Full Campaign - New Player Questions

[Chuske]

Hi,

I have a few questions I've struggled to find answers to on the forum. I'm early in the 1861 w Kentucky campaign as Union.

1) When forming armies, I understand how division should be composed (from the Strategy guide on the wiki) and know how to create a corps and armies but don't know what units if any should go in the corps or army stacks but not in the divisions. I'm thinking here of reserve artillery and spare cavalry units and also support units such as medical and signals. Where are these most effective? In Corp stack, army stack or independent commands?

2) Cavalry raids. It seems only possible to destroy rail when you're actually in the region during the orders phase. Is this right or is there a way to destroy rail as you pass through a region with your cavalry?

3) Early in the campaign you cannot form divisions or corps. Should I wait until at least divisions can be formed before mounting operations? If not how best can I use stacks before divisions?

4) Still rather overwhelmed on what to build when, and what my priorities should be early war as Union. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Chuske

[squarian]

what units if any should go in the corps or army stacks but not in the divisions. I'm thinking here of reserve artillery and spare cavalry units and also support units such as medical and signals.

I don't know if this is the most sensible practice from a force-maximization POV, but I generally use the army CinC's stack as a reserve corps, with at least one division and some hvy arty. The exception is a poor army commander (Buell, Butler?) who is likely to be inactive when I need the troops - in that case, just an attached inf bde or some cav & horse arty to provide some defense. The auxiliary units like sharpshooters, cav, or support get moved around as needed - there's not much point in having a signals unit with Army HQ if the command span is already high, and the field hospital is best attached to whichever formation needs the boost.

Cavalry raids. It seems only possible to destroy rail when you're actually in the region during the orders phase. Is this right or is there a way to destroy rail as you pass through a region with your cavalry?

AFAIK, the unit has to start the turn in the region - can't be done "on the fly".

Early in the campaign you cannot form divisions or corps. Should I wait until at least divisions can be formed before mounting operations? If not how best can I use stacks before divisions?

You take the 35% command penalty and use them anyway, IMO. The other fellow has the same problem, after all.

[Longshanks]

Hi,

I have a few questions I've struggled to find answers to on the forum. I'm early in the 1861 w Kentucky campaign as Union.

1) When forming armies, I understand how division should be composed (from the Strategy guide on the wiki) and know how to create a corps and armies but don't know what units if any should go in the corps or army stacks but not in the divisions. I'm thinking here of reserve artillery and spare cavalry units and also support units such as medical and signals. Where are these most effective? In Corp stack, army stack or independent commands?

2) Cavalry raids. It seems only possible to destroy rail when you're actually in the region during the orders phase. Is this right or is there a way to destroy rail as you pass through a region with your cavalry?

3) Early in the campaign you cannot form divisions or corps. Should I wait until at least divisions can be formed before mounting operations? If not how best can I use stacks before divisions?

4) Still rather overwhelmed on what to build when, and what my priorities should be early war as Union. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Chuske

1. medical, etc are usually in the biggest corps, or the army if it's the biggest
2. the rules have changed. You must start AND STAY in the region to cut rails. Plus, it's not guaranteed.
3. No. You can commence, but with less effectiveness. However your opponent is in the same boat.
4. Lots of choices. Since you're learning, stick with artillery, infantry and cavalry in that order of priority.

[Jim-NC]

# 3,

Get those boys into battle. Sieze the initative. You can group some units to not have penalties (maximum of 8 CPs worth of troops with 4 generals). But for the main army, don't worry about the 35% penalty, as the enemy has that same penalty.

# 1,

Put your support specialist in the corps as loose units (engineers, signals, balloons, medical). Put the specialists that fight in your divisions (sharpshooters, marines/sailors, pioneers). The fighting specialists can get shot, the support are the last to get hit, and therefore don't disappear as quickly during heavy battles).

# 4,

Don't forget about replacements. At the start, many of your units are understrength/missing elements. You need replacements to fill the units up. Remember that with 1.16 you get more replacements by being in a region with a depot.

[Longshanks]

Also, with some settings (Historical attrition for the player only) you will need to be in a region with a depot to get replacements.

