Tazilon
Conscript
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:49 pm

My Second Campaign

Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:37 am

This is more a synopsis than a full blown AAR, so please excuse lack of detail.

Preface

I am still quite new to this game. My first campaign was total learn-as-I-go mode. Being a damned Yankee (born in the great state of Pennsylvania but currently living in East Texas), I had no choice but to play the Union and teach the South they were STILL incapable of victory. (Plus that, it let me capture my roommate's home town of Henderson, TX which pissed her off to no end!)

Anyway, as expected, I made many mistakes during an extended campaign in which I eventually won in turn 101...lol. While I played, I browsed the forums and tried to relate information I found there to what was happening as I played. By the time I finally crushed the Rebel morale for my turn 101 win, I was ready to play again, applying what I hoped I had learned in my "tutorial".

Here then, is My Second Campaign.

The Set-up

Default. My goal in these early campaigns is simply to learn the game mechanics before I move on to PBEM. I will ramp up difficulty after this one, however. It was way too easy.

The War Plan

My initial plan had 3 objectives.

1) Move on Richmond as fast as my generals would let me.

2) Build up the Army of the Potomac (AotP) in Bowling Green and use it to secure the Central Mississippi region.

3) Create a third Army in St Louis and use it sweep the southwestward towards Texas, striving to draw some Confederate assets from the Mississippi area, thereby allowing the AotP a more easy trek southward towards the Gulf.

1961

Everything fell out in my favor at the start of the game. Harper's Ferry held up to the early Confederate assault and Dallas provided some additional assets due to the triggering of the Sam Houston event.

I immediately decided to keep Dallas as long as possible but not to waste any resources doing it. The West simply doesn't offer enough strategic value to spend very much defending it early on. I teleported a minor, unpromotable general in to head the defense and rotated 2 forces from the Pacific rim into Tuscon, allowing Tuscon's forces to move to Dallas.

While militia and cavalry provided raider defense for the rest of the West, Lyon teamed with a supporting one-star to capture Rolla and move quickly on Springfield. An independent brigade was dispatched to secure Jefferson City. With these three cities in my control, I was content to rest in the West until Spring '62. Everything had gone as planned for '61.

In the Central Mississippi confluent areas, I quickly built up my gunboat presence to reduce vulnerability of the Midwest to raiders and reinforced Paducah and Bowling Green. The computer AI appears to like to run raiders into the Midwest by crossing the river between Paducah and Cairo. They managed to get one riverine force through before I had them shut down. It did some minimal damage east of St Louis, but nothing which wasn't quickly repaired.

The reinforcement of Bowling Green and Paducah had a two-fold intent. The first, obviously, was to maintain possession of both towns. The second was to preposition units for the creation of the AtoP battle forces.

Several raiders managed to invade the Midwest by crossing the Ohio River into Indiana with one force doing some moderate damage to my rail net before I could subdue it.

With my concentration of gunboat forces near Cairo and Paducah, I had expected raiders to infiltrate Indiana and Ohio so the several regular brigades I had left placed thoughout the Midwest were able to repair the damage to my rails fairly fast. (In an extended, more evenly matched game, this might have been important. In this game, I don't think it mattered.)

As soon as the AtoP became available, I activated it and moved it to Bowling Green, along with enough generals to fully man 3 corps of 4 divisions each. I didn't have enough forces to fill the Corps out yet but units were arriving each turn and offensive actions did not need the 80,000+ armies required in the East. Nonetheless, with winter on the way, I wanted my entire force of generals there and ready to move out as sufficient troops arrived. The generals beat winter by one turn! '61 ended in the Central Mississippi with everything going as planned.

In the East, the good start got even better as the year progressed. It appeared the South was going to duke it out for Harper's Ferry as the South was rushing troops into Winchester, so I moved Patterson's army over to merge with a Corps of my Army of Northern Viginia (ANV) at Harper's Ferry. However, a battle never ensued. As fast as I could train, gather and organize my initial recruitment troops, I sent about a 1/2 strength Corps to secure Manassas while I raised my other ANV Corps to full strength. Within weeks, one Corps leapfrogged the Corps in Manassas, flanking Fredericksburg and another had moved into position to assault Fredericksburg from the north. The South immediately withdrew its forces from Winchester to help defend Fredericksburg.

I now had a Corps free to do whatever it wished from Harper's Ferry. Hoping to provide a distraction from Fredericksburg, it moved on Charlottesville.

A strong garrison there provided spirited but futile resistance. I quickly realized, though, the South's combined efforts to defend Fredericksburg and Charlottesville had left the real prize (Richmond) open to a quick attack. I had yet to attack Fredericksburg, so my Corps to it's immediate west was 80,000+ strong and raring to go. Because I owned the rail into Charlottesville, I would be able to run the entire Corps southward and east to Richmond in a mere 11 days, allowing me to move and assault before the Condefederacy could respond. Even better, snow was nipping at my heels, so winter would help shield me from retaliatory strikes and give me time for my forces to recover should I win. Furthermore, I still had a full Corps just north of Fredericksburg and a Corps with one full division in Alexandria to help shield Washington DC until I could solidify the ANV's defensive force. If someone managed to sneak by me, I felt I had enough near DC to avoid a disaster; especially since winter was only 1-2 turns away.

