rail pool. It is important for supply distribution as well as mobility.
• Rail and steamboat pools will gradually decrease; 1% per turn for steamboats and 3% for rail.
• The rail pool will shrink as territory is lost.
• As long as enough rail points are available, rail movement is not affected by CP penalty.


Intel
[color="#FFFF00"]• Use the fog of war to your advantage as best as you can.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Use cavalry scouts to track enemy buildup, movement and weaknesses.
• If you absolutely need to know something ASAP, don't be afraid to sacrifice some horsemen.
• First rule of scouting, never have your scout stacks enter combat.
• Avoid moving scouts into regions the enemy might be in. Chose adjacent regions to spy from. Avoid obvious paths that enemy units might take.
• Always give your scouts Green/Green, Evade Combat orders unless you’re confident they won’t get caught.
• Learn to count brigades and guess at their relative power as your intel often lacks detailed numbers.
• Your foe will most likely concentrate their best leaders in areas they think are important or have imminent plans for.
• The further East on the map, the bigger the scouting stack needs to be to survive accidental encounters with the enemy.
• Cavalry divisions make good scouts.
• A small, stealthy cavalry division of only four regiments can penetrate enemy lines and give you a more complete picture of what is going on. This division usually has enough power to brush aside an auto-garrison and burn up a depot.
• Rangers and partisans add abilities to scout stacks.
• Send/rail the rangers east across the Mississippi where they can be used as great scouts. Their cost is absurdly cheap, they are faster in mud than cavalry scouts, and they carry 4 turns of supplies.
• Use hunter-killer groups to chase down the enemy's smaller recon scouts; deny them Intel.
• Brigs posted outside harbors can collect information about land forces.[/color]


Raiding
[color="#FFFF00"]• If unopposed, skillful raiders can ruin a supply network. It can take significant forces to defend overextended lines.
• When protecting rail supply lines, you may find it necessary to station units in each area the line runs through.
• Any combat unit, even a partisan will block supply through an area just by being there.
• One partisan on the rail road, and one on each side will block supplies between almost any two depots completely; remember, just because you hold a rail line region, doesn't mean supplies cannot move around that one held region.
• The probability of destroying a railroad is equal to your current power value, with a bonus of 25 if a pillager.
• If you really need a specific rail connection destroyed, group up a couple of partisans.
• If you launch attacks against rail garrisons, it may be best to target regions with low opponent MC control; winning a battle may remove enough enemy MC to stop rail movement.
• Trying to repair broken rails in bad terrain and weather can be tough. Units like rangers may be able to get there faster than others.
• When destroying small towns, stockades and depots, the unit you give the order to will burn the structure after 15 days, basically a full turn plus one day. You can give the unit orders to move with a destroy fort order active; they will complete the arson and then begin to move. The destruction is guaranteed as long as the unit stays in the region for the 15 day duration.[/color]
• Use small garrisons combined with a fast moving hammer stack to check raids.
[color="#FFFF00"]• When your opponent unleashes raiders and partisans, have a counter-recon ability ready, or your offensive may find itself without supply lines.
• Use a cavalry corps under a fast mover to run down raiders; target the units - not the area.[/color]
• Partisans can blow up 1 depot level from adjacent areas with cards.
[color="#FFFF00"]• A partisan must roll more than * 3 the garrisoning elements to destroy one level of a depot.
• Don't form partisans in the mud of winter, they might starve immediately...wait for good weather.[/color]
• Hunt partisans units with a leaderless 2 cavalry and 1 horse artillery stack.
• ASAP build militia in Rollo, MO to rip up the rails and burn the depot.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Eliminate the Kansas highway. Use your Indians to destroy all those forts that lead from Leavenworth to Fayetteville. You want the Union to use the St Louis to Fayetteville highway.
• You can't burn a fort down if you are in it during a siege.[/color]


Battles
[color="#FFFF00"]• Launching successful attacks is one of the harder things to master in this game.
• Battle sequence is ordered into days, rounds and range phases. One day lasts up to six rounds.
• There is no way to 'pin' a stack down. You cannot stop MTTSOG by starting two battles simultaneously in neighboring regions.
• A field battle is initiated when the following conditions are met: there are at least two opposing stacks in the same region; an “offensive/assault” command posture been assigned to at least one of the stacks; the player with the “offensive/assault” stack must have detected the enemy stack; an army-stack [color="#FF0000"]cannot[/color] initiate a battle if there are other friendly stacks in the area, including unescorted supply units or a solitary captured artillery.
• The stack commitment rules for battles can produce unpredictable results; it is possible that a very small stack may target a large one, or the reverse. It is best to circumvent these situations by having as few stacks as possible in an area.
• To avoid having multiple stacks in an area, target your own stack; this combines all arriving forces at the end of movement.
• Frontage determines how many elements fight. Before attacking, check the terrain overlay in the combat area to determine the number of elements usable during any round. This is key to smaller armies defeating more numerous opponents.[/color][color="#FFFF00"]
• To check, click on a leader's stack and press the "7" key for a terrain overlay. Cursor a region; a menu will pop up with the number of Line (infantry & cavalry) and Support elements (artillery) that will fight under that leader in that region. Extra elements count as a reserve replacing any that withdraw/rout.[/color]
• In open terrain only, (clear/prairie/desert/wood) units quotas are modified by leader (rank)*(offensive/defensive rating) depending whether in offensive or defensive posture: This bonus can be HUGE. A 2* general with a 3 off/def. would get a +150 bonus (+60 for support units), so he could bring about 60% more infantry elements to the fight, and twice as much artillery.
• Weather and terrain traversing effect combat frontage. The number of days it takes a force to enter an area directly reduces the number of elements deployable on the battlefield.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Inactive units or Forces suffer up to a 35% reduction in their combat efficiency if they engage in combat in hostile territory.
• In a structure like a city or redoubt, the defender frontage is as clear terrain, the attacker has 25% less.
• Out maneuver your opponent; use ground to your advantage; “Get there first with the most.”
• Victory in a battle is determined primarily by the losses suffered and losses inflicted. Even if your force withdraws, if serious loss had been inflicted on an opposing force, it is possible to be considered the victor.[/color]
• You can’t retreat from battle into a regions where you have less than 5% military control.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Stacks that succeed in Marching to the Sound of the Guns, participate as if they were in the region where the battle takes place, but they do not actually move there.
• If there is enough time to make it back by the end of the turn and their movement is not blocked, reinforcing corps will return to their original region after the battle.
• Stacks Marching to the Sound of the Guns do not suffer river-crossing penalties or benefit from entrenchments.
• MTSG is not possible between different armies.
• Understand who can reach the battlefield and when.
• Hide behind rivers.
• Attacking across a river is brutal on the attacker; it is simply not something you want to do if avoidable.
• When you attack while crossing a major river or invading, landing off of ships, during the first round of battle the defender fires at you while you do nothing but absorb the punishment. Once you've survived the first round of battle, you may fire back.
• When crossing a minor river the attacker's frontage is about half of open terrain under good weather. The attacker also suffers a (x 0.75) offensive fire modifier and the defender receives a (x 1.2) modifier during the first round and so on.
• If you have 91% MC in an area, you will force the enemy into a river-crossing under fire; If you have MC 10% or higher in an area, then you are considered to have a bridgehead/beachhead and can enter the region and fight without a crossing a river penalty.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Each hit for infantry is X * 30 = X men; for Artillery it is X * 9 = X men.
• Fixed units can retreat, units being built do not retreat; they fight to the death since they cannot move until complete.
• Artillery inside a division is immune to capture.[/color]
• Artillery that is not assigned to infantry divisions will fire on the strongest enemy unit. Artillery in a division with infantry will chose the same target as the infantry.


