Mukremin's CSA Legendary Campaign

[Mukremin]

Alright generals, here is perhaps the best known bloody battle of the Civil War. Gettysburg! As i mentioned earlier, i opted for the strategy that i saw on the channel of History Guy. Lovely guy that is! His option is maybe the best option i have seen so far. Taking the Little Round Top and holding it just did not work out as planned, i am happy with the result. I lost 10.000 men but killed way more Union troops. I preserved my army, my army even grew past the numbers i had before Gettysburg. I got extra recruits because i captured a lot of men. I can spend reputation on troops and guns. I cut the video, since half of the time i had to wait for the timer to end.

 

[pandakraut]

That option does seem pretty reasonable for Gettysburg. The next time I get there I want to try dragging it out to day 3 and see if I can bleed down the union forces enough to just walk onto the objectives. I somewhat doubt it's the best option, but would be an interesting challenge to try and clear the map with reasonable losses.

The casualties in parenthesis you highlighted at the end of the video are the number of men you lost in your artillery brigades. The report lists both guns and total men lost for artillery.

[LAVA]

That was a great battle, mate!

Well done!

[Mukremin]

6 hours ago, pandakraut said:

That option does seem pretty reasonable for Gettysburg. The next time I get there I want to try dragging it out to day 3 and see if I can bleed down the union forces enough to just walk onto the objectives. I somewhat doubt it's the best option, but would be an interesting challenge to try and clear the map with reasonable losses.

The casualties in parenthesis you highlighted at the end of the video are the number of men you lost in your artillery brigades. The report lists both guns and total men lost for artillery.

it is important to destroy most of the Union army at day one without attacking cemetery ridge. After that one can chose the path he likes, more Union kills? Or a swift victory?

Yeah i thought the losses were only from day 2, but it was the total casualty number. I have checked my army before and after the battle.

5 hours ago, LAVA said:

That was a great battle, mate!

Well done!

thank you can't wait to watch your next set of video's.

[Mukremin]

Siege of Jackson, last battle before Chickamauga:

I had to replay this battle several times. I just got overwhelmed in the centre and i kept losing the victory point. So i decided to deploy my strongest brigades up north to draw the attention of the Union. The spot is excellent, next to the river crossing and lots of cover. I managed to draw lots of troops there. I still had to fight in a melee spree to take back the victory point which i had lost for a while nearing the end of the battle.

[Mukremin]

Well i won at Chickamauga, i faced around 90.000 Yankees with my army of 62.000.
I lost 15.000 men and killed 3 times more Union. Before the battle the report said 90K and now it dropped to 71K. Video will be up soon.

[Mukremin]

Here it is, Chickamauga.. One of the toughest battles! I could have kept my losses even lower if i did not push it harder in the first day of bridge crossing.

 

[LAVA]

Well fought at Chickamauga!

Darn, the Yankee army is just about all 3 stars. What is their training level?

[Mukremin]

21 minutes ago, LAVA said:

Well fought at Chickamauga!

Darn, the Yankee army is just about all 3 stars. What is their training level?

it is still around 60%, i just fought Mansfield and Saunders farm.. It went oke, i am happy with my own casualties and the number of Union troops killed in both battles is together around 60.000. My total losses from both battles 17.000. Going to Laurel Hill now, have 10.000+ recruits, but cash is an issue now.

[Mukremin]

Here is Mansfield and Saunders Farm, quite happy with the result especially Mansfield, so few losses! This should give me a good starting point towards Laurel Hill and Cold Harbor. Laurel Hill should be interested since they changed the victory conditions, i need to hold the two hills for a victory. Saunders starts at around 16:50.

 

[Mukremin]

Here is Laurel Hill, a very tough battle on Legendary. Massive waves of charges, i held my ground. Lucky the victory conditions are not that hard any more so i had to hold both points to get a victory. I suffered high losses, but not to forget around 2000-3000 are from the other division which was already there. Scored several thousands of Richmond and Springfield rifles.
On to Cold Harbor. I tend to go for day one victory because no matter what you do you still face big Union numbers.

 

[Mukremin]

Fought the battle of Cold Harbor, i lost... lost 25.000 men and killed 50.000 Union troops but i had lost one of the left flank objective, church something. I did take the objectives last day, the centre objectives but it ended in a defeat and game over.

I seriously need help with Cold Harbor. I have an army of 59000-60000 and face a force of 110000. Of course these are spread out.

My left flank took the heavy beating, my centre and right did oke. Perhaps i need to rearrange the corps and tactically divide the cavalry and brigades. I almost lost the right flank hill when the Union made a last minute charge. Any help appreciated, or else i am going to call of my campaign

[pandakraut]

My weakest corps usually holds the right, second best on the left, weakest on the right. As you weaken the union units the northern defenses of the union center tend to get stripped and you can eventually break through there on the last day. If you haven't already been abandoning some of the weaker trenches and exposed positions that aren't needed, I would definitely recommend it. The AI will often leave those areas alone if you don't man them.

