Chancellorsville

[eduncan0028]

Hi just been resuming my Union campaign and fought Chancellorsville, got a victory screen saying i won the battle but didn't take me to camp screen, just straight into another battle with Sickles attacking Salem Church, is this right, i must admit, Chancellorsville is one of those battles i am not as familiar with as i should be lol.....also now a little disclaimer here, my machine is old, a HP 2009, with dual core processor, but during Jacksons flank attack the lag was quite bad, not bad enough to negate me playing but, really had probs moving some units to begin with not clicking on units properly....just thought i'd mention it...but as i said my machine is old so....... Still really enjoying the game though, this campaign was quite a bit tougher than expected.....keep it up guys your doing great

[GeneralPITA]

It's not bugged. Salem Church was a real place, the final federal push in the Chancellorsville campaign. This is historical.

I have no performance issues, it's probably your hardware. 

[Slobodan]

Just ended this battle in my CSA campaign and few observations.

- I captured all VPs on 1st day of battle...but got to 2nd day on fixed positions (Chancellorsville camp as contested). A bit confusing (similar to 2nd Manassas), but OK. It can be explained that Union reinforcements forced me to fall back a bit (although I was pounding them to bits before 1st day ended). I think that VP system should be changed a bit, to give clear indication what needs to be really captured to progress further in battle (ie Hornets nest in Shiloh) an what not. This way player (at least me ) rush to get them all which increase casualties

- Very minor bug really - intro for 2nd day still talks about Jackson's flanking corp even that in my battle that corp is lead by Lee. I presume it just use text from historical battle but I think it's really easy to fix it to display actual corps leader name. Helps to increase immersion imo .

- I had several brief fps issues on 2nd day, probably since the map is huge with many units (I had 2 corps with 4 full divisions and god knows how many Union troops). Not really a problem but I guess performance could be still worked on.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Slobodan

[shaeberle84]

I find it strange that you can deploy only two (large) corps as CSA. This makes the deployment a little bit inflexible.

[A. P. Hill]

2 hours ago, shaeberle84 said:

I find it strange that you can deploy only two (large) corps as CSA. This makes the deployment a little bit inflexible.

At this stage of the war, the Army of Northern Virginia only had two Corps, (actually 1 1/3.) Longstreet had 2/3rd of his Corps in Tennessee. 

[Koro]

9 minutes ago, A. P. Hill said:

At this stage of the war, the Army of Northern Virginia only had two Corps, (actually 1 1/3.) Longstreet had 2/3rd of his Corps in Tennessee. 

This is true but for the campaign, it seems limiting for no particular reason.

[A. P. Hill]

3 minutes ago, Koro said:

This is true but for the campaign, it seems limiting for no particular reason.

I consider it historical, and not a factor.  

That said, I've said before, had the Union forces been led by more competent leaders, they could have beaten every Confederate force ever fielded. 

 

[waldopbarnstormer]

I have a similar issue to slobodan with how the battle objectives play out over the days. I have just finished my union campaign and I feel that I took unnecessary casualties because the map objectives told me I had to capture the two roads after I had defended the camp from Jackson's attack. I repulsed jackson and forced him back with heavy casualties then I moved my relatively untouched left wing forward in a rush to grab the objectives before the timer ran out. I managed to push through the defences to capture one of the two roads but not the middle vp before the map ended. Took quite a few casualties because I was in a rush and just kept pushing brigades through gaps or charging.

To my surprise the map then resets to the next day and I see in the deployment screen that all I am facing is about 3000 confederates versus my 30,000 feds. The last phase was ridiculously easy because I was facing 2 skirmishers and 2 artillery units plus 2 small infantry brigades. I just walked my army to capture the road vp's. It was really frustrating to know that I could have saved myself precious losses as I would not have been so aggressive if I had known that there was more time available.

