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CSA - Points to Know Part 1
Strategy
• Strategy is what you are going to do, while tactics are how you are going to do it; they must work together to be successful.
• Know your resources; do a tactical inventory before creating or revising a strategic plan.
• Reinforce success, abandon failure, and embrace reality.
• Looking back into history creates a bias on how you perceive things.
• Temper positive thinking with negative and be adaptive.
• Constantly improve your existing tactics and look for new ones to employ. Haunting the forum is a good place to start. Pay special attention to any peals dropped by the Narnia refugees: fox, bear, ape, pocus (saber-toothed squirrel) and the sons of Adam: ace, armchair, buckeye, citizenx, drpost, durk, havi, loki, pgr, PhilThib, tirpax and vicberg. This list is only a few of the more recent posters. Plenty of others are well worth reading.
• Read AARs to expanding your bag of solutions by discovering tactics, as well as what not to do.
• Use a specific set of goals and objectives to evaluate how your strategy and tactics are working.
• Ask yourself, “Where am I going to fight?” Examine the ground and both forces, yours and the opposing, carefully before rolling the dice.
• Do your best to concentrate your force and attack at a weak point. Do not beat your head against a wall. Go around instead. If you need to switch locations, find a place where you will be stronger. Direct attacks against an enemy firmly in position almost never work.
• Do not bet the house on a single outcome, instead prepare for multiple outcomes. Have contingency plans.
• Once a player develops a strategy, they tend to stick with it. But beware, there are some brilliant players that make a point of always trying something new.
• The CSA player has two options: the "Hold em" or the "Go for Broke - Get Washington" strategy.
* The basic "Go for Broke - Get Washington" strategy.
- Launch 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.
- 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, be aggressive. Use your better generals before the Federal leadership catches up.
- There is no way the CSA can defend everywhere, so don't try.
- Don't grant the enemy time to entrench, reinforce, and prepare.
* 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.
- If you 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; this will not work if partisans cut key rail lines.
- 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.
• Whatever strategy you choose, you must win battles. Three types of offensive engagements are possible, the Set Battle, Assault and Meeting Engagment.
-Set Battle. You want to take an Immediate Objective (IO). This may lead to another IO and so on, to an Ultimate Objective (UO). Do a map recon of the IO. Use the 7 key and find out the terrain and weather limitations. Does your route cross a river into the IO region? A "dry" route overland is less risky because a river crossing has a severe combat penalty for the attacker. Send a recon team in to get as much info on any enemy force in the IO. Estimate the level of entrenchment by comparing the enemy icons to similar icons for your forces. You want to get names and stats for Generals and power numbers for any units. Is it a Corps/Army which might be reinforced by adjacent units that MTSG? Maintain a recon until you can attack to prevent surprises. Assemble a force to win the Set Battle. Use your best leaders with your best infantry/cavalry/artillery mix and solid supply support. The enemy will thank you for not giving 100%.
-Assault. Enemy held cities, stockades, forts and redoubts can slow an invasion force or block supply routes. Sometimes, an objective may be fortified. In addition to the normal routine for a Set Battle, extra batteries of heavy artillery can aid in causing breaches. You may wish to make a field army to take IO regions that then continues to the next IO while a slower force designed for sieges performs the assault.
http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Sieges_and_breaches
-Meeting Engagement. Your forces are moving to an IO when they encounter an enemy force and an unplanned Meeting Engagement ensues. Think Gettysburg. This is less of a gamble if you plan your moves well. As always, a recon is the best insurance policy. Don't pretend that a region is safe, know that it is. If you detect a risk, move synchronized or so that adjacent units might best MTSG. It's better to be present for battle with ten men than absent with ten thousand.
http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Combat_Explained
- If you defend everywhere equally, then everywhere you will be weak. With that in mind, develop an overall Strategic Defense Plan; scrutinize the map from top to bottom and make priorities.
• After 1863, the CSA will face a building and overwhelming blue tide.
