Restoring the Union - Burns (USA) vs. Pelette (CSA)

[Gilmer]

Great AAR. You're always giving me ideas to use in my games.

[Jim D Burns]

Turn 14 Late October

McClellan is appointed commander in chief and promoted to 3 stars. I create the Army of the Potomac with him and he takes over command from McDowell in the region of Fairfax VA. McDowell and a few pieces of artillery along with a small infantry escort get orders to rail to Pittsburgh where he’ll organize the army I will use to drive the CSA out of WV.

Heintzelman’s strong division (420 CV) is ordered to Washington so it can be naval transported to Williamsburg next turn to join the Army of the James.

At Williamsburg Longstreet’s force of 13,000 attacked Butler’s force of 7,000 and was decisively beaten suffering over 3 times the number of casualties that Butler’s troops suffered. This battle occurred before the 6 new militia regiments were landed, so I think Williamsburg is mine. Once Heintzelman arrives my CV will be near 1000 and he’ll need an army to dig me out.

The CSA get’s is prize though, even though the two cavalry regiments arrived in time for the battle at Wheeling, Morell’s 10,000 men simply could not stop Jackson’s 16,000, though they did cause Jackson to suffer slightly higher casualties. The turn begins will all my forces still in the region and the Union still has 74% military control. I order the two militia garrison regiments outside to take up positions in the trenches to act as rear guard long enough for Morell’s troops to rail out of the area. Morell goes to Pittsburgh and one damaged cavalry heads west to Columbus to recover there.

What a difference command penalties make. Butler outnumbered almost 2-1 with no command penalty easily fends off Longstreet, but Morell with a 20% command penalty only outnumbered 3-2 gets easily pushed out. Not to worry though, with McDowell arriving in Pittsburgh this turn, I’ll be able to mount a counter-attack rather quickly with a 0% command penalty army.

In KY I pretty much sit on my lines. Nelson’s division at Lexington now sports a CV of 463, 412 after command penalties, so I think he’ll be able to easily hold the town now. Woods forms my first cavalry division at New Albany and is ordered to repair the rail there. I begin to reinforce the troops at Madisonville and send Asboth’s division to take command. I’m building two flatboats at Evansville which will eventually be used to build a level 2 depot at Madisonville. I send my River fleet to blockade the river where the rail crosses over north from Bowling Green.

Level 2 depots can’t be razed and I’d like to use Madisonville as my springboard for my campaign to take Kentucky so I need it to be a reliable supply source. By taking Bowling Green I can force him to abandon northeast Kentucky, and taking Dover and Fort Henry will force him to abandon Paducah. While taking the victory city of Louisville was a short term win for my opponent, his total neglect of Madisonville was a strategic mistake. It will allow me to take Kentucky simply by cutting the state in two. It also allows me to directly threaten Nashville in just a few moves.

No changes at Cairo or further west, though some CSA rangers did move into the region around Fort Larned and a garrison unit spawned. I leave my rangers on defense and order the garrison on full assault. There is a large CSA cavalry force one region to the south, so I didn’t want to risk getting my rangers damaged in case the CSA cavalry attacks.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

Turn 15 Early November

General Scott resigns event fires and he is removed from the game.

I print paper money via the ledger event.

At Wheeling my rear guard action with the two garrison militia units failed to work as intended and Morell is forced to retreat to Steubenville OH even though he was not engaged in the fighting. I give him orders to rail to Pittsburgh.

McDowell arrives at Pittsburgh and I begin adding units to his army. McCall’s 5th division is put inside the city with passive posture to recover hits from the recent fighting. Mansfield will arrive in Pittsburgh next turn, so I won’t contemplate an offensive move until after all my troops are topped off and ready. Then I should be strong enough to start pushing the CSA out of WV.

