So you want to bring glory to the South

[terje439]

This is not an AAR per ce, but is more of a guideline to new players.
This is only how I would do it, and it is no official guide/tutorial

Game settings
This is what I would recommend for the first time player
difficulty: first sergeant
scenario: standard campaign
options: - far start
- always detailed option
- use generals
- more generals
- upgrade weapons
- special abilities
- impressment
- richer economy
- greater population
- advanced buildings
- research upgrades
- unit attributes


TURN 1
So, you made it this far. Good good! Now, first look at the map, get to know what the map looks like, and look at your situation. As you see the South is more or less surrounded by Union Agressors, and our armies are spread all over the place. This is not a tolerable situation. As you might allready know, our economy is not too strong either. So what do we have going for us? Well, two things, and these advantages will fade with time, which means that we must use our initial strength to buy time to get organized. Sorry got carried away there, what our two advantages are? Well, we have the best officers around, and our boys are more than ready for what the Union has to offer! But as mentioned, we need to improve our situation, and here is what I suggest;

1. We need to rearrange the Army, being spread all around is no good.
-> all containers (armies/corps/div's) in Virginia moved to Fredricksburg to halt the Union
-> all units in Kentucky moved to Knoxville
-> all other containers moved towards Polk's army.

2. We need to rearrange generals, altough we have the most able men around, some vegetables somehow hold too high a
position within our armed forces.
-> Lee moved to take over army in Virginia
-> Beauregard moved to reserve (aka moved to Greensborough) were he is to stay until another army is raised
-> A.S. Johnston stays with his army in Knoxville
-> J.E. Johnston moves to take command of Polk's army
-> Polk demoted to 1 star
-> Bragg demoted to 2 stars
-> H.Marshall demoted to 1 star and moved into a city to keep him from ever fighting
-> J.B. Floyd demoted to 1 star and moved into a city to keep him from ever fighting
-> T. Holmes demoted to 1 star
-> van Dorn demoted to 2 stars
-> Longstreet promoted to 3 stars and given command of one of the available corps in Lee's army in Virginia
-> J.E.B. Stuart promoted to 3 stars and given command of a corps under Lee
-> Get one 2 star general in every division. suggestions are; R.H. Andersen, D.H. Hill, R.B Garnett, J.A. Early
B. McCulloch
-> Put 1 star generals in every Div, preferably more in the Div's in the army in Virginia and in the west

3. We need to rename our containers to keep track. I suggest to operate with Army of Virginia under Lee, Central Army
under A.S. Johnston in Knoxville,and Army of the West under J.E. Johnston in Hatchie. All other containers I would
name 1st corps, 2nd corps, 1st div, 2nd div etc. When Army of Virginia is full, Jackson's Corps will be named, and move
towards East Ohio River to put all of Virginia back in Southern hands.

4. We need to fill up our armies, more brigades are needed!
- Each army should eventually have 2 full corps(3 div's of 6 brigades) and one full div (6 brigades)
- Garrison units should be pulled out of their forts/cities and given individual names. I would name them from the
state they start in, aka 1st, 2nd, 3rd Virginia/South Carolina etc. Only a few locations will keep their GARRs
-> Ft. Evans
-> Richmond defences
-> Norfolk
-> Ft. Norfolk
-> Richmond
-> Lynchburg
-> Ft. Morgan (both of them)
-> Ft. Fisher
-> Ft. Sumter
-> Ft. St Philip
-> New Orleans
-> Island #10
-> Ft. Pillow
-> Memphis
but only one GARR in each city/fort. All GARRs in Kentucky should be removed and all forts destroyed. All empty
forts should to be destroyed.
- If/when Kentucky enters, all newly arrived GARRs should stay put.
- Muster in every cirty that supports muster the first 3 turns (as long as population is available)
- Army priorities to recieve reinforcements (were do we place brigades first)
1. Army of Virginia
2. Army of the West
3. Central Army

