Don't Escrow Taxes

Yes I also had the Cav spawn on top of me. I am having a similar problem described above, rebels will rout into the woods behind the union lines and back-capture VPs Challenging battle for sure. I feel like it's the first one where taking roads is critically important, even if they're out of the way.

the way I win Antietam as the rebels is to turn the northwest and the woods north of dunker chruch (west wood i think it is called right) into one big delaying action. the AI falls for it every time. Last time they never even attacked my position at sunken road. I defended sunken road with just enough units to man the fortifications there in case the AI got crafty . I used the rest of the sunken road garrison to relieve my units in the west wood north of dunker church who took heavy casualties since most of the fight took place there. This also allowed me to dispatch a a bunch of arty batteries and some brigades to bottle up the union forces that try to cross the bridges to the east so they are never a threat. They take insane casualties trying to cross those bridges.

Re: Everettesvlle. Actually this one isn't so bad for me. Believe it or not I attack from the front. There is a big piece of high ground right in front of Yankee entrenchments. Bring a TON of guns - LOTS of guns, okay - and what I did was i detached skirmishers from all of my brigades, deployed a strong skirmish line in front, backed up by TONS and tons of guns, blasted the living hell out of the union entrenchments, and then kept inching closer. The battle is like what, 3 hours in game time, so you have plenty of time to blast away. The reasoning behind the skirmish line is to provide enfilade fire onto the forward entrenchment while risking very few casualties. As you inch closer and closer and start working on the next set of earthworks you can then use your melee brigades to exploit the gap. In fact in general I am finding more and more that detached skirmishers in a line in front of your brigades is VERY effective vs. entrenched units because of the different angles of fire in exchange for far fewer casualties. The only way the AI can counter you is their own skirmishers which is seldom seen beyond dedicated skirmisher units. Now... can someone help me on Stones River LOL Edit: realize I'm only bringing 48 guns here but that's probably 6 batteries of 8 guns each. Also i used my III Corps to get them experience for the next grand battle. 2nd Edit: I watched the youtube video linked above and they are bringing more troops than me however the casualties percentage is less for me with the frontal assault 3rd Edit: I'm playing only on major general, not legendary

I see why this is difficult to program the AI to do this. Ideally the unit would fall back toward better cover, unless that direction isolates the brigade (surrounded on 3 sides, let's say) from other friendly units. Tough to program for sure.

melee dragging please needs to be fixed in time for full release it is probably the most frustrating complaint I still have. Just about everything else has been fixed which is great. I am still running into the issue where a unit's movement orders are cancelled after a new phase of a battle begins.

I can't get past this battle as CSA on hard. I'm bringing 69k men to the field. Driving me nuts. I'm able to cut the union army in half at the third VP but they have too many men for me to hold off once the turnpike VP's spawn. Any other tips or strategies beyond what's discussed in this thread?

This is more along the lines I am discussing. I'm trying to figure out why my 3-star 24lb howitzer battery with 24 guns, commanded by a major general, is performing like crap. Some interesting thoughts here especially with the higher chance of melee being triggered due to the size of the battery, i had not considered that.

This is the one where the CSA has a fort on the right side and you have to kill off the batteries and capture the fort to win, right? If so the key is to RUN all of your units up the right coastline ASAP and get to the fort before the CSA units get there first. The long way would be to demonstrate along a long front in the center with a strong skirmish while trying to roll up the CSA right flank (Union left). That way you divide their attention but also don't suffer too many casualties across that open ground.

I'm not worried about the command stat or efficiency stat. I have a battery of 24lb howitzers commanded by a major general. When it was smaller it did thousands of kills. Now it does a couple of hundred. And it is not a question of rotation either in some cases (i could see how it would be in some cases though) but it performs like crap in static defense scenarios. I realize what I'm asking for is anecdotal rather than specific but i'm just curious what the opinion is. 24 gun batteries, to me, clearly do not work. what's the biggest battery you should assemble before you get a big drop-off in production?

When do you all start to see artillery batteries perform worse with more guns than they did when they were smaller? like, a battery of 24 guns performs very poorly. Where do you start to see the drop-off because the battery is too big? 12 guns? 16 guns? what's the max size you can make a battery before it just starts to perform like crap?

