Union Army Size

[jscott991]

I've read a bunch of AARs and reviews trying to figure out if I should buy this game.

In many of the older ones (including an early AAR on Armchair General), lots of comments were made that the Union Army wasn't big enough vis a vis the CSA's in 1861 and 1862.

There's a great AAR by two new players that delves into this issue repeatedly ("You Are All Green Alike", http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?32938-quot-You-are-all-Green-Alike-quot-PBEM-Game-Q-Ball-%28CSA%29-v-Michael-T-%28USA%29). They conclude that the game is unbalanced in favor of the CSA, particularly during the early turns.

Because some of these AARs predate a lot of the latest patch work, I was wondering if this problem was ever solved.

Does the Union enjoy about a 2-1 advantage as fast as it did historically? For example, Grant almost always had a 3-2 or 2-1 advantage out west and McClellan certainly enjoyed it on the Peninsula and at Antietam.

I've seen a lot of information showing a 109 balance of forces or something similar in mid-1862 and that is a little disturbing to me.

Thanks.

[Mickey3D]

I think the balance is better with the latest patch. Maybe you won't have the historical ratio (at the same time you don't have the same historical constraints that were forcing Union to keep troops to guard railroads and depots) but the game is better at showing that initially the South was able of offensive action and, as the war goes on, the Union get the numerical advantage and the CSA must stay on the defensive.

[Mickey3D]

Also, don't forget that the power of a stack is not representing the actual number of soldiers. E.g. put Lee in command of a stack and this will increase by 25% its power.

[jscott991]

Stack power makes sense to me, but I'm wondering more about just the raw numbers of troops.

If the game has things at 1-1 much later than mid-1861, then something is wrong. Even Forge of Freedom, which is pretty ahistorical in most respects, gets this simple relative balance of forces correct.

If the game isn't handling the Union's manpower advantage correctly (it should be pretty close to 2-1 by 1862), is it easy to mod the files to make this happen?

Because I'm obsessed with 1862 (being a McClellan-phile), I don't think I could invest time in a game that fudges the numbers to keep the CSA competitive early in terms of raw numbers of troops.

[tripax]

I've thought a lot about this question (balance of armies early in the game). I'm working on a mod (on hold right now because I'm busy this summer) which tries to make initial forces slightly more historically accurate (which is like improving on the wheel), and one thing I've thought about is this balance. Here are two problems I've come up with.

First, if I add units by event to keep the historical balance, then it would be a bit too easy for the Union. Early in the real war, I think, the Union had a lot of conflicting goals and was unable to concentrate its forces as much as it did later in the war. Also, the union didn't know it had such a manpower advantage (or at least individual generals didn't know they had such an advantage), and thus were very conservative. When playing the game, if I knew I had a 2:1 or better advantage in Virginia if I combine Mansfield, McClellan, and McDowell, I'd do concentrate and probably waltz through the Confederacy into Richmond (Gray Fox seems to do this against Athena, anyway). For replay-ability, I'd rather not have this advantage.

The second is that the game is build on an ahistorical economic system that allows both sides to build nearly every regiment that fought in the real war by the end of 1864 if they are smart. This is fun, and it is nice that the player mostly gets to do this themselves, rather than the units being created mostly by event. The economic system gives a fairly linear growth for the two armies (Maybe its a bit sigmoidal with the Union tapering off only very late in the game if at all). In reality, the bulk of growth of new regiments occurred before 1864, I think, with replacements playing a larger role afterwards. In the game, the economic system and the relationship between that system and the size of the armies is not very historical, but feels plausible and realistic to me. The system allows for army growth and balancing in a satisfying way, in spite of its simplicity. I don't think I could make a better economic system and don't plan to change it much if at all in my mod.

[tripax]

Even Forge of Freedom, which is pretty ahistorical in most respects, gets this simple relative balance of forces correct.

In FoF, how does the game prevent the Union from quickly overpowering the South, then?

[jscott991]

I'd rather have an advantage that is historically accurate than play something that fudges history and ends up being just a wargame with blue and grey colored units rather than something that feels like the Civil War.

If the CSA is maintaining parity as late as the AARs suggest, then I've "wasted" a lot of time doing research on this game.

Maybe Grigsby will do a sequel that actually lets you organize and create units.

