Most fun game so far as the CSA

[minipol]

Hi,


* warning * long post ahead. Skip to the end if you don't want to read it all.

Yesterday, I finished a game with the previous RC2 patch.
It was the most fun game I have ever had with the CSA.
I won a major victory in Early June (lieutenant level) 4500 vp vs 2800.
This with me promoting a bunch of generals which had a VP cost.
I just didn't have to care. I could have ended the war sooner but it was just to fun
to push the Union around.
I have won the war earlier on a lot of occasions, but this time, I didn't want it to end.
I ended up building loads of troops and artillery.

A short summary of my plans as the CSA. They were the same as always, but more details
turned out in my favor. I also played with randomized generals but that ended up not being
so fun. Lot's of generals with 0 or 1 strategic level. Turn after turn they didn't get activated
so I really couldn't do a lot with them.

[ATTACH]33600[/ATTACH]

1. East (VA, ...)
From the start, it's just fast offense followed by defense.
I went for Harpers Ferry, Manassas and Alexandria as soon as possible.
I formed my first 2 armies there and dug in.
I tried to use partisans and cavalry to disrupt depots and railing.
When my forces were getting stronger, I started attacking Gettysburg in order to be able to use my Plunder RGD for extra cash.
In the end, I was able to divert a corps and an army to York (depot) and use it to launch an attack on Baltimore.
I attacked Baltimore with posture orange/blue (offensive posture/conservative attack) to gain ground but not attack the dug in
troops immediately. I dug in, Athena diverted troops from Washington DC and got creamed.
Casualty rate 1:6. This was final straw, and the end of the game.

I kept 1 small corps to defend the area around New Market towards Covington.
Forces from Clarksburg were immediately retreated at the start of the game and used in Alexandria.
2 smaller forces were used to defend the line from Knoxville - New Market.

I gambled and tried early on (after the capture of Norfolk) to go for Ft. Monroe.
I used the starting fleet to keep the siege force supplied and built some extra ships but not much.
It was enough and after a long siege, I captured Ft. Monroe. From that moment on,
I really felt like I had money enough to pretty much do what I wanted.

I tried to build at least 1 Ironworks in 1861, another in 1862 and an arsenal.
I ended up using 2 IW, and about 4 arsenal/armory build options.

As you'll see, I had more than enough ** generals because of the early attacks I did.

Forces in the theater:
Siege of Baltimore:
- J. Longstreet (***) corps: 26.000 men, 3.500 horses, 63 cannons
Other ** generals in this corps: Theophilus H. Holmes, Ambrose Hill, John B. Hood.
- Army of Shenandoah under Joseph E. Johnston, 21.250 men, 5.500 horses, 102 cannons

Defense of Harpers Ferry (in reaction to the siege of Baltimore, Athena sent forces to the
only slightly defended HF. Good move by Athena.)
- J. Forney's Corps (**): 26.500 men, 4.500 horses, 99 canons
Other ** generals: Richard H. Anderson, B. Huger.

Defense of Alexandria (J. Forney was here also until the last turn):
- Army of Virginia under Lee: 38.500 men, 13.500 horses, 124 cannons
- Army of the Potomac under PGT Beauregard : 27.464 men, 4.500 horses, 127 cannons
Other ** generals: Thomas J. Jackson, Edward Johnson.
- Force inside Alexandria defenses: 5.000 men, 600 horses, 12 cannons.

Fort Monroe, 1 division and some garrison forces:
- 12.600 men, 3.600 Horses, 64 cannons
Fleet defending Ft. Monroe: 3 ironclads, 2 frigates, 1 steam frigate, 1 gunboat unit, 2 brig units and transports.
Most units I received in game except for a brig, the frigates and the transports.

Norfolk, 2 divisions and some garrison forces (build a redoubt there):
- 14.500 men, 1.800 horses, 47 cannons

3. Seaboard
I had smaller forces in Savannah and Charleston. Built a redoubt in NO. I had R. Taylor there
to train loads of militia. They were used to defend NO and once trained, I send them off to the front.
NO was defended by John C. Pemberton (***), 12.000 men, 700 horses, 28 cannon.
Some 10.000 militia men were in R. Taylors force waiting to be trained.

4. Kentucky.
Built forts/redoubt in Paducah and Cairo.
Paducah was defended by M.J. Thompson, 8.500 men, 2.000 horses, 8 cannons.
Cario had a smaller garrison.
Saint Louis garrison: Whiting 5.000 men, 12 cannons.
Saint Louis division: Taliaferro, 7.000 men, 1.300 horses, 23 cannons.

Just north of Quincy: Army of the Mississippi under Polk: 30.000 men, 12.000 horses, 133 cannons.
Other (**): P. Cleburn

Springfield: corps under Alexander P. Stewart: 20.000 men, 4.000 horses, 69 cannons.

