AAR of Incompetence!

[Grotius]

This thread will demonstrate how *not* to play Forge of Freedom! I plunged into the Advanced Game after reading the epic Gil/jchastain AAR and skimming the manual. Don't get me wrong, the manual for FoF is terrific, but when I first got the game I was anxious to fire it up, and so I just played. Now I'm reading the manual and realizing all the mistakes I made.

Anyway, I have the Union, the AI has the CSA, and I'm playing the Advanced Game with most of the defaults enabled, including CSA Emancipation. I started by following jchastain's advice on Kentucky: move troops out to improve one's chance of Kentucky joining your side.

[Grotius]

Sure enough, that worked. Kentucky joins my cause in late 1861. But I prove frightfully incapable of exploiting this diplomatic success! My March 1862, half of Kentucky is still in CSA hands. But never mind that! I think I'll go siege Knoxville, just to show 'em.

[Grotius]

Unfortunately, I underestimated the strength of Early's division to the southwest. He swoops in and boots me out of Tennessee without raising a sweat. I fight a detailed battle without bothering to learn from the manual how to change facing, or the importance of supply. It won't be the first time I underestimate the AI.

In the meantime, stalemate rules in the East. We've skirmished some in West Virginia, but the front lines haven't shifted much.

[Grotius]

Virtually my only military triumph has been on the high seas. My navy sits off the Carolinas and defeats the Confederate navy several times. Here I am, looking for trouble off Charleston.

[Grotius]

In the meantime, I'm having lots of fun with the "Civilization"-like strategy game of deciding what to build in my cities. I want more generals, so I build a couple Academies, but all the same I notice that I'm losing the leadership game. The CSA has lotsa famous generals: Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet, JEB Stuart, and some guy named Robert E. Lee. I've got..McLellan. Sigh.

Anyway, I'm also perturbed that even with all those horse-rich provinces in Kentucky, I'm chronically short of horses -- and overloaded with iron. So I switch most provinces to make horses. One build decision that I don't make is one I may regret the most: I don't build much artillery at all, and no siege artillery to speak of. Here's a look at my City List.

[Grotius]

Undaunted by my setback in Knoxville, I decide to invade Arkansas. On to Little Rock! At first things go well. I push forward, and I try to box out the famous Stonewall Jackson.

[Grotius]

But right around now (spring of 1862), the South emancipates its slaves, which turns everything topsy-turvy. The downside for the South is that Texas and North Carolina stand down from the war effort. But the upside is diplomatic, it seems. I'd already been slipping diplomatically with the Europeans, and emancipation makes my diplomatic position extremely precarious. Money and technology flows from Europe to the South like water. I'm waaay behind on tech. I see this guy a lot.

[Grotius]

And things only get worse diplomatically. The Brits declare war on me in the spring of 1862! They have forces in Canada, eep! Fortunately, they only have one container, a division, but I see lots of scary looking siege artillery and stuff near Toronto. I scramble to build infantry in upstate New York and to send a general and a couple brigades that way from Maryland.

[Grotius]

In the meantime, an ill omen in Arkansas. I'm struck by disease in the Ozarks. I don't have much hospital coverage at all out there. (I have built a couple hospitals in the Maryland area, but even so the Army of the Potomac has been hit by disease once.)

[Grotius]

Fortunately, the initial British invasion isn't that fearsome, at least not by land. The Brits lack containers, and so they come at me piecemeal. At this stage they're more of a nuisance than a genuine threat to my livelihood. Here I win one minor battle in Rochester, for example. Generations will remember the glorious Civil War battlefield of...Rochester!

[Grotius]

At sea, however, things look more worrisome. Since British entry into the war, the CSA Navy has become increasingly robust. I'm not sure if I'm fighting Confederate ships alone or British ships too, but whichever it is, there are suddenly a lot of them. I actually have gotten one naval upgrade -- reinforced hulls -- but the CSA has had two or three. Here we see a CSA fleet about to engage my fleet off New York....

[Grotius]

...and here we see the result. Perhaps I should be happy that my ironclad didn't move fast enough to get to the battle.

[Grotius]

But have no fear! Those two Brit brigades on the Hudson River won't be able to take the Big Apple, and in the meantime, I'm still threatening the crucial strategic pivot-point of...Little Rock. I mean, what's more important, all that money production in Manhattan, or control of the financial capital of Arkansas? To this end, I grant small promotions to the two generals leading my Arkansas offensive. One is Heintzelman:

[Grotius]

For those of you new to FoF, one of many fun aspects of this game is that promoting (and demoting) generals affects your political standing with the governor of the general's home state. I've made Heintzelman's friends a little bit happier today.

