CSA Career Points help needed

[LAVA]

So I have smashed my head a few times now on the Legendary CSA campaign and I can't help but feel one of the big reasons I have not been able to complete this campaign is how I spend my Career Points. I'm pretty sure that Politics (you need as many men as possible as the CSA) and Medicine (back to men... this returns men back to your army) need to get maxed out first. From there... not sure. Economy means my weapons are cheaper so it is easier to field a well equipped army... especially since you are almost always outnumbered. Training means veterans are cheaper which is good at creating a well trained army. I have gone with economy before training in my campaigns, but I'm not sure that is the best way to go. A 2 star veteran costs way more than a decent rifle.

Any thoughts on the spending progression of career points for the CSA?  Would be much appreciated.

[contact]

20 hours ago, LAVA said:

So I have smashed my head a few times now on the Legendary CSA campaign and I can't help but feel one of the big reasons I have not been able to complete this campaign is how I spend my Career Points. I'm pretty sure that Politics (you need as many men as possible as the CSA) and Medicine (back to men... this returns men back to your army) need to get maxed out first. From there... not sure. Economy means my weapons are cheaper so it is easier to field a well equipped army... especially since you are almost always outnumbered. Training means veterans are cheaper which is good at creating a well trained army. I have gone with economy before training in my campaigns, but I'm not sure that is the best way to go. A 2 star veteran costs way more than a decent rifle.

Any thoughts on the spending progression of career points for the CSA?  Would be much appreciated.

Hi,

Based on middle level. IE BG.

I went with Politics, Medicine, Training and Logistics. The rest I added when I had maxed out. 

Attached is my record after the Battle of Mansfield.

Regards

 

[contact]

I felt the unit restore of 20% was worth having

[contact]

20 hours ago, LAVA said:

So I have smashed my head a few times now on the Legendary CSA campaign and I can't help but feel one of the big reasons I have not been able to complete this campaign is how I spend my Career Points. I'm pretty sure that Politics (you need as many men as possible as the CSA) and Medicine (back to men... this returns men back to your army) need to get maxed out first. From there... not sure. Economy means my weapons are cheaper so it is easier to field a well equipped army... especially since you are almost always outnumbered. Training means veterans are cheaper which is good at creating a well trained army. I have gone with economy before training in my campaigns, but I'm not sure that is the best way to go. A 2 star veteran costs way more than a decent rifle.

Any thoughts on the spending progression of career points for the CSA?  Would be much appreciated.

Also, as I progressed I checked the weapons I had in stock. If never going to use.

Then I sold them.

This was especially useful before Washington

I sold absolutely everything I was not going to need in order to use on what I felt was needed.

[LAVA]

I believe Col Kelly's advice was... Politics to 5, then Medicine to 10, Politics to 10, then Economy to 10. Training no higher than 5 and bump Army Organization up to 9 quick enough to be able to increase your Division strength to 6 brigades for 2nd Bull Run. I've never bumped AO to more than 7. Perhaps that is much more important than I suspect.

[contact]

15 hours ago, LAVA said:

I believe Col Kelly's advice was... Politics to 5, then Medicine to 10, Politics to 10, then Economy to 10. Training no higher than 5 and bump Army Organization up to 9 quick enough to be able to increase your Division strength to 6 brigades for 2nd Bull Run. I've never bumped AO to more than 7. Perhaps that is much more important than I suspect.

 

15 hours ago, LAVA said:

I believe Col Kelly's advice was... Politics to 5, then Medicine to 10, Politics to 10, then Economy to 10. Training no higher than 5 and bump Army Organization up to 9 quick enough to be able to increase your Division strength to 6 brigades for 2nd Bull Run. I've never bumped AO to more than 7. Perhaps that is much more important than I suspect.

I did concentrate on the money side of things first. Only increased the AO when was going to be required.

Also, if I did have a lack of money. I was happy to take a brigade with very high morale etc. Change it to rookie when replenishing losses. The morale etc only went down a small amount. But helpe to save on outlay.

I only know that the above did help me to win the war.

Sorry for the double quote above. 🙃.

Regards

[River of Death]

For my money, the only time you need AO at 9, for either Union or Confederate come to think of it, is Chickamauga.  Only there is the battlefield large enough and your corps restriction (2) small enough that having 6 brigades per corps is a *requirement*.  I've pulled off 2nd Bull Run (MG Confed and Legendary Union) with 3 divisions 4 brigades per corps and won without undue difficulty (lots of micromanagement, sure, but nothing undoable).

