Gaines Mill and Malvern Hill

[i64man]

Hi guys, I have an observation to make and maybe if anyone can provide any feedback or suggestions, wil be greatly appreciated. I had play through the Union campaign until before Gettysburg before the latest patch and with the new patch and the completion of the campaign, I decided to start new.

I am playing as Colonel level with Fix enemy strength checked. All the battles up to Shiloh were fun, challenging and doable with a little thinking. The 3 missions before Gaines Mill, no problem but after the last mission before Gaines Mill, there was a message saying that the Confederates were shifting reinforcements from the west front in red letters. I have not seen that before. I set up for Gaines MIll with 2 corps with 3 divisions and 15 Bdes. Then the strength of the confederates jump from an average before between 1500 to 2200 men to and average between 2600 to 3200 men. My Bdes are all on 2000 men per.

I manage to beat the Confederates at Gaines Mill, replentish 2/3 of my Bdes to 2000 on both my corps but not everyone. Then comes Malvern Hill, here most of the Confederate units are well over the 2400 per unit. It is impossible to win or even draw this fight. I manage to hold until my 2nd corps arrive but it too little too late, not to mention how far back they are. My first corps most of my units have 1 start and have a couple of 2 stars and 1with 3 starts. These units have good rifles but the AI seems to know this and they get single out. 

I don't know if it is me, but before the patch, this was a hard mission but doable, now it is just impossible and again, this is on Colonel level. Is there any strategies out there or there is something done inadverterly that change the AI on the latest patch.

Thanks.

[Karri]

Rumors say they made some changes to fixed strength, but there is no confirmation or information whatsoever on this; apart from some pissed off post by Dartis about players breaking his game.

Edited May 29, 2017 by Karri

[i64man]

Thanks Karri, I loved the game... for a long time, I was hopping someone would come up with such a game. But what do you mean by Dartis saying players breaking his game?

[Andre Bolkonsky]

14 hours ago, i64man said:

Hi guys, I have an observation to make and maybe if anyone can provide any feedback or suggestions, wil be greatly appreciated. I had play through the Union campaign until before Gettysburg before the latest patch and with the new patch and the completion of the campaign, I decided to start new.

I am playing as Colonel level with Fix enemy strength checked. All the battles up to Shiloh were fun, challenging and doable with a little thinking. The 3 missions before Gaines Mill, no problem but after the last mission before Gaines Mill, there was a message saying that the Confederates were shifting reinforcements from the west front in red letters. I have not seen that before. I set up for Gaines MIll with 2 corps with 3 divisions and 15 Bdes. Then the strength of the confederates jump from an average before between 1500 to 2200 men to and average between 2600 to 3200 men. My Bdes are all on 2000 men per.

I manage to beat the Confederates at Gaines Mill, replentish 2/3 of my Bdes to 2000 on both my corps but not everyone. Then comes Malvern Hill, here most of the Confederate units are well over the 2400 per unit. It is impossible to win or even draw this fight. I manage to hold until my 2nd corps arrive but it too little too late, not to mention how far back they are. My first corps most of my units have 1 start and have a couple of 2 stars and 1with 3 starts. These units have good rifles but the AI seems to know this and they get single out. 

I don't know if it is me, but before the patch, this was a hard mission but doable, now it is just impossible and again, this is on Colonel level. Is there any strategies out there or there is something done inadverterly that change the AI on the latest patch.

Thanks.

Those are maybe my two favorite battles in the Union Campaign. They are both highly winnable and you can inflict terrible losses on the Rebels. 

What you have to do is figure out where to establish and hold your defensive lines. And you have to hold that line by focusing all your forces at that point. If the Confederates break it, you're toast. You can only fight them on one front. And if you don't have a few Guards units in the second line of infantry, or don't have a second line of infantry, get one quick. 

Pro Tip: Artillery is your friend. Send extra rations to your 24 PDR Howitzer crews. The cannon cannot be too close to your line so they get sucked into a melee, but close enough to cannister Rebel units trading fire with your front line. 

[jamieva]

2 hours ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

Those are maybe my two favorite battles in the Union Campaign. They are both highly winnable and you can inflict terrible losses on the Rebels. 

What you have to do is figure out where to establish and hold your defensive lines. And you have to hold that line by focusing all your forces at that point. If the Confederates break it, you're toast. You can only fight them on one front. And if you don't have a few Guards units in the second line of infantry, or don't have a second line of infantry, get one quick. 

Pro Tip: Artillery is your friend. Send extra rations to your 24 PDR Howitzer crews. The cannon cannot be too close to your line so they get sucked into a melee, but close enough to cannister Rebel units trading fire with your front line. 

Have you played them since the most recent update? I agree with i64man something changed especially with those 2 battles.  

 

Also anyone notice the AI is more willing to use charges?  

[Andre Bolkonsky]

4 hours ago, jamieva said:

Have you played them since the most recent update? I agree with i64man something changed especially with those 2 battles.  

 

Also anyone notice the AI is more willing to use charges?  

I have not. But I will take a peek. I have a campaign save for it. What, specifically, am I looking for? 

[i64man]

Guys, I actually went back on my save files to after the battle Shiloh. I replayed the 3 small battles trying different approaches and conserving my men. I went into Gaines Mill with two corps corps, each with 3 divisions (4 Bdes each division) and as Andre suggested, concentrated on defending in layers and keeping my Arty close by but not too close. I was able to beat Gaines Mill and hurt the confederates. The rebel units were in size between 2500 to 3200 men each against my 2000 men per division. Most of the assault was taken by my 1st corp with the best units, my 2nd came in as reinforcements and support units was largely intact.

For Malvern Hill, I had increased my Army Org and now have 5x Bde per Division, still 3 Divisions per corp. Again, I defended by layers with Arty support at the point in which I noted the rebels were massing for attack. I had to stop because going to work, but I am on the last stage of the battle, the rebels had suffer serious losses while the losses on my 2nd corps which was the main force still under 20%. And my 1st corps has arrived and is on position to move up and push the rebels from the farm on the left side of the map. The center and the woods on the right still on my hands. And like Jamieva said, the AI does tend to charge more often, specially if they were pushed back before.

Thanks Andre for your suggestions yesterday. 

Edited May 30, 2017 by i64man

[Karri]

22 hours ago, i64man said:

Thanks Karri, I loved the game... for a long time, I was hopping someone would come up with such a game. But what do you mean by Dartis saying players breaking his game?

Some cryptic messages from him in Steam forums.

[Wright29]

From what I understand, in this patch the numbers in the Fixed Strength are basically exactly what they are in the Historical Battle. If you play the Historical Battle of Gaines' Mill, you will see similar numbers. 

A basic issue is that this sort of ignores the player's progression or "ramping up" over the course of the campaign. This makes the beginning part hard and the ending part far easier than the regular campaign. 

Fixed Strength is very far from being a Very Easy mode. In many ways it is harder since rewards are 25% less, you can get creamed quite easily by overwhelming numbers, and if you start to lose battles you can fall behind macro-wise.