Loyalty Primer

[Irish Brigade]

Does somoene have a basics for occupation policy and how it affect loyalty by breaking it down. How does occupant feature help and what is the best way case by case to raise loyalty in certain states.

[Jabberwock]

1. Dont touch the habeus corpus and martial law options, (exception below).
2. Occupy regions where you want to adjust loyalty with militia, lots of militia. This is a good use for militia until they train into better units. Of course, garrison strategic cities with at least one regular unit or upgraded militia, or you won't get the victory points for owning it.
3. Take objective and strategic cities. Do not let the enemy take yours or take back the ones you've occupied.
4. There are four different Leader abilities that affect loyalty.

• Hated Occupant - Butler, Pope, Sherman (2*)
• Occupier - Hindman, Fremont, Lyon, Curtis (3*)
• Good Population Administrator - Kirby Smith (3*), Buell
• Population Pillager - Quantrill

Nobody seems to have figured out the exact effects of Occupiers and Occupants. Put all your Hated Occupants and Occupiers into one state. Make them Garrison commanders for the major disloyal cities. Then, you can proclaim Martial Law in that state, and should be able to observe the effects. Please report back ...

Give Good Population Administrators senior command in Kentucky or Missouri. Kentucky is good for Buell, by the time he shows up, you have better army commanders for the front lines. Either is good for Kirby Smith. Just keep higher seniority generals away from them.

Keep Quantrill away from cities that you want to be loyal to your side.

Loyalty affects production, detection, and military control. Military control affects supply lines and detection. Unfortunately, loyalty changes so slowly in most cases that the only solution to secure supply lines by loyalty or increase production is to flood specific regions with militia, and wait ... and wait ... supply lines are actually better secured by permanently stationing single militia units in each region for military control. Of course, if you take enough strategic cities, you won't have to worry about supply lines any more.

[Bertram]

I (as USA) took all of Texas in a recent game. Posted garrisons in all towns. Without further doing anything loyality very slowly shifted my way (about 1% every other turn). This could be affected by me taking other towns, though there was no message to that effect.

After some time loyality to me was up to 20-25% in the 3 strategic towns. Loyality in the other towns didnt seem to change (3% USA). According to the manual the loyality increase should affect neighbouring regions. I did not notice this (they all stayed at 3%), but it can be that you need to cross a threshold for this (I can imagine that only regions with -for example- a loyality of 50% influence neighbouring regions).

I send Buell to one of the strategic towns, made him commander of the stack, supplied him with an army headquarter (so he was the highest commanding officer in the region - even in the state). It did not have any effect as far as I could see (the description of his trait led me to expect an additional 1% increase each turn, or at least a minimal increase of 1% each turn. The strategic town he was in didnt develop a better loyality then the other strategic towns I occupied).

[Jabberwock]

I have had both good and bad (non-existent) results with Buell. Not sure what caused the difference.

[Alzate]

playing as CSA, i saw that the loyalty of partly occupied states (TN and VA) was going down. i had the impression from the game that eliminating the habeas corpus would improve the loyalty ratings (by +15/85%).
maybe i got it wrong. if this is not the case, which is the advantage of being harsh?
thanx

[ohms_law]

Thanks for the tips, Jabberwock

[Jabberwock]

playing as CSA, i saw that the loyalty of partly occupied states (TN and VA) was going down. i had the impression from the game that eliminating the habeas corpus would improve the loyalty ratings (by +15/85%).
maybe i got it wrong. if this is not the case, which is the advantage of being harsh?
thanx

There realy is no advantage. Either of the loyalty options require military control to be effective. Military control requires garrison troops. If you have enough extra troops to garrison an entire state, you can just let their police powers adjust the loyalty (very slowly) while you go after strategic and objective cities with front line troops.

Habeus corpus is only effective in a state with less than 15% loyalty in most regions. Military control only in a state with less than 30%. If you really want loyalty adjustments to be effective then your goal is 50% or more in most regions. So you could use the options to get up to the 30%, but the loss of Victory Points just makes it not cost-effective. Once you do get to 30%, you still have another 20% to go by police powers alone. This is very difficult to achieve in most regions before late 1864, so why not concentrate on winning the war before then, without losing the VP? VP translate into additonal money when taking Financial options, which translates into additional artillery, ships, and support units. I'd rather have those than loyalty.

[Rafiki]

Don't forget loyalty's effect on production in a region; Going from 0% to 30% loyalty means boosting production by 60% in that region.

