Fredericksburg

[sonnypemberton]

Finally finished playing the new CSA campaign post .70 patch. I love how winning the smaller battles impacts the larger ones. Knocking 20% from their numbers was key to this sort of win, despite having a bug of no middle corps show up.

[Nox165]

Do you mean jackson? If so its not a bug. They opted to not give us the whole battlefield due to performance issues sadly.

[sonnypemberton]

I'm not sure who, this was my campaign, not a set battle. They require you to place 3 corps but you only use 2.

[Don't Escrow Taxes]

I used all three corps for my CSA Fredericksburg experience.   the FPS issue really didnt crop up until the final phase... I can see why the entire battle was not included because the FPS issue is very noticeable.    Normal difficulty 

Edited December 22, 2016 by Don't Escrow Taxes

[Destruct1]

That is an awful lot of soldiers.

I used around 25000 and only defended the west part (mary height and telegraph road)

[Hitorishizuka]

Made it through my newest Union campaign all the way to this battle with the strategy of minimum men to avoid auto-scaling, best weapons everywhere. It's kind of laughable how much cash you can have lying around with nothing to spend it on.

That's just before fighting the battle. Take my word for it that I had also been buying all the silly expensive Skirmisher rifles, a lot of the Cavalry weapons, and even started buying the Henry rifle in Infantry just to have them. All infantry using Springfield 1855s, even Green recruits, with all of the experienced guys getting Harper's Ferry. Most Skirmishers using the scoped rifle, with a max size unit on Sharps to test it. Had a couple units of ranged Cavalry actually getting work done with Smith rifles, and lots and lots of artillery brigades with 24pdr Howitzers.

As you can surmise, I actually ended up bringing less men than I think I even could have because I didn't even bother fielding a 3rd Corps beyond a token Skirmisher brigade. About 1k of my casualties also came from getting caught flatfooted by Jackson's reinforcements walking right in off the map into the flank of my I Corps center force that snuck in onto the final map. I would've inflicted more casualties if the game had let me finish playing through Prospect Hill, as I was only just started to turn through and wave push them off the map.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Hitorishizuka

[GeneralPITA]

On 12/24/2016 at 1:19 PM, Hitorishizuka said:

Made it through my newest Union campaign all the way to this battle with the strategy of minimum men to avoid auto-scaling, best weapons everywhere. It's kind of laughable how much cash you can have lying around with nothing to spend it on.

I see you're playing on Brigadier General difficulty. Are you still accumulating this much money? I'm always short on money, but that's on hard and legendary as CSA.

[Wandering1]

On Brigadier General, you don't really need to spend the money for either side if you play min-size armies. Major General is another world, because you only get 10% drops or something like that from kills, which forces you to buy weapons instead of using salvage all the time.

By Fredericksburg on my Union Brigadier playthrough, I was sitting on $1.4 mil. Unfortunately didn't save right before Fredericksburg, and that campaign is now on Last battle, meaning you can't open it, so you'll just have to see the post-Antietam cash. I did spend down to $1.4 by Fredericksburg, if I were to recall.

 

[Hitorishizuka]

7 hours ago, Wandering1 said:

By Fredericksburg on my Union Brigadier playthrough, I was sitting on $1.4 mil.

How well stocked was your armory? I just had piles of rifles and expensive cannon sitting around just waiting to be used for whenever the army actually needed to grow big enough to support it.

I just started a new CSA campaign and I'm already buying up Henries and Whitworths pre-1st Bull Run.

[Wandering1]

That campaign, I barely bought any weapons until Fredericksburg just to make sure I had two fully staffed Corps (I actually populated the third, and it turns out I didn't need it, something to remember in the future). I just relied on drops since I was completely wiping out the CSA on some of the maps. Only things I did buy were the JF Brown TS's for one skirmisher squad, and my cavalry swords.

[Hitorishizuka]

19 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

That campaign, I barely bought any weapons until Fredericksburg just to make sure I had two fully staffed Corps (I actually populated the third, and it turns out I didn't need it, something to remember in the future). I just relied on drops since I was completely wiping out the CSA on some of the maps. Only things I did buy were the JF Brown TS's for one skirmisher squad, and my cavalry swords.

