Kloiste

Regarding the intelligence reports on AI army strength: I think the addition of the intelligence reports is definitely a good step as it makes you feel like you are having an impact in your campaign. My only gripe is that the intelligence report is drastically wrong sometimes instead of just being slightly off. For example for Antietam it said the Union should have around 54-57k men so I didn't expect much out of them. They ended up with over 100k in the battle which I was not expecting as that was almost double what the report said. I understand that its not exactly suppose to an accurate portrayal of the enemy strength, just an estimate, but I thought it might at most be 10-20k off, not 50k.

Just a quick clarification question to the beta testers or developers as I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, in the latest game update - did they raise the limit of AI brigades from 2950? I'm asking because I'm going through some old saves and I saw something like this.

What I do is rush to take Henry Hill before their reinforcements arrive and push them as far south as possible, then once they arrive spend the rest of the battle timer suiciding the "free" brigades you have over and over at them as meatshields in heavy forest cover and trade bodies for time. Deploy skirmishers from the brigades, and once they get routed back to their parent brigades, reform them up together and then deploy them again so they get their men replenished, so you would constantly be sending a wave of skirmishers are them. As skirmishers are more spread out they have more cover so they take less losses which allow you to sustain your "meatshield" a lot longer, plus you will have your actual brigades on the side pouring flanking fire down and retreating slowly with your line as your meatshields just die. A lot of the time its luck and requires a lot of replays to make sure they just don't overwhelm you. The good thing with using skirmishers is if they decide to charge your skirmishers once you engage in melee there are usually 2-3 actual infantry brigades ready to pour a volley down on them and rout them back, allowing you to reform the skirmishers again. Yea, you pretty much end up wiping out all of your friendly "allies" and it would probably get you court martialed for treating actual men as disposable meatshields but that won be the battle. On the plus side, based on how the game actually works at the moment you get a lot of free rifles "recovered." Make sure to suicide the artillery at the end too for maximum value!

I actually have a lot of artillery (around 20 batteries), pretty close to your 1:2 ratio, they are just in small 8 gun units because of diminishing returns with more guns in a unit. Any higher and you run out of ammo too fast imo. That and the only artillery pieces I actually consider using are the 24 hwtz and 10 ord. You simply do not have enough artillery pieces to get more - I pretty much already emptied the shop. Everything else I consider not as good, although the 12 nap is okay. Usual division I run is 4 infantry 2 artillery (1 10 ord, 1 24 hwtz) with 3 of these per corp - the a flex division with 4 infantry and 2 wild cards (usually either 1 carbine cav and 1 extra artillery or 2 melee cav depending on the battle) Infantry is the core unit I will be using regardless, they are much more versatile and can operate independently.

That's actually really cool to know. Is that an exploit or working as intended? I'm going to use either way as I had a lot of units just sitting there doing nothing but just curious.

