AAR

[Hard Sarge]

Well, we kind of waiting on the next release, so I thought I would do a little, short AAR on what I am doing

so started up a new game and will try and explain what I am doing and what is going on

these are the settings I am going to use

[Hard Sarge]

here are the Generals I start with as the CSA

[Gil R.]

Hey! Keep that savefile and maybe you'll be auction it off on E-Bay!


(In case anyone's wondering, those things with British flags that look suspiciously like supply depots from "Crown of Glory" are British supply depots from "Crown of Glory." We're using those as place-holder graphics until the fort graphics are done, so where you see those there should be forts.)

[Hard Sarge]

my battle plans

(well, really my movement plans, battle depends on if I guess right or the enemy doesn't do what I expect)

I am going to pull two Crops our of the ANV and force march them to Grafton, vs a Human, I think I would think more on this idea, but I still got a Crops and a number of Forts to defend, and that is still a strong force

the 10th Div will take a train trip down south, in case the Union tries to use some of his shipping to try and surprise me

I have 2 Divs out in Virg, kind of weak, but I will move them into Grafton and then Parkersburg

plan is to have either a battle in Grafton or Parkersburg, and then hope to call for help from the Corps moving close by

I have 3 Divs in Kentucky, and one in Tenn, the one in Tenn will move north east to get on the border, one of the Divs in Kentucky will move south and enter Tenn, one will try and get to Tenn River to guard the forts, and the the other will move to Hacthie to be in place to reinforce to either side, if need be

I got free troops in the West, will pull them south and try to have them join up with the Div coming north from Ark

will send my runners out, looking for some money and some weapons, may raiders and Partisons will cross the border and look for some good places to sit down and wait to see if they can steal some weapons

I make some heavy bribes to England and Europe, leaving France with her hand out and empty

I buy one unit some Lorenz rifles and another some Miss rifles, got to hope I can capture some in battle

I also build a Mine down in Selma

and it is time to start the war

if all goes well, this is where my Units should end up

[Hard Sarge]

again, best laid plans and all

the Union pulls back, my troops move forward, the Union moves into the Tenn River, but my troops don't make there

the Union navy just misses my navy as it moves into a new port and reforms

2 of my Divs catch some of the Union troops in Parkersburg and a battle begins, I go with the detail battle as I want some weapons and hope to be able to pull in my Corps from Grafton

interesting battle, it should of been a cake walk, but the Union decided to reinforce, while I also reinforced

but in the end, my two Divs were more then enough to handle what the Union could field, but it could of been a little more touch and go, as I didn't know the Union had brought in all those extra troops until I seen them

to the good, I won the battle, and forced the Union back, and got my Corps in place for the battle I was hopeing for on the 2nd turn

the bad news is I left Grafton open and the Union took it over

so got some 36000 troops behind my lines (in between my lines ?) and I am not really strong enough to dive him out and winter is beginning

plus if they pull out to the East, Little Mac just gets stronger, but the midwest gets weaker

interesting

[Hard Sarge]

LOL
I done got that guy more then a little upset with me, guess I got to work on making him happy again, but I needed those troops

took 4 POWs, that is good, but only picked up some lousy muskets from the battle field, was hopeing for some springfields at least

[Hard Sarge]

turn 2 will mean a seige in Tenn River, but I got a lot of weak Forts there, and hopefully my Div will be able to move to drive the Yankees out

pretty much the rest of the Army will do a wait and see

[Hard Sarge]

2nd Turn was interesting

got a surprise in Parkersburg, as the Union made a move into it, while I was expect to set up a rest camp instead

even better, the Union pulled off a surprise attack on me, totally catching me flatfooted

pretty much ripped a hold right though the middle of my line, but they were not able to keep the pressure on long enough, and my numbers started to tell, the Union ended up losing around 5000 men, to my 4000, but they lost a few Bde to my POW camps

the 2nd battle was more of what I had expected, the rest of the troops from Kentucky made a move into Wheeling, and ran into Robert E and his Corps waiting for them

as I was on the defence, I was going to just sit back and wait, but I had two victory hexes and only one had good troops around it, so sent my Cav Div south to protect the 2nd hex

of course, I guessed right and just as I was able to set up my line, the Union showed up, I was able to split up my one Arty Battery and also split one of my Cav Bdes (needed numbers and space, more then firepower)

my arty only had a range of 3, but most of the Union troops didn't have any good weapons, decent little fight, but nothing to write home about

the Union lost around 1400 men, I lost 4-500

I was able to march my 2 Divs into the Tenn River area, and force a battle with the Union Army there

was pretty even battle (will all the forts and garrisons troops)

this time there were 3 hexes to defend, and I was kind of north of where I wanted to be, so had to shift my forces, set my good troops a little north of the forward hex, and had my Garrison troops set as blocker, reserve (Garrison troops are not really good at front line stuff, they can save the day and all, but you don't want them taking the full force of the enemy attack)

but of course, the Union was able to flank me, and came in even lower on the map then  I had expected, losing the forward undefended hex, but that meant if I could move a little I had half of the Union forces flanked (but, I had 2 Lorenz armed units and the rest with IW weapons (range of one) (only thing worse then IW is shotguns !)