Recovery & Attrition
[color="#FFFF00"]• The PWR number is an estimate of combat effectiveness based on hits, troop quality, and very importantly cohesion; your forces will fight poorly when below 60% of initial cohesion.
• The three bars on the unit panels are not too accurate. The game only has an estimate place-holder images with 5 or 6 figures, something like: 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 percent. Expect a small margin of error when reading the bars.
• In battle logs, the heart symbol represents dead soldiers that must be replaced by spending resources; the grid like icon and the light blue bar on map icons is cohesion. Cohesion represents the general chaos and friction inherent in war. Loss in this area is recovered by rest and is free. [/color]
• Move troops in green/green to limit damage in travel to their destination.
• 20lbers require heavy artillery replacements.
[color="#FFFF00"]• CSA recovers hits in the field twice as fast as the Union.
• Place units needing replacements in passive posture inside a depot. This will give them priority when receiving replacements. [/color]
• In order for a unit that has suffered strength point losses to be eligible to receive replacements, it must start the turn stationary in an "eligible" structure. While the unit must START stationary, it may then move during the turn.
•[color="#FFFF00"] If an element is completely destroyed, the parent unit will need to draw a full replacement element from the Replacement Pool. For each unit, this is limited to a single replacement per turn.
• Even if an element wouldn't have spent a chit while repairing itself, it still requires that there is at least one chit in the appropriate pool for any repairs to occur.
• In testing, the USA received less than 20 hits from a replacement chit only 10% of the time, but got more than twice the hits that an actual unit would have contained more than 30% of the time. The CSA always received more than a new unit's worth of hits from a chit. So, in the long run, using a chit is always better than paying the cost for whole units and merging.
• A replacement chit with one hit or 20 hits remaining is represented by the same icon in the pool. The player can't tell how many hits are left.
• Auto-replacements are not included in the accounting the game does for the player, and also not reported in the tool-tips of resources at the top of the map.
• Many players turn off auto-replacements; it allows you to have more control of your army and makes you more aware of the resources being allotted.
[/color][color="#FFFF00"]• Attrition losses are reduced by 50% if a Force is occupying a Rich region.
• Depots dramatically speed cohesion and hit recovery.
• HQ and Hospital support will assist in recovering cohesion.[/color]
• Disease events reduce cohesion by ½.
* The Base Daily Rate for land units is 0.75 Cohesion point, modified by:
- Entrenched and outside of a structure: +0.5
-Inside a structure: +0.75
-In a loyal region: up to +0.5
- Besieged land Unit: -1.5
- Besieger (unless in Passive Posture): -0.5
- Land Unit transported aboard a ship: -0.5
-Offensive Posture: -0.5
-Land Unit in Passive Posture: +1
- Irregular: +0.5
• The base daily rate for naval units is two, provided the fleet is in a port.


Experience
• In combat, experience "points" are gained when an element inflicts losses greater than it suffers. Leaders gain experience "points" in combat, when elements under their command inflict more losses than they suffer.
• For each odd level of experience, ie 1, 3, 5, etc, units gain a +1 increase in their initiative, discipline, patrol and evasion values.
• For every even level of experience, ie 2, 4, 6, etc., units gain a +1 increase in their offensive fire, defensive fire, assault, and police values.
• For every level of experience, units gain a 10 point increase in their cohesion value.
• [color="#FFFF00"]Every turn their stack does not move, HQ's and leaders with the Training Master trait add one XP, to each element. This is in addition to the 50% chance nonmoving elements have of gaining an XP each turn; so it is possible for elements that do not participated in a battle or move, to gain 2 XP in a turn.
• Line infantry fight better than militia or conscripts. They have a higher discipline number that often allows first fire in the combat rounds.[/color]


