Money, Money and more Money

[Straight Arrow]

Just finished a game as the South where a major limiting factor was money. I’m looking for suggestions on how to squeeze the last bit of cash from the rind.

What I tried:
Take print, tax, and bonds options the moment they were available. This allowed quicker financial regeneration. At times of high inflation, in an attempt to shave a few bucks off unit costs, I first raised and spent tax/bond money, then raised and used paper funds on the following turn.

Used all RDC plunder cards as they came available.

Used all RDC requisition cards as they were available, targeting areas without industry or tent cities.

Used the $15 RDC cotton cards, but tried to retain about ½ of the cards in the hope they would run the blockade and pay $50.

Limited all RDC cash expenditures. No purchases of development or VP cards. No buying or bribing of Native American units, and only a few demonstration cards were bought for high gain or threat areas.

Special unit construction was limited to: all the HQs, a hospital for each large independent force, and an engineer for each main army.

Flat boat purchases held to the bare minimum needed to fill out the supply grid.

Supply wagon were not purchased; units were limited to the initial, on map elements and a few captured wagons.

No naval, heavy artillery, or supply replacement chits.

An extremely limited number of cavalry replacement chits were purchased.

Things I did not do:
No purchase of ocean going transports for placement in the shipping box. I do not like raising funds in this non-historical and highly unrealistic gambit.

I could not make my free, Pima unit conduct a raid; this would have brought in $15, but I could not find a valid target in the Far West.

And that’s about it. Any ideas on how to get more milk out of the cow?

[VigaBrand]

Built briggs to get more income via trade/blockaderunners.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Station troops in high production but low loyalty regions. As loyalty increases so does production. New Orleans and Mobile are good places to do this.

Win battles. As NM increases, so does production. As the CSA I tend to go for the largest cheapest army I can put into the field as early as possible. If I can convert this into wins on the battlefield through NM gains or through capturing production cities (St. Louis provides a very nice boost for example) I can solve a lot of resource issues. I get all the 12 lbers built quickly, and focus on fast building infantry brigades in the early game so that I can win the early battles while I still have advantages.

Take enemy farmfields. They are often lightly defended but produce $$ as well as large amounts of supply, and there are lots of them.

Pay attention to what production bottleneck you have. If you always run out of one of them and have extra of the others then that is your bottleneck. If it is money, perhaps you can buy more but cheaper units than with your current build plan. Aim for balance here, ideally you want to run out of all of them at the same time in order to be most efficient with your resources. As the CSA my early bottleneck is always WS. By the beginning of 1862 it becomes $$, and as the war progresses it becomes CS.

Hospitals for the independent stacks may be overkill. If you are fighting in a region with a depot you recover more quickly anyway and won't necessarily need a hospital unit; in other places you can simply deal with the normal cohesion recovery rates (it's usually pretty quick unless the stack is in a bad position). HQs are awesome but expensive. I usually get two into the game as quickly as possible to accelerate the training process in the largest stacks but hold off on more till I see how the game progresses. If a stack already has a Training Master I don't give it an HQ. Make sure you are getting maximum value from the HQ's you buy, that is money that could have been spent elsewhere if they are not seeing action or are not in the largest stacks. Hospitals are the same way: unless they are in stacks that are getting a lot of cohesion loss through combat or maneuver, they are wasted resources.

While building extensive numbers of brigs is not cost effective in the long run, the brigs you start with can certainly help with a little bit of money and WS in the early game. Be sure to allow the ones that are not at full strength to use the replacement chits you start with to come to full strength so they can produce more. Also be sure you have a WS surplus at the end of the turn or they will bring WS instead of $$. (I usually want the WS more though.)

The cost of a flatboat is negligible compared to the direct military benefit that is provided to your troops in front line positions by having a nearby depot. Don't go willy-nilly flatboating everything in sight, but they provide a lot of bang for the buck when used in the right spots. I do put in a couple of depots along the Mississippi to help supply flow from New Orleans up river to Tennessee, but I am not certain this actually provides much benefit.

