gbob wrote:Thank you. What would be your priorities as the Union player (waiting a turn for the penalty to go away).
You need to hold Louisville (most important) and Paducah at all costs if you can, Bowling Green is much easier to take back if it falls. If I'm not mistaken, you should be able recruit Kentucky militia immediately and not have those troops suffer penalties, recruit as much as you can- the majority will appear in those two cities. If you have any troops ready in Cairo you might risk moving as many as you can across the river into Paducah and setting them to enter the city fortifications immediately, unless you are playing against a prudent human opponent, the Confederates won't be set to immediately assault the city- a siege will set in but because you are so close to friendly territory it can be easily raised, just funnel reinforcements through Charleston, Mo and Columbus, Ky as quickly as you can.
For future reference, you should almost always treat Kentucky as your primary objective in 1861- try to mass three groups of troops in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois off the border in anticipation of Kentucky entry- on the turn of CSA entry, move those troops to Cincinnati or New Albany, Evansville and Cairo respectively so that they can move into Louisville, Bowling Green and Paducah (again, respectively) at the first opportunity. You don't want to initially have those troops all on the border because of the chance it might flip the state to the other side if too many are massed on the border, however, as mentioned above you should try to keep a token force in Cairo in case you absolutely need to secure Paducah.
