Help with Gettysberg (South)

[Slaithium]

I came back to the game after some updates happened... Gettysburg after the updates does not work like it did. Use to it give some extra time if you were about to win on day 1 and now it is almost impossible. Course day 2 and 3 are a blood bath and are lucky if you dont lose your entire army in short order. So if anyone can give me a guide on how to win on day 1 on Gettysberg it would be great, if not then in the long term it will be difficult to have the forces needed to win Washington later down the road. So thanks in advance.

What  I have been doing or tried rather. Using 3 brigades and a artillery unit to grind down the attacks that come my way when you take the first and nearest objective. Usually kill all the skirms and brigades that come my way the entire battle with no reinforcements required, they lose roughly 8-14 units depending on what the AI does a  particular attempt. Then the reinforces I get I just them to swing down below the strong point and take the the Southern objective set up two brigades and another artillery regiment to push off the surrounding units and cut off the incoming reinforcements, I usually end up killing them or they swing up north. The next batches that come in I sure-up my position and prepare the assault on Seminary Ridge. When Army II arrives after the initial engagement I sweep down and take the northern objective and over-run it while 4-5 brigades blitz down to occupy Gettysburg itself, with the 5 units to the North East rushing down to cut off the reinforcements that come from the bottom right corner. Here lays the issue, I have taken the point but time had simply ran out of time by about 7 or 8 second every-time with only one occasion one second was required. So this is very frustrating to know that I have won the battle and virtually almost annihilate their entire army to not win and go into day 2 and 3 to only be massively outnumbered and bleed my army to almost dust. 

[Grimthaur]

Hm, its difficult to give you advice when one doesnt know your army-composition and your difficulty. If you run an artillery-heavy lineup i guess its difficult to win on day 1 though i can only speak to MG and legendary. But if you bring mostly infantry to day 1 you can send brigades of 1st corps to bypass the Union on the southern flank and set them up in getty very early, killing of the reinforcements. if you reinforce them with detached skirmishers you can get ahead of your timescale.

But... why rush to a day1-victory? Imho it is not only unnecessary but counterproductive. Going for a day2-victory has several benefits:

• you will lose way more men if you go for the last point instead of wiping the retreating forces only
• there are easy-to-execute strats (look up the getty-vid in the thread "Legendary CSA campaign") to rush to little round top on day2, it is even possible to get to the VP before any Union brigade gets there
• holding that VP is not difficult if you use elite-brigades and let them only shoot out of cover and set up a line up to the defensive position (house) east to the VP, maybe reinforced with 1 or 2 (max.) 24PD Howitzers or Napoleons
• since the Union often refuses to use the woods north of that house you can detach 2-3 skirmishers and move them along the eastern border of the map, first to the house east of the woods and then further, that way you can snipe the union artillery there and you will force several infantry-brigades to reinforce the artillery what results in almost no pressure on the VP
• defending against the Union-troops comming from devils den can be done with detached skirmishers (2, max 3) and you can even harass the entrenched brigade or the artillery positioned there with additional detached skirmishers from the house southwest from devils den
• anticipate, when exactly sedgwick appears to flank you from the east and set up a killingfield with the rest of your forces and 1-2 artys for cannister, sedgwick should be (depending on your difficuly) completely anihilated or will at least suffer losses of 60-70% and will rout to the north
• by that point Union will give up any serious plans of taking little round top and you will only suffer some casualties from artillery that isnt in cannister-range

As you see i lost 8k men winning on day2 but i killed almost 36k, reducing the Union armysize significantly more for the battles to come compared to a day1 victory. If i finished on day1 i suffered at about 11-12k casualties, killing fewer Union men, 5,5k of my 8k casualties were from day1. If youre not on legendary you will easily be able to reduce casualties to 4-5k.

 

[LAVA]

Interesting screen.

Was your Corps commander killed?

[Grimthaur]

Nah, the battlereport was so long that the upper part was cut off

[Slaithium]

My normal Corps are general made up of 2 500man Skirms w/scoped Whits, 2 Calv, 4 artillery and the rest 1250 inf brigades with 4 jumbos 1800 or more men as reserves. Also playing on hard mode, the one before legendary.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Slaithium

[Grimthaur]

Huh, 1250 is quite low, didnt try that. Isnt 250 the most efficient skirm size?

[Andre Bolkonsky]

4 hours ago, Slaithium said:

My normal Corps are general made up of 2 500man Skirms w/scoped Whits, 2 Calv, 4 artillery and the rest 1250 inf brigades with 4 jumbos 1800 or more men as reserves. Also playing on hard mode, the one before legendary.

Take whatever you want from this since these guidelines are focused on Federal troops:

Remember that you can pop out skirmishers, so if you have divisions of around 1,800 men 2-star brigades (0r 2,000 rec), they reduce down to around 1,500 which is optimal for rapid firing rifles plus you'll get the free 2-star 300 man skirmisher unit also carrying quality rapid firing rifles This is your front line that is going to screen the heavy infantry brigades

Jumbo brigades should just flat be 2,500 men, and built for melee mixed in with a couple of guard brigades to exploit or contain breakhroughs. 

Keep your skirmishers around 300 for snipers

Artillery is your friend. Keep them in batteries of 12, about 2/3 rifles to 1/3 smoothboore. 

Cavalry are your eyes and ears. They are invaluable for recon and screening your flanks, park them in woods and get 'em off their horses when the situation requires 

 

[Slaithium]

3 hours ago, Grimthaur said:

Huh, 1250 is quite low, didnt try that. Isnt 250 the most efficient skirm size?

I use 1250 because I have found the small brigades fit into cover better and take less damage over-all. Also it conserves resources for later in the campaign, generally they are also vet 2 or 3 squads. I have also found, this may be how I use my skirms, to run around the rear picking off artillery groups so the extra men to allow them to stay in the field longer doing the most damage is optimal. Also if Calv try to get on them they can normally fight them off and have enough men left over to shoot them in back while they run away. Just to name a few circumstances.

 

34 minutes ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

Take whatever you want from this since these guidelines are focused on Federal troops:

Remember that you can pop out skirmishers, so if you have divisions of around 1,800 men 2-star brigades (0r 2,000 rec), they reduce down to around 1,500 which is optimal for rapid firing rifles plus you'll get the free 2-star 300 man skirmisher unit also carrying quality rapid firing rifles This is your front line that is going to screen the heavy infantry brigades

Jumbo brigades should just flat be 2,500 men, and built for melee mixed in with a couple of guard brigades to exploit or contain breakhroughs. 

Keep your skirmishers around 300 for snipers

Artillery is your friend. Keep them in batteries of 12, about 2/3 rifles to 1/3 smoothboore. 

Cavalry are your eyes and ears. They are invaluable for recon and screening your flanks, park them in woods and get 'em off their horses when the situation requires 

 

That might work for union, but if the South does that it is very draining so it has to be use resources more wisely. I use Skirms like that regualrly. Idk Jumbo brigades to well holding forward positions if they are well equipped while given and receiving a beating. I typically max equip when possible all my troops to maximum firing range. Also the same for cannons. I typically like to fight everything with a range advantage when possible.

[Grimthaur]

Just out of interest, how far along the campaign did you get with 1250er brigades? I didnt think they were viable, for me it hurt when i had to go down to 2200er ***-brigades cause no more Springfield63 were available.

I use skirms the same way, imho most people vastly underestimate what they can do. The reason to keep Skirms at 300 like Andre suggested (i think the optimal size is 250) is that their efficiency suffers from diminishing returns above 250, (i think) it is comparable to artillery above 12 (16) guns.