Leaders
[color="#FFFF00"]• Leaders provide 4/8/12 command points for 1/2/3 stars; for stacks that are not armies or their corps, cut these figures in half.
• Without signal units, balloons, special abilities or army commander strategic ratings, armies and corps max at 16 CP.
• To create an Army Chain-of-Command, you must first create an Army by selecting a 3 start leader not already in an Army Chain-of-Command, nor leading a division, nor combined with a brigade, and click on the Create Army Command SO button. There may be penalties for doing this depending on the seniority of the leader you have chosen.
• 2 star and 3 star leaders within the Command Radius of an Army Command may be given Corps Command in that Army. The Command Radius of an Army is displayed by selecting the Army Command stack and pressing and holding the <Shift> key.
• The Army Command stack and all of its attached Corps stacks are considered to be in the Army's Chain-of-Command. No units outside of Army and Corps stacks are considered to be within the Chain-of-Command, even if within the same region as an Army Command or Corps stack.
• As long as commanders get their army postings back before the end of the turn, you can rearrange them to your suiting without losing NM. The NM and VP are only lost when the 'end turn' button is hit, not during the turn.
• Keep in mind that when you remove an army command that all of its attached corps will be detached. So if you do rearrange your command structure, then don't forget to reattach your corps to their armies.
• Army commanders can increase their corps commander's strategic, offensive, and defensive ratings, if the army commander's rating(s) is higher in one of the categories.
• A corps commander's ratings cannot be elevated above the ratings of the army commander, but they can be lowered to those of the army commander.
• Prior to Division activation, Ctlr + click on a general and then a brigade in the same stack. Use the "+" icon to merge the two. This gives the brigade 10% additional power. They also get the bonus of a unit and stack commander in combat.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Don't be afraid of the under command penalty prior to Divisions. Once you hit -35%, it doesn't get any worse, so you might as well keep adding more units to the stack. Your opponent is doing the same, so the -35% balances each other out and neither side has a relative advantage.
• With a stack comprised of standard conscripts, the maximum movement penalty is a 50% increase in movement cost.
• The movement penalty at -10% CP seems negligible, and it doesn’t apply a negative to combat until a unit falls to 40% of its maximum cohesion. A well-rested force at -10% CP that spends a few extra days marching in clear weather will not have their combat performance hampered much.
• The -35% for being inactive is a maximum. It can be less though in battle, depending on enemy MC in the region. If enemy MC in the region is <35%, that is the penalty applied in combat.
• Leaderless troops are always activated, but suffer from movement and combat penalties.
• Inactive leaders lose the ability to perform some special orders.
• 3 star leaders can be killed or wounded and removed for a while.
• If a leader is alone in a region with enemy units, he may be detected and eliminated.
• Know your best commanders, and know them well. Protegee them. Give them the best troops and lots of them.
• The South has a shortage of corps commanders. Try picking two generals from the start and give them a mission to get promoted. Consider sending them out west where there will be some action. Or, failing that, assault some stockades
• Use your best leaders on the offensive. You can always dig-in you mediocre commanders in a defensive position, where their being inactivated doesn't matter. But you need leaders who are active most of the time to move aggressively, or to react to an unsuspected move by the enemy.
• Many generals cannot be promoted. You can find out who is eligible in game by viewing the general's info panel.
• A Leader’s Offensive Rating is increased by +1 for each Even level of experience, 2, 4, 6, etc.
• A Leader’s Defensive Rating is increased by +1 for each Odd level of experience 1, 3, 5, etc.[/color]
• Early on, transfer some good leaders to the Western armies from the East.
• Use Forrest hard; Lee said not using Forrest more was one of CSA’s biggest mistakes.
[color="#FFFF00"]• When you have extra generals, place them in active stacks; use them to replace inactive leaders or take command when someone gets killed.
• Cavalry under a general can suffer when he is inactive; use high strat generals to lead your cavalry. [/color]
• Keep your training officers where they can affect the most units.
• Have militia waiting for Cooper to train in Richmond; he is available for 3 turns and can train up to 6 elements.
[color="#FFFF00"]• If your promotable officer is not the leader of his stack, extract him from the stack or the promote order will not work.
• The ability to increase a general's skills does exist. If they fight and win long enough, Defensive and Offensive will increase with experience.
• A Division of artillery seldom takes hits but can cause many. This results in accrued experience without loss and can fast track leader promotion.
[/color]• Belle provides a detection bonus in a theater of war.
• First 3 armies, then prepare for up to 6 in Early 1863.


Orders
• Synchronize Movement is selected by default. When the Army HQ moves, all subordinate corps in the same region will automatically synchronize w/o this Special Order.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Synchronize Movement does not need the presence of an Army HQ. Manually setting the order for two army corps in the same region will have the same impact.
[/color]• Don’t use Hold At All Costs except to hold key places. It causes excessive losses w/o gain. [color="#FFFF00"] But remember that without a hold at all costs posture a force will seek to retreat against a force with superior quantity.
[/color][color="#FFFF00"]• The manual says [/color]Orange/Orange is normal, [color="#FFFF00"]but postures are situational.[/color]
• In regions with [color="#FFFF00"]5%[/color] or less Military Control, stacks will automatically adopt Orange and attack.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Ctrl + F4 will remove all but the selected stack from the map; this will allow you to target an area for movement without tagging another unit or to see structures buried under units.[/color]


Corps/Divisions
[color="#FFFF00"]• To form a corps one must have a 2 or 3 star general within command radius of an army to become subordinate to. Select the Army Stack, press and hold the <Shift> key; the blue regions represent the command radius of that army command.
• A 2 star division commander may not lead a corps. But if he is active and you split him out of the division, the option will light up.
• The higher the strategic value of the Army Commander, the greater the command radius.
• The CSA is short on Corps commanders. Get promotions early while you are having successes in the field.
• On the turn a corps or division is created, its commander stats are cut in half. The leader’s original stats will reappear in the following turn.[/color]
• Supply wagons give bonuses and cost no CP.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Try to have a supply wagon with each independent division or corps.[/color]
• Don’t place support units in divisions as they require CPs; keep them in armies.
• Rangers, partisans and wagons have no CP cost; they can waste space in a division.
• A standard, balanced division has the following elements: 2 cavalry, 4 artillery, 1 sniper, 10 infantry and a leader.
• You may have 15 units maximum in a division. That's 1 leader and any 14 other units.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Pure artillery divisions with a good officer have no penalties and several advantages.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• The CSA can make twenty divisions with 7 line infantry, 3 conscripts, a sharpshooter, 2 conscript cavalry, a 6-lber and either 3 militia or 3 more artillery batteries.[/color]


Units
• Make and use headquarters as soon as possible; make use of support units in your armies.
• Place an extra HQ unit in the main location where you recruit so units gain experience points while mustering.
• HQ support assists in recovering cohesion.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Build engineers for main armies; an engineer will provide a 35% reduction in the time necessary to obtain the next entrenchment level.
• Naval engineers speed up the building of new ships and increase damage repair by 10%.[/color]
• Pontoons and engineers bonuses stack; headquarters and medical do not.
• Build hospitals for large independent forces without headquarters. Hospital support will assist in recovering cohesion.
• Sharpshooters, like militia, are penalized for being out of state, but only if they are not within a division.
• Light infantry is most effective in rough terrain and harsh weather.
• In mud, cavalry moves and fights poorly.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Supply units, pontoons, engineers and HQ's move at the same speed as marching infantry.
• Support units provide their bonuses to stacks before their construction is complete. They start working on the same turn construction begins.[/color]


