That was satisfying!

[SlickWilhelm]

It took me about three months, but I finally finished my first game of FoF. I was playingthe standard campaign as the Union, and managed to get the CSA to surrender in late Nov. 1865. I was playing against an AI set on Sergeant level, and even that lowly setting gave me a great deal of trouble! [;)]

My initial strategy was to fight in the east. But my AI opponent decided to build a massive Army of Virgina, so I chickened out and took the fight to the west. The Army of Northern Virgina and the Army of the Potomac never did come to direct blows, being content to eye each other across the Potomac river for four long years.

In the west, small battles were the order of the day, with the war being one of maneuver. Tennessee was the main battleground throughout the war, with Chattanooga and Knoxville exchanging hands multiple times.

I decided to enforce a blockade of the South, but only near the end did I realize that I had not blockaded every possible port, so supplies from Europe kept getting through. Only when I completed the blockade by bottling up Charleston and Galveston did I finally see messages like "Britain sent 0 money to the CSA". Lesson learned!

The ultimate fate of the Confederacy was in doubt until about late 1864, when I finally got the upper hand and blazed my way through Georgia. Sherman would've been proud of my boys. The other half of my two-pronged assault of the South took place along the Mississippi. That was a long, hard slog.

Some of the lessons I took away from this game were:

- Bombardment sieges work very well as long as you have a lot of artillery.
- You can never have too many mints or camps.
- When playing against the AI, buy as many upgrades for your brigades as possible.
- Don't forget to properly garrison recently captured cities!

To Ericbabe, Gil R and everyone else at Western Civilization Software goes my heartfelt thanks and congratulations on creating what I feel is one of the best computer wargames I've ever played. I rank FoF right up there with Gary Grigsby's "Pacific War" and "Uncommon Valor". [&o]

Now, on to learning how to play detailed battles for my second game of FoF.

[Gil R.]

Great to read. So this time are you playing as the Confederates?

[SlickWilhelm]

Nope, next game I'm adding in the Governors and using detailed combat.

Two challenge at a time, Gil! [:D]

[Randomizer]

Nice!  Sounds like fun.
 
It's easy to forget blockading Galveston way down there at the bottom left corner of the map, you're not the first to miss it and are unlikely to be the last.  Dumb place to put a port...
 
Detailed battles are a big attraction for some, the AI is aggressive and can sometimes provide unpleasent surprises and the battles themselves have a feel similar to the Sierra classic wargame Civil War General's 2 in my opinion.  I impose some house rules on myself during detailed combat that prevents some gamey exploits from within the system.  These include simulating divisional integrity by ensuring that brigades from different divisions are not intemingled and that all divisions within a corps are adjacent and contiguous with each other.  Beware that in detailed combat you cannot take back any move so if it's done wrong, it can really hurt.
 
Enjoy dealing with your Governors as well, some of them are truly horrible people and can sabotage your war efforts.
 
Good Luck

[Larry Reese]

Hmmmm, Galveston was a major port for the Confederacy (and of course Texas in particular).  I think the game reflects that admirably (I don't think the programmers put it there on a whim I guess is what I'm saying).
 
Try head to head against another human Slick.  That's the ticket for me.  No detailed battle, but that was not really what drew me to the game anyway.
 
LR

[moose1999]

Oh, you can really look forward to the detailed battles.
It's in the mix between detailed battles and grand strategy that this game really shines.
The house rules Randomizer suggests are good additions - I myself also use a rule limiting the amount of enemy brigades I am allowed to surround and capture each battle.

Be careful with your impression that you can never have too many camps...!
Each camp in a province increases the chance of lowering the population during the spring, so if you put ten camps in New York you risk draining the manpower there.
I suggest that you play with every thing on - governors, generals with attributes, brigade attributes, weapons and so on.
It's simply the most rewarding way to play the game.

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Slick Wilhelm

Nope, next game I'm adding in the Governors and using detailed combat.

Two challenge at a time, Gil! [:D]

Actually that is THREE challenges [;)]

1. Gov's
2. Detailed combat
3. Detailed combat as the Northern Agressors
[:D]

[SlickWilhelm]

LOL Terje!

Actually, I wimped out and decided to only handle the governors for my next game. I *might* add detailed combat later. It just doesn't seem to be a "must have" for me right now. I'm having a ball even by using instant combat. Oh, and I bumped up the difficulty from Sergeant to 2nd Lt. 

[GShock]

The game is hard enough at advanced settings, I suggest you to start learning that, eventually bypassing the detailed combat but the things in the advanced game are the ones you must master before going up the levels. My 5c.

[SlickWilhelm]

I'm already playing the advanced game. I had just disabled the governors during my first game. They were too annoying to deal with while I learned the mechanics of the game. [:'(]