In KY Polk is on the offensive, he moved one region east across the Kentucky River. I can’t imagine Polk has any hope of beating me at Lexington, as it’s a 9 day move in snow/harsh weather so his cohesion will probably be crashed before the battle even begins. I start to rail reinforcements into Cincinnati OH.

No changes further west. At Fort Larned something strange happened. My garrison attack the CSA rangers and was defeated as expected, but my ranger units were affected by the outcome and forced to retreat and took some losses as a result. To add insult to injury the fort changes hands as well. Live and learn, I order the rangers to Fort Wallace.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

Turn 16 Late November

The YMCA event fires and I gain 5 NM, 20 conscripts and medical unit fixed in Washington DC. I have it join the garrison force inside the city.

The first Trent Affair event fires and I gain 1 NM. Currently foreign entry sits at 18 and I have yet to declare a full blockade. I don’t think my opponent has declared an embargo either. My guess is the outcome of the Trent Affair chain of events will determine if we play our ledger events or not.

At Williamsburg Heintzelman has arrived and joined the Army of the James and the supply depot has finished building, thus securing firmly my grip on the peninsula. Currently the displayed CV is 774 for the army, but after cohesion and losses are fully recovered the stack should be close to 900 CV. There are plenty of command points still available to add another two divisions, which I will be doing as soon as I can.

Near Fredericktown I’ve moved my forces up behind the Potomac River line and begun digging in. I’m beginning to formulate an idea about how to take down Harper’s Ferry, thus permanently cutting the rail link to WV. I still lack decent command abilities, but I may be able to set it up so I can overwhelm the town with sheer force of numbers since I outnumber him in the area by about 1000 CV now.

At least from what I can see I do, he has roughly 1500 CV to my roughly 2500 CV. I know Longstreet is somewhere in the FOW with almost another 1000 CV, but my guess is Butler has him locked down near Richmond permanently, so I need to look for offensive possibilities in the east while he’s running around WV with the bulk of his forces.

On the WV front, McDowell’s large army is now formed and ready at Pittsburgh boasting a CV of over 1300, more than large enough to eventually take back the state of WV. McDowell will remain on defense for the winter and Hooker’s strong division is being moved to Alleghany PA to defend against cavalry raids or react to CSA moves.

With almost a single minded focus on following a pre-made plan no matter what the odds faced, my opponent made a dash at Pittsburgh with Johnston’s Army of the Shenandoah this turn. He was extremely lucky he failed to get into Pittsburgh, as he is heavily outnumbered now. He was also extremely lucky on the weather rolls. As this turns screenshot shows he has clear weather behind him, so he would be able to flee from my army had I decided to sortie out and attack him.

Had the weather been anything but clear around Johnston, I would have ordered McDowell to rail into the region and attack. But with clear weather he would be able to easily avoid me and even if I did hurt him he would be able to make it to a supply source. My opponent dodged a real bullet here, bad weather could have seen Johnston destroyed if I jumped him and kept hammering him turn after turn preventing him from getting to a supply source.

No one moved in KY and the lines remain stagnant. Unfortunately my plan to blockade supplies going north from Bowling Green is not going to work. As the screenshot shows, I don’t have enough combat elements to blockade the river region, so I order my fleet to Madisonville for the winter.

With my intended focus for the upcoming spring campaign to be to cut Kentucky in half, I give Grant orders to rail to Madisonville to take command there. Griffin’s division remains behind to defend Charleston MO.

In NM the units that unlocked at Fort Craig made it to Santa Fe and join Carson’s division. I order the supply wagon to be used to create a depot at Santa Fe. For some reason the units at Mora that I ordered to move to Vegas did not move and I ended up in an overstack situation (per our house rule in post #1 above) at Mora. I order moves to correct the overstacking and report it to my opponent via email.

The 5th US infantry regiment arrives in the Eastern AZ off-map box and I capture Tucson. AZ is now in Union hands.

In the Southeastern California off-map box Carleton and his forces are marching towards the Southern California off-map box.