On balance, I agree with only increasing AO as you need it.

However, after Medicine/Politics (in some order), I would push to max out Economy in addition to Training.  Order may vary to taste.  But if you're going to be selling weapons in the second half of the game (a definite thing to do) then getting the most money for it is imperative.  On the flipside, my experience has been that only in a few Grand Battles is putting anything into logistics helpful, and there you should be aiming to capture supply wagons anyway.

[LAVA]

Legendary CSA is quite a different animal, however.

2nd Bull Run is fairly easy to win because you merely need to hold off a couple attacks by the Yanks so AO at 9 is not needed. That is fine if you are only after the win, but the problem is you allow a snot load of Yankees to gain tons of experience. You keep doing that and you will soon be fighting a Yankee army that is nothing but 3 star units. I have destroyed well over half the Union army at 2nd Bull Run by taking the offensive and attacking their center (1st Corps) in a previous attempt.

I think the first time that you will see the difference (not sure because I'm not there yet) is at Antietam, if you choose to fight the battle, but for sure at Stone's River where essentially what you do on the first day with your full 1st Corps, 2 divisions of 2nd Corps and 1 division of 3rd Corps will determine how well you do in that battle.  By having AO at 9, it will allow you to bring an additional 6 brigades into the battle on the first day. In Grand Battles, for the most part, your 1st Corps takes the brunt of the fighting and having 4 more divisions as you get deeper into the campaign... is worth a think.

I am now on my 4th attempt. LOL! This time I am playing quite differently than the 3 before them. For example, last night I fought Ambush Convoy. Normally I run in with my Cavalry, steal the supply wagons and then retreat. There is some infantry contact, but very little. This time around I wiped out a Yankee infantry brigade and a cavalry brigade. Both were isolated and surrounded and I had hoped they would surrender... but no luck there. That was an additional 3,000 casualties for the Yanks that cost me 400 more men than usual.

 

[contact]

I know the advice given to me. Which I kept to was to keep heating the Union troops with a big stick. I looked to do that in every battle. Minor or major. I just kept going for them.

[Mukremin]

On 10/14/2018 at 2:58 PM, LAVA said:

Legendary CSA is quite a different animal, however.

2nd Bull Run is fairly easy to win because you merely need to hold off a couple attacks by the Yanks so AO at 9 is not needed. That is fine if you are only after the win, but the problem is you allow a snot load of Yankees to gain tons of experience. You keep doing that and you will soon be fighting a Yankee army that is nothing but 3 star units. I have destroyed well over half the Union army at 2nd Bull Run by taking the offensive and attacking their center (1st Corps) in a previous attempt.

I think the first time that you will see the difference (not sure because I'm not there yet) is at Antietam, if you choose to fight the battle, but for sure at Stone's River where essentially what you do on the first day with your full 1st Corps, 2 divisions of 2nd Corps and 1 division of 3rd Corps will determine how well you do in that battle.  By having AO at 9, it will allow you to bring an additional 6 brigades into the battle on the first day. In Grand Battles, for the most part, your 1st Corps takes the brunt of the fighting and having 4 more divisions as you get deeper into the campaign... is worth a think.

I am now on my 4th attempt. LOL! This time I am playing quite differently than the 3 before them. For example, last night I fought Ambush Convoy. Normally I run in with my Cavalry, steal the supply wagons and then retreat. There is some infantry contact, but very little. This time around I wiped out a Yankee infantry brigade and a cavalry brigade. Both were isolated and surrounded and I had hoped they would surrender... but no luck there. That was an additional 3,000 casualties for the Yanks that cost me 400 more men than usual.

 

i went for full politics and a bit of mixture of medicine, AO and all. But Politics is the most important, you need to get that at 10 asap. I am still at the outskirts of Washington, looking for a motivation to start and hopefully finish the campaign as CSA on legendary.

Good luck @LAVA

[pandakraut]

I went the complete opposite approach and skipped politics entirely to focus on training/econ to about 5, start working on medicine around Gaines Mill and max it first. AO as needed to max out division deployments. With a small infantry base and focusing on supporting units always having the max slots felt pretty essential, but 2nd Bull Run is open enough that I can see staying at AO 7 as well. This likely only works with small unit sizes with heavy focus on artillery and snipers though.

