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I finished the demo as the CSA for the second time. Another stalemate. The bright point was when Union force besieged Harper Ferry and I managed literally to encircle it. It split; one stack retreated to the north thanks to an inactive CSA commander, the second st,ack under McClernand(sp?) pushed for Frederick region in Maryland. This movement ignited a loopside battle with my smaller stack there which lasted for ten days. Wow! Won all the battles (one stalemate), although took substantial losses as well.

My question is: what is needed to trigger loopsided battles? Do you have to corner or encircle your enemy? My force in Frederick was in Offensive posture and I had probably 60 -95% (can't remember) military control of the region. I had my units in every region McClernand could move to. Such a loopsided battle gave a big boost to NM and seems a perfect and fast way to drive Union NM down, better than fighting ten separate battles. So do these battle happen only in encircling manuevers? What are the requirements to trigger them?

Thx

Loopsided - I love it

Yes, the best way to about guarantee these is the way you did it; envelope (Fast Movers and Calvary) and attack with a force large enough to take the beating and survive it.

Choice of leaders effect the staying power of the loopers.

I've found I can also get loopsided battles if I am set to pounce early in a turn against a wounded enemy - if I can have a rather unscathed force encounter a similar sized scathed force, then its a dog fight.

These 'loopsided' battles concern me though - I think they are very unlikely in the Real War, as both sides when get so exhausted and 'incoherent' that firepower effectiveness and willingness to engage would be sapped after 3 days of loopsided combat, and indeed, the longest battles in that war were 2-3 days, and damn near nothing happened after both sides got exhausted and one side retired for at least two weeks afterwards......

......until logistical art and bloody will took over for the North, and 1864 brought us the continuous operations of the 'Masters' of that war.

But still, the carnage has seemed a bit much in this game sometimes, but the latest patch seems to have corrected this.

nice play of word yes!

The demo start to get old compared to the 1.03 version though, so take the report with a grain of salt.

I would agree though that the cohesion lost when fighting is perhaps not high enough, so the units are in a too good shape when combat end... This can be changed luckily.

Don't get me wrong. McClernand was acting reasonably in this battle. Had he overcome my forces he would have breakthrough into 100% Union controlled territory. Plus he could hope for some reinforcements coming to Fredericks region from a diiferent direction. Plus his force was bigger than mine. It was early December. His other choice was to be completely surrounded in Harper Ferry region and die unsupplied. This brings us to another topic: if encirclement is total, you can't break through and no-one is coming to your rescue the encircled stack should have an option to surrender rather perish in suicidal battles. Generals are rarely killed in the AACW, so it would be nice to a have a chance to take an enemy general captive, boostng your NM.
To sum up, I like loopsided battles, they are so EPIC!

I like the surrender idea, except for the potential gaminess of it - I could see folks unloading bad leaders real quick that way.

One last comment. After the battle McClernand didn't retreat from Fredericks region to another region, but he stayed right beside my depleted force there. That would mean that his didn't suffer a major defeat in those ten battles. So a loopsided battle can be a bloody one, but not one-sided. Even if your enemy loses 9 of 10 of this engagemnts , he wins strategically (McClernand is still in Fredercicks area and my force is now so small that I have to let him pass to a Union controlled territory). So in my case the loopsided battle was a positive experience and not a one-sided bashing with casualties ratio of 1 to 50.

Jacek,

It's very informative for newbies - like me - to hear you speak of these course of events.

Are you sure you can get all this info from the manual - or is there a need for the community to ad some things to the FAQ thread ...

Pocus,

If you exported some of those values, like cohesion loss during battle, choesion based force-retreat or forced breakoff of combat, you have a community here that is more than willing to fiddle and tinker with the values to get a better result.

In short, you've got lots of people who are willing to test new ideas for free.

I know that, this ask some a bit of time but definitively doable. I will see when I can export some 30 variables or so for a start, there are so many! Give me a priority list, percent to hit I suppose also ?

what you can do is run a battle in error reporting mode with 2 elements + 1 leader against the same sized force, and then check the battlelog, so you figure out how combat is solved, this can help you.

One more thing. Checked the Log for this battle with McClernand. It turns out that the engagemnts were fought on days: 2,3,4,10,12,13,14,15 of the turn, so it seems the two forces took some time off the battle. So 3 days of fight, rest, one day of fight, rest and 4 days of fight. It isn't that bad. 3 or 4 day fight is comparable to lenght with Gettysburg. Now I must see whether I come across a loopsided battle that goes for 10 concsecutive days.

you can see that as a sort of tactical maneuvering or a lull, the 2 opponents never wanting to give the terrain and engaging again and again on the same 30 kms or so. The delay can be tweaked also...

Yes, I like it this way. Seems more realistic. 10-15 day battle would ruin the immersion effect for me. Damn, in fact, the demo ruins that effect for me as well - it ends so quickly. Can't wait for the box edition of AACW!