Aetius

I've been experimenting with all-cavalry builds. Two full brigades of shock cavalry hit each escort brigade, along with a rifle cavalry unit. They both surrendered almost immediately.

Ambush Convoy has a problem if you kill or capture the two Union escort brigades too quickly. If you haven't captured the three supply wagons when the second unit surrenders or is captured, the battle immediately ends in a Draw. Presumably this is because there are no other Union forces on the map, but it's a negative outcome for what, up to that point, is clearly a very successful fight.

The fortifications along the railway are low quality, and you can overrun any of them at your convenience. The real defensive line is the treeline at the top of the ridge - it's mostly 100% cover and getting up there is slow and burns Condition. However ... if you attack the far left or far right and stay clear of the units in the more central fortifications, you can effectively take those units out of the battle. The AI will hold those positions even after it's clear the line has been compromised, and they are too far away to provide fire support to units on the ridgeline. The sweep works, but it's easier (and safer) to push behind and along the ridgeline rather than to roll along the line of fortifications.

There's not really much choice. Even if you have two Corps, you (mostly) don't get to choose where they get deployed. The last time I started Shiloh, I had units from both I Corps and II Corps deployed on both sides of the map. The only constant I've noticed is that 1st Division is consistently deployed to the Shiloh Church side. I would recommend experienced rifle units in the 1st Division, specifically to hold the woods in front of the Church - it's one of the best defensive positions on the map, and you can bleed the Confederates dry before you have to fall back.

No - you only need up to the "4 divisions per Corps" level. Watch the per-corps brigade caps in the battle start screen - they'll stay at 20 (4 divisions x 5 brigades) until a bit later in the war, and then they will go up to 25. When they go up to 25, you need to get AO up to the "6 brigades per division" level to avoid being at a serious disadvantage. As the Union, I usually swing around the left, pushing the Confederates off the objective from behind. You've got plenty of time for this, as the first timer doesn't mean anything - but keep an eye on your back, because the Confederate reinforcements come in around the middle of the second timer. Also, ignore the initial battle: going up that hill is a waste of men and ammunition, and it's entirely irrelevant to the outcome of the battle. (Although I stupidly keep fighting that battle in my videos, as I keep forgetting, and I've been burned too many times failing to take an early objective and losing the battle because of it ... *cough* Chickamauga.) You do need some experienced troops in the attack for flanking fire and making sure anyone who runs to the rear gets put down, but I recommend at least one relatively green division for the attack through the woods on the left (or right). It's mostly close-range fighting and melee, so it's both suited to units with smoothbores, and produces a lot of casualties.

Let's talk about the Harper's Ferry 1855s. In my Confederate BG campaign, about half my units are equipped with these rifles because the Union troops keep dropping them in huge numbers. In my Union Legendary campaign ... about half my troops are equipped with them because the Confederates keep dropping them in huge numbers. In the Union store, there are more Harper's Ferry 1855s available than regular 1855s. The AI Confederate dynamic equipment scaling skipped almost directly from Re-bored Farmers to Harper's Ferry 1855s - I was only able to capture about 700 MJ&Gs and 700 Mississippis, and only a handful of Enfields. I suspect that somehow the limits on Harper's Ferry 1855 availability were removed in one of the recent patches, for Union human players and for the AI on both sides.

I use a division / brigade naming scheme, then weapon type (Rifle or Grenadier for smoothbore weapons). Cavalry are either Shock (melee) or Scout (carbines). Artillery is named gun type. The reason I do this is because merging brigades can keep them from getting destroyed, so keeping your divisions together on the battlefield is a good thing.

The main difference with the Union is that you'll find yourself struggling to maintain experienced units and leaders. In the CSA campaign, you can almost always use rookies as replacements and your units will still progress in experience over time. Union brigades often require an injection of veterans after each battle to progress. The initial Career points are pretty much the same - AO to reasonable levels, then Politics - but Medicine and then Training become more important more quickly. It's okay not to max out Politics asap, because you aren't nearly as limited on money/manpower, your recruits are less valuable, and you really need to preserve your experienced troops. As the Union you also have more flexibility on reputation purchases, rather than having to buy every soldier available, and buying generals can make sense because your leadership pool is smaller and less experienced than the Confederates. Finally, the Union has a HUGE advantage in available artillery - there's no need to scrape by with captured 12pd Howitzers or 6 pounders.