Supply
• Supply is key; control/destroy supply sources, block supply lines through MC/guerillas/cavalry; keep supply from your enemy.
• Breaking railroads is not enough to stop supply overland; there is no substitute for military control. Make sure your foe's MC falls below 25% in regions that would block overland supply.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Watch your foe’s unit supply status bars; this shows if supply is making it to his front lines.[/color]
• Supply movement is blocked by <25% MC.
• Due to terrain and changes in the weather, supply may range from 1 to 5 areas.
• Depots attract and push forward supply; build a network of depots every 3-5 regions.
• You must have depots within 5 areas to have a chain transfer.
• To locate depots, turn on the supply filter; depots locations will pulsate on the map.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Make sure the supply overlay is green between you and a source of supply.
• When you build depots, makes sure they fit into an active network. Keep aligned with active conduits.
• Depots pull supply; make sure they don’t divert supplies from areas that are in need.
• If a region where you are making a stand does not have a depot, consider making one.[/color]
• Use flat boats to create cheap depots in key areas containing a port.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Depots may be built in regions where your MC is 51% or higher.
• Consider building a depot between Richmond and the front lines; don’t let it fall into enemy hands.
• Consider building a depot in west-central VA to supply defenders against WV forces.
• Fill the 5 region gap below Memphis with a flatboat to connect New Orleans with Memphis.
• If you want to forward supplies from the Deep South to VA, built a depot in South Carolina.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Redoubts and forts are like depots in that they pull GS supply with 20 'pull.' But forts pulls ammo at 20 while redoubts pull ammo at 6. For comparison, a depot has 50 GS pull and 35 ammo pull.
[/color]• Stockades may be built to create or extend a supply chain.
• Supply wagons can suck supplies from structures within range; move supply wagons into the range of a supply source and they will replenish.
• Forts and fleets block supply past their position.
• Pillaged areas do not provide supply until the next harvest season.
• If you destroy Fort Leavenworth, very little Federal supply will get to Denver and New Mexico.
• Limit exhausting the rail and river line pools; unused points enable supplies to be transferred.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Invest heavily in the Rail pool. It is important for supply distribution as well as mobility.[/color]


Forts
[color="#FFFF00"]• The ZOC of a redoubt/fort/stockade can allow even a small force to stop an invading army dead in its tracks.
• If you are going to defend inside a structure, that contains GS and a Supply Wagon, the chance of your force surrendering is 5%. Once the wagon's GS points have been consumed, this special feature is lost.
• Artillery can do a lot of damage if entrenched inside a structure.
• Don't let a Bastogne become an Alamo. If it is an Alamo, then make it a gambit so that you can strike a winning blow elsewhere.
• Defending a structure is a tool that should be in your toolbox.[/color]
• A fort without a relieving force will fall to a siege; there is no substitute for a field army.
• Forts can be traps. If you don’t have a field force capable of relieving a threatened fortress, or if delaying the enemy is not critical, fight your defending forces and garrison outside the structure in entrenchments.
[color="#FFFF00"]• A fort is fly-paper. It's supposed to slow an enemy until it can be reinforced.[/color]
• Forces outside, if the defenders survive the initial combat round, may be able to retreat. This might limit the NM loses you would suffer if your force was trapped inside and fell to an assault or siege. In the same spirit, if your fortress artillery might be captured and of use to the enemy, either eat the victory point cost and spike the slow moving guns, [color="#FFFF00"]or leave them as a trap to be an albatross around your enemy’s neck.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• A cover force entrenched outside a key area will prevent an immediate siege.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• The problem with forts/redoubts/stockades is you have to decide on keeping forces outside or inside. If they are inside, amphibious forces can land units without opposition. This is a major reason to keep units in the field as opposed to in a fort.
• The value of being in a fort, city or redoubt is defender frontage is as clear terrain and the attacker has 25% less.[/color]
• Overcrowding penalizes forces too numerous to defend structures. The tipping point is: Fort: 25 elements per level; City 10 per level, other 10 per level. The limit is set by priority and is not cumulative for all structures. The defender, if assaulted suffers a -20 penalty to the melee phase per full penalty, and a -10 in the fire phase. The attacker gets a +30 bonus to the melee phase per full penalty of the defender, and a +20 in the fire phase.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Put a fort in Paducah, New Orleans, Norfolk, Memphis, Wilmington and other key locations.
• If you play against the AI, the enemy capital will receive a level 2 fort. Humans get a level 1 redoubt in their capital. Be wary when assaulting Athena's capital.
• Forts can be built in regions without cities.
• Forts require 4 artillery and 4 supply elements to be built; it takes 25 days. [/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Redoubt are forts built by RGD. They are cheaper than forts, but you only receive 1 redoubt card a year.[/color]
• Terrain and fort/city bonuses do not add up. Either you are outside in the terrain, or you are in the fort. Putting a fort in a swamp only adds a slight increase to the defense over swamp terrain.
[color="#FFFF00"]• A siege battle is initiated when the following conditions are met: there are at least two opposing stacks in a region; an “assault” command posture has been assigned; the number of breaches equal or surpass the fortification level.
• A force in assault posture will try to storm the structure instead of besieging it. The procedure is the same as in regular combat except that the defender benefits from a combat bonus. Permanent forts provide a great bonus, pre-war forts less so and cities even less. Frontage is quite limited in such combat, especially in forts. Defenders in a depot or indian village don’t get any defensive benefit except limited frontage.
• Forts need cannons inside them to block river supply or bombard ships. [/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• When a force has over 4 artillery units, put the surplus artillery into a different stack to enhance hits on naval units.
[/color]• Forts do not have the power to stop large fleets. It is possible for fleets to run past them, with cohesion damage only, and attack cites with water born divisions.
• Columbiads and mortars will hit every round.
• If possible, try for 3-1 when storming a structure.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Trench levels 5-8 can only be built if artillery is present; a 6 pounder stacked with militia will do the trick. [/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Level 3 entrenchments with artillery can block river supply; remember to turn on naval bombardment.
• Entrenchments can be built both in and out of cities.[/color]
• Build fall back entrenchments behind main defensive lines; use a place holder unit.
• Use care in switching/moving units so entrenchment levels are not lost; leave a place holder unit.
• Garrison VP cities near 50% loyalty; militia must be in the city to count.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Garrisons will sally, if ordered, only when an outside force arrives and attacks the besiegers.
• Cavalry do not take part in assaults on forts.
• A fort adds to the Patrol value equal that side's MC in the region.[/color]