Jim

[Q-Ball]

Your opponent doesn't seem too concerned about his supply lines. That should change when the weather turns bad.

While it stinks losing Wheeling, I still think you are much better off with Jackson in West Va than anywhere else. You just need to make sure he can't make use of the B&O line from Harpers Ferry. As long as you prevent that, you should be able to keep the Rebs isolated in W Va.

That is a sound strategy in KY, IMO......I'd be curious what is at Ft. Donelson. If you can take that, he'll be cut-off all the way down to Nashville, and beyond.

[Jim D Burns]

With the recent capture of two victory locations in WV he has flipped the dynamic in my favor and left himself in a difficult situation. I no longer need three stacks to defend three locations. Instead I have one powerful combined stack now and he is forced to defend two locations, neither of which is strong enough to stop my army. So either he brings in even more stuff to WV to make both his stacks impervious to my powerful army or he is going to get hammered when the weather changes. And with the precarious supply lines he has, he really can’t afford to put further strain on it by upping the supply requirements in state.

My opponent should have been happy with taking one objective that he could have defended with a single army stack. Now I can take Morgantown first and trap his forces in Wheeling, thus possibly destroying them in detail when I go after them.

This is the main reason why as the south I very rarely attack anything that expands my defensive perimeter. You actually weaken yourself in the long run by doing what he has done in KY and WV. He has so many new places to defend now, he will never be able to take on my Corps sized attacks in the spring. And if I time it right he may end up losing a lot of troops if I manage to cut them off from supply lines.

I haven't seen what he has at Donelson yet, so I don't know what his there.

Jim

[veji1]

Well I suppose the key answer is whether he stays there and defends, (which I agree would be a mistake) or tries to bring back all those troops in Virginia. He seems to have control of the Rail line to Harpers per your last screenshot. You are both planning for the spring. If he gets you to concentrate a big stack at Pittsburgh while preparing a transfer back to Virginia, you might be temporarily unhinged. I would prepare a transfer of Jackson and Johnson and most of the troops back to Harpers to try and surprise you from there come the spring, force you to use in Maryland forces that you had planned to use for your coastal campaign.

[Jim D Burns]

The big stack I have concentrated at Pittsburg is composed of the same units I already had defending WV in the first place. Hooker was brought in to the area from outside along with Hurlbut, but Hooker is now a free roaming unit and not needed on defense any longer. So he really hasn’t caused me to adjust my force dispositions much (perhaps one division added permanently to the defense), and if he leaves WV voluntarily then all he has gained for his troubles are a few VP’s he gets for the time he occupies the two locations.

For that he gave up the peninsula and has given me a position I can use to directly threaten Richmond before the end of 1861. So I just can’t see him wanting to voluntarily leave, he has to pull something out of his hat to make this all worthwhile for him I’d think, just for his own morale if nothing else.

My early builds for 1862 will be another callup of militia using 750 conscripts. I plan to send at least 2/3rds of the new militia builds to the east, so even if he does pull everything out of WV, he simply won’t have the weight to push me around much. I should probably have 4 full corps and the Army of the Potomac in the east by spring, that’s a lot of combat power and its risky to throw yourself at a big stack with so much enemy power around that can counter-attack you.

It’s risky to attack prepared positions in this game, because the loss of cohesion your units suffer leave you very vulnerable to an immediate counter-attack. You need a lot of extra unengaged forces around to back your assaulting forces up before you should risk attacking something as large as a well dug in Corp.

Jim

[veji1]

True. this is a gripe I had with AACW1 as well, that the entrenched defenders + the map and province size makes any form of war of manoeuver in the east impossible and turns the east in 61/63 into what it was in 64+. I agree that by letting you establish yourself on the peninsula he has made a deadly mistake.