[Carpetbag]

I think I am your rebel opponent from acwgc. Good job asking and search questions on this site. I learned how to play by reading these forums. looking forward to our next trn mate.

[Captain_Orso]

8<
2. the rules have changed. You must start AND STAY in the region to cut rails. Plus, it's not guaranteed.

Sorry, but this is not true. Extract from 'ACW Updates.rtf'

Destruction of RailRoads is no longer automatic:

A check is made of D100 <{less than} Stack Strength. +25 to stack strength if attribute “*pillage*” is applied to model

All Partisans, Indians, BushWhackers, Raiders, Guerillas and Bandidos now have “*NoCapture*|*pillage*” attributes. (All show the Pillager ability icon)

Day of destruction is random. Not always day 1, so if you give a move command, the unit may move away before destruction occurs.

You must start in the region, this is true. So, if you have a stack of say 2 cavalry with a stack strength of 50 there is a 50% chance of success. Whether you are leaving the region or not does not matter. But if you are leaving the region and you roll less than 50 on the D100 and the damage day occurs before you reach the next region, you will damage the rails in that region and spend up to about 5 days in doing so. So if your cavalry are running low on supply and need to travel 14 days to get back to supplies it could be a bit dangerous for them because they might not reach supplies when theirs run out and then they will have to forage.

8<4. Lots of choices. Since you're learning, stick with artillery, infantry and cavalry in that order of priority.

Somebody once worked out the ideal, general rule for what to put in a division. Before division are allowed I have no idea how the units are selected, but apparently units in a division have a higher chance of fighting together.

Ideally you should have 1 cavalry to protect your division if it is routed. You can have more, but cavalry are not as strong and do not fight as well as infantry in a battle where the infantry units deploy in a battle line--the general situation if there is room in the area--not in mountains or swamp, etc. If you do not have a cavalry you will take many more hits during a retreat.

Have 1 skirmisher. They give you initiative--it says it on the unit description at least. In real life they force nearby enemy units to deploy, because they are otherwise defenseless against the skirmishers sniping at them. This buys your units time to deploy into a line of battle and organize. They also slow an attack down.

3 - 4 light(er) artillery batteries--6lb and 12lb-er. They are good for when the battle gets to close quarters, as they still have a good chance of usage. Heavier field artillery has a lesser chance in close quarters.

1 field artillery battery--a 10lb or 20lb-er. They have good range and start hitting units a long range even before infantry can fire.

The trick is in the balance. Too many of one type of unit reduces the number of infantry or other types of units in your division; you can only have 17 + one general.

Then there are elite units with the Strong Morale ability. The Union get a whole slue of these per events throughout most of the game, for example the Washington Bde or the Irish Bde. The CSA gets far fewer of these, but do start out with the Stonewall Bde. If you have one of these in a division it will decrease the probability of any of the units in the division routing. Have more than one does nothing, other than that these units have a higher fire-power etc.

So you should try to build you divisions, especially with one ones that will be doing the most fighting--with a good division general, a good corp commander and a good army commander--with one of but only one of these units.

All of this is a kind of average though and is considering more or less open ground. I'm not sure of all the details with more restricted ground, like woods, mountain or swamp, but in restricted ground, your light artillery will play a larger role if they get into place, because the frontage--how many units can form a line of battle--is restricted. The harder the terrain, the smaller the frontage.

That being said, if your division is part of a corp or an army stack, if that stack has one or 2 independent artillery batteries the stack commander might be able to deploy them into good positions and they will then be included in the battle. I am however not sure of the mechanics behind this, though the better the stack commander is, the more likely they will be used to some advantage. Also, having a general with the Artilleryman ability--Benjamin Huger, Edward P. Alexander and Stephen D. Lee for the CSA and William H. French, John Gibbon and Henry J. Hunt for the Union--will increase the effectiveness of all artillery units in the stack. They do not have to be in command of anything, just in the stack.

So that's about all of the wisdom I have on building divisions. It takes a lot of management to build your division like this, but it's worth it in the end.

[Captain_Orso]

Also, with some settings (Historical attrition for the player only) you will need to be in a region with a depot to get replacements.

Or a city level 3 or higher. I'm not sure if you can get absolutely no replacements outside of these 2, but if you do it well be very little.

