Athena creates Verdun

[Chaplain Lovejoy]

Been playing the Union against CSA-Athena, slight FOW advantage for AI, extra AI computational time, normal difficulty, normal aggressiveness. Am at the end of 1862, and here is my experience with version 1.11a.

I have marched into Bowling Green, Nashville, Memphis, and Atlanta without much resistance at all. The same cannot be said, however, for Forts Donelson/Henry. Athena was quite fixated on holding that position, even when (or perhaps especially when) that position became untenable by my taking Bowling Green and Nashville.

After I took Nashville, I came up against Donelson/Henry from the south, laying siege with a corps. Through my own carelessness, I failed to interdict CSA resupply via river to that position. This turned out to be good for me, however, as freshly arrived CSA troops would sortie out of Donelson/Henry every other turn to try to break the siege. They always failed, and the result was a Verdun-like meatgrinder for the CSA. Maybe that's why Athena didn't have any troops to defend Memphis and Atlanta.

The story in the east was different and fascinating. Joe Hooker and the AotP managed to take Richmond. Then Athena did something amazing: she sent Bobby Lee with 25,000 on an end-around to take Harper's Ferry and (presumably) other points north. My 8,000 troops there, heavily entrenched with Gatling guns, managed to stop Lee long enough for me to detach my best corps from the AotP and chase him down. My corps under Hamilton gave Lee quite a thorough beating, but then my remaining troop strength at Richmond wasn't strong enough to hold that position.

Losing Richmond meant retreating to Manassas and Alexandria to rebuild during winter. During harsh weather, Lee came after me twice with devastating losses for the CSA--something like ten-to-one casualties in my favor. Does Athena respect bad weather as she should? Oh, and I have captured lots of CSA supply wagons; thinking of how expensive those things are, could Athena be more careful?

Having a great time! Fabulous game!

[Pocus]

That she attacks in winter while losing wagons is not surprising, if she have wagons, she is screened from winter damages.
Now it seems the AI is a bit too aggressive here.
I would like to keep your save for when I have some time. Remember, the 24 past turns are always saved by the program, so I would gladly accept your complete save, in one big ZIP

[Franciscus]

[SIZE="1"]Psst, Pocus,...? It's your birthday, and it's saturday early, early morning... [/size]

[Chaplain Lovejoy]

Ah, I see the 24 saves. The file names end with ".trn", ".ord", ".tag", and ".hst". Which are useful to you?

[Chaplain Lovejoy]

I think I figured out that you want it all. It is here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=c42367d1885a9f44dd8b33b5aa27078d

If wrong files or wrong compression format, kindly let me know!

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Chaplain Lovejoy]

Oops--didn't mean to give a link to everything. Everything else of mine there is awfully boring. I did the "copy link to clipboard" thing, so I guess I won't do that again.

Thanks for the heads up.

[Chaplain Lovejoy]

This game came to a conclusion in July 1863, so this note constitutes some "finishing up" thoughts about how Athena/CSA 1.11a performed.

The game was over when I took Vicksburg, Savannah, and Richmond on the same turn. There was little to no CSA military resistance in any of the three instances. Battles at Vicksburg and Savannah were lopsided affairs, with USA troops outnumbering CSA troops by ten-to-one in each case. The battle of Richmond--wasn't. I simply marched in unopposed, with the main CSA army oddly out of position to the northwest. To wit:



A minor oddity was CSA river transports apparently stuck permanently on the river near Chattanooga. My fleet to the west refused to go any farther east to take them on. Water too shallow for either to move?



Overall, I took many cities with little military opposition: Little Rock, Nashville, Bowling Green, Atlanta, Memphis, plus the three above. My main obstacles were command activation and weather, not CSA troops. Very curious was the fall of Atlanta. I parked a corps in (what I thought was) the correct region with "assault" orders, but nothing happened for two turns. I wondered why. Upon close inspection of the map, I noticed that I had put my corps in the wrong region! This dumb mistake on my part gave Athena two "free" turns to reinforce Atlanta, but she did not. (New Orleans was another story: got my head handed to me on a platter when I attacked piecemeal and was defeated in detail.)

I think a primary reason for so little military opposition was Athena's early obsession with holding Fts. Donelson/Henry, which drained much manpower per the first post above. A secondary problem was the CSA manpower drain resulting from two disastrous mid-winter attacks against my entrenched, well-supplied army at Manassas/Alexandria, also per the above.

Just some ruminations!

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Chaplain Lovejoy]

Very enlightening! Thanks for the hard work.