[Michael T]

I am a total newb to this game and the AGEOD system. But I already get a sense that the South can probably afford to be quite aggressive in 1861 and early 1862 and might really rattle the cage of the North if they can get a roll on. I could be wrong but just a sense of the strength of the Armies I am getting from my game with Q-Ball. I am very curious to see how how I go with the CSA when my game with Marquo begins.

[Jim D Burns]

Yeah the game really short changes the Union’s historical advantages over the South. I’m beginning to feel that my strategy about only building militia through 1862 and then switching to regular units may be too optimistic. I may need to build primarily militia for most of the war to get far enough ahead of a human player to give me the strength advantage I’ll need to make serious headway in my offensive moves.

Its one thing to play the AI and do well with a 3-2 advantage, against a human 3-2 probably will see more failure than successes. So I may end up building almost nothing but militia for most of this game. That said, it is near the end of 1861 in game and the South now shows a combat ratio of 71% (change is mostly due to all the historical elite brigades that have appeared recently). So who knows, by the end of 1862 I might manage to do better than 3-2 we shall see.

Of course I have no idea if naval units are part of the combat power ratio tally, if so our land armies are probably closer to ratio of 90% - 95% or so if you were to compare just those.

Jim

[Q-Ball]

From the calculation Michael and I did, Naval units factor into that relative fighting strength number. The other factor is that the South has about 2000 AV that is fixed in forts; this helps the South. The Union has almost the same amount fixed in places like Boston, New York, Sacramento, Detroit, etc, where it's not going to help at all. I think the real ratio is probably worse than you think.

The South has the exact same financing capability as the Union; that alone is absurd. IRL, it wasn't even close. And the fact that you have to build and train 95% militia, just to get within 60% of the actual Union strength, doesnt' make sense. And you are still 200,000 short.

I do not advocate pulling levers to make the Union as historically strong; I like that the in-game Rebs are stronger than RL, and if we made it a 2-1 across the board, Richmond would fall in most games in 1863, and that would be kinda boring.

But the Union, IMO, needs an economic advantage. Right now, that advantage is VERY limited, and skewed in ways that don't make sense, like the South actually has more recruits than the Union.

I would like to see a mod that maybe does a version of the following:

1. Union is given recruiting barracks in more cities, to boost regular recruit production slightly above south. I would also grant Union 300-400 recruits in 1861 right off the bat, as a surge of volunteers
2. Union income from all Treasury events DOUBLED (or maybe just bonds/taxes?)
3. Confederate take from Printing Money is reduced to 150; however, the option is available to the Confederacy once a month. Why this change? The game does not at all model the fact that the primary method of war finance for the South was printing money. The South could get few international loans, and after the first few bond issues was not able to raise significant sums this way. Tax collection was poory administered, and did not yield much. The result was an inflationary debt spiral that was ultimately a disaster. I think some tweaks could model that. The result of course is that nearly every CSA player would be forced to choose whether to print.

I'm not married to any of these changes, but this is my initial take

[Michael T]

Can someone tell me what the recruitment capacities were like in AACW? Isn't CW2 based on that game? I would have thought the capacities for both North and South would be similar to the original game or is the new game totally different in this area?

I must admit I am surprised that this issue is not a hot topic on the AGEOD forums. Players who appear to be veterans in this game or were testers don't seem to have a problem with the current setup.

Is it perhaps a game balance thing? I just don't know enough about it to make any real informed opinion but on the face of it it seems out of whack.

Should perhaps we start a discussion eleswhere on this topic to get some traction or at least an explanation?

[Gilmer]

I was a beta tester but I joined later and I honestly don't know enough about the American Civil War to make judgments like that, so I never did. I focused on any bugs or glitches and left it at that. Like I said I was very late and that was my instructions as well, just to try and see if any bugs cropped up.

[Jim D Burns]

Turn 17 Early December

All I can say is ouch this turn. Albert S. Johnston’s Army of the Tennessee arrives on the peninsula and combined with Longstreet’s forces sports a CV of 2013. Butler outnumbered by 2-1 has no chance to stop him I’m sure, even behind level 3 forts won’t help. I was tempted to flee, but I simply couldn’t bring myself not to fight.

