Tragopan

Interesting! Never thought about that. Will have to give it a try. Thanks Also... have you considered doing a rebalance mod for Aos? 😇 I do be missing my very large brigades.. (and enemies' brigades, for that matter!)

Hello! So I've been digging into this one and have a question in regards to Troop ships.. Are they useful for anything other than landing battles? Can they be used to board? Been trying to use them in ship battles to initiate boarding actions but it seems they can only deploy in longboats, which cannot be used to board. Thanks!

I've been using 1k Skirmisher units with the left side speed/cover/light infantry perks. They don't seem to shoot very fast they just consume what ammo they have faster than infantry does. A lot faster.

Infantry weapons. I've had a very hard time finding carbines/skirmisher rifles.

I have been tempted to try out using skirmishers more heavily (modernized infantry made possible with new perks!), but the ammo limitations are what really turn me off to the idea. They go through ammo very quickly compared to infantry units, do far less damage, and for some reason seem to be very tricky to refill with a supply wagon.

This is awesome thanks! I'm particularly tickled by the prospect of an artillery corps.

Oh yes definitely. If you look in my album I make extensive use of flanking fire to rout and weaken infantry brigades. Note that I dismounted them in order to act as dismounted skirmishers like they should be historically.. but it is probably better to leave them in the saddle. I will say that dismounting them in that last example, the foresty minor battle, proved to be better than keeping them mounted though. They worked very well cycling attacks in the forest, concentrating fire on the infantry brigades. It works very well as long as you can micromanage all of them to keep up pressure while also not allowing them to retreat from good cover, nor be charged down or flanked. It's very easy to allow a skirmisher unit you told to hold to die cause an infantry brigade charged it when you weren't looking. Another good example of dismounted fighting I can think of is the Right Flank during Fredericksburg. Those heavy, wide swathes of forest are perfect for Carbine Cavalry. Dismount and give them attack orders en masse. What this does is as units fire they retreat to the rear due to their skirmisher behavior and other units run up cause they were blocked previously. It creates a steady stream of fire. This works great on 1 star and less infantry brigades. For Veterans you'll need to micromanage your dismounted cavalry to hold on the flanks and fire. Isolated infantry brigades are the bread and butter of a Cavalry Corps in my opinion. Overall the constant 90%+ cover bonus you'll get from being in the forest will help mitigate any firepower from the infantry. Unfortunately I do not know how effective that tactic will be as the war goes on and more accurate rifles come into play. It depends on the enemy infantry's volley being ineffective.

I tried using a Cavalry Corps with mostly Enfields to be able to hold good ground with great mobility, but I could not get enough Enfield rifles to outfit all of them and keep them reinforced, and they could not hold up to infantry brigades even in cover because they'd get charged. Unfortunately the other weapons they get access to cannot fire at the same range as infantry, so more times than not they'll just get shot at. I am not sure if it is possible to use them as they were used historically. I did have a lot of success using them to flank on large maps though, or micro managing them to assault infantry in overwhelming force. It was very effective but not very fun because the micromanagement is just too tedious. It is a high risk high reward sort of gamble cause all it takes for your expensive cavalry to get wiped out is letting them pursue just a little too far, or their own skirmishing behavior making them abandon 100% cover just to keep the enemy at a certain range. Made a little album though! Cavalry Corps