[jscott991]

In FoF, how does the game prevent the Union from quickly overpowering the South, then?

In both FoF and Grigsby, the Union enjoys pretty accurate numbers of troops vis a vis the CSA, but the South's generals and troop training advantages help to cancel this out. It's not a hard mechanic to simulate and is par for the course in any Civil War game that isn't just a total abstraction.

[tripax]

To be clear, I'm asking because I want to improve this game/understand the games shortcomings, not because I want to convince you of anything.

Anyway, I'm not sure, but is that the right mechanic to simulate? The advantage in early Generals is pretty well modelled in this game (as well with a slight infantry advantage, I think). I don't think the South won very many battles while fighting at a 2:1 disadvantage (both sides won a couple like this, I'm sure), training and generalship wouldn't overcome that very often. Ideally, the mechanic to simulate seems to be the inability of the Union to concentrate. To do this, the union in the game would have to see ghosts. In this game, this is simulated by the Union having less informative view of nearby Confederate forces. I don't think the North's numeric advantage overall meant the North had such an advantage in many early battles (Bull Run, Wilson's Creek, Shiloh). In FoF and Grigsby, if you refight Manassas, what is to stop you from sending 50,000 men as Union?

By the way, in my mod, every regiment in Bull Run and Wilson's Creek (and most regiments in Shiloh) arrive by event. In the base game, it is pretty close.

[ArmChairGeneral]

If the game has things at 1-1 much later than mid-1861, then something is wrong. Even Forge of Freedom, which is pretty ahistorical in most respects, gets this simple relative balance of forces correct.

If the game isn't handling the Union's manpower advantage correctly (it should be pretty close to 2-1 by 1862), is it easy to mod the files to make this happen?

You can get your 2-1 advantage (although it takes a commitment to doing so) but that is based on your decisions as a player. You are constrained by $, War Supply and conscripts. If you choose to purchase a larger navy than was built historically, for example,you will consequently have fewer men. If you suffer defeats in battle, you will have less men available (since they are dead), and the economic engine reflects the difficulty in convincing new volunteers to sign up for a losing war....

As tripax and others have pointed out, historically the Union had to use a significant fraction of its forces to garrison areas to the rear of the fighting and protect supply lines. Though there is some back-line garrisoning in-game, this is largely abstracted, so the "raw" numbers showing in the game do not necessarily match up to the raw historical numbers, but in terms of simulation quality the Union feels about right. That being said, the troops don't just appear automatically, it is up to you to manage your resources and make the appropriate trade-offs to build the force you think you will need.

The game balance is just about right in my opinion. It would be a pretty boring game if the Union just steamrolled the CSA with their built-in numbers advantage every time. They HAVE an advantage in numbers, and it generally reflects the actual strategic situation, but the Union player is required to put effort into achieving and taking advantage of it. With good play, you can find yourself with a larger than 2-1 advantage by 1864.

Also, you may be referring to a different AAR, mine was just a test-bed to figure out how the combat engine works in large Corps vs Corps battles. All the stuff in my AAR was put together in a sandbox to test the combat engine and is not reflective of actual gameplay.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Seriously, though, just based on your posts you sound like the kind of person who is going to love this game! It is not a perfect simulation (nothing is) but it is far and away the best game about the Civil War. AACW is good too, and the manpower balance is not that different from the current iteration of CW2, so if you like AACW, take the plunge, CW2 is better. The AI is WAY better than other civil war games and the level of detail and decision making required is awesome. It is much more immersive than Forge of Freedom was and requires better decision making on the part of the player.

[jscott991]

Seriously, though, just based on your posts you sound like the kind of person who is going to love this game!

I probably would.

But I honestly can't make any sense out of the first one, which I already own. The learning curve is significantly higher because of a clunky interface than Forge of Freedom, Grigsby, Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron, and almost anything else I've ever played.

I've been trying the 1862 scenario in the original game over and over and I can't even figure out how to begin launching the Peninsula Campaign. There don't seem to be enough transports to do it (the ones in Anne Arundel can barely move one corps and because they are in a different region, I can't figure how to even load troops on them).

It's just too inaccessible. The AARs provide flavor and the tutorials show a few things, but there's just nothing making actually playing a full turn transparent at all.

