Hitorishizuka

Did Tredegar just get nerfed or something? I actually found it comparable to Ordnance usually.

IMHO, spend early only if they give you 24pdrs or top tier rifles (Fayetteville, etc). Otherwise hold until you would cap at winning a new battle, then pick whatever you need most. The morale buff really helps out brand new units from breaking instantly if they get caught in a bad position.

Moreso that with AI scaling, the AI gets absurd Melee for free in all of its units, so if it was allowed to melee wave attack without nearby defenders being able to shoot back the player would have a very tough time of things.

2nd Bull Run as Union is easier. One wave assault to push back the initial fortifications, then one concentrated push through the fields and angling slightly as you hit the trees to take the VP. And that's if you do it straight up. If you take the long left flank instead then some people report winning while killing only 100 men or so.

My rough guidelines would be: If 20 brigade Corps, not using Combine Division, 1 on offense, 2 on defense. If 24, 2 always. If using combine Division, 1 always with 20 brigade Corps, 1.5 (so 2 divisions with 2, 2 with 1) with 24 brigade Corps.

Given that there are people who when we first started complaining that 20pdr Parrotts were overcosted and not performing to their stats responded that it was okay since it was historical that it was a disliked gun, there's just no common ground here. (And the devs have gone on to unsuccessfully attempt to buff the dumb things twice, so that should tell people where they fall.) Really? If you're complaining about those I don't see why you haven't taken it all the way and complained that artillery don't care about elevation any more and have perfect spotting provided by other units.

The AI doesn't understand how to maneuver around cover, which still greatly degrades the effect of better weapons. Upgrading yours will see large kill differentials in areas where you can arrange to be in cover when the enemy isn't, causing routs within a single volley as weapon lethality goes up. You can get to a point where your forces will rout the AI's as they approach for their first volley, so they basically never fire and you've gotten free damage in.

It is very hard to hold Antietam with only 1 Corps, you just don't have map coverage with the troops that you're bringing. Honestly, even Gaines Hill and Malvern you kinda want 3+2 Divisions. As for shock cavalry, it only affected their forest performance, so they still have a lot of value, you just have to be more careful with how you use them.

It's a fairly late Union side mission.

Wonder if that one was changed. I also saw on a previous patch that only the artillery started at the fort and there was an opening window to take advantage of that if you zerged cavalry in, but I didn't bring an army I felt comfortable doing that with and so took the long slow way or circling all the way around and compressing them inside the fort and slowly grinding them down.

Oh, yeah, that's what I meant, sorry if that wasn't clear. Units who are in melee with each other don't have cover to each other if doing point blank shooting, especially in relation to a proposed change to make revolvers better.

A separate change to make cover not apply to units who are in melee with each other would not be unwelcome at that point...

I suspect your army just has severe structural issues that are finally showing themselves at Antietam. 1) You only have a very thin line of veteran brigades, with arguably too much experience tied up in them. Even with combine division cheese, you just don't have enough reliable troops to hold all of the terrain you need to across the battlefield. 2) You appear not to have too many/any veteran artillery brigades. Similarly to the above, you don't have enough high quality artillery to help repulse charges and take a toll when the AI wants to just sit outside firing range for extended periods of time. You also appear to have missed out by not having any units with 24pdrs. 3) You appear to have only a minimal amount of cavalry of either flavor, based on your comments. Shock cavalry is one of your countercharge tools and is also useful for picking off the lone Union brigades that will leak over on the far NW of the map, which you can then use to start rolling over that flank. Ranged cavalry in plentiful numbers can get a lot of damage out on the flanks as well. Antietam comfortably takes 2-2.5 Corps to hold as Confederates at the main line. You need a fully stocked strong Corps to hold the north, you need 2-3 Divisions at Sunken Road and you need 1-2 Divisions at Stone bridge. So long as you survived the first phase vaguely intact the rest of the battle is doable, you just may need to be paradoxically aggressive in the north to prevent their late reinforcements from having an effect while doing whatever it takes to hold the south and east bridges to avoid being flanked. If you can't figure out how to manage it traditionally, you could try to defend only at Sharpsburg except for a large cavalry wing hiding in the NW, then use them to ninja the VPs right at the end.

