Sharpshooters built into Brigades

[Bismarck1940]

It seems when I build PA units in Pittsburg (and at time elsewhere), they automatically contain a sharpshooter unit. Can folks enlighten me what is going on?

[Gray Fox]

If you click on a unit in the build que, to the right you will get the normal view of the elements in that unit. As you note, some brigades have an intrinsic sharpshooter. Others may have a cavalry element or an artillery battery. Not every state has the same brigade mix.

[Captain_Orso]

Yes, Gray Fox is correct, you really need to look at the unit make-up to know what you will be buying.

There are only 2 Union states that have brigades with sharpshooters in them, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

[Bismarck1940]

Which leads to the next question: Of all the many types of regular/conscript brigades one could build, what does one prefer to start with? PA large Xs? NY conscripts? Too many choices . . .

[khbynum]

A lot depends on how you want your divisions structured, since most of those brigades will end up as part of a division. You'll find no end of opinions here on divisional structure, but most agree there is no point to more than one sharpshooter or cavalry unit per division. So, don't buy a brigade with a sharpshooter if all your divisions (or planned divisions) already have one. Loose units can always be broken out of a division and reassigned to another, but brigades cannot be broken down. On the other hand, sometimes you need independent divisions, or brigades, or....so many choices, so little time. Don't sweat it too much, they'll all end up in the meat grinder eventually.

[Captain_Orso]

khbynum is right; nearly all of the brigades you buy will land in division.

Pick how your division will be built --how many cav., how many of what artillery, etc.-- and stick to that plan as much as is practical. Otherwise every time you want to buy units or find a brigade you would like to put in a division you will start over again trying to figure out what to buy or in which division you want to put that rogue brigade.

I'm not so sure that only 1 cavalry per division is the best policy. I've read somewhere that for optimal detection and protection from detection you need at least 4 cavalry. Very often I don't have 4 division in a corps, so with only 1 cavalry per division, if my corps has only 2 or three divisions, I would not have enough cavalry for optimal detection.

[Gray Fox]

The easy solution is 'one size fits all'. You figure out the simplest Division structure and you just make all of your Divisions that way with no further thought. However, in life there are hammers and there are nails. You may want some Divisions to be only defensive oriented so they can hold an objective well while others are offensive in design to be able to pound the enemy into dog food. I use Divisions with militia in the defense where they are guaranteed the advantages of entrenchment. My assault Divisions are primarily line infantry with as few conscripts as possible and of course, no militia. One Marine/sailor element per assault Division speeds up river crossings or amphibious assaults.

[khbynum]

I'm not so sure that only 1 cavalry per division is the best policy. I've read somewhere that for optimal detection and protection from detection you need at least 4 cavalry. Very often I don't have 4 division in a corps, so with only 1 cavalry per division, if my corps has only 2 or three divisions, I would not have enough cavalry for optimal detection.

I only attach cavalry to divisions in the early game, or if the division operates independently. Once I can form corps, I attach a cavalry brigade to each corps if possible. They are easily detached if I want to use them independently and give the benefits you cited. But, that's just my approach.

[Gray Fox]

Scouting is one thing cavalry do. However, cavalry in a Division can pursue enemy elements that are withdrawing/routing and screen the Division's elements from the same treatment. If your Division has more cavalry than their opponent Division, then they will be more successful in pursuit/screening. Stack cavalry don't do this.

[Bismarck1940]

A further question. Should one build the brigades with intrinsic 6-lb artillery, given that only a certain number of artillery fire each round (and you want them to be the big guns)?

[Captain_Orso]

Didn't you just answer your own question?

[ArmChairGeneral]

Re: Cav (Long, and not necessarily related to the OP's question directly)

Only one cav element is necessary for 5 detection for your stack. (Detection is based on the highest detection in the stack, conscript cav only have 4 detection, so if your only cav is a conscript you will have a 4 detection.) Hide, the opposite of Detection, is based on the lowest value in the stack. A division will almost always have a low Hide from the infantry and/or artillery. If the stack uses 4 or less CPs (a "small stack") then it gets a bonus to Hide, and weather and terrain have effects too, but the bottom line is that extra cav do not make you less detectable unless you have six elements and use one of the cavalry cards on it. (Also, this makes the Balloon's detection bonus almost meaningless, since virtually every stack you would put a balloon in already has a cav element in it somewhere.)

