Playing your cards right

[Gray Fox]

Okay, disregard this first part. I got several regions to 100% loyalty and received a whopping extra $1/1 conscript/1 WS in that region. Either the manual is again wrong, or this doesn't work yet. HC never improved loyalty and the Defensive Works entrenched my units but gave no loyalty boost.


ASAP, if the Union player can successfully Suspend Habeus Grab-Us in Philadelphia, that would boost loyalty to 95%. Then "Build Defensive Works" (loyalty +10%) would max out loyalty. At 100% loyalty, Philly produces 50% more of everything, which means $9, 3 more conscript companies and 9 more WS per turn from then on. The combination works in NYC too for an additional $13 and 3 conscripts. As the CSA player, these would be good locations for Demonstrations.

[GraniteStater]

Good stratagem. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Gray Fox]

You're most welcome! I don't know if the loyalty boost would affect recruiters based in these cities, but I'm going to find out.

[ArmChairGeneral]

As the CSA, we are limited domestically to Defensive Works and 1 Martial Law card (no Habeus Corpus cards for the CSA, most of the population didn't have any rights to suspend ). I usually look at NO and Charleston for early DW. You can't move out of South Carolina for several turns anyway, so it's a good chance to get that DW up an running while you wait for NC and Virginia to secede. (I think you have to build another infantry brigade there to get to 3 inf, but I am usually building one anyway). I usually build 3 Zoaves in NO while Charleston DWs so I can use it on NO as soon as it finishes in Charleston.

[Skibear]

Out of interest how do you see what individual cities produce in terms of cash and recruits? I never looked to find that before. Do you mean 50% more goodies than when Philly is at 75% loyalty?

[ArmChairGeneral]

Skibear,
I rely on the Regions tab in the ledger, which reports actual production after the loyalty, NM and blockade modifiers. It is even sortable by resource. (I wish it reported supply and ammo too.)

[Skibear]

Aha, of course. I always flicked through that. Obviously Boston is another high earner.

[solcrates]

If I use premium for volunteers does that increase the power or elements in those vol recruits?

[ArmChairGeneral]

solcrates,

The Ledger Decision "Premium for Volunteers" trades Money ($) for Conscript Points (CPs). The combat stats of Volunteer Elements are not affected (AFAIK). "Volunteer" has mutiple in-game meanings and the Ledger Decision might be more precisely named "Premium for Conscripts." (But personally I think "Premium for Volunteers" has more flavor.)

[GraniteStater]

Well, technically, "to volunteer" means free of inducement or command, so...

[solcrates]

This is not in the right thread, but what decides or how can I effect the power rating for the brigades I recruit, for example some have a 256 rating with a lot more regiments and others have 62 with two or three regiments?

[khbynum]

You can't. The designers opted for a lot of strangely-constructed brigades for historical flavor and to give you an unnecessary complexity to deal with. Many of us who played AACW asked to be able to recruit brigades to our own specifications, but didn't get it. There is always a trade-off between simulating the period in which the war occurred and simulating the war as it occurred. I prefer the former. Most do not.

[ArmChairGeneral]

(Continuing Off-Topic, this was originally a Regional Decision thread)

I kind of enjoy the juggling act you have to do because of the "weird brigade" design decision. It is complex, but building brigades element-by-element would be complex and time consuming also.

If you constructed Element-by-Element (easiest to implement under the current construction framework) then you would have weird combat results because each Element would be a Unit until you could combine them, and pre-division combat would be very chaotic and too random (because of Unit-Unit targeting). It is better for the player (pre-Division) to have mixed brigades of whatever type than a set of individual elements. The more elements a Unit has during combat the better the survivability for each Element, so you want to minimize the number of Units you have in any particular combat anyway.

If you bolted on an interface with which to design brigades on the fly you could mitigate (and even give scope for human-maxing) these combat effects, but it would take the same or even more play-time than the current system and add another rule-set to the learning curve. (Not that I wouldn't enjoy playing with it if we had one!)

[Gray Fox]

As I have already posted elsewhere, post freely on any topic in any thread I start.

Another way for the Union to get more money is to send all of the cavalry in the Far West to Northern California. Suspend Habeaus Corpus there. The combined police effect of the cavalry elements plus the normal garrison should be around 50. So the loyalty would have a 50-50 chance to improve 1% per turn up to max, where you get 16-17 more dollars.