5. The economy, how do we improve it?
-Lynchburg is changed from producing horses and start producing iron
-1 camp should be built in Florida, and 1 barrack in Richmond, when Richmond barrack is completed another one
should bebuilt immedeately, as this will allow us to produce new armies.
-We start by producing the following each turn
-> 249 money
-> 95 labour
-> 37 iron
-> 99 horses
-> 28 weapons
-> 9 weaponry research
-> 5 engineering research
-> 5 logistic research
-> 20 training research
-> 5 naval research
-> 1680 reinforcements
Our biggest concern here are Reinforcements and Iron. We will build atleast one camp every turn, and if affordable
one iron mine. Iron mines will only be build in cities that allready produce iron, camps only in cities were we are
not going to build units later on (Virginia, New Orleans, South Carolina). Our goal is 75+ iron, and 10.000+
reinforcements. When we reach 50+ iron and 5000+ reinforcements we can on occasions start to build other buildings.
Then our priority will be;
1: Weapons reasearch (should be 20+)
2: Logistic research (should be 20+)
3: Academies (10+ total)
4: engineering research (should be 20+)
5: Armories

Our runners should try to get their hands on the folloing
1. Weapons
2: Iron
3: Labour
4: horses
5: money
if however all of the stockpiles are at 500+ they should not try to get any resources. At such a time they should return
to port as to avoid damage.

The buying of new military units, what should we buy?
- Artillery? Hmm, no I say we steal those from the Union (this is done by forcing them to surrender, something that
will be discussed later)
- Infantery? With all those Garrison units we should have enough infantery units for now.
- Ships? Hardly, the Union holds too far an advantage on the sea, and our fine Southern boys do more good on
solid ground.
- Cavalery? Yes, that is a good idea. Cavalery is highly mobile, and when properly equipped can break any enemy
brigade.

6. So, we now have our boys were we want them, and we have reorganized them into fighting formation, what did we
forget? Ah, yes. They need weapons! But what kind of weapons, and what Armies should be armed first, and why?
- priority
1. Army of Virginia -> will be attacked again and again
2. Army of the West -> will most likely face Grant
3. Central Army -> will take some time before it sees action
- what to arm
-> 3 brigades per div (total 6 brigades) recieve muskets, 3 recieve mississippi rifle until cost of lorenz is cheaper
-> all CAVs get breachloading until Spencer Carbs are available
-> all arty gets 24 pund howitzer until indirect fire upgrade, then Napoleons.
- unit attributes
-> all of our CAVs should recieve quality horses x2. If they allready possess another ability, click that ability and
buy quality horses. We want our CAVs to be fast and long reaching so that they are able to flank the enemy,
and capture fleeing Union troops.


Well, that should get you started General! I will be back later on to give you a few pointers as to how best to fight against the Union, but by heeding my advice you will be in a position were Southern Secession is not only a dream, but a real possibility!

Best of luck to you and your boys!

-> all CAVs get 2 quality horses, if they have something else, click that icon and buy quality horses.

[Jonah]

Great job! You do pretty much what I do in FOF, keep it up!

[terje439]

BATTLE!

So, the Union attacked you? And you are not sure how you should position your units for the coming assault?
Well, I'll give you a few pointers then General, and yes I will explain why I do things the way I do.







I form a main line to stop the Union advance, the supply wagons are located just behind the line as to allow them to supply the most number of units. The cannons are all 24pound howitzers, and as such can fire over other units.

The depleated units/GARs are not worth to bring into the line, the GARs are usually unarmed and of low quality, and depleted units might get destroyed altogether if they take heavy casualties. Depleated units to me suggests 1500- men.
And remember, the less men in a unit, the higher the chance the attached general will get hit! So if you have a good general in a unit with few men, either move him to another brigade, or pull his current brigade back.

The cavalry is placed away from the main line, as to allow them to go around the enemy flank and hunt down ripe targets such as supply wagons and routed enemy units. Ideally I would prefer every army to have atleast 6 CAV brigades, as that would allow them to completely surround an enemy unit and capture it, but for now inflicting damage will do. (remember how I earlier told you that we would only buy CAV brigades from now on?)

The artillery pieces are placed behind the main line for their own safety, if an artillery piece gets tangled, it will easily surrender to the enemy, and that we do not want. (we do want to do that to the enemy on the other hand).

Do you notice how none of my units have trenches in front of them? This is due to 2 reasons;
a) They do not have the required skills
b) Units that entrench tends to lose their "fresh" status
The "Fresh" status allows the brigade to inflict more casualties on the enemy, so I prefer to never dig in and risk losing "Fresh".