Also, I'm wary of even getting to far into it if the war is abstracted to make the Union too weak so the CSA isn't steamrolled in 1862. McClellan's and Halleck's forces were enormous and the CSA survived by luck, better generalship, and awkward logistics. It didn't survive because it had numerical parity. I don't want a game that doesn't accurately show that the CSA was heavily outnumbered from late 1861 on.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Ah, yes, it does have a very steep learning curve. At the risk of advocating purchasing a third game, Wars in America (the Revolutionary War title) has a less complex command structure and supply system but uses the same basic interface and mechanics as all AGEOD games. Learning how to move and fight is quicker in that game since there is less going on to confuse and distract you. (Alea Jacta Est/Birth of Rome is good too, it plays very quickly.) Nonetheless, hang in there; search the forums, check out the AACW wikis (much of which still applies to CW2, they aren't that different in terms of what you need to know) ask questions here, and keep playing. You WILL get the hang of it, we were all once in your shoes.

At the risk of repeating myself from other threads, consider starting with the West Scenario (the AACW version of that scenario is similar to the CW2 one). Your objectives are more clear and focused, there are not as many tactical pitfalls for the Union as in Virginia, there are fewer stacks to figure out what to do with, the turns go by faster, and you can climb the learning curve more quickly.

One thing to consider is that it is not always best to play historically. Do you really want to repeat the mistakes of the first half of the war? Also, the AI reacts pretty well to obvious stuff like Peninsular aggression.

If you are putting time into figuring out AACW you might as well play CW2, they have almost the same interface and the stuff new players have trouble with is the same in both games. When you have questions there is a more active set of players to ask about CW2 than AACW. Most of us played it, but our memories are being crowded out by CW2

You will not be successful on your first couple of play-throughs, in my experience, there is too much to learn all at once. Once you get the hang of it though, these games come into their own.

To load troops, you will either need to move the transports or the Corps into the same region (it must have a harbor or the transports can't reach it), then drag and drop the Corps onto the fleet in the unit panel at the bottom of the screen. If the weight of the Corps is too large they will not merge with the transports. A Corps is BIG, you may need to buy/scrounge up more transports, or make more than one trip if you are trying to make multiple-Corps amphibious landings. D-Day scale landings were not really feasible in the steam-age.... When you are adjacent to the region you want, drag the corps icon to the destination region, and they will land there on the next turn.

[charlesonmission]

I made a number of YouTube videos on the original and on the current game. For the original, I did the 1863 campaign, for the current, tutorials. If you haven't seen them, they could be helpful for you to learn and decide. There is a learning curve... but the more you play, the more you know.

www.youtube.com/charlesonmission

I probably would.

But I honestly can't make any sense out of the first one, which I already own. The learning curve is significantly higher because of a clunky interface than Forge of Freedom, Grigsby, Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron, and almost anything else I've ever played.

I've been trying the 1862 scenario in the original game over and over and I can't even figure out how to begin launching the Peninsula Campaign. There don't seem to be enough transports to do it (the ones in Anne Arundel can barely move one corps and because they are in a different region, I can't figure how to even load troops on them).

It's just too inaccessible. The AARs provide flavor and the tutorials show a few things, but there's just nothing making actually playing a full turn transparent at all.

Also, I'm wary of even getting to far into it if the war is abstracted to make the Union too weak so the CSA isn't steamrolled in 1862. McClellan's and Halleck's forces were enormous and the CSA survived by luck, better generalship, and awkward logistics. It didn't survive because it had numerical parity. I don't want a game that doesn't accurately show that the CSA was heavily outnumbered from late 1861 on.

[jscott991]

I've watched some of the CW2 ones. They are helpful, but sadly I don't have a lot of time to watch videos. It's much faster to read.

I'm going to post another thread in the old forum on the Peninsula Campaign. I think you can'd do it as the scenario is set up. There aren't enough transports to do more than 1 corps a turn (and you can't even do that, from what I can see, until the second turn).

There doesn't seem to be a way to move a unit to a region with transports, load them on transports, have the transports disembark the troops, and then for the transports to come back to the original port.

You have to start the turn in the same region as the transports, load, and then sail and disembark. The ships then stay in that region, meaning on the next turn they have to sail back. Then on the third turn they can take the second load.

All of this despite the fact the entire voyage takes 6 days. Or the rail movement to get to the transports only 2 days.

