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Infantry Guide to UG:CW


william1993

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4 hours ago, The Soldier said:

Just not worth losing a Vet 3 artillery battery.  You're really just gibbing yourself, and they're not really "stealing experience".  I think of it as free reinforcements in case they take losses.

I'm not sure how I need to restate this...by the time they hit 3* all of their relevant attributes are maxed, so yes they're stealing experience on any battle you bring them on for another artillery brigade that still needs to hit that threshold. Just stash them until later in the campaign when you actually deploy a full 5 Corps. Whatever marginal extra kills they would have delivered over a 2* isn't worth not developing your full roster for later. You can have 3*s by as early as Antietam at least, there's no reason to have them suck up the entire back half of the campaign's experience for no benefit.

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Not worth disbanding a 300-man artillery brigade for some minor experience boost.  I might get 2, max 3 of those over the course of a campaign because I rotate my corps for minor battles so they all get a hunk of experience, so that even a completely fresh corps might be totally Vet 1 or 2 by time of the next Grand Battle.  If you just load up experience on one corps and then disband the brigades, I think that's just inefficient.

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49 minutes ago, The Soldier said:

Not worth disbanding a 300-man artillery brigade for some minor experience boost.  I might get 2, max 3 of those over the course of a campaign because I rotate my corps for minor battles so they all get a hunk of experience, so that even a completely fresh corps might be totally Vet 1 or 2 by time of the next Grand Battle.  If you just load up experience on one corps and then disband the brigades, I think that's just inefficient.

...? Who said anything about disbanding?

A sneak peek at my Union Youtube Campaign V Corps (aka storage locker) post Chancellorsville:

Union3_Chancellorsville_Post_Army_VCorps_resize.thumb.jpg.8f191a704ec47a3b07b3b566fe349c11.jpg

(stupid automatic first tier talent taken because I'm pretty sure that's the artillery brigade given post first mission)

Edited by Hitorishizuka
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  • 2 weeks later...
56 minutes ago, Mukremin said:

Need help from you veterans. Can someone explain what rank is best to lead the corps, division, batallions etc.

In general, the highest possible. Corps commanders give bonuses only by rank, and obviously you want to maximize that as the bonuses apply across the entire corps. With divisions, higher-ranking commanders provide more of a command bonus and higher XP - you'll note that if you have a high-ranking division commander, you can form new one-star units with experienced Lt. Colonels instead of Colonels (This is harder for the Union, but still possible).

On the low side, you want to avoid efficiency penalties for commanders who are ranked too low. The penalty depends on the size of the unit and the experience of the officer. For example, a captain can command an artillery battery up to 11 guns without an efficiency penalty. In general, avoid accepting the default commander of a new unit because he's the lowest (cheapest) possible commander and will almost certainly have an efficiency penalty if you want the unit to be a reasonable size. The rule of thumb is Lt. Colonel for infantry (~2000), Major for artillery (12 guns), Lt. Colonel for cavalry (750), and Lt. Colonel for skirmishers (500).

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18 minutes ago, Aetius said:

In general, the highest possible. Corps commanders give bonuses only by rank, and obviously you want to maximize that as the bonuses apply across the entire corps. With divisions, higher-ranking commanders provide more of a command bonus and higher XP - you'll note that if you have a high-ranking division commander, you can form new one-star units with experienced Lt. Colonels instead of Colonels (This is harder for the Union, but still possible).

On the low side, you want to avoid efficiency penalties for commanders who are ranked too low. The penalty depends on the size of the unit and the experience of the officer. For example, a captain can command an artillery battery up to 11 guns without an efficiency penalty. In general, avoid accepting the default commander of a new unit because he's the lowest (cheapest) possible commander and will almost certainly have an efficiency penalty if you want the unit to be a reasonable size. The rule of thumb is Lt. Colonel for infantry (~2000), Major for artillery (12 guns), Lt. Colonel for cavalry (750), and Lt. Colonel for skirmishers (500).

This is very helpful, thank you. What about ranks as General, Brigadier General? For example, i have General Lee now. What best position is suited for him? İs it wise to let your own character/general in place or appoint yourself elsewhere?

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With Lee it is determined by whether or not you need a Corps commander. He comes in as a Lt. General, the highest rank, so he can be slotted into a Corps with all three perks right away. If you don't need a Corps commander, put him in as a division commander, preferably an empty one so the newly created units can get perks from his experience with lower-ranking leaders. If a new Corps becomes available and he's still alive, you can then move him over.

With your own general there are two potential issues. One is that your initial random perk(s) may not be what you want, so you have to replace yourself with a general whose perks you can choose (or play the initial scenario over and over until you get what you want). The other is that you may not be promoted by the time you gain access to other Major Generals or Lt. Generals, in which case you might want to replace yourself in order to get the additional perks for the Corps. If you do that, put yourself in as a division commander so that you can eventually gain the rank, and hope you don't die. :) You can install yourself as another Corps commander, but xp gain is fairly slow as a Corps commander and you're likely to find yourself in the same situation again with an available higher-ranking officer.

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 #Hitorishizuka. My reasoning for using my 3star arty all the time, rather then rotating to spread the xp, is that they give great performance for hardly any losses, saving my force a lot of pain. In a 24-brigade Corps I will have 6 12-gun batteries, so there's always a couple of slots for trainers, maybe just one if it's a small scenario.

I'll be sure to check out your YT stuff, maybe the action will reveal your point fully ;)

 

Edited by Captain Quicksave
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  • 1 month later...

I'm reading multiple allusions to "damage" in the firearms stats as if everyone understands its effect.  I don't!  I'm sure that if I were hit by anything from a musket ball to the hugest Miniè, I would be hors de combat.  I have not seen anything from the devs about this damage stat. What does it really mean in battle effect? And where did you get your information?

 

To me - it's shoot often and hit what you're aiming at.

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I don't know of any definitive information on it, but my belief is that it's relatively simple - the total damage is equal to the number of hits multiplied by the damage value, and then divided by some number that represents a "kill". This results in a dynamic where weapons like the Springfield 1842 have high damage at close range, followed by a sharp drop-off in effectiveness as the range increases. Rifles, on the other hand, have a flatter damage curve - not quite as good at short range, but their effectiveness doesn't drop off as sharply. It's a decent enough approximation of how the weapons functioned, at least theoretically - the smoothbore weapons, for example, could load "buck and ball" which gave them multiple projectiles at close range (this is also reflected in their melee values). There's significant debate about the real difference in effectiveness, however. There's evidence that many soldiers did not aim their weapons when firing a volley. Smoke often obscured the battlefield, which reduced sightlines to fifty yards or less. Many soldiers, particularly in the Union, didn't know how to shoot and received very little training. And finally, the terrain in the primary combat areas often shortened combat ranges - for example, looking north from the Sunken Road you can see less than a hundred meters (I was standing on top of the south side of the road when I took the picture).

My personal belief is that rifles didn't make much difference in volleys but did make a difference to skirmishers. Skirmishers (and especially dedicated snipers) *could* shoot, and avoiding this demoralizing long-range fire was one of the factors that really encouraged resorting to fortifications.

looking-north-from-sunken-road.jpg

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