The South Will Fall! (PBEM AAR, XPav vs. CSL)

The Ageod forum says that the best way to structure your divisions is…

1 Sharpshooter, 1 Cav, 4 arty, and the rest militia! Which is what I’ve been doing. Perhaps, come next campaigning season, I do what, historically was done, which is, get between CSL and something he wants, and let him come to me.

Like many wargames, the AI is “ok” when it comes to limited goals in a single theater, but utterly clueless at the right way to win a war. Last AI game I played, the first game I really played, I was Union. Took me until 1863 to put the AI on the run, but by that time, it had:

  • Invaded New Mexico with a giant stack of dudes
  • Put Robert E Lee in charge of a brigade
  • Done 3 suicide runs into Pennsylvania while I steadily drove forward taking Richmond

It’s not good. Play PBEM.

Yeah, I’m up to mid-1862 and I have a full army plus three independent corps running around Virginia. I just captured Richmond and Lynchburg. I think the Rebels might have one decent stack at this point. Meanwhile I also just captured Nashville. My morale is 175, the Rebels at 48.

I’m following the same Ageod divisional structure, but I’m not relying on militia. I can see the heavy militia strategy working against the AI but it will be interesting to see if you can beat a human player with such relatively poor quality troops combined with your commander disadvantage.

I believe that the advantage is that these units are cheaply procured but can be trained up to the level of line infantry by leaders like McClellan with their training power, allowing you to get far more line infantry for the same price. CSL’s PBEM featured McClellan quite prominently in that same role.

Since that was, essentially, the strategy used by the Union back in the day, it would make sense – especially when coupled with the long game plan of slowly building overwhelming numbers while sacrificing the West.

As a caveat, I don’t actually own the game, nor have I ever played it.

Militia will upgrade after a while, so one should in theory end up with line infantry over time. I don’t think militia would be a good choice if that didn’t happen, but it seems to be the standard for the better PBEM players on the AGEOD forums, and I assume they know what they’re doing.

As for the AI, I just won a game as the Confederacy in early winter 1861 after assaulting Washington D.C. three turns in a row with an increasingly beat-up army. I really like the game, but I don’t know if I want to play another campaign when the AI is liable to screw up massively like that.

But you probably don’t want to be throwing those militia to their doom until they are trained up to line infantry.

I’m not forgetting that militia can be upgraded, but with there only being a small number of “training” commanders available early on and some of them (McClellan, Halleck) being crap otherwise, it’s quite a gamble to take. And it’s not as if the Union is hurting for money as is. At least in my experience I run out of troops to build with before I run out of cash. So it seems to me that you might as well buy the better troops up front.

That said I obviously haven’t played enough to see how this works in game terms.

Are the ‘training commanders’ required to convert militia, or do they just speed up the process?

It’s not required. I believe you get them to convert through use and possibly a slight per turn chance in general IIRC. Trainers just speed up the process. But seriously, there’s no reason to use some of those guys as major army commanders. McClellan is just pointless in this game, which is why they apparently decided to force him onto you regardless with scripted stuff that causes a penalty if you bypass him for army commands.

You are now in charge of the Cairo, IL, defense force. Aeon’s 221st Fluxers.

Har.

Alright, winter is really setting in, so everyone’s pretty much holding, save for dudes moving places on rails. CSL pushed me back to Fort Monroe with equal casualties on both sides. Equal casualties = I win.

Here’s my general status coming on the tail end of the year.

McDowell’s 3 divisions are in Alexandria, with Hooker’s 2 divisions moving back to Baltimore. No sense in keeping them on the front lines. 3 other divisions are at various places on the east coast in key defensive areas, with about a half a division at Fort Monroe.


2 divisions are in West Virginia.

McClellan’s in Louisville with his army, which is being built up to 3 divisions. Lyon is in Evansville, he’ll have a division put together by the end of this turn. Grant’s in Cairo, I’m trying to get him up to 2 strong divisions.

Fremont or Halleck or someone useless has a division in St Louis, Sumner has a half division in Lexington, MO.

So yeah, that’s about 17 divisions of troops, not including garrisons or my sprinkled militia regiments.

In comparison, I can see around 10-11 or so division size forces of CSL. While most of my forces are in the 400-or so power points, most of his are in the 300s.

Many of my militia regiments are converting to Line Infantry. It’s hard to tell, there’s no indication, all I can see is that lots of regiments that have “Mil” in their name are now line infantry.

Comparing to my strategy at the start of the year, I held in the East, with the exception of losing Harper’s Ferry, which is ok, because the depot there was traded for the Winchester depot. Kentucky isn’t conquered, but is on my side, so I’m well positioned with 4 divisions to move on Bowling Green, and from there, to Nashville next year. I’ve got Ironclads covering the confluent, so he can’t get through.

Main things for me to learn this year:

  1. Make sure to press the right button when you want to attack, I lost Lyon’s division because of that.
  2. 2-1 numeric advantage isn’t enough on attack. I need 3-1, or let them come to you.

I have plenty of money. It takes me 107 companies to put together a meatshield division, so that’s one every month at my current personnel rate.

Any chance you’d ramp up your screenshot-ratio again?

Other than that, interesting game so far.


rezaf

Don’t their NATO symbols change? That happened to me, at least sometimes.

Screenshots added to my last post, but since I can only have 4 shots a post… here’s the first overflow.