CHOOSING GROUND
Often we will have to make do with less than perfect battlefields, this one is not too bad, although there are no hills for us to defend. Placing units on a hill will allow them to fire over the units in fron of them that are located lower on the ground (pretty much like the howitzers fire over other units). If there had been hills available, I would have formed my line around the biggest hill close to my starting position, with my Musket carrying units lined up just below the hill, and any units with a gun capable of some ranged damage (Mississippi, Lorenz etc) would be placed on the hill together with the artillery. The CAVs would still be located away from the rest of the army.

So, what kind of ground should we look for?
1. Open (preferavly very open)
2. Hills
3. Flat (preferably very flat)

Open areas will make it harder for the enemy to suddenly appear.
Hills will allow us to place units on them.
Flat will allow us to form a line anywere.

Currently we are fighting in a Very Flat, Very Open area, which is not too bad, so I say we will crush the oncoming enemy!

What is important to remember is that if the enemy is coming entirely around one of our flanks, we have to adjust our line, if our left is under attack, borrow units from the right and vice versa. Do not be afraid to alter your plan of defense as the battle progresses!

Well that about covers it, I think you are ready to take command now, General!
Best of luck to you and all our boys!



NB! The only reason the minimap shows the location of the Union at this time (the light blue line), is that I am playing both sides during this battle for educational purposes.

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Jonah

Great job! You do pretty much what I do in FOF, keep it up!

Thank you, just trying to give new players an idea as to how things CAN be done.

[terje439]

FIGHTING 101

Welcome back General, how may I be of service?
You want me to clearify some basic concepts of fighting in detailed battled, well I can do that. I am not saying this is what you must do, it is merely suggestions.





Remember how we have previously talked about forcing enemy units to surrender instead of allowing them to retreat? Here is how it is done. The left Union brigade will surrender as soon as we bring their morale down below 0, the right one however we have not yet managed to completely surround, so should that brigade suffer heavy blows to their morale before we have completed our surrender, the men there will be able to run off, and will hence fight us again another day.

[terje439]

I strongly suggest using your aide-de-camp (advanced menu, battle report on).





Here we have sent one of our CAV brigades around the enemy flank, and they are taking their toll on a Union supply wagon. As our Aide-de-camp can tell us, we inflicted extra casualties due to the following effects;
-our superior morale, the higher the morale, the higher casualties we will inflict.
-our "Fresh" status, remember how we discussed this earlier as to wether to entrench or not?
-it is winter, this causes higher casualties for both sides
-the defender is a supply wagon, these units are not ment to take enemy fire at all and should be kept safe
-the defender is facing away from us (we are attacking from the rear).

However we also had a few effects lowering the damage we did, these were;
-We had no ranging. This ment that our boys did not have the distance to the enemy measured up, this is done
after we successfully attack an enemy unit, so if both units stayed put, our next attack would not suffer this
penalty.
-We moved before we attacked, the longer we move before we attack, the higher this penalty will be, so it is
better to stay put and fire than to move first.

Yet as can be seen, we inflicted 378 casualties and had only 3 ourself, a huge success!

[terje439]

Do you spot a flaw on our CAV unit?

Of course you do, as I mentioned earlier, CAV brigades should have quality horses x2, and this has quality horses x1 and horse artillery. This should be corrected, and is only due to the fact that we did not have the resources to change the horse artillery into quality horses before the Union attacked us.

[Kingmaker]

HiHi
 
Nice one, Cheers, always interesting to see how other folk handle things.
 
The only ?? I have is that even if units are completely surrounded as you show, ie all the surrounding units in line facing in towards the Feds and fireing away fast as they can I still find 9 x out of 10 the vermin slip away, am I doing something wrong? [:(]
 
All the Best
Peter

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Kingmaker

HiHi

Nice one, Cheers, always interesting to see how other folk handle things.

