Beginner Do's and Don'ts

[ABridgeTooFar]

So the game arrived yesterday and I played it all night. It looks pretty good. I plan on playing as the Yanks for a few games until I get the hang of things. I have read a few of the AAR so I am a little ahead of the curve.

My question is to you guys who have had the game for awhile. Do you have any suggestions or strategies that you use for the first few turns of the game? Do you have any do's or don'ts that I should be aware of (strategy-wise)?

[Twotribes]

Leave the divisions in western Virginia in place and bring in the needed brigades to bring them up to nominal strength ( 4 brigades each division) move a division to Wheeling and leave it there, place at least a division in Cinncinnati. Move one army container to western Maryland, one to Annapolis and leave one on the Potomac.

Do this in the first 2 turns cause after that it is winter and movement is heavily effected. If your using disease rules build as many hospitals as you can ( one per city) along and near your front, in the west and the east.

If you can build 2 academise right away, you start with 3, 2 more reach that magic number to improve any containers you make ( potentially).

I strongly suggest on turn one you move that army and lone Division OUT of Kentucky.

In Missouri the Confederacy is going to attack you at the city on the river ( the name slips my mind) I suggest you spend your weapons points on improving the weapons of the Brigades there first and move more in from Iowa and St Louis if you can ( by Rail) A couple to the river province and a couple to the province with the army.

That is a good start from my prespective.

[Joram]

If you find yourself getting frustrated, I'd suggest that you play as the Confederates.  It's easier, especially at the beginning.  And by the time the Union power starts to catch up, you will have a better hang of how things work.  Furthermore, the Confederates can remain on the defensive and win as long as you don't give up too much land to the Union.

[ABridgeTooFar]

Confederates are easier?!? Wow. I would have never guessed that.

Good points TT. They do make sense. I started off with an Iron works in Harrisburg for the first turn then moved onto building Mints , mines, and horse stables (or whatever it is that makes more horses). Next I noticed I needed more 4 star generals and started with the academy. A bit too late I am afraid. I have yet to try the hospitals but will have to give it a go soon.

Does anyone build Corps containers? Does not seem like you need them if you put your divisions into Armies. I am probably wrong about that one.

I have upgraded many of my weapons but have not produced any new units. How important is non-siege artillery and cavalry? What ratio of artillery to infantry or cavalry to infantry works best?

[Alex Gilbert]

If you are playig against the AI, I would also add that you should heavily reinforce cincinnati and wheeling. The AI will spend all winter wearing out his divisions sieging those 2 cities while you build your forces in Ohio. Come spring, he will be worn out, you will have shiny new weapons, and you can usually encircle and destroy all his western forces at those 2 cities.

My first few games, I underestimated the importance of buying new weapons and spent heavily on upgrading the economy. I now think that was probably an error. Especially if Kentucky joins the USA, there is no great need to upgrade the economy early (though I know others will disagree with this).

I usually do not build much artillery, as siege artillery is more important and takes a while to build. The victory conditions are such that you will have to take 75-100% of the southern cities to win, so there is little time to lose.

Of course, against a human opponent, things are much tougher as I am finding out now (its August 1862 and looking pretty grim).


Alex

[Joram]

Confederates have a tougher time with the economy but because of their initial quality advantage as well as being able to stay on the defensive (generally), I think it is just easier to learn with.  Though there's nothing wrong with learning by choosing the Union.
 
One of the advantages of Corps containers is so you get better use out of your 3-star generals.  Sure you can stick them in a division but you are underutilizing their advantage (training, rally, initiative in certain cases). 
 
As the Union, I generally follow what Twotribes said as my very first moves too though I've varied it from invading the Rappahonic or N.O. right away just for kicks.  Honestly not the best opening moves but I just wanted to see if the Union was capable of doing it.  I would never try the Rappahonic invasion against a player though!
 
As far as your artillery/cav question.  I don't think there's a right answer in that different things work for different people.  I like Cav to keep from being surprised and allowing me to choose the battlefield but they are of limited value on the battlefield (in detailed combat at least).  Regular artillery I find is overrated and don't tend to build it much.  Siege artillery is important and you should build a couple more. 

