starting military strength for each side

[Gem35]

I am really curious about purchasing FoF, but without a manual or demo I would ask the forum for some help.
Would it be possible for someone to post some screenshots of the starting units(fleets/ships and armies/corps/divisions/brigades) and strengths for each side?
Also, how many cities does each side start in control of?

Do the Governors stance towards you in effect = military control/morale/favor?
or
Is there anything to the effect of state military control or morale?

I understand you can use advanced supply, could someone explain the differences between that and basic?
Can you "tinker" with your economy like you can in CoG?
IOW, if a certain state is good at producing Iron, you can move the sliders accordingly to take advantage of that advantage in Iron?
What about the other items such as labor and horses?

Is there any sort of trade with the European powers/Canada/Mexico?

Is there any sort of Diplomacy?
Can you threaten your enemy or other Nations for land or war material?

[Gil R.]

I'll let the players respond to these questions, but I've been wanting to post some screenshots showing one of the new features we've been working on for the upcoming patch, and Gem35's request to see starting forces seems like a good reason to do so now. The feature in question is that we can now use a new datafile to "nest" generals in the proper army/corps/division when a scenario is loaded, which 1) makes for a more historical OOB, and 2) saves some set-up time during the first turn. I'm still working on a few outstanding OOB issues, but have got it pretty complete, so here are some screenshots.

First, here's how the Virginia theater looks for the July 1861 scenario. (Note that Huger should be commanding the Department of Norfolk and Patterson the Department of Pennsylvania (in Cumberland), but I need to tweak the datafiles still.)

[Gil R.]

Next, here's McDowell's army, using the 1st Bull Run OOB. (I still need to add two division commanders.)

[Gil R.]

And here are Beauregard's and Johnston's armies.

[Gil R.]

Out west, we now have Price, Lyon, McCulloch and Polk properly assigned.

[Gil R.]

And finally (since I forgot to take shots of the ANV and AOP in the November scenario), here's the western theater in November, with Polk, Grant and A.S. Johnston shown (and Halleck further west, and David Hunter even further west than that).

[Gem35]

thank you very much Gil, another question if I may.
Are you allowed to change comands of armies or are they hard-coded?
If you can, is there a morale/support hit?

[Gil R.]

You have completely free reign to transfer generals to different commands, and can promote them so long as there is an empty command slot for someone of their new rank. The only time there's trouble is if you demote one you lower his home-state governor's attitude, and risk the general's resigning.

[Joram]

You can change command at will.  A governor's attitude is only affected if you promote/demote someone from that state.  There is no unit morale hit or organizational penalty.
 

[Gil R.]

Since I have the game running, I figured I'd post the November starting forces. Still working on them a bit. First, here's the Army of the Potomac. Now that we have "nesting," we can name divisions after generals and assign the proper generals to them at the outset.

[Joram]

ORIGINAL: Gem35

I am really curious about purchasing FoF, but without a manual or demo I would ask the forum for some help.
Would it be possible for someone to post some screenshots of the starting units(fleets/ships and armies/corps/divisions/brigades) and strengths for each side?
Also, how many cities does each side start in control of?

Do the Governors stance towards you in effect = military control/morale/favor?
or
Is there anything to the effect of state military control or morale?

I understand you can use advanced supply, could someone explain the differences between that and basic?
Can you "tinker" with your economy like you can in CoG?
IOW, if a certain state is good at producing Iron, you can move the sliders accordingly to take advantage of that advantage in Iron?
What about the other items such as labor and horses?

Is there any sort of trade with the European powers/Canada/Mexico?

Is there any sort of Diplomacy?
Can you threaten your enemy or other Nations for land or war material?

I can answer some of these with some degree of accuracy!

Without entering the game and counting, most important or large cities of the era are represented. Minor cities are not represented on the strategic map. E.G, as you can tell from the screenshot, there is no Bowling Green city in Kentucky. Every state has between 1-5 cities I believe.

There is nothing that affects a unit's morale by state AFAIK. However, national morale can give a bonus/penalty to all units.

I can't really explain the supply differences as I only play on advanced. In advanced, you pay a certain upkeep to pay for your troops. I believe there's a baseline cost but this cost is also affected by the weapons a unit is equipped with. Also, you can increase or decrease the amount of supply as well with a certain cost/benefit effect. Higher supplied units have priority with replacements as well as I believe an increased chance of raising disposition (which directly affects a unit's morale).

Economy is completely different than CoG. It's done on a city by city basis where each city can produce either Money or Labor (you must choose but it can be switched every turn to fine tune) as well as either Iron or Horses (again a choice). Additionally, a city can produce weapons and railroad capacity with the right buildings in addition to what I just mentioned. In advanced rules, your production is also affected by manpower so if you heavily recruit from a city, then you can adversely affect it's Money/labor or iron/horse production. To re-iterate, there are no sliders, you simply choose between one type of production or another. You can always build buildings to improve any of these commodities in a city that can support a building (there's a limit to that too which costs to be expanded).

Diplomacy and trade with foreign nations is very abstracted. You can increase a nation's disposition towards you by allocating money to diplomacy. Your opponent is doing the same which can increase the disposition towards him and/or lower yours. Winning large battles also influences foreign affairs. In any case, you will occasionally get trade items (except railroad capacity afaik) or research items (engineering know-how, logistics, training etc...). You also will be given the opportunity to purchase certain kinds of weapons depending on your level of friendship with the foreign power. Which by the way are split between Britain, France, and Other European.

[Gil R.]

And here's the ANV.

[Gem35]

Very nice explainations, and great screenies, Gil.
Thank you.[&o]

[Gem35]

I see the AotP and the ANV have strength values that the units contained inside do not add up to, does this mean replacements are in order and if so, how does that facet of the game work?
For instance, using advanced setting, is that where Joram stated that:

In advanced, you pay a certain upkeep to pay for your troops. I believe there's a baseline cost but this cost is also affected by the weapons a unit is equipped with. Also, you can increase or decrease the amount of supply as well with a certain cost/benefit effect. Higher supplied units have priority with replacements as well as I believe an increased chance of raising disposition (which directly affects a unit's morale).

Neat stuff.[:)]

[Gil R.]

The overall strength of an army might not be the same as the figure you get when adding the strength of individual brigades because those are rounded, so 1700 or 2200 men would both count as 2K.

Replacement troops are obtained by building "camps," which represent an investment in money (and, potentially, manpower) that converts into roughly 500 troops/turn. This means that the more camps, the better -- but too many will deplete other parts of your economy and military production.

[Drex]

Gee Gil, can you add the flags too?[:D]

[przy06]

I noticed earlier in this thread a mention of an upcoming update. Any hints as to when that may be released?

[Gil R.]

Sometime in August. We're still testing in-house to make sure no more work is needed on it.

[przy06]

[&o]Excellent, thanks![&o]