Hitorishizuka

It was I Corps and the other two Corps never made it into battle so they didn't get counted, I guess. I wonder if I made the battle last just long enough for CSA reinforcements to start hitting the field and get counted, even if they didn't actually do anything.

The AI scaling was most interesting to me, I think. Koro had 40k troops vs AI 23k in his post-battle screen. I think in mine it reported 17k infantry vs AI 22k.

Near as I can tell there's no point--in fact it's probably more worthwhile to use them up as much as possible to let your personal brigades get better shots and more xp. Them dying might even give you back more equipment from returned. Needs testing to see if having higher intact free troops gives you most post-battle. In mine I kept the two best infantry brigades and both artillery brigades. I suspect it will automatically give you the higher 4 XP brigades, but again needs more testing.

Flinging depleted brigades would be fine if it waited for their morale and condition to recharge. As it is, once you rout a brigade for the first time, if the AI didn't have sufficient reserves to be able to send someone else in, they'll only wait for maybe 1/3 to 1/2 morale before vectoring back in. At that point, they take two cannon barrages on the way in and two volleys and they rout again.

The AI will automatically increase the size of its army to match yours if you are above certain minimums. Thusly you can't just max Army Organization and scrounge up guys to hold rifles in every spot and just use human wave tactics.

Does anyone sometimes opt to not end a battle immediately when the game offers you the choice and instead continues fighting to try and earn as much XP, captives, and rescued/captured goods as possible against an obviously defeated foe? I try not to because frankly it's pretty cheesy given the enemy is actually trapped on the map with you and the AI won't force retreat its brigades once the map is lost but it's pretty effective, as you can see below. One change I would suggest would be that if the player has achieved victory and the battle timer is over, the battle should either automatically end or the AI should begin force-retreating off the map to concede the field. There's no reason for them to stay at that point given the timer should signify some kind of end of day anyway. Probably 2/3 to 1/2 of the casualties I inflicted were 'after the bell', so to speak, when I finally took the opportunity to roll up their right flank and effectively pocketed them against the edge of the map in semi-perma rout, then charged for captures when they were whittled down suitably.

No, it's nothing like that at all right now. You walk through a series of set battles (1 Grand Battle + various side battles on offer at a given time). Your performance in one battle does not affect what missions you have on offer, provided your reputation is above the minimum to keep going. Currently the AI army composition does not change based on what side battles you completed or on how you won previous battles. The AI Army size will not scale down to meet you but will scale up if you start having too many men compared to normal. Your forces will carry over from battle to battle exactly like how it ended, so you will need to use the funds and manpower the game awards you after every battle to rebuild and expand your army appropriately between battles.

No, that's not AI scaling, that's probably not watching the terrain and positioning of your forces. Hard to give you detailed help without seeing a video or screenshots, in general stay in cover, don't get shot in the flank/rear, watch your weapon ranges. Officers did actually lead from the front. Not to challenge your Civil War buff credentials, but Brigade officers basically died like flies in every engagement because they needed to be visible to motivate and lead their men.

For science maybe try deliberately drawing the battle out as Union as long as possible and see what happens.

FWIW, probably the most feared Confederate cavalry commander was Nathan Bedford Forrest, who indeed used them actually as mounted infantry. He conducted war of maneuver by using horses to get his brigade into position ahead of where Union commanders could react, cut their lines of communication, raid their supply, and so on, then fade before they can catch up to him. (Or to use it to make it easier on his men to pursue and harry a retreating force while staying much fresher.) That said, later in the war the Union cavalry under Sheridan did get the opportunity to fight mounted sometimes, but it was a bit of a different campaign and different terrain, and he still had the majority of his troops fighting dismounted.

Per Patch 0.68: "Player receives 100% of weapons from captured units. " Do these weapons actually show up as Rescued instead of Captured due to the way the game accounts for captured units as showing up under the other side's rolls post-battle? See below: As you can see, I captured Birney and Robinson's Brigades for 368+492=860 But in the Goods section nothing is listed in the Captured column, only in the Rescued column. More interestingly, the numbers listed there also don't make any sense because both Brigade numbers together are higher than Re-Bored Farmer and individually higher than Springfield M1842. What is going on there? Lastly, if Re-Bored Farmer is intended to be in some part the captured weapons from those Brigades, why is it that weapon? Union can't even buy that weapon when playing on their campaign and I know for certain that I didn't have any of my units equipped with it.

*laughs* Oh, it's not, I just chose one name there and one name on here and I don't like to make it easy to link my various handles across the Internet. I'd usually take the cavalry, allowing for the fact that they're probably twice as expensive. They are prone to getting lost if you don't baby them but the killpower and ability to remove routed enemy regiments, artillery, and supply instead of having to slowly shoot it out and repeatedly rout to shatter is worth it IMO.