• Against veteran Union player, stopping an all East Union it's very tough for the CSA. They can withstand it only if they go for all East themselves.
• Against veteran Union player, when Union puts everything east under competent leadership. It is not impossible to stop him, but it’s very tough to do damage to him. Try not to spread your Corps too thin. Don't spread them 3 regions wide, that's the error most people make. Spread them max 2 regions so all your army can participate in a battle.
• If the North does not build factories and blockade fleets, the big Northern push can happen is as early as Spring/Summer '62.
• The CSA must hold Manassas on 9/15/1861 for the Union to receive a -10 NM penalty; the event will tell you if you have succeeded or failed on 9/30/1861.
• The Kentucky secession event lists the min date as 1861/07/01 and the max date of 1861/08/05 with a probability of 10%. The CSA must have more NM than the Union. If Kentucky does not secede, the game will begin to make checks for it to join the Union. Two checks are required. The first is called 'Kentucky Warning' and will start in March of '62 with a 50% chance each turn. Once this happens both sides will be warned that Kentucky is leaning towards the Union. Each turn thereafter a check will be made with a 25% chance for Kentucky to join the Union.
• If you are going to contest Missouri, as either side, it is critical to win Springfield.
• The opening battle for Springfield decides the MO Theater.
• Burning stockades in Kansas and Indian Territory secures Fayetteville from most harassment and flanking.
• After Kentucky is in play, or close to it, expect Missouri to become a secondary theater.
• Abandon West Virginia before it snows.
• If pressed too hard in the west, trade space for time.
• Build up your rail. Using your rail is the key to the game.
• 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.
• If you do not win by NM, the game progresses to 1866 and the winner is the side with the most victory points.
• If both sides move their capitals, then neither risks taking a 50 NM hit. The new capital is only worth 10 NM. After this, with NM normalizing, it's almost impossible to do a sudden NM win; the result is a long game to the bitter end and the side with the most VPs wins.
• A capital can be moved while under siege.
• If one uses the option to move their capital and loses it in the same turn, then the move will still occur, costing them the NM from the event and the ability to regain the 50 NM if they retake their original capital.
• If a capital is taken and then lost, even with only a single turn of occupation, the NM lost by the conqueror is only 5. So, if you can take a capital, even if it is only for one turn, then do it. Once you gain that 50 NM, it is not easily lost. The opposition can gain back their 50 NM if they retake their capital, but you will only lose 5 NM and have a net gain of 45 NM.
• There is no way to cause Lincoln to lose the election; just make him lose the war.
• At the start of '64 there is an event that fires and raises the sudden-death to 60 NM for the Union to capitulate, which is very high, and for the Union to win to 225, which is also very high. At the same time the Confederate sudden-death is set to 25 NM for the South to capitulate, which is low, and 175 for them to win, which is also quite low. However, once the election is over--Lincoln automatically wins the election, and there are no variations here, these two events re-fire changing the frames again. The Union sudden-death now comes down from 60 to 25, while CS sudden-death goes up from 25 to 40. Union win NM also comes down from 225 to 185, while CS win goes up from 175 to 225; a very tough field to plow for the Confederacy. Those events are actually just the election campaign events, which is why they fire.
• The "sudden death" change to 60 in 1864 creates a window of opportunity for the South if: the Northern player's NM is already low, he refuses to turtle, and keeps on hammering on Johnny Reb when he is well lead, dug in, and holding good ground; in the blink of an eye, Billy Yank can loose more NM then he can afford.
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. Unless the Union builds a stockade in the area, this will deny the North a cheap source of VPs.
• Moving the capital to Atlanta reduces the CSA's earned Victory Points by 30 points per turn; this is due to the fact that the new capital only generates 15 points instead of 50.
Tactics
•Tactics require micromanagement.
• Don’t fight an offense battle with defensive forces.
• Know the points of attack and know where the enemy is coming from.
• Defend objectives and anything the enemy values.
• Enemy strong points are why God created the art of maneuver.
• 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.
• It is easier to defend territory than capture it.