Vincennes: corps under Bragg: 30.000 men, 10.500 horses, 87 cannons.
Other (**): Grant (!!), Nathan B. Forrest

New Albany: Army of Tennessee under Albert S. Johnston: 25.000 men, 7.500 horses, 104 cannons
Corps under E.K. Smith 10.500, 1.300 horses, 57 cannons.
Corps under B. Cheatham: 19.000, 5.000 horses, 63 cannons.

Smaller garrisons in Louisville, Munford, Bowling green and Nashville.

5. West
I destroyed the forts as much as possible and build depots up to Fort Smith.
Garrisons in Ft. Smith, Fayetville, Springfield.
Small divisions in Jefferson (5.000/624/8), Rolla (3.000), Mound City (3.500/2.000/29),
Lexington (2.700/24/8), Carrolton (2.500), Council bluffs (5.000/1.000/15),
Nebraska city (6.000/2.000/8), Lawrence (S. Price attacking west to Ft. Kearny 9.000, 2.500, 15).
I never built large corps here as there were no large scale attacks here from Athena.
This was in part because of the advantage I had in casualties inflicted.

The plan was to try to attack the line from Ft. Kearny to Denver with Price.
I had Stand Wattie (7.000/6.000/31) attacking towards Ft. Bascom to join J. Baylor in Santa Fe.
Baylor (11.000/7.000/60) attacked from Mesila. Garrison forces were still present in Mesilla and El Paso.
Tuscon was reinforced but only slightly (3.400/300).

A few of the arsenals and armories I built were in the Texas region and with depots in Mesilla and El Paso,
I had plenty of supply. No forts, no deep raids from the Union.
My plan here was to reach Denver and Golden City. I advanced very slow as I needed to monitor my supply.
I wonder if it's possible to take 2 division with supply wagons to Denver and the gold, and sustain them there
one the Union captures the regions around them again. I think not.

I used a lot of RGD (clearing/develop territory) to improve the roads from El Paso to Austin.
Still, it was already early June 1864, and still a lot of work to do.

Some stats at the end of the game:

Cash: 430 (+380 from cities, 28 from blockade runners)
Recruitment: 731 (+117 per turn, had volunteer & both draft options still left. Used them once around 1862)
WS: 3460 (+185 per turn, 185 from structures, 3 from blockade runners, some negatives from unit replacements and events)
Rail transport: 397 (more than full, was so for a few turns already)
Ship transport: 324 (more than full, was so for a few turns already)
FI: 35

CSA:
Morale: 163, VP: +65/turn (4.512 total). 179.184 casualties.

Union:
Morale: 57, VP: +38/turn (2803 total). 385.948 casualties.

I threw a lot of VP's away because of promotions.
My aim is always to try and create a 2:1 advantage in casualties inflicted as it slows down the Union a lot.
Together with Demonstrations, that works on the morale and production of the Union.
You have to start early with this, otherwise it won't work as well.

The union used some decisions to lower the FI, but I still ended up with 35.
In hindsight, seeing what numbers I had in production and casualties inflicted,
this number should have been higher.

Fleet: A couple of brigs in the Gulf Blockade (with 1 transport unit for supplies),
Shipping lanes: 2 steam frigates, and some transports
Atlantic blockade: 8 brig units, 2 transport units
I didn't seem to get money from the transports in the Shipping lanes, only supplies. Which is OK, but I thought
Gray Fox mentioned that they got money in. Didn't see that happening.

A couple of things that I noticed:

- As usual I built telegraphs in cities with the highest money production. Use F8 and click
on the dollar bill icon to sort them. Works great every time and once I had captured Ft. Monroe,
Richmond soared to place #1 with 73 cash, 34 WS. 2nd place NO 44 cash, 33 WS, 3rd place Charleston 41 cash, 8 WS.

- Athena did almost no suicide walks in KY past Lexington towards the South.
It did however do a few smaller invasions that went bad because of lack of supply. For instance,
attacking Waccasassa in Florida.

- After a big battle and the surrender of Union forces, Grant joined our forces

- I built a lot of depots with flatboats especially in the West.

- I had full rail & river capacity by the start of 1864.

- I was able to build a lot of cannons. Never had so many cannons before.
All 12 lb'ers were built, only 3 HA remained, most of the 10 lb'ers Parrot's were
built, only 10 were left for construction in KY. I even built several 20 LB cannons,
and 1 coastal artillery for Norfolk. Having so much artillery is way fun.
It definitely helped a lot in gaining the upper hand in nr. of casualties.

- Almost all corps and armies had all the support units they needed. However, I could only start building them
late 1863.

