How do you use Cavalry (partic. for scouting)?

[GraniteStater]

Reading ACG's Layman's Guide, some in-game happenings reminded me of this.

Just yesterday, against havi, I pushed the Light Cav unit associated in the summer of 61 with Lyons in MO into Springfield to Scope Things Out.

G/G, Evade - on the Battle screen, I noticed that the unit was "top Orange", shall I say (Posture, right, the top one?) on the Battle Screen.

It was eliminated and there was Pursuit and associated Messages - forget the oppo's force mix, but there had to have been some Cav, I assume.

I had forgotten the 'flip' from going into <25% MC, right?

So, if you want to recon in Regions where you might get 'flipped' to O/*, then...

how do you use Cav?

How do you use it effectively in those Regions?

It seems that being adjacent to a Region is informative, at least to some degree. I seem to get just enough info returned & displayed to have a clue. Adjacency, I note, is a sufficient condition for Wagons and Depots, for example (explicitly stated in AACW and, I assume, still true in CW2), so it's not something that is entirely unused by the game's rule set.

Still - how do you use Cav well, particularly for recon?

[GraniteStater]

Mistitled the thread. Mods can change it to (partic. for scouting), if they would like to.

Thanks.

[Pocus]

changed.

did you cross a river? Cavalry should not be forced to switch to another posture, even in low MC. IIRC...

[ArmChairGeneral]

Ah, scouting, my favorite!

Sorry for the didactic tone, this is way more than you asked for, some of this you have heard from me before, and you know a lot of this stuff anyway. I have been working on something on scouting for the Wiki because it's one of my favorite parts of the game, and I didn't rewrite everything to match the appropriate style for a post.

#1 Rule of Scout Club: Avoid Combat at All Costs!

Your never want to have your scout stacks enter combat, they are far too valuable to risk: replacements and rebuilds are expensive and time-consuming to access, and that time needs to have been spent in the field gathering intelligence. Make use of the magic 50 mile telescope, it is designed that way so you don't have to get your scouts killed all the time. Avoid moving scout stacks into regions you think the enemy might be in, which includes just about any city. When choosing adjacent regions to spy from, avoid regions along obvious paths that enemy units might take.

The level of effective detection a scouting stack will give you is 4, because you will try your best to always be next to your region of interest rather than in it. 4 detect in the area of interest is plenty. The information you are given is generally reliable (I haven't noticed a lot of false information, just a lack of it if Detection surplus is too low.)

Learn to count brigades and guess at their relative power, since you will for the most part be receiving the second best level of information available without as many detailed numbers. 4 Detect in the region will usually give you the PWR ratings of divisions; smaller forces are harder to gather detailed info on, which in itself can tell you something about the stack.

Practice "Brigade Spotting." Playing both sides of the game will give you insight into the icons and naming styles associated with various enemy brigades and their compositions (I don't do this but I would recommend it to others). Also look carefully at the icons and the tooltips in the the Battle Screen so that you can learn to identify by picture and naming convention the various types of enemy units and their compositions. For stacks with no leader, the top element in the largest unit is shown on the map icon, following the same convention as the pictures of your own stacks. Look for the names of brigades that you have been in battles with elsewhere.

Conscript Cav units only have Detect 4 so be sure to make sure that your scout stack has one with Detect 5. Experience gains and upgrades are doubly valuable since Cav can make good use of the Evade Hide and Detection increases in addition to the combat bonuses. Be especially careful to preserve your most experienced and upgraded scouts because you will have to replace them with 0 exp conscripts.

The farther east on the map, the bigger the stack needs to be to survive accidental encounters with the enemy. The Far West is the only place on the map where single cav elements can safely move about without fear of complete destruction. In the the Mid-West (never sure what to call that area since that there isn't a single in-game name for it and I don't want to confuse anyone not from the US) 2 Cav and 1 HA are the minimum, and when the action heats up in IL, IN, KY and TN, even these will be at risk. In the East, you will need scouting stacks large enough that you might as well use Cav Divisions as scouts. Again, avoid combat with them even as part of Corps or Armies. They are fairly effective in combat but take a lot of expensive hits. Fortunately (from a scouting perspective) the East doesn't actually require that much scouting; most formations that you need intel on are already adjacent to a division that has integrated cav, so you end up with pretty good intel without having to hang Cav stacks out to dry.

