Confederates in Washington. It's all over.

[Taillebois]

My only AAR. It'll never happen again.

Turn 1 - Late July 1861

Warren VA

Remove Stonewall Brigade from Joseph Johnston's command.
Send Stonewall to Harper's Ferry, via Winchester.
Send Joseph Johnston and army to Fauquier, VA (Manassas) by rail.

Fauquier VA
Remove Longstreet and Bonham from Beauregard (should reduce penalty to about 5%)

End turn

Turn 2 - Early August 1861

Fauquier - Add Longstreet and Bonham to Joseph Johnston's command.
Move Johnston and Beauregard to Fairfax (Alexandria).

Victory day 3

End turn

Turn 3 - Late August 1861

Stonewall brigade to enter Harper's Ferry

Defeated Day 2

Johnston - to Prince George MD (Washington) directly
Defeated day 5
Beauregard to Washington via Montgomery


Major Victory VP 152 to -99
NM 229 to 0

Result

Confederates in Washington.
War over.
About half a million lives saved.
No need to play long campaign.
Buy another AGEOD game.

[John Sedgwick]

Haha, well that was a hard-won victory. Looks like you're ready for a human opponent?

[Taillebois]

It's taken me about a hundred goes - with AACW 1 and 2.

It was only after I downgraded my AACW1 to 1.06d that I got a win. I can't do it on the legacy patch 1.17.

[StoneWall Jackson]

Very nice, I have done this once, I just kept playing. It was very interesting. I played up until late 62.

[Taillebois]

Glad to say this worked on 1.02 but it took about five goes. Excessive Boxing Day alcohol may have contributed.

[Gen.James]

Im trying to do the same thing what are your A.I settings good sir

[Taillebois]

Everything on easy. Ai more time = Off. Use all behaviours = On (I thought it was off but I just checked while replying).

Remember it was the Bull Run - elephant scenario - not a full campaign.

[Taillebois]

Just wasted hours and about twenty tries trying to get a victory with 1.02. Settings as above but all behaviours was OFF, aggressiveness on middle position. Finally, got that confederate flag over Washington.

I was beginning to think I had made the whole thing up.

[Taillebois]

I can't get it to work with 1.03 - another reason to not like like this patch. Johnston and Beauregard just won't cross to Washington.

[8thTnCav]

Nice recipe. Still works with 1.03, more or less. It just takes a trifle longer.
[ATTACH]26682[/ATTACH]

The new flag over Washington looks great.

[Taillebois]

Excellent news. Thanks for trying it and letting me know it can still be done.

[Pocus]

Just wasted hours and about twenty tries trying to get a victory with 1.02. Settings as above but all behaviours was OFF, aggressiveness on middle position. Finally, got that confederate flag over Washington.

I was beginning to think I had made the whole thing up.

All behaviours off is really a dumbed down version of the AI, only for beginning players I would say.

[Taillebois]

Too right, I need all the help I can get.

Rant:

Yesterday I bought retail and gave away another copy of AGEOD's military strategies - the one one with WIA/AACW/WW1 in. It's part of my attempt to get more people to play wargames. The persuasion needed to get clever educated people to even try and load up a wargame is exhausting. "Don't worry, the manual is only 70 pages long. And remember to spend an hour or so on the tutorials. And then try the shorter scenarios, they are quite easy and good for learning the game." Are they heck. And the industry complains about being "niche", and then in the same breath laughs at their customers for not being military geniuses.

Yet again (I've said it in other threads) it doesn't matter how hard you make the hard difficulty levels for the grognards, if you don't make the easy levels easy - as in REALLY EASY - you are going to remain a minority interest because possible newcomers will be put off.

[Pocus]

I find that the best way to entice people in our hobby is to show them on my computer a game, this is much more easy to get them into. This allow them skipping tutorials and manual reading, at least for a while. If they are hooked, they will ask you about things by mails, phone or live...

[Taillebois]

I think you are probably right.

In the absence of this I suggest to people they try some ploys at this scenario (or the Last Flight Of The Eagle in Napoleon's Campaigns) which can be done as a "try moving this to here and that to there and set him on assault and him on defend."

[HidekiTojo]

My second campaign ever back when this game was not as old, I was able to take Beauregard's army and go right around the entire Union army and capture Washington in less than ten turns

[Pocus]

There have been improvements since 1.01