Gaines Mill Campaign Beginning - Questions

[kjchan]

Hey guys,

So after finishing Shiloh, my biggest question is whether or not to spend my career points on Politics or Army Org.  If I took my next AO point, it would unlock 5-brigade divisions.

Looking at each of the minor battles, I can't seem to take 15 brigades in any of them, so that would seem to suggest that I shouldn't take an AO point.  But then I look at Gaines Mill and there's an opportunity to bring a 20 brigade Corps.  So should I be working up to an AO level that allows for 4 Divisions/5 Brigades during the course of this campaign?

What's also slightly confusing is that after having won Bull Run and Shiloh, I got two free corps in a row.  But there's nowhere to deploy a 3rd Corps in Gaines Mill, so I assume I should ignore putting troops there for now, right?

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

Max politics. After Shiloh, you have 3 minor battles, so max out politics and go on Army Organisation directly after that. You should have 2000 men brigades at Gaines Mill, really. You need them, or the rebs will stomp you utterly, even on Brigadier.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Gaines Mill and Malvern Hill are where artillery men are made. A hefty, timely, investment in quality cannon before these two battles will serve you well. 

[kjchan]

What size gun batteries would you recommend Andre? And i should ignore that 3rd corps for now right?

[Andre Bolkonsky]

3 hours ago, kjchan said:

What size gun batteries would you recommend Andre? And i should ignore that 3rd corps for now right?

3rd Corps:

I always like having a free, empty, corps I can use as a parking lot to help me rearrange the brigades in my different corps more easily. Makes putting together custom designed OOBs for the minor battles much easier.  I alternate between Politics and Organization until both are maxed out. If I only need to deploy two corps, and I have three free corps to organize my infantry, artillery, and light troops; it's fun to custom build OOBs. Later in the game when you need to start stockpiling every unit you can for the last two battles is when those last corps get locked and loaded for good.  

Batteries: 

@The Soldier is our resident expert on cannon. I cannot recommend his dissertation on artillery highly enough.

 Quality guns want to be packed into batteries of 12 guns. Smaller batteries do ramp up XP more quickly, but 12 is a solid number.

Rifles are for range, Smoothbores are for short range cannister. Try and keep a bit o' both in your corps, and tailor it between battles based on what their assignment is going to be. 24 Pound Howitzers are more precious than gold and are exceptional up to mid range. 20 Pound Parrotts are now solid and have a very long reach. 3" Ordnance Rifles are the jack of all trades, and Napoleons excel positioned close up behind a defensive line using cannister whenever possible. Those four guns should comprise the vast majority of your veteran batteries. 

There are different ways of handling secondary, cheap, beginner guns: 6-pounders, wiards, 12 pound howitzers. It goes without saying you should never pay money for them. But you're going to harvest a lot from the battlefield. If you have plenty of empty brigades you can make lots of small, cheap, FREE batteries. Or you can pack 'em into batteries of 16 and jam them up against the enemy, not caring how many casualties you take. When they get back to camp, battle scarred and with a bit of experience, upgrade their guns and give the cheap weapons to incoming, green artillerymen. 

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

 

I use 16 gun batteries. After 1.04 the damage output does not decrease anymore and with 16 guns you have good firepower AND survivability which is important especially at Malvern Hill, because you WILL need close support artillery there.

[The Soldier]

11 minutes ago, Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf said:

I use 16 gun batteries. After 1.04 the damage output does not decrease anymore and with 16 guns you have good firepower AND survivability which is important especially at Malvern Hill, because you WILL need close support artillery there.

Nope, it's still there.  Trust me on that - I used 16 gun batteries for Chancellorsville and instantly regretted my choice.  Way less effective in the ensuing battles than they were in previous ones.

[kjchan]

You guys are awesome. Will work on 12 gun batteries.

[maniacalpenny]

12 hours ago, kjchan said:

Hey guys,

So after finishing Shiloh, my biggest question is whether or not to spend my career points on Politics or Army Org.  If I took my next AO point, it would unlock 5-brigade divisions.

Looking at each of the minor battles, I can't seem to take 15 brigades in any of them, so that would seem to suggest that I shouldn't take an AO point.  But then I look at Gaines Mill and there's an opportunity to bring a 20 brigade Corps.  So should I be working up to an AO level that allows for 4 Divisions/5 Brigades during the course of this campaign?

What's also slightly confusing is that after having won Bull Run and Shiloh, I got two free corps in a row.  But there's nowhere to deploy a 3rd Corps in Gaines Mill, so I assume I should ignore putting troops there for now, right?

If I recall correctly, At Gaines Mill you can only start with so many brigades anyways and the rest will arrive as reinforcements. I believe the game allowed me to start with 14 brigades, and the other 5 of my 1st corps arrived late in the battle ( as well as the 1 in my 2nd corps cuz for whatever reason the 2nd corps is required to start the battle). So a 20 brigade 1st corps is not really necessary. 2500 men per brigade is quite good however, and I believe that is the AO point after 4d/5b so its still worth getting IMO.

 

Also its good to know that the next battle is Malvern Hill. There are no side battles between Gaines Mill and Malvern Hill.

 

Advice for the actual battle of Gaines Mill: Remember that you only need to control one of the two forward VPs to win. Of these 2 the upper/right one is more important as otherwise you cannot protect the required VP in the southeast. However the earthworks protecting that VP is somewhat indefensible. The bottom left earthworks is also a vulnerable point. My personal recommendation is to hold the bottom left earthworks as the anvil, and deploy your best troops on a line in the vertical forest that stretches northwards between the two VPs. With good positioning you can allow 2-3 brigades to fire upon approaching confederate brigades, and combined with a flanking manuever from the north you can shatter them and drive them south. There is a horizontal line of trees that connects the to the middle of the vertical line of trees your forces are stationed in. The hammer comes from the troops stationed in the north after driving the initial Confederate brigades to the south, and takes a position in the horizontal treeline that will quickly rout and drive heavy casualties to the Confederate troops hitting your anvil. Skirmishers can venture beyond the river and harass the Confederate cannon that will be deployed there, but due to the distance traveled and the terrain the confederate batteries are not that effective on this map so it is not that important.

