Tips for new players

[Mukremin]

I saw in a couple of YouTube videos guys reorganizing and refilling their ranks in between multiple day battles. I remembee trying that but it made the battle restart... maybe i am wrong but it happened. It also happenes when i had saved midway during a battle, i loaded the save game and it restarted the whole battle!

[Bramborough]

On 12/1/2017 at 12:52 PM, mrm5117 said:

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?

Interesting; hadn't read this anywhere else that I recall.  Anyone able to confirm/debunk?  And if valid...what the nature of the "divisional proximity" bonus might be?

Kinda in same general topic area (leaders' battlefield effects), does Corps commander provide anything other than the selected perks and the morale resistance/recovery bonus within command radius?   And does XP have any effect on a Corps commander (I've read that he does not factor into the unit Command stat, like division/brigade commanders do).  Right now, it appears to me that there's no difference between a full-XP LTG like Lee and a freshly-promoted one; they both get three perk slots and a command radius.  Is Lee's radius slightly larger?  Or perhaps his morale +modifier slightly higher?

 

[mrm5117]

I've recently been trying to keep divisions together and when possible moving and forming lines by division instead of current proximity on the field. It takes a little effort but I'm getting some pride from doing so. I'm trying to think about tactical maneuvers in terms of divisions now. Selecting and moving by division also helps to not have extremely long battle lines drawn when you're trying to command a bunch of units simultaneously. The shorter lines allow you to stack divisions as assault waves (or defense in depth) and that's a pretty cool new element I'm now enjoying.

I have not, though, tried testing out the differences in command bonus for these divisions being held together versus not. Still hoping somebody gets the time and motivation to do so.

[MikeK]

What benefits if any do corps commanders and divisional generals provide to nearby troops not of their command. 

In reality the brigades of divisions would usually stay and fight together, and I seek to do that for the historical fee, but I and other players would be curious what distinctions the game makes.

 

 Thanks.

 

[Aetius]

23 hours ago, MikeK said:

What benefits if any do corps commanders and divisional generals provide to nearby troops not of their command.

Corps commander units provide a morale recovery buff inside their command radius (the yellow circle around them when they are selected). There's a Lt. General perk that makes the radius larger.

Division commanders do not provide any "nearby troops" benefits, but will take direct command when brigades in the division are merged. This makes them more likely to be wounded or killed, but can keep severely damaged units from shattering - a pretty good reason to keep divisions together.

[MikeK]

Thanks

So corps commanders are interchangeable for rallying, morale, etc other than buff circle size and,

keeping divisions together confers no benefit vs mixing and matching units from various divisions or corps EXCEPT proximity helping to merge brigades.  

Can you describe correct best practice/technique to merging?  I have tried it a few times - it seemed to work once - the other times it did not but the battle moved on. 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

7 hours ago, MikeK said:

Thanks

So corps commanders are interchangeable for rallying, morale, etc other than buff circle size and,

keeping divisions together confers no benefit vs mixing and matching units from various divisions or corps EXCEPT proximity helping to merge brigades.  

Can you describe correct best practice/technique to merging?  I have tried it a few times - it seemed to work once - the other times it did not but the battle moved on. 

So, let's say you are playing Union and you have a couple of hundred Fayetteville Rifles and you'd like to build an elite assault unit; or want to maximize your slim supply of Henry or Spencer rifles. . .  

Within one well commanded division: give the Fayetteville rifles to the most elite unit you possess that has few enough men to equip them. Pick a second brigade and place it in the same division to be its consort. Name both brigades appropriately so you'll understand which is which in the rattle of battle.Side note, make sure the other brigades in this division are well commanded because they will lose the Divisional General's buffs to command and efficiency when you combine brigade. 

The Consort Brigade wants to be as large as possible, as elite as possible, and armed the worst firearms in your inventory. What you want, and this will depend on the exact number of rifles you are trying to use, is a brigade of 2,500 men totaled between the rifle brigade and its consort AFTER you deploy skirmishers. This takes a bit of practice, don't get frustrated if it doesn't work the first time. Try, try again. 