Navy
• Manually rotate fully supplied transports to the naval boxes, so ships at sea maintain until ammunition is needed from a port; this works for both raiders and runners.
• Posture in a box does not matter.
[color="#FFFF00"]• CSA leaders do not increase money or WS brought in by runners in blockade boxes.[/color]
• CSA raiders can resupply at neutral ports.
[color="#FFFF00"]• CSA raiders in the Shipping Lanes Box take resources away from the Union, but don't earn you anything. Use your free frigate types as raiders.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Admirals will always move; but they may be delayed.
• Put the admirals with your ironclads.
• Brigs posted outside harbors can collect information about land forces through recon.
• Place a brig with the Mississippi River fleet to increase search values.
• Control the inland waterways. You'll be sorry if you don't.
• Fleets on defensive posture allow your foe unrestricted river travel.
• Four naval elements have a 90% chance to block cross river movement; you can't get higher than this value.
• Have a fleet waiting downstream, just behind a fort to secure river approaches.
• Place a transport with every other blocking gunboat stack; gunboat stacks can draw supplies from neighboring transports in fair weather.
• Gunboats carry the fewest amount of supplies, enough for 5 turns. Brigs and frigates carry 16 turns worth. Blockade squadrons hold enough for 50 turns and transports don't even eat food.
• Build a naval engineer in each city earmarked to produce ironclads.
• Ships can bombard troops.
• Any naval attack on a force landing troops will delay unloading for 5 more days.
[color="#FFFF00"]• The Union needs to lose just one landing and they will face a NM hit of huge proportions. When Federals have committed to a landing, count on them supporting it until the end, as they are fighting with their backs to the sea.
• Hit the invading, naval force's second wave with coastal fleets and sea mines saved for this purpose.[/color]
• Units attacking in an amphibious assault must fight to the last man because they cannot retreat.
• Any ship, if detected, traversing two regions adjacent to a fort's coastal guns will be bombarded. But if your movement only enters only one region next to a fort, you're fine.
• If stacked separately, ships have a higher evasion status, but if stacked together, damage is spread out, so mostly cohesion is damaged, not hits. Durability rate of brigs is increased this way, especially if the stack is commanded by leader with naval evasion trait.[/color]
• Use your staring replacement chits to build up your free, 1 element brigs to 2 elements.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Each CSA brig in a blockade sea box earns two dollars, or two WS, or one of each per turn.
• If you want to build brigs, do so early in the game; it takes years to break even with the cost. Some believe runners are not worth building or fixing; there is a good chance the runners will not survive long enough to recover their expense.
• Use 7-10 brigs per blockade box.
• Place your runners in one blockade box; this will force the Federal player to station ships in an empty box to maintain the blockade %.
• A Brown water blockade reduces the amount of cash a city produces by 50%. WS production is not affected. So if you spend money/men/materiel to enforce a brown blockade, the enemy only loses money.
• The danger of being intercepted by Blockade Flotillas is very small.
• With Pickens, Monroe, New Orleans, and 5 flotillas in each blockade box, the North should have around a 50% blockade.[/color]
• Blockade runners can be pulled to create a last ditch fleet.


Diplomacy
[color="#FFFF00"]• Declaring a complete cotton embargo earns the CSA 150$, 3 NM, and 5 VP.
• Unless the Trent Affair escalates, there is next to no chance of foreign intervention.[/color]
• The Foreign Entry Level can shift 1 point per turn in favor of the side with the higher NM, and one point per turn in favor of the side with the highest VP count. There is a 50% probability in each case.


Raising Units
• Early in the game, drain buildable units from Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee.
• Drain frontline state unit pools before they are lost; you can only build state units if 1 of its tent cities is controlled.
• Artillery and regular infantry for the Far West can be built in El Paso.
• Build duration for a unit is indicated in the tooltip.
• A standard, balanced division has the following elements: 2 cavalry, 4 artillery, 1 sniper, 10 infantry and a leader.
[color="#FFFF00"]• You may have 15 units maximum in a division. That's 1 leader and any 14 other units.
[/color][color="#FFFF00"]• The CSA can make twenty Divisions with 7 line infantry, 3 conscripts, a sharpshooter, 2 conscript cavalry, a 6-lber and either 3 militia or 3 more artillery batteries.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Pure artillery divisions with a good officer have no penalties and several advantages.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• If you have a brigade that is missing an element, click on that brigade icon and another icon for a unit that is exactly that missing element and combine the two.
[/color]• Two single elements of militia can be merged into a weak brigade. This increases the militia’s battlefield survivability and returns one of the two initial units to the build pool. [color="#FFFF00"] If you merge individual militia elements from different states of origin, the lesser powered militia element will change its state of origin to that of the higher powered element. It is possible to remove an out of state movement penalty by doing this.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• The chief advantage of militia is that their brigades have a command cost of 1, making them the cheapest to command. This suits them best for independent commands i.e. garrison duty.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Leaders with the training trait can train militia, volunteers or conscripts into regular brigades that only cost one CP.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• During periods of heavy fighting, it is normal to spend everything on replacements for several turns.[/color]
• NM influences the build duration of new units.



