PBEM AAR - It Ain't a Lost Cause Yet!

[marecone]

Yap. I belive that after the battle you should know enemy strenghth with let say 10% + or -

[spruce]

I firmly agree with the 2 previous posters.

to come back on the amount of sieging troops displayed = seems logical to know the exact strength of the sieging troops after some turns of siege - but not from the start I guess -and it seems many gambles are made based on these very accurate troop numbers. But again [:o]- what is feasable to program and what are other priorities ...

[Gil R.]

Thirtieth Turn

Now was I? Oh, right, beating back the Union's advances on multiple fronts...

As the Event Report show, the Tallahassee siege is going nowhere, while the one in Jackson has been terminated. (Tallahassee might still fall as its defenses are worn away even if the garrison remains strong, but I've taken measures to see that it doesn't.)

[histgamer]

Now you just need to invade the north to make this a near historical war.

(cept you should start losing in the west please)[;)]

[Gil R.]

Moving on, I won two consecutive victories against the southern navy, which appears not to have upgraded to Dahlgrens after all. To my surprise, the CSA might gain the upper hand in the naval war quite soon.

Unfortunately, I lost my Partisans unit. This turn, among other things, I spend 100 Horses to produce a new Raiders unit, which will be ready in two turns.

Another Camp was finished, which further boosts my replacement rate. And I'm just a turn away from another Logistics upgrade, so I might luck out and get "Invalid Corps," which boosts production of Camps by 33%.

Also, that Manufacturing Center is finished in Norfolk. It shaves off a turn when one produces artillery or infantry, and I'll soon have enough resources to take advantage of that.

[Gil R.]

Lots of good news here. European diplomacy is keeping me at Level 2, which means that once I have enough money I'll be able to buy Lorenzs.

Gov. Moore of Louisiana is being very helpful in boosting my Iron production by 15/turn.

Further good news is that the Command Staff of one of the two corps in the Army of Northern Virginia has been trained to a level of "Excellent," which will boost that corps' combat performance significantly.

And last but not least, all three blockade-runners struck gold (figuratively), and those 95 guns resources will help me to improve my navy just before attempting a major naval battle off the coast of Florida.

The one down side is that Gov. Rector of Arkansas, who already is a strong opponent of the Confederate government, now wants 10 brigades to be stationed in his state. Two are there garrisoning Little Rock, but the truth is that right now it makes no sense to send more. At the same time, failure to do so will further anger him, and I risk his taking an action to oppose the war effort. Maybe I can move some garrison units from nearby states there until he changes his mind. I'll wait a turn before doing so, though, since right now I'm not sure what the Union is up to.

[Gil R.]

Here's Virginia where nothing is different from last turn... unfortunately. The two divisions in Abingdon failed to move, as instructed: the smaller one going to Grafton to take over, and the bigger one heading by rail to Florida to confront the invaders on land. So, I give the exact same orders as last turn, and hope for better results.

[Gil R.]

Here is how Florida looks. I am no longer using the preference that puts all forces into "stacks," so the presence of two enemy fleet containers is evident. These are providing sea supply to that Union corps, without which it would be easily defeated. I decide to attack the Union yet again. (By the way, that's one of my blockade-runners mixed in there with the Union fleets. Maybe they'll both try to shoot at it and hit each other...)

[Gil R.]

As mentioned in the last turn, I'm suspicious that the Union may have armed the fleet that just arrived in the area with Dahlgrens, which would be the logical thing to do if the enemy figured out that my navy had taken on some rather big guns. Therefore, before attacking again it's prudent for me to spend the Weapons and Iron my runners just brought in to purchase a second batch of 20-inch Dahlgrens for the 1st Ship. This way, if the Union has Dahlgrens our navies will be closer to parity, while if the Union still only has "Improvised" weapons I'll really be able to do some damage.

If I'm lucky, I'll defeat the Union navy and have my division arrive from Abingdon so that next turn it can attack the corps. (That division has about 7000 men, but since I don't want it to be outnumbered I put it on "high" supply to make sure that each of its four brigades would get 500 men as replacements.)

[Gil R.]

Here's Tennessee. The 1st Corps that I had tried to send by rail from Cumberland River into Hatchie only got to Pulaski, so I missed my chance to trounce that division: I can't try again because there's too great a risk that the Union army is heading that way. Also, D.H. Hill's division failed to move into Upper Tennessee River to support that attack. So, since right now I've got nothing for these forces to do (attacking is too risky when I don't know where the large army will be), I send both to Cumberland River, where there is a Hospital to protect them in case disease hits. (Disease is overdue. This past turn it didn't hit any of my units.) I also build another Hospital there this turn, for 40 Labor.