• Know what the value of a location is. Hold the truly valuable ones. Just because you already hold it, don’t overestimate an area's worth. Let the small stuff go; it’s impossible for the South to defend everywhere.
• When dug in and defending, 1 to 1 ratios are not necessary, but try to maintain 1-2 or better odds. Don't forget to factor in terrain and river crossings. In hills, across a river, 1 to 3 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.
• Try to upset your enemy’s equilibrium before launching your main attack. Rattle his cage to get him off balance; Texas rangers and partisans are tailor made for this type of work.
• 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.
• 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...
• When in doubt it's usually better to stay put and see what happens rather than moving around with no good reason.
• If you move you lose cohesion, may have attrition hits (depending on the weather and your game settings) and usually will lose the terrain and entrenchment advantage you get when defending on a region.
• Trying to fight as the defender is usually a very good idea. A sound strategy on many cases is “Get there first with the most.” Get first to an objective, defend and entrench and force the enemy to attack you to try get it.
• It's probably also worth noting that just moving a force for the sake of moving or because you cannot think of what to do, can often become a bad idea. The AGE-Engine rewards reasonable forward planning, even against the AI. Think ahead, think strategically and use the F7 screen to see where you are and where you need to go.
• 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 you do not defend important cities, you will quickly lose them and your reserves will not get them back very easily.
• 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.
Movement
• Redeployment is for leaders and supply wagons only; to use the SO, Special Order, your unit must be able to trace a route containing good-order rail lines through an unbroken chain to the destination area. Also, the traversed regions, must have a minimum of 25% MC.
• 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.
• When shifting troops try to move through non-border areas, so they will not be detected, thanks to the "fog of war."
• Red areas mean you may not move into that area as you do not have sufficient power or MC to enter the region.
• The only thing that can stop a stack from moving into another region is ZOC, and if their Patrol value is high enough, an enemy stack can block you without going into combat. The Patrol value of the defender compared to the evasion value of the moving stacks is 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.
• Infantry has around 9-10 evasion and artillery has '1'; the lowest value of the lowest 'unit' counts, unit, not element, and units are averaged.
• For Zone of Control, only the total police value is important. Mounted elements simply have a higher police value than foot units, so you can get a fairly high police value with relatively few elements.
• 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.
• During a turn, if you inadvertently cancel a move, you can still re-plot the same move without time previously spent moving being negated. Thus the time spent moving in the previous turn is not lost, if that stack's move is canceled before it arrives in its target region and the turn’s end is executed. This fact allows a number of fast move tricks.
- Once you start a move from one region to another that takes more than a turn to travel, you can create a situation where your force has an unseen head start. This may catch your foe off guard by allowing your troops to appear to have traveled more distance in a turn then is possible.
- Off map movement can be tough. In winter or mud, a move can take 32+ days and your force will arrive in an exhausted state. However, in clear weather the same route may only take 17 days. If you have a supply source and can afford to wait, it is often best to hang around until the weather clears before moving. In such a case, on turn 1, order the stack to make the 32+ day move. During that turn, it gets 15 days closer to its goal. On turn 2, cancel the move, but don't do anything else. This means don't move in or out of a structure and don't add or remove anything from the stack. On 3rd turn, if the weather is good, order the move again. This move will only take two days and will lose very little cohesion, thus allowing your force to arrive in fighting trim.
• 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.
• 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.
• Control+W will cycle through locked units, including under construction units. Control+E will cycle through non-locked units even if they are already on the move. Between those two functions you should able to cycle through the entirety of your land forces.
• When using the traffic penalty, try starting out with a small one, but not zero. It is not well understood exactly what effects it has on the AI and how it shakes out.
• River transport is not subject to traffic rule, it only apply to land movements. Railroads suffer from traffic rule, but you can use them much more extensively compared to marching with troops.
• Synchronize Move is wonky and does not always work the way you intend it to, if at all; synchronized move works only for an Army and its Corps.
