New to game, some thoughts on artillery

[dhy]

So I decided to try out the artillery division and stacked them with a great commander hoping it would do well, but so far, Mr Forrest hasn't gained one iota of experience points after a few battles. It seems that artillery, at least on offense, is practically useless, especially when you're tying up some of your best commanders to lead units that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from up close. My other artillery commander has some experience points, but far less than the other commanders do, after battling in Kentucky and then taking Louisville.

I suspect they aren't really worthwhile on defense either, except for entrenchment. It would be great if artillery didn't come included with infantry brigades, so we'd have more power over the makeup of our forces.

[Nikel]

Not precisely an expert in battles resolution

However there is a lot of info in the wiki. In this particular case the frontage in the forest may be an important factor. Read specially the artillery notes here:



http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/Frontage

[dhy]

Yep you're right, artillery limit is 6 there, but atleast one must've been used for his stack since there was a total of 5 in other divisions incl the iron cav brigade, which wasn't there for previous battles.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Also forest terrain has a max range of 4, so the artillery get to take fewer shots than they would in open terrain.

Extensive testing shows that artillery divs are superior to other setups, though as you have discovered there are conditions where you can't take full advantage of them.

[dhy]

What I'm confused about is experience gain for my generals. I presumed if a div inflicted more than they received, the general would gain some experience, is experience gained/lost? for all in the whole battle, and not down to individual divisions? None of my artillery generals seem to be gaining much exp.

I'm also pretty sure I remember _losing_ a battle and having the div commander (all by himself) gain a promotion and I remember him taking more casualties (was up against a superior force), but I could be wrong.

I was hoping the idea of putting your best generals (or atleast ones you want promoted) in all art div was to help them promote faster, just can't seem to figure it out. This is my 4th game now, and this time I've almost got a div for every general (now in Dec of '62), some decent Corps commanders would be nice, but it'll prolly be over before I'm ever able to get them.

I failed to consider frontage and the fact support units are separate from line units, so in that respect artillery will always have a place anyway.

[Nikel]

Leaders gain experience "points" in combat, when elements under their command inflict more losses than they suffer.

http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/Experience


Note also the randomness stated, perhaps you are unlucky with leaders you want to promote?

[dhy]

Leaders gain experience "points" in combat, when elements under their command inflict more losses than they suffer.

http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/Experience


Note also the randomness stated, perhaps you are unlucky with leaders you want to promote?

No idea but thank you, I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Experience and promotions are separate things.

To get a promotion your leader has to be a) promotable (not all leaders are) and b ) have gained four places of seniority. You gain seniority by winning battles, and you have to win them big, i.e. gaining NM by destroying elements. A good way to farm promotions is by besieging then assaulting smallish garrisons (a couple of militia aren't always going to move the needle). Your leaders can lose seniority when they participate in losing battles.

Experience comes from participating in battles. Obviously you gain more when you win, but they still gain some AFAIK even if you lose. As your leaders gain experience they earn stars, which increase their OFF and DEF stats. Leaders cannot lose experience. (I would not 100% trust the info in the wiki link above, experience is an area that underwent some changes in CW2. For example, you can now view current XP totals in the element window, and the number of XP needed for the next star is fixed not variable, and is also displayed. Furthermore, I believe that elements that receive large numbers of replacement hits CAN lose some XP.)

Individual elements also have experience, which affects their stats. As they gain stars they become more effective in combat. Once a conscript, volunteer or militia gains his first star, he then has a chance each turn to automatically upgrade to a better element (conscript to regular, for example) at which point some or all of his experience is reset. Unlike generals, elements have the potential to gain XP even when not fighting, 50% chance per turn to gain 1 xp if memory serves. If they are in a stack with a Training Master (HQ units have the Training Master trait) they gain 1 xp every turn on top of the one they may or may not gain for free.

[Gray Fox]

DHY, you gave Forrest less than half the number of cannon batteries that a Division of artillery can contain. Guderian had a saying, "Don't poke it with your finger, smash it with your fist!". You can put 15 batteries of artillery in a Division and that is what I would advocate. Even so, I would figure that a third of the total hits your side scored were from Forrest's undersized artillery Division. If he had more batteries, then he would get promoted faster. Good luck!

[dhy]

I had 15 art. in my stack already so figured it'd be a waste of resources to add more. As the CSA and with the lack of training officers, it is really hard for me to form divisions without at least one art in them, and there's usually 2+. I'm sure it'll get easier for me and I know you say I can form 20 'ideal' divisions, but damn, trying to do it thus far has been very time consuming. Ah scratch the 15, I didn't have quite that many at that report, but in the future I had only added more art to get to that 15.

Also the game tells me how many support units can be fielded in a region, does this also include any additional units I can field adjusted by the commander? Because It seems to always show a max of 15.

[Gray Fox]

On the left side of the main screen is a globe sort of icon. If you click it you get several more. The one for terrain (also activated directly by pressing the "7" key) allows you to cursor over any region and get a menu with the total number of elements that can be used. The stack commander can further increase this. If you have the terrain screen up and you click on a stack, the menu will also tell you the frontage for that stack commander.

Forrest only gets experience from the batteries under his command. Also, the 6-lbers in most mixed brigades are simply better than nothing. The game will randomly pick elements to fill the region's frontage. If the frontage is 15 and you have that many 20-lbers and also as many 6-lbers, then the light guns may be firing and your expensive big guns will sit idle. So it certainly pays to put your artillery Division in a really good stack of infantry/cavalry Divisions with no pop guns. Use the mixed brigades to form Divisions that you intend to leave in garrison. Entrenched artillery, even lowly 6-lbers, gain accuracy from being entrenched.

The most important thing is to have fun. If you find any of my advice to be a chore, then by all means, don't do it. I was a soldier, so it is in my DNA to do these things well. We have a saying, "The enemy will thank you for not giving 100%". Good luck!