Reputation Points - Spend Them or Hold Them?

[civsully1]

Ok all you old hands and play testers....what is the truth regarding Reputation Points - Spend them or Hold them.

I'm just midway through my first play of UG CW at BG level as the CSA. I've found so far that I didn't grow my Army the most efficient nor expedient way and find myself in a hole numbers wise. Definitely made some "costly" mistakes from the git go that has put me behind as I just finished Cedar Mountain. So now I'm forced to catch up any way I can so I'm spending Reputation as I earn it. Since I made it this far I don't want to start over with a better understanding as I need the "game experience" to be sure.

With that said I'd still like a tutorial on this subject. From my standpoint it can offer some really nice options that would cost lots of gold otherwise. And I'm having some difficulty quantifying/visualizing the morale + or - effect of spending reputation.  Is the 100+ morale effect that more desirable/needed by the CSA than Union?  Thanks in advance folks and I appreciate the time spent with your replies!

Edited March 20, 2017 by civsully1

[Hitorishizuka]

IMHO, spend early only if they give you 24pdrs or top tier rifles (Fayetteville, etc). Otherwise hold until you would cap at winning a new battle, then pick whatever you need most. The morale buff really helps out brand new units from breaking instantly if they get caught in a bad position.

[Wandering1]

The morale benefit at 100 morale, if I were to recall, is +10 morale.

Which is to say, if you could have upgraded the named regiment with better guns, by all means. I would say the reputation strategies differ between Union and CSA; Union has half as good recruits as the CSA, meaning that the +10 morale on a fresh Union brigade is a lot more meaningful than +10 morale (difference between 10-15 morale and 25ish morale to start for CSA recruits). On the other hand, CSA generally has less weapon access than Union, so weapons can be a lot more useful in terms of expanding your CSA army.

I would not buy artillery with reputation unless they're 24 pdrs, in general. Especially on BG, where artillery is usually pretty plentiful stolen from the enemy.

As far as rifles go, if you have choices of rifles, Fayettevilles > Highest # of Rifles > Everything else. I don't buy Spencers or Henrys at the moment due to amount of micro required to use them effectively, when you're likely to be busy managing skirmishers or artillery.

[Wright29]

Some notes: 

1. Money or men are never worth it. Guns can be quite economically efficient if you are playing on Hard/ Legendary. Go for quantity over quality I'd say. With the exception of 24 pdr Howitzers, expensive guns and cannons suffer from pretty severe diminishing returns once you get past Springfield 1855's. Same deal applies for reputation spending. 

2. For the Union, using Rep to buy generals is definitely worth it, especially early on. The confederates are swimming in generals, so the need isn't as bad. 

3. The morale bonus scales up at the end to +14 I believe, but you should always leave enough space below 100 so none of it goes to waste. Find whatever middle ground you feel comfortable with. Later on in the campaign, many of your units will already have Morale over 100, so it would go to waste. 

4. For Union, the morale bonus is better for rookies than the Confederates in terms of % increase. So you want to keep it as high as possible. 

Summary- Union should go for the morale bonus and should buy generals at every opportunity. Confederates should buy guns in quantity so they don't have to spend as much money on guns at the shop. 

[Col_Kelly]

As Confederates it's not a bad idea to spend reputation on recruits early in the game. You won't need them right away but at this point of the campaign they are cheap, way cheaper than late campaign. Therefore you end up with a valuable reserve of men that will otherwise be exhausted by the time you beat Chancelorsville. 

[Slobodan]

I play as CSA on brig level, and I used my reputation points solely on buying weapons (rifles and 24 pdrs).

In my campaign I kept my army very small up untill Antientam, which allowed me to build healthy pool of reserves (some 22k before Chickamauga). I think investing in Politics (career points) early on is a must really.

 

[civsully1]

No option for the 24 pdrs yet. Have the option to spend reputation to acquire 270 Fayettevilles. This is before starting the battle for 2nd Bull Run.  I recall others have said that the option to get weapons that were available before a major battle may disappear afterwards. It's a great weapon for the CSA to be sure. But will it's supposedly limited numbers be worth spending reputation points if I can't get enough to field say a 2000 man infantry brigade?

[Wandering1]

Not sure if the rifle counts scale at all, but there's another 750 Fayetteville purchase later on that I got in my Legendary CSA run. Not sure you'll ever get a full 2000 man brigade with Fayettevilles before Gettysburg, but you basically treat the squad as if they were Skirmishers.

