clench

It's a little weird because 2nd bull run requires 9 AO, but then Antietam has your brigade limit for each corps back to 20 instead of 25.

Yeah I had to go back and replay Malvern Hill and the side battles to get 9 AO to get passed 2nd bull run. The few extra brigades made the difference holding the CSA right flank.

I'm hard stuck here as well. It would be fine, but the time it takes your reinforcements to arrive is far too long. And yeah, it's pretty ahistorical for the Union to launch such a coordinated assault on Stony Ridge. This is a battle the CSA won pretty much entirely based on the Union's incompetence and lack of good intelligence. I've tried multiple strats, but the attack on the CSA right flank is pretty impossible to stop when you only have one corps. I actually have more men deployed to the battle, but never get to see them before my right flank is overrun by non-stop charges by multiple corps that just spawn on top of them practically. If I pull more troops off the left flank, then it gets overrun and I still can't hold the right flank for much longer. The best I've done is my right flank is chain routing just as reinforcements arrive, but it's too late and the loses are my best troops and massive. For me the battle is 68000 CSA vs 62000 Union, but because of how long it takes reinforcements to arrive it's like 22000 vs 62000. I'm not the best player I'm sure, but not the worst. Doesn't seem doable without doing some really cheese strats. Perhaps with army org high enough to get 25 units per corp, but 20 (21 with forrest) it's pretty impossible. The AI spawns practically on top of your right flank and fresh with like 12+ brigades.

The Southern states were just butthurt over Longstreet's support for the government's Reconstruction and putting down the White League revolt in Louisiana so they spent many decades slandering him. They also tried to blame him for Lee's failure at Gettysburg for giving Lee good advice.

IMO, Longstreet was the GOAT civil war commander and he couldn't get through to Lee I doubt Jackson would have made much difference.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/93850730499204090/D3A736FB5F762CBA66FFEFDDFF4B43F8030B11F1/ I like to flank from both sides, my best division on the left, my worst divisions in the center and about 6-8 division with cavalry on the right. Attack the forest fortification from both directions while the cav distracts and kills cannon batteries. The units in the forest fortification usually get fulled wiped or captured, after that it's pretty easy to push the capture point from there. My elite forces in the left will come in to mop up for free kills because the AI will usually go berserk to cap the point back. Snipers are awesome for this map because you can do so much damage to them from the left flank. Two units of skirmishers can probably get 2000 kills a piece.

To deal with this, you need to use generals with +20% ammo to lead your corps for these larger battles. It helps a lot. I was able to finish Antietam on major general while only using about 30,000 of my own supplies plus some enemy supplies. Almost everyone had ammo when they needed it.

The experience bonus effects both sides. CSA troops just start with higher experience so they can get their skill early. Having a high level commander for Union is still important because it saves you money by allowing you to keep your unit skills while hiring rookies at a higher threshold.

This isn't entirely true. The division commander gives an efficiency/command bonus. A higher level division commander means you can have lower level brigade commanders controlling your brigades. This can come in handy later in the campaign if you're running low on officers but need to put more rifles on the field. For example, with a Maj. Gen as division commander you can have Lt. Col command 2000 unit brigades with no loss to efficiency or command. The real reason to have higher level officers for your brigades is for the experience bonus provided. Another example, a raw recruited Confederate infantry brigade commanded by a Lt. Col will have no skills, but if you assign a raw infantry brigade a Colonel it will get enough experience for the first skill which is a real advantage early on.

It happened so bad to me on the minor battle when you have the two boats and you have to attack the CSA uphill.. forget what it's called. One of my entire 2000 troop 3 star brigades was meleeing a canon, then got charged by enemy cavalry, followed by multiple enemy brigades. It routed and pulled through the massive blob of enemies and shrunk to less than 800 men and I restarted the battle. This was before the last hotfix that claimed to fix this however.

You can play the map as intended, using the fixed cover, etc and have a pretty easy time.. But the treeline on the hill is massive. You can park your entire line up there and the AI won't be able to do anything since they have to climb up the hill under fire and then trade with your entire army in 100% cover.

I captured some of these in my CSA campaign and it was my strategy to place as many smaller cannon batteries on the field this campaign as I could so I put them to use. I was shocked to see the range on the cannister for this cannon. I had it placed in the entrenched position for cannons at Fredericksburg in the opening stage and it was shooting cannister at Union brigades parked well outside the forest. It was incredibly effective.

There is just a really high chance for any brigade commander to get hit especially if you're rough with your men and they take lots of casualties. It seems really random and a really high chance as well... seems like you'll have 1-3 wounded officers per minor engagement and probably double in the major engagements plus one or two deaths.

This is the best way to level your personal general. Brigades, with Corps commanders that give +10% exp, gain experience way faster that the Corps commanders.

They are the best for sure.

hahaha patch releases on the day his rage hit max level

no, it's South Mountain.

I'm pretty sure captured supplies become money if they are not used. This is a pretty big tip I think some guides might be missing too. Never use your supplies unless you need to because the game will buy them back automatically. Also always try to capture enemy supplies as early as possible, especially on the historical battles, not only to use, but for money. Most of the minor battles can be completed without using any supplies at all so I frequently will just leave my cart behind. It's best to use as few supplies as possible to save money to buy more guns.

It would seem reasonable to me that they planned an entire game before starting to make it. I don't think your opinion on things has changed progress much.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. The first phase is planned for the next patch.

How can it be a linear extrapolation when what you're clamoring is nothing close to linear? You want a more dynamic campaign where your performance effects future battles. How can you balance a dynamic experience that is planned to have over twice as much content as what's currently available until it's all finished? I mean we're not even into the real meat of the Civil War yet in terms of content. Both the battles and the connections between them are planned to get more complex.. this type of thing isn't going to happen overnight though just because you want it. Scaling is likely always going to be a part of the experience however because the AI is always going to be a step behind the player in terms of competency. In Total War, the AI got infinity money to compensate. In this they're going to sometimes outnumber you and be better equipped to compensate.

No, it's completely relevant to the discussion. Why are they going to spend time balancing the campaign when it's only half complete? Complete the campaign first then worry about balance. It's perfectly playable and enjoyable in the current state until it's completed and more focus can be put into balance at a later date.

I agree. Scaling certainly helps when a player is doing poorly as well, which is something I think people are overlooking when they talk about it. I don't think it fails the punish the player however, because your losses are the punishment and then the AI is still going to match you and be slightly better anyway.

Again, you are just assuming the state of the campaign is the final version of the campaign. Big changes have already been promised in the next patch that are going to change the dynamic a lot. Could it be the current state is a just a placeholder to keep the game challenging while continuing to tweak the balance? I think so. The only thing I might agree with is that the AI gets too many 3 star veterans, but I'm sure that will be changed in future updates. It's not a 100% disadvantage. People have beaten the game on hard with full maxed army org. Buying rookies is cheaper as is turning them into veterans naturally. If you play well you can turn an entire rookie army into an entire veteran army much more cheaply than buying veterans.

So you want the AI to manage their own army and then get completely wiped by Shiloh? Because that's what's going to happen. I do agree that Army Org could be tweaked, but it's really not a disadvantage to bring more when once you have more of an idea as to what you're doing. Position, cover, and weapons are more important than numbers. I want every battle to be a challenge, even the side missions, taking away the AI advantages isn't going to make that happen. Could things be tweaked and streamlined? Absolutely. But please don't forget you're basing this entire opinion on a half finished game.. there are still 10 more historical battles planned for the campaign and at least as many if not more side missions. I wouldn't expect to see a fully balanced and fleshed out campaign until every battle has been added.