On the battlefield, have the rifle unit and its consort move to very close proximity to one another. Deploy skirmishers in both brigades. Select the elite rifle unit and order it to combine division, and the consort will begin to be absorbed. When the new brigade has formed, recall skirmishers; and you will have a heavy, elite, well-armed unit 

This is one possible outcome: A Divisional Brigade of Spencer Rifles parked in the Devil's Den in Gettysburg laying waste to any Rebel brigade that gets near it. When they bring up their artillery, they scampered to the top of the hill and continued firing. This, BTW, is my favorite screenshot EVER: 

 

Notice the brigade is armed with Spencer Rifles, was originally 2,771 men strong, and surrounded by Rebel dead. Regardless of what you name either the rifle brigade or its consort, the brigade name will change to the commanding general's. In this case, 'Owen'. 

[A. P. Hill]

1 hour ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

... On the battlefield, have the rifle unit and its consort move to very close proximity to one another. ... Select the elite rifle unit and order it to combine division, and the consort will begin to be absorbed. When the new brigade has formed, recall skirmishers; and you will have a heavy, elite, well-armed unit ...

OKay so apparently I've been going about this all ass-backwards ... I thought I read that you had to select the "consort" first, then the "elite" second ...

[Andre Bolkonsky]

3 hours ago, A. P. Hill said:

OKay so apparently I've been going about this all ass-backwards ... I thought I read that you had to select the "consort" first, then the "elite" second ...

yeah, it is a move that takes patience and planning. It takes a few tries to get it optimized. 

[Hitorishizuka]

It's very bothersome, honestly. You can see me do it all the time in my playthroughs and it takes a lot of micro to combine the divisions and it creates a bit of temporary weakness from time to time because you don't always have the brigades to cover the ground you need to because you're always a few short due to combinations.

On the other hand, especially with how early you can get Fayettevilles as CSA, you can get some devastating effects out of them done right.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

20 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

It's very bothersome, honestly. You can see me do it all the time in my playthroughs and it takes a lot of micro to combine the divisions and it creates a bit of temporary weakness from time to time because you don't always have the brigades to cover the ground you need to because you're always a few short due to combinations.

On the other hand, especially with how early you can get Fayettevilles as CSA, you can get some devastating effects out of them done right.

Yes. I agree. It is fun to figure out how it works and to have one or two divisional brigades for special purposes. But it is very tiresome to manage lots of them in any major battle or for a prolonged period of time where in one battle the rifles and their consort will spawn side by side, and at dawn the next day they are scattered around the map. 

[MikeK]

On 2/13/2018 at 2:43 PM, A. P. Hill said:

OKay so apparently I've been going about this all ass-backwards ... I thought I read that you had to select the "consort" first, then the "elite" second ...

The mating rituals of brigades are indeed more  intricate than I appreciated. Sounds like they need a safe space to merge after casting off their skirmisher screens to gain some privacy.  

I understand that this can be used to scrape up more rare firearms. but I've only sought to do it where brigades were just hit too hard, and without ending up with worse weapons. I may feel differently when I try the CSA in the final release version and see how their manpower and munitions challenges are. 

The effect on divisional command and having good men for the other brigades is a big issue to keep in mind and prepare for ahead of battle if possible. 

All my units have Corps and division number and status/equipment abbreviations  for sorting them out in  battle so I can keep track if considered in advance.  

 

 

 

Other question: does a greater distance from the divisional commander reduce the commander's effect? 

 

If so, there is reason for brigades of a division to stay nearby.

[The Soldier]

As the David Attenborough of the esoteric and mysterious mating ritual of brigade combining, you must select the brigade whose weapons you want to become the combined brigade's weapons.  You have a 500-man Fayetteville brigade and a 2000-man Farmer brigade - select the 500-man Fayettevill brigade and use Combine.

You do not, however, get guns from it that you did not originally have.  If that combined brigade looses 250 men, you get around 50 Fayettevilles and 200 Farmers.

[Aetius]

On 2/13/2018 at 9:02 AM, MikeK said:

Can you describe correct best practice/technique to merging?  I have tried it a few times - it seemed to work once - the other times it did not but the battle moved on. 