Cavalry
• The primary use for cavalry is recon. Ample cavalry in a stack give you info on enemy stacks nearby. A cavalry element set to Green/Green and Evade Combat can slip through enemy lines and find out where troop concentrations are forming for future attacks. Four cavalry in one small Division are still able to evade detection well and can also effectively twist up RR tracks if their strength is over 100.
• Tactics for cavalry also depend on the theater. Cavalry go from a continuum of strong in the west to weak in the east as the average stack size gets bigger. In the Far West and the Great Plains they are powerful combat units even in small stacks, while in the East a small stack of cavalry would be wiped out by just about any enemy stack they come into contact with. You will need to size your scout stacks to be survivable in their theater, but bear in mind that command penalties affect their movement and stealth as well as combat stats.
• Early in the game, be very active with small groups of cavalry; constantly buzzing around the map getting vision, gaining MC and generally trying to make the map the most favorable for you. Be ready to circle behind wounded enemy forces to cut off supply or block retreat paths in the hopes of trapping a wounded stack and destroying it. It's a swarm of bees, constantly moving and doing something.
• Once the early cavalry get upgraded to late cavalry, roughly the second half of the game, their scouting stats get nerfed while their combat stats get a bump. Since they are no longer as effective as scouts they are good mixed into front-line divisions.
• Prioritize getting Cavalry Conscripts early xp. Like any conscript they only need 5xp for a star, but the boost to their soft stats from just one star is HUGE, particularly to their Hide and Evasion. Conscript Cav make cavalry stacks they are in easy to spot and engage, but even one star will make them operationally effective.
• Give cavalry a Division commander with a high Strategic rating so that they stay active.
• If you do not have a 5 or 6 strategic cavalry general for them it is best to leave scout stacks uncommanded so they don't become inactive or fixed in place.
• The 4 strategic cavalry leaders guys do not stay active enough for scouting purposes, so they go into corps/army stacks where they can pass their +25% combat bonus to as many elements as possible.
• There are 2 things independent cavalry can always do, destroy railroads and block supplies.
• The idea of sending a supply train along with cavalry is simply not viable. It would remove a key characteristic of cavalry; their speed. It also greatly endangers a very expensive unit to capture or destruction; not a good idea.
• You should have cavalry in nearly every stack close to the front lines; especially 'larger' stacks. Cavalry increases your detection rating and decreases the enemy’s detection. More than 2 per division is far too much, and will greatly reduce the combat power of a division; 1 or 2 is more than enough.
• If you have a big stack next to an enemy's big stack, and you can't see their stats, you need more cavalry.
• If you form full cavalry divisions, use them to chase down enemy intruder small divisions.
• Horse artillery is mostly bogus in scout stacks because they drag down the various stealth stats your scouts use to go undetected and to evade contact.
• 100% cavalry divisions perform suboptimally in Corps and Army scale battles.
• Cavalry in clear weather has a frontage quota of 2, so you can get two cavalry elements in the same frontage for 1 infantry element, but bad weather will hit the mounted boys harder.
Intel
• Intel is never false. If you see it, it is true at the moment, though not necessarily complete.
• Know your foe, cavalry, rangers and partisans are your eyes and ears.
• Use the fog of war to your advantage as best as you can.
• Use cavalry, rangers and partisans as 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 cavalry 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.
• A key to scouting without getting busted is to always keep moving; the evade combat special order only works if the unit is moving. Using the shift key while issuing orders will allow you to set a patrol between two regions.
• 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, set to Green/Green and Evade Combat, can penetrate enemy lines and give you a more complete picture of what is going on. If its cohesion is high, this division can cut rail lines deep in enemy territory and usually has enough power to brush aside an auto-garrison and burn up a depot.
• Pay attention to the non-combat stats for your individual cav elements; they vary widely between conscripts, regulars, and regulars with experience stars. If you have a two-cav stack but one of them has low Evasion because it is a conscript, well....
• 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.
• Blockade runners are not going to tip the production numbers in your favor, so don't be afraid to cut a brig loose and send it out as a scout.
