Many more questions ;-D

[steelwarrior77]

I had the Sam Houston event - does it happen always or only sometimes? Anyways I have two cavalry units now - should I rather evacuate them North or try to hold on? Will there be additional units, if I hold on? How to defend Norfolk - or should I just give it up? Where did you make good experiences with Naval inavsion?

[Durk]

My take - Think of the Sam Houston force as a nuisance force. You can get them to Kansas where they can join your army, but it is fun to make the CSA spend forces.
No additional units.
No way to defend Norfolk. Just accept the lose until you can come back.

Take New Orleans if you can. This is the most important spot. Next, Jacksonville, Florida for naval supply. I do like to threaten Richmond in a manner similar to McClellan's campaign.

[seathom]

I agree with Durk on all his suggestions. I've only played one campaign, so you can take my advice with a grain of salt, however if you are playing against Athena victory is pretty easy. Once you take Richmond (which was not very difficult) the game is almost over already.

I was going to take a leap frog approach and work my way down towards New Orleans. I easily took Wilmington, NC (with its Cotton Warehouses, it took a nice bit of change out of the CSA coffers) and I was able to easily reinforce the city. I then took Richmond and within a month the game was over. My plan was to take Savannah next (again, a Cotton Warehouse plus War Supply production) but it ended up not necessary.

If you are playing against a human, I suppose the best naval invasion will depend on how poorly defended a region is. I would suggest moving your sizable navy around and scout out the best site, just remember that even with their limited rail capacity, one decent sized force can move pretty quickly from inland positions, so have several divisions on-board when attacking.

[Boomer]

I've played through a few times where the CSA AI doesn't even bother taking Norfolk, even without me reinforcing it. I don't know if it's a bug or what, but it seems odd that the AI would leave an undefended Norfolk alone.

As to the naval invasion question, taking New Orleans should be an early (and relatively easy) objective. Move Butler from Monroe back to Washington or Annapolis, then build a small force (5,000-8,000 should be sufficient) under him with lots of artillery and naval or marine units. Send his force on a fleet to New Orleans and assault. This is easily done by the last month of '61. After that, you can promote Butler to army command, which is good because then you won't pay a penalty to skip him with command of a more important army up in Virginia. From that point, it's just a matter of holding New Orleans and/or reinforcing Butler for a further move inland towards Baton Rouge and the Mississippi river forts.

Taking and holding New Orleans should be a large priority, due to the industrial capacity and VP counts the city gains as the war goes on.

[Gray Fox]

This wonderful game can be enjoyed at many different levels of play, from just learning to more advanced. Something that works against Lieutenant Athena may not against a human player.

The most important spot for the Union player is D.C. Ignore that and a human CSA player can do this:

[ATTACH]35201[/ATTACH]

So don't teach yourself how to beat a weak AI. Play a good solid strategy every game. Secure the North in 1861. Attack from a position of strength from '62 on. Richmond is worth more in NM points than all the other locations in the south combined.

[Captain_Orso]

I had the Sam Houston event - does it happen always or only sometimes?

In the April campaign from start until July '61 there's a 5% chance per turn of the event firing.

Anyways I have two cavalry units now - should I rather evacuate them North or try to hold on?

Versus Athena, look around at what forces she has in the area. You might be able to cause some trouble and distract her for a while, maybe hit some settlements, or take a couple of towns. (The event gives you +50% loyalty in northern Texas, so there will be a number of towns you can take with early war cavalry).

From my experience, the more you do, the more she will react, in which case you can get the hell out of Dodge, if your force has enough supplies and is still in good enough condition.

Or if you're crazy like me, you could reinforce Dallas by sea and cause some real trouble. You can sail transports and brigs all the way up the Naches River to Tyler, Texas, which produces a fairly good amount of supplies. I've never seen CS gunboats patrolling the river, but you never know. Also, in I think July or so you get some RGD's which allow you to call Partisans, which can then garrison Dallas while your cavalry is off doing their dirty-work.

Of course any units you send to Texas you will be pulling out of somewhere else, and if you send any units, you better commit to supporting them, otherwise you will probably lose them and it will have been a waist of resources to just busy Athena for a few months.

Will there be additional units, if I hold on?

No. Anything else you have to send, or call up partisans.

How to defend Norfolk - or should I just give it up?

I like to try to hold it against Athena, but I think in PBEM a clever opponent will swoop down on it rather quickly and take it back, before you can afford to reinforce it too strongly.

Where did you make good experiences with Naval inavsion?

New Orleans. It's worth a lot to take it from the South, so it's worth investing it. The sooner the better, before it's strongly reinforced.

[steelwarrior77]

Thanks for all the feedbacks - very helpful ;-D