AGEOD Forums

And are development cards worth it to be played?

Thanks ;-D

Some very much so, others dependent upon your plans and goals.

It is worth looking at all the cards and how they match your goals. Some can harass your foe, some can add to your inventory, others help you control regions. So definitely worth the time to see how they help your play.

A Sharpshooter adds an initiative bonus of +1 to the entire Division. Initiative determines who fires first, so a sharpshooter is a good addition to an infantry Division.

A Marine/Sailor reduces the penalty for a Division when it attacks across a river or makes an amphibious assault. So a Division destined to fight such battles would do well to have one of these. They are also good infantry.

When a combat ends, the withdrawing/routing force can take additional damage from cavalry pursuit. If your side has more cavalry, then the horsemen screen your force and you take less damage. So a few cavalry in a Division may help with pursuit/screening. Also, cavalry have higher detection numbers so that you can get better info on adjacent enemy stacks. Know your foe.

Artillery are able to do additional hits as support elements. The gun batteries do this whether you put them in the Division with other troops, or loose in the stack or in a pure artillery Division. An artillery Division has some advantages over the other configurations. An infantry Division without artillery batteries simply has more room for additional infantry. An artillery Division has a Division commander that loose batteries in the stack would not.

Infantry come in several different types. Militia are the least expensive to purchase, but have the lowest stats. A Division of mostly Militia fight better inside their home state and some Generals improve the cohesion of Militia. Conscript infantry cost as much as line infantry, but are little better than militia. Both militia and conscript infantry can be trained up to line infantry though, either from a trainer or simply by the passage of time. Line infantry are the backbone of your army. Try to purchase brigades that have mostly line infantry. Finally, some brigades have elite infantry that actually add cohesion, the will to fight, to your entire Division. One of these brigades in an elite Division is a good idea.

Cavalry are expensive. They are the "eyes and ears" of your army. One cavalry element well placed behind enemy lines may alert you to what is coming your way. As the war progressed, the small cavalry unit grew larger and larger as they had to fight enemy cavalry for the "info war". So a small group of cavalry elements in a Division may eventually become a cavalry Corps.

Thus an elite Division might have a sharpshooter, a couple cavalry elements, an elite brigade and the rest line infantry.

A Division that you plan to garrison a location behind the lines could use militia or conscripts in place of the elite/line infantry of the above formation. Also, entrenched artillery, like those pervasive 6-pounder batteries, score a few more hits if they are well entrenched.

An artillery Division can hold 15 batteries of your choice and I give them the best Division commander I can get. The artillery do a lot of damage and a good General adds to this.

You can put four cavalry elements in a Division and they still have a high evasion stat. To counter this, you might want a full Division of your own cavalry, with some horse artillery. Good luck!

A division by itself should have one sharpshooter, one marine or sailor, 2ish calvary, a mix of three or 4 artillery (20 pounders are best, you'll likely be stuck with some 6 pounders that come attached to brigades), and the rest infantry. An elite infantry makes the entire division elite, so never waste two elite brigades in one division.


With a division attached to a larger corps or army, put in more infantry and less cavalry and artillery. You should have an artillery division, and cavalry in multiple division have their abilities stacked.


Make divisions specific to what you want to do. As the south, rather than garrisoning all the coastal spots, I'll make a super-strong elite division with a fast-moving general, and his 1,000 power stack can get to every port from Mobile to Jacksonville to Norfolk in one turn.
You'll probably be able to make a cavalry only division from the free cavalry brigades you get.
Out west, you don't need full size divisions. A 9 unit division is just fine in Kansas for chasing partisans and capturing forts.
Militia only division are weak, but you have generals with traits that make volunteers stronger- use them.



That's one of the great things about this game. Unit makeup is endlessly flexible, so you can create a division/corp/army any way you want for any situation.

Great - thanks gents ;-D

are development cards worth it to be played?

As the Union, the following usually are useful for me :

- landing sailors and guns
- Yankee cards on high loyalty regions in Tennessee and other places

I can usually play more of the cards as the Union because I have more resources.

As the Confederacy:

- partisan and rebel cards
- sabotaging depots and tracks

The others depend on how useful they are in the overall situation or how much I'm having to hoard my resources. Some of the cards, as currently coded, are fairly useless (the sea mine comes to mind).

Thanks ;-D