Streaming thoughts: Don't forget to reinforce/rebuild your brigades between battles. An artillery brigade with only 3 guns isn't very effective and is vulnerable to getting shattered instantly on taking fire if you misposition them, wasting valuable experience. It's not shameful to pause to reorient multiple brigades at once if you're having problems with the UI. Keep skirmishers at long range and at flanks and keep an eye on them. The AI loves to charge them because they have so few men and you have to force retreat ASAP or else you'll lose them like you did. If they get caught in melee they will die. Detach skirmishers (it's a button) from your largest brigades to give you even more options to maneuver and flank and extend your defensive lines with. Skirmishers also have better vision and better cover in open ground. Like before, you have brigades just sitting out contesting in the open. Furthermore, you sent your largest brigade off to sit in the middle of a field while letting your smaller one sit in a fort and get mauled by a lot of return fire while being outnumbered. You didn't have to contest to the east at all yet (and if you had kept skirmishers alive/detached more you could have stalled even better) and could have been using that brigade the entire time to instead inflict damage in the north. At one point you had them standing in the open field shooting enemy brigade in the forest--almost literally the worst possible situation. Watch the range on your troops. Your dismounted cavalry skirmishers were getting shot from out of their own range in poor cover, so they were basically taking damage for free. (Again, protect your cavalry, they should basically never be allowed to take return fire if you can at all help it.) Watch the facing of your troops. It's rarely necessary to prioritize to tell them to shoot at something different, especially if it's to their left or right. Walton brigade wheels right to shoot at the cavalry (caused by poor positioning of your forces) and gives up a flank shot for free to the enemy it was already dueling (and losing to). In general it is far more efficient to use maneuver to effectively force your troops to shoot at what you want instead of constantly queuing attack orders. Again, protect your artillery. Not only does having them sit at long range not really accomplish much, but as you saw they're vulnerable to being isolated and charged by random brigades if your battle lines aren't strong. If you capture enemy supply, you can use it to replenish your own troops if you can manage to guide it around the battle lines to your own forces. Attack or defend in groups, sending brigades off on their own rarely accomplishes much unless they're super elites or something and you really know what you're doing. You had a brigade on its own in the top left pushing an attack while your other nearby one was sitting in the fort secure. Either attack together or let them retreat while you consolidate your defensive position. (Post battle) Spend your Career points -before- you buy anything. Actually, first scout the remaining battles and see how brigades you're supposed to bring so you know whether you need to put points into Army Organization or you can take Training/Medicine/whatever. (Ideally take Politics before each grand battle if you can afford to.) Don't reinforce your first brigades with recruits unless they were deliberately going to be a bulletcatcher brigade. Veterancy to give better skills is crucial later in the campaign. Fighting enemy 3 stars with only 0-1 star brigades is completely awful. Don't ever use rebored farmers, they're complete junk. Go to armory and sell all of them. Max size skirmishers is a questionable investment, doubly so with such a bad carbine. If you're going to use dedicated skirmishers, 1-200 men only and with one of the actually good rifles like Sharps. Max size artillery is also a questionable investment. Better to keep size around 8-12 both for economics and so you can swap them to bigger/better guns more easily.

FWIW being able to finish the battle early is probably 'okay'. My biggest fear going in to that battle on the Union side was that it's very difficult to have the guns and money necessary to fill all of the brigade slots theoretically offered in reinforcements. The longer the battle goes the more likely the player won't have reinforcements available, so depending on how the autoscaling works they can basically get screwed.

No friendly fire right now.

Only watched the first one, so some general comments: 1) Pay attention to cover, the terrain is one of the most important things that should be influencing how you move. Open field is only good for 1/4 cover, cropfields/tall grass is good for 1/2 cover, buildings and forests can get all the way to full cover, and river crossings have 0 cover. This drastically reduces the amount of casualties your troops take. I saw a lot of times you were maneuvering your forces either on the open field or abandoning good defensive positions and opening yourself up for a lot of return fire. 2) Move your artillery closer. A -lot- closer. Distant artillery sitting back bombards using shells and shot and basically doesn't do anything. Artillery should be always basically right behind your infantry to give them the opportunity to maul the enemy infantry with canister. The corollary to this is that your artillery should still be protected by using your infantry as a shield. If they're taking return fire from infantry, they're -too- close. And if you need to fall back, make sure to send your artillery off early because they're a lot slower and prone to being overrun. 3) Protect your cavalry and use them only in key moments. Cavalry is crucial for hitting enemy artillery and supply train in the back. You used yours up too early in unsupported attacks and had them basically at half strength before the part of the battle where they would have really helped you in the wide open.

At the time you linked, I'm pretty sure the forces you're already engaging at that point -are- the reinforcements.

Are you sure you properly recognized what is a reinforcement and what was on the field? Union doesn't start with all their forces on the field, only the ones defending the two forward VPs. By the time you start flanking around to the right (or have pushed them off) to angle at the final VP is around when their reinforcements will get there in time to block that.

NB - Sorry, when I said first stage, I meant the small skirmish battle at I think it was called Brawner's Farm. No reason to fight, complete waste of time, and the AI won't even pursue you since they're sitting on the meaningless VP.

Best guess is they hang out by your I Brigade, yeah. Primary contributing factor towards the Command stat.

FWIW the Union had a hard time because of bad generals as well as a lot of Green troops. Half of that should be mitigable because someone else is behind the helm. They should get them. I haven't seen it from the CSA side but Union does get them...it just takes forever for them to show up. It's not impossible you simply just won before they were able to come.

If making changes to 2nd Bull Run, one has to also remember Thoroughfare Gap. It was only possible for the CSA to drive the Union off the battlefield due to Longstreet's reinforcements, which the Union failed to block at that battlefield and basically doomed the attack before it even started. A more dynamic campaign map should play into how the objectives are constructed on this one. I'd personally like to see more done with the first stage of the battle. There's basically no reason at all to fight as Union given you're at a manpower disadvantage and the enemy already has a strong defensive position around the VP.

With that many men on the field, local advantages still exist. Fronts are also designed so that the AI may have its infantry a couple Brigades deep in places and definitely with artillery nearby depending on how you advance. If you just try to run your cavalry in, even near the flanks, they're going to die. Melee cavalry, basic weapon. Skirmisher cavalry requires a lot more micro due to their AI and how vulnerable they are to return fire.

I generally have 0 points in Recon. As it stands, so long as you match Brigades in required slots you can win every map. Don't need to know how many enemies are on the map so long as you play smart.

Best guess is that I brought more artillery and seem to have ticked over a tier that appears to have forced them to use more budget on their own artillery and less on infantry. Ditto with cavalry. Also, one of my brigades was skirmishers which may have helped pull down the overall numbers.