One exception to this is if you were successful in a battle. Then you can get many of your losses replaced almost immediately regardless of where you are with the restriction of how many you have in your pool. As the Union player some say you should have one 10th of the number of fighting units of one type in your replacement pool up to about 10 to take advantage of these quick replacements. As the CSA you will probably be struggling to keep any in the replacement pool because of the difficulties in drafting etc.

Also being on one of these helps a lot on cohesion recovery.

[Chuske]

Thanks for all the help and advice. Should I have cav and art OUTSIDE (ie in corps or army stack) the divisions as well as inside?

ie In a corps stack should I just have the divisions a corps commander and supply wagons (and maybe hospital) or should I have some loose art and cav in the stack?

I have no idea if such loose cav can boost detection and if art can act as art reserve that real corps had in the war.

Also how best am I to use engineers and recruiting officers? Do I just put recruiting officers in big cities and I assume they'll then boost the conscipt companies I get?

[rattler01]

If you have spare art from having 4 in a div then, yes set up to 2 or 3 in the corps stack. Along with the medical and a wagon. The cav thing I have no idea.

Recruiting officers are best in 10+ level cities. You can see there increase conscription on the blackboard on the screen.

All engineers do is increase the rate u entrench, and entrenching is important. Keep them in your advancing attack to protect from counter-attacks.

[Chuske]

Thanks Rattler.

[Captain_Orso]

For anybody who wants the real Nuts-n-Bolts information about what works and why one of the best and compactest sources of information is Dixicrat's Basic Training for AACW newcomers. If you want to know why A, B or C works or when it won't work and why, this is one of the best places to look.

I honestly don't know why this isn't stickied to the AACW Section with blinking lights and a

[Jekolmy]

If you have spare art from having 4 in a div then, yes set up to 2 or 3 in the corps stack. Along with the medical and a wagon. The cav thing I have no idea.

Recruiting officers are best in 10+ level cities. You can see there increase conscription on the blackboard on the screen.

All engineers do is increase the rate u entrench, and entrenching is important. Keep them in your advancing attack to protect from counter-attacks.

I'm pretty sure that it only matters that the city is of population 5+, then recruiting depends on the region loyalty. I've seen a bigger CC (Conscript Company) boost with a smaller, loyal city and a recruiting officer than a large city with lower loyalty.

[Chuske]

Thanks everyone. Such a helpful forum!

Found a lot of useful advice here

http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/Frontage#Strategy_Notes_-_General

[Chuske]

On US naval strategy.

Trying to decide what size fleets I need where. Only just realised that my blue water blockade ships need supplies either by returning to port or rotating transports.

Anyway what size fleets do I need to protect Hampton Roads and what size and composition of fleets do I need to mount effective amphibious operations? Also can naval fleets effectively suppress or destroy forts? Or is it a suicide mission also if it is possible is it only worth using fleets with ironclads?

I'm thinking of picking off Fort Clark etc and eventually taking some major ports but have no feel in this game for how effective amphib can be and what I need to guarantee success.

Also what should be early war naval build priorities? Blockade ships, frigates or transports or a balanced mix?

Any tips or pointers to threads would be appreciated. I already found some general naval advice but not much on what size of fleets are needed for various tasks.

[rattler01]

As Union, I max out transports as they are the main way to increase $, when your WS starts to rocket.

[Captain_Orso]

Firstly it will depend on 2 things, are you playing vs AI or an human opponent; which patch level are you playing.

Playing at patch level 1.15 I've found that having 5 blockade fleets in each of the blockade boxes works well and should be implemented ASAP. You start out with 5 in the Atlantic and one in the Gulf plus you have the New England and New York mini-blockade fleets that you can combine (put them into a stack, select only these two units and press <Ctrl><c>) into one somewhat oversized blockade fleet. This leaves 3 more to be built. You should also assure that both blockade boxes have the same number of blockade fleets, otherwise only the lowest blockade box counts.

At the same time you need to put transports into the blockade boxes to keep the fleets in supply so that you don't need to send them back to harbor to resupply. The minimum for this is 4 transport squadrons (2 elements each) per box. I always combine them into 4 element squadrons to ease the management, because I found that it is the number of elements that run out of supply at one time the most.