The only ?? I have is that even if units are completely surrounded as you show, ie all the surrounding units in line facing in towards the Feds and fireing away fast as they can I still find 9 x out of 10 the vermin slip away, am I doing something wrong? [:(]

All the Best
Peter

If you have an enemy unit completely surrounded, AND the enemy unit has a morale of < 0 it shall surrender.
There is however one time when a surrounded unit can disappear, and that is turn 4 after the enemy has sounded the retreat. When the enemy sounds the retreat, all of his units (except CAV) will retreat towards the edge of the map (and preferably off map) for 3 turns, and then they will all disappear. This is to simulate the fact that it was not common in the ACW to follow a routed enemy and capture as many units as possible.

There might also be two answers to what you are experiencing;
-As of one of the later patches, the AI is very fond of splitting his brigades. If you only capture one half of the brigade, that half will simply disappear but the brigade remains as long as the second half is not also captured.
-On the higher difficulty settings the AI recieves heavily reduced morale casulties, and units are often shot into nothing before they will surrender.

Hope this helps? If not ask again!

[Kingmaker]

HiHi
&nbsp;
Cheers, this happens before the 4th rout turn, must be the moral factor, I'm playing on Sgt Major level, Ho Hum just have to keep swearing at the screen I suppose [:@]
&nbsp;
All the Best
Peter

[Ingtar]

This will sound a silly question, but the view I get in detail is of little men.&nbsp; I would rather the NATO symbols.&nbsp; Where is this changed?

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Ingtar

This will sound a silly question, but the view I get in detail is of little men.  I would rather the NATO symbols.  Where is this changed?

with the "+" button, and I looked for it as well [:)]

[terje439]

ECONOMY - ADVANCED CLASS

Hi there General, how may I help you today?
You have completed your first turn, and are not sure what to build next? Well, I will give you a few pointers for the next couple of turns then.

Turn 2: 2 mines, 1 camp (Texas)
Turn 3: 2 mines, 1 camp (Florida), 1 academy
Turn 4: 2 mines, 1 camp (Texas), 2 armories, 1 laboratory
Turn 5: 1 barrack in Richmond

As you can see I prefer to keep it simple the first couple of turns. Camps are a must, you will eventually suffer more than 10.000 losses in a single battle, having able men ready to take up the muskets of their fellow Southern comrade is a must!
And as you can see I prefer to build us some mines, this is due to the fact that we produce way too little iron in our states. Unfortunately cannons can still not be made from cotton and tobacco.

I see more questions in your face General. Ah, yes the academy and the research facilities?! Well, the academy will train our containers. If you check any container (you remember what that is right? Army/Corps/Div, right you are Sir!) it will have different ratings, and the academies we have will help improve these ratings.

Armories will help us get new better weapons like the Spencer and Henry rifles, these will certainly be of immense help for our lads. The single most important gun? Well there are two, the Improved Springfield for our INF, and the Spencer Carabine for our CAV.

The Laboratory? It will help with different aspects of the logistics of our Armies. We might even be able to improve our railroads!

Why I only stated the Barrack in Richmond in turn 5? Well I leave it up to you to try to get a hold of what to build next, but a hint will be atleast one camp every turn. (Remember were NOT to build those?)

And you have remembered to muster everywere the Governor supports it up to now, right? Then hopefully you should be set for Infantery, and you can think about starting to build some more Cavalry. These guys will even help you to chose ground for the upcoming battles, and you might even have the chance to surprise the enemy, raid his supplies and much more.

Now go out there and conquer! And do not be afraid if the Union has more men than you, remember any Southern lad is equal to, or even better than 3 Union agressors.

[Jonah]

Great tactical advice, can't wait to see more!

[terje439]

Sun Tzu said:

"If you know both yourself and your enemy, you need not fear the outcome of a 100 battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither yourself nor the enemy, you will succumb in every battle."

So, do you really understand what he ment?
What Sun Tzu basically said was that you need to know both the strength and weakness of both your own force as well as that of the enemy. But what does that translate to in our case? What are the weaknesses and strengths of the two opposing sides?

South
Our strengths have been discussed briefly before, we have by far better generals, and we start this civil war with better troops.
As to our weaknesses, there are mainly two. We do not have the ammount of manpower the Union possesses, and we do not have as strong an economy as the North.