[The Soldier]

Or just go the route of PITA and use my combine brigades exploit to arm every single soldier in the CSA with a Fayetteville or M1861 rifle.  Apparently it works wonders in Legendary, from the happy squeaks I get from PITA every now and again.

Still regretting posting that.

Even if you can't get enough Fayettevilles to arm a brigade, you get loads upon loads of CS Richmond rifles as the Confederates, which are, by the way, stupidly overpowered because the devs somehow looked over it when they nerfed the melee power of all the high-tier rifles, as it still has 80 melee versus the 59 of the other rifles, and is a good competitor to the M1861 in regards to it's other stats.

Edited March 21, 2017 by The Soldier

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Tell Pita to get his butt back here and squeak in person. 

Please. 

Thank you. 

Seriously, send him my regards. 

[Hitorishizuka]

4 hours ago, Wandering1 said:

Not sure if the rifle counts scale at all, but there's another 750 Fayetteville purchase later on that I got in my Legendary CSA run. Not sure you'll ever get a full 2000 man brigade with Fayettevilles before Gettysburg, but you basically treat the squad as if they were Skirmishers.

Unfortunately they don't get the skirmisher cover bonus or have their auto-retreat AI, which while annoying occasionally does actually help keep them alive a bit.

Without using combine division I don't see how you're practically supposed to use them, kinda making them a trap purchase. A 300 man infantry brigade can literally die from a single volley on open ground, losing all your guns.

[Slobodan]

1 hour ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Unfortunately they don't get the skirmisher cover bonus or have their auto-retreat AI, which while annoying occasionally does actually help keep them alive a bit.

Without using combine division I don't see how you're practically supposed to use them, kinda making them a trap purchase. A 300 man infantry brigade can literally die from a single volley on open ground, losing all your guns.

I actually had 2 full 2000 men brigades armed with Fayettevilles at Chickamauga (with ~500 more guns in reserve). I used reputation points to buy every single Fayeetteville I could and also bought all available in armory (they replenish after each major battle).

Worth of note is that on Brandy station you also get Fayettevilles from your 2 inf brigades, so it's also a kind of free replenishment 

Imo they are great guns, my 2 3* brigades mentioned (along with 3rd 3* brigade armed with 1861 Spencers) really won me a battle of Chickamauga...so I would say Fayettvilles are a must for CSA player.

[veji1]

5 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Unfortunately they don't get the skirmisher cover bonus or have their auto-retreat AI, which while annoying occasionally does actually help keep them alive a bit.

Without using combine division I don't see how you're practically supposed to use them, kinda making them a trap purchase. A 300 man infantry brigade can literally die from a single volley on open ground, losing all your guns.

The Fayetteville brigade is the brigade that allows your first line to survive the melee blobs because you use it in the second line to fire at will at melee blobs. And you use them as flanking killers, basically anytime an ennemy brigade is already set facing another of your brigades and your Fayetteville brigade gets a pair of free volleys without being shot at much it's devastating.

[Wandering1]

I did get about 4000+ Fayettevilles from dragging out Gettysburg on my Union Max Size Campaign. Since all of Ewell's divisions start with Fayettevilles by default.

Not sure if it is true in reverse, you'd more likely just get a bunch of 1863s.

[civsully1]

Thanks everyone for your posts and great tips on this! BUY BUY BUY!

[A. P. Hill]

The way I play this game, I cannot afford not to spend them.

[Hitorishizuka]

21 hours ago, Slobodan said:

I actually had 2 full 2000 men brigades armed with Fayettevilles at Chickamauga (with ~500 more guns in reserve). I used reputation points to buy every single Fayeetteville I could and also bought all available in armory (they replenish after each major battle).

Worth of note is that on Brandy station you also get Fayettevilles from your 2 inf brigades, so it's also a kind of free replenishment 

Imo they are great guns, my 2 3* brigades mentioned (along with 3rd 3* brigade armed with 1861 Spencers) really won me a battle of Chickamauga...so I would say Fayettvilles are a must for CSA player.

...okay, sure, that's at just about the last battle available. That's not relevant to when we're talking about rep buying Fayetteville at pre-Gaines or whenever it is that you get them. The question is what you're supposed to use them for then if not with Combine.

17 hours ago, veji1 said:

The Fayetteville brigade is the brigade that allows your first line to survive the melee blobs because you use it in the second line to fire at will at melee blobs. And you use them as flanking killers, basically anytime an ennemy brigade is already set facing another of your brigades and your Fayetteville brigade gets a pair of free volleys without being shot at much it's devastating.

