PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union!

[jchastain]

Looking at the map, with a sound thrashing of his forces in Northen Mississippi, I'll be on the rail line and could follow it west all the way to chattanooga and then memphis. Let's my troops get some battle experience against this half of his western armies and then I can turn to face the other half. At that point, I could continue into Virginia to face the ANV or head south to Atlanta to destroy his economy. Once the siege of Nashville is complete, I'll have plenty of garbage forces to lay siege all across the south. The key is the battle army. I need to use it to destroy his forces so he can't properly engage my horde of siegers.

[jchastain]

OK, time to throw some smoke his way in the East and keep the powerful ANV sitting out of the real fight. The disease losses in Washington suggest I should reduce the concentration anyway, so I might as well confuse him a bit. I'll take one division up to Annapolis and another will pass through there and Cumberland and into the mountains to his west. There is a good chance they won't make it since I am taking them the long way to steer clear of his forts in Fredericksburg but we'll see. I can't go too far from Washington. He's likely been doing a lot more imporvements to the ANV than I have to the AoP so I don't want to draw him into my capital as I'm not entirely convinced I'd win that fight. The defensive bonuses are pretty steep and I did upgrade a few key brigades there to the improved springfields, so I'm not exactly throwing caution to the wind. But let's see how he reacts to a little razzle dazzle.

[jchastain]

OK, let's look at diplomacy. Whatever. I just hope I don't lose any more ground. I still want to pull my spending out of there eventually, but I've resigned myself that it won't be soon.

[jchastain]

OK, time to check in on the governors. From the City Screen, I will again filter on those that have demands. Pennsylvania makes the list and has three key cities. I'll look there first. He's a loyal ally and he's very strong politically. Best of all, he has a low temper. That means his reaction won't be too bad if we ignore him. This is one of those instances we really can afford to take a friend for granted since the last thing I want to waste my money on right now is a naval college. We'll invite him to a white house dinner or something but other than that, he gets nothing. Sorry Andrew, but nice guys really do finish last.

[jchastain]

Looking next at Maryland, we have a very different situation indeed. He's weak politically, and a staunch adversary. He's a democrat, opposing musters but asking for a bank. Yeah right. I'm not sure I'm mind seeing him find another occupation come election time. One thing for sure, he's not getting a bank.

[jchastain]

Turning to the Commonwealth of Massachussetts, we have a trusted ally who is strong politically with a moderate to low temper. He wants a Lab. We need that anyway and he is a friend, so that's not a bad option.

[jchastain]

And Rhod.... errr..... 6, 3, 3, 3... who cares.

So, we'll build that lab in Boston.

As for Maryland, I still think a regime change might not be a bad thing. He opposes muster, so let's give it a whirl. And impress some labor also. That doesn't seem to make a governor popular. Go ahead... explain to the home folks why they should re-elect you mr democrat. [8D]

[jchastain]

And I still have 50 money left. Perhaps now is a good time to go ahead and purchase one of those higher quality INF unit I was talking about to help put some solid troops in the center of the line. Springfield'll do as a build point.

[jchastain]

I haven't peeked in on research lately. Let's see how it is going.

Weapons appear to be getting close again. Engineering is coming along well. Good, we need better siege technology to be sure. Logistics is lagging a bit but we just built that new lab, so hopefully that will help. Training is coming along and naval... who cares.

Experience is unlike other research avenues. It can only be raised through battle experience. With any luck Johnny Reb will come out to play and we'll see it moving up soon.

I'd like to see better progress in Logistics, Training, and especially Engineering. So many needs. But we're making progress.

[jchastain]

And ending my turn... bingo... upgrade. Telescoping sights are nice. I passed on them last time because I had no sharpshooters and... I again have no sharpshooters. I really need to fix that one of these days. The other choice is Heavy Artillery Infrastructure. Gee, I've been building a reasonable amount of Artillery. I wonder which I should choose. Artillery wins. I can't wait to see what the new choices will be next time I upgrade some weps. And with those Siege guns in process, I might very well have additional options there as well. All-in-all, I'm happy with that choice.