Grant:

My main combat forces:

Milita vs Infantry:

You can see how Line Infantry is a lot better – however, the conversion is free, militia costs 30% less, takes less time to train, and all I have to do is, apparently, throw away any chance of winning a battle for 6 months. :)

So nothing happened this turn.

What I can tell:

I appear to slightly outnumber CSL in Virginia. Not much, but a bit.
I’ve got 2 divisions in West Virginia that CSL doesn’t appear to know about
I appear to have about a 2-1 advantage in Kentucky, not to mention my large fleet of Ironclads and Gunboats. I’m hanging around the north, he’s hanging around the south.

CSL appears to be putting together another division in Richmond, and he’s got Stonewall hanging out on his lonesome over in Harper’s Ferry. Not sure why.

Weather is bad, I took some hits from people who couldn’t get indoors soon enough.

I’m thinking that next year, my divisions in West Virginia get replaced with a garrison, I send them to VA, I send 2 divisions to Fort Monroe, march up the Peninsula, leave the rest of the North VA in place, and see what he does, while simultaneously blitzkrieging Southern Kentucky.

Another boring turn. New divisions get formed, no one else moves. I’m fixing rail and taking isolated provinces here and there to remove any ability for CSL to see where I’m going.

2 more armies are being built. They’ll have to go to Fremont and Butler. UGH. However, in Fremont’s case, he’s with Grant, so I’ll just give the Corps to Grant and have him kick ass. In Butler’s case, I think I might give him an Army of One, and just send 2 addl 1-star generals along with Hooker and Meagher to reduce the command penalty.

I’m still debating on what to do with my 2 division in West Virginia. Bring them into Virginia to create another Corps for the Army of N Va (and East Coast Reserve), or move them over the mountains and grab Covington to force CSL to guard against a “strategic Cannae” together with my forces moving up the Pensinsula?

Next turn, more political options become available. I’m thinking money + conscription w/bonus to raise more divisions, followed by Union total blockade.

The next few turns will be all about getting troops in place for the 1862 spring blitzkrieg. I wonder what CSL is doing. One thing he’s NOT doing is repairing rail lines, and I don’t get that. Saving war supplies for a Navy? Perhaps I’d better sacrifice a few cavalry and ships in the winter weather to try and see if he’s got some forces somewhere.

I’m really thinking I dump my 2-

Hrm, forgot to finish that last post.

Kinda boring. We both picked options last turn. I went for a one-time tax and call for volunteers (with bonus). This leaves me more nuclear options later. My morale is a little low, sadly, but too be expected. The “blockade” raised the foreign intervention a bit, up to 47. Getting kinda scary.

CSL did money, money, people, people options. He’s going to need them.

Here’s what I’m looking at getting in troops ready for spring, from West to East.

Missouri: 1 division under Sumner to advance from Lexington to Springfield, MO. 1 division under Fremont/Humphreys in St Louis to defend.

Illinois: 2 divisions under Halleck/Grant to hold Joe Johnston there and threaten Island 10, with a crap-pile of gunboats and Ironclads that will spreadout to blockade the river.

Kentucky: 1 division under Lyon that will head toward Montogomery, KY, when the spring comes, for a probable linkup with Grant. 4 divisions under McClellan that will head toward Bowling Green (from the depot I’m building in Louisville right now). I expect a few of those divisions to peel off to Grant, I want Grant to get some good fights in so I can promote him to 3 stars to take over my most important Army.

West Virginia: A militia division going into Grafton. The 2 divisions I had there are going to Virginia.

Virginia: Looking at a putting together 9 divisions, in 3 corps, in the AoNVA. 4 are in Alexandria, 1 in Washington, 1 in Harrisburg, 2 are coming from WV, and 1 is being put together. This leaves a group in DC (“The DC Bangaz”), with a division of troops, lots of artillery and gatling guns, led by William H French, an artillery expert.

I’m taking out all the cavalry I can find to make a Cavalry Division under Kearny.

Then, my ace card is 2 strong divisions under Hooker and Meagher. Up the James? Reserves? Arrrrggh! So hard to decide!

Militia’s sprinkled all around. 2 more army commands will be ready in a month, along with more artillery to bolster Grant.

I’m running some cav up the James to sniff out what CSL’s up too. He’s got 4-5 divisions at Manassas, Jackson at Harper’s Ferry with a division (waaaayy out on its lonesome), and what looks like 2 divisions each under Johnston and and Johnston (hah!) in Kentucky.

So – now the question is, what will CSL do, and the question is – when does Winter end, and who moves first.

Enjoyable read, thanks for making the effort :)

Weren’t you planning on making amphibious raids down the east coast? Do you know if it’s possible to do that during the winter as well?

It’s very possible to invade during the winter. The only risk might be the chance of a storm hitting your invasion fleet and causing some damage, but even then it wouldn’t cost you any troops.

As an aside, one thing the game does a poor job of is telling you what has happened to lost generals and naval units. I had a fleet that was totally destroyed by an enemy fort and got no message about it other than that the admiral was now in a nearby port and that my fleet had taken X amount of damage. I’ve also had divisions disintegrate due to supply where the generals disappear and others where they are transported to a nearby city. What the game needs is something in the messages after each turn that would say “General XXX has died” or “Monitor has sunk in Charleston harbor.” If ships sink due to lack of supply or loss of cohesion you do get a message. If they are sunk by enemy fire from ships or forts you don’t.