Questions and comments from a new player

[Ilya]

Hello. I've recently bought Civil War 2, which is my first ageod game. I'm enjoying it so far, but some things are puzzling, and I hope you guys can help me.


1- Do commanders ever pick battle plans other than "balanced"? I have played 3 games and a half so far, and I haven't seen anything else.

2- The UI is tedious to use in some cases. Is there a way you can recruit more than one brigade at a time? Is there a way you can buy more than one replacement at a time (automated replacement option doesn't do a good job)?

3- Isn't the CSA overpowered? In my first game, I've played as the union. I was getting my butt kicked for most of the game everywhere except on the east coast, and I only managed to win because I rushed Richmond in 1865. I assumed I did poorly because it was my first game. Then I played a second game as the CSA, and I was baffled by how easy it was. I was easily winning everywhere since I had a big quantity of good quality troops. This time I actually won in 1863 without even taking Washington. I just kept smashing all their armies around and taking VPs. So then, finally, I turned on the "give AI more time" option and started a new game as the Union. I am still struggling hard. They are again beating me everywhere except for the east coast. I just can't compete with all their huge high-quality stacks all over the map, and their raiders aren't making it any easier either. I was close to defeat (57 morale), but then I managed to take Richmond and now I'm at about 100 morale (going down). The game feels very biased.

4- Speaking of bias, some of the generals' skills are pretty silly. I'm not exactly a civil war scholar, but I feel like the way McClellan in particular is treated is very unfair. He wasn't a military genius, but he definitely doesn't deserve to have the lowest skills I've seen so far in the game. He was the first commander to defeat Lee in a large scale engagement, and he did it without a crushing numeric superiority, like Grant had later on. McClellan was definitely an above-average commander by civil war standards. With how the game currently is, it would be impossible to reproduce some battles such as Antietam.

5- I've read in other threads that some units could be trained into other ones. How?

6- Isn't it too hard to promote generals? I've never been able to promote one to 3 stars, and rarely to 2.

[DrPostman]

1. What level are you playing on? On Lieutenant I see them using
Defend retreat path, Infantry counter charge, and Infantry charge
quite a lot.

2. CW2 has a steep but worthwhile learning curve. This forum is an
invaluable tool for getting the hang of things. IIRC the first game did
allow for multiple unit purchases, but not in CW2. I got used to it, but
it is a pain when you buy 24 militia units.

3. In order to be playable the game does give the CSA advantages in
manpower and talented leaders, but not for more than a couple of years.
The Union has to play defensive, with a few offensive gambles like taking
New Orleans. It takes time to build up. It also matters what difficulty
level you are playing on.

4. I always use Mac as a training officer. He can train up to 2 elements
of militia a turn, so can Halleck and Sigel. All 3 do nothing but train new
purchases of militia in my game.

5. As with Mac and the other two, there is another ability called Training
Master. Some generals have it, as well as does an Army HQ. It takes
time but with experience the troops improve into better units.
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6. If you click on the NATO symbol on a leader it will bring up their stats.
This will include if they can be promoted or not. If they can be then put
them into battles. Some promotions are automatic, but experience in
battle works best.

[Ilya]

I play on sergeant. I don't think the difficulty has anything to do with this, though, since my own side doesn't pick any either. All battles looks like this:
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Now that I think about it, do I have to turn Battle Planner on? I thought that this setting was just to let the player pick one, but maybe it's required to have different battle plans at all?

Thanks for explaining how training works and giving me tips. I didn't know it was automatic and on a regimental level. I think this explains why some of my stacks seemed to grow progressively stronger with time, since I tend to give them HQs. What do you think is better in term of infantry, recruiting volunteers and training them, or recruiting elite troops? I've been doing mostly the latter in my current game and it seems to work fine on the coast.

[DrPostman]

You have to have that option turned on in order to select a different
plan for battle. I was unaware that you hadn't enabled it yet. I mostly
buy militia and train them up, but it's unavoidable to buy better troops,
especially early on. Welcome to the forum, and don't hesitate to ask
any questions. We're all here to help each other with a game we love.