CSA Legendary Campaign - Minimal & Customizations Mod

[Mukremin]

11 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Cross Keys: I show off a fun trick to get your units behind the enemy lines before the battle starts but otherwise an average result. The AI ended up focusing further south than it sometimes does which my deployment wasn't really setup to deal with. Ended up having to move my artillery around and wasn't able to full clear the map.

Like 1st Winchester, this is a case where I really should be upping my unit size by several hundred men to output more damage from my infantry as I'm well below the minimum scaling point. But I'm being stubborn and telling myself that when I go to Gaines Mill my units will be the right size for that battle.

Losses: 2062(124 returned from medicine) Kills: 13968

 

pretty amazing and daring tactic you showed here. This battle is one of the hardest i think, but with this tactic it might work and keep your own casualties down and inflict heavy casualties on the enemy. Impressive work man!

[TechnoSarge]

I have to ask - when you talk about a minimum scaling point, is there a known optimal or possible unit size for each engagement? - On my last BG campaign with your Rebalance mod I worked up to 1500 men and pretty much kept that size through the campaign (although I believe I went to 1600 if I judged the available weapons for a particular brigade as inferior to the rest).

[pandakraut]

4 hours ago, Mukremin said:

pretty amazing and daring tactic you showed here. This battle is one of the hardest i think, but with this tactic it might work and keep your own casualties down and inflict heavy casualties on the enemy. Impressive work man!

Turns out it's actually pretty reliable. I tried it 3 or 4 times and had no issues making it work every time. The AI orders on spawn appears to be to move to a location rather than looking for nearby targets so they completely ignore your units unless you are right in front of them.

I made another quick attempt to see if I could full clear with larger units. Didn't really get many more kills and took more losses, though I had the AI wrapped up. With a bit more agressive play maybe you can get there a few minutes earlier and get them all. Overall doesn't seem worth it unless you get lucky and can get a bunch of units to surrender at the end. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1570403818

Edited November 21, 2018 by pandakraut

[pandakraut]

26 minutes ago, TechnoSarge said:

I have to ask - when you talk about a minimum scaling point, is there a known optimal or possible unit size for each engagement? - On my last BG campaign with your Rebalance mod I worked up to 1500 men and pretty much kept that size through the campaign (although I believe I went to 1600 if I judged the available weapons for a particular brigade as inferior to the rest).

Not really, it will vary by battle, difficulty, and how well you have done so far. I have a decent feel for the Union campaign but not as much for the CSA. I could definitely be building much bigger for these side battles. Scaling barely occurs on BG so you probably won't notice it at all there.

I will do a longer discussion about scaling in some future video. It's just a very large and complex topic and probably needs a stand alone video by itself.

[pandakraut]

Port Republic: As straightforward as it gets. Setup to ambush the reinforcements, get snipers in the rear to hit the artillery. Some complications ensued with the snipers, but nothing to bad.

An update from CivWar64, you can actually bring 11 units to this battle. This is the only instance I'm aware of where the reinforcements glitch gets you two units instead of one. So this battle can be even easier.

Losses: 998(80 returned from medicine) Kills: 10665

 

 

Edited December 18, 2018 by pandakraut

[pandakraut]

Gaines Mill: Gaines Mill deploys percentages of a corps similar to how Union Shiloh deployment works. Because of this it's advantageous to bring as large of corps as possible to maximize how many units show up earlier. However, unlike Shiloh many of these units will arrive far to late to be of any actual use in the battle. So I create junk units to pad out the corps numbers to ensure all of my good units arrive at a useful time. It's important to note that these junk units are not for scaling manipulation, they are actively increasing scaling. Fortunately the increase is negligible.

 

Due to the short timers, I artificially inflate the size of my corps through junk units to get my good units on the field as soon as possible. Instead of attacking or flanking with my first corps I setup a ring out of sight and wait for my flanking units to arrive before trapping nearly the entire union army in the open and wiping it out.

Losses: 1981(198 returned from medicine) Kills: 22296

 

 

[pandakraut]

Malvern Hill: Camp video with a discussion of my artillery preferences in the base game and some details on how the weapon stats affect weapon damage. If you'd like to know more check out this post again: https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/26142-hidden-mechanics-and-weapon-damage-degradation/

I should have redone this and kept one of the 14 gun artillery units since I ended up remaking one, but I ended up not changing it before the battle.