I usually try to have all of my best long range artillery in the center. Both to inflict as many infantry casualties as I can when the AI decides it doesn't want to push forward, but also to focus fire any union artillery that shows it's face. Keeping your artillery alive is a pain though, if you put it in the trees the collateral damage will wear them down, and if you pull them back further they will still be visible. I usually try to keep the long range artillery further back and put the howitzers at the edge of the treeline where the infantry is positioned to try and minimize the splash damage. I'll usually spend all battle trying to shift the artillery around to help, but losses will still be higher than normal. 

I usually slowly try and work snipers forward to get at more artillery, but it's tricky at best even with lvl 3 snipers as the cover and sight lines are very unfavorable. I've seen people break through the lines with mass cavalry to get all the artillery at well, but I've never pulled this off without taking unreasonable losses.

Something that can be useful is when the AI infantry starts standing around instead of advancing you can pull your infantry from the forward trenches and replace them with detached skirmishers. This way you'll take less damage from the artillery pounding that is difficult at best to stop. This of course can cause the AI to decide to charge again so you'll have to be ready to switch your infantry back in, but this lets you continue inflicting casualties when otherwise the AI would wait out of rifle range.

From what I recall on the right flank you can pull back from some of the most forward trenches and establish better lines that leave union forces out in the open more. You can usually shift all but a token force to man the fortifications from the area between the center VP and the right VP onto the hill as those lines rarely get attacked much. It will probably take some experimentation to find out how far you can stretch this though.

Similarly on the left you want to pull as much as you can from the southern areas to reinforce the north as that is where the Union attacks tend to be the strongest. While the center gets hit harder, I've found this section the hardest to hold since the positions just aren't as good. On the left the union artillery is nearly impossible to spot so I put mostly close support artillery there and give up on counter battery. The lines are all solid so cavalry is of little use unless you are using it for counter charge support.

[River of Death]

I think your plan from 1 post ago is the way to go: Go all out attack and Win on Day 1, Encounter 1, or the battle turns into a long slog that is difficult enough on the lower levels.  What I've done (admittedly only on MG, not legendary), is the following:

Your 7 best infantry units + 1 battery of 24's either charging or north-flanking (I go for northward flanking) Old Cold Harbor - send 2-3 brigades into the northeast trees at the run, to arrive just in time to slow down the arriving VI corps.  These brigades will definitely lose and rout to the west eventually - careful micro can delay this as long as possible.  Meanwhile plant the 24's on the point and equally-well micro the main line infantry to get flanking fire to wear down the Union cavalry as much as possible before the VI corps reaches the main point.  They do have a long while to march, so if you delay them early they will not have much time, and likely not their entire force, to attack the point.  Even then it will be a near-run thing.

Losses will be catastrophic compared to the number of units engaged, but still significantly lower than fighting the entire battle.  At this point, with 2 more battles' worth of assaulting fortifications before reaching Washington, it is not worth it to try to whittle down the Union's numbers so much as it is to keep your own forces as numerous as possible.

[Mukremin]

49 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

My weakest corps usually holds the right, second best on the left, weakest on the right. As you weaken the union units the northern defenses of the union center tend to get stripped and you can eventually break through there on the last day. If you haven't already been abandoning some of the weaker trenches and exposed positions that aren't needed, I would definitely recommend it. The AI will often leave those areas alone if you don't man them.

I usually try to have all of my best long range artillery in the center. Both to inflict as many infantry casualties as I can when the AI decides it doesn't want to push forward, but also to focus fire any union artillery that shows it's face. Keeping your artillery alive is a pain though, if you put it in the trees the collateral damage will wear them down, and if you pull them back further they will still be visible. I usually try to keep the long range artillery further back and put the howitzers at the edge of the treeline where the infantry is positioned to try and minimize the splash damage. I'll usually spend all battle trying to shift the artillery around to help, but losses will still be higher than normal. 

I usually slowly try and work snipers forward to get at more artillery, but it's tricky at best even with lvl 3 snipers as the cover and sight lines are very unfavorable. I've seen people break through the lines with mass cavalry to get all the artillery at well, but I've never pulled this off without taking unreasonable losses.

Something that can be useful is when the AI infantry starts standing around instead of advancing you can pull your infantry from the forward trenches and replace them with detached skirmishers. This way you'll take less damage from the artillery pounding that is difficult at best to stop. This of course can cause the AI to decide to charge again so you'll have to be ready to switch your infantry back in, but this lets you continue inflicting casualties when otherwise the AI would wait out of rifle range.

From what I recall on the right flank you can pull back from some of the most forward trenches and establish better lines that leave union forces out in the open more. You can usually shift all but a token force to man the fortifications from the area between the center VP and the right VP onto the hill as those lines rarely get attacked much. It will probably take some experimentation to find out how far you can stretch this though.

Similarly on the left you want to pull as much as you can from the southern areas to reinforce the north as that is where the Union attacks tend to be the strongest. While the center gets hit harder, I've found this section the hardest to hold since the positions just aren't as good. On the left the union artillery is nearly impossible to spot so I put mostly close support artillery there and give up on counter battery. The lines are all solid so cavalry is of little use unless you are using it for counter charge support.