Union
Their main asset is their economy which is vastly superior to our own, and they have more manpower to draw reinforcements from. This means that in a war of attrition, the odds will eventually turn in favor of the Union.
The Union however does not have too many great generals at the outbreak of the war, but they are bound to learn eventually, and although their units are currently no match for our boys, if they get to see enough action, they will eventually become a force to be reckoned with.


So, from this we learn that we should be able to win the first battles rather easily, but that the opposition will become increasingly stronger. To fight this, it is imperative that we do not allow our brigades to be captured, or simply destroyed on the battlefield. If a unit is too weak, it might be better to keep it behind our main line, and no unit should be left in an exposed position were it is bound to be surrounded and destroyed.
Since we do not have the economy of the North, we must use our resources accordingly, we cannot afford to buy units we MIGHT need, we can only afford to raise the troops we NEED.

This should always be in your mind when you engage the Northern Agressors.

[terje439]

Units - an introduction

So, as you might have noticed by now General, there are more units out there than has so far been described. This class is all about learning a little bit about the different kind of military formations at your disposal.

Land based
Infantery (INF)
Garrison (GARR)
Cavalry (CAV)
Artillery (Arty)
Siege Artillery (S.Art)
Raiders (Rdr)
Partisans (Part)
Divisions (DIV)
Corps (Crp)
Army (Army)

Water based
Runners
River ships
Ocean ships
Fleets

Since the Union holds an advantage on the sea, we will never be in a position were we can truely challenge them there, I will however mention the water based units briefly. A fleet is the naval version of an army, it can hold several vessels in it, making them fight together. Ocean Ships consists of several kinds of ships, but if we as the south is to ever build a ship, it should be an ironclad. These ships has heavy defesive values, and are extremely hard to sink. 4-5 Ironclads in a fleet might be able to break a Union blockade, but the ammount of resources needed will be huge, and better put to use elsewere. River ships cannot enter the ocean, and their only use is to bombard enemy positions, a couple of well equipped river ships might speed up your sieges. These ships cannot be left alone in an area were there are enemy ground forces, and can of course not move away from the rivers. As such their use to us in terms of resources needed to build them are very limited.
Runners are our link to Europe. These brave lads will take Southern tobacco and cotton to Europe and bring back all sorts of resources.
To do this, select one of the runners, and order it to move to a sea area were you will recieve resouces. (The areas were for an example 20 weapons is printed). The ammount of resources, and were you will get them will change from turn to turn.
You start out with two runners, use them for as long as possible, however do not use them to get a resource you allready have 500+ of, as this only places them at risk of being destroyed for no gain. Unless you decide to start doing deplomacy with Europe, I do not suggest building another runner.
With Diplomacy turned on, the ammount of resources gained by runners will increase if your diplomatic standings is high. This makes runners more cost efficient.

The land based units is what will make or break the South. Either we build enough and the right sort of units to fight off the Union, or we will soon be forced to surrender. Since these units are so important I will discuss them in detail.
-Infantery (INF). These guys will form our main battle line in any battle, and will have to be well enough trained, in high enough a mood, and sufficently equipped to throw back more or less anything the Union can throw at us. Every successful muster will raise one INF brigade.
-Garrison (GARR). This is basically an INF located in some defensive terrain, like a fort or a city. At the start of the war we had several of these units spread all over the nation, but hopefully by now you have relocated some of them to your armies? GARRs should never be armed, their only purpose is to slow down the enemy when he enters a territory were we have GARRs on protective duty.
-Cavalry (CAV). The eyes and ears of any army. The CAV uses hroses to travel fast and far, but will generally dismount before engaging the enemy. Having alot of CAV in your army makes it more likely that you will be allowed to take some sort of action before the battle starts, perhaps you will be able to raid his supplies, launch a surpise attack or other similar activities. The CAVs can also be sent around the enemy army to harass the units in their rear, forcing the enemy to divide his forces. As soon as possible, the CAVs should be equipped with breechloading carabines, until the Spencer carabine is available.
CAVs have one major weakness. They hardly contribute during a siege, so if you have an amry consisting only of CAV, be prepared to spend a long time, and to suffer alot of caualties during the siege.
-Artillery (Arty). Artillery units are often called the queen of the battlefield. They inflict terribly losses on the enemy, but at the same time are slow moving, and somewhat vulnerable. They should as previously discussed be placed away from the enemy.
-Siege Artillery (S.Art). S.Art is basically huge cannons. These guns are too big and cumbersome to be of any effect on the battlefield, they will however do loads of damage on units hiding within a fort. These guns are not too valuable to us, they are too expensive for a weapon that will only be used during sieges. A waste of money for the South.
-Raiders (Rdr). The raiders can be sent into enemy territory and perform all sorts of mischief, like robbing enemy arsenals, destroying his railroads or harass his population. They will soon be killed however, and my suggestion is to use the one Rdr you start with to steal some weapons until he is destroyed, at that time do not build any more of these units, as they use resources better spent elsewere.
-Partisans (Part). The Part is almost like the Rdr, the only difference is that they will only function within our own states in a Union controlled area. I suggest sending the one you have to Wheeling, and let him steal as many weapons there before he is killed. Again, do not buy more of these guys.
-Divisions (DIV). DIVs are the smallest container available, our Southern DIVs holds 6 brigades of any kind, the Union DIVs holds 5 brigades. They are led by a two star general.
-Corps (Crp). Corps are the medium sized container. It can hold 3 full DIVs for a total of 18 brigades for the South, or 15 brigades for the Union. They are led by a three star general.
-Army (Army). An Army is the biggest container. They can hold two full Crp and one full DIV, for a total of 42 brigades. They are led by a four or five star general.

