Tips for new players

[Hitorishizuka]

3 hours ago, vren55 said:

 

*blinks* i would never use that many skirmishers.. or cavalry. Hell I've won all my battles without any cav or skirmishers apart from detach skirmishers. 

That being said, I am interested in knowing how do you use cav and dedicated skirms. I's something I've never experienced with because I found that they were way too expensive and simply having 4 inf and 1 artillery per division always worked for me. I've heard people massing cav charges and I used Forrests' brigade to scout, but how are you supposed to micromanage all those units? 

Fight defensively, even when on offense. Infantry and artillery mostly do their job even when you leave them alone provided you put them in a smart position to begin with. You only need to micro cavalry and skirmishers.

Skirmishers you give them long range rifles and use them to shoot at enemy brigades that the AI tends to just sit right outside the range of your own and get free casualties. You can also use them as flankers at the far edges of your lines. You only need to keep an eye on them to make sure they didn't chase the enemy after an attack order was given, otherwise they'll be fine, even if sometimes they don't shoot.

Cavalry gets your main focus maneuvering them around to find artillery or find lone brigades and using detached skirmishers to absorb fire to let cavalry get in clean.

[Springfield]

Dedicated skirmishers are incredibly useful when equipped with Whitworths and above and smartly positioned. As Hitori said, if you have them deployed on a flank they can vastly out perform artillery. During Antietam as the CS my skirmishers notched over 7,000 kills. They spent the majority of the battle sitting in the nook between Dunker church and the sunken road. With distance, open fields of fire and a good spot they will whittle opposing units to nothing. 

 

Just make sure they don't charge themselves into the mass of the enemy. I've had to recapture my skirmishers before when I took my attention elsewhere and they decided to get closer. 

[GeneralPITA]

1 minute ago, Springfield said:

During Antietam as the CS my skirmishers notched over 7,000 kills. They spent the majority of the battle sitting in the nook between Dunker church and the sunken road. With distance, open fields of fire and a good spot they will whittle opposing units to nothing. 

 

That's impressive for a sniper unit. Caveat being that enough ammo for 7k sniper kills would require at least four resupplies.

I put a fayetteville brigade right where you describe and racked up 13k kills. It's the perfect position to turn rookies into mass murderers.

[Hitorishizuka]

10 minutes ago, Springfield said:

Dedicated skirmishers are incredibly useful when equipped with Whitworths and above and smartly positioned. As Hitori said, if you have them deployed on a flank they can vastly out perform artillery. During Antietam as the CS my skirmishers notched over 7,000 kills. They spent the majority of the battle sitting in the nook between Dunker church and the sunken road. With distance, open fields of fire and a good spot they will whittle opposing units to nothing. 

 

Just make sure they don't charge themselves into the mass of the enemy. I've had to recapture my skirmishers before when I took my attention elsewhere and they decided to get closer. 

Yes, precisely, that's one of the ideal places to put them. If you're sitting in a line of forest or other cover that stops, you can put sniper skirmishers out in the open and effectively extend your line and use them to keep shooting. Their stealth bonus means they still probably won't be shot by artillery, they get to take advantage of flank shooting, and you get more fire on target causing units to rout faster.

But as GeneralPITA said, they do eat ammo, so if you want to conserve try not to have them shoot at absolute maximum range, they do experience a bit of dropoff to where one volley only does a handful of kills instead of what they really can do.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Hitorishizuka

[Springfield]

4 minutes ago, GeneralPITA said:

That's impressive for a sniper unit. Caveat being that enough ammo for 7k sniper kills would require at least four resupplies.

I put a fayetteville brigade right where you describe and racked up 13k kills. It's the perfect position to turn rookies into mass murderers.

Well now I feel like I made the wrong call. My Fayetteville brigade was further North, sitting in the woods and only racking up around 3K kills. 

There weren't any supply issues with my snipers, but then again I had a steady stream of captured supply wagons moving behind the lines. 

[GeneralPITA]

2 minutes ago, Springfield said:

Well now I feel like I made the wrong call. My Fayetteville brigade was further North, sitting in the woods and only racking up around 3K kills. 

There weren't any supply issues with my snipers, but then again I had a steady stream of captured supply wagons moving behind the lines. 

Putting your best men in the west woods is not a bad call at all. There's some variability in the way the AI attacks and your battle lines probably didn't look identical to mine. I've never exceeded 6k sniper kills, so you've got me there. 