However, Patrol opposes Evasion. These stats represent the ability of a formation to force a battle or avoid a battle in a region with an enemy stack. Unlike the Detection/Hide mechanic which is based on the max and min numbers, the Patrol/Evasion numbers are (subject to weird algorithms) essentially cumulative, so having more cav in the stack (loose or combined in divisions) both helps force weak stacks to battle as well as evade disadvantageous battles.

Cav perform pretty well in combat WHEN MIXED WITH INFANTRY in a division. Infantry elements are targeted first when allocating hits to a unit, so cav get a bit of protection from the infantry meat shield. Also, since a large portion of every battle occurs at assault range (not to be confused with the Red Assault order button) and cav are weak in assault phase, it is important to have some infantry to stand-in and do the close fighting: infantry tear up cav at 0 range. In a Cav-only division all of the hits go to cav elements, which are considerably more expensive to replace than infantry hits. Overall, with infantry mixed in you will take slightly fewer hits, inflict slightly more, and the hits you take will be cheaper to replace (since a lot of them will go to infantry elements) when compared to an all cavalry division. Cav officers give a MAJOR boost to the combat abilities of cav elements in their unit. A division commanded by a cav officer that has eight or nine cav mixed with some infantry and artillery outperforms most other reasonable division compositions head-to-head.

Loose cav elements get destroyed a lot in battles with divisions in them; I always combine them into some type of division before engaging. (This holds true for any loose combat elements, not just cav.) Army stacks sometimes don't participate in battles depending on the set-up, so loose cav at the Army level are less vulnerable to this phenomenon (but not contributing much beyond detection to the Army stack either).

When the enemy retreats, the number of friendly cav elements in the battle determines pursuit damage (shown in the message log as "[Whatever stack] retreated from battle in [region] taking XX hits") and the more you have the more damage you do. In the Corps vs. Corps Testbed I was regularly inflicting 40 + pursuit hits when I had a dozen cav spread throughout the Corps stack. I am not sure of the exact mechanic, but I believe every cav element that participated in battle gets counted for pursuit. If you are the retreater, your cav reduce the number of pursuit hits you take.

Typically I try to use the cav that come attached to brigades for my division cavalry, saving the cav that I buy individually for scouting. When I have loose cav in a region that is about to see a battle I just throw them all into one division (with some infantry) so that they are easy to split back off later without having to unzip every division in the Corps. I shoot for 10ish cav elements in a Corps sized stack and deal a lot of pursuit hits when I win battles. 2-4 cav per division seems about right to me for most purposes, but in cases where other players would use an all-Cav division in a Corps stack, mine will include several elements of infantry.

Re: 6lbers

Your analysis is dead-on Bismarck1940, but especially if you are the CSA, you end up having to use them anyway and just live with the disadvantage. Another bummer about 6lbers in brigades is that they never auto-upgrade to 12lbers later in the war like the individually built ones do. If I have a choice I avoid them for these reasons, but the disadvantages aren't necessarily worth the micromanaging. I do try to spread them out though, so that I don't have a division that ONLY has 6lbers in it, but again subject to how much I feel like micro-ing at the time.

[ArmChairGeneral]

OOPS, repeated post, sorry!


Re: Cav

Only 1 cav is necessary in a stack to achieve max detection (5). More cav do not help with Hide either, Hide is based on the lowest Hide value in the stack. Detection/Hide determines what you see on the map and how much intel you get.

The Patrol/Evade mechanic, OTOH determines how well a stack can force or evade battle. These values are cumulative (essentially) and so more cav in a stack DOES help you force a weak enemy into an actual battle AND helps you slip away without fighting when those are your orders (or you have a smaller force).

I like to have 2-4 cav in each division depending on what is convenient and what brigades I have on hand. Any cav I build independently are too valuable as scouts to waste combined in a division (for the most part) so the division cav come from the cav-containing mixed brigades.