I commented on this in the Feed(b)ack thread, but the other annoyance about melee cavalry being too weak in forests is not just skirmishers but also dealing with ranged cavalry. You now have to plod infantry through the forests to catch ranged cavalry who constantly run away, draining Condition all the while, just to slowly push them out and barely get kills (assuming you even had an infantry brigade spare to do so). It used to be you could just send a couple melee brigades after them and rout them, now they dance away for free.

Okay, chiming in to also say that melee cavalry in forests have been overnerfed by the bug fix that went in. Just got through Fredericksburg on one campaign of mine, the Union has a couple units of ranged cavalry on the first map that tend to be able to leak into the forests once the AI figures out it should flank. I sent melee cavalry off to deal with them since everyone else would have problems catching up slogging through the forests near the first VP but when they did catch them, they got into a tickle fight, did literally single digits in casualties to each other (the ranged cavalry may not even have done a single one) and then the Union ranged cavalry waltzed off as if nothing had happened. --- Actually, and as a separate piece of feedback, I kinda feel that the Fredericksburg takes too long to play without having a break. I just finished recording a two hour long video on it on CSA without realizing. While I did pause at a couple points to talk or rearrange forces, I also spent a fair portion of the battle on higher speeds once things were under control.

Is there no real counter to skirmishers in trees now? You can't outshoot them for anything and in general most people's dedicated skirmishers won't be skilled or kitted for melee. I suppose you can throw detached skirmishers at them but it's not going to be very effective.

Flank or shoot from the rear. It's part of why I believe your own lines need to be at least somewhat static (read: defensive) so that you know where the enemy is generally facing and you have troops in front of them to draw fire. Given those conditions short ranged fast firing cavalry and then get a lot of work done on the enemy flanks or circling around to their artillery in the back. Also, as with shock cavalry, it is advantageous to have a couple units of detached skirmishers hanging around nearby to create openings and purposely catch bullets while the more expensive cavalry units take opportunities.

But, again, that is not the question that was asked. That's a separate topic for Realism where people can lobby to their heart's content that X is too powerful compared to IRL or whatever else. To make it really obvious, let me change it so that there is some unit of dedicated pikemen in-game. The OP would have asked how is the best way to use them and whether they should take them. People on-topic would be responding to their merits and uses (presumably anti-shock cavalry, whatever). People that are off-topic would say useless things like "there were no pikemen in the Civil War". Technically true but not contributory.

No. That isn't vaguely what the OP posted about nor what the posters actually staying on-topic are talking about. No one is talking about perceptions of what some mythical cavalry should be, everyone is talking about how to use the units in-game, just the same as we are in practically every other topic. Stop making things up to try and justify shoehorning Civil War facts into every thread.

They're not useless at all. Melee cavalry are your best tools to kill enemy skirmishers, they do fine against artillery if you can match up 1:1 even if they're slower than they used to be, they're valuable countercharge defense for your infantry, and given vague number parity they're your fastest tools for killing isolated infantry brigades. Ranged cavalry are safer harassers in almost all circumstances so long as your lines are vaguely static, they're arguably better against artillery these days, and they're usable in a pinch to defend your own lines if your infantry have broken if you need a hole to plug. I've had battles where given sufficient micro I have ranged cavalry brigades with 1500 kills in a battle where the enemy only even brought about 20k total to the field.

Combine Division is your friend until the devs finally take it away, if they ever do. Free Fayettevilles/CS Richmond/Henries/Colt Model 1855 for all!

Yes, but that involves not using Fayettevilles which is a little silly. CSA has a huge advantage being able to get them early for rep given how powerful they are.

Just for clarification's sake--you had skirmishers armed with the unscoped Whitworths and the enemy skirmishers ended up armed with Spencers in response?

I wouldn't sleep on Shock Cavalry. They're still by far your best options for dealing with enemy skirmishers, beefed up or not, and they're still very strong on countercharges where you have them just behind your lines at a strong point that you know the enemy is going to charge into and you can then send them in to turn the tide. If you don't have shock cavalry then dealing with enemy skirmishers is basically down to your own infantry getting into range (hard because they just run away) or accepting that they're going to keep poking your brigades from out of range. Artillery are a waste shooting them, ranged cavalry lose that duel hard once they start turning because of lack of cover, and your own skirmishers aren't really all that useful.

How is this even vaguely relevant to the capabilities of the units that we have in-game?