Carefully observe CP usage for the scripted multi-element cav units. Some of the CSA's require many fewer CPs than they would if you had made them from scratch. The Texas Rangers are a two element Cav stack with 0 CP usage! (OTOH Virginia's Laurel Brigade requires 4 CPs. Yuck.) Carefully preserve these units; if destroyed they are gone for good. I tend to send some of them to other Theaters where their size and CP independence make a bigger difference than in the East.

Because you will be trying to avoid combat with scouting stacks, command penalties are not as big of a problem, they slow you down a little. Don't sweat 15%, but try not to have much worse. The Evade Combat order should be set at all times of course, but remember that it only applies while moving, so doesn't help if you are parked in a region MC or rail busting.

There aren't that many good Cav leaders, and the ones you have are often so good they are better off as division commanders. Under looser Activation Rules Cav stacks can be led by generic generals, but with tighter rules 2 Cav 1 HA stacks are better left uncommanded. You don't want brownies slowing down or fixing your scout stacks. In the East I use a Cav leader to run a mostly-cav-but-some-infantry-and-lots-of-rifled-artillery division to use in mop-up operations. The rest I either assign to similar roles in other theaters or put in charge of 4+ element scout stacks in hot areas.

You won't always have intel on enemy leaders, but when you get it, it is quite valuable. A human player would likely concentrate their best leaders in areas they think are important or have imminent plans for, so seeing several good leaders in one place tells you something about their intentions. Areas with 3-1-1s indicate a low priority (or that your opponent is the Union and it is before '63 ). Randomizing generals will cut down on this tactic, giving an advantage to the less experienced player. Even if you can't get all their names, you can still add up the CPs that they represent to get an idea of how big of a force the opponent is planning on moving or building in the area.

Deep Raiding is very 2009. Between auto-garrison and auto-repair the risk-reward ratio just isn't there anymore. Deep scouting has a similarly poor payoff: intel you gain about the back lines is good, but only occasionally actionable and so not worth sticking your neck out for regularly. Close scouting and raiding is much more useful. You need to know what the enemy has in the vicinity of your own troop concentrations, and destroying rails that can be used against you directly is much more immediately beneficial than severing depot-depot links behind the lines. Plus, Cav only carry two turns of supply, so they can't stay on station very long anyway. Operating closer to your own bases allows them to stay in the field longer.

While scouting, be sure to multi-task. Cav stacks are good at raising MC which can cause enemy troops transiting the region to suffer higher cohesion and attrition losses. 2 Cav in a stack give it a decent chance to destroy rails too. Getting 75% MC in regions denies rail usage and supply transit to the enemy. If on offense, rails close to the fighting are often better captured and used rather than destroyed. Once you have succeeded in a battle (offense or defense) switch your scout stacks over to retreat-denial and supply interdiction duty to help isolate defeated stacks from supply and shelter. Careful though, three elements is not enough to deter enemy entry if the region has attractive structures.

A-historical and gamey perhaps, but partisans add lots of abilities to scout stacks while the cav keeps the partisans alive. Rangers are equal or better than Cav in just about everything but hits and Detection, for the low, low cost 0 CPs. Add them freely to scout stacks: A 2 Cav 1 Ranger 1 HA stack has ~100 PWR and only 15% command penalty. Put thought into where you want to use your Rangers, they are very useful units.

The 2 Detect your loyal regions give you is enough to spot regulars in the region and show them on the map, so even though it isn't huge, it will at least give you early warning.

You are going to make sure havi sees this too right?

[havi]

I read this like devil reads a bible. Thank you

[GraniteStater]

Aaarghh - man, I had been keeping to adjacent Regions - could not have explained it as well as Comfy Chair, but that was my instinct & practice. *sigh* - got too curious.

Will reread this, excellent stuff here.

[minipol]

Nice read on scouting !