Totally new player questions

[fahbs]

Did you have the right replacements available? I'm not familiar with the composition of those units, but perhaps they have some elite infantry while you have been buying line infantry/militia replacements?

Are you playing with hardened attrition?

Whoops. That might have been it. It was a couple infantry regiments and a cavalry. Never even considered that they might be elite. Is it also intentional that Beauregard's army HQ starts off understrength and requires replacements to bring up to full?


Another confusing thing (my knowledge of the war is VERY shakey) is that now that I think about it, in my full war campaign game, General Beauregard's command started in Richmond as "Army of the Potomac". It was only after I disbanded then reformed it did it get named "Army of Northern Virginia".

[fahbs]

Tried my first and a half full game (first attempt I didn't realize how quickly the north would go on the offensive, got crushed, restarted).

It was...odd.

All default settings/difficulty.

-Tried the CSA tricks mentioned here by sending cavalry raids to smash supply. No dice. Any city with a depot was well defended. Any cavalry force large enough to take a depot garrison quickly ran out of supply.

-Lost Manassas since I was fumbling around forming units. Dug in at Fredericksberg and beat the union there. For some reason the AI retreats back to Washington and leaves Manassas wide open for recapture.

-Now here's the thing: I was probably being extremely squeamish with any orders that would raise prices or lower NM. I never mobilizing, printed money, or issued bonds above 5%. On top of that, at some points in the fall of '61 I said "why not?" and blew a huge wad of cash buying 18(!) steam frigates just for yuks in challenging the North for superiority.

-Despite this, I still took Washington DC and won in December of '61. For some reason the computer nearly abandoned (6,000 men) DC (despite 3 full corps of the Army of Northern Virginia camping out right across the river) so he could throw everything into attacking the region south of Harper's Ferry.


Weird. I know everyone says beating the computer is nothing compared to a human, but I wasn't expecting to be marching into Washington in less than a year after blowing the Confederacy's GNP on toy boats for my first real game.


Quick question on corps/divisions though. As far as I can tell, divisions offer the most efficient use of command points, but are limited in size and cannot support one another while corps offer a greater max size but no CP discount.

So, even though he was nowhere near the other corps, I formed the (only) 2 star general defending south of Harper's Ferry into a corp of the Army of Northern Virginia so I could dump a whole ton of units into him. Was this the best move? Would it have been better to form divisions?


Another quick question on sieges: When I was sieging Washington, after one breech a little circular icon appeared saying "The defenses of Washington have been breeched and now offer no protection for the defenders". Yet the next turn informed me that one or two more breeches had been scored and my stacks set to regular attack stance did not move in. Does that icon appear after just one breech had been scored, regardless of how many you need to break through? If so, the text is a little misleading.

[Rafiki]

Another confusing thing (my knowledge of the war is VERY shakey) is that now that I think about it, in my full war campaign game, General Beauregard's command started in Richmond as "Army of the Potomac". It was only after I disbanded then reformed it did it get named "Army of Northern Virginia".

Yeah, that's the designation it had at the start of the war actually; was puzzled myself till I found out

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Potomac_(Confederate):

The Confederate Army of the Potomac, whose name was short-lived, was the command under Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard in the early days of the American Civil War. Its only major combat action was the First Battle of Bull Run. Afterwards, the Army of the Shenandoah was merged into the Army of the Potomac with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, the commander of the Shenandoah, taking command. The Army of the Potomac was renamed the Army of Northern Virginia on March 14, 1862, with Beauregard's original army eventually becoming the First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.

Quick question on corps/divisions though. As far as I can tell, divisions offer the most efficient use of command points, but are limited in size and cannot support one another while corps offer a greater max size but no CP discount.

Divisions are units, corps are stacks. Units can be part of a stack, i.e. divisions can be part of corps.

Divisions are indeed the most CP-friendly units, provided you have enough units integrated into the divisions; e.g. making a division of a one-element militia brigade would provide for 4 times the CP usage (i.e. CP cost of 5 instead of 1)

Stacks that are part of an army/corps organization don't get their CP halved when CP are calculated.

[fahbs]

Stacks that are part of an army/corps organization don't get their CP halved when CP are calculated.

Okay I suspect I'm screwing up here.

For my game, I was forming corps by just taking a 2 star leader, saying "Here, you're a corps now" and dumping elements into him until I was satisfied with the command penalty.

Should I instead have been forming divisions, and THEN dumping THEM into the corps stack? Your quote makes it sound like the division "bonus" would disappear if I did this.

[Primasprit]

It's a good idea to put divisions into corps, as they are most "CP efficient" needing only 4 CP per division.

[Rafiki]

Should I instead have been forming divisions, and THEN dumping THEM into the corps stack? Your quote makes it sound like the division "bonus" would disappear if I did this.

That's not what I mean; sorry for any confusion.

Each unit, be it a multi-element brigade, a single element brigade or a division, carries a CP cost, ranging from 0 to 4 (I think it is). If you have many brigades, the total CP cost for them is quite likely to be more than 4, which means you can save CPs by combining them into a division, where their total CP cost will be 4.

All leaders in a stack combine their CP to see how many CP the stack has available. A stack that is neither an army stack nor a corps stack will get the number of CPs halved.

These two factors do not influence eachother; you can have divisions in whichever stack you like, be it an army stack, a corps stack or an independent stack. The cost of a division will be 4 CPs no matter what.

However, the most efficient thing you can do when it comes to CPs (and in effect, the best way to gather large forces without facing command penalties) is to combine your units into divisions, and have those divisions be part of corps/army stacks.

(Note that it doesn't matter if you combine the units into a division before or after you put the unit(s) into a given corps/army stack)

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[fahbs]

I think I am getting it!

I might actually be running out of questions. The only one I can think of right now is if there's any way to easily tell which rivers are navigable and which are just cosmetic? Does a river have to be one of the big wide ones that allows ship movement for the movement/combat penalties to take effect?

[soloswolf]

I think I am getting it!

I might actually be running out of questions. The only one I can think of right now is if there's any way to easily tell which rivers are navigable and which are just cosmetic? Does a river have to be one of the big wide ones that allows ship movement for the movement/combat penalties to take effect?

All rivers have a combat effect. One of the icons near the bottom of the battle reports will tell you that a river was crossed in bringing forces to bear.

[kglorberau]

This was a great thread. I learned a lot from it and hope to use my new found knowledge tonite when I get off of work.....

Hoosier....you felt the same way I did...I love war games and have been playing them since around '75 (old counter style). I have asked some questions on the threads and they usually get answered within a day or two.....Gary is very good at putting screen shots on his replies to show us exactly what he is saying (thanks Gary!!). That post about combining units was one of my earlier questions and your screenshot and description will make it much easier to make sure I'm doing it right.

Kglorberau

[kglorberau]

Sorry....I meant "Gray" (see, my eyes are bad).


Kglorberau

[fahbs]

All rivers have a combat effect. One of the icons near the bottom of the battle reports will tell you that a river was crossed in bringing forces to bear.

Do sailors/marines mitigate the combat penalty, or just the movement?

[soloswolf]

Just the movement penalty. (By 50% due to the pontooneer ability)

[Hoosier]

I've figured out how to play this game, I can build divisions, corps, and armies. It's a great game, I love it, but I still have a lot to learn about how best to play.

[Redeemer]

I've figured out how to play this game, I can build divisions, corps, and armies. It's a great game, I love it, but I still have a lot to learn about how best to play.

I've been playing maybe 8 plus months and learn something new almost every day.