Consider ignoring the FW and spending those resources elsewhere. I like to get all the Rangers early no matter what, but often just build a single Inf-Inf-12 lb brigade in El Paso. That plus the forces starting in the area are more than enough to hold El Paso/Mesilla unless (or until) the California column arrives on the scene. Usually my Rangers attack the stockade chain between Denver and Taos and then head East to destroy more stockades and eventually link up with MO or N. Texas forces. Similarly, Texas is not worth spending much money to defend other than maybe the cotton bale port.

It sounds like you are already taking the timing of the taxes/bonds/printing press into consideration with regards to inflation. I always wait to pull the printing press trigger until I really really need it and have enough CS and WS on hand to make full use of the money.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Replacements take priority over new building if I have red to get out, but especially early on I want to spend everything on new troops rather than buying excess replacements if I am not seeing a lot of combat. Mid and late game almost all spending goes to replacements.

When deciding what to build bear in mind that in the short term arty is more expensive but is cheaper in the long run than infantry since you don't have to buy arty replacements that often. Hopefully you won't have to buy as many infantry chits either if that extra arty improves the battle outcomes.

If you are able to lift the blockade on Richmond somehow you will get a lot of extra production. It may not be worth the cost though, Monroe is a tough nut to crack.

[Cardinal Ape]

I could not make my free, Pima unit conduct a raid; this would have brought in $15, but I could not find a valid target in the Far West.

I think you can use the native units that come with Stand Waite for the Indian plunder and raid RGDs.

[tripax]

You were out of money, eh. For what it is worth, I think I played a role in your money woes that you usually don't face in most games. That is, it was kind of part of my strategy.

When you lose men through attrition, a large portion of the conscripts are returned to the pool. When you lose men in battle, a smaller portion of the conscripts are returned to your pool. In no case are any money or war supplies returned to your pool. Part of the philosophy I was trying out was that if your earnings were $200-$300 per year, you could replace 10 to 15 chits per turn. And since I saw you weren't industrializing and were taking inflation, I figured that number was closer to 10 per turn. To confirm, I tried to figure out if you were building new regiments and I was pretty sure you weren't. So if I could kill >10 infantry chits worth per turn in battles, you'd be unable to replace them. My limiting factor was conscripts - which are in part returned to the pool after casualties and in most games as Union I get at least 150-250 per turn. Except my NM collapsed and I was getting just over 100 per turn, so I was barely able to replace 10 infantry chits either.

It was an interesting part of my strategy, and I knew it was crumbling your armies, but I was careless with my NM, mine were building more slowly than usual, and it didn't work.


By the way, I think Native Units replacements are part of the Native faction pool, and not a part of the USA or CSA pools. Is this correct? If so, is it WAD? My guess is that it is, but who knows.

[James W. Starnes]

I build as many factories as possible in early game, whilst placing units in the eastern theatre in a good defensive position. Usually the power for the Yankees swell up to 5000+ there, but I still hold them off with 1500 power because of the good generals. In the west is where most of the action takes place. Because the MO area has a lot of rich towns and resources, and loyalty to the CSA, I try to defend and take strategic towns such as St. Louis. I also build a bunch of ironclads on the MS (factories come into play here) and the fleet becomes unstoppable whilst Hoggins is the admiral. Because Cairo has high loyalty and usually not very well defended, I take that as well and build redoupts there for a northern stronghold that can hold off river and land attacks trying to enter in TN. In the far west, I get all the rangers possible, and militia units to conquer NM. Once I'm able to get some TX brigades in, and send in a few more generals, I procede to conquer Santa Fe and eleminate the Union forces there, before the CA column arrives. By now the units should be plentiful and experienced to pretty much demolish the CA column. I then procede to clean up in CO and CA for the rich gold mines, as money becomes an issue later to build strong units. The far west to me is the easiest part of the game. Meanwhile using the new money sources to build a stronger army in VA, and a stronger navy on the Atlantic whilst sending some ironclads from the MS fleet. It really should easy for now on, since you have great war supplies, a lots of money, and those easily conquerable areas in the far west (San Francisco can be challenging) add TONS of NM to your nation.