Thoughts from my first full game (nearly)

[charlesonmission]

Hi there,

I thought I'd share my experience of my first full game.

Basically, I started over about 8 times as I was learning the game. Finally, I had a hang of it. It is late Oct 64 (I'm the CSA) I'm holding all of Virginia (not West Virginia), all the towns in Missouri, and all of the town in Kentucky. My strategy was to hold Virginia and slowly take over Kentucky through Bowling Green and Missouri through Paduch /Cairo and a separate army for northern Arkansas. I utilised forts extensively, building them in Alexandria, Winchester, Norfolk, Richmond, Paduch, Harper's Ferry, Cairo, and St. Louis. For forts that were next to water, I put in coastal artillery and had at least 2 siege pieces in most forts. In the east, there was only 1 huge battle at Winchester, my fort was besieged (with the Union having 4 to 1 numbers. I cut off Harper's Ferry with a force of 25,000 and then moved them to Winchester, and put the sortie option on. There were 4 battles of which little Mac finally gave up and left. And that was it, the Union never did a big attack in the east. There Union took New Orleans, of which I took back a few turns later, and the Union army withered away. Grant made an incursion in southern Kentucky and eventually starved, more or less. I was on the cusp of winning when I sent a large corps with Stuart to destroy an army in northern Kentucky. And get this, Stuart's entire Corps was wiped out. It seems it was an amphibious attack from the Ohio river. Stuart kept on attacking and attacking and lost everyone. That gave a huge morale bonus to the Union and deducted mine (about 18 points or so). Clearly, a mistake on my part (although I still feel like I won the war). Be careful on amphibious attacks!

General thoughts:

Coastal artillery causes some serious pain and really hinders enemy movement.

The forts in the east seemed to scare off the Union after the one big battle

The Union had rather large forces 18K plus run by Sherman in Great Plains and Denver, stopping a very small force 5K from Shelby.

Athena has different strategies in my different games, and seems to respond to human strategies. I wonder though if the forts/coastal artillery created an unusual situation where Athena didn't really know what to do. Historically, the forts at Charlestown and Wilmington only fell to overwhelming land forces from the rear.

Cheers to AGEOD, it is a great game. I'm going to start again and try to use the generals better. I still like the conservative fort approach for the CSA.

Charles

[charlesonmission]

And I'll add one more point.

Ft Monroe, I could never take it. I besieged it for months and months, the fort provided no benefit, but the people never seemed to starve. I tried to assault it twice, both times I lost despite having more than 2 to 1 odds.

[Ol' Choctaw]

Most of the time I make sure of about 3 to 1 odds against a fort, especially that one.

They launch a lot of attacks using it as a base. It is a depot so starving it won’t usually work.

They always seem to leave Washington under protected for me and I grab it in ‘61 or ‘62 at the latest and then keep playing.

When they start fighting down there you know they have left too little in Washington.

[Cromagnonman]

And I'll add one more point.

Ft Monroe, I could never take it. I besieged it for months and months, the fort provided no benefit, but the people never seemed to starve. I tried to assault it twice, both times I lost despite having more than 2 to 1 odds.

From what I've heard, a beseiged structure can still receive supplies thru its harbor, if that is not blockaded.

Also, amphib forces do not appear to be able to retreat, and so are prone to annihilation.

[SleeStak]

To beseige fort Monroe and starve them out, you'll needed to cut off their naval supply. The easiest option is to blockade them with naval elements. I think if your beseiging force digs in to level 3, you can click the bombard naval vessels and interdict their naval supplies but I'm not entirely sure. Hopefully, someone who knows will come along and either confirm or deny that claim.

Starving out the stock garrison though is tricky. The three element garrison unit, garrison artillery and naval guns use up approximately 10 supply points a turn. I just checked my turn 9 scenario and Fort Monroe had more than 570 supplies stockpiled with the units holding 30. They could last for 60 turns on the supplies they currently have, which would be more than two years.

Assaulting the fort can be a challenge, even when the fort itself is breached, you still have to contend with the dug in defenders. I think the stock defensive arrangement for Fort Monroe has three inf elements and on art element (along with the naval guns that don't count in a land battle). On an unbreached fort assault, your force can fight with 11 inf elements and 11 artillery elements at a time. Having at least that many maximizes your firepower and having additional inf gives you staying power (the unused inf will fill the frontage slots of your engaged units when they route), two divisions worth of inf and art (with roughly 6 art elements in each division) should give you about as many units as you can use with a decent reserve.

If you breach the fort, the underlying terrain for Fort Monroe is Swamp so, if you completely breach the fort, you can only fight with 10 inf elements and 3 art elements. It might be smarter to assault Fort Monroe before you breach it if you can bring the two divisions. As long as the defenders can't fill their frontage (and the stock garrison doesn't) you'll be able to use a whole lot more artillery in the assault. I'll have to test that though because it seems counter-intuitive.

To get Fort Monroe, try bringing heavy artillery. I usually bring whatever heavy artillery I have as the South if I'm going to take Fort Monroe and try to bombard the defenders into submission. Their inf elements can each take 20 strength hits, so you'll have to cause at least 60 hits to destroy them and it may take awhile.

As to the Southern forts strategy, I generally consider structures to be a double edged sword. Putting a strong army in a fort means that a clever opponent, or even the AI, can bring a decent force into the same terrirtory, gain military control, and beseige your force before you'd be able to respond. Then you'd have to sortie out of the fort and attack them to avoid starvation. Lets say your general isn't active right away, your opponent will now be dug in and you'll be in a desperate situation.

Plus, the forts are expensive and aren't a whole lot better than entrenchments. For example, because Fort Monroe is in a swamp, it is probably easier to defend that territory (the swamp terrain significantly constrains frontage) as a fully entrenched unit in the swamp than as a fort. If you give the resources necessary to build a fort, to your field armies, you'll probably get more out of them.

Good luck!

[Ace]

I agree with you. But there are some examples when it can be put to good use. Fort is excellent if you can maintain river superiority so it can be supplied by river. It is also very useful to provide cover to your crucial depots. A single brigade could withstand 2 divisions rear flanking attack until reinforcements arrive. So it is good to protect crucial depots (dont overdo it). They are not good on the inland front-line.