Hitorishizuka

The game systems basically break if you removed the ability for the player to buy veterans. The AI already gets the benefit of free stats and as many people as it needs without regard to what happened in the past. Punishing the player even more for losses double dips the harm for adding more troops since the player only effectively gives the AI more experienced men to work with while they've only weakened their units. You'd pretty much be forced to use the Combine Division exploit to make any headway after a certain point since it's basically impossible to get above 2 star and have a unit that won't die in a single volley.

I actually went the other way and kept a couple extra bullet catcher brigades to pair with them in order to keep them from being flanked. Detached skirmishers can only do so much in that regard. The one downside to doing this is that your maximum initial troops in your first divisions will be lower than it otherwise could be since you're effectively sacrificing a brigade's worth of troops to combine, so I would rather compensate for that with a stronger line rather than just using cavalry, which are still finicky and expensive. The combined division's doing the damage anyway, I think you just need more bodies in the way to give them the time to do it. In a 5 brigade division, I actually swapped my Melee Cavalry out of the first two divisions and punted them down to DIv3/4 and moved up another Infantry brigade to cover the hole instead.

It's even worse because I'm playing min-size this campaign, so enemy brigade sizes are all only about 1k or so at full strength. A full division of Fayetteville, even at low experience, kills 200 or so per volley if they don't have excellent cover, so they insta-rout. I'd half guess that a full division of even 80 Firearms would instantly shatter them.

More screenshots for the previous bug I just mentioned. Combined division stats while still in-battle: Post-battle: The combined divisions were obviously made from Cake+Grimes and Preston+Moody. As can be easily seen, they have the losses scaled as appropriate, but the kills aren't applied proportionally to their ledger. They still gain stats appropriately, though. Speaking of which also, this is the first time I used GeneralPITA's trick/exploit of using a large brigade using whatever as weapons and a small brigade with the best weapons and combining the two to give a division with the best weapons. As can be seen above, this is kind of ridiculously broken and should probably be nerfed. Also should be noted that CSA can do it easier because it's far easier for them to get Fayetteville access whereas Union has to wait a fairly long time IME to get enough top tier rifles to outfit a brigade to do this. (I think Union has to deliberately wither units down to 200 or so whereas CSA can just start a fresh brigade of 500.)

Also important to know when you're given a full Corps worth of deployment but in practicality you should win before they ever hit the field. CSA on Gaines Mill, for example, don't deploy more than one Division on the right and 2.5 Divisions on the left.

Unfortunately, this is why people have recommended to use mixed composition for divisions, not pure ones. Mind, it's a problem all over, and one you should see at lower difficulties first before playing Legendary. ;X

If you're being really cheap, do use Captains (put them in artillery brigades) because they're cheaper than farming up Majors by a few hundred and if you were legitimately short on officers you were probably short on cash also. Mid/late Colonel is actually sufficient FYI. I usually use Colonels in Cavalry brigades to farm up a lot of Brig Generals quickly. Only really applies to CSA, I'm pretty sure even 2 star generals won't get a fresh Union brigade to 1 Star. 3 star might but if you have spare 3 star generals to risk as Brigade commanders you're doing far better than me. After fresh recruits it really matters moreso only for hitting the next threshold, which is basically random for what level commander you need to do it.

Bug reported it, but posting anyway. As I've described in previous posts, I took the opportunity to replenish units mid-battle between days on the Camp screen. This screws up the game's tracking of casualties accurately (as well as not reflecting the proper # of men I really ended up bringing). Obviously(?) I did not lose only 4500 men to inflict that many casualties, that is silly. I probably lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 13k + 1500 cavalry + 4 guns. As a related bug, combining divisions screws up accounting for kills on individual units as well (I finally managed to figure out how to combine 3+ brigades derp, but it's still a bit finicky sometimes). The kills are tracked on the division level and not evenly split to the brigades, so at the end you'll have a bunch of 0 kill/X loss troops. Oh, and since it came up, for the record min-size I captured a bunch of CS Richmonds post battle, not 1861s.

I'm not even sure I'm about to get rewarded for it on normal unless I capture a boatload of 1861s. I would've been far better off just turtling probably. What's interesting, at least, is that it's starting to get harder to raise up new Union units because their morale is garbo and the enemy artillery is finally good enough that trees at close range aren't safe any more. They take a couple volleys and just break.

I'm not saying that allowing spending between days on Chancellorsville was a mistake, but I am maybe saying that post Day 2 I think I've spent something like $400k putting my army back in shape. Cavalry is way too goddamn expensive but it's the only thing killing those incredibly dumb 3 star 100 in all stat skirmisher brigades so I can't really skimp.