• Every player should make it a mini-game to find out as much about the other player's forces as possible every turn. At a minimum, the CSA should know how well D.C. is being defended, what Grant is doing and where Union transports are. If the Union has transports in St. Louis, then expect a run on the Mississippi river. If some Ocean Transports are no longer in the Shipping box, then expect a coastal assault.
• While it is not a substitute for scouting, the force power comparison in the ledger can be a fairly useful tool. As the war progresses it becomes more difficult to use, but it can provide a decent estimation.
• Try to get a good feel for estimating how many enemy forces are in the field. Since a majority of all forces go to the visible front lines, one should be able to discern if the opponent has a large force hidden in the fog of war. This could be useful for predicting naval invasions as the CSA because these forces tend to stay off the map for several turns. Or as the Union when you expect to see at least 20 enemy divisions but can only find 15, and then upon a closer look you can not find a star general like Lee or Jackson; it may be time to brace for an imminent attack.
• You will know you have pretty thorough intel when you can see the enemy stack's commander stats and a list of units with PWR ratings. Pay close attention to the "Also Present" stuff at the bottom; these are often inside a structure, but sometimes are just stacks you have minimal intel on.
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.
• To control a city depends partly on the loyalty of the population in the region.
- If your faction has >=51% loyalty in the region:
+ If your faction was the last to have an uncontested (no enemy units, which were not in PP (Passive Posture)) non-artillery combat unit not in PP in the region, your faction controls the city, until an enemy unit takes control of the city.
- If your faction has <=50% loyalty in the region:
+ If your faction has an uncontested (no enemy units, which were not in PP (Passive Posture)) regular infantry and/or late war cavalry unit not in PP in the region, inside or outside the city, your faction controls the city, until these units leave the region, at which time the city becomes contested, regardless of how much MC (Military Control) your faction enjoys in the region, even if 100%.
+ If your faction has >=1 non-artillery, non-irregular combat units not in PP inside the city, your faction controls the city.
• 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.
Raiding
• 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 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, forts and stockades, the unit you give the order to will burn the structure after 15 days, basically a full turn plus one day. You can give a unit orders to move with a destroy 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.
• The tool-tip for burning depots says it takes five days, this is wrong. It takes only a day. When a depot is removed, it will does not change the amount of supply in an area. But if the depot is removed, the stored supply is not held back and will be quickly siphoned off by other nearby depots and structures.
• The main problem with the South burning coastal depots is that most of them cannot be burnt. Only size one depots can be destroyed. This restriction on 'destroying' a depot larger than size 1 can be circumvented or removed; it is possible to resize depots with the correct RGDs.
• A swift and successful strike hitting a large well stocked city is guaranteed to find subsistence.
• Use small garrisons combined with a fast moving hammer stack to check raids.
• 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.
• Partisans can blow up 1 depot level from adjacent areas with cards.
• A partisan must roll more than * 3 the garrisoning elements to destroy one level of a depot.
• Consider not forming partisans in the mud of winter; behind enemy lines they might starve immediately...wait for good weather.
• Hunt partisans units with a leaderless 2 cavalry and 1 horse artillery stack.
• Consider raising a partisan somewhere in NW Kentucky and using a RGD to blow the depot at Fort Henry; this will cut supplies for the North's initial thrust toward Memphis.
• 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.
• With small forces, the South can wreak havoc on the Leavenworth-Kansas-IT-New Mexico supply line.
• You can't burn a fort down if you are in it during a siege.
Battles
• 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.
• 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 cannot 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.
• When fighting a field battle, concentrate all effectives in the region, not the structure, for the initial battle.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Clear terrain with no rain is a must if you are playing number against quality.
• Weather and terrain traversing strongly effect cohesion; unit movement can have a dramatic effect on your forces combat values.
• Mixing poor quality units with good quality units can be a bad idea, as your poor quality units will use up frontage without the punch.
• 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.”
• When attacking on offensive or assault, that's orange or red, you lose cohesion and terrain advantage.