I think you're headed the right direction with your Ambush Convoy approach. I usually steal the wagons and then retreat into the tree line while trying to bait the AI into charging and usually this is fairly successful. The AI does seem very hesitant to attack on that map though and sometimes just won't come into rifle range. I think an alternate approach might be pushing towards the north eastern corner while capturing the wagons and hopefully the starting units. From that position it should be possible to take advantage of the AI's tendency to form up instead of attacking to inflict significant casualties from within cover.

Looking forward to hearing about your new campaign

 

Edited October 17, 2018 by pandakraut

[LAVA]

22 hours ago, pandakraut said:

I went the complete opposite approach and skipped politics entirely to focus on training/econ to about 5, start working on medicine around Gaines Mill and max it first. AO as needed to max out division deployments. With a small infantry base and focusing on supporting units always having the max slots felt pretty essential, but 2nd Bull Run is open enough that I can see staying at AO 7 as well. This likely only works with small unit sizes with heavy focus on artillery and snipers though.

I think you're headed the right direction with your Ambush Convoy approach. I usually steal the wagons and then retreat into the tree line while trying to bait the AI into charging and usually this is fairly successful. The AI does seem very hesitant to attack on that map though and sometimes just won't come into rifle range. I think an alternate approach might be pushing towards the north eastern corner while capturing the wagons and hopefully the starting units. From that position it should be possible to take advantage of the AI's tendency to form up instead of attacking to inflict significant casualties from within cover.

Looking forward to hearing about your new campaign

 

The best game I have had at 2nd Bull Run, I brought 7 12gun artillery brigades and 13 infantry brigades of 2,000 men in 1st Corps. I had 2 infantry brigades and 3 cavalry brigades in 2nd Corps.

I find you approach interesting. So you took training/econ to 5, then medicine to 10 and then I assume you maxed out training and economy. You are going to have a pretty small, but hard core army. Were you creating many 3 star infantry units during the campaign? Did you start with like 2,000 man recruit brigades and then let them gain experience and stabilize them at some quantity... like 1,800 men and maintain and or increase proficiency?

You know, one of the things I have recently encountered is that it seems that my Major Generals get wounded and killed like crazy. Having Division Commanders killed during grande battles really sucks, and it seems to happen frequently... perhaps too  frequently.

[pandakraut]

20 minutes ago, LAVA said:

I find you approach interesting. So you took training/econ to 5, then medicine to 10 and then I assume you maxed out training and economy. You are going to have a pretty small, but hard core army. Were you creating many 3 star infantry units during the campaign? Did you start with like 2,000 man recruit brigades and then let them gain experience and stabilize them at some quantity... like 1,800 men and maintain and or increase proficiency?

That's roughly the progression I used, don't recall for sure as that play through was a while back. After maxing out Medicine/Econ/Training/AO I did max politics instead of putting any additional points in logistics. This was more for the cash than the manpower though. The main reason I leave politics for last is that I don't use the bonus recruits, though I haven't actually done the math on whether politics or training/econ is better for money. My guess is that they are fairly interchangeable, but I prefer the training/econ for their impact in buying expensive scoped rifles and cannon early on.

I don't push very hard for 3 star infantry, just to expensive to maintain in most cases. I end up with some eventually but I usually spend my money on maintaining as many 2 stars as possible instead. For the majority of the campaign my standard unit size is 1,000 - 1,250. 0 or 1 star brigades will be a on the higher end of that range and I will usually try to ensure that they are the focus of any enemy fire instead of any more experienced brigades. With the small unit sizes I usually have a surplus of recruits and rifles so losses to 1 star units effectively cost very little. For certain battles where I know a small set of units will have to take a beating I will go up to 1600 but that is very rare. With these units sizes I often can afford to primarily restore my units with veterans, though that's very dependent on keeping losses down. 

In the closing stages of battles I will often hold back my infantry a bit to let snipers and artillery continue to get kills. Usually results in lower casualties and getting those units to 3 stars as soon as possible makes things much easier.

49 minutes ago, LAVA said:

You know, one of the things I have recently encountered is that it seems that my Major Generals get wounded and killed like crazy. Having Division Commanders killed during grande battles really sucks, and it seems to happen frequently... perhaps too  frequently.

Division commanders getting killed early on in grand battles is usually frustrating enough that I'll just restart. Everything I've seen in the game code indicates it's just random bad luck, but the campaigns where you just don't lose any officers are so much easier than the ones where they seem to commit suicide every battle.

[LAVA]

I see, so you are putting a big emphasis on AO so as to bring as many brigades to Grande Battles as possible. Correct?

