Pandemonium

When deploying CDRs and Supply wagons into deployment boxes, they don't count as brigades. However, when you don't have deployment boxes, maybe they do? Seems odd. And agreed Andre Bolkonsky, seems suspicious, almost always the same brigade as well (Slot number 6 in Division 4)....

Wow, that was speedy! Looking forward to the new features. Sent in a bug or two I found on brigades not loading onto the combat map even though it's 24/25. Thank you!

I'm not sure I understand your logic, relevant to my issue. ALL of my units have been changed, and across the battle-map, not just a few randomn moves. And I didn't have any routed units, or AI in my rear. Come on, I've been a veteran long enough to realize battle lines are not static. The day ends, my units may be fighting or mopping up, but units likely won't be completely and haphazardly thrown about the lines in a completely different arrangement. Some units may move to the rear, others may be shifted along the line, but not a complete changeover. I -THINK- it might be reverting back to the AI's initial emplacement of my Corps...I checked again after a few saves to see how it goes. EDIT - Example - My Supply wagon I specifically deployed to the Left Flank near the woods, but on the next day, it was on the center battle map.

REALLY frustrating to go from day 2 at Cold Harbor to day 3, and have all your units auto-scrambled in no particular manner whatsoever to prepare for the Union assault. Why? Shouldn't be a rather easy fix to keep my units in the general formations they were in from day to day? Sorry for being pouty.

I usually go for the points only required for a victory. When the objectives list reads: ONE of these must be met....I usually meet one, with an alternate if I have forces available and I don't risk losing that one for a Draw. First heard about a total point system. I understood there were various victory conditions or draw conditions (i.e. not holding a location but inflicting a certain casualty %)...so I thought it was pretty clear about either you get a Victory/Draw/Defeat scenario.

I don't know how you win on the first day, by capturing Old Cold Harbor and keeping it? I get overwhelmed immediately after capturing it and then don't have enough troops to fight in the 2nd day.

I let the Union troops take the house with my brigades on the woods defending initially, let them come. Once they are in the center on the house, squeeze your brigades little by little into the center, flanking them with cavalry and skirmishers in their rear to occupy their artillery and cause some of their brigades to return to the rear.

A couple of things: 1. If you listen to the advice given, it will destroy you. Haha..I had about 70K CSA troops to 160Kish Feds. In some places, it was 1:3 odds minimum. Brutally hard when facing 3,000 man brigades. I learned a while back (and linking a thread earlier posted about listening to initial advice) to play it the way I deem appropriate, because there really is no way CSA can hold or take objectives against dug in troops at 1:2 Odds. Then your army is decimated to stand in your own trenches. 2. I capture 2 Union Supply wagons with some of my cavalry in their rear lines. I successfully escorted them back to friendly lines for my desperately hungry weapons. As soon as the day ended, the supplies went away and I had my left flank at Shady Grove Road (or whatever the very far left obj for a victory is) cave in because I was completely out of ammo. WHY DO THEY DISAPPEAR? 3. I love this battle's epicness in scale and size on the last day, where you can see almost all except the very left flank. Thanks for making the game, while it is insanely eating up hours of life, I find it getting better. It's damn tough to play as the Confederates.

Ultimately, I won by only choosing the minimum positions required for a victory and didn't focus on enemy forces, strictly terrain based win at Chickamauga. At Mansfield, I decided to preserve my forces and took a Draw. Same at Saunder's Field. It just wasn't worth the losses to take the Victory objectives. My reputation suffered 30 points, but I maintained a decent Army that you will absolutely need at Cold Harbor. That can get you 4 or 5 : 1 odds at places...also extremely hard for a win.

I took a long break as well, back now. I had to play Chickamauga several times to secure the win, now I'm at Mansfield....VERY HARD. I don't see how a victory can be won there, it's nearly impossible as CSA to penetrate those woods at 1:2 odds. Patience gets you more Fed troops and not sure what happens at the battle timer end...

Battle Timer is quite annoying, since you don't know what happens at the end of the timer.

Sort of. Highest ranking to be killed in combat. There were a few other MGs killed as well, Sedgwick and McPherson were also MGs. Reynolds was the highest killed at Gettysburg, a Corp Commander shot just outside the farm leading up to Seminary Ridge on the 1st day. His marker is there in the woods, if you ever get a chance to go there. Albert S. Johnston was killed at Shiloh, he was a Confederate General and the highest ranking on either side.

If Div CDRs are represented, that's a lot of commanders to deal with on the field, the micromanagement of dealing with them would be immense. Usually, CDRs position themselves wherever the main effort of the fight is going to occur. I really believe Corps CDR areas of influence should be expanded. It really only covers a division or less worth of troops.

How do you people not have cavalry? Cavalry are so important in routing other units, capturing supplies, scouting flanks and securing rear areas- not to mention breaking exposed units when they route. I have at least one full Cav Melee unit in every division, not dragoons mind you, real saber rattling cavalry. Sheesh. EDIT: And breaking artillery, don't forget the importance of breaking enemy artillery.

I've run across the same. I'm sure there is an easy way to increase the pool of names.