Loose elements of any kind are always vulnerable to being targeted by an enemy division and destroyed outright, so I never leave loose cav (or sharpshooters or whatever) in any stack that might see a major combat if I can help it.

100% cav divisions underperform in combat compared to ones with at least some infantry mixed in, and the hits it takes all require expensive cav replacements. Unless I am planning on operating a cav division independently and want it to be fast or stealthy, I tend to build one or two "cav-heavy" divisions and give them a Cavalryman as leader. A division with a Cavalryman as leader, eight or nine cav, and the rest infantry and artillery outperforms just about every other common division composition head-to-head. (The cavalryman bonus is HUGE, the single most combat-relevant leader ability in the game, but I would still want some infantry for assault phase performance and for the meat shield effect.)

Re: 6lbers

You are dead on, Bismarck, but the disadvantage is small and so I don't always spend the time to micro-manage that. The intrinsic 6's don't upgrade to 12's later in the war like the loose 6lbers do, which is another good reason to avoid them. As the CSA you don't always have much choice though, and you just have to live with the fact that you have more 6's than you would want.

[Captain_Orso]

8<

Re: 6lbers

Your analysis is dead-on Bismarck1940, but especially if you are the CSA, you end up having to use them anyway and just live with the disadvantage. Another bummer about 6lbers in brigades is that they never auto-upgrade to 12lbers later in the war like the individually built ones do. If I have a choice I avoid them for these reasons, but the disadvantages aren't necessarily worth the micromanaging. I do try to spread them out though, so that I don't have a division that ONLY has 6lbers in it, but again subject to how much I feel like micro-ing at the time.

This is incorrect. All 6 lb-ers can upgrade. The event look only for 6 lb-er elements to upgrade and doesn't consider whether they are in a division, brigade or what ever.

[ArmChairGeneral]

This is incorrect. All 6 lb-ers can upgrade. The event look only for 6 lb-er elements to upgrade and doesn't consider whether they are in a division, brigade or what ever.

I was relying on received wisdom from this post by Ace:

Only for dedicated artillery units cannons. 6lbs inside inf brigades do not upgrade

The original thread ishere, this is from post #5.

My two most reliable sources (you and Ace) disagree on this subject, so now I don't know what to think. I have never observed one of these upgrades occurring, but there are a lot of 6lbers in most games, so they disappear into the background, and I haven't ever specifically looked for it.

[Captain_Orso]

Well, there's only one thing left to do ...









That being said the events doing the upgrading are in ..\CW2\Events\Various Events.sct and are named evt_nam_USA_6lbArtillery_upgrade1, -2 and -3 for the Union and evt_nam_CSA_6lbArtillery_upgrade for the CS.

For example:

Code: Select all

SelectFaction = USA
SelectRegion = $Prince_George_MD
StartEvent = evt_nam_USA_6lbArtillery_upgrade3|999|0|NULL|NULL|$Prince_George_MD|NULL

Conditions
  MinDate = 1864/01/01
  MaxDate = 1865/12/31

Actions
  SelectSubUnits = Models $mdl_USA_Art1
  AlterCuSubUnit = ApplyToList;probability 17;Model $mdl_USA_Art2;ChgCohesion 5

EndEvent


The events run every turn

Code: Select all

StartEvent = evt_nam_USA_6lbArtillery_upgrade3|[B][U]999[/U][/B]|0|NULL|NULL|$Prince_George_MD|NULL

within their own time frame

Code: Select all

Conditions
  MinDate = 1864/01/01
  MaxDate = 1865/12/31

and select ALL 6lb-er batteries as SubUnits

Code: Select all

SelectSubUnits = Models $mdl_USA_Art1

and change

Code: Select all

AlterCuSubUnit = ApplyToList;

a percentage

Code: Select all

probability 17;

of them to 12lb-ers

Code: Select all

Model $mdl_USA_Art2;

and since the 12lb-ers have a slightly higher max-cohesion their current cohesion is also lowered by 5 points

Code: Select all

ChgCohesion 5

and there you have it.