 

 

Not my best battle, but still cleared the map with acceptable casualties. Fun features include losing my supply wagon to bad pathing and lack of attention, recapturing it with 3 other wagons at the same time, and once again charging into a clean pocket and coming out the worse for it. Overall, good template poor execution.

Losses: 7254(1016 returned from medicine) Kills: 31500

 

[pandakraut]

Cedar Mountain: Due to the strength of the 24 gun Union artillery units I had to find a different approach to this battle. I found a way to kill off 2 of the 3 artillery units and then go with a delayed surround like you normally would from the start. I don't have enough infantry units to really pull it off but still come out in good shape with an acceptable number of kills.

Losses: 2452(392 returned from medicine) Kills: 13626

 

[LAVA]

Hi, mate! Been gone for a couple weeks and unable to comment.

Was very impressed with many battle strategies you used. For example, at Shiloh it never occurred to me to try to wipe out the Yankee left flank. The Port Republic battle was also a real surprise but in retrospect, a damn good strategy minimizing your casualties. You could have played that battle with all 1stars and got the same result.

Overall, I see you are very heavy into working your specialized units (cavalry, artillery and sharpshooters) and this seems to be working very, very well. I like how you are focused on destroying the Yankee artillery which I believe is a must.

Your campaign is really enjoyable to watch and I do believe it will be successful. Keep it up!

[LAVA]

As a sidelight, just some quick thoughts I have about capturing units... especially when they turn into a big routing mess which tries and many times is able to rout through the lines and leaving everyone to have to chase them down.

What I believe happens here is that once a unit routs, it is no longer considered a threat to your troops and they will not fire at them until they recover their morale. Because there may be a big mess of routed troops your boys just look at them until one of the units recovers and then everyone shoots at them, which causes them to rout again, but not surrender. To counter this, what I do is manual target a routed unit (normally first with artillery) and a unit or 2 of infantry. I then grab another unit or two and fire them also into the same unit or charge a unit into your target (remember you don't get any charge melee bonuses if they just mesh together). I believe the trick to getting them to surrender is slapping them at the moment you see the rout red letters appear over the unit. But because they are only in this condition for a moment, you have to be staggering your own units to fire (manually) at that same unit to make it happen.

So once you have a group isolated, pick out a unit that is very close to your own. Order your artillery to fire on that unit and then charge one of your own units into your target. Once your boys start charging, rope a batch of infantry and order them all to fire. By staggering your units fire, coupled with the morale loss in melee, I have found you can get a lot more units to surrender and can stop a surging group of routed units from pushing through your own ranks.

Any thoughts?

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, LAVA said:

Overall, I see you are very heavy into working your specialized units (cavalry, artillery and sharpshooters) and this seems to be working very, very well. I like how you are focused on destroying the Yankee artillery which I believe is a must.

With the damage fixes in the mod I think this is going to be even more critical. I'm really starting to appreciate how good the 10p parrot is when you keep it at the right range. I am already dreading Cold Harbor though.

A unit's target routing definitely causes the unit to drop targeting most of the time. Very annoying for keeping your counter battery units focused. As best I can tell the rout notification itself is not tied to anything other than a unit triggers the retreat action. The surrender probability goes up based on the units hpratio, current morale, ratio of allied hp and enemy hp in the area, and if the units officer is wounded or dead. There are also some factors that I'm guessing are based on gaps in the line or something like that, I'm not sure. There's almost certainly more to this, but that's what I've managed to figure out so far.

Surrender requests occur whenever you pass a damage threshold in a given frame. So the more damage you can hit a unit with at once the more frequently they get asked to surrender. These requests all require that no allied units that aren't also routing are nearby.

So what seems to work well is isolating a unit, surrounding it with as many units as possible and then hitting it in melee. Ranged surrenders should also occur in this scenario but it seems much much rarer.

