LAVA

Perhaps a little help might solve the problem:

Yep, it still happens. Confirmed with a save I had from my Union Legendary Campaign. Unit stats go wonky if you lose Supply Raid. Guess you are going to have to win!

Could you be more explicit concerning what stats you are referring to? A screen shot of the problem could also be very helpful.

I am heading for Chancellorsville now and I will probably buy more weapons but I don't think I have to if I don't want. I don't expect my army to grow by much for that battle (I have 49 brigades of which I can only use 48). What concerns me is afterwards. I will have to expand my army and my reserve recruits are slowly being depleted. At Blackwater Heights I capture 4 3 star Yankee infantry brigades, but overall my capture rate has been underwhelming, thus leading to a slow but constant reduction in reserves. Yes, I have also had some pretty bloody battles as well and suffered more casualties than I should have. Between the two factors, I am now starting to be concerned about how many men I can get into battle. So perhaps this is a campaign where I can buy more men... dunno. Your point concerning the lack of weapon buys as the campaign goes ahead is a good one and possible worth continuing if nothing else then to have them for the future. On the brighter side, the majority of my brigades are 2 star or better and though my artillery needs upgrading, none of my infantry brigades are using the stock Springfield. So I guess what I am saying is that I am starting to think that I will not have enough men when the battles start getting larger and more intense and will probably need to increase my infantry strength by at least 8 brigades.

Everettsville: Stones River: I am fighting my battles more methodically now. In the Union campaign it pays to play very aggressively, however, in the Confederate campaign I believe you must be more deliberate and seek advantageous situations which are in your favor. Though at this point I don't need to, does anybody believe that at some point one should expend reputation points on men and not weapons? I have economy at 10 and training is almost at 10 as well. I am heading for Chancellorsville and I believe I will be able to equip my army without using the reputation points accumulated. So I am looking at a situation where I can either buy some very expensive rifles (CS Richmonds) or men. Any thoughts?

Campaign continues... Note the last 5 minutes of Fredericksburg is without sound... so no analysis of the result there. Corinth: Prairie Grove: Fredericksburg: So... it appears I was able to recoup my army from the bloody battle of Antietam from 40,000 men and 128 guns to 43,000 men and 140 guns at Fredericksburg. My artillery really shined there (especially my 3 star 20pdr Parrot which was whacking the Yank artillery good in counter-battery). With 48 brigades (27 infantry, 15 artillery, 4 cavalry and 2 skirmisher) I am happy where I stand with my artillery (though some brigades need reinforcement and better guns) and cavalry, however, I badly need to expand my infantry and possible add a couple skirmisher units as well. The first target is 50 brigades... and then I will be shooting for 60... if all goes well. After Fredericksburg my Career Points stand at Politics 3, Economy 10, Medicine 10, Training 3, Army Organization 9, Logistics 2 and Reconnaissance 0. From here I will be driving Training to 10.

So... I had some stuff come up and the campaign went on hold but I am back into the fight. Chantilly: Weapons Factory: Antietam: None are particularly great fights. Overall I am fairly happy with my army. My artillery now has 15 brigades including a 3 star 20 pdr Parrot brigade. I need to upgrade some guns and increase brigade size though. I have 12 20pdr Parrots, 12 24pdr Howitzers, 45 10pdr Ordnance, 33 10pdr Parrots, 10 10pdr Tredegars, 8 12pdr James, 12 6pdr Field and 6 12pdr Napoleons for a total of 134 guns. I have 4 Cavalry brigades, 2 skirmisher brigades (including one 2 star Withworth brigade) and 23 Infantry brigades. The emphasis will be on buying weapons for my infantry and getting them up to 28 infantry brigades. In total, with active service and recruits I have 57,000 men. Can't afford another battle like Antietam but at this point I think I still have a chance to win this campaign. We'll see.

Me, please!

As a sidelight, just some quick thoughts I have about capturing units... especially when they turn into a big routing mess which tries and many times is able to rout through the lines and leaving everyone to have to chase them down. What I believe happens here is that once a unit routs, it is no longer considered a threat to your troops and they will not fire at them until they recover their morale. Because there may be a big mess of routed troops your boys just look at them until one of the units recovers and then everyone shoots at them, which causes them to rout again, but not surrender. To counter this, what I do is manual target a routed unit (normally first with artillery) and a unit or 2 of infantry. I then grab another unit or two and fire them also into the same unit or charge a unit into your target (remember you don't get any charge melee bonuses if they just mesh together). I believe the trick to getting them to surrender is slapping them at the moment you see the rout red letters appear over the unit. But because they are only in this condition for a moment, you have to be staggering your own units to fire (manually) at that same unit to make it happen. So once you have a group isolated, pick out a unit that is very close to your own. Order your artillery to fire on that unit and then charge one of your own units into your target. Once your boys start charging, rope a batch of infantry and order them all to fire. By staggering your units fire, coupled with the morale loss in melee, I have found you can get a lot more units to surrender and can stop a surging group of routed units from pushing through your own ranks. Any thoughts?

