You are kidding me, right?

[Joram]

Actually, I can't tell as when I download your picture it's super tiny.

I do think it is extremely difficult to re-create where the Union actually was in '63 but not impossible. One thing I would do is take out a chunk of the AoP and move it by navy to New Orleans (definitely with engineers though and preferabbly with a siegegun). The CSA doesn't have enough troops out west to prevent New Orleans from falling and prevent you from besieging the upper mississipi. It will have to decide which one to go after unless it chooses to seriously weaken the east and then you can start making inroads. As the Union, you have to sieze the initiative almost right away to have a decent chance.

If the CSA chooses to advance on the potomac, retreat and let it siege for a couple turns before you counterattack. They will, hopefully, be severely weakened by the forts and when you move back in, you still get the morale bonus for controlling the province (and are considered on "defense").

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: Kipper

I have given up until all this is fixed as well. In some opening battles much of my union army would rout BEFORE contact with any CSA!!! And yes, I have read the whole manual, been wargaming for 20+ years, played a lot of COG etc etc. so I am not a naive wargamer - some people on this forum seem to conclude this is the problem with anybody that has an issue with the game.

This happens when their disposition is low -- so low that the modifiers start their morale below zero as the battle begins. It's important to check disposition before a battle; an army whose disposition is too low simply cannot fight effectively.

Players who don't like this can play with the disposition rules turned off.

EDIT: I should add this to the FAQ in the ReadMe file...

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: Snydeman55
Setting diff level to corporal, power to Union at +1, power to CSA at -1, and enabling the setting where I - and not the AI - upgrade unit weapons, I get much better results. Today if I get a chance I'll restart at the levels I had issues with, enable weapon upgrades, and see if I do better, becuase at Corporal I feel like I'm cheating somehow. I played CoG at higher levels just fine, so I can't imagine I'd need to play at the kiddie level on this one.

We made the difficulty levels more severe in FOF than they were in COG. The hardest "general" levels are much more difficult -- the "colonel" level now corresponds roughly to what the "Bonaparte" level was in COG. Also, it's very hard to win a battle as the USA against the CSA on CS territory early in the game, that was a design goal... we were worried if the US could just march into Fredericksburg early and knock out the AoV then the game wouldn't be much fun.

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Snydeman55

Well, if you look at the Washington battle, it's not like my troops were moving, and I'm not playing with advanced buildings yet, so no training grounds are needed. Otherwise I did everything else you mentioned.

Marecone, the problem is that people like Hard Sarge are saying the Union can't really get moving until 1863. By 1863 the Union was close to zipping up the Mississippi, had taken major ports along the southern coast, had New Orleans, Kentucky, and was making serious advances on Tennessee. If I have to wait until 1863 to NOT get slaughtered on the field, the war will be lost from the get go.

in RL, they were making advances, you can also, I am saying you are not going to be able to take on the ANV in a toe to toe fight, until you are ready for it, and for most people that fight is not going to happen until around 63, you can still take most of the West and most of the Middle South, and still not be ready for the battle with the ANV

[darthsmaul]

I read the book again last night on tactical battles and the firing strength vs movement points left was one I missed and teh biggest one is when a unit is low on ammo its morale drops quickly?  didnt knwo that so Ill work on those 2 and see how it goes as well.

steve

[Alan_Bernardo]

Is someone over at Matrix smoking crack?

I don't think it's anyone on the Matrix team smoking crack. Maybe you are inflating numbers, out of frustration. Maybe what you think you see you don't.

In war, no matter the odds, the battle isn't going to be over in a matter of seconds. This is especially true when one side, with a huge advantage in numbers, is attacking another side that is well protected or entrenched. All this takes time.

Those on the pipe sometimes don't have all that much time, and want things to be over the instant that they start.

Alanb

[Snydeman55]

Alan,
I'll be the first to admit that my comment about 'smoking crack' was born both out of frustration with the game and a sincere exasperation with how out of balance the battle results were. For implying that anyone was actually smoking crack, I apologize.
 
However, I did not imagine the battle numbers, nor did I inflate them. Having played through on other settings I know that the numbers were born from two things: a) improper weapons and b) bad troop disposition. Once I switched disposition to "normal" and took over weapon replacement on my own, things got MUCH better.
 
Here's the thing though; I had the setting enabled where I wouldn't have to bother with weapons upgrades or advanced buildings, but I turned ON unit disposition. I am pretty sure that the AI did NOT upgrade my weapons (the battles I am referring to, by the way, happened in early summer 1862) and without the training grounds (advanced buildings) I wasn't really able to "upgrade" my unit dispositions without the assistance of good leaders - which of course the Union has a cornucopia of in the early years. (Insert sarcasm) I also think it didn't help that despite putting 80 money a turn into diplomacy, the Europeans were pumping nice weapons into the CSA to help THEM upgrade weapons.
 
So here's my particular advice for anyone having the same battlefield problems as me:
 
1) IF you play with unit disposition ON, then do Advanced Buildings as well. Otherwise keep it off.
 
2) Turn off those pesky Europeans. Diplomacy with Europe wasn't a bribe game anyways (it was based on the slavery issue and battlefield performance of Southern armies) and it drains your economy without - at least in my case - being very effective at keeping things out of the South. Now, had I the ability to even start constructing a viable blockade fleet sometime before, oh, I dunno, 1864, this would be less an issue. Maybe tweak the cost of fleets? *shrugs*
 
3) Turn ON the upgrade weapons option. The AI will never do as good a job as YOU will. You know to upgrade the arms of the Potomac and Kentucky armies before the guys slogging through the mudwaters of Arkansas, the AI may not.
 
Now, the OTHER reason I was so flustered was because I use the "historical" result of the Civil War as a guideline to my own performance. If I capture the Mississippi before summer 1863, I'm doing really well. If not, I'm performing badly. After reading another post about this issue, I realize now that this was in incorrect paradigm. I should play the game without judgement of my performance being based on the historical timeline of the war, because it can not be a totally accurate reproduction of the War. It's a game.
 
In any case, and I REALLY hope Eric, Gil and HardSarge see this, I've concluded that the issues I was having with the battle results - which I state again were NOT inflated - were a result of my incorrect menu/game settings. My troops were the worst possible combination: Low disposition that couldn't be altered by training, horrid leaders, bad guns due to not being upgraded by the AI in the manner that would have been most effective, and unduly upgraded Confederate weapons due to very high levels of European assistance.
 
Oh, and for the record, I truly love the game. (Or else I would have put it aside and forgotten it rather than get frustrated and post about issues I was having) If I could change ONE thing though, it'd be something in the European diplomacy code....and I have no idea what that would be, as I'm NOT a coder or programmer.
 
 
 
 

[ericbabe]

Thanks for the suggestions Snydeman.

We've been talking about making battles influence European diplomacy, but we haven't come to a consensus on how this might work... still fishing for ideas if anyone's got any.  There is some historical precedent, I would argue, to the payment of money for influencing European diplomacy: the South withheld exporting cotton in an attempt to provoke European support.

On the easier difficulty levels, I've managed to capture the Mississippi in the Summer of 1863, but haven't been able to do this on the more difficult levels.  I haven't tried this since late in beta testing, so maybe things have changed... now I'm itching to try it again!

[Joram]

1) IF you play with unit disposition ON, then do Advanced Buildings as well. Otherwise keep it off

A perfect example of having too much flexibility. I agree with you 100% and they should be linked. Maybe you may want advanced buildings without the hassle of disposition but I can't imagine you'd ever want disposition without advanced buildings.