Buying Replacements?

[Ol' Choctaw]

In the early part of the game this can be a bottomless pit.

Artillery and Supply are the worst, and most costly.

Does anyone know when to start buying what?

The CSA is the worst. I once bought over a dozen replacements (from one to four at a time) for supply wagons before I got any left in the pool. Heavy Artillery is also about the same.

The Union is little better, but at least you have more to work with, so it doesn’t hurt nearly as much.

[biggp07]

I am currently in a game played up to JAN 62 in which I have tryed to keep the artillery and supply pools pretty stable w/ at least 1. I've noticed that if you concentrate your replacement funding to these 2 early on you can begin to stabalize them fairly early, depending on the battles fought and resources gained or lost over this period of time. I think it's difficult to say exactly but generally speaking, if you concentrate your purchase mostly to the arty & supply throughout the year you can stabalize them, or keep them close to stable and just purchase the bare minimum for the others, like HQ's, ENG, etc. over the course of several months "ad-hoc". However, if you don't purchase anything in the fighting force pools in beginning of course the armies won't build into full up elements and you will play catch up with your replacements.

What I tried to do in this game I'm playing now (AI) is balance my purchase early to the minimal replacements for all the initial fighting forces, i.e. lt & md arty, reg inf, elite inf, & cav along with improving rail/river transport to get it up quickly. The militia, irregular and the like can be "delayed' because you get some early "free' ones anyway and until you've built up enough resources and actually fielded enough to justify their replacment. I try to use the "rule of thumb" of maintaining 10% of total force pools, give or take 1-2. But this all depends on your choices in finance how you'll be able to do it the best.

One things for sure, the CSA is challenged in resourcing a war and maintaining it in a less than average industrial economy. Thats well represented for sure!

I'm only one guy in this large forum of individuals who can probably help you better than I can but I happened to be here and thought I'd contribute a little

[Ethan]

Personally, I prefer to buy replacements as I need it. Otherwise, I think it is wasting resources, money, conscripts and war supplies (less).

[Ol' Choctaw]

I usually try to keep minimal replacements.

With supporting units I only buy one. For lights, Sharpshooters, and Irregulars I usually keep 2 or 3, the same with artillery and supply. Elite Infantry and Cavalry get 5 or 6 and Line Infantry double that.

It is seldom that any of those will be exhausted in a single turn. I have also seen about a week’s delay after a large battle before forces are pulling replacements, so if you have a large battle with serious losses you can buy extra replacements to cover the losses.

Early units enter the game with damaged units but seemingly they do not require replacements to come to full strength.

If you buy replacements early they just go into limbo. If you wait several turns they will build.

I do not have an exact handle of how long it takes. I was hoping someone else did.

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

The replacements aren't evaporating. They go where requested. I skip Heavy arty replacements in PBEM games due to cost and effectiveness though.

[Ethan]

I usually try to keep minimal replacements.

With supporting units I only buy one. For lights, Sharpshooters, and Irregulars I usually keep 2 or 3, the same with artillery and supply. Elite Infantry and Cavalry get 5 or 6 and Line Infantry double that.

It is seldom that any of those will be exhausted in a single turn. I have also seen about a week’s delay after a large battle before forces are pulling replacements, so if you have a large battle with serious losses you can buy extra replacements to cover the losses.

Early units enter the game with damaged units but seemingly they do not require replacements to come to full strength.

If you buy replacements early they just go into limbo. If you wait several turns they will build.

I do not have an exact handle of how long it takes. I was hoping someone else did.

As USA player for example, note that you also get free replacements (JUNE TO NOVEMBER 1861). Look in:

C:\AGEOD's American Civil War\Docs

Anyway, check out here also:

Regards!

[Mickey3D]

My rule of thumb is to have available a 10% replacement pool for main unit types (elite, infantry, cavalry, light and standard artillery, sharpshooter). But never more than 15.

E.g. If I have 60 artillery units deployed (information available in the replacement screen) I will try to have 6 replacements available.

When playing CSA this is not always possible as there will be huge pressure on resources.

I don't buy replacement for heavy artillery and supply wagon (not worth the cost).

I see one potential danger with waiting until you need replacement to buy them : you could not have spared the money and resources needed.

[Ol' Choctaw]

I think you may have taken what I said a bit differently than I meant it.

I keep the replacement numbers I listed above. But if there is a big battle with huge losses I will buy some extra the turn after. That way they don’t drop to 0.

Example: in one turn I lost upwards of 15000 men. When I went to the replacement pool in the next turn I had only used two line infantry and one cavalry replacements. Never the less I bought 7 extra line infantry and at least one in each other area, except for army command, supply, raiders, & heavy artillery.

The following turn I still had to bring the numbers back into line but none went to 0. There were only 4 replacements left in line infantry (of what would have been 17) ,2 cavalry, and 1 light artillery. The only area that had extra men and did not need rebuilding were light infantry. There were still some damaged units around, so I guess all the replacements had not arrived yet.

That is what I meant by extra replacements. Not waiting to buy them until they were needed.

By the way, I won those battles. The enemy lost over 50,000 men!

[Mickey3D]

Thanks for the clarification.

in one turn I lost upwards of 15000 men. [...] The enemy lost over 50,000 men!

Now your nickname will be "the butcher" or "the reaper"

[Jim-NC]

As the CSA, heavy artillery is a bottomless pit (every coastal gun starts at like 25% strength, and it's almost too expensive to buy replacements (in PBEM).

As for the start of the game, you have several units that are missing elements (IIRC, Longstreet's brigade, the starting bde in Memphis). So I always make sure to have Calvary, Lt. Art, and Art available at the beginning. I believe each element consumes 1 replacement chit, so it's expensie at first. But they will always try to fill out their T&OE).

[Ol' Choctaw]

Thanks Jim-NC.

I have noticed that several months into the game it is safe to buy one or two heavy artillery replacements. August comes to mind.

It is about the same with supply. I think there are only two that are damaged but more than 8 will not fix it. So I often wait on those too.

[Alexander the Average]

Yep, I try hold out to the first winter before getting any of the more expensive items. By then you should have a handle on what you need and theres usualy not much fighting in the winter or even a couple of turns later due to the muddy roads.

Love the name btw

[Longshanks]

This is a helpful discussion. In my first PBEM game, I learned as the CSA that not all the fort batteries are up to snuff! This never game up vs the AI, which had never invaded anywhere along the coasts except a run up the river to New Orleans. (and once, a suicide Foote run from Cairo all the way out the mouth of the Mississippi where the two forts finished him off!). IN the PBEM game (as you will see in the AAR), I "panic-bought" five hvy arty replacements, only to find out the hard way that they don't deploy right away. I think they took about 2 months to fully deploy, but not in time to prevent me from losing the two forts at the mouth of the MS.

Ideally, a player would look at the health of each of his units and buy replacements accordingly. How terribly tedious that would be! It'd be nice if AACW2 would give you a report on replacement needs (even a slightly inaccurate one) to help guide you on what to buy, especially during the first 6 months. After that, it's mostly combat induced, in my experience.

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

I don't like the replacement screen in RUS for the most part, but it has a neat feature that tells you how many hits are missing from each type of element you can buy. It really lets you know what replacements you need to purchase.