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I was keeping the AI busy in Virginia (I'm CSA) with a decent ANV.

In the meantime I had build up Polks corps of the Army of Tenessee - he had grown to 28.000 men - and it seemed the Union AI was putting more men into amph. invasions of th Carolinas then in taking Kentucky or Tenessee.

So I send Polk in an amph. assault and crossed the big river there (Mississppi ?) and I had 3 ironclads helping him out.

Polk came out on top - he lost one regiment and totally defeated the Union defending garrison troops (which were a little too weak altogether). But the AI had send a division to help out - but that division was not there to prevent Polk from taking the town.

It was everywere in the Confederate newspapers - "Polk crosses the big river and finds an open road to Chicago".

I asked general Polk to advance asap to Chicago - as it seemed - few Union resistance would have to be dealt with. General Forest would ride to Chicago to shield Polks flank.

Then I did a horrible mistake - I clicked the "river" button to travel - which gave Polk a few days discount on his trip to Chicago.

During the next turn calculation Polk corps embarked on boats and traveled one or 2 regions along the river to link up to a railroad junction. The consequences were horrible - there was a division there that got joined by another division (the one blocking the road to Chicago) and altough Polk outnumbered his opponent 3 to 1 - his corps got decimated in a series of bloody battles. I checked and his forces were doing amph. landing during each round of battle.

Result = POLK LOST HIS ENTIRE CORPS to the last regiment! Now, that's a headline for the confederate papers.

Ok, you can call me stupid and laugh until you cry , but on the other hand - Polk had his corps on the Union side of the river and was traveling upstream a region or 2 - I'm sure he would NOT have to face the amph. penalty for his entire corps as his own troops would be scouting the Union bank of the Missisppi river.

I mean Polk would never land before the trenches of a Union division and dy to the last men there (like Lemmings) - as his troops were already in control of that bank. A simply cavalry scouting party would easely detect any division waiting on the banks and his party would either return the boats, or land in safe harbour or just get of on confederate side.

Conclusion = be advised to be carefull when using the option of river movement. And perhaps - can the rules of the game be changed so Polks corps is not facing amph. penalties the whole time. And another thing, why is he trying so hard to get his last soldier killed ? I mean, if the Union is sitting there, he will have to face bloodshed on his first brigade(s) - but not on his entire corps to get destroyed.

leure:

I made the same mistake some days ago with the Corps of Meade (3 complete divisions).
After having taken Manassas, i send his Corps to Culpepper which was not heavily defended just to have a look around. Unfortunately, i forgot to suppress the red button behaviour (last man standing) and was attacked by Jackson's and Beauregard's Corps.
Meade never retreated and his entire Corps was buried !!!!

Really a bad day...

Never forget to give the right behaviour to your units...

Yep I can totally sympathize here. I actually have been fidgeting with ALWAYS keeping my commands on "Defend and Retreat" posture when they defend something, JUST in case a big enemy army shows up to out match them. It makes it so their retreat is more easily attained.

the only reason I keep them in regular defend is when I know I'll have an advantage and I really want to hold the ground and cause the enemy the most amount of casualties possible.

in attack mode, always remember that "assault" is exactly the same as "offensive" posture...you'll just skip the seige if you approach a structure. This is great for cavalry raids where you know your opponent has a weak garrison etc....I managed to create some real trouble with Forrest's cavalry division this way.

Interesting situation.... just Polk was simply trying to Execute ORDERS GIVEN and was "exemplar" at trying it. Its just what Lincoln needed.

You said him: Pick some Transports, go up the enemy controled river, d-day on Chicago and take it by ASSAULT, and dont be careful on losses!!!!

So he did it. Just he had a lot of men to waste, and defense was strong.

It results USEFUL to advance on DEFENSIVE/CAREFUL mode if your objective is not critical (i. e a Railroad in Hills in the middle of the objective). If you are a doing so risky move with a single brigade, it doesnt matter, but a full corps is something different.

Also beware of riverine move... while traveling this way... you are fired by coastal ARTY, and EVADE DROPS to the minimum, so you can not flee easily.

Aah! Bragg would had loved that attitude on the historical Polk

Not 100% sure but probably the "fight till death" result was caused because Polk had nowhere to retire??
If he got there by boat and all surrounding regions where 100% enemy controlled he was "surrounded" according to the game rules i think.
And as the river movement was done on the pool, not real transports he can't re-embark neither.
Just guessing here
In any case, the lesson is clear: use riverine poll movement only on safe areas (behind your lines) and use land movement for attacking or at least real transports for amphibious invasions.
Sound pretty reasonable to me...
Regards!

deleted

Well I think it brings us back to a thread I launched in january this year about river movement :

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=7145&highlight=river+movement

the problem remains that there is no incentive in using physical transports on the river system, the river pool being too efficient to go everywhere : if there is no way to create a control percentage for rivers, at least river pool transport should not be possible whenever you arrive in a river zone bordering an land zone you don't control...

basically think that River pool and rail pool can be used too easily in forward operations and that this sort of makes the game too fast..

I agree with veji
Maybe the same system used with rail movement (minimun 25% MC of the region needed) could be used with the riverine pool: can't land on any zone you don't have at least a 25% MC).
For this kind of river invasions you should use real transports.
Sure it will limit the deep raiding by amphibious lone cav units...
Don't know if this would be easy enough to program.
Regards!

Gray_Lensman wrote:Judging by the replies, I think your conclusion/suggestion is a little premature. This is a really cool game, but it has a lot of details for the gamer to learn to attend to, before suggesting that rules be changed, but that's the fun of learning it.

no , this game is fairly complex. I was nowhere to have the intention to change the game. I was just surprised that Polk lands his entire corps on top of a meatgrinding macine on the same bank of the river from where he just had parted. It just seemed crazy that a corps travels a couple of miles to land on top of a Union division. If Polk had send a scouting party he would have found the Union division and not landed there. Anyhow, he would not have sacrificed his last man during an amph. invasion.

If your soldiers find a minefield, they either go around or demine the field - they don't sacrifice to the last man.

But I agree with you - the red button was probably highlighted - but that red button should not be an excuse for suicide.

It is actually possible to wipe any army out by totally surrounding them as I did to FED AoP in one of my games - they had nowhere to retreat to regardless of posture. Also put all my forces on an attack footing and hold at all costs setting, I try not to put my armies in a position where they can get totally cut off and surrounded.

Yeah I think it was simply a case of nowhere to go.

I learned early on that the Blitz strategies never fare well in this game. A much more methodical approach is typically more strategically sound. The only troops one should probably use for the strikes deep into enemy territory are the cavalry formations. Just my opinion though.