I hope this clarified some details Sir!

[Mad Russian]

Will a single iron clad fight if not assigned to a fleet? Single Infantry Brigades are next to helpless if they aren't assigned to a unit. (Division, Corps, Army) Are ships the same? Will they only fight if they belong to a fleet?

Good Hunting.

MR

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

Will a single iron clad fight if not assigned to a fleet? Single Infantry Brigades are next to helpless if they aren't assigned to a unit. (Division, Corps, Army) Are ships the same? Will they only fight if they belong to a fleet?

Good Hunting.

MR

Good question, only time I've ever built ICs I built a bunch of them just for fun. But I am honestly not sure. Will check it out later today and update this post.

[terje439]

An intro to Generals

So, although you are in overall command you still need some men taking care of your armed forces. But how do you chose who to keep and who to kick all the way across the Mexican boarder? And what does all the information on a generals sheet really tell us?






The BIO button will bring up some facts about the selected general, this might include were he was born, what his finest achievements were and so on.

The Promote (up arrow)/demote (down arrow) buttons is just to do just that, promote or demote a general. Remember how we demoted and promoted some generals earlier on? What is worth remembering is that a general that is demoted might be so upset that he resigns his commission, and is thereby removed from your generals pool. This would be why I do not demote Beauregard even if I do not have an Army for him. Promoting /demoting a general also changes the ammount of support you will get from the Governor of the generals home state.

The generals skills, are skills he MIGHT teach units under his command any given turn. This only happens in a container, keeping a general and a brigade in a state together but not in a container will not see the general teach any skills to the brigade. This is why any units you have should be put into a container with a general, even if those units are being kept in reserve. It is also worth nothing that any brigade can only learn TWO of these abilities.

[terje439]

An intro to Generals - continued





The generals rank ranges from 1 star to 5 stars. A 1 star general will take command of a brigade in the container he is placed, a 2 star general is a DIV commander (one should be placed in every DIV), a 3 star general is a CORPS commander (one should be placed in every CORPS), a 4 star general is the commander of an Army, and a 5 star general is the overall commander of all the armed forces in a nation.

The number of generals available fo every rank is linked to the number of containers.
1 star generals = as many as you have generals
2 star generals = as many as you have DIVs
3 star generals = as many as you have COPRS
4 star generals = as many as you have Armies
5 star general = 1.
The 5 star promotion is only available after enough academies have been built in your nation.

A general's ratings could have the following rates (from worst to best):
-Terrible
-Bad
-Poor
-Normal
-Fair
-Good
-Great
-Excellent
-Superb

Take one guess as to what sort of general the one in the example is.

Two options that should be played only when you have some experience is:
-hidden stats. This means that you will not see the ratings of a generals stats
-random stats. This means that you do not know before the game starts who will be a good and a bad general, their stats are randomized before start.