Amphibious landings

[dulsin2]

I have had mixed results trying to land troops. In my most resent game I took three leaders gave them troops and parked them on transports off the coast.

On turn 2 one of my leaders gained initiative and I dropped him on Hilton Head Island off Port Royal.

In august 61 Baker 2-1-2 with a single infantry got amphibious initiative but he was not allowed to move onto Roanoke Island outside of Elizabeth city. He was allowed to land in Worcester MD or in Elizabeth city but not on the Island.

What is going on here?

[swatter555]

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of naval invasions.

First, all new players need to get a few concepts well under their control in order to successfully conduct naval invasions. You need the proper transports available, all the way from the launching port of the invasion to the intended invasion area. You do not park ground units off-shore before an invasion, that actually works against you (from my experience). When you look at your transports you see two numbers like this: 25/2. The first number is the normal transport points and the second is amphibious invasion points. Keep in mind that a normal infanrty unit requires 4 points of transport to move on the sea (for each area). In the example of 25/2, you could move 6 infantry units across the water in non-invasion movment (6 x 4 = 24).

You are always going to have to pay that transport cost whether we are talking about strategic movt or invasions. The difference with amphibious invasions in that the second number is used in the amphibious invasion area. At the amphibious invasion site you are going to need alot more transports. In the previous example of 6 infantry units, you will need the 24 regular movt for each area you pass through to the invasion area PLUS at the invasion area you will need 12 transport units (24 / 2 = 12). Also, make sure your line of transports is unbroken from point to point and that at each point you have enough transports to handle regular movement. For example, moving 8 infantry units requires 2 transports for regular movement through each area (that uses 36 of the 48 points).

Amphibious initiative: In my experience you will want an army commander to provide amphib initiative for the general you plan to conduct the invasion with at the point of embarkation. Once your commander has amphib initiative and enough transport exists from point to point, just send him in. Relying on an individual commander to gain initiative without the help of an AC is a hit or miss proposition. If your AC is out in the field, conducting amphib invasions is going to be tough.

[Treefrog]

Federal amphibious invasions are typically accomplished from a port containing an army commander within range of a theatre commander. Unless the Cheasepeake is blocked, the port is usually Washington D.C.

I never leave units bobbing up and down on transports in the ocean; sometimes the computer won't let me move them off !!

[Chuske]

Yeah you don't want to leave units on ships at all. This is perhaps the biggest issue with an otherwise really polished game is that the amphibious side is a bit confusing. Shame the game doesn't prevent you leaving units on ships.

Also trying to replicate Grant and invade Kentucky after Paducah down the Cumberland/Tennessee Rivers isn't easy to do in this game, you thend to have to go overland through Bowling Green into Nashville to capture the state as the US.