[khbynum]

A most interesting analysis, ArmChairGeneral. The trend in the war was to group cavalry into cavalry-only units. CSA did it from the start, but driven by leaders like Pleasonton and Sheridan the Union eventually followed. After a lot of study, I've concluded that trend was a mistake. It resulted in some spectacular cavalry battles, some railroads that didn't stay broken very long and some improbable successes (Cold Harbor, Selma), but took cavalry away from the real function of screening and recon (Gettysburg campaign). Subsequent wars in Europe (Austro-Prussian, Franco-German) only reinforce that conclusion. I apologize if I seem didactic, but I approach the game as a simulation. I know everyone here has studied the war.

Forming large mixed cavalry/infantry divisions is very ahistorical, except perhaps in the Trans-Mississippi (?). Do you advocate not putting brigade-sized cavalry units at corps level? Would cavalry at that level not contribute to patrol/evasion? Or the same detection value that it would give if incorporated into divisions of that corps? I'm really loath to waste slots in an infantry division with cavalry if I don't have to.

[ArmChairGeneral]

(Long Post)

As far as historicity goes, I am no expert. Although I know more about the Civil War than 99% of people in the United States, I would probably put myself in the bottom 10% of the people on this board (you will notice that I don't post in the History forum, although I read it). Call it a Ken Burns level of historical knowledge. Consequently I tend toward less historicity in my games and play with the rules as given without much thought as to how well they reflect what actually happened. I am also a min-maxer, but a lazy one: If I am thinking about it or if I am taking my time I eke out every advantage allowed by the rules, but a lot of times I just don't bother. The time it takes to min-max acts as a limit on how much I abuse the system in practice, and I think that by design or not the way the game is set up lets us all play with the style we are most comfortable with. (I would switch out my Corp commanders if I had any spare ones for example, but since I play CSA it doesn't come up since I don't have enough for a carousel.)

So, from that perspective, cavalry:

The most important thing to know about the combat engine is that units target units, and they fight against each other for an entire phase. A unit is anything that has its own painting in the panel at the bottom of the screen when you click on a stack; in the battle report each unit has its own line. A division is a unit, a loose brigade is a unit, a single cav element sitting at the stack level is a unit. The reason I never leave single elements or brigades in a stack going into combat is because it is entirely possible that they will be selected by the engine to engage a full sized division for a round of combat. There is a smoothing out function in the engine that prevents a single element from randomly taking all the hits applied to the unit that round, so the more elements that a unit has, the more survivable each individual element is. A loose brigade or element in a stack during battle it doesn't have a lot of comrades to spread hits to, so they are concentrated on only a few elements, and can easily take enough hits to destroy elements which is how you lose VP and NM. Therefore, I always combine everything I can into divisions before a battle, even if it leaves a division in a suboptimal configuration.

In terms of Detect/Hide and Patrol/Evade, the location of the cavalry within the stack does not matter, only that they are IN the stack. So if you had the Laurel Brigade (a five element CSA Cav brigade) loose at the stack level, the stack would definitely gain every Detection, Patrol and (as far as I can tell) Pursuit benefit that you are entitled to from the cav. BUT, if you go into combat, and the brigade is engaged, it will be in much greater danger of losing elements, and be less effective in dealing hits to the enemy than if it were combined into a division (unless it happens to engage another loose brigade, but in practice, you will be facing divisions). Single element units get destroyed all the time this way once division formation is allowed. One place you can see this is during Assaults (the order, rather than the phase). You have a small division in the structure and one or two locked militia elements that cannot be combined into the division. Even though you win the battle without too much trouble, in the battle report afterward you can see that those lone militia are almost always destroyed: they counted as units and were targeted by an enemy division which was easily able to deal enough hits to wipe them out.

So, no, I don't advocate putting those cav brigades at the corps level, I would combine them into a division of some type to increase their survivability and effectiveness in battle. You get all the benefits to Detection, Patrol, etc. for less risk.

That being said, the Cav brigades are extremely valuable in their own right, but for an unrelated reason. I don't know about the Union force pool because I don't play as the Union, but as the CSA we do not get to build any, we only get them from scripts. If you look carefully you will see that many of them only require 0 or 1 command point despite the fact that they have between two and six elements in them. This makes them VERY useful as scouts, and I tend not to put them in combat situations because they cannot be rebuilt if they are completely destroyed. The Laurel Brigade, on the other hand requires 4 CP, so I always put it into a division somewhere.