[Hitorishizuka]

1 hour ago, GeneralPITA said:

Putting your best men in the west woods is not a bad call at all. There's some variability in the way the AI attacks and your battle lines probably didn't look identical to mine. I've never exceeded 6k sniper kills, so you've got me there. 

Not to take anything from his accomplishment, but keep in mind scaling. 6k out of 140k enemies arguably means less than 1k out of 20k.

[A. P. Hill]

Here's a tip.

This really doesn't have anything to do with the numbers differences, but I've found it to be extremely helpful in organizing my attack or my defense.

As some of you know, when you start a battle with your troops aligned in the red rectangle, they are not always ordered in that area according to division.

On most battles, there is usually enough time at the very start for the player to select the division key at the bottom of the screen and then indicate on the field where they want that division to assemble.  I have found that doing this at the very start of every battle, allows me a more controlled aspect to the game later on, and should I need to combine brigades, I'm not finding that the divisions are spread all over the field of battle and that the brigade I wish to merge with another brigade of it's division doesn't march half way across the field of battle and possibly try to cross over enemy held territory where in the process it becomes annihilated.

Making this decision at the very start allows for divisions to attack as a unit and also allows me better control of my forces. And I find it more true to actual combat situations.

Yeah, I know, not very earth shattering, but it is after all a tip. 

[srgoens]

On 1/31/2017 at 10:55 PM, MikeK said:

Good thought, but a little confusing. Are you suggesting ratios as a rule of thumb - e.g., for 10 brigades take 6 Infantry :/ 2 Artilllery: 2 Cavalry or Skirmishers (or extra Arty for special situations)?    Or for 12 take 7 Inf, 3 Arty, 2 Cav/Skir?

Not confusing really. How many total brigades do you have in your Corp?  Multiply that number by the unit type multiplier to find how many units should be of that type. So with the 12 brigades you end up with 7 infantry, 3 artillery and 2 Cavalry...No skirmishers.

[srgoens]

On 2/1/2017 at 7:30 PM, vren55 said:

 

*blinks* i would never use that many skirmishers.. or cavalry. Hell I've won all my battles without any cav or skirmishers apart from detach skirmishers. 

That being said, I am interested in knowing how do you use cav and dedicated skirms. I's something I've never experienced with because I found that they were way too expensive and simply having 4 inf and 1 artillery per division always worked for me. I've heard people massing cav charges and I used Forrests' brigade to scout, but how are you supposed to micromanage all those units? 

Sixty percent of my Corp are infantry. Twenty percent artillery. The rest is Cavalry. Only one in twenty is a Skirmisher brigade. Skirmisher brigades have too many drawbacks. I mainly use them as the tip on the spear for clearing the way for my infantry through woods. As also for flank holding with a Cavalry unit in close support. Cavalry and Skirmisher units hold my extreme flanks. Once my flanks are clear of the enemy I roll behind the enemy with the Cavalry striking enemy Artillery and enemy skirmishers at will from behind. The AI will divert its own Cavalry or infantry units to that threat. Then you simply over power the enemy Cavalry with greater numbers till all the enemy has left to respond with are infantry units. I should add that the only Cavalry unit I have are melee units. If your infantry brigade is in a melee with another enemy infantry unit charge your Cavalry unit in to turn the tide. Cavalry units are perfect for rolling up an enemy flank.

[DummyCharacter]

500 man line infantry brigade(colt, henry, spencer rifles) with fast moving and fast shooting perks act like best skirm.

They can hold, they fall back and charge only when you want it, and more important - they can shoot at will. No need more point target every time.

1000-4000 kills in every battle without micro. Im happy

 

Beware shock cav - worst enemy

[Troianii]

On 12/1/2016 at 3:00 AM, Koro said:

I agree with most of what you posted, including things I didn't quote here. I'll say I played on normal the first time, playing with the Confederates, and mostly found the game to be easy, apart from a few exceptions. And I haven't finished that game yet, but I didn't find any battles where it made sense to just withdraw. If you do that, it usually means the enemy is going to be even stronger in the next battle, and it means you don't get as much $, men, or strategic points - those can add up and be quite worth it. But I agree that not all battles need be won, so what I instead do is play to find that sweet spot between inflicting the most casualties and suffering the fewest. Even on the hardest setting (with a checkbox - I think it was legendary mode) I had battles where I was outnumbered heavily, but inflicted 2-3 as many casualties as received. Here are basic stats for a few:

Battle:enemy starting strength-men lost/my starting strength-men lots
Potomac Fort: 8,573-5,118/4,111-2,410 [2,708 dif]
Newport News: 7,436-3,195/5,484-1,335 [1,806 dif]
1st Bull Run: 25,324-12,417/22,316-5,675 [6,742 dif]
Ambush Convoy: 21,514-1,396/13,916-1,033 [363 dif]
Stay Alert: 15,536-4,841/12,000-4,584 [257 dif]

All wins. Not saying this to brag, but illustrating my aim is to inflict max damage while suffering least, and it seems to work - that is, it seems to actually reduce the amount they bring to the next battle. And being able to pull in all those wins helps me to be able to keep my army strong. 