I get confused sometimes what map is the right, and what map is the left. I don't have that much of an issue holding the centre and most right flank when the big map opens. I use main army to hold the centre objectives where the main attack is. I usually put my best artillery there. The thing is i don't have enough men it seems to cover Old Church and Left flank. I got overwhelmed at one point at the Church Road objective, had to hold the line with only 2 brigades, 1 artillery battery and skirmishers.

I don't know if it is worth to fight the full day here since i surely will lose 20.000+ men. I got the Union army reinforcements according to the intelligence report at around 57K but still they field around 120.000 men at Cold Harbor.

I have tried micromanaging my artillery and cavalry, i even killed a lot of artillery standing there. Hijacked 5 supply wagons

Might try again for a day 1 victory..

[Mukremin]

51 minutes ago, River of Death said:

I think your plan from 1 post ago is the way to go: Go all out attack and Win on Day 1, Encounter 1, or the battle turns into a long slog that is difficult enough on the lower levels.  What I've done (admittedly only on MG, not legendary), is the following:

Your 7 best infantry units + 1 battery of 24's either charging or north-flanking (I go for northward flanking) Old Cold Harbor - send 2-3 brigades into the northeast trees at the run, to arrive just in time to slow down the arriving VI corps.  These brigades will definitely lose and rout to the west eventually - careful micro can delay this as long as possible.  Meanwhile plant the 24's on the point and equally-well micro the main line infantry to get flanking fire to wear down the Union cavalry as much as possible before the VI corps reaches the main point.  They do have a long while to march, so if you delay them early they will not have much time, and likely not their entire force, to attack the point.  Even then it will be a near-run thing.

Losses will be catastrophic compared to the number of units engaged, but still significantly lower than fighting the entire battle.  At this point, with 2 more battles' worth of assaulting fortifications before reaching Washington, it is not worth it to try to whittle down the Union's numbers so much as it is to keep your own forces as numerous as possible.

I think you are right, it is too hard on Legendary to fight this battle and win. I get like 14.000 recruits in reward, i do have another 12.000 reserves. Cash will be an issue since my army will be battered, 3/4 units totally destroyed and not to mention the beating my artillery gets.

I tried for a day one victory but failed, think i got delayed too much overpowering the first line of trenches. Will go for another try, 7 best brigades and 1 arty of 24 pounders. I will happily lose 10.000 men so i can field 15.000 more men after Cold Harbor. Although a loss of 7000 men would be ideal for a day one victory.

Is day 2 win another option? Or do i need to win on day one or else i will have to fight the full 3 days?

[pandakraut]

If you try for a full day 3 again, it sounds like you need to assign more to the church area. It might be worth splitting up larger rookie units into smaller ones. A lot of them will mostly just be standing in trenches doing nothing for most of the battle and you just need to be able to cover the area for the AI to leave you alone. 

If you can pull off the day 1 without hitting the 40% casualty cutoff that might be the best choice. I disagree that the battle on legendary isn't worth playing out, but it does seem like a drastically different play style is needed to come out ahead on recruits. I tend to get burned out on the campaign around this point so I have less data to go off of than with other battles.

You should be able to meet the victory conditions on day 2, but I've never heard of anyone trying that option as the CSA. The VPs are far better protected than trying to do the same as the union and on day 2 they seemed to still be pretty well manned. Might be worth a test run just to scout out the lines and see if there is a place to smash through. Hard to say if it'd be better to try around the old church or old cold harbor.

[Mukremin]

I tied two times to go for a day 1 victory, both times i held the objective for the whole duration of the battle but the timer did not stop at 0:00. It went on and on for 1 hour because i need to hold it longer than the actual time of the mission??? I held out for another 30 minutes before i was overwhelmed by superior numbers. I don't think day one is winnable on Legendary,

[pandakraut]

I thought you only needed to hold until the contested timer hit 0?

[Mukremin]

I think i took the objective too late since i had to hold it until the contested time ran out, but the normal battle timer already had stopped so i had to hold it longer than i should have.

[Mukremin]

I did it! day one victory Legendary mode!

[pandakraut]

Nicely done! How bad is the intelligence report looking at this point? 

[Mukremin]

37 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Nicely done! How bad is the intelligence report looking at this point? 

Not that bad, 60-65K. I have an army of 62.000 and a reserve pool of 16K which i can use. I get 17600 recruits if i win Hall's Ferry. I could use cash and manpower to bolster my numbers up to 70.000 and use the rest to replenish my army after Hall's Ferry.

[Mukremin]

i think my army could and should be around 80.000 ( a part of course equipped with farmers ). I could be able to win Washington, i have to. Came a long way, and i don't think i will be able to start another campaign. No way. I have to win.

[Mukremin]

Oke. no matter what i try i just can't seem to get my losses under 20.000 at Hall's Ferry. I wonder what happens if i skip the two battles and rush into Washington, i mean even if i kill the entire Union army at both battles i still face 100K at Washington and then around 200K at the defence of Washington.

I can field around 78.000 men now if i skip the battles and march into Washington.

Edited August 11, 2018 by Mukremin