I won my first game by taking D.C. along with Baltimore, against Athena. The CSA does have a large army but I doubt that a great human player will just let this happen. Also the Union has natural river defenses and if she takes the heights in Harpers/Leesburg you will have to fight up hill to flank that tiny little bit of territory in Maryland into Union Key Cities...
I think that you have to know when to give Kentucky/Missouri and inevitably a good deal of Tennessee/Missippi... The point is that the CSA has always 2/3rds what the Union has as the game progresses. In the West I find in the middle section the Union starts with a lot more resources and the CSA starts with enough to just hold.
If you're doing better ... by taking Missouri/Kentucky all the way/and Own all the Heights in Virginia.. You're probably going to win ... that's too many objectives at once. I would like to see more flexible CSA strategies, she seems blocked by her need to watch too much of her precious drawn out High End Real Estate. Meanwhile the Union has everything of value behind a nice Wall... St. Louis being the only really truly exposed region.. Gold Territory a close second.. If you do not include her Capitol
Cardinal Ape wrote:Going for the throat - the opponents capital - is the probably the most effective strategy. But I can't bring myself to do that every game, I have a hard time using the same strategy twice in a row, it is not very fun. I tend to like games that have the Virginia line lock up and see most of the action out west. Games that have action all across the board are more fun than capital blitzes.
Regardless of the objective, I am always aggressive in the early game as the CSA. They have a lot of perks in the first year and they seem feed off of momentum that can be hard to stop. (Why do the 2 INF, 1 SS brigades take the Union 90 days to build, but only 30 for the CSA?) I just can't get behind this idea that a good Union player can stop the CSA from doing anything, so you shouldn't even try. Maybe I am too optimistic in thinking that my human opponents will make mistakes at some point.
In a few of games I have been told, 'I see you wasting resources in the West, I'll make you pay in the East.' After a turn or two of my opponents watching their Western county side burn, they almost always respond in kind. What they should say is, 'I see you devoting resources to the West. I should ignore it, but human nature compels me to stop you. I will now divert resources to the West.'
Players who are capable of watching entire states burn without flinching are the ones you really need to look out for and identify quickly. It generally means that they have an unalterable master plan to sack your capital.
For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863 ~~~