[Grotius]

Note from that last screenshot that I continue to win skirmishes in upstate New York -- but that the CSA continues to roll in technology upgrades. But never mind all that! I've got to attend to the Invasion of Arkansas. In June 1862, I conquer White River. I'm a *little* worried that the AI might be smart enough to cut off my supply lines, but the AI can't be that smart, can it?

[Grotius]

And here I make my single dumbest mistake of the war. I kinda assumed the AI would make a Typical AI Dumb Mistake and not try to cut off my supply line. So I rather nonchalantly take the Army of Arkansas and move it south into Arkansas River, the river province south of White River, so that I can besiege Little Rock (which is in the Arkansas River province). I don't move my Corps to the north to follow, in part because it's obviously very weak, and in part because I'm just not thinking this through at all. Against a human, I'd never do something this stupid, but I figured, bah, it's just AI.

Also, note that a couple of Choctaw cavalry brigades have joined my cause. This emboldens me in irrational ways that I still don't understand.

Anyway, on to Little Rock I go! And, um, out of nowhere, a CSA division enters White River and instantly cuts me off! But it's only a division, right, so why worry?

[PlacidDragon]

This was a refreshing view on AAR's, i must say [:'(]

I will closely be watching your road to ultimate victory [:D]

[Grotius]

And here I compound my initial error. I now debate: can I go ahead and besiege Little Rock while being cut off, or should I try to move back north and dispose of that pesky division? A rational person would read the supply rules now. Or at least change my supply level (which I didn't think of touching til I was already in combat!). But I do dimly recall jchastain pressing a siege of Jackson while cut off, so I figure if he can do it, I can do it. On to Little Rock!

What I didn't expect was that Field's division would move south to engage me in Little Rock. He does. I'd underestimated his strength. I shoulda remembered that a CSA brigade packs more punch than a USA brigade; this is a wargaming lesson I learned 30 years ago playing Avalon Hill's "Gettysburg," and one that the manual in FoF helpfully reminds us of, if we read it.

So the Battle of Little Rock begins. One thing I like about FoF is that you can choose whether to do detailed battles, and it's best to use them for big engagements. So the "flow" of the game feels right. You get strategic warfare for a couple months, punctuated by big famous battles.

Anyway, here I'm marching on Hickory, one of two victory locations I need to take. In the vanguard is the Crazy Delawares "legendary" brigade. Don't ask me what the Crazy Delawares are doing in Arkansas.

[Grotius]

I have absolutely no artillery (recall my earlier cunning decision not to build any), so the only way I can defeat the garrison on the victory hex is to surround it and pulverize it with infantry fire. This I manage to do, but it takes a whole day. In the process, two of my brigades become disordered.

(Questions for the experts: what's the best way to get them undisordered? If I see 0% by the column and line formation options, that means it's fruitless to click those buttons, right? So does one just skip a turn repeatedly? Also, is spacebar the same as skipping a turn?)

Also, I have only one supply caisson. Now that I've read the manual, I think this is partly a consequence of (1) being cut off on the main map and (2) not ordering a rise in the Strategic Supply level of this army group on the main map.

Anyway, after I take that one victory hex, a sole CSA brigade mounts a furious counterattack from the east. It sweeps aside two of my brigades and heads right into the center of town -- and then makes a beeline for my disordered units, routing them instantly. It caps all this off by destroying my sole supply caisson, or at least I think that's what happened. The supply unit seems to be lying on its side, broken. Here's a look at the marauding CSA unit, this time in "chit view" (NATO symbols):

[Grotius]

I eventually do rout that sole CSA unit, but by this time another CSA brigade shows up, and I've lost my caisson. I think I read in the manual that the town hex I control is a supply source, but I seem to be doomed anyway. My guys all rout. I'm not quite sure what happened next because I had to answer the phone. When I return to the game, I can't find any of my brigades on the strategic map! All that's left are my two commanding generals. If you lose a battle while you're cut off, all your brigades surrender?

Whatever happened, it amounts to a catastrophe in Arkansas. Heintzelman and Siegel limp back north.

Back East, I've been building up a small army in Buffalo. This is Buffalo in June '62.