• All out attack, red, gives an offensive bonus modifier of 1.35, but also gives the defender an even larger bonus of 1.5 because your men are not taking cover, etc.
• 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.
• You can’t retreat from battle into a regions where you have less than 5% military control.
• 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.
• Marching to the Sound of the Guns only occurs from adjacent region; it will work even if the stack in an adjacent region is inside a fort or city.
• Of course there is no MTSG in the first round; your stack better be strong enough to stand on its own or else you have problems like premature retreats.
• MTSG is not possible between different armies.
• Each corps that MTSG's into a battle will use the posture they are currently in, they will not inherit the posture of the stacks in the contested region. So, it is possible for different corps to use different postures in the same battle.
• The delayed commitment option has a rather large impact on MTSG. It looks like, essentially, the delay settings are the MTSG settings.
-The min/max commit chance of eligible corps:
-No Delay: Range = 100-100
-Small Delay: Range = 65-80
-Medium Delay: Range = 55-70
-Large Delay: Range = 40-60
-This is for the first round of MTSG; for each additional round of combat the base chance will increase by 10%.
• A corps doesn't get just one roll or only one chance to MTSG per round of combat; its a lot more complex than that. Seldom does it happen where a stack gets only one chance to join the battle. If a corps fails to commit against one target it can be called upon in the same round to roll against another target.
• A corps can join a battle, without succeeding on a commit roll, if an opposing stack successfully targets and commits against them.
• When deciding how to array your Corps across multiple regions bear in mind that artillery get extra shots during the 1st round of battle. Therefore an artillery piece at the point of attack is more effective than an artillery piece in a stack that will MTSG. Concentrate artillery at the point of attack.
• MTSG can fail within battles; a stack can MTSG one round and not the next.
• Inactive stacks can MTSG but there are adverse consequences.
• Weak corps who marched to the sound of the guns can adversely affected the battle. This can lead an easy rout on the final battle.
• If a force loses badly on the first round the retreat engine does not take into account potential MTSGers when making its retreat decision, so you can get in situations where the initial stack is pummeled badly enough that it retreats after the first round and since there is no second round, the MTSGers don't do anything and you have simply lost a major battle and a key position. Setting your posture to Defend at All Costs (Red) short circuits the pre-battle withdrawal roll, and makes it more likely that they will not retreat after the first round. So, when defending with multiple small stacks across multiple regions consider using Defend at All Costs posture.
• if you don't want a Corps stack to MTSG, the only way to truly prevent it, is by setting it to PP (Passive Posture.) Try not to do this with any Corps in the proximity of an enemy stack, unless you are in the process of trying to get it out of the area at all costs, and it is already in motion.
• There is no way to 'pin' a stack down. You cannot stop MTTSOG by starting two battles simultaneously in neighboring regions.
• All stacks eligible to march to the sound of the guns have to test individually. The base chance of joining a battle is 100%. This probability is modified by the following factors:
# -10% for each day of marching that the supporting stack would (theoretically) need in order to enter the region where the battle takes place. All factors affecting the stack’s movement speed apply (e.g. cohesion, weather, activation status of commander, etc.). E.g. when the battle takes place in a mountainous region, the chance is reduced. Stacks moving at cavalry-speed are more likely to enter the battle (except in bad weather).
# +10% if it is the army-stack which has been engaged by the enemy in the adjacent region.
# +25% if it is the army-stack that marches to the sound of the guns.
# +5% for each point of strategic-rating of the army/column-commander who tries to march to the sound of the guns.
# -10% if the stack that tries to march to the sound of the guns is in a “defensive” command posture.
# -1% for every 5% of enemy control in the regions. Both, the region where the battle takes place and the adjacent region are taken into account – the enemy military control in both regions is added together and then divided by 5.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Typically a battle will end at range zero, in the assault phase. If it does, all pursuing units will inflict their assault damage against the retreaters. Cavalry do more pursuit damage because they have a high assault damage stat, it’s not something only they can do, they are just better at it than other types of units.
