How to properly manage armory please

[Uniquecalin]

Hello all !!

First of all, I'm not english so I apologize for your eyes

I discovered the Amercian Civil War many years ago by comic books (Les Tuniques Bleues). And recently I wondered if any good game was made about it. And here I am !

I looked up for LP in youtube because I dont like to jump into something new without knowledges. Then I started my CSA easy campaign (I read a guide on steam who say dont be to proud ^^).

I just win Malvern Hill so I'm just before Bull Run 2 (and his 2 little missions of preparation), but I'm struggling to find weapon for my men. Until then my men are equipped with the following weapons :

_ 8.000 Lorentz

_ 6.000 Enfield P1853

_ 30.000 Springfield 1842

_ 6.000 Farmer

And I posted a pic of my armory to complete.

My 3th corps is empty !!! I dont have weapon to give. So I have 28k people who are waiting

Is this normal ? Because I have been trying to buy weapon for a fews battles but it's so expensive !!

Bull Run 2 say I can use 4 différents corps (and the first one can have 25 brigade when I actually have 20 max because military org is to low. I hope I can full it with 2 small battles.

 

 

 

[pandakraut]

2 Corps should be enough for 2nd Bull Run. 25 units in the first corps will help though. It is fairly common that you will have far more recruits than you can arm at this point in the campaign.

Spending your reputation on weapons can help with extra weapons. Also, killing as many enemy men as possible will increase the number of weapons you will recover.

[Uniquecalin]

Damn I needed more than 2 points to unlock the 5 units in each division so I put 1 point in army orga and 1 point in Politics to get 10/10.

It is fairly common that you will have far more recruits than you can arm at this point in the campaign.

Oh ok (^_^) !! I didnt do everything wrong :3

Yeah I spend regulary reputation on weapons (arty and guns). Killing ennemy is another story because I have losses and even with a good ratio it cost me.

But I was lucky because during the second optionnal mission, CSA corps who attack Manassas Union Supply was not mine ^^ so I played until the Union got nothing and I come back with all the guns lost by the CSA AND the union supply stolen (But it's not fair for thoses poor CSA guyz who fight well today). 

So after that it was shopping time (yyyyeah xD) and I buy soooooooo many guns it feel good. Enfield P1853 perform great btw. But I prefer Lorentz still.

But here new question : I start my 3th CORPS (hi TENNESSEE ^^) but now gun and man are not the problem. It's officer 😮 I only have simple captain ... Do I need to buy them too with rep ? (after every great battle I buy all the Colonnel and BG to get 1 star unit at creation)

[pandakraut]

One way to get extra officers is to have every colonel and above that is available assigned to a unit. Then when you create a corps or a division a new officer of the appropriate rank will be available to purchase. 

Spending rep on officers is almost always not worth it.

Your third corps in that battle won't have to do all that much, so I'd just use whatever officers are available to start ranking them up.

[Uniquecalin]

Thank you for the speed of your responses PandaKraut !

I have another question. I dont want to "spam" the forum so I will keep asking here if it's OK.

The management of the army is becoming great and I love it. But just before FredericksBurg I kinda over react when I saw that 3 corps where necessary and the ennemy was 100k strong. So I quickly build UP a fourth corps full of 1k unit and some arty/cav to help. My army was renforce by 18k men for a total of 102.5k.

Marye's Heights was a bloody battle (5k600 kill for only one unit xD new reccord). The middle I face a very shy Union Army. But no Yankee show up at Prospect Hill (cf pic timer 0.03). I scout all over the map I sow nobody. The battle Stats show me I only face 55k ennemy. Where the hell did the other 45k go ??? 😮

Edited April 7, 2020 by Uniquecalin

[pandakraut]

That's rather odd, you should be facing 2 full corps at Prospect Hill. Rare bug I guess.

[Uniquecalin]

It happened again at stones river ! 😮

Maybe it's because I play on easy difficulty ? Or because I have only 1 point in recon ?

[pandakraut]

2 hours ago, Uniquecalin said:

Maybe it's because I play on easy difficulty ? Or because I have only 1 point in recon ?

Are you getting your pre-battle numbers from the Army Intelligence army size? Or from the pre-battle corps deploy screen? The pre-battle numbers should be accurate, though you need 2 points in recon to see them. The intelligence numbers affect the numbers behind the scenes but do not display how many men you will face in a given battle.

[Uniquecalin]

From the Army Intelligence I guess because as you say I only see ??? during pre-battle corps deploy screen.

What do you mean by

"The intelligence numbers affect the numbers behind the scenes but do not display how many men you will face in a given battle. "

What is the "behind the scenes" you mean ?

