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Battle of Washington


Beruldsen

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I went into this battle with roughly 100k as CSA on BG ... I thought I had won the day when I took all the objectives only to find out there is a day 2.  How did the Union manage to put 150k on the field when I had wiped out all but 20k of the original army and according to the intelligence reports should have had no more than 115-125 k in total.   I probably lost 30k on the first day (not realizing there would be a day 2) but on day 2 the AI focuses on one fort at a time.  The first one I had defended with 4 infantry brigades and one arty the odds must have been in the vicinity of at least 10 to 1 ... the fort was literally surrounded by blue.  In addition the Union fielded 350 guns which seems stunning since I spend most of the campaign destroying every arty unit I could. All of this seems very contrary to 0.90 where there should be a significant reward for winning every battle and destroying units.  I should add I killed 50k in Cold Harbor alone!

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the only thing that I can guess is that it is Washington

 

in real life, all those heavy artillery units that manned the walls and never went into the field would have been used in defense.  all the invalid corps would have been used too.

I still think the destroying army in battle thing should count for a lot, so by the end of the War even if you attack the enemy's capital they don't have many people

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I complained on this earlier as well... day two is a little ridiculous. I was on BG level and there is no way I could field an army to cover all the locations to hold off the hoard that came after me..... especially after the attrition on the first day of battle. The southern part of the map was a slaughterhouse!!! 

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26 minutes ago, Beruldsen said:

Personally ... I think the battle should end on the first day ... it was hard enough and you get the satisfaction of taking Washington. 

Talk about trying to take the trenches at Richmond.  That's just as difficult, yet then on the second day you have to take the rest of Richmond's forts.  Thank your pretty pink panties that you get to wait out the storm in forts at Washington. :)

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Hell ....I just played another full campaign on Colonel level ( just to see the victory screen : ) and showed up with 160k + troops to Washington and still got my ass kicked. The issue is the inability to use your flank troops for the southern part of the defense and the crazy requirement to hold every damn fort and the city.  With 3 Corps on the top half, 1 depleted Corps is not enough to hold all 3 objectives on the bottom half of the map. I had over 3/4 of my men trapped on the top half of the map ..... very frustrating. 

Back n forth ....back n forth......just when you think it over there is another damn phase until there seems to be no realistic possibility to get a victory. The top part of the map on Day 2 has more damn yankee cannons then I saw the whole game!!!!! Now I know others have apparently won the Washington battle but I just don't see how. This last battle has really made me hate what I think is one hell of a great game. 

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On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 4:22 PM, william1993 said:

... in real life, all those heavy artillery units that manned the walls and never went into the field would have been used in defense. ...

You may want to recant this statement. :)

Starting when Grant took over overall command of the Army of the Potomac, during the overland campaign, he needed men in a hurry to fill his diminishing ranks.  Grant realizing that Washington was going to be pretty much safe as he was drawing all Confederate Armies with him towards Richmond, and eventually Petersburg, realized that those heavy artillery units sitting in the D.C. fortifications were a gold mine waiting to be taken advantage of.

Most all of them were immediately reapportioned, handed 1863 Springfields, a cartridge box, and a cap box and ordered out of their cushy jobs around D.C. and into the line with the Army of the Potomac around Richmond and Petersburg, and converted to infantry over night.

 

Caveat - Not having played a successful union campaign, I cannot say how the game handles this. At what point, if the CSA is winning does the game mechanics break from the battle progression and takes the CSA and USA armies north to defend the capital?

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On 6/19/2017 at 2:25 AM, Beruldsen said:

Having played both ... I found Richmond to be much easier in comparison.  

I agree. I think its insane how harder Washington is, i have 50k troops left after the first day and i have to defend against 150k and 350 cannons!? I couldn't believe my eyes because i thought the battle lasted only one day.

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On 6/25/2017 at 11:18 AM, A. P. Hill said:

You may want to recant this statement. :)

Starting when Grant took over overall command of the Army of the Potomac, during the overland campaign, he needed men in a hurry to fill his diminishing ranks.  Grant realizing that Washington was going to be pretty much safe as he was drawing all Confederate Armies with him towards Richmond, and eventually Petersburg, realized that those heavy artillery units sitting in the D.C. fortifications were a gold mine waiting to be taken advantage of.

Most all of them were immediately reapportioned, handed 1863 Springfields, a cartridge box, and a cap box and ordered out of their cushy jobs around D.C. and into the line with the Army of the Potomac around Richmond and Petersburg, and converted to infantry over night.

 

Caveat - Not having played a successful union campaign, I cannot say how the game handles this. At what point, if the CSA is winning does the game mechanics break from the battle progression and takes the CSA and USA armies north to defend the capital?

which is why I said the ones that never went into action.

TThere were some who did. there were probably some who didn't

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2 hours ago, CSX4451 said:

This battle needs a revamp in my opinion ....... 