Also, last turn I tried to move the small 14th Division from Tennesee-Mississippi River into Arkansas-Mississippi River in order to reclaim it as CSA territory, but winter movement restrictions kept this from happening. So, I try to send it there again.

Overall, I'm not sure just where the Union forces are heading, so I'm avoiding engaging. Maybe soon I'll add the forces in Cumberland River to the 2nd Army, which would give me a rather impressive force of 100,000+.

[Gil R.]

And here's Mississippi, where the 2nd Army did indeed come together as intended. It now contains the 4th Corps plus an extra division, and its strength is around 51,000. Much as I'd like to use it to attack Orme's corps nearby, I don't do that because of the risk that I'd end up fighting more than just that one corps. Instead, I send it by rail into Jackson so that next turn I can give it an engineering order to rebuild the city's fortifications. The sooner Jackson's strength is above 80%, the sooner I can leave the province without worrying that the enemy can easily take the city if it reinitiates the siege.

Since other than the division heading for Florida no unit is in urgent need of replacements or supplies, I decide to turn off supply for most of my western divisions (thus turning off replacements to all but a few especially depleted units) and for the first time in many turns I turn on supply for two divisions in the ANV, so that I can start bulking it up. It's been stuck at 77,000 men for a few months now, but it should have a few thousand more men by next turn, and assuming that the western front remains quiet (a big assumption, of course), I'll be able to steer even more replacements to it in the coming turns.

And with that, the turn ends.

[jonreb31]

You think you can post a screenshot of the statistics? It would be interesting to see the overall casualties and such.

Thanks, great AAR.

[TimoN]

Gil, can you please check if your ships have improved their morale/quality after winning battles? I am curious to find out if ships can gain morale/quality the same way as brigades do.

[genie144]

How come no love for us whoa re still reading???
 
Sam

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: JonReb

You think you can post a screenshot of the statistics? It would be interesting to see the overall casualties and such.

Thanks, great AAR.

Which do you mean? The screen with the graphs?

[jonreb31]

Yes, that's the one.

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

Fifth Turn

...

And now, I reveal that I did something very, very stupid. Remember that District of the Potomac corps container that I sent from Lynchburg to Memphis? I used rail movement so it would get there in a single turn, but forgot that now that Kentucky has sided with the Union part of the railroad line I was using goes through Union territory in the Lower Tennessee River province (look at the screenshot above), and empty containers cannot go through enemy territory. So, my corps container was destroyed, and I don't yet have a replacement. ...

Screenshot posted here:

In reviewing the AAR a question comes to mind. How is control of a river province determined? Seems to me the CSA fort in the Lower Tenessee province should determine control, not whoever controls the adjacent land provinces in Kentucky. At the very least the province should be considered uncontrolled since CSA provinces also border the river. Hatchie and Pulaski border the Lower Tenessee so an argument could even be made that the CSA still controls the rail line where it crosses the river. Saying the river is USA controlled doesn't make sense to me. Thanks.

Edit - Also note that the Corps container could have turned south on the rail line in Murfreesboro and safely arrived in Memphis as ordered. Maybe the RR pathfinding needs some improvement?

[Gil R.]

Elmo3,
I see why you would think that the fort should give control of the river, but remember that this province is Union territory because the whole state of Kentucky had just sided with the Union, so the presence of a single CSA fort wouldn't prevent that. Also, as can be seen with Fort Monroe in Rappahanock and Fort Whatever in Pensacola, it is possible for the Union to have a fort in CSA territory, so the opposite should be possible too.

As for the railroad routing issue, I could have manually routed the container by clicking on it, moving it a few provinces, then clicking on it again to move it another few, etc., so that it would avoid Union territory. Instead, I lazily went with the default routing system, and that's what cost me. So whenever one sees that the default routing would go through enemy territory it would be best to choose the path manually.

By the way, if people want to discuss the issues here regarding forts in enemy territory, railroad routing, etc. they should start a new thread. I'll happily answer questions about the game here, but this AAR thread should not be the place for any rules to be discussed across multiple posts (unless to post them elsewhere would be to give away my secrets to the enemy). Thanks!

[elmo3]

Sorry for going off topic. I follow the point about manually routing your trains but would like to continue the river control discussion so I'll take that to the main forum. Thanks.

[Gil R.]

It wasn't off-topic at all. I just wanted to make sure it didn't lead to a string of fifteen other messages that would disrupt my AAR.