So to complete the Peninsular movement would take something like 9 to 11 turns depending on how many corps you take. That's over 4 months!

And I realize the Peninsula Campaign isn't brilliant, but I can't imagine playing a Civil War game where I didn't attempt it.

[ArmChairGeneral]

There is not a combo move that lets you do all of those things on the same move. (Moving troops on and off of boats is very difficult in actual practice, the game reflects this.) There are a couple of shortcuts, tricks and workarounds you will discover when playing around with transports and loading/unloading, but your understanding is basically correct. You cannot delay movement: your orders begin at the beginning of the interturn resolution no matter how much you would like that transport to wait in port four days for the troops to arrive and load. Units execute the orders you give them on day one. This principle makes coordination of land force movement tricky as well.

Harbors are important. Transit times are reduced for all water movement in and out of harbors, and since transports can enter the land region at the harbor, troop loading/unloading can happen quickly and with less cohesion loss than when landing from sea. Capturing a harbor with a small initial force can allow you to bring in large numbers of troops quickly (by making the transport fleet's round trip and loading/unloading process faster and more efficient).

You could try transporting your troops to Ft. Monroe first and staging the attack from there. Using riverine movement, units in Ft. Monroe can reach coastal Virginia regions without the loading/unloading hassle of transports. It takes many days to make these crossings, so you arrive with cohesion loss and suffer amphibious combat penalties, so try moving to an unoccupied region so the troops have time to regroup before facing the enemy.

In many games ships transporting troops are unrealistically effective (I'm looking at your Crusader Kings!). This is not the case in AGEOD games, where it is tricky, time consuming (both in game time and player attention) and requires close attention to detail to make work.

Once you get them there, it is time to worry about your supply lines. If you are in a harbor you have access to the Sea Transport pool for supplies, but you will need to bring many wagons (they are heavy) and should probably look to secure a good spot for building a depot, or those Corps will quickly starve.

A more meta suggestion I might make is that compared to other war-games it is a good idea to slow down when playing AGEOD games. It has a very realistic model of the limits in moving large bodies of troops and keeping them in fighting order. You can be penalized heavily for trying to do too much too quickly in these games, and lightning attacks and wild maneuvering quickly wears you out and overextends you.

[caranorn]

Does the Union enjoy about a 2-1 advantage as fast as it did historically? For example, Grant almost always had a 3-2 or 2-1 advantage out west and McClellan certainly enjoyed it on the Peninsula and at Antietam.

I'd rather think Grant and what would be Johnston's command were pretty balanced prior to the fall of Fort Donelson. The only reason this was not more apparent is that the Confederates had a less unified command structure and were operating dispersed. Now were one to add Buell's Army this would again lead to a clearer Union advantage. As to McClellan, of course he had a great numerical advantage, if one were to add Pope's Army this would be even larger, even considering Confederate Reserves around Richmond and co. So yes, sometime in 1862 a clear numerical advantage appered in favour of the Union, but not necessarily in all theaters of operation. Before that both sides were not so disparate...

[Gray Fox]

I gave every boost possible to the CSA so that Athenazilla had an overall force of 109% of mine...when I won as the Union in 1863. You don't want or need an overall 2-1 superiority. You just need a superior force at the point of attack. Use maneuver and pick the terrain for your battle.

Besides, there's a game mechanic called frontage. If your Union stack has 200 regiments of infantry and 100 batteries of artillery and you attack a rebel force of 30 infantry and 10 batteries in a mountain pass, guess what? You actually attack with a force of 30 infantry and 10 batteries because the terrain creates a bottleneck. If the rebs are entrenched, they'll probably rout your first wave, and the next until your whole army runs off to the Arctic circle.

As to a peninsula campaign, I sea-lifted 11 Divisions in two Corps and an Army to NC in one turn. It's sort of in that AAR I mentioned. You have to build the transports and organize your forces. Everything works if you let it.

My Battalion Commander was trying to totally spell out something new to his troops and answer every possible question. I told him, "Sir, you're like the guy who is trying to explain French kissing to someone. Just let them do it a couple of times and they'll be fine."

Michael Jordan said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

I will gladly help you learn how to play this game, but you're going to have to drive it or park it.

[Captain_Orso]

About using transports, there's an app for... I mean, there's a way to do that .

