Major general tactics

[Bobby Fiasco]

Hey guys, let's talk about the nitty gritty game-upping strategy choices for major general! How do you defeat the enemy supermen?

I'm finding that I am way more concerned with flanking than before. I always went for envelopments, but now I'm more concerned with micromanaged skirmish cav. and sharpshooter flanking maneuvers because enemy units DO NOT BREAK otherwise (or much less often than before). My men cannot go toe-to-toe in the open without disproportionate casualties.

Does anyone have any thoughts about maintaining veterans at this level? Keeping my star levels up is just sucking money (yes, I'm investing in training, but dividing it with politics and the crucial army org. so I'm not high level yet). My one-stars are going into major battles with 1,300 or 1,400 men and frequently coming out with 800 or 900.  I barely have any two starts because of the cost, and those are at around 1,000. 

[LAVA]

I think it depends a whole lot on what side you are fighting, force levels, the map terrain and the objective locations.

In general I would say, try to force the enemy to come to you in the open while you are in cover. Use your strengths against his weaknesses.

So, for example, as the Union I like to set-up good close support artillery close to my line. If the Confederates charge, I will have the unit fallback and lure him into a killing zone which easily could include 3 brigades of infantry and an artillery brigade or two. You will be taking fire as you fallback, but the moment his charge comes to an end, or you are in a position in which multiple units can fire on him, have the brigade stand its ground. You can also do this by counter charging and sometimes if you are defending an objective there is no other choice. Wait until he is right on top of you and then charge. You're unit goes into melee but all surrounding friendlies can pour fire into him.

I'm always looking to get 3 units firing on one, whether that is brigades or a mix of brigades, skirmishers or cavalry.

Also remember that sometimes the best attack isn't on the flank. Try to extend your battle line using skirmishers which he has to respond to. If you can get him overextended, a good punch in the center will open up both his flanks to attack.

By putting yourself in a position where you can engage his units with at least 2 preferably 3 units on one, you will not only break your opponent quickly, but reduce your casualties as well.

If money is a problem, remember you can always add at least some recruits to the brigade, if nothing else to pump up the numbers. Yep, your individual qualities will go down, but you will keep the perks you have gained via experience. I think with the Union folks I'm happy with a few 3 star units in 1864. They are too expensive to maintain and it hurts your army's overall quality.

This borders on the extreme, but depending on the situation is useful:

Cheers!

Edited October 17, 2017 by LAVA

[Grimthaur]

@Bobby Fiasco If you are stuck somewhere it can have different reasons, even several of them at the same time.

Where exactly at the campaign are you and how did you distribute your career-points? If you are still early in the campaign, investing in training is a mistake imho. Max politics, medicine and economy while keeping army organisation at the needed level. After that you can invest in logistics and training.

Do you tend to end a battle, when you got the option or do you pursue the opponent to wipe out as many as possible? This has a massive snowball-effect either for your benefit or for your opponents.

Flanking may have become more difficult, if the AI sees it comming. But if you flank with (detached) skirmishers and let them go into their positions so the AI doesnt have line of sight, it still works.

To your question concerning veterans: Im at Saunders Fields and i dont have problems maintaining 9 ***-brigades and 20 **-brigades plus several ***artillery-brigades. There are several things that help with maintaining ***-brigades: I always try to use unexperianced brigades as vanguard and let my elite-brigades fire from cover or use them to flank so they are not the target, they rarely lose more than 300 men per brigade (for exeptions see below). I always pursue the opponent as far as possible, gifting my elite-brigades experiance by feasting on the remainder of my opponents forces. All my ***-infantry is led by major generals. This way i can reinforce them between battles almost entirely with rookies.

 

@LAVAI have seen this by some guys now. Why do you start with rookies? Its just less efficient. Say, you are willing to invest into 242 veterans. If you do so before adding rookies, you are able to add way more than 269 rookies. Or if your goal is 1.500 men you can add way less veterans if you add them first.

