PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union!

[jchastain]

2426 casualties from the siege? Clearly that fort isn't deserted. It is late at night and all, but I should have taken a closer look at that.

[jchastain]

The population boost should help a little. My fear though is it will do him more good than me.

2 new mines and 3 new mints. Fine.

Europe support for the CSA increases? Sigh. OK. We know what we have to do.

[jchastain]

My first ART unit arrived. We'll get that up to the front and let's get Cleveland building a siege art unit. I'll build another corp in Harrisburg and hopefully get these troops even better organized.

[jchastain]

I'm eager to begin the attack in the west, but yet again I've made the mistake of getting myself entangled in an enemy fort en route to my chosen battle site. OK, time to take that lesson to heart. I'll try for Nashville one last time. If it fails again, I'll just focus the entire army on knocking out the fort and freeing myself from it.

I've been very lucky with disease so far. Please God don't let my battle ready army be ravaged while caught in this swamp.

[jchastain]

Let's move the garbage army down to Knoxville. I suspect the numbers alone will keep him from engaging me unless he pulls more troops in from somewhere else.

[jchastain]

Time to deal with Diplomacy. Again. Bonus or no bonus, I need to focus on Other Europe more than I need to on the French.

97 money produced with that. 100 might not be far from 97, but that few coins can be all the difference in the world when trying to buy something. Let's see if I can find those last few coins.

[jchastain]

I've got an excess of labor at the moment. Even though I lose a little efficiency, it is time to move a few more cities over from producing labor to making desperately needed cash.

[jchastain]

It is too late at night and my mind is far too tired to worry about much else.  I'll send it back to Gil and clean up any unseen messes in the morning.  G'night all.

[jchastain]

Lots of casualties on both sides in the siege on the lower Tenn river. But I don't see any battles, so that is continuing to slow my advance out West, and therefore slow the entire war.

[jchastain]

Diplomactic front is quiet. I left enough there to hope to make some progress, but at least I didn't lose ground.

[jchastain]

In the east, we have 2 new artillery units. Those early investments are just now starting to blossum. Ideally, I'd like to see a stream of new units starting to come on-line, but the drain of my diplomatic spending will prevent that. This is pretty much all I'll get for a while so I need to make it work. I'll send one ART to the AoP and get the other (plus the one from last turn) out to the west. AoP will become a focal point next year, but the west is my focus right now.

[jchastain]

Looks like we have 2 divisions coming from the west in reaction to my Knoxville feint. That isn't much of a fighting army, so I'll pull back to Lexington. I did sprinkle a few improved springfields to the few decent brigades there, so even if he does catch me I should give him a few wounds to lick. But mostly I just want to keep running running around in circles chasing his shadow.

[jchastain]

Out west, I've destroyed about a brigades and it appesrs he has just under that still remaining. Looks like it was two garrisons, with one down and one to go. If I can get this over with, I can attack and hopefully decimate the remainder of his western forces. Best of all they are sitting in open ground so I won't even have to worry about getting entangled in more of his forts. Looks like I have several long slow sieges ahead of me though. But that's what the junk armies are for. If I can destroy Sibley and Hindman, then I can turn on Johnston and Bragg and sweep through a lightly defended tennessee and then on into Virginia while the siegers do their long slow slog out here.

[jchastain]

My other ART unit is sitting in springfield right now. Might as well get it on down to the army while they are stuck there.

[jchastain]

I really wish I could upgrade those ART weapons, but my Imp Springfield spending has my gun supply spent. The 6 pd guns those guys are sporting have a QC value of 10. That's pretty good. But Ordnance rifles have a value of 30. That's one mean gun so I need to try to get those puppies upgraded before too long. I think I'm probably fine with him as split up as he is, but more is mo better. None of these help with Sieges at all though. Seeing his build up of these forts, I will need that siege artillery I have on order and likely several more beyond that.

[jchastain]

Back to the current siege though, these guys are holding up the entire strategy of the war. Time to quit messing with them and get serious. I outnumber them by more than 50 to 1. Time to just attack the fort and get this over with.

[jchastain]

Back in Knowville, I'll go ahead and duck and run.

[jchastain]

Now, time to spend and build. I like having my Art coming onto line, but I'd really like another Cav or two. I have none at all in the east and I'm still lighter than I'd like to be in the west. Since I have the horses to do it, I'll get one in the hopper. The ordnance rifle shortage has also convinced me that I ought to get some additional arsenals to produce more guns. They are pretty cheap - the real problem is finding cities with the capacity to hold them. I think I can seed half a dozen in to some of my smaller cities. Every little bit helps I suppose.

[jchastain]

That pretty much depletes my excess of labor. And I'm thinking about buying a few Infantry units in upcoming months. While they aren't as sexy, good quality trrops to anchor the line is important. Since they use as much labor as cash, I'm thinking I ought to switch New York back to producing labor once again.

[jchastain]

Looking at diplomacy.... there's really not much to do with it. I'll just leave it alone for now.