2nd Bull Run Fortifications

[Wandering1]

Is anybody else running into an issue on the northern fortifications in 2nd Bull Run? Finding that it's easily considered flanked without crossing the river.

The two squads here were getting flanks on the unit in the fortification. Them shooting through each other is a different problem.

 

[Don't Escrow Taxes]

I ran into this too but looking at your screenshot it does seem to me that most of the Yankee brigade is pretty much flanking those earthworks. It's close but I think it's reasonably to say the fire from the right half of that brigade is enfilading the center of the works.

[Wandering1]

The shield may be positioned facing east, and thus the center point that it is considering flanks may be the east. By that logic though, people from the front should be able to enfilade the tail portion facing north.

In either case though, this is going to be another trap fortification because it's impossible to not get flanked by the swarm of Union soldiers, and the buildings right behind the fortification give the same 100% cover without risking a flank.

[Hitorishizuka]

9 hours ago, Wandering1 said:

In either case though, this is going to be another trap fortification because it's impossible to not get flanked by the swarm of Union soldiers, and the buildings right behind the fortification give the same 100% cover without risking a flank.

It was always a trap fortification even before flanking came in once you look at how many brigades are able to stack up and attack compared to what he has holding there. That side of the line should almost always be pulled back to the tree line instead.

[Wandering1]

11 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

It was always a trap fortification even before flanking came in once you look at how many brigades are able to stack up and attack compared to what he has holding there. That side of the line should almost always be pulled back to the tree line instead.

Not necessarily; before the flanking change, you would just intentionally put bullet catchers on that fortification to make the enemy waste ammo, while you still have the tree line to fall back to when they eventually break through. Not to mention, if the enemy decided to try to encircle you by going northward, if you positioned your supporting squad correctly, the supporting squad would get to shoot back at them also.

On hard or legendary, it's quite easy to deny ammunition to the northern pack, because the computer fields craptons of 20 pdr Parrotts that go through ammo like there's no tomorrow. You just have skirmishers shoot the ammo carts, and they try to bring ammo carts from the other side of the map, which allows you to steal them in transit.

[Hitorishizuka]

3 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

Not necessarily; before the flanking change, you would just intentionally put bullet catchers on that fortification to make the enemy waste ammo, while you still have the tree line to fall back to when they eventually break through. Not to mention, if the enemy decided to try to encircle you by going northward, if you positioned your supporting squad correctly, the supporting squad would get to shoot back at them also.

On hard or legendary, it's quite easy to deny ammunition to the northern pack, because the computer fields craptons of 20 pdr Parrotts that go through ammo like there's no tomorrow. You just have skirmishers shoot the ammo carts, and they try to bring ammo carts from the other side of the map, which allows you to steal them in transit.

I don't see why you would bother messing around with that given 20 pdr Parrots don't do any damage anyway and you're having to intentionally sacrifice some decent squads for the sake of it in a bad position. (If they were garbage squads then they'd break too fast to be worthwhile.) I would not ordinarily expect units to hold in those barricades for long before needing to fall back given the force disparity involved, which is rather a waste of time and more importantly puts your artillery at risk. (If they weren't at risk that meant they weren't supporting up front, which means it was even more of a waste of time and troops IMO.)

Plus, the other problem is you're forced to extend your line across to the wheatfields to anchor it which is just a bad position asking for a breakthrough, even if the AI isn't necessarily always smart enough to use it.

If you hold the treeline from the start the AI instead tries to mass on the VP in the center and it's more or less trivial to hold that frontage against them because you'll have roughly equal combat width but still good trees. They'll send a couple token brigades at the sides but nothing too extraordinarily and you can pinch in towards the center as necessary.

[Wandering1]

29 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

I don't see why you would bother messing around with that given 20 pdr Parrots don't do any damage anyway and you're having to intentionally sacrifice some decent squads for the sake of it in a bad position. (If they were garbage squads then they'd break too fast to be worthwhile.) I would not ordinarily expect units to hold in those barricades for long before needing to fall back given the force disparity involved, which is rather a waste of time and more importantly puts your artillery at risk. (If they weren't at risk that meant they weren't supporting up front, which means it was even more of a waste of time and troops IMO.)

Plus, the other problem is you're forced to extend your line across to the wheatfields to anchor it which is just a bad position asking for a breakthrough, even if the AI isn't necessarily always smart enough to use it.

If you hold the treeline from the start the AI instead tries to mass on the VP in the center and it's more or less trivial to hold that frontage against them because you'll have roughly equal combat width but still good trees. They'll send a couple token brigades at the sides but nothing too extraordinarily and you can pinch in towards the center as necessary.

Mostly a matter of the default strategy for the computer being to throw the mass of bodies to charge your numerically inferior troops. On the fortification, they have a melee bonus that helps them resist the charge, whereas in the forest, you have no melee bonus. You're hoping that the canister will kill them before they rout your guys in the trees.

I am throwing garbage squads in this example on the fortifications; Mahone in this example didn't break until the northern fortification broke and he got flanked.

At the end of the day; it's basically implementing elastic defense rather than hoping that the enemy never breaks you at all, because in hard/legendary, they will break you if they throw enough guys to charge you. It's forcing the enemy to spend lots of men and condition so they can't effect a break through at the treeline by charging, under the assumption that you're going to have to fall back eventually.

Also, since the screenshot above is my legendary run, I am forcing the enemy to run out of supply so my melee cavalry can sweep the guns after they run out of ammo; since the melee nerf, two cavalry squads kill artillery squads so slowly, the blob of artillery will eventually get two-three canisters off before you destroy two artillery squads.