Because supply gets used up quicker during the stormy seasons (spring and fall), because ships taking hits through weather damage compensate this through the use of supply, it will inevitably occur at some point that even 2 blockade-suppy squadrons per box is not sufficient. So either when it occurs or sooner a third blockade-suppply-squadron per box will be necessary.

At patch level 1.16rc9 and above there is somewhat more damage occurring through weather, so I've upped the 3 blockade-supply-squadrons per box to 4 in my last game.

Each turn before executing be sure to check the transport squadrons in the boxes for their supply levels. My experience is that about every turn you will need to send one of the squadrons back to harbor to replenish their supplies.

In the Atlantic the nearest harbor with enough supply to quickly resupply these transports is New York City.

In the Gulf you will have to make do with Fr Pickens. Forts Jefferson and Zackery also work, but they are further away, and every day they are sailing instead of resupplying is one more day closer to the Gulf Blockade running out of supplies.

Playing vs AI I've never that I can remember had Athena mess with Hampton Roads, YMMV. Generally to get into Hampton Road she must sail past the Ft Monroe batteries which for any fleet sizable enough to bother you will be very dangerous. Besides she will need a pretty large fleet to blockade Ft Monroe and need to leave them on station for a lengthy period of time to actually affect the units garrisoned there, unless you've substantially increased the garrison there. At any rate, you should have time to send Farragut in with a fleet to drive them off were Athene to come up with the idea.

You cannot use fleets to reduce forts. The places where this occurred historically are not forts in the game and the game doesn't really depict these situations very well. I never actually use bombarding anymore, because the fleet always draws the shorter end of the deal vs forts.

If you are invading a fort, you will need enough transports to carry your invading force and enough fighting ships to protect them from attack. How many this is will depend on the size of your invasion and how many of what type of ships the CSA has to defend with. Honestly I don't have much experience with invading the South-Eastern Seaboard, but invading Forts St Philipps and Jackson I've occasionally encountered Athena sending out gunboats to try to disrupt operations. Since I don't generally use my free high seas fleets for active patrolling they are always available to protect an invasion. To counter this fleet Athena would have to build a pretty substantial fleet of Ironclads to augment what ever gunboats she generally has and I've never seen this myself. On top of this unless you are looking at only forts on the South-Eastern Seaboard it will be difficult for Athena to operate riverine boats in the coastal region to fend off an invasion because of the time to travel and the susceptibility to weather in coastal regions.

If you do invade, set your fleet to defensive posture and hold-at-all-cost and you should not have a problem with them getting pushed off station. What you really are doing is keeping your transports on station to supply your invasion (be sure to have enough supply trains with your invading force to keep them in supply, about the same as any land force operating away from a depot) until you've captured a harbor. Once you have a harbor, sail you transports into the harbor and leave your fighting ships on stations to fend off any ships trying to blockade your newly won harbor. As I've stated, it's not likely that Athena will have a fleet in your invasion location sizable enough to actually disrupt your invasion or blockade your harbor, but you'll have to see what she does and react to it if need be.

I hope this has helped and smooth sailing

[Longshanks]

With the latest update there are two significant factors:
1. You can invade the same turn you leave port. (aka Distant Unload). This makes surprise invasions possible. Matters most in PBEMs.
2. Ship repair is greatly reduced. My understanding is that it is to be increased, but for now when ships get damaged they will repair very slowly indeed.

So, the first point is to your advantage - make sure you have plenty of transports, and brigs to access the "Shallow" waters, as transports can only go in coastal waters.

The second means it may be quicker to simply build new ships.

The main thing to know about fort invasion is this: for ground combat the coastal artillery = 0! This means a fort without reinforcements is really not that big a deal. Plan on 3:1 minimum without counting the coastal gun. That'll be somewhere around 200-300 PWR, but you may "cheat" and will probably take them for less. But one warning: sea invasions and river crossings come with BIG penalties if you fail!

[Stauffenberg]

Firstly it will depend on 2 things, are you playing vs AI or an human opponent; which patch level are you playing.