Assuming you are starting with a large force in Washington with the transports:

1. Check the transport capacity of your transports. Each oceanic transport element has a capacity of 10, that is it can carry land units with a combined weight of 10 --tool-tip on the tab of a stack in the Unit Display will show you the weight of a land unit stack and the transport capacity of a naval unit stack--.
2. Put together a stack of units equal to the transport capacity of your transports. You will probably have to temporarily take corps apart, probably even a division or two, to do this. Not to worry, you can put them back together again in Fort Monroe or where ever.
3. Drag-n-Drop™ your land stack onto the transports fleet stack. Do this in the Unit Display dragging the land stack's tab onto the transports fleet tab. This is the easiest. Bingo, your land units are now embarked onto your transports[SUP]1[/SUP].
4. Now drag you loaded fleet onto Fort Monroe so that they will sail into the harbor.
5. Click the Distant Unload SO button and select the Fort Monroe region[SUP]2[/SUP]; the region will now blink dark blue.
6. Now select your fleet again --either by selecting the fleet stack in Washington or the end-waypoint in Fort Monroe--, hold the <Cntl> key pressed, and drag it back to Washington to plot that as its end of movement[SUP]3[/SUP].

Now your fleet will sail into Fort Monroe, drop off the land units being carried, and immediately sail back to Washington to be loaded-up gain the next turn. Depending on some luck there is a chance that if your fleet delays to sail too long, they will not be back in Washington at the end of the turn. About the only way to prevent this is to put your fleet under the command of a naval leader.

Also, if you need more transports, you can always borrow some from the Shipping and Blockade Boxes for a few turns --from the Shipping Box is probably preferable, because giving your blockade fleets supply-hiccups can be a bitch to alleviate, and taking transports out of the Shipping Box will only cost some money and WSU for a couple of turns.

Also2, it only takes like 2 turns to build a transport, if you want to go in that direction. Afterwards you can put then into the Shipping Box and earn some money with then until you need them again.

Hope this helps you with your dilemma

[SUP]1[/SUP] When you Drag-n-Drop*™ a corps commander onto transports, he will in game terms cease to be a corps commander. Ergo, in your case you must have McClellan in or near Fort Monroe to reinstate your corps commander when he arrives in Fort Monroe, or where ever. This does restrict the player somewhat unrealistically, but then again I can't think of any time when historically a corps was transported to a location so far away from it's army command that they had no semi-direct communications.

[SUP]2[/SUP] You will probably have to hide other units in or around the Fort Monroe region to do this. Press <Cntl><4> to hide all but the selected stack, make your move and press <Cntl><4> again to un-toggle hiding units.

[SUP]3[/SUP] Holding <Cntl> pressed while plotting a move allows you to plot moves that the game assistant would not plot. Otherwise if you plot to start and end a move in the same region, this is one method to cancel a move. If you don't want to cancel that move, hold <Cntl> pressed when dropping your stack into its starting region. This also works to force a move through regions the game assistant would not use --there are rate occasions where the game assistant would plot moving from region 'A to region 'C by moving through region 'B. If you absolutely don't want to move through region 'B use this method to plot moving directly from 'A to 'C.

[pgr]

I've read a bunch of AARs and reviews trying to figure out if I should buy this game.

In many of the older ones (including an early AAR on Armchair General), lots of comments were made that the Union Army wasn't big enough vis a vis the CSA's in 1861 and 1862.

There's a great AAR by two new players that delves into this issue repeatedly ("You Are All Green Alike", http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?32938-quot-You-are-all-Green-Alike-quot-PBEM-Game-Q-Ball-%28CSA%29-v-Michael-T-%28USA%29). They conclude that the game is unbalanced in favor of the CSA, particularly during the early turns.

Because some of these AARs predate a lot of the latest patch work, I was wondering if this problem was ever solved.

Does the Union enjoy about a 2-1 advantage as fast as it did historically? For example, Grant almost always had a 3-2 or 2-1 advantage out west and McClellan certainly enjoyed it on the Peninsula and at Antietam.

I've seen a lot of information showing a 109 balance of forces or something similar in mid-1862 and that is a little disturbing to me.

Thanks.

Oh I think you should buy the game! We need more PBEM folks!

I remember getting into a discussion about this very subject way back in February.