[pandakraut]

Yes, having smaller units basically requires bringing the maximum number of brigades per corps for every battle. I also take advantage of the extra reinforcement 'bug' whenever I can. 

For some snapshots 

Shiloh: 0/4/0/3/6/1/2

Gaines Mill: 0/4/5/3/6/1/2

Antietam: 6/10/3/9/1/2

AO 6 for fielding 20 brigades at Shiloh. With larger units might be able to drop a point or two if you can't actually hit 20 units. Goal is to have 10 medicine by Antietam. The 9 AO is a for 25 brigades at 2nd bull run. Since the CSA so rarely actually fields more than 2 corps, if you don't need the 25 slots it would be a good place to save points.

[LAVA]

Not sure about the reinforcement bug... have no idea about that.

At Shiloh I had AO at 3 and my infantry brigades were at 1,500. Took 9 infantry brigades, 2 artillery brigades and 1 cavalry brigade into that fight and it came out fine. I can see, however, your thought process and it seems quite good. I still have the time (and the men) to have 9 AO for 2nd Bull Run and 10 medicine at Antietam.

We'll see how I fare.

[pandakraut]

At battles like Cross Roads or Stay Alert it's possible to bring in one more unit than the shown limits. For example if the limit is 10 units. Setup a division with 5 units and one with 6 units. Or more reasonably for early on go with 4, 4, 3. As long as you deploy a unit from both divisions in your initial deployment then the 11th unit will come in when the reinforcements arrive. This works on more battles but I don't have a full list. Worth checking on most side battles that have reinforcements. I don't think it works on any grand battle but the numbers there are high enough that I've also never tried.

I can absolutely see beating Shiloh with only AO 3, would have to go back through and see if that lets me put points in more useful places earlier and still hit the other brigade breakpoints that I want in later battles. Worth an experiment the next time I try.

Edited October 19, 2018 by pandakraut

[LAVA]

With 5 minor battles and 2 Grande Battles before 2nd Bull Run there should be no problem getting 9 AO. There are 2 more minor battles before Antietam, so once again no problem getting Medicine to 10. Funny... this is the way I was going in my first try at Legendary but then got sucked away to Politics. I think I am at 3 for Politics, Economy and Training and 4 for Medicine and AO after 1st Winchester. The proof will show itself at Antietam. If that goes fairly well, I will start posting the videos of my present campaign. Ever since my first try I have had this feeling I should have been pushing hard on economy and training (medicine goes without saying), but folks seemed to be pointing at Politics and even though I really wasn't convinced, I went for it anyway. Right now I am on the road to Gaines Mill and my brigade size is down to 1,300 men.

As for the reinforcement bug, yes, I was aware there are times when I got extra brigades in some minor battles but was not aware of what caused it. Thanks for the explanation.

BTW, when I played Ambush Convoy this last time around I had a full out battle. I have come to believe that just as when I was playing the Yankees on Legendary and relying so heavily on my artillery; as the Rebels, I must do everything possible to destroy as much of the Union artillery in the Confederate campaign as possible and keep them from getting masses of 3 star artillery brigades. At Ambush Convoy I crushed the forces reinforcing from the left side of the map (including 2 artillery units) and then called it a day. We'll see how this all works out.

[LAVA]

On 10/20/2018 at 2:20 PM, LAVA said:

The proof will show itself at Antietam.

Have finished the battle of Antietam. Started the battle with 40 brigades, however, I lost 16,000 men including 5 2 star brigades. Brigade strength was 1,300 men. I did manage to completely wipe out the Union Army including 170 guns. AO is at 9 and Medicine at 10. ATM I have more recruits than I have in my army. Yet, I'm optimistic. I also have 11 experienced artillery brigades who are looking forward to Fredericksburg. The goal is to create 2 hardcore Corps of 25 brigades each. I'm looking at 16 infantry, 7 artillery and 2 sharpshooter units per Corps. I suffered a set-back at Antietam so I'm going to wait a bit before putting my videos on YouTube. I think I can recover. Only time will tell.

[pandakraut]

That's a rough result, mostly the loss of experienced brigades and officers. Were you able to get a lot of the rest of those casualties onto your less experienced units? It sounds like your artillery and snipers come out in good shape? 

As you noted with the smaller units recruits are much less of an issue so i think you still have a pretty good chance going forward. I'm guessing you also have a pretty decent weapons surplus to restock from even if your cash is low?