Edited January 22, 2017 by waldopbarnstormer

[Lillibullero]

You can put your 3 corps at the Salem Church, and first two at the Chancellorsville

[Slobodan]

I had to re-do battle several times to find optimal strategy to conserve troops as Confederates.

Best is to attack very cautiously on 1st and 2nd day and concentrate on center part of front on 3rd day. Even than I had 13k casualties to Union's 36k (they defended very stubbornly at farm).

Previously I would lose about 22-24k to 60k Union if I would attack on 1st and 2nd day...and that's too much for my army since it would cripple it for future battle.

It's very tough battle for Confederates, since final VP is well fortified with open ground all around...and you must attack very hard to take it.

[Don't Escrow Taxes]

Won this battle as CSA in my campaign and lost 30k to the Union's 50k.  What a bloodbath.  My poor army.  

I think this one's best played to a draw as the Rebels... which I'll have to swallow, since I like to win every battle but man, like Koro and Col. Kelly said in their video on it, you're not supposed to win every battle... and this is a prime example.  

One thing I did notice was that on Day 1 I was able to capture the Farm but it still advanced to days 2 and 3 anyway.  I wasn't sure if it was because I still had a couple of minutes left on the contested timer or not though.

[Slobodan]

8 hours ago, Don't Escrow Taxes said:

Won this battle as CSA in my campaign and lost 30k to the Union's 50k.  What a bloodbath.  My poor army.  

I think this one's best played to a draw as the Rebels... which I'll have to swallow, since I like to win every battle but man, like Koro and Col. Kelly said in their video on it, you're not supposed to win every battle... and this is a prime example.  

One thing I did notice was that on Day 1 I was able to capture the Farm but it still advanced to days 2 and 3 anyway.  I wasn't sure if it was because I still had a couple of minutes left on the contested timer or not though.

First time I played it I also captured Farm on 1st day but advanced to 2nd day anyway, so I guess it's hard-coded.

I think best strategy is to be very conservative on 1st and 2nd day and than pound Union army with artillery on 3rd day for several hours before advancing on farm. You have enough time to capture VP and your losses will be acceptable. Downside is you won't be inflicting so many Union casualties as if you play aggressively on 1st and 2nd day, so less captured weapons.

It's much easier to defend than to attack for sure...but that's historical anyway

 

[Don't Escrow Taxes]

This time I was able to do it with 24k losses to the Unions 45k so a small improvement there.  Take a lot of casualties after you grab the farm on the third day and get shelled by arty  -- in the future I will try to take the farm closer to the end of the timer to avoid that -- there's no rush.  I agree it would be better to get all of your guns up and sit back in the cover and blast away.  Will do next time, that would appear to accomplish both points.  

I was still reasonably aggressive on day one, but less so on day two 

[Ikmuzun]

This battle can be a great victory for CSA. But we need to attack slowly and be focus in surronding and destroying completely the first Corps you encounter during the flanking attack. Rushing the farm is unnecessary and very bloody for your army. You have to be methodical.  

I win 7k5 vs 55k in medium and 9k5 vs 44k in hard.

 

[Don't Escrow Taxes]

10 hours ago, Ikmuzun said:

This battle can be a great victory for CSA. But we need to attack slowly and be focus in surronding and destroying completely the first Corps you encounter during the flanking attack. Rushing the farm is unnecessary and very bloody for your army. You have to be methodical.  

I win 7k5 vs 55k in medium and 9k5 vs 44k in hard.

 

 Oh man.  Another player that will destroy me if multiplayer is added 

[Ikmuzun]

I have no  merit. It's a perfect battle because i use save during this one. I hate to loose 300 men because i made a bad move in front of an ennemy artillery.

I think my ratio would be 10-12k losses in a one-try battle

 

[Slobodan]

I'll do another try with smaller army this time.

In my initial battle I had some 70k in total with 50k participating in battle (2 Corps with 4 div each, 5 brigades per division).

Scaling hit me hard since I fought 140k Union troops in total.