Now I’ll have to bring in another division sooner than I anticipated simply to prevent the fall of Fort Monroe. I’m sure Butler will be pretty battered by the time he gets pushed back and the fort won’t be able to hold against such a large army without at least a full fresh division inside it.

This entire situation on the peninsula is unbelievably dangerous. If I fail to hold Fort Monroe, the total loss of Butler and his army will be a crippling blow I can’t possibly recover from. It would basically end any chance I have of competing in this game as the south is simply too strong to be able to overcome the loss of three Union divisions this early before the south can over-run me.

I am also now in complete agreement with those stating the game is unbalanced. Against the AI I hadn’t seen the full power of the south, but this turn I look across the map at all the powerful southern forces I can see and now realized a successful spring offensive (even if I don’t lose Butler’s army) will be impossible vs. a human opponent.

In WV the CSA has left or is leaving the state. It appears his supplies must be running low because he didn’t even leave behind a garrison force at Wheeling. I detach Mansfield’s division and he begins a winter march to Washington PA. He will arrive in 2 turns and after repairing the rail will continue on to ultimately retake Wheeling.

From what I can see it appears Jackson’s forces at Wheeling moved southwest to Parkersburg and Johnston’s force moved south towards the Shenandoah Valley.

From KY westward the lines remain static, though my river fleet did get hammered while leaving the area around Bowling Green and suffered 45 hits while only returning 4 hits.

Production this turn consisted of 10 river ironclads. Combined with the 2 river ironclads that appear in 1862, this will give me two 6 ship fleets to project Union power along the river systems.

Jim

[veji1]

He didn't attack straight away or are you playing with big delays ?

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: veji1

He didn't attack straight away or are you playing with big delays ?

We are playing with long delay and it's winter, so I assume he entered the region near the turn end and no battle was fought.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

Turn 18 Late December

The Trent Affair Union Apologizes event occurs this turn and it says I lost 2 NM and foreign entry gained +5. Foreign Entry is now at 16, which makes no sense as it was at 18 a few turns ago. The CSA has 109 morale and 799 VP to my 90 morale and 520 VP, so he should have gained some foreign entry over the turns that have passed since the first event fired. I suspect the event deducted 5 from foreign entry and the event mouse-over text is wrong with the +5 to entry displayed. Also given the wording of the event itself, it makes more sense that the entry would be decreased not increased.

We have had a very strange battle result on the peninsula. The Army of the Tennessee attacked and the event list text states Butler failed to retreat on round 1 day 1 so it appears Butler (he was set blue/orange) was trying to flee. We then fought 1 round of battle which saw just 4 Union elements and 7 CSA elements committed to the fighting. The Union lost about 2000 men and horses and the CSA lost about 3700 men and horses and it states the battle was a Union defeat.

We now both remain in the region with our armies barely damaged and the CSA gained no military control at all even though they are far larger than the Union and supposedly won the battle. There are no descriptive text messages to tell us what happened and why the battle was so minor when such large forces are present from both sides. We also cannot figure out why Butler remained in the region (he was behind his forts and not moving at turn start) when the few lines of descriptive text there are in the event lists tell us he was trying to retreat.

Given that the battle results were a defeat for the Union, I would have thought either Butler would be in passive posture and moving away at turn start or that additional battles would have been launched during the next 14 days of turn resolution by the CSA. This is the weirdest battle result I have seen and I am at a loss to explain what the heck happened here.

In the East the 1000 CV Army of the Shenandoah has almost reached Harper’s Ferry and Beauregard’s Army of the Potomac at Manassas now sports a CV of 1500, so we now have strength parity in the area. Hooker’s division is on route to DC with his division, so I will have about a 300 CV superiority in the area when he arrives. Hunter’s division (about 500 CV) who had been defending DC is aboard transports with orders to head to Fort Monroe.