Getting the opening phase of CSA Antietam to go right is one of the more RNG dependent challenges in the game in my opinion. It can be incredibly easy with very few casualties or it can gut a corps depending on where the AI decides to send it's units and if it manages to actually land a mass charge. I can't think of any other part of the game that I have restarted as much as those first two phases. 

[Lord Gareth]

Politics -> Medicine -> Economy / Training / Logistics.
After Fredericksburg I have: 10 / 4 / 10 / 4 / 6 / 3 / 0

But, from my perspective, the key element for CSA Legendary mode is to keep a balance between kills and loses, especially in Great battles. You must destroy most of the Union's troops in every battle if you want to maintain the size and quality of enemy army at an acceptable level but... above a certain level of own loses, a further attack becomes harmful even if You wipe out enemy troops. You will not be able to rebuild your army after battle. This is my main problem because I play aggressively by nature and have a problem to stop the attack at the right moment.

Comparing with Lava battles, he almost always makes less damage for enemy but loses fewer own people. For exemple , at 2nd Bull Run Lava win with great style, he kill  43,360 and captured 1,482 unionists, destroyed 102 cannons and lost only 10,337 own soldiers. In my battle I killed and captured 49000 but lost almost 14500.

This results that at key battle - Antientam, I had about 5000 people less in my army. Such a difference in this battle is a really big problem. I won, but the smaller army must be in constant motion to close the holes, which causes much higher losses. As a result, after this battle the problem grows. In the battle of Antientam with 39k army I was able to inflict a total of 54,000 losses to Union army, but I lost 25,000 soldiers.

And again... this leads to the situation that at Fredericksburg my army has arrived with 32,000 soldiers versus 105000. Lava had 45000 at that moment.

Conclusion, at Legendary Career Points are important, but it is even more important to ensure that losses do not exceed a certain level. Points will not be able to fix it.

[LAVA]

One of the points most folks still won't accept is that by destroying whole units and armies, you reduce the quality of your enemy. At Weapons Factory I not only completely destroyed the entire Union army, I captured 5 2 star brigades. You will notice that the AI will always focus on your better units, and the player must do the same. Because of the battle at Antietam and Weapons Factory, at Fredericksburg the great majority of the Union infantry was 1 star. Yep, there were a handful of 3 stars, but I believe those are hard coded into the battle (and I obliterated a number of them). There was also a few 2 star artillery brigades but a lot of 1 star brigades as well. If you get to the point where your adversary is putting lots of 3 star units on the battlefield... you're going to have a hard time.

As an aside, I won my Legendary Union Campaign with a K/D ratio of around 3.1 to 1. My feeling is that to win the Legendary Confederate Campaign I am going to need at least 4 to 1. That fits historically with demographics of the time.

Just fought Fredericksburg. My Army of 43 brigades had 38,396 men and 128 guns... which is larger than the one I brought to Antietam (40 brigades with 36,505 men and 106 guns). The Union army had 95,178 men and 254 guns. I lost 10,138 men and 3 guns. The Yanks lost 47,978 men and 46 guns. Because of medicine (which is at 10) when I returned to Camp, my army was not 27,000 men (38,000 - 10,000), but 29,126 men and 126 guns. Medicine not only saved me 2,000 men, but their experience and weapons as well. I have close to 33,000 recruits in reserve. I have 9,000 rifles in my armory and the reputation to buy another 3,500. Wouldn't be surprised to see my army at 40,000 for the next Grand Battle at Stones River. So, yes, Career Points do make a difference.. a critical one. So at this point, without having spent my 2 points from Fredericksburg, I have Politics 3, Economy 6, Medicine 10, Training 5, AO 9 and Logistics 2. I never spend points on recon. At present I view Economy and Training as both equally important so I will be splitting my Career Points equally between them until they both hit 10.

[LAVA]

10 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Getting the opening phase of CSA Antietam to go right is one of the more RNG dependent challenges in the game in my opinion.

Totally agree. One of the reasons I lost those 5 brigades was because I combined them. 2 of the combined brigades were destroyed in the final part of the battle. Not only was it unnecessary but stupid as well. Still it served as a great learning point which I shall remember in the future.

[Ouwe Knar]

I looked this game up in steam .

Interesting it is*

is the date for available on steam somehow set or ?

[LAVA]

Not sure if I understand you well, mate.

But, yes, the game is available on steam and ATM is priced at 27,99 Euros.

Development is complete and no further support is expected in the future. It's a great game, well worth the price.