I now reverted to 3 div per corp and disbanded one division from 3rd corp...so now I'm facing a lot lesser Union army (80k on first day compared to 100k previously). Will see how I fare against that though, since I'm fighting with 40k troops now 

It would really be helpful if scaling is based only on base how much troops you bring to battle, not your entire army.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Slobodan

[srgoens]

I can relate to Waldo on this one. I get to the next day and deploy my forces and see 3 strong Confederate Cavalry on my right flank. I March my right flank out to pin them against the boarder of the map and march my 5 Cavalry Brigades in to finish them. Once I did the victory screen pops up!

Edited January 27, 2017 by srgoens

[dsfgsdfgsdfgdsfgsdf3q4]

On 1/18/2017 at 7:35 PM, A. P. Hill said:

I consider it historical, and not a factor.  

That said, I've said before, had the Union forces been led by more competent leaders, they could have beaten every Confederate force ever fielded. 

 

I would not agree with this statement. There are hunders if not thousends of examples in history where a poorly equiped outnumbered force managed to hold their positions and win battles due to a good general and strong defensive position, or a suprise unexpected attack.

[vren55]

On 1/22/2017 at 9:57 AM, waldopbarnstormer said:

To my surprise the map then resets to the next day and I see in the deployment screen that all I am facing is about 3000 confederates versus my 30,000 feds. The last phase was ridiculously easy because I was facing 2 skirmishers and 2 artillery units plus 2 small infantry brigades. I just walked my army to capture the road vp's. It was really frustrating to know that I could have saved myself precious losses as I would not have been so aggressive if I had known that there was more time available.

Actually I thought that as well during my first Chancelloresville battle and decided to experiment simply waiting it out by saving, and then restarting the battle from start.

Turned out to be a big mistake. The fortifications aren't strong enough to hold against a concentrated Confederate attack. Bleeding them on the 2nd day actually assists in your defense. 

[Pandemonium]

On ‎1‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 7:43 AM, Slobodan said:

In my initial battle I had some 70k in total with 50k participating in battle (2 Corps with 4 div each, 5 brigades per division).

Scaling hit me hard since I fought 140k Union troops in total.

 

Yeah, I am playing CSA on normal, with 2-star brigade formations, around 50K troops in 2 Corps. I am facing 130-140K Union troops in defensive positions stacked behind and on top of each other, all firing at me with cannon, etc...

If the stacking troops and firing through other formations was not allowed, I think this game would be VERY different. The "Blocked" only works part time. Really should fix this.  80K Union troops stacked onto a single farm is ridiculous.

[Lif]

I won Chancellorsville but lost Salem Church. I only lost because I just hold Salem Church (as displayed as vc in the right corner) not knowing that I have also to inflict 5% more dmg to the enemy. So I inflicted only 4% with the result I lost because of 1%. I was very surprised unless I saw the additional 5%-victory condition afterwards. I have to say this is BS. It's a general problem of the game so far, that the real victory conditions are hidden in the menue. And only because I thought "All I need to do is to hold Salem Church" I lost the battle. The displayed cs are always confusing. Sometimes the displayed conditions in the upper right corner are worthless, because they disappear during the battle or are switched with other conidtions. Sometimes - as in Salem Church - just half of the vc are displayed. It's not a good way to display things, it confuses people.

Also  what is the consequence of being defeated Salem Church? I won Chancellorsville. Does this cancel my victory? Does it reduce my reputation? Do I get rewards at all for Salem Church? There is no inbformation whatsoever.

[Mr. Mercanto]

On 18/01/2017 at 1:21 PM, A. P. Hill said:

At this stage of the war, the Army of Northern Virginia only had two Corps, (actually 1 1/3.) Longstreet had 2/3rd of his Corps in Tennessee. 

Actually he was in Suffolk, Virginia . He would bring 2/3 of his Corps to Tennessee after Gettysburg . 

Not important per se, I just thought I'd respectfully submit a small correction.