• Finish off retreating stacks; after combat, take advantage of the retreat algorithm. The algorithm forces the retreating force to go to particular regions. You can block off their best paths by establishing 100% MC or positioning troops in them to force them to retreat elsewhere, preferably away from safety and into bad terrain. Cut off their supplies, keep hitting them so their cohesion stays down and keep them retreating so you can control their movements. Let weather, terrain and starvation do their work while you envelop them and then bring in a normal large combat stack to finish them off. Try to keep them away from rivers so they can't swim away. A lot of times if the weather cooperates they will just evaporate on their own through starvation and attrition.
• The most important factors in determining retreat direction are: toward a region with a city ( 5% per level,) toward a region with a fort (30% per level,) toward a region with a depot (25% per level,) and toward a region (10% per land link.)
• If a general with the 'screener' trait is present, he can reduce damage while retreating; this trait will reduce damage taken by 50%.
Recovery & Attrition
• 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.
• White ribbons on a unit symbolize empty element "slots.”
• 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.
• Each hit for infantry is X * 30 = X men; for Artillery it is X * 9 = X men.
• After each battle, you will see a Battle Report Screen; it is composed of a list of units involved with colored medallions by each unit. These medallions tell the story of what happened to individual units. Hover over them, and they will report things like: entrenchments, supply, good or bad leadership, luck, cowardice, breaking in combat, and other data.
• The Battle log offers more info on the actual game mechanic of the combat. It's a file called !BatteLog in the C:\Program/MyGames/CW2/Logs directory.
• Move troops in green/green to limit damage in travel to their destination.
• 20lbers require heavy artillery replacements.
• If a generic brigade recruited from the force pool is destroyed, it will show back up in the force pool immediately.
• If a "special" brigade, like the Stonewall brigade, is destroyed, then it is lost forever.
• CSA recovers hits in the field twice as fast as the Union.
• The CSA just doesn't bring in enough income to provide enough replacements during any PROLONGED large-scale warfare which should start mid to end 1862. Even with badass leaders and cool armies, they cannot withstand the numbers the Union can throw at them over a prolonged period.
• Place units needing replacements in passive posture inside a depot. This will give them priority when receiving replacements.
• 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.
• 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.
• A division is a unit and only one element per turn per unit may be replaced. So, if more than 1 unit inside a division has a missing element, temporarily break those units out of the division.
• 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.
• In Historical Attrition, to receive a replacement element, your unit must be on an unbesieged depot, fort, or a city size 5 or larger. There are others factors that also influence the chances to get replacements: passive units will be checked before defensive, and defensive before offensive; the chance is higher in a region with large supply stocks; chances are be increased for an 'alert unit'; this is proportional to Detection Value x Hide value of the unit; quality units, like rangers etc. receive replacements before line units, and line units will get them before militia.
• To fit the alert criteria for replacement, try stacking the sub unit that needs replacements with a small cavalry units to increase high Detect Value x Hide values.
• Always ensure units have sufficient supplies; supplies will be traded for some cohesion loss and hits through attrition.
• 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.
• 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.
• Every turn their stack does not move, HQ's and leaders with the Training Master trait add one XP, to each element.
• Every element has a 75% chance of gaining 1 XP per turn through field training. The Training Master Ability of HQ Units explicitly provide 1 XP to every element in the stack they are in, whether the unit got the game mechanics 1 XP for that turn or not; 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.
• XP of an element cannot be increase through training beyond 2 EL (Experience Level). Each element has a 'ProgRate' (Progression Rate) defined. This defines the XP level at which an element gains 1 EL, at which time it will gain a Star on its element detail display.
• Cavalry upgrade from conscripts quickly and gain stars quickly. Gaining stars gives buffs to a lot of stats other than just Firepower which are not normally useful for Infantry. Cavalry, especially in their scouting role, on the other hand benefit greatly from the boosts to their Evasion and Patrol that come with even just one star. It is worth microing cavalry, particularly conscripts, in and out of HQ/ Training Master stacks to rapidly increase their scouting effectiveness.