The only question which remained was the strength of the Confederate Army in Richmond. Having seen the size of the movement of Southern forces into Fredericksburg, however, I was confident I would greatly outnumber whomever the Rebels had left in Richmond.

Thank god I did. I caught Lee there alone, outnumbering him by slightly over a 2:1 ratio. It was an epic batle. I lost approximately 70% of my force but captured Richmond in one turn!

I immediately directed the majority of my Eastern reinforcements to Charlottesvile and dispatched all but one division of my Corps in Charlottesviile to buttress my battle weary troops in Richmond. On the way, they stumbled across Beauregard moving on Richmond from Fredericksburg and annihilated him.

With winter intent on claiming unprotected lives, I hunkered down til spring across the board, more than content with a '61 Campaign which ended with Richmond firmly in my grasp.

1962

Not knowing how much fight the South had left, I proceeded to follow my initial plan.

Grant's nearly full Corps seized Nashville, rested and healed, then headed south towards Pulaski with the goal of turning west and taking Corinth by the winter of '62. Meanwhile, McDowell turned the defense of Bowling Green over to Buell so McDowell could move west and allow Pope to form the AtoP's final Corps in Paducah. With Buell gaurding Bowling Green and a partial Corps guarding Nashville, Grant was free to march on to Corinth while McDowell and Pope took Ft Henry and the rest of the inner confluent area. Their long term goal was to take Memphis but the Confederacy collapsed long before they did much of anything.

Meanwhile, the Union Army was just forming in St Louis, headed by Fremont. As spring sprung, Southern forces recaptured Rolla. This was pretty much meaningless. They were about to be overwhlemed by my Union Army and Rolla was just a stepping stone for Lyon's conquest of Springfield to begin with. Riverine forces retook Dallas but that was fine with me. It ceases to be an objective city for the North when the South retakes it and siphoned off some of their resources best spent elsewhere. The game ended before the Union Army became a factor.

Back east, I moved simultaneously against Fredericksburg and Petersburg, taking both. I then made a mistake by pursuing a small assault out of Richmond and allowing a Confederate force to sneak into the city from the Coast. Their joy at regaining their capitol city was short lived however. My corps in Petersburg moved north and reclaimed Richmond in early June. In the same turn, Grant took Pulaski and the South conceded the war.

As the war ended, Banks had just arrived with his Corps in Washington DC. The plan was for him to form a 4th Army and provide the DC defense force so the ANV could move on Atlanta with 4 full Corps.

As soon as Grant had seniority, he was to assume command of the AtoP and move down the Mississippi, a task I had hoped would be made easier by Fremont's upcoming march through Arkansas.

The calamity at Richmond in '61 however, had been a fatal blow to the South and the game ended before any other large actions occured.

Lessons Learned

1) Industrialization is unneeded in the North.

2) Building up your transport net with your abundance of cash and war supplies allows the North to make large scale troop movement rapidly without negatively effecting it's supply capability.

3) Rodman Artillery rock.

4) Gunboats impact the game.

5) If used properly, winter is an ally. If you time a strike to culminate just as winter sets in, you severely limit the opposition's ability to launch an immediate counter attack.

6) Manage your blockade forces so you can rotate replacements in before resupply is needed.

Epilogue

The cooperation the union generals gave me in wanting to fight on the turns I needed them to was much different then what I experienced in my first campaign and no doubt made my second campaign much easier than expected. With the fundamentals of the North learned, my next campaign will be as the South, then I will move on to PBEM and let someone show me how much I still don't know about the game! lol

Here are 3 screenshots from the end of the game:

Image

The Union Army deploys out of St Louis, understrengthed but fully expecting to be stronger than any Confederate forces in encounters in Arkansas and the rest of the Southwest.



Image

The Army of the Potomac ended the game ready to capture the Central Mississippi. The more observant of you may notice Bowling Green is unprotected. I moved Buell to Lexington for one turn to resupply, as Bowling Green wasn't getting to maintain his troops. I had hoped the empty city would attract the attention of the cav units moving northward to raid me. Buell would have shredded them upon his return, ridding me of the nuisance they would have been had they continued onward into Indiana.

Image

The Army of Northern Virginia's early dominance throughout Virginia led to the South's rapid surrender.

User avatar
Le Ricain
Posts: 3284
Joined: Sun Apr 09, 2006 12:21 am
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland

Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:39 am

Nice report. I have one comment. It is often a good idea to build a depot in Bowling green to help support your operations against Nashville and points south. If you build two river transports, you can build the depot cheaper than by using supply wagons.
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