1. Yes, most of what you discuss here is discussed in other forum posts. However, your point is well taken from a realism perspective. Medicine allows up to 20% of your unit to return, which is a fairly decent number of returns so quickly after a battle. Often, wounds sustained in combat were not easily treated and often took months to heal before a Soldier was combat ready again. Mini-balls shattered bones and legs, and the triangular bayonets (now outlawed) ripped horrific wounds. 2 -3. Limiting veteran troops has been bantered about, with the conclusion being that because they are so expensive, most of the time it is such a limited number anyway. The point is well taken though, that they should be hard to come by. Mostly units were transferred in or out depending on the strategic or operational need at the time, and rarely by reputations however. Increased training stats would overcome the shock of having new troops added to veteran units, but that is fairly realistic. 4. The game should allow higher recruit stats for training rather than lowering veteran prices.

You are addressing the stacking issue, which is a compromise at some level. What about firing through each other? What about canister through lines? Firing into melee? None of this seems realistic. I suppose if you are more interested in gaming than realism, I can understand it. I'd prefer a balance of both, as no game will ever get there...

Wandering1, yes. I see your points. However, when was the last time you saw a Brigade of 2,500 men cross a stone bridge? It's real. Fitting massive numbers of troops into small places leads to disaster (Petersburg anyone?) Fredericksburg was a slaughter for the same reasons, I have done a terrain walk of Fredericksburg, my daughter lives in the old town right where the Feds crossed, and the railroad is still there. There are developmental ways of improving the terrain or maps to allow more terrain to maneuver. But stacking and firing into friendly lines is wearing me down to make it a mechanical game of beating the system instead of a realistic fight. As to your point of grinding down the enemy, yes. That's reality. Tactical fights are often attritional with some maneuver. Operational and strategic levels of war are maneuvering to a position of advantage. This has been true since the dawn of war. EDIT: To my point, at Gettysburg, Sickles kept having to feed units in the wheat fields, because he maneuvered his units to a place not instructed, and you can't fit more than what he had into the same spot - I live close to the battlefield and have been there several times. It was realistic to keep feeding units into the line in tight spaces...if you could not maneuver out of it operationally.

I would expect the AI to use more terrain then, and make it harder by outflanking you when so outnumbered. That or use their numbers in ranks. That was realistic as well. But then again, the AI would have to be tweaked to account for not allowing 80,000 troops on a farm. As for boxing them in, that's realistic. At Stones River, I boxed in the entire center of the Union Army when I cut them off from their fortifications, and watched as 30,000 men broke and ran. That's more realistic (they couldn't surrender because as soon as one unit surrendered, the other unit they were stacked on recaptured them).

My suggestion would be to keep the "blocked" function for not being able to fire through friendly units. You should still be able to pass through units, forward passage of lines, fortifications and routing units through another solid unit, but put a hard stop on firing. This should also apply to artillery canister firing through lines, but not for shells - cannons can easily fire over infantry. Making the last distinction might be a little tougher. This should also apply to firing into a melee and only hitting enemy units. That's a bit over the top as well. I was a bit shocked when one of my brigades fired point blank into a melee and then perplexed as my guys were all safe. If you've ever played Total War, friendly fire is a real thing - and it ain't so friendly. In a quote from Braveheart ..."sire, if we loose volleys into the fray, we will hit our own men." The king replied, "Yes, but we will hit theirs too."

Didn't get much traction on this via hijacking other posts, so thought I'd start a thread here to see if anyone bites. First of all, love the game. Got about 450 hrs playing through Union and CSA. I think it's one of the best mil RTS games I've played at the tactical level in quite some time. Thank you for the team developing it. One thing I've been reading a lot on is tactics and how to game the system to win/beat the challenge of the AI. "Stacking" units and having artillery blow canister rounds behind your lines, etc...I just find this silly. Is it allowable from a development perspective due to the unit/terrain mismatch of space, or allowed because at the macro level, units are integrating the cannon into their lines? Or stacking three brigades deep and all of them firing through one another? I'm a 20 year Army veteran and former Civil War reenactor, so my bias here is pretty hard. Thoughts? "Shuddup Pandemonium, get over it." or "We are fixing that in the next release to make it more realistic and A LOT harder to play with current numbers.."

Yeah, I am playing CSA on normal, with 2-star brigade formations, around 50K troops in 2 Corps. I am facing 130-140K Union troops in defensive positions stacked behind and on top of each other, all firing at me with cannon, etc... If the stacking troops and firing through other formations was not allowed, I think this game would be VERY different. The "Blocked" only works part time. Really should fix this. 80K Union troops stacked onto a single farm is ridiculous.

Minor, but frustrating when the computer auto-deploys divisions and corps all over the battlefield, without any opportunity to adjust or pick. It's not just Fredericksburg either. My divisions are spread all over the map with no integrity. At the very least, fix the divisions so they are together if the player is not going to be able to deploy forces. Thanks!

Thanks. That worked. Stones River timer for Confeds is way too short. Having to rush units into combat before the conditions are set. I was minutes away from winning, took heavy casualties trying to take both locations.

This happened to me as well. Weird, I was very successful on day 1, delaying the Confeds advance through the woods and using my skirmishers to allow the brigades to leapfrog backwards (mixed with minor 2-3 brigade counter-attacks on isolated units) to find better terrain, caused him to lose 50% casualties so I outnumbered him on day 2, then no supply wagons mixed with A MESS of my army redeployed without any unit/corp integrity. I ended up sending out cavalry to find Confeds supply wagons so I wouldn't get overrun. Rotated my units through the trenches to keep ammo balanced.