Yeah I had a lot of cavalry as can be seen. *laughs* On top of that a lot of 24pdrs and other artillery, 3 squads of skirmishers with good rifles, and so on. Also ended up buying a fair amount of Harper's Ferry just to get that slight edge over 1855s.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Hitorishizuka

[Wandering1]

12 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Yeah I had a lot of cavalry as can be seen. *laughs* On top of that a lot of 24pdrs and other artillery, 3 squads of skirmishers with good rifles, and so on. Also ended up buying a fair amount of Harper's Ferry just to get that slight edge over 1855s.

I typically don't end up buying cannons, because I'm a miserly bastard, and don't bring cannons typically to the minor missions because they're too slow for the mission objective when melee cav can get the job done quicker. If we had infinite timers and supply wasn't an issue, I'd actually use cannons more to plink enemy infantry. Unfortunately, forced mission timers make you do things a bit more efficiently.

[RoverGrover]

2 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Yeah I had a lot of cavalry as can be seen. *laughs* On top of that a lot of 24pdrs and other artillery, 3 squads of skirmishers with good rifles, and so on. Also ended up buying a fair amount of Harper's Ferry just to get that slight edge over 1855s.

Similar to my comp. I actually enjoyed my units with harpers ferrys.  I know the edge is slight, and I put them on my elite units obviously, but they really felt like that performed well

[Hitorishizuka]

13 hours ago, Wandering1 said:

I typically don't end up buying cannons, because I'm a miserly bastard, and don't bring cannons typically to the minor missions because they're too slow for the mission objective when melee cav can get the job done quicker. If we had infinite timers and supply wasn't an issue, I'd actually use cannons more to plink enemy infantry. Unfortunately, forced mission timers make you do things a bit more efficiently.

Depends on whether you're offense or defense as to whether artillery is viable for minors (even on offense they still see some use). It's still worth bringing them because getting artillery leveled up to where they can effectively use high damage/low accuracy guns pays real dividends. Last time I played CSA @ Antietam I had a 2 star 100 Firearms artillery brigade at the Stone Bridge with 24pders rack up 3k kills just in the last phase of the battle.

[Wandering1]

10 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Depends on whether you're offense or defense as to whether artillery is viable for minors (even on offense they still see some use). It's still worth bringing them because getting artillery leveled up to where they can effectively use high damage/low accuracy guns pays real dividends. Last time I played CSA @ Antietam I had a 2 star 100 Firearms artillery brigade at the Stone Bridge with 24pders rack up 3k kills just in the last phase of the battle.

I'm sure that might be easier to pull off on Normal; the last run of Confederates on Hard, they actually pushed me off on Stone Bridge, because I weighted my Corps to have a thick left and center. Allowed me to mop up all of the Union Brigades on the Left and the Center, but it would take too long to reorient to the Right before the map forcefully ended from the day dragging too long. Not to mention several of my squads were mauled to 300-400 men.

[Slobodan]

I've just finished my 2nd CSA campaign and I noticed something strange (?) about my 2nd Fredericksburg battle. On start of second day,  Prospect Hill part of front, there was no Union troops attacking at all ?! In my first battle I was attacked there in force, so I was really surprised that all Union troops attacked at Marye's Heights.

Now, difference between those two battles is that in first I had only 1,5 divisions at Prospect Hill, while in second battle I had full 3 divisions there. I like to think that AI is so good that instead attacking such a fortified position it opted to throw everything at Marye's Heights (not that it helped it, it was complete slaughter), but just wished to check here if someone also experience this?

[Hitorishizuka]

9 hours ago, Wandering1 said:

I'm sure that might be easier to pull off on Normal; the last run of Confederates on Hard, they actually pushed me off on Stone Bridge, because I weighted my Corps to have a thick left and center. Allowed me to mop up all of the Union Brigades on the Left and the Center, but it would take too long to reorient to the Right before the map forcefully ended from the day dragging too long. Not to mention several of my squads were mauled to 300-400 men.