Curious to know if anyone else likes to roleplay out their campaigns! AARs are fun too; always a good read. Currently I started over on a CSA campaign on the weakest level while I try to learn how to effectively manage the OOB. I decided for this one though I was gonna do a bit of roleplaying.. so I made a plan. Being from Ireland myself I wanted to see what Irish involvement in the Civil War was like, but even Europeans know about the Irish Brigade in the Union. I did not know much about Irish involvement in the CSA though so I did a bit of digging and happened upon William Mahone. Seemed like a pretty interesting guy! Not an immigrant himself but not far off. He probably felt more American than Irish for sure. Worked on the railroad, had a big beard. Shows up in the game too! So I began my CSA game named Mahone, with points towards infantry, business and logistics (since he commanded an Infantry brigade, was a successful businessman, and had a history in railroads). After mopping up the Fort with very few losses (probably the lowered difficulty) I entered into the OOB and dismissed the General you are given to represent your character. I have 3 reasons for doing this (first two of which I would like to suggest fixing by the game allowing you more customization when you first make your General). 1) You cant select your portrait, so I will usually name myself something common in the generic officer pool. Then once I get close to finishing the first mission I will save. After I finish I go into the Barracks and see if an officer popped up with my name, and a portrait I like, then I'll dismiss my given General and use that officer to represent "me". If no such officer is present I will reload the previous save and keep doing that until I get the officer I'm looking for. 2) You can't name yourself with a first and last name, so you have to choose between showing up as "William Mahone" (to use a familiar example) during the battle while everyone else just has a last name, or you'll just be "Mahone" in all the unit descriptions while everyone else has a first name. Getting an officer provided by the game works around this. 3) I was gonna make my story out of a historical officer! So I thought it best to just use the real Mahone given to me anyway down the line. I don't yet have access to Mahone. Can't remember when exactly he shows up but I believe it is within 20 battles. Until then he'll just be a faceless name controlling the army. The Corps is mostly comprised of Irish Protestants who are Pro-English and see themselves more as Americans than Irish in exile. Their ancestors/recent immigration were driven by exploration and entrepreneurial spirit and have since integrated into the culture of the South. They are known for their hardiness and great stamina with no quarter shown to the enemy, yet no malice. The longest serving Brigade was mustered by William Mahone himself from his railroad workers, known as the Railroad Brigade. Current command rests with Colonel Albert Raith. The Sharpshooters are Native Americans who served as Scouts in the railroad employment. Have not thought of a good name for them yet! Eventually this Corps will swell to be completely Irish as Mahone breaks the Union lines and allows Pro-Democrat Irish to trickle into the CSA through Maryland. There will be bickering between Protestants and Catholics for sure, as well as Anti- and Pro- British arguments, but every Irishman can agree he will not serve as the Union's fodder! It will be a Corps designed for the attack, with mostly endurance and melee centric perks. It will be heavy on Infantry, with some Cavalry to serve as Scouts and long range counter-battery artillery that will sit on a hill and cover the advance. Look forward to seeing what stories others are coming up with! Note: I was trying to fill out the Brigades in my first Corps (Carlin's Corps) with Officers who might have Irish, Irish-Scot, or English surnames. If anyone knows of any CSA generals who are Irish that show up in the campaign I'd appreciate the heads up so I can grab them!

If I am playing CSA I leave my Brigades either named as their generals, to signify the romanticism involved with them, or if a Brigade performs really well I'll think up a story for them and either give them a name associated with that story or if I can't think up one I'll turn to Fantasy Name Generator's Army Name Generator. The Corps get named after their General, or likewise, a story, such as the real life examples of the Irish Brigade, Iron Brigade, or Louisiana Tigers. If we could do the same with Divisions I would. Union I stick to strict, uniformed, government approved numbers. Will rename infantry brigades into "1st Infantry, 2nd Infantry, 3rd Infantry" and so on. Replace "Infantry" with whatever else the Brigade is, such as Sharpshooters, Cavalry, Artillery. Sometimes if a brigade performs really well I will name them like above. Leave the Corps in Roman numerals, though I do pick a random number between 1 and 17 if it is between 1861 and 1862, or 1 and 25 if it is 1863+ since those were the Corps raised by the Union historically during that time. Note: I leave out "Brigade" from the name so that the text doesn't get too small, plus the AI just leaves general names as their brigade without the "Brigade" part added into the name so it fits a little better. So the Iron Brigade would just be named "Iron" in my campaign.

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

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..