This one is the easiest to answer - sadly, no. The problem is that as the game progresses, you'll find that you rarely get control over how your corps are deployed, especially in multi-stage battles. If you include a dedicated artillery corps, this leads to situations where you are forced into fighting with only artillery. In a couple of the larger battles, you can put the artillery corps in as reinforcements, but that usually sharply reduces the amount of time they have to fire and thus their effectiveness. The best you can do is make artillery-heavy divisions, with 2-3 infantry brigades and 2-3 artillery brigades, and try to mass them manually.

I hesitate to bring this up, but with the dynamic campaign I think this has become much more important. The AI needs to know when it's beaten - when to retreat off the map, or at least fall back to a better position. As it stands now, the AI takes horrendous casualties because it stubbornly stays in contact, gets surrounded, and then dies to the last man. Exploiting this disadvantage is fairly easy and low cost for the player, and really impacts future battles. I was able to use this to inflict nearly 80% casualties on the Confederates at Shiloh on Legendary. On the second day, the AI units didn't even try to fall back and defend the objectives, but instead allowed themselves to be pinned against the river, surrounded, and destroyed - only Forrest escaped.

Agreed - the oblique movement is ... well, awesome. It's such a relief to be easily able to shift units left and right to get into their battle line without them doing a pirouette a hundred yards from an enemy brigade. And it's so well done that it just disappears into the flow of battle - all you notice is the absence of the frustration surrounding units exposing their flanks to shift left or right.

Good point - I edited my comment to reflect that.

Not exactly. As was previously pointed out, soldiers recovered with Medicine also keep their weapon. Medicine isn't a 2.5% discount though - it's a 100% discount on soldiers and weapons recovered. For example, if you have Medicine at 20% and you take 10,000 casualties, you get 2,000 veteran soldiers and their weapons back for free. To get the equivalent back with Training and Economy, you'd have to buy 2,000 veterans plus at least half their guns (at BG difficulty level, you recover 50% of the weapons of your own casualties). The actual cost varies (more experienced veterans are more expensive), but with no bonuses 1,000 Enfields costs $29k - you can do the math from there. In late battles with highly experienced troops, Medicine can easily save you more than $100k per battle. The downside, of course, is that you have to take casualties in order for Medicine to work, and you're actively working against the bonus by keeping casualties down. In short, Medicine is just behind Politics in terms of power and priority - Training and Economy are not only less valuable individually, but you need both in order to match what Medicine does.

Just had a cavalry unit surrender to a Corps command unit they had just charged. They apparently got stuck on a river (grr), and somehow the Corps command unit lasted long enough for them to run out of stamina.

With the new dynamic campaign and manpower pool there's a strong long-term incentive to really smash those units, and it's pretty easy to pull off - the scenario gives you plenty of time to work them over.

Gettysburg phase transitions need some work. In my BG campaign I deliberately didn't take Cemetery Hill in the first phase because I wanted to do more damage to the Union forces. In the second phase I captured both the Round Tops, but didn't completely wipe out the Union units. The next phase was the Culp's Hill / Cemetery Hill phase. I captured all the victory points, and wiped out all their units. Then in the next phase ... my units were teleported back to the east and north, and I was forced to attack Culp's Hill again. This time there was only one Union brigade, which I hunted down and destroyed while easily recapturing Culp's Hill. Next phase is the big attack on the three Cemetery Hill objectives. My units are again teleported off the objectives to the north and west. The northernmost Cemetery Hill victory point starts the phase under my control. I again recapture all the VPs and wipe out every existing Union unit (including the reinforcements). I've now captured Culp's Hill and the northernmost Cemetery Hill victory point twice each. I'm then greeted with a message indicating that my attack failed (??!!), and a Union counter-attack was possible. I enter this phase with my entire army AGAIN teleported back to the west, *and* I control of all the VPs. I find a few Union brigades in the far south, and start to engage them. Then the phase ends in victory, because I already controlled all the victory points. Essentially, the game does not acknowledge in any way Confederate control of Cemetery Hill or Culp's Hill during phase transitions - even though it clearly tracks VP ownership between phases. This resulted in multiple phases where I was forced to retake the same objectives over and over, which is intensely annoying. Then there's the ... fifth phase bug, where despite capturing all the objectives, I was sent to the sixth phase (the Union counter-attack) anyway ... which almost immediately ended because I controlled all the objectives. My recommendation would be to eliminate the 2nd Culp's Hill phase entirely (phase 4?), and extend the previous Cemetery Hill / Culp's Hill phase. If the Confederates are successful there, end the battle. (You could try to continue, but in the next phase, if you're honoring unit placement, there will be a huge brawl as Union units are spawned on top of Confederate units.) Also, fix the fifth phase so that if the Confederates are successful, the battle ends and there is no counter-attack.

