I was playing the USA in my first game of CW2. On my early Jan '63 turn, the CSA had a NM of 30. The foreign entry was near neutral (I believe it was 4 on the USA side). After the turn resolution, which predictably had maybe 2 or 3 small skirmishes with no change in NM, I received a major victory notification because the CSA's NM fell 10 points due to options and events which "ended the game" in defeat for the CSA.
On this turn, I had happened to pick the Emancipation Proclamation option (which I could have sworn I had picked in Summer of '62) but I thought that would only give me more conscripts and wouldn't effect CSA NM.
I reloaded the game and noticed that the CSA had picked the option to raise/lower foreign entry by 15. I re-loaded the game and noticed that if the USA had picked it, they would lose 7 NM. Maybe the CSA would lose 10 NM? Why in the world would the CSA pick this option at 30 NM, thus forfeiting the game? They were losing, no doubt, but this option would have absolutely no benefit for the CSA, except purposefully ending their agony.
I also checked out the CSA position in the game and noticed some peculiarities. Their inflation was at -1% and obviously not taking advantage of the raising taxes option that causes 4% inflation. The German government would applaud their financially conservative choices, but in the Civil War, this is foolhardy. They had no money reserves! The CSA really needs to pick raising taxes more frequently and run up some inflation if they expect to win.
What money the CSA did use, they purchased wisely. As any human player would do, their production queue had about 8 items in line -- all naval units, including 2 ironclads? Seriously, I was wondering why their naval PWR went up from like 11 to 22 when I was diligent in naval replacements but I had no idea they went on an ill-advised venture to catch up to USA naval power! If things were going real good for them, this could make sense. HOWEVER, they had absolutely no artillery replacements even though they were in the red with over 250 needed. I scrolled through the units and most artillery was in the red -- no replacements.
The CSA had purchased replacements for other elements, like line infantry. They had 26 in reserve with a need of several hundred. There were other elements with decent reserves too, yet many (probably around 30%) of their units had extremely depleted forces in the red. And I would say that 75% of the units that were on the front line had dire need of replacements. Clearly, the CSA was not sending units back to where they had depots to pick up these replacements! Why? This question was asked by someone in the General Discussions thread and I was eagerly hoping to find someone who would say, yes, Athena does a good job of recognizing the need to pull forces away from the front to get those replacements they needed (and at least in terms of non-artillery) and had purchased! Sadly, I can't say that is the case though.
I hope that the following problems can be patched:
1. The AI would not pick options and events that would trigger their losing the game. Specifically, the foreign entry options would not be picked until the foreign entry level was near critical for either side (4 cannot possibly be considered a critical time to choose that option).
2. The AI would use the raise taxes option immediately as soon as hostilities break out and their money level is below something like 300.
3. The CSA AI would not purchase expensive naval units when their land PWR is in the 50's or even 70's range. Maybe wait until they are near parity with the USA before purchasing more than 1 ironclad. Brigs would be fine to purchase. But of those non ironclad purchases I mentioned, the others were frigates, not brigs.
4. The CSA AI would purchase artillery replacements at least as a higher priority than naval units and in some correlation to infantry unit replacement needs.
5. The AI would send units back to areas with depots when replacements are needed (maybe at 50%?). Can the AI detach units from a division, send those back to a depot and leave the basic unit at the front? This is what I do if the unit still has formidable PWR to face the enemy; if not, I send the entire unit back to a depot and reposition my forces as needed.
This would be much appreciated!