[Daxil]

Nobody seems to have figured out the exact effects of Occupiers and Occupants. Put all your Hated Occupants and Occupiers into one state. Make them Garrison commanders for the major disloyal cities. Then, you can proclaim Martial Law in that state, and should be able to observe the effects. Please report back ...

WTF why is my state revolting!?!

[ohms_law]

Here's a related question.
Is there any way to view the abilities of your generals without going through them one by one on the game map? Does it show their abilities anywhere in the ledger?

[Rafiki]

Ohm, though not exactly what you're looking for, this might perhaps be of help? http://www.a-acw.com/ACW_Leaders_List_01.pdf

[ohms_law]

heh... that helps. I guess then that there's nothing directly in game, which is fine.
Thanks!

Although, I think that I'll probably create an Excel list. It'll be sortable, that way.

[Rafiki]

Actually, the sourcefiles containing the data used in the game, including leader stats and suchlike, are already available: http://ageoddl.telechargement.fr/latest/AACW_DB.zip

They may not be entirely what you were thinking of, but could provide a good starting point (e.g. labor-saving) for your work

[ohms_law]

ooh... that'll definately help.
thanks!

[Moriety]

Hi all,

Good thread.

I read somewhere that you can switch off the loyalty element, yet I can't find it in the options screen....?

Flooding the map with units just to possibly get a 1% shift per turn is very time consuming, and the 1% is just simply too slow for the short time-span of the game. I've won as the Union on turn 63 but am continuing to the very end just to see if a single province goes over 50% loyalty- none have so far and just 25 turns remain.

I'd like 4 Police points (two Cav regiments) to change loyalty by 1% per turn automatically- the micro-management of shuffling units around the board to maintain control is a nightmare and very off putting I feel.

If ever a patch was needed to balance the game....

[Le Ricain]

Hi all,

Good thread.

I read somewhere that you can switch off the loyalty element, yet I can't find it in the options screen....?

Flooding the map with units just to possibly get a 1% shift per turn is very time consuming, and the 1% is just simply too slow for the short time-span of the game. I've won as the Union on turn 63 but am continuing to the very end just to see if a single province goes over 50% loyalty- none have so far and just 25 turns remain.

I'd like 4 Police points (two Cav regiments) to change loyalty by 1% per turn automatically- the micro-management of shuffling units around the board to maintain control is a nightmare and very off putting I feel.

If ever a patch was needed to balance the game....

The one state where the Union can expect to have loyalty go over 50% is Maryland. Maryland usually starts with +/- 45% loyalty and by using miltia garrisons and habeus corpus, you can expect MD to shift above 50% and no longer need garrisons. A bonus is that the some or most of your garrisoning units will now be regular units.

[Pocus]

Hi all,

Good thread.

I read somewhere that you can switch off the loyalty element, yet I can't find it in the options screen....?

Flooding the map with units just to possibly get a 1% shift per turn is very time consuming, and the 1% is just simply too slow for the short time-span of the game. I've won as the Union on turn 63 but am continuing to the very end just to see if a single province goes over 50% loyalty- none have so far and just 25 turns remain.

I'd like 4 Police points (two Cav regiments) to change loyalty by 1% per turn automatically- the micro-management of shuffling units around the board to maintain control is a nightmare and very off putting I feel.

If ever a patch was needed to balance the game....

There is no need of a patch. You can achieve enough control over loyalty, with some garrison and the suspension of some rights, along the important path of advances. You just can't win the heart of the Southerners though...

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Moriety]

Pocus is right... A special patch for this that affects the game for everyone is not going to happen... There may be a variable made available for you to adjust for yourself in your own game or MOD if you wish... but as for the vanilla "official" game, it is not going to be changed.

His viewpoint and design logic is that you may change the Military Control quicker in game with a larger presence of Military units, but this does not change the mindset (Loyalty) of the inhabitants themselves. This occurs a lot slower over time. The coastal forts that have a "quick" loyalty shift are due to the fact that they represent just the fort itself and the troops therein. The regular regions are significantly larger areas with a civilian population base that is quite slow to change.

If a stand-alone modder-patch for players who would prefer this choice was made it would be fantastic to say the least.

I've just completed the entire game length and apart from Maryland, as Le Recain rightly pointed out, is the only state (along with Kentucky as Bowling Green militia got attacked first) to have flipped.

The very first town I captured (Mannass) has been occupied since about turn 5 and still only had a Union loyalty rating of 22% at game-end despite being occupied throughout the remaining 105 turns.....

