PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union!

[jchastain]

OK, here we go...

Siege on Tallahassee... is going backwards! heh heh. That is a failed effort.

[jchastain]

More problematic is he managed to attack my siege armies before I could get them out of there and I took some serious losses.

Tallahassee might have won last time, but as expected they lost this round and were eliminated.

[jchastain]

We're doing well on reinforcements. Might even be able to crack under 100K next turn. But diplomacy is going the wrong direction again. We definitely need to address that.

[jchastain]

OK, starting out west... the old siege armies are now completely cutoff. We'll need to get them back to the north and join with the nashville force.

[jchastain]

In the east, nothing much is happening except for the pentagon is filling with generals. Gil wanted to play with more generals. Personally, that's too much micromanagement for me, so except for the really special ones, most are sitting it out in DC. Really, 3 generals per division is enough. The Navy continues to sit on the shore and wait for reinforcements that I still haven't gotten around to building.

[jchastain]

In Florida, you see the remnants of the sieging corp - its generals. Some explanation is likely required here. During playtesting, we had a problem in that generals moving to their units kept crossing into enemy territory and were lost. The idea is that players shouldn't have to worry about routing once they give an order but generals kept going the wrong way and getting themselves captured. It really become a logistical headache and so finally, they relented and just made it so that generals weren't captured. Some will likely say that they should have redone the entire movement system, but that wasn't one of the options (and likely you still wouldn't be playing the game yet had they done that route). Here, you're seeing the downside of that decision. When an entire army is destroyed in combat, the attached generals likely should be removed. But they aren't yet - and that is why they all seem to be picnicing in Florida.

[jchastain]

OK, seems like we've been trying this same move for a few turns now, but let's see if we can finally get these units up and out of the noose they've found themselves in. Clearly, we're seeing the effects of poor leadership. His initiative is much better and it is paying big benefits for him.

[jchastain]

And as we said earlier, we have to stop the bleeding in diplomacy. We'll take both England and Europe up to max. We can afford it and we need to get ahead of this situation quickly.

[jchastain]

With the losses we've been facing recently, we might need to bolster our infantry a bit, so I'll build 2 more high quality units and muster a few more.

[jchastain]

The population refesh is coming, so I'll muster a few more. I've been largely ignoring my governors and national will is way down, so the refresh won't be as kind to me as I'd like, but if I am going to build en masse, now is still the time and between Tennessee and Florida recent losses have been extremely high.

[jchastain]

Taking a closer look at my armies, supply does need some attention. I'm most worried about Sherman's Kentucky army. I'll need them in fighting trim real soon I suspect.

[jchastain]

So here's the new allocations. I'll leave 1st corp alone. They are cut off and in trouble anyway. No sense pumping a lot of money into supplies that may never reach them. Kentucky is where I'll focus and I'll give high priority to the really low units and medium priority to the units with mid-level supply. Potomac likely still won't fight in the near future, so they'll stay put with low supply.

[jchastain]

And with the hightened diplomatic spending and the higher supply spending, cash flow dives straight into the ground. Oh well, it can't be helped. I need both right now.

[jchastain]

It appears a few advances will be achieves soon on the technology front. Might be a good time to compare who has what now.

I've got a lot more weaponry, but am way behind on logistics. In hindsight, I should have invested in logistics instead of weaponry. Beyond those improved springfields that I really did need, I haven't really taken advantage of the majority of my investment there. On the plus side, the Invalid Corps is one of the most important logistics upgrade and while it is my only one, it is one he still doesn't have. The other one I really wish I had was Extended Service.

He's also ahead of me in training. I'd like to catch him in target practice.

His navy isn't shown, but he has 1 to my 2. Then again, let's not talk navy please. Tech or not, I've not done well there at all.

[jchastain]

Sure enough... 2 upgrades. The first is another weapon upgrade. I'll take light recoil and just trust that it will somehow help in battle.

[jchastain]

And for the second, I get my wish. There are a lot of good logistics options including canning which would help my current supply situation. But what I most need is Extended service to get my brigade sizes up.

[jchastain]

Quick turnaround, so here we go again....

We know the Tallahassee forces were butchered, so this warning isn't a surprise. What is concerning is that I do not see anything about a siege of the fort outside of Nashville. I must have forgotten to initiative that last turn. Ooops.

[jchastain]

Another 10,000 lost . sigh.

And the conscriptions don't appear to have gone over very well. We lost a barracks. And in some cases, I didn't even check to ensure the city had enough manpower to create a unit. Ooops again. Need to be more careful.

When I first saw the reinforcement needs just to 191,000 I freaked out and wondered what the heck I did wrong. Then I remembered the extended service advance. That number just represents the additional capacity in my brigades, so it is a good thing and not just massive losses to be replaced.

[jchastain]

Looks like we lost a corp commander in that last fight. oh well, so go the fortunes of war. Looks like my diplomatic spending for England and Europe paid off, but so did his. We both went up with England. I would have prefered to offset one another or both go down. All I care about really is keeping his relationships soured. With Europe, we did offset.

[jchastain]

The situation out west isn't looking good. My siege forces FINALLY moved! And wouldn't you know it - he get there before I did. Even more worrisome though is that Hood and Jackson seem to have a very significant combined force. If they march against Sherman, they'll be considered the defenders and even though that's my best army, I'm not sure it can withstand his combined force. If he marches north and boots me out of there a second time, that might be the war. Hopefully, he'll keep his focus on the weakened siege armies and let me take this province. Thus far though, he hasn't proven to be that stupid so the end of this war might be near.