More kudos and more questions

[Winfield S. Hancock]

As many have said, great game!!! I have been waiting for an ACW game like this all my life, it is finally here. A sincere thank you to everyone on the AGEOD team.

Now, a few questions. After doing the tutorial a couple of times, I have jumped into the April 61 campaign. I am on about my 8th attempt to start it, and am in Oct 61, learning more each time I restart. Here are my questions:

1. I have noticed since the 1.01 and 1.01a patch, the Confederates seem to be quite aggressive. Each of my last three starts, they attack Washington DC with the Winchester militia on the first turn. Is this WAD? Seems a bit ambitious to me.

2. Also, my northern states are getting invaded everywhere in June, July, Aug, Sept of 1861 in this scenario. I have had Confederates raiding parties in mid-Pennsylvania, all over southern Indiana and Ohio, and throughout Illinois. I bought militia to garrison the border cities and towns all long my border with the CSA as soon as possible, but there are not enough to cover every single hex. I also deployed the gunboats I had ASAP to block river crossings, but starting with only three gunboat units means you cant block much, and Cairo was taken before I could even deploy them there. (I am assuming that it takes a number of gunboats equal to the value necessary to blockade a given stretch of river in order to interdict movement across that river???) Anyway, its now October and I have most of the whole Union gunboat fleet under construction, hoping somehow to stem the tide of Rebels crossing the Ohio and Mississippi freely all over the map. This doesnt seem right to me that the Rebs are crossing the big rivers everywhere, all the time. I thought in real life they were formidable natural barriers to Confederate activity. And why can these major rivers be seemingly crossed anywhere, rather than just at major road and rail crossings, which would make defending the crossings much more manageable? Any tips on how to stop the Confederates from wreaking havoc in a non-historically plausible way throughout the Midwest in mid-1861?

3. Unit names. Like many here, I would love the ability to rename units -- maybe the team will be able to provide this to us, maybe not. However, I am wondering why so many of the Union cavalry, and even artillery units I have produced early on in 1861, are named as California, Oregon, and Colorado regiments, even though I am raising these units in Mass, NY, OH, PA, CT, IL, etc. This does not seem right, as those far west states did not contribute much to the war effort east of the Mississippi, and being the history freak I am, it bothers me to have the 1st Oregon guarding the Potomac fords in June 1861 (they couldnt have even gotten there that fast if they started on April 12!!!) The only unit I am aware of from the West that impacted in the east was not from the west at all, but rather, the 1st through 5th California regiments were financed by California subscription, but recruited men from Philly and became known as the Philadelphia Brigade. Other than that, no far western unit fought east of the Mississippi to my knowledge. Can anybody on the team shed light on this unit naming issue for me?

Once again, thanks AGEOD and congratulations on an extremely impressive game and outstanding customer service and support.

[marecone]

Ok, here goes.

1. If I play rebs I always start agressive. Beginning of the war was historicaly only moment that rebs had close number of men as yanks. This is why.
I am playing same version as you and find rebs (I play as yanks) too passive. I guess it is just the matter of who attacks first .

2. I just build milita, few cavalries and try to put my gunboats at most frequent crossings. If you cover first two "rows" of cities and harbors on rebel-yank border, you'll be fine. Militia is inexpensive and you can build enough to protect yourself in first 2 or 3 turns.
As for roads and RR over rivers... Well, there wasn't any over big rivers. Historicaly there were ferries and boats and that kind of stuff. When units cross it in the game it is supossed that they used ferry, I guess.

3. Well I found out yesterday that we still have to do some minor tweaks on unit names. Data base is ready and waiting.
As for renaming, I think that would create few problems in gameplay but I am sure Pocus will answer that.


Godspeed

[Winfield S. Hancock]

Thanks Marecone. In light of your response, since I am playing as the Union, I should rephrase 1 and 2 to be a compliment to AGEOD for developing an AI that can frustrate me so easily with raids wreaking havoc on my rail lines and cities. And that is on normal difficulty, with normal aggressiveness. No passive CSA AI here.

I will restart for the ninth time today (assuming my wife doesnt hit me up to do yardwork) and try buying even more militia to block every possible river crossing or region, and see if that works better.

[marecone]

I usually guard towns and harbors. I don't care about RR as I can easily fix them. I think guarding whole river system with militia will be a bit too much, but it is your game so... If you get any good results, let me know


Godspeed