Another Newbie Trying to Learn the Game

[John Sedgwick]

I noticed that you had said that you put guns in Paducah. Did they ever fire?

Yep, Fort David R. Jones in Paducah scored 90 hits on Foote's fleet as it left the Ohio. If I had known about the double adjacency rule beforehand I probably wouldn't have built it, but it appears to have worked regardless.

EDIT: Just double checked, and Paducah fulfills the double adjacency requirement for fleets traveling from the Great Confluent to Cap Girardeau and vice versa.

[Ol' Choctaw]

That is really good to know.

I had an experience where Lyons made a move from around Evansville, In. and ignored my batteries in Paducah and Cairo and then evaded the guns from Island #10. The only message I got was his evasion so I was just wondering about what happened. At least Island #10 fired but those others must have been away at a barn dance or something.

[John Sedgwick]

Oh, and after searching the forums on this subject, I learned that the double adjacency rule apparently only applies to prewar (level 1) forts. So it looks like you simply had a stroke of really bad luck there with Paducah and Cairo literally missing the boat.

[GraniteStater]

Thanks Pat, I didn't think about burning the depots. That may not be a bad idea. Yeah, I usually try to concentrate the available forces around Springfield/Fayeteville, but again, I still seem to get my butt kicked before I can concentrate my forces. In fact in my last abortive game the Yanks captured Fayeteville in late 1861.

You mentioned Paducah/Cairo.....One of the hallmarks of my Western strategy has been to concentrate early on in two places, the vicinity of Island Ten/Paducah and Nashville. That way when AS Johnston and Bishop Polk become available, they have sizable forces waiting for them ready to command - Bishop Polk conducts a strategic defense around Island 10/Paducah, and AS Johnson marches in to Kentucky.

Concerning playing against human opponents, I am not a big fan of this except in maybe team play. I think the only multiplayer game I ever really liked was Battlefield: 1942, because that was a team game. I played Starcraft Two online for a time late last year, and hated it.

I would recommend PBEM heartily. P. Cleburne (Stonewall) & I had a very enjoyable game a few months ago. He is a most knowledgable and excellent CSA opponent and very tough.

I've gotten into some other stuff for a few months now, but the AI games I've played just aren't the same - you could mod it to give the other side 105mm howitzers and a human is still going to eventually find ways to win. I will say one thing that was notable - I had a Stalemate against Athena in Jan 66, after taking every single Objective, 90% of the Strategic Towns and Cities, and leaving the CSA as a buncha cut up slivers and Texas. An unexpected result - it could have been that the butcher's bill was high, so Athena scored well. I will say that I had a 62 start when 1.16 beta first came out that rocked me on my heels - Colonel Difficulty. I still have the saves. After that first horrendous experience, I got used to her new attitude and have adjusted. AIs can't adjust in the long run - they're just subroutines, after all.

To be encouraging, P. Cleburne and I were exchanging up to five Turns a night sometimes. It took about an hour plus for each of us to send files and resolve Turns. It's not like Matrix Games's WitP:AE that I'm currently PBEMing - a game of excruciating detail, arguably verging on too much; playing the entire Pacific war one day at a time with some units down to company level, all ships indivually represented and all the logistics done manually, with very little automation for rear area operations. It pushes the limits of playability severely.

Find a good opponent, discuss the ground rules beforehand, and start seceding or quashing a rebellion. You'll be glad you did.

Pat, in case you read this, email me - I need another crack at you. I can fit it in between rounds of figuring out my Pilot Training program and where USS Sculpin is going to patrol.

[Longshanks]

It's easy for the Union to take Lexington (or Prestonsburg, or Clarksburg, or Bowling Green, etc) on the first turn of the invasion. The turn you buy the invasion chit, load all your invasion troops up using riverine movement and stage them at the mouth of the river they're going to be moving up. The turn you're allowed to enter, move them down the river and unload them. This makes Lexington pretty easy to overwhelm and your leader may even get a congratulatory note! BG is a bit iffier, because a human opponent is going to move troops in there to contest you (probably not the AI). Going for Fort D/H is risky since it's in TN and you probably don't know what is in it.