I think I've got something like 40 20pdr Parrots in my armory on my min Union game, that hasn't worked out yet.

Ha. Well, depending on captures, but you're likely going to get garbage like 14pdr James and so on or be forced to use only 6pdrs anyway because of cost.

And many people are also cannon limited, so this effectively reduces unit size as well.

Regardless of historical accuracy or whatever, at this point it's a balance issue. Artillery brigades already disintegrate instantly if they're shot at by an infantry brigade and get worked pretty bad by skirmishers. They can, oddly enough, vaguely resist cavalry for long enough for a friendly brigade to maybe get a volley off an rescue them, but that's about it. Reducing their numbers, accurate or not, just makes them even more susceptible to blowing up instantly if looked at and wouldn't be good for gameplay.

Only one side being allowed to man fortifications is still pretty frustrating, especially given certain kinds that really would have provided cover from both sides. It's also really gamey to rush a unit forward to man the fortifications, even if an enemy unit is sitting on top, and get the melee and cover bonus from doing so. Pushed forward hard on Day 1 of Chancellorsville as Union and dug in around the western VP. Was mostly okay in terms of losses, even if not ideal given the numbers involved, except for one time when a unit got pushed back because the AI did the above in that forest clump and I had to charge in cavalry to push them back out and reclaim that section of forest. (Managed to inflict 10k casualties and wipe two batteries and removed 6k more troops as shattered in exchange for 6k casualties and some minor battery damage on Day 1. Sheesh, CSA really brought the house on that one. Not my best ratio but given the force disparity involved I'll take it. My combined 3rd Division of supervets inflicted something like 5k casualties on their own while taking about 1k in trade.)

IIRC if you disband you do get the recruits as veterans back if you rebuild, so you can do it that way to get the brigade back with a fresh officer. Or if you're scared of that (I would be), do what Wright suggested and just make a dummy brigade and keep disbanding it for the officer that way. Either way this is why I generally recommend going min size so you never have this problem. I have more officers than I really know what to do with, I had to actually force myself to use higher ranked ones than are necessary to not get Command penalties/hit skill tiers just so they level up more.

Rainbows cones.

Someone was reporting that a few days ago on Shiloh also. They had retreated all the way back to Pittsburgh as Union and bled the CSA down, but on Day 2 they had their entire force replenished.

On one of my older games, I had a unit defending Dunker Church get charged and rout through enemy lines, through the enemy forces camped outside Sunken Road (taking damage the whole time), and finally unrout on hitting the river on the east side. They had basically nothing left, and to add insult to injury, every time I started trying to move them, another enemy unit walked over and put a couple volleys into them so they'd rout again endlessly into the river and they eventually shattered.

I've seen it, it's something they've repeatedly tried to fix from what I can tell. It doesn't happen very much any more FWIW. They're totally uncontrollable when it happens because they're partially routing already, I get your frustration.

It might still be there. It was definitely cheesy if you were able to just rush the forts as if they weren't there. Them being there at the start doesn't change that the southern most fortification is overstretched, you just might take more losses in the name of expediency. Although, you do have to watch for an annoying thing defenders can do if you're trying it--as soon as one unit in the fort routes, the AI can react faster and immediately put another unit. I suspect, though cannot be sure, that they get the cover bonus immediately. It's most noticeable on Malvern IME, where you can shoot out the left Union flank and they keep cycling brigades who I think automatically get the melee cover bonus, so it's very hard to actually make any headway for awhile until you've really depleted their forces. If it was a true simulation, attackers would be able to man or at least deny the other side of the defenses once defenders were pushed out so getting back in cover wouldn't make a lot of sense.

There was just another patch a few hours ago that contains what I quoted. Did you play post that one? (Was it a late announcement and had already been up?)

Rahl, I would suggest replaying it post patch and see if you get the same results also on your save. If you do, I would agree that something needs to at least be looked at again. Some fortifications being "special" simply doesn't jive with the way information is presented in this game. There's no way to know based on the information presented to the attacker that these fortifications are actually superior to others. For example, compare against the Confederate defenses at 2nd Bull Run, where they historically held as well. Those things aren't really that impressive. So, what, you're talking about me with your buddies or whoever off forum or in PMs and namedropping like that is supposed to mean something? That's not particularly respectful nor convincing. If you have something to say, own it by yourself.

*cough* The patch notes indicate otherwise.

More like the initial VPs are there to pull Union forces away and diffuse them across the battlefield so you can pick them off piecemeal.