KaleRaven

A delay in release is much preferable to being like many other Early Access 'orphans' that are kicked out the door whether they are ready or not because the devs can't or won't finish it.

Napoleons were also called "gun-howitzers" because they demonstrated characteristics which theretofore had been considered those of a gun as well as those of a howitzer.

FYI what they called a "12lb Light Gun" is a Napoleon-type gun, not a 'howitzer'. Napoleons were preferred over the 12lb howitzer whenever available. I find the 12 lb howitzer to be noticeably more effective than the 6lb field gun at close range. Neither gun is effective beyond a few hundred yards anyway, so the 6 lb gun's advantage there is of marginal utility.

You have plenty of spare rep, you should be using it on guns, IMO. However, you could probably still win the battle because the Union only starts with a small portion of their strength. And positioning matters more than numbers. Its easy to outflank the Union on this map. As far as army composition goes, you really spent a lot of money on support units. Expensive LeMats and Spencers don't do a lot of good if you don't have enough infantry to hold the enemy in place. I find that for melee cav, you might as well just stick with Palmetto/Sabre all the way because it has a higher melee value than anything other than LeMats, for a fraction of the price. There are unconventional strategies with lots of cav, but generally speaking the vast majority of your force should be infantry.

Not allowing units to turn is a necessary part of its functioning to maintain a continuous line. Otherwise say the enemy charges a neighboring brigade. If the brigade wheels to attack it, it will expose its flank to the enemy it was facing.

I believe the hold command is intended that the unit will not move at all, but will fire at enemies in range. In general, this does seem to work.

I'm hoping that's coming later on as part of the "Custom Battles" function. Workshop integration would make this game a monster.

It really goes far above and beyond what I was expecting from their second installment.

There are a few cases of duplicate pregenerated generals that probably need to be revised. Other generals are randomly generated, so duplicates will happen on occasion.

So long as the combined size of the two brigades is less than 2500, you can combine them if they are in the same division. Put them near one another and press the "Combine Division button" with one selected.

If you play as the Union, the Longstreet does show up mid battle, a couple hours after the Union 2nd corps enters the battle. Actually, I tried placing a division in those woods once (when I was intentionally dragging the battle out). The cover was good, but oddly Longstreet's brigades all noticeably outranged my own. It was on Hard and they were all 3 star brigades, so it may be that they all had the +10% range bonus, but it meant I took many more casualties than I would have liked.

Same deal with divisions. Just a small quality of life improvement if we could disband empty ones.

Division commanders don't have the bonus traits, corps commanders do. So you would have to have separate infantry, cavalry, and artillery corps, which can't be deployed together in most battles...

Artillery uses the most supply by far. Turn off your artillery if it's not in effective range. For most guns, it's a waste if it's beyond shell range (I.e. solid shot).

I have three divisions with 3-4x infantry and 1x artillery each. The fourth division is for support and has 2x artillery, 1-2x cavalry, and 1-2x sharpshooters. For battles where you can't choose your deployments I will swap units as needed for the mission. I find this structure is very useful in large battles as it lets me quickly deploy infantry lines with artillery support.

When I tried defending the bridges, I got overwhelmed by just the sheer amount of manpower the Union had there. I had 2 divisions at the bridge east of the road and they still got repulsed by the amount of raw firepower and numbers that the Union had. The problem was that there wasn't much cover there except directly against the river where you can be shot from the other side. The Union also had quite a bit of artillery that was constantly shelling my exposed troops. I'll probably try it again sometime.

I took a relatively forward defensive position straddling the northernmost fence fortifications. It was pretty much an east-west line along the edge of the forest. I had all my best troops and artillery in my first and second corps. I had several large artillery batteries that I put just behind the fence line. So long as you maintain a solid line and make sure your troops are in heavy cover, your line should be virtually unbreakable. Just make sure you identify where the AI is focusing their attack and have extra brigades there to fend off charges. When the second phase starts, I rush north a division from the Sunken Road. You will want to refuse the flank a bit and some of your troops will end up in the open. Just try to ensure the troops in cover take the brunt of the fire. It can be a good idea to rotate out brigades if they get tired or low on ammo. The most challenging part of the battle is when Burnside attacks from across the river. You must fall back in a orderly manner or you will get flanked badly. I detach skirmishers and have my infantry start falling back. By now, the earlier attack waves should be quite depleted, preventing the Union from putting too much pressure on your retreating troops. At this time, I move pretty much all my artillery to below the Sunken Road. My new battle line is an angle anchored by the three objectives. Sharpsville offers great cover and so is an ideal place to anchor your line. The hardest fighting will be at the salient created by the Sunken Road. That's why I put all my artillery there. There will be heavy losses here and you will need extra brigades to replace retreating or exhausted troops at the Road. Ideally, you can pull a few brigades from the northern flank by this point. I use skirmishers extensively throughout the battle to flank or draw fire. Careful micromanagement of your brigades can do a lot to maximize your firepower and minimize losses. Having units fall back when being charged can be very effective. I would also use melee cav to counter charge enemy units that were engaged in melee with my own. Be sure to have the cav fall back once the enemy starts retreating though.

Buildings and forest should give a penalty to firepower as a tradeoff for cover. The advantage of actual prepared fortifications is that they provide cover while still allowing troops to fire effectively. Whereas dense forests or urban areas should make it difficult for units to concentrate fire without sacrificing their cover.

Did you take medicine? I think it's one of the best skills to take. Each soldier saved through medicine is essentially a free weapon and a free veteran. For the bigger battles, it's a huge boon.

Just under the "Battles Map" header in the attached screenshot. General in Chief wasn't the formal title, but was sometimes used to refer to the position.

On the career page, you have the title "General-in-Chief". In theory this would mean that you are in overall command of all armies and military strategy for your side. However, the actual gameplay suggests you are in charge of a single army. Save for a few exceptions, that would be the Army of the Potomac/Army of Northern Virginia respectively.

In Antietam as the Confederates, I rotated brigades out of the heaviest fighting area (Sunken Road) when they ran out of ammunition. Limited ammunition was a real historical concern.

I'm guessing the difference is bigger partially because I was playing on hard. In a prior hard campaign, when I brought 53k and the AI had 112k. I don't mind at all, honestly. It was a fun challenging battle that had me restart and try different strategies a couple times. If the AI value was fixed at something like 90k, it would have been a cakewalk and I likely would have encircled and crushed the Union army. For comparison, on 2nd Bull Run, the Union took 34k casualties while I only took 4.8k.

This (and other large battles) are where logistics points really start to become worthwhile. Also, it offers an advantage for using a larger number of smaller corps. So is this the thread for posting Antietam screenshots?

Fall back a little bit and force them to cross. They are especially vulnerable (negative cover) while on the bridge.