Hello everybody,
Long time lurker, now posting some questions, hope you guys can help me out.
I've started a grand campaign game with the latest patch as them good ole boys of the Confederacy and am doing quite well as it is mid 1862, I'm holding in the West, with my forts stopping any Yankee invader, and several of my stacks slowly moving forward, about halfway through Kentucky and trying (with mixed results) to grab St. Louis and complete my liberation of Missouri.
In the East, I am holding about halfway though Virginia with the Union outnumbering me about 3:1 in sheer troops, but all my guys are behind rivers and dug in quite deep. That ought to keep the Northern Invader busy for a while. I am also about to encircle (and hopefully destroy/starve) a MASSIVE 200+ units stack led by one of the early, bad Union generals.
Now here come the questions:
1) After some unsuccesfull skirmishes with my Ironclad the CSS Virginia, I decided to group all four off them (the 3 southern ones too), put them in a stack with a leader and park them just outside Norfolk, thinking that they should be able to seriously do some damage to all the northern fleets I see coming by. This turned out to be not the best of plans, as after 1 turn a Blockade Fleet swooped in a killed them all with ranged fire, giving me a around 5 NM hit. Not good, what am I doing wrong?
2) I have tons of 1 star generals that I have running around with a stack, but when I team them up with some troops, and make a division, they seem to be stuck in 'locked'/'not activated' mode forever, unable to move or do anything. In the end, I just undivision them and move the troops to stacks that are moving. Again, what am I doing wrong? Note that I form these divisions in the middle of nowhere where they are needed (Texas, SC etc.).
3) I have several Raider/Steam Raider (not at home now, so I don't know the exact name) ships, that I am trying to cause as much damage with, how do I do this? Is it possible to have them on a 'Search and Destroy' mission along my coast?
4) Sharpshooters, what to do with them? They obviously make bad front line troops (got three of them wiped out by a Union stack in hilly terrain, where I thought they would be cool).
5) Why does the Union try to sneak past my fortresses all the time, only to get completely killed by the artillery inside?
Hope you can answer some of these questions, all in all, really cool game, enjoy it!
P.S. Rafiki, are you the Rafiki from Paradox Entertainment Victoria?