I hope this has helped and smooth sailing

Fine advice.
BTW I am going through various threads collating posts like this. For now I am just slotting them into various folders as addenda to the main rules for new people. Later on perhaps I'll drop in specific paragraphs into the rules themselves as appropriate, or reformat what I have into some sort of companion AACW reference guide.

Also note you can confirm the version you are using at any time by clicking Credits on the main screen.

[charlesonmission]

Hmmm, I'm having a flashback of losing a division at Mongtomery! Big rewards, big risks, that sums us sea invasions.

With the latest update there are two significant factors:
1. You can invade the same turn you leave port. (aka Distant Unload). This makes surprise invasions possible. Matters most in PBEMs.
2. Ship repair is greatly reduced. My understanding is that it is to be increased, but for now when ships get damaged they will repair very slowly indeed.

So, the first point is to your advantage - make sure you have plenty of transports, and brigs to access the "Shallow" waters, as transports can only go in coastal waters.

The second means it may be quicker to simply build new ships.

The main thing to know about fort invasion is this: for ground combat the coastal artillery = 0! This means a fort without reinforcements is really not that big a deal. Plan on 3:1 minimum without counting the coastal gun. That'll be somewhere around 200-300 PWR, but you may "cheat" and will probably take them for less. But one warning: sea invasions and river crossings come with BIG penalties if you fail!

[Captain_Orso]

There is, as Langshanks has implied, a huge combat penalty while landing (not sure if there is a difference between landing, which crossing a river and landing while invading), but the penalty from landing while using Distant Unload is even larger. So you had better be certain that there are NO enemy forces outside of a fort before landing on it.

How bad can it get landing on a defending force not inside a structure? In some of my test landing per the old 'Drag-Off' method, a full division (8xinf, 4x6lb, 1x10lb, 4xcav, 1xsupply unit) vs a brigade with 4xinf, 1x6lb, 1x10lb, 1xcolumbiad) entranced at level 5 the average, average results was that all attacking infantry and cavalry were destroyed and only one or 2 generals were left with most of the artillery and most of the supply train. If the attackers used the Distant Unload button most of the time the entire landing force wad destroyed to the man and I am sure that if I had landed 2 divisions the blood-bath would have been that much worse. I've yet to test just how bad it could get.

But in general all defending forces at one of the old forts are inside the fort, in which case there will be no combat, unless your landing force in assault/all-out-attack(will attack units inside a structure while the attacking force is still moving). NEVER DO THAT. Land your units in defensive posture and attack with assault the next turn or if you intend on soften the defender up first, remain in defensive and siege the fort for a few turns. This only works if you have enough artillery in the attacking force (don't forget that landing siege artillery still only costs 5 days and that you have generals that are good at sieging and enhance artillery. Use these liberally if you want to siege).

If the fort you are attacking has forces defending outside the fort, even one brigade, you are screwed. Landing on that fort will be immensely costly as stated above and I would look for a way to land next to the fort and march onto it or blockade it for as long as possible before attacking to weaken the defenders in advance through lack of supply before landing on them.

Here is another difference between Distant Unload and Drag-Off Debarking. With Distant Unload, your forces land in the designated region and stay there. There is no was to give them orders for after landing.

With Drag-Off Debarking, you drag the units off their fleet stack onto their landing region and can give them order to move on from there at the same time. This would allow you to land next to a fort and move directly onto it in the same turn.

[Chuske]

Thanks for the very thorough advice! Its going to help a lot. I'm alraedy in a PBEM so having to learn fast!

[Chuske]

Hi,

A few more questions. I got caught out in my PBEM with naval guns I wasn't aware of in Paducah sinking most of my river ironclads. How do I spot whether an enemy stack has naval guns? I couldn't see any info that showed this till I tried to move my St Louis, MO fleet past the position to group my river forces ready to support action gainst Bowling Green

Should I ever take on big naval guns or stay clear even with river ironclads? ie Can you run past entrenched guns in this game ala Vicksburg campaign style? If not do I have to rely on ground assaults to take out naval guns?

I'm trying to come up witha strategy to dominate the rivers but kinda tricky if every fort and naval gun position sinks my fleets.... Are fleets only useful for blocking enemy river crossing and taking on other fleets or should I use posture settings to make sure fleets retreat before getting sunk?

