Grouping generals with Brigades? NOT Divisions.

[Ubercat]

I haven't messed with AACW in a few years, but playing the board game For the People inspired me to reinstall. I'm obviously a bit out of the loop, but have patched up to 1.16a.

I'm playing the Union in the +Kentucky full campaign. It's turn 8, late July '61, and I just discovered that generals can combine with single brigades, which combinations are then named after the brigade. There appear to be stringent restrictions on the combos. Multiple brigades grouping is apparently not allowed, which along with the grayed out Form Division button tells me that these are not divisions. There's also a popup stating the limitations.

What is this ability? What are the benefits and when was it implemented? I printed the manual years ago, but find no reference to unit combinations smaller than divisions.

[Captain_Orso]

Hi Ubercat,

Aside from having units stacked with leaders thus giving them the advantage of their command-points, the leader of a stack will also instill a bonus of 5% per offensive/defensive rating that stack-leader has. If the unit is additionally lead by (combined with) another less senior leader (unit-leader), the unit receives an additional 3% bonus per offensive/defensive rating of the unit-leader: Leader and independent division.

So only stacking a bunch of leaders with a bunch of units will only give you the stack-leader bonus. To gain the bonus of the unit-leader you must combine a leader with the unit. You can always combine leaders with brigades that allow it -- generally brigades of more than just two infantry regiments -- during any date of the game. Divisions can only be formed in the campaign games starting in October '61. In March '62 corp can also be formed with a Maj.Gen. if there is an army available and the potential corp is withing the command range of that army.

Aside from using the buttons on the Unit Panel to combine/de-combine units and leaders, you can also select the units/leaders and type <Ctrl><c> to combine or <Ctrl><d> to de-combine them.

[Longshanks]

Salute to the Captain, who gave a nice explanation. I also recall a longer set of posts in a thread on this within the past few months, so you can poke around and read that one if you want more info.

[Ubercat]

Thanks a bunch! That definitely clears it up for me nicely.

[Ubercat]

Another question. When I played before, I could offer a bounty of various amounts when calling for volunteers. I selected the bounty size by clicking on the Call Volunteers button until the appropriate sized bounty is displayed. In my new game, no bounty options show up. Is this simply disabled now until a certain turn?

Also, I'm getting pretty low on conscripts and will probably have to do a partial mobilization. Did Lincoln do that historically by July '61. I'm asking because it seems to be mandatory in the game.

[Captain_Orso]

There are 4 different steps to 'Call for Volunteers': no bounty, $1000, $2000 and $3000. Left- and right-click on the text to cycle through them. When you've located the one you want, click on the signature field to implement it into your turn-plan. Re-clicking on the signature or changing the bounty-cycle will also remove the signature.

[INDENT]Tip: Once you've 'signed' the Call for Volunteers order, hit <F3> to look at the purchase replacements ledger. Bellow the pidgin holes with troop types is a summery of your planned income and expenditure. Here you can easily see how many Conscript Companies calling for volunteers at the current bounty level will give you and how much money will be left over for other purchases. If you don't like the results, go back and try the next or previous step until you've balanced conscripts and money. From my experience, theses are the 2 factors that can hobble you the most if one or the other is lacking.[/INDENT]

IIRC Lincoln mobilized in early '62. Keep in mind, you can only mobilize once a year and how many troops you get depends on National Morale (NM) and Victory Points (VP). Wait for winning a battle or an event which gives you an NM boost before mobilizing to make the most out of it. I'm sure that somebody somewhere has created a list of events which swing NM, but I don't know where at the moment.

[exar83]

Well I can tell you im on 1.16 and all you have to do bring up the Volunteers panel and click the option to cycle through the amounts just like you described. No problems for me there. As for mobilization I do believe that before the Battle of First Manasass Lincoln had called for 75,000 volunteers but the first draft was the Militia Act of 1862 and I believe the first, widely considered, "real" draft was the Enrollment Act of July 1863. I think there were also 3 more drafts in March, July and maybe October of 1864 or something like that. I think they pulled in about 170,000 men according to a few sources so it accounted for between 5% and 8% of total Union forces. However, for the Confederacy, conscription filled the ranks of anywhere between 25% to 35% of total rebel forces.

[wsatterwhite]

Regarding mobilization, it's probably best to just think of it as a secondary, once a year only option for raising troops as opposed to being representative of the historical drafts- even at the highest bounty levels the volunteer calls will not raise the troop levels as were raised historically, also, the AI will never hesitate to do its own drafts as early as possible regardless of history.

[Ace]

That is the beauty of it. You can playa gainst AI without mobilization for an extra challenge.