Retreats

[bk6583]

Again in the category of I'll never quite get everything about this game no matter how long I play it. I don't have any screen shots to show but my hot seat neighbor opponent, who decided to humor me and play as the CSA (and has been doing pretty good for first time around) is furious and I didn't have a good answer for him. He had Joe Johnston as army commander and a corps commanded by Bragg dug in (level 7 each and approximately 500 CP and 1700 CP respectively) in the Atlanta region (not in Atlanta). I crossed the river and hit him with an army commanded by Reynolds and three pretty potent corps. Well as the turn resolved itself, much to my chagrin it was a one day battle and a CSA victory (losses roughly 6K CSA and 9K Union). When we began the next turn, much to my opponents chagrin, both Johnston and Bragg had retreated out of the Atlanta region leaving it to Reynolds and my three corps! My opponent is ready to quit. Can someone help me here to try and explain this seeming contradiction?

[Captain_Orso]

The short answer is, that after the battle, even though they lost that first battle, the Union force either stayed in the region or could not leave the region fast enough for the game engine to allow Johnston and Bragg 'think' that the Union force was not leaving the region. From your description it sounds like the Union force is a number of times larger than Johnston and Bragg together, which often times after winning a battle still has them leaving the region because of overwhelming odds vs the defender.

At first it sounds like an unfair results, but if you think about the alternative... J. & B. would be swamped by Union forces, even if they could hold onto their entrenchments they would be cut off from the rest of the world, with no incoming supply -- MC would swing over to the Union with them having such a much larger force -- and very limited routes and chances of ever leaving the region in any resemblance of a fighting force. It would be suicide for them to stay put and you would run the extreme risk of not only losing the Atlanta, but Johnston's army on top of it. On top of that, they are getting away in good shape, the way it sounds. Winning the battle means much less cohesion loss and much quicker replacements. Check the Union force for their strength. If they have actually fallen below Johnston and Bragg's because of cohesion loss, counter-attack in the next turn before they can entrench and recover and you may have a good chance of knocking them back out again. But watch out, only attack if you have a good attacker to lead with. Reynolds as an army commander has something like 5 or 6 defensive value. Bragg and Johnston only about 2-3, that makes for a very poor and unlikely attack. If you have for example Hood or even better Jackson (a corp commander with at least if not better offensive rating than the defender's defensive rating), put all, or as many good divisions with him as possible and attack, if not, you will take heavy losses on counter-attacking and more than likely still lose.

So Johnston did the only reasonable thing that he could, he defended, caused heavier losses with the Union and pulled back instead of risking total defeat as Hood later did in Real-Life™.

[Jim-NC]

You may have had a disjointed union attack (the union corps arriving on different days). JJ won the 1st battle against 1 corps, but then a 2nd or 3rd marched into the territory ready to fight, and JJ decided to not stay and defend as he was too heavily outnumbered (probably as the 1st corps had not completely retreated out of the region yet). Thus he fights 1 battle, but retreats before the 2nd occurs.

[James D Burns]

You may have had a disjointed union attack (the union corps arriving on different days). JJ won the 1st battle against 1 corps, but then a 2nd or 3rd marched into the territory ready to fight, and JJ decided to not stay and defend as he was too heavily outnumbered (probably as the 1st corps had not completely retreated out of the region yet). Thus he fights 1 battle, but retreats before the 2nd occurs.

This sounds like the likely culprit and to add to it. After the first fight JJ's forces would have had low cohesion, so their original CP’s of 500 and 1700 were probably much lower when they checked them against retreat vs. the newly arriving forces, so even if they were relatively even in numbers in an everything else is equal fight, at the moment of the die roll they were probably half as effective in CP due to lower cohesion.

This is a good reason to play with the longest combat delay setting, to help make up for straggling formations entering a region and initiating multiple separate fights in one turn.

Personally I think the engine should ‘see’ the late arriving units and intentionally force the battle to wait until everyone arrives, so multiple fights in a single region during one turn would be a much rarer occurrence. Or simply prohibit more then one fight in a region per turn, but waiting until everyone arrives would be a better solution if possible than a draconian rule like this.

[Captain_Orso]

Or if they are moving from the same region, use the coordinated movement button so that they all arrive at the same time.

Thinking about this battle, if a number or corps and an army stack are entering a region uncoordinated and, lets say, one corp engages Johnston and Bragg and is repulsed then it must have been a pretty quick battle, because otherwise the other corp and army, already entering the region, would MTSG. Obviously this didn't happen. So Jim-NC's assessment seems to be the most plausible.

One more thought, if you have forces outside of a region that can enter it quick enough, theoretically, then you don't actually have to move them in at all, just let them MTSG by moving one large force in and letting a battle start. The advantage of this is if some of the invading forces would have to cross a river. When crossing rivers the defender get's a huge first round of battle advantage while the invading forces are crossing. When MTSG river-crossing is not taken into account.

[GraniteStater]

Or if they are moving from the same region, use the coordinated movement button so that they all arrive at the same time.

Thinking about this battle, if a number or corps and an army stack are entering a region uncoordinated and, lets say, one corp engages Johnston and Bragg and is repulsed then it must have been a pretty quick battle, because otherwise the other corp and army, already entering the region, would MTSG. Obviously this didn't happen. So Jim-NC's assessment seems to be the most plausible.

One more thought, if you have forces outside of a region that can enter it quick enough, theoretically, then you don't actually have to move them in at all, just let them MTSG by moving one large force in and letting a battle start. The advantage of this is if some of the invading forces would have to cross a river. When crossing rivers the defender get's a huge first round of battle advantage while the invading forces are crossing. When MTSG river-crossing is not taken into account.

That is one heck of a tip.