RDC
[color="#FFFF00"]• Development cards can be used to raise an area's civilization level. This increases frontage and can allow the construction of tracks or roads that will assist in the transportation of supplies.
• Use the Clearing and Development cards on poorly developed regions in NM and AR/MO to help with supply flow and movement.
• If you use Telegraph to increase development levels in key regions that produce high levels of money, you can make an area "rich" ie New Orleans & Richmond. This will increase the area's frontage, loyalty, and cut weather related attrition by 50%. However, in developed areas, attrition is already negated by the presence of a structure and the increase in cash production is so small, it is probable that in the end, Telegraph has little effect.
• Hesitate before spending any resources to affect loyalty; there are a number of free ways to raise your percentage without using cash. [/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Units in a region with a structure take less attrition. Although each stockade costs 10 CS, building them in heavily used areas of high attrition may limit loss.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Redoubt are forts built by RGD. They are cheaper than forts, but you only receive 1 redoubt card a year.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Once successfully played, the Runner RGD produces 8 WS a turn for 6 turns; that works out to 48 WS per NM, a rather high price to pay for 1 NM.
[/color]• When playing the Draft or Requisition cards, keep from lowering the amount of resources produced per turn by using them in cities that do not, or will not, have resource producing structures.
[color="#FFFF00"]• If you don't play cotton cards at all, you should be able to sell about 20% of your bales at the 50$ rate.
• If you have 0% MC in a region, Partisans cannot be formed by RDC.
[/color]• Use the Disinformation and Cavalry Screening RGDs to disappear. This might allow you to extract your force from a dangerous encirclement.
[color="#FFFF00"]• Disinformation and Cavalry Screens seem to be pretty powerful at what they do. Your opponent can use Spies and Deep Recon to counter, but chances are they will fail to do so. Spies are a 50% chance. However, Deep Recon can't be played on regions your foe controls. So if you just lost a battle and are stuck in the same region as the victor, then your Cavalry Screen is guaranteed to work.
• If successful, it is possible the RGD cavalry screen will allow your force across a river into an area containing enemy forces without initiating combat.
• Raid the North and use the RGD plunder cards. This can earn up to a couple of hundred dollars a year with little effort or risk; it is not necessary to control the city or area when the card is played.
• Don't forget the Indian pillage cards; they don't make as much as the plunder, but it is still something.
• Several of the cards allow the player to reap Victory Points. In a close game played out to the bitter end, a player who doesn't miss the money might be able to convert cash into VP's to tip the scales back in his favor. Quite a few VP's can be "bought" each year this way. [/color]


Production
[color="#FFFF00"]• the AI receives increases to money, conscripts, and war supplies at each higher difficulty setting. [/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Anything under 50% loyalty will produce 100% of the baseline production for its structures, with the amount increasing from there, supposedly, up to 150% of baseline at 100% loyalty.
[/color][color="#FFFF00"]• Loyalty and NM effects performance, number of recruits and economic output.
• The formula for production of $, WS, and conscripts is something like: Output=base*(.50+loyalty/100)*(.50+NM/200). To summarize: If a region increases loyalty 10 points (x points), its output will increase by 10 percent (x percent) of the base. If NM increases by 10 points, output will increase in every owned region by 5 percent of the base; rounding is done at the region level.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• If the North has more than 500 WS, 50 WS will be changed to 50$. This function does not work for the South.
• Captured War Supplies show up in the Messages as rifles captured, 100 rifles = 1 WS.
• Each round the USA has a chance of x% to lose 1 inflation point; if you have 24% inflation you have a 24% chance to drop to 23%. The CSA chance to reduce inflation is half of this stated value.[/color]
• Use financial options right away; they regenerate 14 turns later.
[color="#FFFF00"]• If you're short on money, print those graybacks.
• Each mine in the Far West is worth 10$. There are 3 mines: one in the Sacramento region; one in Virginia City, NV; and one just a bit south-west of Denver.
• The easiest way to increase $ production is to capture Farm Fields/Plantations. Each is worth $3 for you and - $3 for the opponent, a swing of $6, which is not bad for capturing an out of the way and undefended rural region.
• Tents give 2 CS points per turn. This is modified by NM. If the North occupies a state’s tent city, conscripts for that state will equal zero.
• A major factor in limiting CSA production during the mid and end game is manpower.
• A call for volunteers can be done every six months; mobilization can be done once a year from 1862 on.
• During high morale, as initial CSA morale is, one receives the same number of CS from $1.5 as the $2 bounty.
• Consider not using the 2$ pay per each volunteer, the 750$ is not worth the extra 250 conscripts.
• If your NM is over 120, consider not paying anything. You will still get almost as many conscripts as you can afford to use.
• Recruiting officers increase the national level conscript production. So long as the city is >level 5, recruiting officers are best placed in cities with high loyalty.
• Build artillery on areas with industry.
• If it is green, it will build.[/color]
[color="#FFFF00"]• Build an Ironworks as soon as possible; some players consider building two ironworks to be a good investment.
[/color][color="#FFFF00"]• Powder Mills and Arsenals are not necessary until later in the game when a shortage of ammo production may occur.
• Harbors and depots generate 1 ammunition per level.
• Industrialization does not affect build pools or production rates.[/color]
Last edited by Straight Arrow on Thu Jul 26, 2018 6:01 am, edited 2 times in total.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth.

marquo
Lieutenant
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Wed Apr 01, 2015 7:34 pm

"To be promoted, a leader must be out of a stack and becomes immobile for a while."

Is this true??

Rod Smart
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Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2014 3:32 pm

Wed Apr 01, 2015 8:52 pm

marquo wrote:"To be promoted, a leader must be out of a stack and becomes immobile for a while."

Is this true??


Maybe that should read: "If you have trouble promoting a leader you know is promotable, take him out of the stack and don't give him any orders that turn"

Rod Smart
Colonel
Posts: 332
Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2014 3:32 pm

Wed Apr 01, 2015 9:02 pm

Production
• Increase development levels in regions that produce high levels of money; New Orleans, Richmond, etc.



I thought that too, but someone told me I was wrong.
I believe the consensus is increase LOYALTY in those regions.

Use the development cards to build roads to transport supplies (for USA in Far West), or to increase frontage in places where you want increased frontage (DC)

kaiser
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Wed Apr 01, 2015 10:17 pm

Some good information Straight Arrow. Thanks for posting. I'm still trying to learn this game myself.

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Cardinal Ape
General of the Army
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Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am

Wed Apr 01, 2015 10:46 pm

A most excellent effort. Thanks for putting that together.

