[LAVA's Legendary Union Campaign]

7 hours ago, Mukremin said:

I can vouch for the buy and sell strategy, i even used reputation points to buy high class weapons i did not need so i sold and got anywhere between 20-50k for it. Sometimes you need to do that.

Yay no. I meant that with maxed economy, equipment management can become quite profitable. Like all cannon types that do not interest you can be sold for the same price as bought, and carbines or rifles are generally just a dollar lower than the price of buying them from the shop. So selling all guns that you never capture enough (or aren't that good enough like some cavalry carbine's or hunter muskets) to equip any unit for more than one battle can at least give you quite good cash now. With maxed economy I even found that actually sometimes it was better not to spent your rep points on particular guns anymore, since you'd wouldn't have to spent much to buy them from the shop - so I was taking the money then instead. There are of course guns that you'll never get enough of, like Fayeteville's for example - which you'll be always taking given the chance. Aside from that, with maxed economy you also can stockpile weapons without overspending yourself I feel. By which I mean that for example my goal is to have every infantry division with a 300-350 man strong skirmisher unit with Sharp rifles for reconnaissance (because it's plain stupid to send guys with telescopic rifles on recon to the forest and having them smacked in the face and decimated, not to mention those units are given different, "less recon'y" perks by me), which means that I need every rifle that appears in the shop each chapter as I might need it for reinforcements - if not in this chapter then in another, since already my sharp rifle users number 5 times that what appears in the shop per chapter.

 

48 minutes ago, LAVA said:

Also when I play a battle, I usually turn off infantry resupply. I will only turn it on if it is absolutely necessary. In the smaller battles I am playing now, I turn resupply totally off. Am not sure if this saves you on re-supply costs post battle, but I believe it does.

That is pretty interesting tactics. I perhaps should try it too, as my corp commanders do have the supply perk. I do however usually capture at least one supply wagon per battle, so it does kinda offsets?

[LAVA's Legendary Union Campaign]

Well perhaps there are also other factors to it. For instance im maxing politics and economy so actually buying or selling weapons can yield profits. For example i’ve uniformed my artillery onto 3inches, selling everything else for a profit (except 10pdr parrots that are playing the role of army corp artillery). Also i think that in general union gets more troops as rewards and reinforcements since in my CS legendary campaign my reserve pool rarely is bigger than 5k.

And of course, needless to say that at Fredricksburg im fielding already two tristar brigades of my own training (plus iron brigade) and my I corps is pretty much made of crack troops. But my 2nd aint that far behind despite it being bigger (3 inf brigades standard per division). U could say im lacking in 3rd corps but its on a good way to become fully fledged one after Fredricksburg.

[LAVA's Legendary Union Campaign]

I wonder how you manage to totally use the recruit pool, because I have over 50k recruits in the pool at Fredricksburg D:

Granted that my army is less numerous having on standard divisions 3xInf brigades, 1x12 3inch guns, with the elite 1st corp having only 2 inf brigades in their divsions - but I also have skirmisher's (300-350) with Sharp rifles attached to most of my divisions and few 250 men units with telescopic rifles, not to mention few cavalry units (500-750) with carbine's - all grouped in 4th division. Still, my army was only ~10k less strong than yours? And yet at antietam I had somewhere between 30-40k recruits in the pool. Just how I wonder XD

Still pretty nice win in my book. Whats even nicer are those HF 1855's you captured.

[LAVA's Legendary Union Campaign]

4 hours ago, Mukremin said:

I had 61000 men at Antietam, facing 80.000 Union troops. I killed 58.000 and lost 22000. On Legendary i think the Union force will be between 90-100k.

In my legendary CSA campaign my force was 47k total, and Union had roughly 120k. So yeah... Get ready

 

Meanwhile interestingly in my legendary Union campaign I went heavy on quality and training over quantity, and at Antietam I had only 42k troops total, facing off against only 50k confederate troops. @_@

[LAVA's Legendary Union Campaign]

10 hours ago, LAVA said:

Thanks, mate!

I've gotten stuck on Malvern Hill though. In the past my artillery was able to hold back the Confederate hordes but on Legendary, there are just so many troops in such a small area that I can't hold the position before re-reinforcements arrive. I know this a hard battle to win, but I don't think I can do it.

Has anybody ever won Malvern Hill on Legendary?

 

1 hour ago, LAVA said:

So after a number of attempts, I give Mulvern Hill another and final attempt.