300 guys with Fayettevilles aren't even really going to be killing that much, though, flanking or otherwise. If you really go out of your way to feed them the kills, sure they'll do okay, but if you let them do that even a 1k unit of Lorenz or something would have done just about as well and be more resilient.

[Jamesk2]

2 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

...okay, sure, that's at just about the last battle available. That's not relevant to when we're talking about rep buying Fayetteville at pre-Gaines or whenever it is that you get them. The question is what you're supposed to use them for then if not with Combine.

300 guys with Fayettevilles aren't even really going to be killing that much, though, flanking or otherwise. If you really go out of your way to feed them the kills, sure they'll do okay, but if you let them do that even a 1k unit of Lorenz or something would have done just about as well and be more resilient.

Actually you can get 1k2 Fayetteville after Shiloh if you invest early. That's enough for a solid flanking brigade.

[Hitorishizuka]

2 minutes ago, Jamesk2 said:

Actually you can get 1k2 Fayetteville after Shiloh if you invest early. That's enough for a solid flanking brigade.

Mixed my timeline up slightly by a battle. You only get 250 or so in the armory pre-Shiloh which isn't useful. Post-Shiloh/pre-Gaines you get another 250 or so in the armory and the 750 in Rep. At that point you can run a mid-sized infantry brigade fine, I agree. Even playing as a purist they would still be useful, though you would want to shield them very well.

[Slobodan]

2 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

...okay, sure, that's at just about the last battle available. That's not relevant to when we're talking about rep buying Fayetteville at pre-Gaines or whenever it is that you get them. The question is what you're supposed to use them for then if not with Combine.

Actually, I think I was able to field one 2000 men strong brigade with Fayettevilles at Fredriksburg.  

pre-Gains I agree it's not realistic to have even smaller brigade equipped. My point is that you should start investing in them from start, and than you'll get enough of them once they are really essential.

[civsully1]

13 hours ago, A. P. Hill said:

The way I play this game, I cannot afford not to spend them.

Sounds like me A.P. !  Can someone post the steps on how to combine units or post the link to the process please?  And does it allow one to combine brigades or just Divisions? Thanks in advance!

[The Soldier]

@civsully1

Don't abuse it. if you do regardless, then I have a post on the Steam forums called "The Soldier's Guide to Repeating Rifles".  Not that it only applies to repeaters, but to all guns.

Edited March 22, 2017 by The Soldier

[civsully1]

1 hour ago, The Soldier said:

@civsully1

Don't abuse it. if you do regardless, then I have a post on the Steam forums called "The Soldier's Guide to Repeating Rifles".  Not that it only applies to repeaters, but to all guns.

Thanks as always Soldier! I'll check it out!

[civsully1]

On 3/22/2017 at 3:38 AM, Slobodan said:

Actually, I think I was able to field one 2000 men strong brigade with Fayettevilles at Fredriksburg.  

pre-Gains I agree it's not realistic to have even smaller brigade equipped. My point is that you should start investing in them from start, and than you'll get enough of them once they are really essential.

As an update to this I did use points to get 750 Fayettevilles and bought the remaining 750 available in the armory. So I built up a 1500 man brigade with a Colonel in the lead. Unfortunately I didn't have the fund to buy a BG for them.  Well they went into battle with my first corps at 2nd Bull Run. Though like my other units they took fairly heavy casualties but oh my did they blast the enemy. I'll replace the unit losses with veterans and put a BG in charge of it for the upcoming battles. It was worth the points to spend in my case.

[Hitorishizuka]

7 hours ago, civsully1 said:

As an update to this I did use points to get 750 Fayettevilles and bought the remaining 750 available in the armory. So I built up a 1500 man brigade with a Colonel in the lead. Unfortunately I didn't have the fund to buy a BG for them.  Well they went into battle with my first corps at 2nd Bull Run. Though like my other units they took fairly heavy casualties but oh my did they blast the enemy. I'll replace the unit losses with veterans and put a BG in charge of it for the upcoming battles. It was worth the points to spend in my case.

Be mindful, of course, that you can't replace all of your losses as you simply don't have the guns left in the armory. This is why we say either shield them with Combine Division or play very carefully with them as a flanking or reserve unit. High levels of Medicine will alleviate this partially but losses in general are still painful when you're using a singular unit like this.