At the time, my main axe to grind was that the manpower pool was too low to build forces up to "historic levels" (And I used the November 1861 level of the AoP at 168,000 as a benchmark). With each patch though, the developers have been upping the number of conscripts, so it has been possible to pump up army sizes sooner.

As to the 2-1 design ratio, I actually feel that it is a pretty effective design choice. I think most people tend to over-estimate the on the field manpower advantage the Union enjoyed. Take the Battle of Shilo, April 1862, for example (a rather good example because both the Union and the CSA concentrated most of their available forces for the fight.) The USA fielded around 66,000 troops, while the CSA attacked with 44,000. That is less than 2-1. The first big battle of the Overland Campaign at the Wilderness, two years later, was fought with 100,000 troops against 60,000. Again 2-1 is the right kind of ball-park.

In addition, the 2-1 ratio is the case at the start of the game, but as time goes on the Union's manpower advantage will grow....particularly because the Emancipation decisions add greatly the the Union conscript pool.

So most of the early criticism was about the speed of mobilizing forces in the first year of the war, and each patch seems to be addressing the issue. I have never had a situation where forces were balanced in 1862.... except if the Union player had an exceptionally horrid first year and had a 2-1 loss rate.

[Mickey3D]

"Sir, you're like the guy who is trying to explain French kissing to someone. Just let them do it a couple of times and they'll be fine."

[Captain_Orso]

8<
My Battalion Commander was trying to totally spell out something new to his troops and answer every possible question. I told him, "Sir, you're like the guy who is trying to explain French kissing to someone. Just let them do it a couple of times and they'll be fine."
8<

I select Kate Upton for my training partner


Looks like she could use some proof of concept here

[jscott991]

Thank you everyone for the replies and feedback.

I'm going to keep focusing on playing the first game, unless people think the second is so much better or so different that would actually hinder my enjoyment.

I'm really bothered by the historical troop thing (Buell's army in the 1862 scenario in AACW is really, really off in terms of size; he's barely the size of a real life division, much less his actual army), but I'll trust people for now that it's not as far off as a lot of the AARs suggest.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Cpt. Orso,

I managed to make this work in CW2. (It is hard to target the distant unload order at coastal forts because the land region is so small, and the flashing blue is hard to see for the same reason, but it can be done.) You definitely have to use distant unload, they do not disembark automatically just from sailing in and out of the harbor. The hotkeys didn't work for me, I used <Shift> to override the "cancel move" behavior. <Cntrl><4> changed the map overlay. Where is a list of CW2 hotkeys located? It is useful to be able to hide all units and I can never remember what the correct key combination is.

[Edit] Maybe you were referencing AACW hotkeys, since that is what the OP is asking about....

[Gray Fox]

Well I have AACW and CW2 and I play CW2 (when I'm not in college). You're probably going to hear a lot of crickets over in the AACW forum. I did.

P.S. Mrs. Gray Fox is my training partner.

[Captain_Orso]

Thank you everyone for the replies and feedback.

I'm going to keep focusing on playing the first game, unless people think the second is so much better or so different that would actually hinder my enjoyment.

I'm really bothered by the historical troop thing (Buell's army in the 1862 scenario in AACW is really, really off in terms of size; he's barely the size of a real life division, much less his actual army), but I'll trust people for now that it's not as far off as a lot of the AARs suggest.

One thing you must realize, is that you are not given everything historically, nor should you be. If you want to give Buell the numbers he had historically, by all means do so, but you will have to build and move them yourself. Of course you are also able to give those troops to Grant, or Lyon, or even McClellan. The game provides an historical framework based mostly on historic events; when certain leaders started gaining prominence, when certain units were formed. The rest is up to you to do as you wish.

This is what makes the game so replayable. No two games I've played are alike, even if I tried to to do the same thing from one game to the next. If Athena or my opponent did something different or the results of a battle were different I soon had a different game, which caused me to change my plans. Over short or long, nothing looks like it did in the last game.

Cpt. Orso,

I managed to make this work in CW2. (It is hard to target the distant unload order at coastal forts because the land region is so small, and the flashing blue is hard to see for the same reason, but it can be done.) You definitely have to use distant unload, they do not disembark automatically just from sailing in and out of the harbor. The hotkeys didn't work for me, I used <Shift> to override the "cancel move" behavior. <Cntrl><4> changed the map overlay. Where is a list of CW2 hotkeys located? It is useful to be able to hide all units and I can never remember what the correct key combination is.