But playing on the hardest possible mode seems too much by Shiloh. I was put on the offensive with about 32,000 at my disposal against 42,350. But it was working ok as Confederate on regular difficulty. Was way too easy as Union on easy - kept the whole game on the fastest speed, and by Gettsburg I was fielding about 100k troops, and was up against I think 22k. 
 

Quote

 

I'll start with some pointers in no particular order

1 Don't be to proud to choose easy mode 

The game is excellent in many ways and it also makes it hard due to it's many variables and options. You must play better than the AI to win battles in this game (since it will put you to the test) and you must manage your resources in the army camp so you'll have an effective and combat ready army. If you have any doubts as to your ability to handle large armies, easy might be the option for you


2. Not every battle is meant to be won

This game simulates real war, where circumstances and man power are not always equal and "fair". This happened IRL and is the same way in the game. Here is your chance not to repeat the mistakes of history though. Don't we berate those generals who kept on pressing the attack when they were clearly suffering unsustainable casualties? Don't we wonder why they didn't just retreat when faced with overwhelming odds. Here is your chance to do better than them. You are of course free to stay and slug it out in each battle but you may lose your army in the process. Sometimes you will find that withdrawing from the field is the better option. All units have a withdraw button to take them off the field. Remove them all and you'll lose the battle but perhaps save your army. Often you can keep your army on the field though and go for a draw though if you look at the victory conditions 

 

 

 

[Troianii]

sorry the above seems to have double quoted :/ 

My response is in the first portion of the quote. 

[Sykes]

How many artillery brigades do you recommend that I have per division (union)?

[Hitorishizuka]

14 minutes ago, Sykes said:

How many artillery brigades do you recommend that I have per division (union)?

My rough guidelines would be:

If 20 brigade Corps, not using Combine Division, 1 on offense, 2 on defense. If 24, 2 always.

If using combine Division, 1 always with 20 brigade Corps, 1.5 (so 2 divisions with 2, 2 with 1) with 24 brigade Corps.

[Sykes]

18 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

My rough guidelines would be:

If 20 brigade Corps, not using Combine Division, 1 on offense, 2 on defense. If 24, 2 always.

If using combine Division, 1 always with 20 brigade Corps, 1.5 (so 2 divisions with 2, 2 with 1) with 24 brigade Corps.

Also, is it advised to purchase the best artillery early (24LB Howitzer & 20LB Parrots)? Or wait until my arty brigades level to at least two stars?

[The Soldier]

3 hours ago, Sykes said:

Also, is it advised to purchase the best artillery early (24LB Howitzer & 20LB Parrots)? Or wait until my arty brigades level to at least two stars?

24pdr Howitzers are always good, get as many as you can (if you can afford it).  Don't bother with 20pdr Parrotts until they get properly buffed.

[Troianii]

7 hours ago, Sykes said:

How many artillery brigades do you recommend that I have per division (union)?

Quite frankly I think the union should get a lot of artillery - at least one each division. If you end up during the campaign getting a good manpower advantage, I'd start putting money into extra artillery brigades. Early on you need the infantry. 

I recommend having one go-to corps (I don't hire veterans in any other corps, save the $). The reason is that in the major battles, like Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, you'll often get to bring in many brigades, but the small battles usually only have one corp, and so you want one elite corps to fight your smaller battles. In the big battles, I have that elite corps as a reserve, if possible.

[Tragopan]

Was gonna start a new thread but this seems like a great place to ask!

1) I am having a really hard time determining the effective range for each artillery piece. I did a custom battle for Marye Heights (great place to test stuff) just so I could go through each piece and try to learn where within their range indicator is the sweet spot, but it's super frustrating and I'm not getting it right cause unless it's canister shot all the shots look the same to me. I asked The Soldier to add in some range pictures in his awesome Artillery Guide but honestly that's a lot of work for someone to do so I was wondering if anyone might have some good examples floating around in their screenshots or something of positioning.