OK, back to Gil to see what he'll do.

[jchastain]

Finally... it has become the civil war and not just the civil maneuver.

Mississippi was exactly what I expected, a big win for the good guys. Doh! I had my second corp in the army and hadn't reorged and it was lost. Oooops. 50 money, down the drain. Oh well.

Battle in Shenandoah? How the HECK did he think to meet me there? Has he been sitting there the entire time? Oh well. One brigade surrendered but generally speaking it wasn't a big deal at all. And at least now he has seen some action in the east so hopefully he'll be less inclined to let his forces get to where he really needs them.

If you look closely at the text, we won a battle. They won a small battle. The distinction might be small, but it is important when you start adding up victory points. Make no mistake, we won this round.

Governors Hicks blocked our muster, sure enough. But we got some labor from him. Oh look, his popularity fell. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

[jchastain]

>50,000 troops short still. Disease hurts.

The political front is happily quiet. That's a good thing as now is not the time for needless distractions.

[jchastain]

OK, we'll start in the west where the real action is. Keyes has them on the run and will continue to pursue. Their best bet is probably to fall back and regroup with Johnstons's corp forming in Knoxville. I want to make the trip as painful as possible for them. That would be a fairly potent force if they recombine, but the entire west is now undefended and mine for the taking. I'll leave the two largest armies in Nashville to get that seiege started. It will be a nasty one. But the smaller 4th Army can occupy middle Tennessee and then continue into Mississippi or Alabama. I need to start cutting off his resources and reducing his ability to build and feed his army. He invested way too much in those memphis forts and now he should be starting to appreciate that they aren't going to help and he has a real problem.

[jchastain]

I don't see him moving into Kentucky with all the problems he has back home right now, but it doesn't pay to be careless. My strong garrisons are too far in the rear right now and won't do me much good there. I'll use my RR to get them from the Central Mississippi to Lexington just in case he tries something.

[jchastain]

OK, let's go see what happened in the east. Hmmmm.... he probably has just been sitting there. I have no idea why, but I hope he continues to sit there as I really don't want that useless bunch of hills. I'll let my division fall back to Annapolis and hope he is content to keep sitting still.

[jchastain]

I think Wheeling is actually in more danger than Kentucky. I'll pull the Cleveland garrison to Pittsburgh, which will free the Pittsburge garrison to go to Wheeling. It really isn't necessary to move units across the map. It is often more effective to just cascade them down.

[jchastain]

I can't imagine anyone getting to Cleveland, but again, why be careless? Buffalo has a fort nearby so I'll just evacuate the city and take that garrison down to Cleveland. I don't see an English threat so the duplicate garrisons are really unnecessary. I still think the morale should go up for any unit allowed to leave Buffalo, but that suggestion didn't make it into the game.

[jchastain]

OK, last turn we decided that some additional research wouldn't be a bad thing. Rhode Island has a university and an open plot of land. I'll go ahead and put an engineering school there. I bet one day everyone will be begging for admission to the Rhode Island Institute of Technology. And to think, I made it possible.

The governor isn't a big fan of mine. He doesn't dislike me, but he really doesn't much care either way. But as politicans over the ages have learned, it doesn't much matter - the academics are going to do what they want to do regardless. Put another way, research isn't impacted by governors, so it is safe to build this here even though we're not highly popular in these parts.

[jchastain]

Since...
(a) We have sufficient horses for either a CAV unit or a Camp, and
(B) We don't have the cash for a CAV unit, and
(C) We need both anyway...

We might as well go ahead and build a camp. It doesn't much matter where, so we'll plot it in the with the corn fed boys.

[jchastain]

And finally, notice that there is no diplomacy screen.  I didn't look at it.  Finally.
 
So, that ends yet another turn...