I haven't played it yet, but just from what I've read, I would suggest that since this is the last and final battle of the war, enemy forces, whichever they are, but still the AI need to be practically depleted. The people of either side by this time would have been drawing their support from the war and it would show in the lack of men and material to be used by said loosing side.    Also presuming this this is the last battle of the game, the player should expect that the AI has been thoroughly beaten ... incapable of producing any more men to fight on.  I fail to see the need for overwhelming force in this one battle.   If there is one overwhelming force it should be the player over the AI.

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1 hour ago, A. P. Hill said:

I haven't played it yet, but just from what I've read, I would suggest that since this is the last and final battle of the war, enemy forces, whichever they are, but still the AI need to be practically depleted. The people of either side by this time would have been drawing their support from the war and it would show in the lack of men and material to be used by said loosing side.    Also presuming this this is the last battle of the game, the player should expect that the AI has been thoroughly beaten ... incapable of producing any more men to fight on.  I fail to see the need for overwhelming force in this one battle.   If there is one overwhelming force it should be the player over the AI.

Well from what I understand the battle of washington is kind of like Lee's other northern campaigns : a dash north on a wrong-footed union to secure political rather than military gains, in this case the surrender of the Union by seizing its capital and demonstrating the superiority of the south. I think it's not too hard to imagine that union forces still outnumber the confederates just like they did when lee invaded north the two other times, but that total victory still comes for the south if you win the battle, after 4 years of ineffcient northern generalship, a gizillion death and the loss, even if temporary, of the capital.

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1 hour ago, Draluigi said:

Well from what I understand the battle of washington is kind of like Lee's other northern campaigns : a dash north on a wrong-footed union to secure political rather than military gains, in this case the surrender of the Union by seizing its capital and demonstrating the superiority of the south. I think it's not too hard to imagine that union forces still outnumber the confederates just like they did when lee invaded north the two other times, but that total victory still comes for the south if you win the battle, after 4 years of ineffcient northern generalship, a gizillion death and the loss, even if temporary, of the capital.

Exactly. I think the battle description even says something to the effect of that.

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  • 1 month later...

All episodes of my CSA campaign are finally up, Washington was a blast. Finally got to take the limiters off and use all of my 3* 100 all stat units and spend all my money.

Playlist starts here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns2AxiixpWI&list=PLWscnbIydjzQq5x0iAXgbA74XOBSGmJeY&index=25

Notable things--

As discussed elsewhere, army intel claims the Union should be limited to 125k only. I ended up facing a total of 60k+105k or so (rough estimates), which seems either unintended or non-obvious as to the way the mechanic works. (Is it supposed to be only on a per day limiter?)

Sniper skirmishers are godly and properly micro'd will rack up tremendous casualty counts, especially useful for picking away at the artillery from their rear safely. Skirmisher cavalry are quite handy as well again finally, as the battle is wide enough and you get the opportunity to defend static defenses again instead of having to attack trenches with no place to flank.

Probably doing a Union campaign after this, again learning/clear focused and not aimed at high difficulty. As said elsewhere, any and all feedback is welcome.

Edited by Hitorishizuka
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@Hitorishizuka

Some things I should mention (more or less my fault) - the 20pdr Parrott Gun is at an acceptable level right now, though I was a bit too...enthusiastic in declaring their usefulness.  After using them extensively in the second half of my Union campaign - as that's when the patch landed - I noted that they didn't perform quite as well as the 3-Inch Ordnance Rifles (except at very long ranges).  Their performance was nothing to scoff at, it was definitely miles ahead of how it was before, but I would still stick with Ordnance Rifles unless you want an artillery brigade to trade some mid range performance for long range performance.  Hopefully the upcoming cannon balance patch can address this along with some other concerns I had. :)

Also, I (personally) don't tend to go high on Logistics in the the Career tab.  Why?  In 90% of all battles, including both Minor Battles and Grand Battles, having high ammunition just doesn't work out the actual loss of a career point that could go somewhere else, like into Medicine, Training, or Economy (Politics is a no-brainer).  Economy especially - with higher Economy, you both buy stuff 25% cheaper and sell stuff for 25% more (meaning you buy and sell at the same price).  Furthermore, most of the battle where you really need extra ammunition, like at Fredricksburg, you have a nye-inexhaustible Supply Depot right next to you at no extra charge.  The same goes for Washington and Richmond - each fort and capture point has it's own Supply Depot that you can capture, effectively making Supply Wagons pointless.  No need to spend any more money, or Career Points, on Logistics.

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@The Soldier

Noted! A little better long range performance is probably fine given the ranges I was actually using them at for counterbattery/general sniping at max range in this battle, since they weren't getting very close either. Definitely miles better than the tens of casualties they used to inflict in the same situation.