Thanks

Jon

[Stauffenberg]

Hi,



Should I ever take on big naval guns or stay clear even with river ironclads? ie Can you run past entrenched guns in this game ala Vicksburg campaign style? If not do I have to rely on ground assaults to take out naval guns?

I'm trying to come up witha strategy to dominate the rivers but kinda tricky if every fort and naval gun position sinks my fleets.... Are fleets only useful for blocking enemy river crossing and taking on other fleets or should I use posture settings to make sure fleets retreat before getting sunk?

Hi there. Good questions, and others will weigh in on this I am sure, but here's my take.
Was your fleet set to "evade Combat" mode? It's more or less a must when trying to get by enemy positions that likely have heavy guns. It also sounds like you might have inadvertently set the fleet to bombard. Fleets will get heavily pasted against shore guns with that setting most of the time.

If you cover those two items you will usually get past an enemy shore battery but will take x number of hits, tho' rarely any sinkings.

Riverine is great for interdicting stretches of river (I think you need minimum 4 elements, someone else can confirm), and the setting depends upon whether you want to engage any enemy fleets that appear, or try to avoid combat.

[rattler01]

Yes, it takes 4 elements in offensive stance to block a river crossing.

The larger the fleet the lower the chance to evade. Naval guns will destroy almost any ships. This is especially bad with the current naval repair bug.

The CSA can only build a few naval cannons, so you can learn their names. I believe the first one is called Bartow? There is no way to tell if there are naval guns when they're in a division, unless you send a unit to engage it, ala a cav unit set to defensive/retreat when engaged. Ones the CSA are exspecially bad because they are at full strength, the starting forts or at 1/2 strength or less

[Jim-NC]

Be safe by assuming that units contain guns, and they will attack you.

Any artillery unit can bombard if it meets certain criteria:
1. Double adjacency (next to 2 river/ocean regions)
2. Active leader
3. Sufficient range (5 I believe)
34. Entrenchments of 3+ or inside fort (you can see the level of entrenchments of the unit by looking at the picture - open fence, sand bags, palisde, if there is a cannon sticking out of the entrenchments, there is at least 1 element). I posted about this a long while back. As you get familiar, you will know what the pictures mean.

Usually, the max damage is 50 points, so build a fleet with more than 50 hit points, and you will survive - the hits are distributed among all ships, not concentrated, thus increasing survival chances.

The land artillery also usually lands 2-3 hits for every 1 from the fleet (coastal artillery is more like 40 hits landed for every hit received).

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

Yes, it takes 4 elements in offensive stance to block a river crossing.

The AACW wiki says that stance doesn't matter (well green doesn't work but blue does). I thought for a long time that it was offensive too. I haven't tested to see if blue works though.

[Captain_Orso]

The AACW wiki says that stance doesn't matter (well green doesn't work but blue does). I thought for a long time that it was offensive too. I haven't tested to see if blue works though.

I have. It works on defensive.

Actually I think this is bass-ackwards with regards to blockading. To prevent units from setting over a river you would have to patrol the stretch you want to protect. This would be well reflected by being on offensive mode. To blockade a harbor you sit and wait and watch for ships and boats to try to run past your blockaders. This is more like defensive.

I've never tried what happens with a fleet on passive.

[Captain_Orso]

8<
Any artillery unit can bombard if it meets certain criteria:
1. Double adjacency (next to 2 river/ocean regions)
8<

This is not quite correct. The batteries must be adjacent to any 2 regions; one of them my be a land region with a harbor. Check this for an illustration http://www.ageod-forum.com/showpost.php?p=228223&postcount=106

[moni kerr]

I have. It works on defensive.

Actually I think this is bass-ackwards with regards to blockading. To prevent units from setting over a river you would have to patrol the stretch you want to protect. This would be well reflected by being on offensive mode. To blockade a harbor you sit and wait and watch for ships and boats to try to run past your blockaders. This is more like defensive.

I've never tried what happens with a fleet on passive.

You can't control a water region the same as you would a land region with MC. So a fleet would not switch to offensive mode when entering a region just because your ships are there. Two fleets in defensive mode means no combat.