Hi, mate! Been gone for a couple weeks and unable to comment. Was very impressed with many battle strategies you used. For example, at Shiloh it never occurred to me to try to wipe out the Yankee left flank. The Port Republic battle was also a real surprise but in retrospect, a damn good strategy minimizing your casualties. You could have played that battle with all 1stars and got the same result. Overall, I see you are very heavy into working your specialized units (cavalry, artillery and sharpshooters) and this seems to be working very, very well. I like how you are focused on destroying the Yankee artillery which I believe is a must. Your campaign is really enjoyable to watch and I do believe it will be successful. Keep it up!

Very cool. Glad to see you doing this. The personality traits that you chose make great sense. Potomac Fort was awesome. Your use and priority of cavalry coupled with budding up a charge unit with a skirmish unit produces amazing results. I was also struck by your buying of weapons before 1st Bull Run... shows a long term strategy that will bear fruit in later battles. Looking forward to your series. Should be quite entertaining and educational.

Cedar Mountain: Manassas Depot: 2nd Bull Run: Should be fighting Antietam today or tomorrow, so I will see whether this campaign will be more successful than my last.

That's what I thought. Thanks!

So... I figured I get some statistics up to this point. The Union have lost a total of 127,121 Infantrymen; 10,297 artillerymen; 6,727 cavalrymen; 7,045 missing and 410 guns. Total losses including missing is 151,190 men. I have lost a total of 48,352 men and 22 guns. This includes forces not in my army (somewhere around 10,000 men). Including all losses I have a 3.26 K/D ratio. Take away the folks who weren't in my army and it is around 3.94. Got to do better...

Notice how at Gaines Mill all the Yankees are 2 stars. At the next battle (Mulvern Hill), the Union has a couple 3 star infantry, the majority are 2 star, but there a few 1 star infantry and a bunch of 1 star artillery... which I go out of my way to destroy. The problem as you say, is that there are certain battles where you just can't get the result you want... but I believe if you hammer them when you can, you will see a difference. I would also think that though folks from shattered units may not return into the recruit pool, given the AI is playing using the same system as us, then there is a certain percentage of troops being returned to their brigades via medicine.

Mulvern Hill:

I dedicate this battle to Pandakraut for all his advice. Thank you, mate! Gaines Mill: Starting to get the knack of using Skirmish units and have also began to use a bit of charge cavalry as well.

Those spreedsheets were pretty eye opening. Back to rethinking again...

Unfortunately, this is not a linear kinda thing, so it is hard to point to firm evidence that wiping out units really has an effect. The waters are muddied by 3 other factors which are not in control of the player... that is first, there are hard coded units which are going to appear, no matter what you do (the Iron Brigade for example), second, troops who survive shattering return to the recruit pool with their experience and third, there are resets when you are doing too well. That is why you might read a captured message which reads "We are sending you 15,000 of the most advanced weapons." Or "We are sending you one of our best Corps from the West." If you watched my Union Legendary Campaign, in which I slaughtered the Rebs at every turn, you will notice that by the time I get to Richmond, though there are tons of Confederate troops, however, the majority of them are one stars. This is much more difficult to do as the Confederacy. For example, when I fought the Battle of Shiloh, I concentrated on preserving my own force and attempting to use my AI NPC troops to do most of the hard work. I caused the Yanks 21,000 casualties, but they had an Army of 73,000 men, the majority of whom were 1 star units. That means that over 50,0000 Union troops (plus who knows how many that survived shattering) walked away from the battle with lots of experience and sure enough during the next 3 minor battles before Gaines Mill, every single Yankee unit was 2 stars. So I wipe them out at 1st Winchester and Port Republic. At Cross Keys I destroy 14,000 of their 20,000 troops. So even though I kill off 34,000 men in those battles, when I show up for Gaines Mill, sure enough, there are all 2 star units. To achieve the results I am talking about I had a 3.1 to 1 kill death ratio playing the Yanks. To do the same thing as the Confederates I believe you must have something like 4 if not 5 to 1.

Yikes! The Blue Bellies are all 2 stars! Port Republic:

The sound is totally messed up. Turn off the sound... sorry! What a shame... it was a really nice game with me staying at distance and using my rifles to just thump the Blue Bellies. I take the city with the loss of 2,025 men. The Yanks lose 10,681 men and 26 guns as their army is wiped out. Unfortunately, I was only able to take 154 prisoners as this scenario normally is an easy one to capture a couple brigades. On the bright side, 4 of my infantry brigades receive their second star. 1st Winchester:

Shiloh: Nothing too daring. Lost 2,900 of my own men. First 3 star Union brigade makes an appearance at the very end of the battle as reinforcements in the top right of the map.

Played Shiloh tonight and will post it tomorrow. Funny, at this point in the campaign I have 2,000 more men than I did when I was playing on MG by mistake!

So... off we go again to guarantee I'm playing on Legendary: Potomac Fort: Newport News: 1st Bull Run: Ambush Convoy: Stay Alert: Was all rather rushed actually (5 games in one night)... but I'm fairly happy with the results although some of the battles were a bit more chaotic than I normally fight them.

Well damn, there is both a good and bad. The good is that the stuff that I started doing about 6 or 7 battles into the campaign, like you say, I can now start right from the start. The bad is the battle of Potomac Fort, but I won that on the second attempt (though by the skin of my teeth). The first battles go rather quickly, so I have already finished Ambush Convoy and headed for Shiloh.