The only other pick instead of Logistics would have been Economy--since I rarely needed to buy anything I devalued it. On the other hand, a lot of the work that I like to do tends to be with detached flanking cavalry and skirmishers picking up thousands of kills while nowhere close to resupply. I ran out of ammo all the time on those units (I recall even a couple times in these videos where I've had to just pull them back for resupply on purpose) so anything that helped that out was welcome. Some more money at the end probably would've been nice but I don't think I really ended up in a position where more infantry mattered.

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You know, after seeing the cavalry in your army and, at the butt-end of my Union playthrough, noting that the Frank Wesson and the Maynard Carbines aren't quite as crap as their stats make them out to be, I have a sudden and inexplicable urge to make The Cavalryman's Guide to Ultimate General: Civil War in the same fashion as The Artillerist's Guide.

Something more on-topic though, I noticed how you decided to tackle Forts deRussy and Stevens.  During testing in the 2 or 3 times I'd played it, I always opted to charge the Forts down after shooting out the supporting artillery units instead of shooting out all the units, as sitting outside the walls trading volleys was just not worth it.  I also completely ignored the enemy brigades in the Fence Fortifications just north of Fort Stevens, as why should I waste men trying to attack yet more fortifications (both the fences and the trench lines extending between Fort Stevens and Fort Slocum)?  I just dragged my men around the left flank of Fort Stevens to join up with the rest of my men.  I also had to charge down Fort Stevens, which was successful as once I broke one of the fortifications, the fort is so large I can just shoot out the rest of the fortifications from the rear and claim the fort as my own.  However, take this with a grain of salt, as this is how I did it with @Col_Kelly's Major General save (or was it a Legendary save?  I don't remember, it's been a while) where the Intelligence Service wasn't yet implemented and he had a relatively tiny army (I think just 90k across 3 corps?), and enemy brigades were rather chunky at 2000+ most of the time.  I think I had to face 300k Union soldiers on the second day with 60k soldiers left on my side.  And even though I pulled every single exploit I could possibly think of at the time, I almost won.  So even back then, it was horrendously hard.  Not much has changed. :)

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I shy away from charging a lot of the time (in a somewhat vicious cycle, I admit) as my brigades tend not to have more than 50+ melee and they're not equipped with CS Richmonds so their gun also isn't contribute. Combine that with fortification natural melee defense buff and being clumped up and even closer to grapeshot and it doesn't seem to work out all that great for me a lot of the time. IME if there's at least decent cover for a bait squad to not get trivially chunked out then focusing fire and outshooting the brigade on the edge has worked.

This also works hand in hand with my strategy of going after enemy units as much as possible, provided the terrain is reasonable, so they don't have other units available to get back into those fortifications as I slowly inch my way up to take advantage of newly opened gaps. Fence fortifications are garbage, they'll get outshot by units in building or forest cover most of the time, so I considered that a good trade.

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On 6/19/2017 at 8:25 AM, Beruldsen said:

Having played both ... I found Richmond to be much easier in comparison.  

Agreed... hell i played Washington and succeeded after Intelligence Report was implemented, making things easier. I had to b/c my army was just not big enough.

When I did finish Washington, I needed 136 K infantry 1500 cavalry and 110 guns.  and went up against 188505 Union infantry 7799 of their cav and 757 guns.

Ofc I lost lots. 60681 infantry, 44 guns and 909 cavalry. The Union lost... ridiculous amount of troops. 109727 infantry, 297 guns and 5040 cavalry, I also captrured 3040 of their troops. 

 

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Well I finally pulled out a Grand Victory today..... I watched Hitorishizukas video and it really helped me put down a better strategy. Granted it was on Colonel level but it was still a victory!!!!!

Thanks for the informative video !!!,

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I'm at the Washington campaign on MG and I'm working on Vicksburg and Nashville. These battles are so damn bloody, it's hurting my army bad. I beat Vicksburg but I lost to many men when I wasn't able to destroy the union army.  Its crazy to have to attack the fortifications when I'm outnumbered 1:1.25ish and out gunned 4:1. Its my first time doing these as I got bored in BG mid way through and went to MG. Looks like I prob should go back and finish off the BG campaign to practice. 

 

Quick question for those that have been successful on MG. What troop strength did you have going into Washington? My army pre-Vicks/Nash is sitting at 75k with ~300k$ and 30k personnel. Thankfully I captured 200k supplies at cold harbor when I destroyed the union army so I have money to spend to bump up my brigade strength if needed. I'm getting the feeling I need to recruit some cannon fodder brigades, am I right?

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5 hours ago, CSX4451 said:

Well I finally pulled out a Grand Victory today..... I watched Hitorishizukas video and it really helped me put down a better strategy. Granted it was on Colonel level but it was still a victory!!!!!

Thanks for the informative video !!!,

Glad to help, that's exactly why I bothered making these. :)

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