Look at my 7TH Infantry-brigade: It took a heavy beating and i want to bring it up to 2k men again. I got 2 options, option 1: Add some rookies first and then add veterans for the remaining 555 men, cost: 32,6k with training on 6. Option 2: Add Veterans first and then fill up with rookies, this way i can save almost 2k and as you can see even the stats benefit from this option.

[quicksabre]

7 hours ago, Grimthaur said:

I have seen this by some guys now. Why do you start with rookies? Its just less efficient. Say, you are willing to invest into 242 veterans. If you do so before adding rookies, you are able to add way more than 269 rookies. Or if your goal is 1.500 men you can add way less veterans if you add them first.

Look at my 7TH Infantry-brigade: It took a heavy beating and i want to bring it up to 2k men again. I got 2 options, option 1: Add some rookies first and then add veterans for the remaining 555 men, cost: 32,6k with training on 6. Option 2: Add Veterans first and then fill up with rookies, this way i can save almost 2k and as you can see even the stats benefit from this option.

Woah... I started with rookies because 1) I assumed the vets were cheaper after dropping the xp of the unit, forgetting that I could spread out more rookies in a bigger unit, and 2) I wasn't sure how to know exactly how many vets to add.  It looks like I was wrong about (1), but how do you know how many vets to add if you add them first?

[dutmistrz]

In general the 3*** and 2** brigades are elite forces, which do not have to be necessarily full strength 2500 monsters, I'm doing them 1700 - 2000 max (even less earlier in the game) and put in reserve or for flanking purposes, while the battle flesh are * or no * at all brigades (hey, they have to be shoot up abit to gain these stars anyway :)). Even 2500 Framer rifles is not a bad idea if no other arms are in storage, because they have nice melee value, so will more likely break up these stupid charges of AI (a bit awkward, as seriously Civil War saw relatively little hand-to-hand combat, I would love if the charges were less often,  because of them the game became too easy on normal mode) and still they will take probably near 1-1 ratio kills/deaths if not used with huge terrain/weapon disadvantage .

Also, maintaining the experience is worth filling up the units partially with rookies (to the exp level that won't drop down their traits) and adding some tough crackers just for the sake of having 100-300 more rifles there - doesn't work if you have a 600 remaining men from 2500 brigade, just go with rookies and start over. 

Also no.2, as I became more familiar with the game I tend to use deeper lines - like for 3 brigades in line 1 in reserve just behind, so that if one brigade has concentrated fire upon it and gets chewed, I simply withdraw it before it drops significantly in numbers and replace with a fresh one, that's efficient in avoiding huge losses of exp resulting in filling up shoot up brigades with rookies and also provides exp for the unit that steps up for the job. 

 

[Grimthaur]

10 hours ago, quicksabre said:

Woah... I started with rookies because 1) I assumed the vets were cheaper after dropping the xp of the unit, forgetting that I could spread out more rookies in a bigger unit, and 2) I wasn't sure how to know exactly how many vets to add.  It looks like I was wrong about (1), but how do you know how many vets to add if you add them first?

Well, you add veterans bit by bit, that way you see, how many vets you need for the number of rookies you want. In my screenshot i did this before and loaded from a save to show the steps in a compact screenshot.

@dutmistrz I feel, on MG+Legendary i need to use ***-brigades as part of my regular army and not as a rapid response unit, because *-brigades cant hold vs massive ***-spam or if they manage to hold, they suffer heavy casualties. Since CSA seems to be hardcapped by manpower in the last part of the campaign, i personally am willing to lose some ***-vets instead of losing massive amounts of rookies. Having reserves seems to be a widely preferred strategy to deal with column-attacks. I never do it actually, i try to prevent my defensive lines from breaking by holdfire for both infantry and artillery and by falling back with the targeted brigade to create a flanking possibility. If i see a charge comming, that would definitly break my brigade, i send some detached skirmishers from a *-brigade acting as cannonfodder. This frees up the reserve and allows me to lengthen my batte line further, often giving my units the edge by allowing them to flank. It obviously is a very fragil strategy that can backfire heavily. I changed to this strategy after analysing the losses of my "reserve-brigades" at battles like Fredericksburg (MHeights) or Antietam. They took 100-200 losses vs heavy artilleryfire and werent really needed after all.