I make two kinds of "Cav" divisions. The first is a 100% cav or Cav/HA division that I use to scout in the East or late-game-Midwest. It is not good in combat (it needs infantry) but is large enough to survive accidental contact with an enemy stack and is still fast and relatively stealthy. There isn't that much call for scouting in the East (as the CSA) because everything is close anyway, so I don't always have one of these. The second is a "mop up" division that includes 5 or 6 infantry and some rifled guns (because it will always need to be in attack posture where smoothbores are less effective). This is what I use to clean up enemy stacks that are retreating, low on cohesion and out of supply. They have enough Patrol to force the battle, have enough infantry to absorb hits and go toe-to-toe in the Range 0 phases, and then do a lot of pursuit hits when they win. 100% cav divisions just take WAY too many (expensive) hits when used in this role.

I don't always have either type formed up depending on what is going on, I just form them as needed. The nice thing about a "mop up" division is that it can be formed with two or three infantry-cav brigades, the Laurel Brigade (which needs to go into a division anyway) and some 10lbers and then left alone for the rest of the game: with a cav leader it is really effective in Corps vs Corps combat, and is easily detached and sent off on clean-up missions when needed. If you need to do some scouting with it you can always strip out the artillery and the infantry brigades, add in a couple of independent cav elements and away you go. I use a setup similar to this in MO but with Mounted Infantry rather than vanilla infantry to hunt down those stray brigades Athena always leaves wandering around (minipol originally suggested that, it works great).

[ArmChairGeneral]

Thanks Captain_Orso!

(Does the 17 probability mean 17% or 1.7%?)

[Captain_Orso]

thanks captain_orso!

(does the 17 probability mean 17% or 1.7%?)

17%

Per the events:
[TABLE="class: grid, width: 600, align: left"]
[TR]
[TD]Faction
[/TD]
[TD]From Date
[/TD]
[TD]Until Date
[/TD]
[TD]Probability
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Union
[/TD]
[TD]'61-Jan-01
[/TD]
[TD]'62-Dec-31
[/TD]
[TD]12%
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Union
[/TD]
[TD]'63-Jan-01
[/TD]
[TD]'63-Jan-31
[/TD]
[TD]15%
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Union
[/TD]
[TD]'64-Jan-01
[/TD]
[TD]'65-Jan-31
[/TD]
[TD]17%
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Confederacy
[/TD]
[TD]'62-Jan-01
[/TD]
[TD]'65-Jan-31
[/TD]
[TD]4%
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

[khbynum]

Thank you, ArmChairGeneral, for an insightful analysis. I'm definitely not a min-maxer, preferring to play on the basis of general historical principles "like they did it back then". On the other hand, I don't think they always did it right back then. This game is flexible enough to allow historically reasonable experimentation, although I draw the line at carousel corps commanders. I'm leery of mixing infantry into a cavalry division, since it robs cavalry of its best asset, speed. Combined arms divisions, eh? Very interesting. With enough cavalry I could build a whole army like that...

You explanation of units and targeting should be required reading. I've seen small units get creamed while the division they were stacked with goes unscathed, without realizing what I was seeing. I appreciate you taking the time to enlighten me

[Gray Fox]

C-SPAN had an excellent show about cavalry in the Civil War last weekend (part of their no less excellent on-going series about the CW). After 1863, cavalry units were basically mounted infantry. The CSA cavalry were using captured Union equipment, so both sides had access to breach-loading, rapid fire rifles. Thus, instead of being mounted "easy" targets, the dismounted cavalryman could loose a great volume of fire while prone. Perhaps the game should convert cavalry to expert infantry after 1863? Then cavalry Divisions and Corps would make sense.

[FelixZ]

Captain Orso is correct that the 6lb-er upgrade code exists. However the game (through 1.04/RC4) does not call the upgrade routines. Upgrades did occur in AACW1, but I have never had a alb-er upgrade in CW2.