[pandakraut]

There is dynamic scaling applied to the AI units in every battle. One part of this algorithm is the AI Army size, which helps represent how well the player has done in prior battles. Kill more and the number goes down, kill less and it goes up. This can allow the AI to snowball if the player is doing poorly and eventually overwhelm the player. Note there are minimum sizes as the campaign progresses, so you'll never see the number go to 0 no matter how well you do for example.

This is only one of many factors at play in determining the size of AI units, but my recommendation at this point is not to worry about it. Since you're playing on easy, scaling only has a minor impact. Scaling really only becomes a concern on Major General and Legendary.

Edited April 10, 2020 by pandakraut

[inktomi19d]

Regarding your first post: it can be easier to manage your armory if you don't restore your units to full manpower after most battles. The Confederacy in particular has trouble equipping all their units, so it makes sense to give your new units whatever the cheapest option is, and then equipping your veterans mostly with captured enemy guns. As confederacy, I basically won't buy anything other than farmers for a unit with 0 stars, 1842s or Mississippis for 1 stars, captured enemy guns for 2 stars, and the best I can afford for 3 stars. 

I find units as small as 800 to be sufficient for beginning most battles (that's big enough that they probably won't take so many losses that they just shatter), and if I started a unit off big, then its usually very experienced by the time its down to 800. Keeping your brigades at the largest size slows down their advancement so you actually end up with a weaker army in the late game. Smallish brigades can often hold fortified positions as well or better than big bridges, and suffer fewer casualties doing so, and you won't run out of guns trying to equip them.

The other trick about armory management is that certain weapons are ultra-rare (revolver carbines, Henry rifles, Lemat pistols, etc.) so you'll rarely ever be able to buy enough at one time to  outfit a unit. However, the armory restocks after Grand Battles, so when you see 37 Henry Rifles sitting there early on, you can buy them, and then by another 50 when the armory restocks, and so on until you have enough to actually use. So sometimes its good to pre-purchase rare or expensive guns that you know you'll want later. 

 

[pandakraut]

While I also like the smaller unit sizes I prefer not to go under 1k for starting a battle. There are ways to keep larger units at very high experience levels, but that's really getting out of scope of a first campaign. 

[Uniquecalin]

Thank Sir Panda for these explanations !

@inktomi19d

it can be easier to manage your armory if you don't restore your units to full manpower after most battles.

I made this mistake at the start of my campaign. I always restored my first corps with vet only and that's explains why at a certain point I didnt get enough money to well equip them. But the good side of this is now I know how to restore smartly my units (balance between vet for xp/star and rookie to save $$$) and lot of them are 2 or 3 star.

But I'm afraid I'm that kind of person who loves round numbers if you get me.

The Confederacy in particular has trouble equipping all their units, so it makes sense to give your new units whatever the cheapest option is, and then equipping your veterans mostly with captured enemy guns.

I agree with that ^^ I have a huge collection of springfield 1842 which equips all my new units. Then I have Lorentz (love that rifle) for my best specialized infantry units in close combat (cf pic 1) and Palmetto 1842 for less experience unit. But for my best units specialized in shooting I have Harpers Ferry M1855. I stole a lot of them. But I notice that now I can buy them (0 available before stones river). And Enfield P1853 when I run out of HF ^^" I dont find Springfield 1855 better than Enfield so I keep them because they are obvisouly better than the 1842 version for shotting.

About the unit size, I always start at 1k men/unit. At the battle of FredericksBurg It was very usefull and they almost all lvl up ^^ (cf pic 2, soz bad quality). But honnestly now it's more because I have a probalm finding good officers for large unit. I don't go over 2k max.

I get it for the "restored" armory but at the start of my campaign I didnt know which gun will be usefull etc. And now it deserve me for gun/arty/officers etc but I learn this for the next time ^^ !! Now I'm aiming for CS richmond to replace HP (and give HP to Enfield, enfield to springfield etc ^^).

But finding general officer is a huge problem for me. And I visit all the wounded officers every day (not joking xD).

 

Oh and I read the "Artillerist's guide" made by @The Soldier (thx man !) and I managed to reduce my number of cannons of the first corp to 12/12/14/15 from 15/20/20/20. Almost done it ^^ !

Is there a "perfect" size for skirm and cav too ? I start to use skirm a lot (love the hunter ^^), I neglected them for a long time to concentrate at the infantry at the beginning. And I kinda love them. I always use 250 size unit. I am still very bad at managing the shock cav (required to much attention I find). And I still didnt try the shooty shotty cav. Later maybe ^^