- Athena builds fleets too close to the front line. I captured a lot of enemy ships, especially ironclads.
I ended up with a huge fleet around Cairo split into 2:
- 4 ironclads, 1 cotton clad, 12 gunboats, 24 transports
- 4 ironclads, 1 cotton clad, 4 gunboats, 8 transports

- Ft. Monroe: capturing it is very hard. You need fleet support and the guns to do it.
I could hold Alexandria during the siege of Ft. Monroe (which took a long time, maybe 9 months or more) but I was
prepared to withdraw the forces if Alexandria would have been under constant attack.

- Ft. Pickens was attacked late in the game. Same as Ft. Monroe, it takes a lot of men
to do so and its probably not worth it. I used the forces stationed in NO to lay siege to the fort.

- I built forts in NO, Paducah and redoubts (RGD) in Norfolk and Cairo.

- West: I start my attack on Denver via 3 routes: from El Paso towards Santa Fe, East of Santa Fe
and to the North. I will try this again in a new game, but might try to attack sooner.
I didn't try to attack in great numbers earlier because I didn't have enough supply wagons.

- Didn't built too much industry: 2 IW decisions, and about 3 or 4 Arsenal/Armory decisions.
I did build a few in Texas which finally yielded enough ammo to start an attack north.

- Taylor in NO training militia was a great move. The militia defend NO, and with the trained militia you can
build a decent division to defend it, and then some. The rest of the trained militia, I sent towards the west and KY.
Bonus is that around NO, there's a lot of militia to build.

- KY: Usual stuff, invade north of the Ohio river, destroying depots and rail lines.
Here my biggest garrisons were stationed, and most armies/corps. A very active region.

I would like a feature where you can save your current settings. After you install a patch,
the settings sometimes are rest. It would be great to just be able to importing
the settings again.

It would have been way harder if Athena:

- Sent a fleet to defeat my fleet in support of the Ft. Monroe siege instead of sending them to the blockade region.
- Attacking Harpers Ferry or threaten to take it, spreading my forces and preventing me from going for Gettysburg.
It would have prevented the siege of Baltimore that ended the game
- Send decent divisions to attack the top money producing cities besides Richmond and NO. I had small forces there, but
an attack there would have forced me to divert forces from the KY theater.
- No more dead marches in KY, or big assaults in the autumn or winter in KY and the west.
- No more fleet building near the front. The captured ships fueled my fleet.
- Maybe garrison Cairo and Saint Louis even better at the start of the game
- Use more small raiders to destroy rail lines and depots
- Calculate the odds better. Later in the game, if Athena has roughly even forces in DC (as the Union), they can divert the rest to
attack elsewhere. Attacking an equal force means very heavy losses anyway so no point in over defending.
- If possible try to attack Tuscon sooner.

I forgot to mention, the biggest number of casualties I inflicted in a battle was +23.000 men, and 40 cannons vs 4.000 for the CSA (and a few cannons).
I even had a battle where the Union even lost more cannons (but less men).
The lowest the combat power got for the Union was 79 (!!).

[FightingBuckeye]

Thanks, it was fun and interesting to read how CSA turned into a monster. You should consider doing an AAR sometime. Actually more people should consider writing AARs. They're always fun to read through and you can pick up new things to try out. Unfortunately there's a lack of recent ones.

[Cardinal Ape]

You know things are going well when Grant defects to the Confederacy... I imagine that the trio of Bragg, Forrest, and Grant all got along splendidly.

[minipol]

Thanks for the comments

@FightingBuckeye
You're right, maybe it's because of the problems with the latest patches that players are waiting to have a good stable version to play a full game again?

@Cardinal Ape
Yes they did. I couldn't believe my eyes when I suddenly had Grant defecting to my side.
I didn't need him per se as I fought many smaller battles after the outbreak of the war giving me plenty of ** and *** generals to work with.
But it sure helped

I have won a lot earlier as the CSA, but never had a game where I so massively overwhelmed the Union.
I really feel it has to do with the capture of Ft. Monroe and the increased production in Richmond as a direct effect.

It would be fun to know of other players with similar game performances.

[Cardinal Ape]

There is probably no better single action to increase the Confederate economy than to take Fort Monroe to lift the blockade on Richmond. Sadly, on the other side of the coin: The easiest place for the Union to trap a large force and eliminate it is in Fort Monroe.

[Gray Fox]

Good job! I believe that if you are using the latest patch, AGEOD may have fixed the part where CSA transports can bring in $/WS. I've also noticed that Athena had an all artillery Division in one posted picture. Perhaps I should get credit as a Beta tester.

[Rod Smart]

Sending Watie to Denver. That's a really good idea.

I usually use him where he spawns to create havoc in Iowa and put out fires in Oklahoma, but sending him to the gold fields is a much better use. Thanks.

[richfed]

Some good ideas in there that I might try to incorporate into my strategies. 1.06 RC 3 is indeed lots of fun to play. Only negative I found, of note, was a recurring crash - which I hope Pocus is spraying with RAID as we speak.