2) Carbines.. How do I use them effectively? What are they good for? I tried making a Cavalry Corps of mostly mounted infantry with Sharps that I could use to flank objectives on big maps (Gaine's Mill, 2nd Bull Run, even Fredricksburg if they're the Center Corps) or to get to good ground then dismount and fight and it works pretty effectively.. but they don't seem to hold cover very well because they're always outranged. The Enfield seems like it might help with that but the numbers are so low and only CSA get them. I imagine Union Skirmishers have a similar problem. Is it just not possible to pull a Buford?

 

3) I am really struggling trying to find out how many men I need and when. Restarted my campaign at least 8 times now cause I get to a point where my conservatism makes the grand battles unwinnable cause the AI's bigger numbers just charge me if I am in defense, or have too many men for me to punch a hole in offense. 

Or I run out of steam cause I have enough men and brigades to properly react to the battlefield, but I don't have enough money or manpower to reinforce them enough for the next grand battle and the AI keeps going with its huge numbers. 

 

4) Is there any situation in which I could use an Artillery Corps.. cause I really wanna..

Edited August 12, 2017 by Tragopan

[A. P. Hill]

@Tragopan

 

You may want to read the following thread.

 

[The Soldier]

@A. P. Hill

He already knows.

[Aetius]

13 hours ago, Tragopan said:

4) Is there any situation in which I could use an Artillery Corps.. cause I really wanna..

This one is the easiest to answer - sadly, no. The problem is that as the game progresses, you'll find that you rarely get control over how your corps are deployed, especially in multi-stage battles. If you include a dedicated artillery corps, this leads to situations where you are forced into fighting with only artillery. In a couple of the larger battles, you can put the artillery corps in as reinforcements, but that usually sharply reduces the amount of time they have to fire and thus their effectiveness. The best you can do is make artillery-heavy divisions, with 2-3 infantry brigades and 2-3 artillery brigades, and try to mass them manually.

[Tragopan]

11 hours ago, Aetius said:

This one is the easiest to answer - sadly, no. The problem is that as the game progresses, you'll find that you rarely get control over how your corps are deployed, especially in multi-stage battles. If you include a dedicated artillery corps, this leads to situations where you are forced into fighting with only artillery. In a couple of the larger battles, you can put the artillery corps in as reinforcements, but that usually sharply reduces the amount of time they have to fire and thus their effectiveness. The best you can do is make artillery-heavy divisions, with 2-3 infantry brigades and 2-3 artillery brigades, and try to mass them manually.

Fair enough! Thanks for the answer. Will save me trouble down the road for sure.

[mrm5117]

On 2/2/2017 at 8:27 AM, A. P. Hill said:

Here's a tip.

This really doesn't have anything to do with the numbers differences, but I've found it to be extremely helpful in organizing my attack or my defense.

As some of you know, when you start a battle with your troops aligned in the red rectangle, they are not always ordered in that area according to division.

On most battles, there is usually enough time at the very start for the player to select the division key at the bottom of the screen and then indicate on the field where they want that division to assemble.  I have found that doing this at the very start of every battle, allows me a more controlled aspect to the game later on, and should I need to combine brigades, I'm not finding that the divisions are spread all over the field of battle and that the brigade I wish to merge with another brigade of it's division doesn't march half way across the field of battle and possibly try to cross over enemy held territory where in the process it becomes annihilated.

Making this decision at the very start allows for divisions to attack as a unit and also allows me better control of my forces. And I find it more true to actual combat situations.

Yeah, I know, not very earth shattering, but it is after all a tip. 

I like this idea of trying to keep divisions together. It's difficult in practice, though.  I usually end up in the middle of a battle, especially a larger one, just grabbing 3 or 4 adjacent units and forming a battle line. They're not always from the same division or even corps, but when things are chaotic it's what works to control units. If you try to select a division and reform a line mid-battle with scattered brigades, you're likely to expose your flank to the enemy in doing so. There is supposedly an extra command bonus for keeping brigades together - does anyone have a range of numerical command bonus having all brigades together versus not? +10 maybe?

[Mukremin]

Maybe old news but i noticed CSA soldiers are more capable in taking on and routing trenches and forts. I really struggled to attack trenches and forts on my Union campaign. With CSA i let a couple of skirmishers charge and followed by infantey in which i easily route thr enemy.