The Union should use the Counter-Intelligence cards to negate demonstrations in the 100% loyalty regions.

[ArmChairGeneral]

So if you had 100 Police power then you would see loyalty increase 1% with a 100% chance?

[Gray Fox]

That was the case in AACW. The only way to find out for sure is to try it. I was just using the available units. The thing is, don't improve loyalty past 75 before you get HC, because then it won't be an option.

[ArmChairGeneral]

I will definitely check this out, the CSA has few options for affecting domestic loyalty.

[ArmChairGeneral]

solcrates,

You can increase the power of your brigades over time. A Training Officer can upgrade conscripts or volunteers to regulars in one turn increasing the power. Also, a Training Master (HQ) adds experience each turn; conscripts only need 5 exp to get an experience star, and once they do they begin to make rolls to upgrade on each turn (Unconfirmed: the chance is 7% per turn, which means once it has a star it will take on average 14 turns to succeed at its upgrade roll). Volunteers and militia do the same, but they need more exp's than conscripts to get their first experience star.

[Gray Fox]

This is the pertinent line from the AACW Wiki that I was using:
"If you have troops stationed in a region, sum up the police value of all elements; if you roll a percentage dice below this value, loyalty will shift 1% in your favor."

P.S. If you send all of your starting CSA cav to NO and build an HQ there, then the cav will get an experience star while the HQ unit forms. Each cav element then has a Police stat of 3 and the total with the European brigade is 85+.

[Gray Fox]

Starting in January, 1862, many cards can be well played in the Far West regions. The gold mines are a worthy prize and Tucson is worth 5 NM.

The Union can play two build depot cards, perhaps in southern California and Albuquerque. Four Partisans can be placed over two turns in Arizona and New Mexico. Four White Unionists can be mustered to add eight militia, two 12-lbers can be stripped from the Pacific fleet and four Sailors can be landed to create an ad hoc Division.

The CSA can also add four Partisans and a depot. Four Copperhead cards can add eight militia, but no artillery or sailors can be created by cards.

Both sides can play all of the Native American cards with good effect to fight a hit and run campaign.

If you are planning a protracted war as the Union and hope to win by Victory Points, two cards may benefit your play. You can develop several regions every 6 turns and build some telegraphs every 9 turns in exchange for a little cash to garner over 100 VP's total per year. This would be half a thousand points by 1866. A couple other options exist to get VP's for money, but they are quite expensive. I don't believe that the CSA gets as many iterations for these cards as the Union, but a few cards spread over several years do add up.

[GraniteStater]

These are some good points, well worth considering.

[Gray Fox]

The stockade card is useful if you have troops in a region with no structure and you take attrition hits. Just build a stockade and the attrition should stop. It costs 10 conscripts, but should save you in the long run.

[Merlin]

I use the stockade card all the time in the territories. I'd imagine it's one of the most useful and overlooked cards in the deck. The depot cards work well in the territories too. You can make an entirely new supply line into enemy territory that way.

[GlobalExplorer]

What is the requirement to use the "land mine" card
I was besieging Fort Fisher for many many turns, but there was no way to use the card.

[Captain_Orso]

I'm not sure "why" you might not be able to play the card, but if it's because you can't manage to place it correctly so that it sticks, try pressing <Cntl><F4> first to make all units disappear from the map (without having a unit selected) and then try to place the card.

Also, be sure that the fort is actually besieged. You must see this icon in the fort region (it may actually be of to the edge or even actually outside the region).

[Gray Fox]

Could it be that you actually have placed the card? It takes several turns for you men to dig a tunnel under the defenses and then detonate the explosives. and only a 35% chance to work. When you move the card to the location and drop it, does the total # of this card available drop?

[Gray Fox]

Sorry for the double post.

[GlobalExplorer]

No, the fort was besieged for several turns, and the card wasn't used otherwise the number on the regional action would drop, as you correctly said (there was only 1, so it would actually dissappear)
I think it said something about the region not being suitable or something.
It was Fort Fisher, NC, and Patch 1.04 used.

[GlobalExplorer]

Your screenshot says that it requires a size 1 city, so there you go, it's by design.
Land mines can't be used on forts, and player must learn through frustration, the main usefulness is gone.

[Pocus]

More precisely, there is a need for a city, any size. This is partly because of an engine limitation, it is not possible to say 'have a fort OR a city' ...