just as I got into a line and was able to fire into there flanks, night fell

moved my one Lorenz armmed troop closer to the Town with that was the victory hex and had him dig in (that unit had the digging skill) and then waiting for daylight

my garrison troops were set to act as a blocking force to anything that made it past my forward troops

daylight came sooner then some of my troops would of liked, the Union tried to flank my flankers, but my firepower was still better then his, and drove him off, my dug in troops drove off the troops in the town, and soon, the Union decided it didn't want to rush across the broken areas to close in with my boys, and called it a day

again, about 1400 to 600 in losses

I still hold Wheeling (which was my prime goal before winter set in) and I drove out the Union from the Tenn River, the Union is still a force to be worried about in Grafton, but weaker then they had been

a good first two turns, other then Grafton (got greedy, shouldn't of pulled in the 2nd Corps)

but over all, I think I will wait some on going on with this AAR, as with out shots of what is going on in the battle, it does not really come across the way I would like it to

we should be getting the okay for battles shots shortly

any questions on what I was doing or why, ask away

[marecone]

Very nice. even without pics is good. Like a story [;)] Send more pleaseee.
Thanks a lot

[Grotius]

Great stuff! And interesting with or without pictures.

[Gil R.]

Quick graphics-related note: the screenshot above is the one for quickly seeing all of the military groups at once. Some of you might have seen it several weeks ago when the first batch of screenshots were posted. The map that one moves on is so large that one can't see everything at once, so this "Military Groups" screen comes in handy.

[spruce]

why is the confederate fleet inland - are they moving up a river ? or having repairs ? or do fleets belong to either the sea or the coastal province ?

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: spruce

why is the confederate fleet inland - are they moving up a river ? or having repairs ? or do fleets belong to either the sea or the coastal province ?

They're in Charleston harbor, but the program does seem to put their icon a bit too far inland. There might be a good computerish reason for this, but maybe it can be tweaked. It doesn't affect gameplay, though, so any tweaking would have to be done in a patch.

[Hard Sarge]

Roger, they are in the ports

maybe the programming is set up that way to show it is in the port and not in the open sea ?

[RedArgo]

I think the Union navy just scared them right out of the ocean!

[Hard Sarge]

Well, to be honest, you do not want to offer a stand up battle to the Union navy (until you are ready, and I do not know when you are going to be ready

[ancient doctor]

Nice going,it raises some questions here.
1)Do general improve their stats/capacity by becaming more experienced the more time they fight or they are static values?
2)All this weapons/guns do they came with different values in terms of range/accuracy/effectiveness including infantry/cavalry weapons that make a difference in detailed combat?
3)I noticed that you can add buildings which improve the resource gathering(?)in cities.I wonder now does this goes with every city?I mean adding a mine somewhere that in real life there are no minerals to extract shouldnt give you anything.Is that taken into consideration?

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Ancient seaman

Nice going,it raises some questions here.
1)Do general improve their stats/capacity by becaming more experienced the more time they fight or they are static values?
2)All this weapons/guns do they came with different values in terms of range/accuracy/effectiveness including infantry/cavalry weapons that make a difference in detailed combat?
3)I noticed that you can add buildings which improve the resource gathering(?)in cities.I wonder now does this goes with every city?I mean adding a mine somewhere that in real life there are no minerals to extract shouldnt give you anything.Is that taken into consideration?

I am not really sure, there are a couple of ways to play with Generals so it may be one way with one and another way with the other

Weapons, yes, each have there own stats and costs, some are close to each other, and others are very different

so something like the Musket, is good up close, while the Lorenz or Withworth are better long range rifles

we also have weapons that are only Cav weapons, and other that both troops can carry (Spencer Carbines, and then there is a Spencer Rifle, which only Inf can use)

over all, for buildings, I think you can build almost anything, anywhere, but, as you say, some places are better for one type or the other

Lexington, is a great place for Horse farms, you could and can build mines there, but you start at 0 or so and lose all the extra horses that being set for Horses will give you

so, over all, there are places that are good for this or that, but not everyplace is good for each

some of the CSA Cities are fancy like this, you get a place that is good at Iron, but also good at raiseing Horses (James river is a good one, lots of Horse can be gain here, but it also has a decent Iron set up, with a Iron Depot already built, which gives you double production from each mine)

and over all, you are going to want as much Iron as you can get, and as many horses as you can get

[Oldguard]

Sarge, this is exactly the kind of interesting preview I was wanting to see, thank you very much for the time you took to do it. Don't stop now .

Gil or one of the other testers mentioned recently that the game is very defensively oriented - that infantry charges are usually not going to succeed. I got that feeling from your AAR, as well as the emphasis on sieges and blockades. I think all of that is in keeping with the realities of 19th century warfare in the ACW, so it's interesting to see it in action. Should I assume that it's not as bad as Europis Universalis, though, where offensive warfare was almost completely impossible?

[Hard Sarge]

Hmmm

interesting, some people would say I am about as Offensive as you can get

you can attack and you can still force battle, but Defending is still stronger then attacking, which over all works well, with in the idea of the time frame, the Union has more men and more units, but the CSA is more on the defending side, the Union can not really run ruffshod over them, and where the CSA is strong or moble, also can not run ruffshod