[rook749]

ORIGINAL: ABridgeTooFar

Confederates are easier?!? Wow. I would have never guessed that.

Good points TT. They do make sense. I started off with an Iron works in Harrisburg for the first turn then moved onto building Mints , mines, and horse stables (or whatever it is that makes more horses). Next I noticed I needed more 4 star generals and started with the academy. A bit too late I am afraid. I have yet to try the hospitals but will have to give it a go soon.

Does anyone build Corps containers? Does not seem like you need them if you put your divisions into Armies. I am probably wrong about that one.

I have upgraded many of my weapons but have not produced any new units. How important is non-siege artillery and cavalry? What ratio of artillery to infantry or cavalry to infantry works best?

Corps are very useful.

- A three star Genral attached to a corps can teach any birdage attach to it (directly or indirectly) a skill the general has.
- They have leadership benifts in combat to attach units (directly or indirectly).
- A corps can train an attach division to a hight staff or logistical level

Rook

[freeboy]

Learn how to upgrade troops, ie buy upgrades.. have lots of horse, build camps, put Generals where they can add to units that will fight. I always build an
IRonworks as Union in Harrisburg and mines, and university in Boston...
I alway add baggage train to Artillery, and rapid fire once available.
I always upgrade union art to those awesome but pricy guns? forget now wat they are called but they are super at dislodging dug in defenders in detailed combat.
Be careful how you seige, it cost a lot of troops
build more horse farms and camps
mints are nice too
I will not bore you with any detailed analysis of detailed combat, but I like to use Inf to charge weakened positions and cavalry to charge enemy positions exposed on the advance

Other? hum, I did not know at first every city has prodution and it could all be raised by adding mansion or plantations

[Pubcrawler]

I usually play as Union and one of the first things I do is pull out as many garrison units in the far nothern provinces and use them for the defense of border cities or forts.  They are also good to garrison captured cities/forts so my regular units are available to fight. 
 
Put the AoP in Cumberland, Maryland and Potomac to 'hold' the ANV in place, then put your resources in attacking out west.  If Kentucy goes to the USA, which it likely will, then push and take TN.  Once that is done - this worked for me once - threaten the ANV from the west and draw them out of Fredricksburg, then the AoP can head south.  If it is timed right the AoP can be on the James River sieging Richmond in the winter with the ANV stuck in the mountainous region of south west VA not able to easily move.    Of course, when I did this, I had accumulated a TON of troops...

[Paper Tiger]

As Union upgrade your infantry which already has one artillery attribute with a second, stick the resulting poor morale artillery unit into garrison in the cities most likely to be attacked. Once you start moving forward strip these artillery units out of garrison and use them as part of your beseiging force, they do much more damage than plain infantry, and it makes no difference in a seige (either direction) how bad the morale is.

[Hard Sarge]

For the Union, from what I been reading alot around here, I think most players tend to over look the fact that they need to build new troops, the old troops are pretty poor and will take a lot of battles to become good troops, while a newly made troops is decent

interesting statement about Cav, I find Cav to be about the strong unit on the map (HW) even with IWs they can be deadly, and even more so, once Dragon Tactics are reseached

move in, find a flank, deploy, fire, mount up and move away, 3 or 4 Cav can shatter a Army on the move, and can do good damge to a unit that is deployed

plus when a Unit marches up to your line and deploys, a Cav rear attack can break it in one pass (depending on time of the war)

I think the Arty can be the strongest weapon, but one that does not always get to be used, a good Cav unit in a decent battle may make 10-15 attacks, while the Arty may make 2 or 3, if lucky

for the player, do not charge, unless you are really set up to, or really need to, a Charge can Hurt, either you or the bad guys, but most times it is going to hurt you worse

LOL, just had a battle the other day, had a unit all made up just for that, had the blasted skill, and I added 2 Med attachments to it, and it got into a spot, where it was flanking a Union BIG gun (Union had two of them, with a number of Bdes all around and I was trying to pin them in place, but to do so, I needed to shut down the guns, or they would slaughter my guys as they closed in)

so I rushed my Shock troops right into the flank of them, and took 1000 losses, didn't even break the gun either, but hurt them enough that the next couple of fire attacks routed them