Question - has anyone ever had a 6lb-er upgrade to 12lb-er in CW2? If so what version/build were you using?

[tripax]

Aha, I think you've found it. In AACW, 6 lb artillery used models $mdl_USA_Art1 and $mdl_CSA_Art1 for the USA and CSA. IN CW2, they use $mdl_CMN_Art1Exp for the USA and $mdl_CMN_Art1 for the CSA. This is so that they can be captured and used by the other side. I'll bet if the events file is updated, then the artillery will upgrade again (do we need to suggest it in the suggestions forum?).

[FelixZ]

Aha, I think you've found it. In AACW, 6 lb artillery used models $mdl_USA_Art1 and $mdl_CSA_Art1 for the USA and CSA. IN CW2, they use $mdl_CMN_Art1Exp for the USA and $mdl_CMN_Art1 for the CSA. This is so that they can be captured and used by the other side. I'll bet if the events file is updated, then the artillery will upgrade again (do we need to suggest it in the suggestions forum?).

Does this help explain why there are two artillery versions for replacements?

Does anyone have an explanation for the two types of artillery replacements?

[FelixZ]

As Captain Orso pointed out, the event to upgrade USA 6lb artillery is looking for $mdl_USA_Art1.

Aa an example a New York Brigade composed of 2 infantry and 1 artillery has a 6lb battery using type $mdl_CMN_Art1Exp.

Probably means that all USA 6lb artillery are type $mdl_CMN_Art1Exp. But the event is looking for $mdl_USA_Art1.

Does explain the lack of upgrades.

Note: Cavalry does upgrade from Early to Late.

[Captain_Orso]

That deserves a great big

Yes, that is exactly the issue.

I hadn't even been keeping track of the imbedded 6lb-ers

Here's to you's guy'ses diligent digging

[Stonewall]

Does this help explain why there are two artillery versions for replacements?

Does anyone have an explanation for the two types of artillery replacements?

It looks like an inconsistency on AGEOD's part for how to handle artillery replacements.

The CMN_Art1 used by the CSA is the model for a 4 gun battery.
The CMN_Art1Exp used by the USA is the model for a 6 gun battery.

These CMN models are used as templates for the specific USA and CSA models.

The same holds true as you change gun types. The "Exp" designation ostensibly denotes an "expanded" battery. As such, CMN_Art# is the model for a 4 gun battery (used as the template for all CSA artillery models) and CMN_Art#Exp is the model for a 6 gun battery (used as the template for all USA artillery models).

If you look through the unit files, almost every single unit in the game that utilizes artillery, uses the CMN model. They do NOT use the faction specific USA/CSA model. This means that any artillery element that is built in game can only take replacements from either the CMN replacement pool. The only artillery units that use faction specific models are the generic (no State in the unit name) ones. There are very few of these.

Where the artillery events are going wrong (and all of them go wrong as there are never any artillery upgrades - no 6lb -> 12lb upgrade and no 12lb -> 20lb upgrade) is that they are checking for faction specific artillery models, but none exist in game because the CMN models are built because they are used by the unit files. As a result, no artillery every gets upgraded.

So, the event is looking for USA_Art1 when it should be looking for CMN_Art1Exp. This is even though USA_Art1 uses the CMN_Art1Exp model as a template.

The solution is to either modify all of the unit files to reference faction specific units, which means that you can no longer repair captured units as they are not CMN models anymore and you can't build opposing faction replacements. Or you can change the event to reflect the CMN model it looks for and reflect the CMN model it replaces with.

I hope that all makes sense.

If anyone wants the corrected events file, I've attached it. It checks for the correct CMN models and replaces with the correct CMN models.

[ATTACH]29721[/ATTACH]

[Captain_Orso]

The reason the common model is used instead of the original is so that if one is captured it can be put into a division. It was a kind of quick-fix.

None of the current units in the game use their actual factions artillery models because of this.

That the Confederate battery has only 4 cannons while the Union battery has 6 is for historical purposes.

The 12lb-er to 20 lb-er upgrades are turned off. I'm not sure exactly why that was done, but it was like that in AACW for a long time already.

What you've written Stonewall is very clear . The only part you were really off on is why the common models are being used.