After watching the video I realized that in the last 25 minutes on the clock if I had made a strong push right into the center of the Confederate line, I might have been able to pull out a win. As it is I settle for a draw and accept the result (though I really wanted to win this battle). Sorry I stopped game play a couple times, doing videos is rather difficult for me because normally in the harder battles I play the game at half speed.

Anyway... here it is:

 

Well, I had won on Malvern Hill as both Union and Confederates not long ago when I've had restarted my legendary campaigns after reaching Gettysburg. But I'd got to underline a crucial difference which is that I pause a lot and micro when necessary. So honestly gonna say that your yt recording was pretty amazing for being able to handle both your army and the battle itself as you did. <tips the hat to you>

I of course have completed all the smaller battles (and pretty much wiped CSA at Gaine's Mill inflicting over 22k losses for less than 5k of my own). I had however far less men still as I was investing more into the veterancy of my units (and equipment). I would also like to note my only 24 guns were 100% 3inche's in 2 batteries pretty close to the fortifications so occasionally shooting canisters during the course of the battle. Those 2 12 gun batteries are responsible for 3k kills together which definitely helped a lot. I would also like to add that I had a few skirmisher units (2 sharp rifle's and one 500 with colts model 1855's) as well as one dragoon cav with sharps'es model 1859's. Equipment wise, if I remember correctly - my 1st corps made out of 3 divisions, two brigades each was completely outfitted with HF's 1855's and 1855's itself. My 2nd corp and it's infantry (2x3 if I remember correctly?) reinforcements was bringing out Lorenz'es mainly with some other weapons like 2 brigades with captured MJ&G's etc. In short no short range muskets.

As for tactics. As I said above, unlike u I've paused a lot and micromanaged a huge lot which makes a huge difference sometimes. There are though few things I think you could use still just like I did. In my case I have anchored my right flank with my best division (2 brigades) bunched up in that forest groove (not using the fortification however but having them stack on each other pretty much. Those guys with harpers ferry rifles and firearms skill over 70 were absolutely murderous and pretty much all of their losses came from a constant artillery barrage - not confederate infantry. That anchor can prove to be very important as it can draw a huge portion of confederate brigades (especially of ones coming in support from other side of the river) which I used later by having 2 sharpshooter regiments (with sharp rifles) shooting into the flanks of attackers from the area of the farm in center. Before that though I was regularly launching flanking attacks with one infantry brigade. Another anchor I found are the fields and that little groove just straight north from the fortifications on the left side. I have tied there majority of my infantry and forced confederates into engagement from there before they reached any cover in form of the fields or that groove. It proved pretty effective, but again it was possible thanks to micro and pause, so... This however pushed some confederates to try flank me hard left through that stream and into the woods there - but then they were engaged by my dragoons with 1859's - supported by a 500 skirmisher unit with revolving rifles which were coming from a flank - those guys however needed reinforcing with an infantry brigade pretty quickly. Anyhow, I was able to hold my ground and though the losses listed above on the cut screenshot doesn't seem to high - conversely they were as the lion share of casualties were taken by my most experienced infantry brigades (also dragoon's notably took over 60% losses too, and they were pretty experienced). Once my second corp arrived, it was pretty much over and I was able to rotate my badly wounded divisions. I was actually considering a push out north to tackle the confederate artillery but I have resigned from it, finding that prospect to be too costly.

The battle was still very hard I'd have to say.

[Combine Unit?]

And had anyone noticed that combined units have a cover penalty in play? A combined unit will top out at 75% cover in places that give 100% (I didn't check that with the defender perk on the corp commander tho, as I didn't had one the last time I had to combine units). Thus I do so only when the battle goes really dire for me, and they have to hold no matter the costs.

[Size efficiency penalties for Skirmishers & Cavalry?]

I've seen people discussing these for infantry brigades and artillery units, but I haven't seen really a straight answer about the skirmishers and cavalry. And I would like to know what are the most optimal sizes for these units efficiency wise, since as of my 3rd and 4th playthroughs (CS & Union respectively)  I've been using those types of units far more than before. And sometimes I was simply baffled on instances where almost 3 star sharpshooter unit of 500 was outperformed by a roughly 340 man squad of complete rookies - despite that both units were using same weapons, shooting at the same target from pretty much same angle and spot (they were literally "rubbing" their shoulders together on the flanks). The difference in kills was over 900 by the end of the battle of Malvern Hill, which is pretty humongous to me. I would understand if that happened between samely experienced units of different sizes, but how on earth a unit of rookies outperformed guys who (according to their stats and experience) could hit a fly in flight?