[Edit] Maybe you were referencing AACW hotkeys, since that is what the OP is asking about....

To be honest, I always have to try out whether it's <shift> or <cntl> . I think it's <cntl>, but generally those are some grips that I do and don't think about exactly what I'm doing.

[ArmChairGeneral]

I'm going to keep focusing on playing the first game, unless people think the second is so much better or so different that would actually hinder my enjoyment.

AACW is a great game, this is a reasonable choice. CW2 is very similar, but it is a more modern piece of software and adds a larger map and some other features to the game. I think the major advantage to going to CW2 is that you will be on the same page as the rest of the forums when it comes to asking for help. The initial frustrations you are having are the same as you will have in CW2, but once you are skilled at AACW you will have no trouble adapting to CW2, they are that similar. (For that matter, you will be able to adapt to WIA, AJE, RUS, etc. very quickly since they all work basically the same.)

Most people here seem to prefer to play the 1861 campaigns rather than the others, and if I recall correctly, the 1862 scenarios in CW2 come in the Bloody Roads South expansion rather than in the base game like with AACW. Most players didn't mind this, (though there was some resistance) since the 1861 starts are more popular and AGEOD is a boutique developer and cannot rely on selling millions of copies to pay the bills. Plus their games and expansions are really reasonably priced in the first place.

I opened up the 1862 scenario in Bloody Roads South, and I noticed a few things that you might want to consider (I am assuming that the CW2 and AACW versions are largely similar to each other).
First, the divisions and Corps as laid out are not the most efficient structure you could have. Most of the divisions are at partial strength and need to either be combined with each other or filled out with troop builds. Hooker was a division commander in the 3rd Corps at Alexandria. Second, the command structure is sub-optimal. I would spend the majority of my time on the first turn re-organizing everything to get it the way I wanted it. To do a Peninsular Campaign, move Butler's Annapolis force to Ft Monroe immediately using the distant unload order and plotting the transport back to DC on the same move. There you can pick up another 60 weight force on the next turn and ferry it to Monroe, repeating as necessary. You should be able to assemble a sizable force there by the third or fourth turn, ready to invade from Monroe sometime in the May-June timeframe.

(Sorry if this seems a bit disjointed, this conversation is currently spread across three different threads in two different forums and is getting confusing to keep track of.)

[jscott991]

The disjointed nature is my fault. The AACW forum is kind of dead and I didn't want to buy the CW2 without first trying to play the first one, but the learning curve, once again, took me by surprise.

In response to this by Capt_Orso: One thing you must realize, is that you are not given everything historically, nor should you be. If you want to give Buell the numbers he had historically, by all means do so, but you will have to build and move them yourself.

The 1862 scenario starts in March. There isn't time to build new troops to send to Buell to get his army strength up to its proper level. Buell is just horrendously understrength (so is Grant frankly; the numbers aren't close to right). Pope is also really, really small (he should have 20,000 men to assault Island 10). The scenario setup is just plain wrong.

[ArmChairGeneral]

The "manpower" numbers in this game are made up. The game engine operates based on elements that have between 15 and 20 hits (hearts in the battle report). It approximates manpower by saying each element is worth XXX number of men, depending on the type of element. It is set to ~600 men per element, but this number has no actual effect on gameplay, and if you want Pope's force to number 20,000 men, just open up the appropriate game file (ask which one it is in the modding forum) and scale the notional number of men per element to get the "manpower" results you expect.

The important thing is the RELATIVE size of these forces. Does the Union have approximately twice the number of regiments available as the CSA? If so, then the game is historically correct.

Does it? I haven't counted them up and compared them to historical records, but I am guessing probably not quite. You need to build and shuffle some of them yourself, and the CSA has to be a least a little stronger than in history or else this is a history textbook and not a game (i.e. unwinnable for the South, and boringly easy for the North). I would argue, however, that the challenges you face, and the decisions you must make, present a pretty darn accurate GAME model of what it would be like to have been a Commander in Chief during the war, but within the (reasonable IMO) constraints of needing to make it a game and not a documentary.

[jscott991]

Let's say the Union doesn't have enough men (it definitely doesn't in AACW).

Can this be fixed by a mod?