Under Military Control and Orders it should be - In regions with [color="#FF0000"]5%[/color] or less Military Control, Stacks will automatically adopt Orange and attack.

Possibly add in that the CSA recovers hits in the field twice as fast as the Union.

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Mickey3D
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Wed Apr 01, 2015 11:24 pm

marquo wrote:"To be promoted, a leader must be out of a stack and becomes immobile for a while."

Is this true??


If your promotable officer is not the leader of his stack, you must extract him from the stack or the promote order will not work.

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Mickey3D
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Wed Apr 01, 2015 11:26 pm

Very good list :thumbsup:

Note that four naval elements have a 90% chance to block movement and you can't get higher than this value even by adding more ships.

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Cardinal Ape
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Wed Apr 01, 2015 11:57 pm

As raiding is rather important to the Confederate war effort I found this to be rather useful:

The probability to destroy railroads is equal to your current power value, with a bonus of 25 if a pillager.

Passive units and/or those with the evade combat order might get a negative to that chance but I am not sure.

I found this chart made by Captain_Orso to be invaluable for deciding which industry to build as the CSA. I am not forum savvy enough to copy it over though...
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?37041-CWII-tips&p=339219&viewfull=1#post339219

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DrPostman
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Thu Apr 02, 2015 4:59 am

Mickey3D wrote:If your promotable officer is not the leader of his stack, you must extract him from the stack or the promote order will not work.

I bugged the devs to see if they could change that during beta but
apparently it would require too much difficulty in changing the code.
I always keep a spare leader or two in a corps for just such a purpose.
"Ludus non nisi sanguineus"

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John S. Mosby
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Location: Virginia, CSA

Thu Apr 02, 2015 1:34 pm

Sir, I commend you for such a fine effort to assist others in this war. :hat:

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Byrd
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Thu Apr 02, 2015 3:07 pm

Well done Arrow!

Would you mind if I copy your guide to my Steam Group page as guidance for players new to PBEM? Credit will be given of course.

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Gray Fox
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Thu Apr 02, 2015 4:15 pm

"• Build balanced divisions: 2 cavalry, 4 artillery, 1 sniper, 10 infantry.”

I suppose that no amount of logical discourse will ever nail this coffin closed.

A Union Division with 14 infantry, 2 cavalry and a sharpshooter will have 40% more guys with bayonets than your Confederate Division with only 10. Guess who loses? The Confederate force pool makes it difficult to avoid brigades with 6-lbers, but its effect can be diminished. The rebels can make a Division with two brigades containing a conscript, a line infantry and a cavalry element, one brigade with a conscript, three line infantry and a 6-lber (even I can't get away from these), a brigade with two line infantry and a sharpshooter and three volunteers (13 infantry types). The force pool has enough of these brigades to make 20 Divisions.

Finally, if you buy single big guns instead of brigades with 6-lbers, you get more bang for your buck. Put all of the bigger artillery in pure artillery Divisions with a good commander and you get no penalties and several advantages.

“• Increase development levels in regions that produce high levels of money; New Orleans, Richmond, etc.”

This is the only benefit I have found documented in the AGE Wiki for making a region “Rich”:

“Rich Region: Attrition losses are reduced by 50% if a Force is occupying a Rich region.”

So I add a telegraph to regions that have large troop concentrations, like Richmond, D.C., etc.

Great job!
I'm the 51st shade of gray. Eat, pray, Charge!

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Straight Arrow
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Thu Apr 02, 2015 4:25 pm

Byrd,

You are free to use this guide in any way you please; don't worry about credit. Hopefully this document will live and take on a life of its own. After a little work and some luck, you might need to credit a whole lot of talented people.

If you have not seen Hobbes AACW Quick Reference Guide V1.7, check it out. Hobbes did excellent work. The guide is very useful and more detailed then the quick, glance at sheet I posted.

Thanks for asking though.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth.

Paule3000
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Fri Apr 03, 2015 1:39 am

IMHO this thread deserves to be stickied.
-- When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

G-Burg Bullet
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Fri Apr 03, 2015 4:30 am

Fantastic effort, Straight Arrow. Very useful.

VigaBrand
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Wed Apr 08, 2015 8:43 am

Production:
If you have more than 500 WS, 50 WS will be changed to 50$.
Each round you have a chance of x% to lost 1 inlfation point. X ist the number of your inflation.
Example: If you have 24% of inflation, means you had a 24% chance to lost one inflation point to 23%.
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Stauffenberg
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Wed Apr 08, 2015 1:04 pm

Nice work. After a long hiatus from ACW I'm back at it.

It's a bit of a long climb to get the overview in this but certainly worth it. Always helpful when someone else puts some ropes up. :hat:

pb783
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Thu Apr 09, 2015 4:52 am

Rod Smart wrote:[I]Use the development cards to build roads to transport supplies (for USA in Far West), or to increase frontage in places where you want increased frontage (DC)


Frontage is an issue I've never really gotten my head around. Now I'm wondering what developments can increase frontage? Would Clearing be a good example? What about in developed areas such as the District of Columbia? What options are available to increase frontage in that area?

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BattleVonWar
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Thu Apr 09, 2015 6:46 am

This is from Wiki and explains frontage in ACCW1...

If you think about 60,000 men say at a Hilly area, how many infantry can deploy and where? VS say 80,000 men. Will the 80 thousand have the ability to bring their weight to bare.

My favourite memory in historical battles and frontage goes back to The Icenis getting massacred by the Romans where they were closed in and eaten... Watling Street in 61 CE by Suetonius.. Superior Numbers were a hinderance pushing their 80k men into a trap and because of over confidence and the terrain were eaten at the cost about a few hundred Romans... Frontage even then would have meant "everything. "Picking the ground," at Gettysburg was key. And often still is key... That's all it really relates to what you can get out into fighting position faster and more organized in my mind and what is the optimal ground to say deploy various elements of your forces...but read on



http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/Frontage


pb783 wrote:Frontage is an issue I've never really gotten my head around. Now I'm wondering what developments can increase frontage? Would Clearing be a good example? What about in developed areas such as the District of Columbia? What options are available to increase frontage in that area?