 

Be careful when Confederate reinforcements arrive, as you may need to reset the hammer to prevent being flanked by the Confederate reinforcements. I was not able to hold the anvil forever on Legendary so that is when I abandoned this line of defense and pulled back to the upper right vp where I lined by men up in a defensive position around existing treelines, and sent some men to hold the south eastern VP from the Confederates coming from the northeast. I don't know if this is the optimal strategy for playing Gaines Mill but it worked quite well for me and many of my veteran divisions managed massive KD ratios without taking too many casualties themselves, as the hammer mostly fought in cover vs open fields or while flanking a previously engaged enemy.

 

Due to the poor presence of Confederate artillery, powerful close range artillery such as the 24lb howitzer fares very well on this map as they can pull up right behind infantry lines without losing too many men to random artillery fire. However in my given strategy it is more of a route-based defense where you will cause casualties and relieve pressure by constantly routing the enemy, which makes the veteran infantry the real killers of this map compared to heavy artillery which fare best when they get to pour shot after shot into enemy infantry lines that hold their ground and exchange volleys with your earthworks, or dumping canister into enemies charging into meele.

 

Dedicated Skirmishers should be deployed at the far north if you have any, where they can help rout the initial brigades that assault your treeline. and push them downwards. I brought 2 sniper brigades because I wanted to have fun with snipers. They went through the battle getting 800+ kills a piece for 200 man brigades, and suffered 0 casualties each. Skirmisher cav works for this role too but I left mine for reinforcements.

 

Well that was a lot longer than I planned it to be. I just played this last night and after going through 2-3 bad strategies on Legendary I finally settled on this one and it worked like a charm. Unfortunately the first time I forgot to stock supplies since I moved my main force to my 2nd corps (better general perks) and with no ammunition my strategy fell flat after nearly every unit ran out of ammunition. The next time I brought ammo but was not able to replicate the same degree of success: My veteran brigades had easily achieved a 10:1 KD the first time but they fared worse the 2nd time around. Final result was something like 26k kills to 8k losses, with the lions share being to my rookie elements and almost none done to my artillery and snipers. I think a perfect playthrough of this strategy could managed a significantly better ratio but these results were acceptable to me so I moved on.

[Hitorishizuka]

Gaines Mill is pretty easy once you realize that, like most of the early fortifications, the ones that exist here are a trap.

Move forward across the river half a foot into the trees and you can defend much more easily, then just extend your line following the tree line gradually to the NE. You can hold here the entire map with a token force to protect your backside and your reinforcements to protect the isolated flag.

[kjchan]

Hitori, on the strat you're recommending...if I move across the river into the treeline, isn't that treeline right underneath the crest of a hill?  So wouldn't I suffer morale/damage penalties from being at the bottom of a hill?

[Hitorishizuka]

15 minutes ago, kjchan said:

Hitori, on the strat you're recommending...if I move across the river into the treeline, isn't that treeline right underneath the crest of a hill?  So wouldn't I suffer morale/damage penalties from being at the bottom of a hill?

If there are any, it's relatively insignificant. They don't have enough brigades to contest and flank you on the south as they will also hit you in the center (by that building across the river) and north more as well, so you can use skirmishers and pound them in the flank instead as they contest on that hill.

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

Gaines Mill...I typically hold my position behind the first river the rebs have to cross and they simply get slaughtered there. Just make sure your units in the center have rifles, not muskets. Position them in a way the enemy has to move in the river to shoot at them. I effectively destroyed the first two waves to a man (Brigadier General).

[A. P. Hill]

4 hours ago, Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf said:

Gaines Mill...I typically hold my position behind the first river the rebs have to cross and they simply get slaughtered there. ...

Ah yes! The first 'river'!!! 

Such is the beauty of these maps, while fairly similar to the real area in layout & terrain, they are light years away from being wholly accurate.  That first 'river' is called Powhite Creek, (pronounced P0-Hite),  and in real life it isn't any more than a 3 foot wide, 1 foot deep obstacle, if that.  True it is in a valley bottom, But it is nothing of the monster it's depicted as on the game map.   Same goes for Boatswain Creek at the foot of the Union defenses.

Powhite Creek

 

 

Boatswain Creek

 

[kjchan]

5 hours ago, Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf said:

Gaines Mill...I typically hold my position behind the first river the rebs have to cross and they simply get slaughtered there. Just make sure your units in the center have rifles, not muskets. Position them in a way the enemy has to move in the river to shoot at them. I effectively destroyed the first two waves to a man (Brigadier General).

Hi Hjalfnar...I think I know what you mean by holding the first river, but how do you defend the northern VP from the northeast rebel attack?  Are you holding a continuous line?

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

I usually have two brigades that flank the enemy via this small northern forest. Usually the rebs advance 2-4 brigades over the first river and take position on the hill you know from an earlier side mission. My two brigades in the forest behind the hilltop then flank them and push them back over the river. This way the enemy takes heavy losses every time he tries to push me from the north. Additionally these two brigades retreat and move to the east as soon as the enemy spawns there. Detached skirmishers, together with these two brigades are enough to slow the enemy advance until the reinforcements arrive. At least on medium difficulty.