Turn 1:
Eastern Theatre -
As you can see, I have the advantage of numbers in the East, but not by much. There are undoubtedly rebel forces in the Valley that cannot be seen. Plus, the reorganization of the Army of the Potomac (AoP) has not been achieved yet, and the division is still the base unit of the army. This will need to change in time, but isn't quite as much of a big deal at the moment as the total manpower is still fairly small.
Further South, we can see Nathanial Banks and Benjamin Butler. Banks is in a safe position for now at Fortress Monroe, but Butler has advanced out of Norfolk and is in danger of being cut off from his base, so my first move will be to pull him back to Norfolk. As you can see by this shot, his army is also not organized yet, so I plan to combine the 1st, 2nd, artillery, and Division HQ by selecting those [Ctrl - left click], then pressing the button my mouse pointer is hovering over. You can't see the pointer, but it's the only button active, and you should be able to read the tooltip that is showing. That results in this:
This gives you a much easier to control force, and provides command benefits. I could also have included Butler in the grouping, but I have plans for him later, and don't want him included at the moment. Easier to leave him out now that to disassemble the Division later and then reform it. On the right side you can also see the individual Regiments that make up this division. Now let's move on to other forces and moves to be made in the East.
Here you can see that the Union is in control of two forts on the North Carolina coast, Clark and Morgan. Both are garrisoned by a single regiment plus artillery and a shore battery. These units are also locked, so nothing could be done with these even if I wanted to risk them.
Here are two more coastal sites I control, Ft. Marion just north of St. Augustine, and Ft. Pulaski in Georgia. In Florida, three other coastal forts are under my control; Fts. Jefferson and Zachary in the Keys, and Ft. Pickens in the panhandle just south of Pensacola. All of these sites contain the same type of garrison as those above.
Now let's move back to the important part of the theatre, in Northern and Western Virginia. Here we see George B. McClellan, fresh off him kicking Bobbie Lee out of West Virginia and as the current Ranking 3 star general in the army. In this, you can see his card open with his attributes listed (All generals have not yet been updated according to the discussions in the forums, so these may or may not be correct). From left to right, McClellan has: Slow Mover (10% slower movement), Training Officer (Allows training of some conscript units up to regular status each turn), Charismatic (+5 maximum cohesion and a 25% increase in fatigue recovery), and Militiaman (Increase of discipline by 1 and adds a cohesion bonus of 10% to any militia in his stack). He will be moving East to take charge of the AoP, I will be moving him and his command by rail to Washington to take charge. He should arrive there by mid month if all goes well.
The force to the East of McClellan is Robert Patterson and his Army of Northeastern Virginia. He currently leads two divisions, one of which is locked in place, I could split his forces up, but I would prefer to keep them together, so I will wait until the entire force can move. As you can see by the yellow flag at Harpers Ferry, it is garrisoned, but this unit is also locked in place, and is there only for defense.
Now we come to the main force in the East. The AoP (Not actually named that yet, you can see it's just "Union Army") Is sitting in Alexandria, while McDowell is in Washington trying to avoid moving and eating watermelon (The man loved his watermelon). I order McDowell to join his forces in Alexandria and prepare to move the army South. I've had quite enough of Horace Greeley and the newspapers with their, "On to Richmond" nonsense.
Remaining in Washington Is General Winfield Scott, only the second 4 star general in American history, of course, Scott's life spans nearly all of that history. He may not be able to ride a horse anymore, but he has sufficient force to repel any attackers that get too bold while McDowell moves the main army.
Western Theatre -
This is most of the western theatre with the State borders overlay turned on so you can see that. There is no formal army command out here yet, but that doesn't matter much as all of the forces are currently locked in position anyway.
This is the far west, Missouri, Kansas Territory, a bit of Indian Territory, and the off map box (OMB) for California. You can see General Lyon with his force in SW Missouri facing off against Sterling Price in NW Arkansas. Okay, that's the basic setup for the North in '61, now let's look at the other options.
This is the reinforcements page, where you will "Purchase" full unit reinforcements. As you can see they're colored by state or entry point, and at the bottom you get a listing of exactly what is contained in each unit. In this case, a Maryland Brigade will come with two regular infantry regiments and cost the money and supplies shown in the bottom panel. This turn I purchased an infantry brigade in KS, two in MO, one in IL, one in IN, one in PA, and one in NY. Along the top, you can see other tabs. Those are to purchase individual regiments of (From left to right) Irregular units (In my case sharpshooters), Militia (I purchased 2 units this turn), Cavalry (I purchased 3 units), Artillery (I purchased one unit of horse artillery to go with the cavalry), Support units (Supply wagons, medical units, engineers, army and division HQs, etc.), and Naval Forces.
This is the replacements screen. The way the game is set up to mimic historical unit structure, the Union gets a penalty on replacements since they generally went the route of raising entire new units rather than reinforcing the ones in the field, so I won't spend nearly as much here, but I do purchase (You can see this by the envelopes in the cubbyholes) two line infantry, one militia, two light artillery, and two field artillery. These will be funnelled into units as losses occur.
The Drafts screen. As it is early in the war, I can get by with just calling for volunteers, which costs nothing and will bring in a good number of conscript points, which are used for unit purchases and such. Later in the war, the call for volunteers will bring in fewer and fewer men, and stricter measures will be called for.
This is your Financials screen. This gives you your balance spent, incoming cash, and projected balance for the following turn in addition to the inflation rate you are currently at. This being the first turn, I started with a pretty good stock of money, but will be spending a lot of it to prepare for the war, so you can see my outgoing is far in advance of my incoming. All in all I'm still above water though, so I just issue some war bonds as it's the least damaging of the options available.
The Economics screen. Here you can increase your industrialization state by state based on their individual ratings, plus expand your rail and steamship carrier capacity. I chose to attempt to upgrade NY's industry by one level, expanded buildings are the sign of higher levels.
The Loyalties screen, here you can set the level of force to apply to keep wayward states in line. Just to show the different levels, I changed Indiana to "Suspend Habeas Corpus", and Ohio to apply Marshal Law. Obviously, you shouldn't be doing this to your base territories unless things are going very badly, so I won't be leaving them like this.
The final screen for now is the Politics screen, seen here. Currently my only options are "Move Capitol" (A desperate move, and not advised), and "Total Blockade" which I will hold off on for now. I don't want to risk pushing the European countries closer to intervention until I'm able to defend myself from those yahoos to the South at least.
These options will increase over time if the proper conditions are met. once we actually fight a battle, if prisoners are taken, there will be an exchange prisoners option, and also a process for emancipation. But, certain conditions must be met, such as the Union must wait until late '62 and have good morale.
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