(ANV has 2 shinny new Gun Units now)

which we should be getting the fancy new Training ground that Gil and I have been talking about for a while now, right now, it looks like it should be a nice (and Major) item on a few peoples building list

Overall, for do's and don'ts, read up on what has been said in some of the AARs, and other posts, see what you like to do, and keep at it, find out which upgrades you like to add to your troops, what areas you want to reseach (for me, the biggest one I can get is the Hasty upgrade)

try to learn what your battle is, and then try to make the other side, fight your battle, you got long range weapons, stay out of the woods, don't get close to the enemy, you got short range weapons, make the enemy come to you

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Paper Tiger

As Union upgrade your infantry which already has one artillery attribute with a second, stick the resulting poor morale artillery unit into garrison in the cities most likely to be attacked. Once you start moving forward strip these artillery units out of garrison and use them as part of your beseiging force, they do much more damage than plain infantry, and it makes no difference in a seige (either direction) how bad the morale is.

that is a dangerous Idea, but I have never tried for a seige train, I would rather just toss in some garrison troops with Eng upgrades, with a seige gun or two

[Twotribes]

I make a division with 3 Infantry Brigades and 2 siege artillery for sieges, I give the 3 Infantry brigades the Engineer trait and usually artillery as well.

I build 2 more siege artillery for out west then eventually 4 for the east as well and do the same with them.

[Mike Scholl]

Best piece of advice I can think of is "DON'T GET IN TOO BIG A HURRY!" There are a few things you need to do on either side, which others have pointed out..., but don't fall into the trap of thinking just because you have some troops you must "do something" with them. Take time to build up and "get your sh-t together" before you rush into battle.

[ABridgeTooFar]

Great tips.  I am finally seeing the value of Corps.  I think that I am learning how to build a good Army for seiges.  I am also learning the value of horse farms.  I am surprised that more emphasis is not placed on camps.  Right now I am in a major camp building mode to reinforce my depleted brigades.  It is about mid-'62.  Oh, and I forgot to build more units prior to the April pop growth.  Gggrrrr.....

[Hard Sarge]

Opps, sorry, was wanting to mention that part, but, was thinking that most people would think to be sure to get some troops built before April came around

don't get to caught up with camps, build enough to try and replace your battle losses, Horses are too importent to just use for building camps

the Union can build so many new troops, that they do not really need major numbers of camps

[ABridgeTooFar]

I was thinking building my camps until I can replace around 7,500 troops per turn.  Does that sound too high or not enough?

My AOP is just sitting in the east looking all tough but with only about 80K troops split between two armies.  Out west  I have three strong Armies (one with 60K and two with 40K). 

Do you guys continue to build hospitals as you advance through the South? Or any other buildings for that matter?  I am looking to start campaigning into Tennessee in a few turns.  Gawd, that Mississippi river province in Tennessee is going to be brutal. 

[Hard Sarge]

5 to 6 K is good for me (then the reseach improves it by 33%) (but then I am able to avoid a lot of extra losses, so a bit higher would not be bad)


just trying to remind everyone, that is what the troop have and can do, that is more importences then how many men are in that troop

(a Cav unit with 3000 men in it good, but a  Cav unit with 2000 men and good Horses is even better)

when I go on a capture spree, I tend to build Hosps in each city I take

you will also want to save some money to buy Med Attactments for some troops too !!!!

[Twotribes]

Ya, the replacement population rule says 1 per city with a possiblity of 2, so make sure you take at least 2 population out of every city ) .

[rook749]

ORIGINAL: ABridgeTooFar

I was thinking building my camps until I can replace around 7,500 troops per turn.  Does that sound too high or not enough?

It may either be fine or way too low. If you’re playing with the population modifers camps are far more important than if you are not. You don’t want to drain your populations from key production cities by fielding too many units with this option enabled. So keeping you units intact is critical - hence camps are critical.

Rook