Comments on Washington on Legndary- It was a pretty...exhausting battle. The first time I played it it took 4 hours (defeat), the second time 3 hours (defeat) and the third time took 5 whole hours before I actually beat it. Actually I'm pretty sure I would have lost if the timer ran for just ran on for a few minutes longer, as quite a lot of my brigades were at 300-700 men and would have shattered with a few more volleys. Some silly stats - I brought 100k infantry 3k cavalry and 148 guns. They brought 355k infantry 17k cavalry and 1632 guns. They literally sat there and pounded the crap out of you even if you were in fortifications. Over a fourth of my guns simple dissolved and shattered permanently because I placed them in the gun fortifications or anywhere near the infantry fortifications. Note to self - never put your artillery anywhere remotely near your infantry again, because the splash damage from 500 guns concentrated an an infantry brigade will pretty much wipe out the guns stationed near it in less than an hour. Some things really annoyed me about this battle was the angles of the cover in fortifications. There were several cases where right in front of me were flanking my units in cover, even though they were directly ahead of me. Something else the fact that I had no idea that units you deployed in the Northern part of the battlefield could not reinforce those in the South, if I ever decide to torture myself again I'll know better and deliberately not deploy any units in the deployment field and see if they show up in the southern part of the battlefield, or if its fixed.. The other thing is I am still not sure if the units you do not defeat from day 1 ever come back to attack on you on day 2, I'm leaning towards no...Which meant all the time I spent encircling and destroying over 100k men on day 1 might have been pointless, as they would never appear again anyways, I might as well have saved a couple thousand troops for the second day. The other thing that kind of irked me about the CSA Legendary campaign was that you have a lack of manpower pretty much the entire game. And then bam the last phase of the campaign you get tens of thousands of free recruits from the minor battles. If I had known this I would not have been spending my reputation on manpower the first 90% of the game, as I ended up at Washington with only 100k cash and 35k manpower after those silly minor battles. I literally could not buy any more guns guns as the shop ran out of Springfield 1842, Rebored farmers, and 1855s/Pattern Enfields, and anything else was too expensive. Its probably best to trade for guns and cash instead of recruits then, and constantly buy more rifles and stock up as the shop resets each major battle. It felt really awkward reaching that phase after spending the entirety of the game playing a different style only to have the choices you made sort of invalidated from the rewards of the final phase of the campaign. All in all, I think Washington is a really fitting end to the CSA campaign and I enjoyed the battle a lot. I have to revise my comment from earlier, Washington is probably the most brutal battle in the entire CSA campaign. I'll probably go ahead and bash my head against Richmond next to see how it goes for the Union side, hopefully it is as good as Washington was for CSA. Other notes about the battle or game in general: - On Washington, bring a lot more cavalry than 4 brigades and run amok amongst their massive artillery brigades which they leave unguarded...a lot. - Need a lot more fodder units, apparently having 12 fodder brigades with 1842s and farmers is not enough - Need more than 100k reserve cash to refill ammunition on Washington between days. 5 x 35k ammo wagons is expensive. - I...don't remember if there were any skirmishers on Washington other than the first near Fort DeRussy, which are shattered easily...if there isn't, then actually having a huge stock of Whitworth (TS) and J.F. Brown (TS) and actually running a few skirmishers might actually be worth it as they would outrange any infantry on the field. I've actually avoided using skirmishers in the game altogether because of the scaling but this might be a thing for Washington. - Apparently buying every single 10 Pdr Ord and 24 Hwtz isn't enough to have reserve guns on Washington due to the two minor battles being extremely heavy on artillery losses, might have to expand and actually use 12 Pdr Napoleons... - Not sure if -15% weapon quality does anything at all for Washington as every single enemy unit had 1863, Spencers, or Spencer Carbines. Maybe they downgraded some Spencers to 1863s... - Considering on building a pure artillery Corps commander just for Washington with +20% ammo and artillery spec just for Washington because you can deploy so many corps stacked on top of one another in Washington, although I'm still not sure if the +20% does anything at all, but the +5% accuracy and -5% reloading time would be nice for the guns. - 20 pdr parrotts are still useless and I have to remember to actually save enough money to switch them out next time around. They are great to train artillery as they have a long range so your artillery can farm experience, but they are quite useless even at max experience. I tried running 2 3-star 20 pdr parrots with ammo, cover (not a big fan of shooting or gunnery training as they give firearms +10, and you can farm firearms easily on artillery to 100. I always run Tactical training giving +50% rotation speed +25% cover and 200% stealth are stats that cannot actually be acquired in battles based on my understanding but I might be wrong) and long range training and they still did absolutely nothing. Screenshots below. Game is extremely fun, I've spent over 300 hours in this game according to Steam already, and will probably spend many more. It was nice to see my player progression grow as I started on B.G., then moved to M.G., then Legendary, and keep getting better at the game. I still need better map awareness though. Definitely recommending for people to buy the game if they haven't already - great value.

I'm actually still stuck on Washington too, but I've only tried the battle twice since how long the damn battle is. Those forts can sure take a pounding, but I'll be replaying this battle tonight and see how it goes with a new strategy. Will see how it goes!