In KY Polk has returned to Louisville. I order a cavalry regiment south to repair the rail line he cut.

Across the map the 6 lb. artillery units I built recently have started to come on line and are sent out to units that need some artillery. With the completion of these guns, I have achieved all my production goals for 1861 that I spelled out in one of my first posts except for the militia goal. I never had a chance to build out all the militia pools for every state, the goal was simply too ambitious given a lack of enough conscripts.

Out west General Canby appears at San Francisco and is ordered to Santa Fe NM to join Carson’s command.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

We have changed our settings to medium delays as of this turn due to some of the oddities we have seen during our turns.

Turn 19 Early January

The Arizona Territory event fires, it’s a little odd that the CSA gets the national morale even though I control both of the off-map boxes that make up the state.

The Coffee Mills guns event fires this turn and I place the Gatling gun with the fixed garrison inside Washington.

I issue war bonds and raise taxes this turn. Those two events, my per-turn income and the 455 money I currently have saved will hopefully get me close enough to $1,500 money so I can play another volunteer callup next turn for $2.00 per conscript since it has become available again this turn.

Partial mobilization has also become available, but I’ll hold off playing that for a while due to the 4 NM I will lose if I play it. I just can’t see 200 conscripts as being worth 4 NM. If my opponent plays a partial mobilization then I’ll reconsider playing it.

I play 8 draft cards and 6 requisition cards this turn. I play 4 land sailor cards and 2 strip guns cards near Cincinnati. I play all available partisan cards and 2 of the 4 Unionist cards, one in Yankton SD to act as capital guard and one in Pembina ND. I will be using Unionists to garrison the forts in North and South Dakota to fight the Indians later. So as I move the Unionists out of Pembina ND I’ll place new ones there in future turns until all the northern forts are garrisoned.

A new batch of Generals appeared this turn and many are ordered west to bring some much needed leadership. The rest shall remain in Washington until needed.

We have another bizarre battle result on the peninsula this turn. My opponent tells me he was moving out of the region to get to a supply source and a battle was triggered. The Union won the fight (+1 NM), but Butler retreated anyway, now no one remains in the region at Williamsburg… I order Butler to march back to Williamsburg and I also order Hunter’s division which just arrived at Fort Monroe back aboard ships with orders to distant unload at Williamsburg.

Given Butler’s apparent cowardice in the face of victory, I order all units into the hold at all costs posture. With such a large CSA force nearby this may be a huge mistake, but I can’t have Butler retreating even if he wins a fight. I just hope my troops manage to get back to the region before the CSA can re-appear, otherwise I may be forced into attack posture.

Northwestern PA has been hit really hard with blizzards over the past few turns causing Hooker all kinds of trouble trying to rail to Washington as snow blocking the passes has caused him to either detour or stop his moves all together. Hopefully he can finish the move this turn.

Lines remain static west of PA with some minor shuffling of units via rail. In the far west General Canby has his orders changed and instead of going to NM I send him to CO to take command of the mounted volunteers unit at Fort Lyon.

Jim

[Ace1_slith]

So they both retreated from Wiliamsburg. Johnson still had the larger army. Maybe Butler decided enough is enough?

I see large reb raiding stack west of Cincinatti. Why you do not converge on him from 2 sides using rail and punish him for venturing that far North? I see he is raiding your rails intensively. Why do you do not do it to him. If the rail betwen Manassas and Richmond and the rail between Morgantown and Harper's ferry were being torn, Beauregaurd would be too weak without the posibility of reinforcements. Furthermore, if the Morgantown-Harper's ferry rail were severed, WW force would have no supply chain in the winter.

You have a real strategic advantage at the moment, you just have to think what I 'll do to him instead reacting to his moves.

This post is not intended as help to any player, just a comment on the moves. I love strategy debates. Can I do that if this AAR's moves are posted few turns after they happened?