Routed units are still getting stuck on streams and fordable rivers.

Retreat direction is *still* wonky. At 1st Bull Run I had two Union brigades cross the stone bridge, rout, and then attempt to flee to the north between two of my brigades. The first tangled both of my brigades up into melee as it fled, but I was able to pop skirmishers, reset them, and wipe the Union unit out. The second Union brigade didn't even make it into melee. The only thing I can figure is that the algorithm gave a lot of weight to the Union units approaching from the northwest, miles away, and it was enough to cause them to rout-charge my troops.

This is fantastic news. I can't speak for everyone else, but I really appreciate you guys taking the risk of such a major change so close to release.

There's no room for honor on Legendary - only desperate survival.

It's completely not worth it on Hard or Legendary, with the exception of battles where you have allied troops that aren't part of your army. In that case, it is absolutely beneficial to press the enemy as hard as possible with those troops, as you get drops from kills on both sides. The only limitation on this is that sometimes there are victory conditions based on force percentages, so you just have to be careful.

As the Confederates on Legendary, it's not easy but it's doable - I push my units through the hole in the middle of the Union lines along the map divide, take Pittsburg Landing, and then hold it. It can get dicey at the end with the heavy Union reinforcements. As the Union, it's much more difficult. Your forces are small and relatively inexperienced. I've lost the battle in my last two Legendary attempts - one to a cavalry unit slipping into the rear and capturing the VP, and another to just getting run over. I think the best strategy remains doing as much damage as you can on the left, and then falling back to Pittsburg Landing and holding. The problem is that the defenses right around the VP are very poor, and it's difficult to hold it against the storm of Confederates that come through the woods. Also, the VP capture area extends out beyond the fortifications, so all they need to do to win is stand there - having a unit in the fortifications is not enough to stop them from taking it.

After a few replays, perhaps - however it's very easy to get caught and beat up pretty badly at the bridge if you stick in the fortifications and don't watch that left flank. I also suspect this is one of the battles they are addressing with: Which probably means we'll be facing two-star Union units with 1855s in the next patch at 1st Bull Run ... which is going to be brutal.

While this is welcome, it's not going to really help unless you do something about artillery ammunition usage. I set up a quick test on River Crossing. I normalized two artillery units so that they had the same stats and no perks, equipped them both with 10pd Ordnance guns, and let them blast away. My Corps commander has the +20% ammunition perk, and I have three points in Logistics for another +15% ammunition. I ran two tests, one with a 10,000 supply wagon, and one with a 3,000 supply wagon. Once they exhausted their ammunition (roughly one game hour), I stopped them from shooting and refilled their ammunition. It appears that a zero-star 8-gun 10pd Ordnance battery, Efficiency 11 and Command 53/54, can use approximately 1,250 supply in 1.5 game hours. So four inexperienced 8-gun batteries are going to use the entire extra 10,000 supply in just three game hours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK58_XHrikk I then reconfigured another save to test the +50% ammunition perk on one unit, and the Stamina perk on the other unit. This time, I had a commander without the +20% ammunition perk, but still had the 3 points in Logistics for +15% ammunition. It looks like the +50% ammunition perk doesn't do anything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp9iFzkZh18 Both units use ammunition at the same rate (slightly faster than the previous test, since their Efficiency is higher), and both refill with exactly 1,250 ammunition. This leads me to believe that none of the +% ammunition perks are working for artillery units.

In that battle, no - as the Union, you can abandon them for better defensive positions to the north, and as the Confederates you can ignore them. However, that is not always the case, and there are several instances where you will instantly lose if you lose an objective, which is not explained in the briefing or in the victory conditions (Confederate 2nd Bull Run comes to mind).