On Legendary, I'm not sure if the change to the battle of Laurel Hill is necessarily a good one. I understand that the rewards for the minor battles leading up to Cold Harbor for both sides were increased in order to give the players more incentive to play them as they were considered 'difficult' battles where the rewards weren't worth the amount of losses you would take playing them, which I guess is a welcome change. However, making Laurel Hill even more difficult when it was considered a pretty hard battle before already might be a bit too much. Previously, you started with 3 artillery brigades and 5 brigades of 1700~ men each, now the infantry brigades have been reduced from 1700~ to only 700~ per unit. This reduces the amount of men you start out with from 9000 to only 3,500, which makes it near impossible to hold the objectives on Legendary as each Union brigade is 2950 men each. I had to replay the battle 13 times to finally beat it on this latest patch when previously I would have no problems at all with the battle. I'd probably consider this the hardest battle of the game on this patch.

Not sure if this change is the one that is reducing the size of AI brigades in the last phase, but if it was it might be a tad bit too much. I grew kind of used to facing 3 star 2950 Confederate brigades in my Union Legendary playthrough, but on the newest battles they are only around 2400 - 2600 in size - although I have only played Battle of Fort Stevens and another one of the smaller battles after Cold Harbor so far. The AI does seem a lot better at attacking fortifications now though, so it sort of makes up for it. I'll see how it goes when I get more experience with the patch.

Don't try to hold the objectives at first, just take the woods which are a way stronger defensive position. Let them overextend bleed them out, and then counterattack. When the map opens up to the south, don't attack their points. Instead, move your men into the woods, and when they start shifting their line to reinforce one area, they will move troops out of their barricades/woods and you get to fight them while you have cover. Shatter then then push forward and take the points then. Attached screenshot of how I arranged my right flank for pretty much the entire battle on Legendary. Patience is the key to victory. There is no need to rush.

Laurel Hill is definitely doable, even on Legendary. On Legendary veterancy doesn't matter as much, if at all. What will be holding you back is manpower. Laurel Hill is a great opportunity to gain extra recruits. I came out of Laurel Hill with a net positive of around +2000 recruits after all the losses, which is really really good. On most "small battles" you barely break even on Legendary difficultly later on. Clever use of the free SC brigades allows you to have them soak up the losses by taking the brunt of the Union attack. When you counterattack, use them to spearhead the advance with your actual brigades on flanking and support duties, so they don't take as much casualties and get free experience. Once you identify which part of the line the Union will be focusing on, you can be free to rotate your other SC brigades from the flank that is not getting attacked and have them sent as meat fodder down to the flank that is taking the heaviest pounding and manning their positions with your own troops, which will not take that much casualties. Honestly, if you play it smart, you won't be losing veterancy at all and will most likely be gaining them on core brigades.

This is strange, I didn't really encounter this problem in my Chickamaga playthrough two days ago, but it could be because they reform after 10-15 seconds of routing all the time and rejoin the battle in legendary... I did have a case where a unit routed through me again and I had to divert several detached skirmishers to ward it away for the rest of the battle which was annoying, but that was the only one. Were you playing on the Union or Confederate side? I kept one long unbroken line through the entire game and everytime a unit retreating not directly away from me I would detach a brigade or 2 to ward them off. The important thing is not to have any gaps in your lines. If you have no vision, always detach skirmishers to provide the vision for you. I do agree that the battle is extremely difficult if you are unaware of how it plays out or if its your first playthrough, however it is one of the easier battles I've played. If you are playing the Confederate side, some tips to help is that I abandoned both Victory points instead of trying to hold them until I had both Corps fully on the field. Just let the AI take the victory points while you sit in the woods and have them deplete their forces attempting to push you out, and then counterattack once they have used up most of their units. It should be an easy victory. On the Union side its pretty much the same, There is no need to rush for the objectives if you can just sit in the woods and lure the AI into attack you. Union has an easier time of it as they are defending most of the objectives, and the ones to the Northeast are really close to the woods so a last minute push should easily secure them.