I LOL'd

Gettysburg is certainly a bit tougher for CSA now. Union clings to Oak ridge much more. The correct strategy is still to avoid it and move everyone south towards cemetery hill but it is harder to hold the seminary now due to this change, and CSA takes more casualties. You also have to make sure your late reinforcements from the north do not stall and assign 3-4 brigades to take Oak ridge once they show up. A bit more challenging as the patch notes reflect .

Thanks for the patch! Looking forward to playing it.

I haven't been able to squeeze out a Day 1 Gettysburg victory yet as CSA in the campaign. I think the issue is that I'm bringing 85,000 troops in three corps with another 5500 in reserve in my IV corps. Any tips are warmly welcomed.

From where I sit, scaling is necessary to keep the game challenging, and I think the devs made a solid compromise by making the game partially dynamic impacting army size, morale, or weapons quality at grand battles depending on your successes in minor battles.

the 10lb Parrot i think actually works pretty well as intended which is as a long-range counter battery. IMO the best guns are the 24lb H > Napoleon > 10lb Ord everything else i would sell once I have 10 points in economy. Keep those napoleons up close for close infantry support they are MURDEROUS at close range

I ran into this too but looking at your screenshot it does seem to me that most of the Yankee brigade is pretty much flanking those earthworks. It's close but I think it's reasonably to say the fire from the right half of that brigade is enfilading the center of the works.

AI for this patch has improved its tactics somewhat making 'easier' battles more challenging. Nice work. Retreat direction issues are almost completely solved although you still sometimes see an initial retreat toward the enemy or a more exposed area instead of away from these dangers. Again, much improved on this, the improvement is noticeable. Here's the two opportunities I still wish to share and have used F11 to report the first one. The second one I am not sure if it is a bug or just an opportunity. 1 - Units sometimes 'forget' their orders after a phase transition. For example if you order a charge right before the next phase of the battle begins, you will find your brigade stationary, but its charge cool down burned. 2 - low morale units not retreating or falling back. It is frustrating to see a unit hang in the fight too long, taking on additional damage, when you cannot order it to fall back but it does not break and run, either. Units in this state also tend to fire their weapons much less frequently or perhaps not at all. I am not sure the intention is to have an inoperable unit. Today the best solution is to either move your general there to boost morale and regain at least movement control of the unit (so you can order a fall back) if not control over the firing of the unit... or conversely moving your general away from that unit, so that it breaks and runs instead of staying in its inoperable state. Thanks for reading and keep up the great work.

When a unit's morale is low they tend to slow their rate of fire. Which i think is understandable. What I do find a little frustrating is the inability to issue a fall back command in some cases where they are low on morale... like when the unit turns a lighter shade of their color, it won't take commands.

yeah i dont know why that never occurred to me either.

VERY interesting will try this it's totally different from what I do

1st Winchester you want to ignore the forest on the top of the town and use a few brigades to pin them down in the forest while the rest of your forces swing around the union left (confederate right) and enter the town from the south. Try to ignore the forest to the north, and only take 1 atry battery the rest infantry. Make a long flanking movement along the left edge of the map to start and then advance your entire force on a north-south axis, the left of your line head into the forest and the right of the line swinging into the town. Hopefully you can win this batlte on normal with fewer than 2500 casualties max. Cross Keys take your best brigade and flank the union right along the top of the map, sometimes you can even bait them into your lines in the far north and allow the 3 brigades you have stationed to hold the top VP to enfilade. 2 brigades in front 1 brigade behind in the clump of trees defendng the north VP. The south VP 2 brigades in front and 1 behind in the middle and behind them. 2 arty batteries should be useful here, 24lb howitzers especially chew up the bluecoats when they dither in the river bank.

Also running into the -3 Career point issue, and on the Union side I am getting two defense medals instead of one. Thanks for the patch! PUMPED UP to play it!!

Yeah, I've run into both of these issues before too

Yeah, I feel you on this. You are raising good points. It would be great if there was a way to have them shift behind a friendly brigade instead of adjacent to. Your point on how troops should have a command for this since the AI does it in this instance is also reasonable. Agree on the skirmisher pursuit, it would be nice if they kept up with a routing unit for example instead of stopping cold, and it would be nice if they kept firing instead of falling back, unless the unit they were targeted pivoted to deliver a volley. As long as they're not taking fire it's hard to justify their retreating and then having to micro them over and over, you're right. I haven't seen one of my brigades pursue a repulsed brigade as far as you're saying but I believe you when you say you've run into it. Good reply here definitely hear what you are saying.