...the point wasn't that I held, the point was that leveling up your artillery pays dividends, even if you think winning a small battle is faster with just cavalry.

[Wandering1]

Just now, Hitorishizuka said:

...the point wasn't that I held, the point was that leveling up your artillery pays dividends, even if you think winning a small battle is faster with just cavalry.

If some of the minor battles didn't hard cap on time (as in, you must capture the VP by 0 time, instead of intentionally dragging out the battle), you can take the slower method. Just that a newer player wouldn't remember off the top of their head which minor battles hard cap on time, and which battles allow you to snipe with artillery all day.

[Hitorishizuka]

Just now, Wandering1 said:

If some of the minor battles didn't hard cap on time (as in, you must capture the VP by 0 time, instead of intentionally dragging out the battle), you can take the slower method. Just that a newer player wouldn't remember off the top of their head which minor battles hard cap on time, and which battles allow you to snipe with artillery all day.

If you're sniping with artillery you're doing it wrong. Move your infantry up and move your artillery right behind them. Keep moving them up as the battle lines move. Most of the time you can take good positions and take the VP early and then sit on it and play defense normally.

[Wandering1]

Just now, Hitorishizuka said:

If you're sniping with artillery you're doing it wrong. Move your infantry up and move your artillery right behind them. Keep moving them up as the battle lines move. Most of the time you can take good positions and take the VP early and then sit on it and play defense normally.

Is there really much of a point in moving closely with your infantry if you're using rifled artillery to train new artillery brigades? Figured rifled cannons had reduced canister efficiency.

By sniping, I don't really mean using round shot, I'm more implying using shells, where your artillery isn't going to suffer the random crew kill from being near the infantry sponge squad.

[Hitorishizuka]

40 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

Is there really much of a point in moving closely with your infantry if you're using rifled artillery to train new artillery brigades? Figured rifled cannons had reduced canister efficiency.

By sniping, I don't really mean using round shot, I'm more implying using shells, where your artillery isn't going to suffer the random crew kill from being near the infantry sponge squad.

Canister is still better than shelling even when using Ordnance or others. Kills matter and you're also training your infantry up at the same time anyway.

Random crew kills are more or less ignorable so long as you don't actually lose a gun. Artillery is dirt cheap to replace men on.

[Wandering1]

Well, something I'll consider I guess. If only the minor battles didn't limit you to one corps, it would be a lot easier to bring training squads on the offense missions. Training squads other than new cavalry recruits anyways.

[Hitorishizuka]

21 hours ago, Wandering1 said:

Well, something I'll consider I guess. If only the minor battles didn't limit you to one corps, it would be a lot easier to bring training squads on the offense missions. Training squads other than new cavalry recruits anyways.

Minor battles aren't anything to sweat. Post Shiloh I make a concerted effort to not use 2 star squads with sub-Colonel officers outside of Grand Battles. Just bring nothing but Green and Regulars and keep putting them through the training meatgrinder.

[waldopbarnstormer]

How do you guys accumulate so much money? In my current union campaign on BG difficulty I have just reached antietam having won every battle except south mountain and I have almost no money. I have 4 corps with the first two being my primary battle fighting one's and the other two for use in major battles as reserves. My two main corps have 4 divs with 5 brigades, 2-3 infantry, 1 artillery per div and a mix of cavalry and sharpshooter. They all have about 1800 - 2000 men with 3 brigades armed with Harper's ferry rifles and the rest with 1855s. Artillery is mostly napoleones and ordnance with some 24lb howitzer. I try not to buy veterans except for a few elite brigades.

My reserve corps have 3 divs of 4 brigades, 2infantry 1 art in each plus a mix of cavalry. They are armed with 1842 Springfield muskets. With 2000 men per brigade. Total army strength 68,000. Any advice on how to improve my cash reserves and troop numbers?

Edited January 8, 2017 by waldopbarnstormer
additional information

[Wright29]

Harper's Ferry Rifles are pretty pricey. That's probably where the majority of your money is going. Lorenz does quite well for less money.