My experience has been that there is a "guide" unit that the others will head toward to merge with. If you hit the merge button on that unit, it will go towards the nearest unit, or sometimes not move. Clicking the merge button on any other unit will cause them to move towards the guide unit. The simplest way is to hit the merge button on both (all) units, and they will eventually figure it out (you may need to do it more than once). The fastest way is to observe who the "guide" unit is, march the second unit up right behind them, then hit merge and they'll walk right up. You can have the merging unit run, but they will slow up when they get close, which is why you want them to be as close as possible before you actually hit merge. You can also run the units on top of each other, but bad things happen when you do that - LOS gets blocked, units get shot in the flank, etc.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Aetius

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

Not new, just coming back after 2 months...does the first artillery skill with the additional ammo work now?

[The Soldier]

Nope.

[MikeK]

Thank you for the added detail. I infer from the explanation that the merging ritual should be set up safe from enemy interfence as the other units appear also to be distracted.  

 

The official guide pdf also mentions the divide command - - does that work, presumably with a unit of large size?  

 

 

[MikeK]

Fresh question on the ambiguous explanation of Medicine in the guide pdf

 

"f you want to reduce your battle losses, then you need to upgrade your Medicine Level. Each point heals 2% casualties and on maximum level 20%. After a battle the casualties of every unit are restored by this percentage. Certainly, this skill is very useful if you are an aggressive General. Medicine saves you money that you would spend for reinstating your Veteran brigades and also reserves a considerable number of recruits that you can use for growing your army."

 

Per point, Is the restoration "2% of casualties" suffered or the much larger effect of restoring "casualties of 2%" of the unit?    
 

[Aetius]

1 hour ago, MikeK said:

The official guide pdf also mentions the divide command - - does that work, presumably with a unit of large size? 

The divide command is only for previously merged brigades. It will split them back into their constituent brigades.

1 hour ago, MikeK said:

Per point, Is the restoration "2% of casualties" suffered or the much larger effect of restoring "casualties of 2%" of the unit?   

It's a percentage of casualties that you take, not a percentage of unit size. For example, if you take 10,000 casualties in a battle, a top-level Medicine skill of 20% will restore 2,000 men (and their weapons) to your army after the battle. If you take only 100 casualties (which can happen), then you only get back 20 men. And it's done on a unit-by-unit basis, so the units that take the most damage get the most men back.

[LAntorcha]

On 12/22/2017 at 2:00 PM, Mukremin said:

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.

Take a look at the tooltip over Men and compare. Read the Army Reorganization post in this forum.

I didn't realize on this until mid CSA first campaing.

Edited March 8, 2018 by LAntorcha

[LAntorcha]

Once a Battle has started, and between Phases, when you see the Corps distribution map, you can go to Camp. There...

• You can change Officers and replace wounded ones (you can even switch Officers from Corps/Divisions/Brigades not involved).
• You can change Unit distribution, not having to match the previous scheme (i.e. now I go for a full Cav Div instead of Infantry).
• You can refill the Brigade's numbers, provided you have men and weapons of the required type.
• You can Level Up Brigades provided they have enough Experience.
• You can refill Corps Supply amount.

But...

• You can't change weapon types (i.e. Lorenz stays Lorenz, 12Pdr stays 12Pdr, and so...).
• You can't dismiss or create New Brigades.
• You can't access Armory, Barracks nor Career tabs.

 

Having a 4th Reserve Corps (even a 5ft) now makes truly sense despite not having space in the actual engagement... remember to leave some empty slots for ease of unit swapping.

This features may be obvious to some players, others may not have realized.

[LAntorcha]

Those should be pinned in Post#1

Miss a Cavalry Guide...

Edited March 18, 2018 by LAntorcha

[Mukremin]

Don't know if this has been posted, but i stumbled upon some nice battlefield animated map video's. I find it pretty interesting as it gives a inside look at the battles we fight in the game, the maps are almost identical to the game maps. I love it, they have video's of almost all the big battles.

 

[contact]

Hi,

Thanks for post the above.

Very impressive.

Amazing to give such an insight into this terrible 4 year conflict in under half an hour.

Much appricaiated.

[Guest]

Can you play this as multiplayer?