Okay, I replayed the battle with the new strategy I suggested just to see how it work out and provide you with more details on how to beat it on Legendary. Sorry if the screenshots are a bit ugly. It didn't work quite as well as I hoped it would as the forward woods was a bit too tough to hold so i lost a few extra thousand men for nothing, but overall it went pretty well. You can hold the line up North pretty easily, when Burnside crosses the bridge en mass pull back to the town and Church, the Federals will pick one objective to focus on and split their forces 70/30%, which allows the smaller force to be beaten for great ratios before you push forward and pin them against the larger one. Which objective they focus on is a bit of a coin toss, first time it was Sharpsburg, second time I did it they attacked the Church. Town defense is simple just stay in the town and outflank with brigades when they commit, then repeat. The Church defense was a bit complicated so I made a more detailed picture with how I did it. You want to hold the woods to the left of the Church with around 4-5 brigades of infantry with 3 in line, 1 as backup if you get charged, and 1 as a flanking force on the left to quickly shatter. The center was 2 mobile brigades which would dash forward and backwards depending on how the fight was going to add extra firepower when needed, but otherwise stay out of range as they didn't have cover so you wouldn't want them to get hit (Forest and 6th Brigade in the screenshot). The east woods was held by 5th and 2nd, and the would be the static defense there, with the 4th and 7th shifting back and forth from the North to the South as situation demanded. If the AI attacks that side of the wood then they would be static and the forces at the Church would be the mobile units pushing forward and backwards, and vice versa. Juggle this until around 1:30 is left on the timer and you should have whittled down a decent chunk of their forces that you have force parity or maybe like 15-20% less than them, but what you make up for is in morale. Their units have been shattered over and over again, so you can push forward and take the fight onto the field and they will shatter with a few volleys, reform, and rout again. You can use this to quickly leapfrog your units back to Sunken Road and secure it. I made the decision to cut through them and divide them by going straight for the capture point instead of encircling and pushing them to one side so I could pin one force with a few units to hold them and have the other force destroy the artillery batteries because I didn't want to get constantly shelled while waiting for my units to envelope one flank and slowly push them away from the capture point I ended up with 2,000 less casualties than the first time I played it attempting to actually fight at Sunken Road before retreating, so it was okay. Can still probably be improved though. Images: Green is where the troops were, and Yellow is their new position after I redeploy.

If I wake up on time I'll come watch. It'll be interesting to see how someone else does Antietam Legendary.

You can hold the woods and the fortifications in the North part of the map really easily and chew them up as they come. Have your men arranged in firing arcs so that two-three brigades can always target one of theirs as they advance and reshatter them over and over. Use 24 pound howitzers as they are devastating holding the line up North (They racked up around 7,000+ kills each) Have a small force positioned on the bridge to the East to rout the first division that crosses, which should be 2 cavalry, 3 infantry, then 2 artillery brigades, then pull back to a more defensible position. The main problem on Legendary is that when it moves to the last phase, a ton of Union troops pour across the river from the East and you don't have enough troops to fight them due to the reduced recruits and gold in Legendary as well as their silly 3,000 man brigades that take forever to shatter. I went into Antietam with 52,000 and I had 18,000 positioned to hold the east during the last phase and they just swarmed right over me. After trying to fight them for a while I pulled back to the woods near Dunker Church as well as the Sharpsburg, split their Eastern force in two then beat them by piecemeal. In retrospect, the smart thing to do would have been pull straight back to the Church and Sharpsburg right away after defeating their advance force, let them take Sunken Road, then counterattack after they have split their troops. In the screenshot around 15,000 of the losses were from facing the flanking corp to the East. As long as you manage to hold the line in the North, then it is a cakewalk until their flanking force crosses the bridge en masse. I'll probably replay it again when I have time to see if I can give any better advice for the last part of the battle. Edit: Added a screenshot of the minimap with how I positioned my troops. Green for the first few phases, then before the Eastern flank attacks, pull your flank back to the Church and Sharpsburg as detailed below, then after their split their troops counterattack and defeat them by pinning them against the city. If you have a large amount of cavalry you can sweep around their flank on the right and take out their batteries, but only do this if you have at least 2 brigades. It takes a long time to kill the 600 men batteries and they are always together so you keep getting grapeshotted while you do it by an adjacent battery.