I do understand the desire for realism, but maintaining [INDENT]control[/INDENT] of key pathways is my top priority within the game, so by the time I took the final Rebel fort on, quite literally, the final game turn the overview map was just a sea of blue in the South and the micro-management required had been a nightmare of Orwellian proportions!! (The last twenty turns had been almost exclusively devoted to building multiple militia units (and building depots) and then shuffling them one by one from their multiple locations, across the board to pair-up in the multiple provinces that needed a presence- combine this with the fact that even with 10 supply pushes my transportation was able to produce, some units were going out of supply each turn or being destroyed through lack of.....))

Toby

[Comtedemeighan]

Moriety (Toby) can't you just garrison your key supply lines like major rail lines instead of garrisoning the entire state? Or is it necessary to garrison the entire state to keep the supply lines going ever deeper south?

[Moriety]

Hi mate,

I eventually realised that I would never be able to police all provinces so decided to only cover provinces with a railway line, along with a few key roads and maintaining links to mountain depots I'd built in some of the more remote areas where direct rail supply around the mountain range was very long or non-existant.

It did mean that AI generated "cheat units" could spring-up deep inside your territory within the uncontrolled provinces, but this was a minor irritant.

I think that the roads only have a minor calculation within each supply push and tracks have almost none at all, whilst rail and blue/brown water are the overwhelming part of the calculation?

I also read on the board that if you have less than 20% control of a province no supply at all will be calculated for any province beyond it where you have units in need of supply and if that is the only available route- at least that was how I understood it.

In the early days of my last (and second game! I did a check each turn to ensure there was at least one single East-West railway line open and one East-South-West main railway supply path, but am unsure if one supply push equates to a single depot pushing her supply into a single more distant province each time until she meets the 20% control rule?

I dunno- so many questions!

[Le Ricain]

I always felt that the loyalty rules unfairly benefitted the CSA. Sure, the USA has problems garrisonning southern areas as the northern armies advance. However, large portions of the south were pro-union during the war, but the CSA does not have to worry about maintaining its own garrisons.

There is a thread buried in the forum somewhere where I listed these pro-union regions. As I am not a modder, I was unable to take the process any further in order to improve the game's historical accuracy. If there was interest, I could dig up the thread.

[Pocus]

Are we talking about military control or people loyalty toward the Union or the Confederate governement? Because loyalty will only degrade military control if there is no military unit present. So the solution is to put a chain of militia along your paths of advances, add garrison to important cities, and thats all.

Now if you want to convert Southern people into perfect Unionist in a matter of months with a mod (Brainwashing mod?) it is possible a new variable allows that (see the 1.12 public beta thread).

[Nial]

It is not logical for a player to be able to convert loyalty even in the whole time span of the Civil War. Heck it's been 144 years since the end of the war and there are still people in the Southern states that haven't forgotten nor forgiven the Northerner's. People are like that.

Personaly I don't see it as a serious issue. Militia combined with rapid response Cavalry works fine for me in almost all situations.

Nial

[Bertram]

I can report that you can sway some of the southeners. As I mentioned earlier, I posted Buell in Houston. About a year later the population is now 60/40 pro union. The other strategic towns (also garrisoned) are 60/40 rebel. The remaining regions in Texas are between 97/3 and 91/9 pro CSA.

Not really overwhelming, but Buell hasnt anything better to do anyway.

[Eugene Carr]

Maybe the solution isnt to alter the speed of loyalty change but to tone down the effects of lack of loyalty?
The South didnt become loyal just because it was occupied on the other hand most of it didnt burst into revolt either.


S! EC

[Moriety]

Are we talking about military control or people loyalty toward the Union or the Confederate governement? Because loyalty will only degrade military control if there is no military unit present. So the solution is to put a chain of militia along your paths of advances, add garrison to important cities, and thats all.

Now if you want to convert Southern people into perfect Unionist in a matter of months with a mod (Brainwashing mod?) it is possible a new variable allows that (see the 1.12 public beta thread).

Hi Pocus- thank you for your replies on the subject- it really is appreciated by me as I know you are very busy.

It's about control really, but as the only primer for that is loyalty the two are totally intertwined. If the 1.12a patch allows players to tinker with the 1% max shift rule/max effect of police points that will be just fantastic!

Thank you,

Toby

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Dixicrat]

It is not logical for a player to be able to convert loyalty even in the whole time span of the Civil War. Heck it's been 144 years since the end of the war and there are still people in the Southern states that haven't forgotten nor forgiven the Northerner's. People are like that.

Absolutely true. Southern culture was (and still is today) deeply conservative, and tenaciously resistant to change.

[Aphrodite Mae]

...Southern culture was (and still is today) deeply conservative, and tenaciously resistant to change.

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