Fredericksburg

[Hitorishizuka]

8 hours ago, waldopbarnstormer said:

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?

1) Crush the enemy in almost every battle to increase the amount of rifles captured so you never need to buy any

2) Play minimum size to avoid AI scaling, so small brigades and fewer brigades--this means you need to outfit less troops and you're able to give the ones you have better guns. You basically can't max troop numbers while then also being high on cash. Note the amount of manpower in reserve in my screenshots. I fielded only 2 Corps of 41k men total at Fredericksburg as Union. In trade, I get to give all my veterans Harper's Ferry with even Regulars and Greens getting 1855s, I can afford to have lots of cavalry, my skirmishers all have Brown rifles or are a max sized unit using Sharps, and my artillery is half 24pdrs/half other expensive cannons.

3) Max Politics, then Medicine, outside of sufficient AO for the next Grand Battle and Recon 4

[Wandering1]

By crushing the enemy, it means wiping every squad down to the last man. On normal, I believe it's 20% kills = drops. Which is to say, a lot more compared to 10% on Hard.

Just played through some of the maps again as Union, where it's actually to your benefit that you draw the battle out to the next day (Shiloh), because new squads spawn on the map. In that particular case, another cav squad spawns, and you get more NPC squads to go charging in to get killed (and steal their weapons).

Edited January 8, 2017 by Wandering1

[Hitorishizuka]

2 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

By crushing the enemy, it means wiping every squad down to the last man. On normal, I believe it's 20% kills = drops. Which is to say, a lot more compared to 10% on Hard

Not only that but melee charge the last brigades to get captures for 100% drops.

[Wandering1]

You sure it's 100%? Because capturing a bunch of 140-150 squad skirmishers (after chopping off a 100 or so heads) only gives me about 50 rifles.

[Hitorishizuka]

5 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

You sure it's 100%? Because capturing a bunch of 140-150 squad skirmishers (after chopping off a 100 or so heads) only gives me about 50 rifles.

It's supposed to be 100%. Are you checking the right column? At one point it was bugged so that captures from surrendered brigades showed up in the rescued column instead and I don't remember if they fixed that in the main release yet.

[Wandering1]

I was assuming the captures are in the drops. That might be where I'm confusing things.

[Wandering1]

Also, it seems to be different between Hard and Normal. I do recall only seeing 'drops' in Hard, on the skirmishers, and only getting maybe 100 JF Brown TS's out of 2-3 captured squads (on Shiloh as CSA). If only the weapon data was also preserved to look at on the 'Career' screen instead of K/D ratios basically.

[Hitorishizuka]

1 minute ago, Wandering1 said:

Also, it seems to be different between Hard and Normal. I do recall only seeing 'drops' in Hard, on the skirmishers, and only getting maybe 100 JF Brown TS's out of 2-3 captured squads (on Shiloh as CSA). If only the weapon data was also preserved to look at on the 'Career' screen instead of K/D ratios basically.

AI also sometimes has weird weapons on their brigades. I swear I've seen mixed drops also. Something to keep in mind.

[GeneralPITA]

4 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

AI also sometimes has weird weapons on their brigades. I swear I've seen mixed drops also. Something to keep in mind.

Nearly every troop I encounter has M1861s or C.S. Richmonds and I put 8 points into recon (for testing purposes). What kind of mixed drops have you seen? 

[Hitorishizuka]

18 minutes ago, GeneralPITA said:

Nearly every troop I encounter has M1861s or C.S. Richmonds and I put 8 points into recon (for testing purposes). What kind of mixed drops have you seen? 

I put it in feedback awhile ago but basically the same thing where you capture a brigade but the amount of rifles you get and the types flat out doesn't match up with # of troops captured. Only way it makes sense is if brigades have mismatched weapons. This may not show properly even with recon (think about what might show if you do combine Division with brigades with different weapons).

[Mr. Mercanto]

I've never captured any M1861s or Richmond M1862s! I thought they weren't in the game yet or something...

Where my muskets at!?

[Wandering1]

Well. Something tells me at least some part of the captures is bugged.

Note the captured 277 skirmishers in the corner, whereas I only get 150 burnsides. There were, in fact, two skirmisher squads on the map, both of which I had destroyed with my cavalry.

[Hitorishizuka]

Yep, same thing I saw.

Referencing: http://www.ultimategeneral.com/blog/ugcw-patch-068

Quote

Campaign balances

• Player receives 100% of weapons from captured units.

 

So if this isn't a bug, then it's what I was saying before about units carrying mixed rifles or some other silliness. Also AI controlled skirmishers are allowed to carry non-standard weapons--recall during the very first CSA map where the skirmishers actually have 1855s.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Hitorishizuka

[Wandering1]

Well, it does make sense about the non-standard weapons. The skirmishers for CSA on Fredericksburg carry 1855s. I did check the info tab on the captured skirmisher, and did see it equipped burnsides, however. Both of those skirmisher squads in that map had 500 men in them, so I guess it is just adding up 750 'killed' for the roughly 150 total.

[GeneralPITA]

3 hours ago, Mr. Mercanto said:

I've never captured any M1861s or Richmond M1862s! I thought they weren't in the game yet or something...

Where my muskets at!?

Hard difficulty as CSA...basically all I get are C.S. Richmonds. 

[GeneralPITA]

3 hours ago, Wandering1 said:

Well. Something tells me at least some part of the captures is bugged.

Note the captured 277 skirmishers in the corner, whereas I only get 150 burnsides. There were, in fact, two skirmisher squads on the map, both of which I had destroyed with my cavalry.

Capturing was nerfed soon after it was announced that 100% was possible, at least on hard mode. I capture around 10% of weapons from kills, regardless if the unit died or surrendered. I'd have many brigades jacked to the teeth with Spencer Repeaters and T.S. Whitworths if this hadn't been reduced.

[Wandering1]

1 minute ago, GeneralPITA said:

Capturing was nerfed soon after it was announced that 100% was possible, at least on hard mode. I capture around 10% of weapons from kills, regardless if the unit died or surrendered. I'd have many brigades jacked to the teeth with Spencer Repeaters and T.S. Whitworths if this hadn't been reduced.

I thought 100% was a bit much also, but effectively 0%?

I could just be the display is incorrect, and it's adding the captures on the side, but either way, it's not exactly matching with what's been put in the patch notes.

[GeneralPITA]

10 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

I thought 100% was a bit much also, but effectively 0%?

I could just be the display is incorrect, and it's adding the captures on the side, but either way, it's not exactly matching with what's been put in the patch notes.

Patch .70 addressed the problem of weapons being mislabeled as captured or recovered, but I saw no announcement that weapons capturing was quickly nerfed - I simply figured it out.

Before v0.70 I caught 60,000 M1855s at Antietam. I would've had Henry repeating rifles for every man by now if something hadn't been done.