I think your plan for stopping breakthroughs should work well as long as there is sufficient space opposite your units for the AI units to rush that direction. In terms of dealing with routing blobs I think the key thing is to make sure to hit them with completely overwhelming force if you do go in. Preferably after all units have been weakened considerably. Focusing your fire on units on the edges also seems to make sense. Maybe target the artillery on the middle units(if that's even distinguishable). Breaking the AI pathing in pockets seems to rely on the unit having enough space to ping pong back and forth. Once you compress them so much the AI decides it can't go back the other direction and just stays determined to go one way no matter how many units are in that direction.

Good to see that you're back and looking forward to more of your campaign!

[Jpburns]

I’m looking forward to see your cold harbor strategies.  I’m stuck there and beginning to think I need more than 50k troops.  I will say I had my best results at Antietam by push far north early and holding that tree line

[pandakraut]

Manassas Depot: Had to switch up my objectives mid battle but otherwise a fairly standard approach. Sit in the woods and bait charges until you can take the forts. Apologies for the audio, still a bit under the weather and not always quite fast enough with the mute button.

Losses: 4022(0 of own men) Kills: 10074

 

 

[pandakraut]

2nd Bull Run: Camp video with a discussion of upcoming reputation rewards, melee cavalry weapons, use of muskets in the mid campaign, and yet more officer swapping. Realized post battle that each reinforcing corps will only deploy 20 units. So I should have moved 4 units from my 2nd corps into my other reinforcing corps so they all arrive in battle.

 

 

Capture the town on day 1 to be in a better position to inflict casualties. Stay defensive for most of day 2 while picking off artillery and supply wagons. Encircle and wipe out once all reinforcements arrive.

Higher casualties than I would have liked. The AI spread out a little more so I couldn't spot some artillery and the infantry were in better shape at the end. This resulted in my enveloping forces taking to much damage. Overall an acceptable amount of casualties and a complete wipe.

Losses: 7485(1198 returned from medicine) Kills: 53458

 

[LAVA]

Great use of your sharpshooters and artillery. Am pretty amazed with the amount and quality of these brigades and also your cavalry arm. What I found very interesting about this battle, and which I never thought about doing, was substituting brigades in multi-day battles. Lots of good information here for pretty much everyone to learn something.

Well done!

[pandakraut]

I don't think I used it much as the Union, but for the CSA substituting units can be very useful. Especially for battles like Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and Chancellorsville where you are only allowed 2 full corps. You can setup units in a spare corps to fight in specific parts of each battle. At 2nd Bull Run if you are having trouble you can also swap your entire defending force for the reinforcements so that fresh troops start on the ridge. Probably useful at Cold Harbor and Washington as well.

[pandakraut]

Chantilly: Brief camp phase discussing lvl 3 artillery and skirmisher perks. I push infantry up to the edge of the tree lines before the Union spawns. I also bring 2 cavalry units specifically to drive back a single unit to open up the Union right for envelopment. I push the envelopment a bit faster than I would in most battles because I want to try and get at the over sized artillery units as soon as possible. Unfortunately one of the artillery units retreats to the worst possible place and inflicts almost a third of the casualties I take in the entire battle before I can get rid of it.

Losses: 2609(522 returned from medicine) Kills: 17695

 

 

Weapons Factory: Brief camp phase on career points, reputation buys, and setups for the battle artillery. I tried going artillery heavy in this battle and setting up across the river but got frustrated with the random behavior of the enemy cavalry unit. Instead I brought my own cavalry and managed to pin their unit in the corner while picking off most of their artillery with my cavalry. Managed to get lucky with the encirclement and just about cleared the map despite the short timer.

Losses: 1177(236 returned from medicine) Kills: 10792

 

[pandakraut]

A minor update to Port Republic from CivWar64: you can actually bring 11 units to that battle. This is the only instance I'm aware of where the reinforcements glitch gets you two units instead of one.

[pandakraut]

Antietam: Setup prior to Antietam. I end up with three full corps with plenty of artillery. With enough officer swapping all but a few units start at one star.

 

 

I use a forward defense to wipe out the first set of Union troops before reinforcements arrive. Then I setup a pocket and slowly envelop the second set of reinforcements. While there are some complications with removing the Union artillery, the pocket holds and the second group is wiped out as well.

At Burnside's bridge things go poorly but the initial troops are still wiped out. Then I retreat back to a line along the sunken road and allow the remaining Union army to walk into a trap.