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Gray Fox
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Thu Apr 09, 2015 12:12 pm

If you click on a leader's stack that you want to use in combat and press the "7" key, then you get the terrain map overlay. Cursor over the region where you want that leader to fight and you get a menu with a lot of terrain info. Among the info, is the number of Line elements (infantry & cavalry) and support elements (artillery) that leader will get to fight with in that region.

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If you have more elements, the extra will count as a reserve replacing any that withdraw/rout. However, if too many do this, the rest of your force may join them.

The overlay doesn't work for defending in a structure like a city or redoubt. In that case the defender should get the same numbers for clear terrain, but the attacker gets 25% less.
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Captain_Orso
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Thu Apr 09, 2015 12:34 pm

Note: The above values are not modified for leadership, in other words, strategic and offensive or defensive ratings.
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donagel
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Thu Apr 09, 2015 12:44 pm

Why is "Orange/Orange" normal? Seems situational.
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-H.L. Mencken-

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Gray Fox
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Thu Apr 09, 2015 1:04 pm

Captain Orso, are you sure? If the numbers in the menu were a base number, then why do these base numbers change for leaders with different Strat/Off/Def values? The table in the Wiki points out that 15 artillery batteries is the max and that is what I get for Lee or Grant.
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pb783
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Thu Apr 09, 2015 7:39 pm

Gray Fox wrote:If you click on a leader's stack that you want to use in combat and press the "7" key, then you get the terrain map overlay. Cursor over the region where you want that leader to fight and you get a menu with a lot of terrain info. Among the info, is the number of Line elements (infantry & cavalry) and support elements (artillery) that leader will get to fight with in that region.

[ATTACH]33233[/ATTACH]

If you have more elements, the extra will count as a reserve replacing any that withdraw/rout. However, if too many do this, the rest of your force may join them.

The overlay doesn't work for defending in a structure like a city or redoubt. In that case the defender should get the same numbers for clear terrain, but the attacker gets 25% less.


Now you're going to have me playing with my keyboard during the game to see what other treasure is hidden. Thank you for that tip.

And as good as that answer is, there was an assertion by Rod Smart that changes could be directed through the RGD to a particular region, changing the frontage value. Rod Smart pointed to the District of Columbia as an example of a region that could have increased defensive frontage. Reading through the RGD list, I don't see anything that could have that effect in the District of Columbia. Clearing could work in some wild areas. But that doesn't describe the DC region. Did I misunderstand you Rod?

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Captain_Orso
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Fri Apr 10, 2015 5:33 am

Gray Fox wrote:Captain Orso, are you sure? If the numbers in the menu were a base number, then why do these base numbers change for leaders with different Strat/Off/Def values? The table in the Wiki points out that 15 artillery batteries is the max and that is what I get for Lee or Grant.


Yes, I tested it out with a wide variety of leaders--army, corps and division leading one or more divisions--and the values never changed.
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Gray Fox
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Fri May 15, 2015 5:10 pm

"The problem with forts/redoubts/stockades is you have to decide on keeping forces outside or inside. If the troops are inside, amphibious forces can land units without opposition. This is a major reason to keep units in the field as opposed to in a fort."

But you also post...

"In a structure like a city or redoubt, the defender frontage is as clear terrain, the attacker has 25% less."

I really think that the advantage of defending a fort from inside is worth any disadvantage. Artillery in a coastal fort would automatically fire at passing ships. It would have to entrench to level 3 outside the fort to do this. You might have a cover force entrenched in the region to prevent an immediate siege of your capital, but a fort is fly-paper. It's supposed to slow an enemy until it can be reinforced.

" Reinforcing corps will return to their original region after the battle."

...if possible. A battle happens, the Corps MTSG, fights in the battle and then marches back to its original region. A clever Union player may attack so that his force arrives near the end of the turn. Then your line of entrenched Corps may MTSG and not make it back by the end of the turn.

Attrition

Units in a region with a structure take less attrition. So, if you rail reinforcements through regions with bad weather or station them in mountains or swamps with no structures, then they probably take hits. A stockade here and there may prevent this, although each costs 10 Conscript companies.

Leaders

A Division of artillery seldom takes hits. So the leader of a pure Artillery Division will accrue experience from his unit causing hits and not lose experience for this reason. The fast track to get a good leader promoted.

"Supply wagons slow a corps..."

I believe that SU's and pontoons, engineers, HQ's etc. are actually as fast as marching infantry. They are slower than cavalry.

Corps/Divisions

The CSA can make twenty Divisions with 7 line infantry, 3 conscripts, a sharpshooter, 2 conscript cavalry, a 6-lber and either 3 militia or 3 more artillery batteries. The 14 infantry model is really only possible with the Union brigade pool.

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FightingBuckeye
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Fri May 15, 2015 9:19 pm

Excellent idea Straight Arrow! Lots of stuff I knew and lots of stuff that I didn't. It's also nice to see all this laid out in one thread. Are you planning on doing one for the Union?

"The basic eastern offensive strategy for the South should be an invasion north of the valley to Fredericksburg. Threaten DC, Annapolis and Baltimore. The CSA must be very careful while doing so, fighting in enemy territory is dangerous and can yield disaster."

Small correction, but Fredericktown is Union and Fredericksburg is already CSA.

-Take calculated risks and be aggressive early in the war before the North can really mobilize. You have much better generals early on; use them before the North's generalship catches up.

-Use cavalry as scouts to keep track of enemy buildup, movement, and to find weaknesses. Intel on enemy operations can be a powerful tool when in the right hands. Conversely, hunt down enemy scouts in order to deny that same intel to the enemy.

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Cardinal Ape
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Fri May 15, 2015 9:43 pm

Everything seems to be accurate - the only thing I could find is: The chance to have your inflation reduced is half the stated value for the CSA.

Also, I don't know if having 500 WS as the CSA will convert to cash. I've never had that much.

RickInVA
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Fri May 15, 2015 10:23 pm

Cardinal Ape wrote:Everything seems to be accurate - the only thing I could find is: The chance to have your inflation reduced is half the stated value for the CSA.

Also, I don't know if having 500 WS as the CSA will convert to cash. I've never had that much.


In a current game I am playing as CSA I have over 2000 WS and I would be overjoyed to turn some of it into cash, but that isn't happening.

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