There is a value in having the max sized and 3 star skirmisher units and cavalry (for example as scouts with carbines so we don't "recon" the forests with guys that have telescopes on their rifles; or have a 750 dragoons going at it in forests being able to buy some time for us) alone, but in case of specialized units of sharpshooters for example - it would be good to learn about their most efficient sizes.

 

 

[Interpreting Unit Cards in Camp]

10 hours ago, TechnoSarge said:

Thank you for your replies.  New question: After a unit is 3-star, what happens to the XP bar that keeps building?  Is that just wasted capability? Or does it lead to some hitherto unmentioned perk?

There's no additional perk following. That experience is not wasted however as unit's skills are still building up (if some weren't 100 by the time they reached 3rd star) and fully maxed out experience bar means that you're not forced to reinforce that unit with veterans only from now on. That's especially nice if the unit took some minor losses and dropping in some recruits for cheaps won't ruin neither their stats nor will make their 3rd star perk inactive.

[Unit Naming]

Quick legend for the (oldish) battle screenshot in spoiler:

Cav, Regiment - melee cavalry (with small c after their army corp roman organization number)

Dragoons Regiment - skirmisher cavalry (with small d ...)

Rifle Regiment - sharpshooters (on screenshot with little s, but this changed to r by today, as s was given to "skirmishers regiments" outfitted carbines or repeating rifles [once they "graduate the carbine ordeal - so usually there's only one or two in the whole army as you don't get a lot of colt's Model 1855's or spencers in general])

Art. Battalion - self explanatory? Their type depends on army corps organization number (3inch'es take I. and II. by default) followed by other more specialized guns - heaviest taking the last number by default in the army corp. And oh, they got little a in their organization prefix too!

At the same time, infantry brigade's are bunched up in divisions taking their divisional commander's surname and "Division" suffix. I used to name each brigade by their own commanders surname (+brigade) but I changed it for three reasons: 1. It prevented me from seeing which infantry brigades are in the same division on the spot. 2. Officer name pool is... well... limited and I was having troubles naming brigades since mid-campaign's. 3. It can be tiresome to have to rename units after bloody battle where a lot of your officers got hurt. This doesn't happen much for other units, but infantry brigades are most prone to that.

PS. Some units could be classified as Battalion instead of regiment if they had a smaller size. For example a sharpshooter unit between 200-300 I'd name as Rifle Battalion instead of Regiment. 

Also all non infantry-brigades I treat as Army Corp units instead of being divisional, as I can often move them between corps to suit my tactical needs for the battle. I keep their names then knowing on the glance that this unit was temporarily assigned to a division within a different corp when in battle. Anyhow, because of that they follow roman numerals while infantry divisions follow arabic numbers and then sub-brigades get roman organizational numer.

Also in rare cases if division have just one infantry brigade (and rest is filled with mounted troops or skirmishers for example) I sometimes titled that brigade with huge R (for Reserve) and gave the old style name. Like on the screenshot below, where you can spot NC/R Pratt's Rifle Brigade (notably equipped with Fayeteville's for some strange reason at the time).

 

[/img]

(For the curious - what you see is withdrawal of my mounted and sharpshooter units back behind friendly lines after piercing the front and totally destroying 2 union infantry brigades. They followed through and harassed some more union troops, and managed to capture 4 supply wagons and destroy an isolated artillery battery before I called them back for R&R. I could have keep pushing the Union but I did not deemed it worth cost in blood, as my main brigades in 1st corps took substantial losses and had to be combined to remain combat effective.)

 

[Fredricksburg: 43k inflicted, 7k lost]

That's a nice victory. But things do look differently on Legendary, as you're always outnumbered by a huge margin. 2 to 1 odds are something pretty normal to the point where you gotta have some good charge-breakers in each core running about wheezing from exhaustion.

That's Fredricksburg from my 3rd campaign as CSA. At Antietam the odds were even more stacked for the union as they fielded 116k infantry alone vs 43k of mine. I actually had a higher losses there than at Fredricksburg too.

["Flying Dutchman" For real :P]

@Wojtek Nobody expects the spanish Bucentaure!