Losses: 8473(1695 returned from medicine) Kills: 58371

 

 

Campaign stats through Antietam:

Losses: 79507 Minus allied losses: 48476 Minus medicine: 42915
Kills: 351409

Kill ratio with all casualties: 4.42
Kill ratio with allies and medicine removed: 8.19

Edited January 5, 2019 by pandakraut

[Jpburns]

Loving the video series.  Even after as many hours as I’ve played, still picking up tips watching your videos.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Jpburns

[pandakraut]

Corinth: A short camp video for setup. Now that a good chunk of my army is 2* I stop using as many veterans on the infantry. I also prepare to fight the battle using mostly 3rd corps units in preparation for Fredericksburg.

 

Overall this goes pretty well despite my frustration at the end at it not going perfectly. I take 500 or so more casualties than I should, but my kill rate is about as good as it gets without taking considerably more losses. 

Battle plan is to start taking out the enemy artillery while ambushing the reinforcements. Then I hit the AI from 3 sides to take the point once the artillery is dead.

Losses: 2290(458 returned from medicine) Kills: 12877

 

Prairie Grove: Other than giving up the point until the end of the timer I couldn't find any real tricks for this battle. The timer is short, the Union vision is nearly perfect, and your sight lines are not great. While you can sometimes sneak units around the outside of the map midway through the battle, I wasn't having much luck with the timing and gave up on trying. Instead I split my units up between the two large clumps of trees and try to bait charges to weaken the Union until I push to take the point. The AI is stubborn with a few units and cleverly retreats an artillery unit out of my sight by accident so I'm unable to get as many kills as I'd have liked, but casualties are kept fairly low.

Looking back, several control mistakes in the last few minutes cost me a few dozen casualties on expensive units.

Losses: 1393(279 returned from medicine) Kills: 9393

 

 

Edited January 30, 2019 by pandakraut

[pandakraut]

Fredericksburg: Another long camp video as I go up to AO 10 to be able to deploy as many units immediately as possible.

 

Instead of giving up Prospect Hill, I hold it to kill as much as the Union army as possible. I also split my units across 5 corps to speed up the arrival of my reinforcements. The battle goes relatively well despite a loss of focus in the later third due to some frustrating line of sight issues and uncommonly effective AI cavalry usage.

Losses: 9402(1884 returned from medicine) Kills: 78063

 

[pandakraut]

Everettsville: Brief camp where I resort to the tried and true strategy of making a giant battering ram of musket units. I bleed the Unions mobile units and then smash through the middle of their line towards the end of the battle. Overall an average result for a very tough map to limit casualties on. 

Losses: 4105(821 returned from medicine) Kills: 10922

 

 

[pandakraut]

Stones River: Shorter camp with discussion of reinforcement order for the battle and corresponding army configuration, utilization of 3* artillery, and some explanation of the new tool tips in version 1.6 of the mod.

 

 

Day 1 victory with a complete wipe and plenty of time to spare. Used a risky start to have my artillery in place immediately and rushed all my infantry up to cut off the southern Union troops and take advantage of the phase changes. Might have been able to take a few less casualties by letting the artillery work more, but pretty average losses overall.

Losses: 8611(1722 returned from medicine) Kills: 50573

 

 

[pandakraut]

Rio Hill: Brief camp with discussion on training vs politics, shotguns vs cook & brother, scaling at Rio Hill, and the impact of the AI weapons value on the battle.

 

 

I play this battle out of order to avoid the chance that a reinforcement roll significantly upgrades the AI's weapons. I use a pair of cavalry units and a unit of snipers to clear out the enemy artillery quickly while my main force serves as a distraction on the wooded island. The artillery cleanup goes nearly perfectly, but I get overconfident and recross the river to early and take nearly a thousand extra casualties. Still get the full clear and break even with recruits though.

Losses: 2911 (582 returned from medicine): Kills: 10185

 

 

1st Franklin:  Very straightforward battle. Flank through the gap in the line push the enemy out of the fort and get units out of vision and let artillery and snipers clean up. I misjudge when the cavalry arrives and take more casualties than I should while waiting and miss a supply wagon, but otherwise a fairly clean win.

Losses: 1670 (334 returned from medicine): Kills: 11955

 

Edited January 17, 2019 by pandakraut