RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union!

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [American Civil War] >> Forge of Freedom: The American Civil War 1861-1865 >> RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union!

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 7:52:20 AM

jchastain

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It is clear I need better weaponry technology, so I guess I'll go ahead and spring for another armory. A universary increases the effectiveness of armories, so hartford looks like a reasonable candidate location. While I am thinking about research, at the left I can see that I am making some progress already. I'm generating +14 in weaponry research each turn. Engineering is only +6, so I might want to increase that a bit also as I suspect I'll be sieging plenty of forts. But first things first - I need to get the army in position to beat Lee and his boys so that I'll have the opportunity to perform some sieges.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 7:53:19 AM

jchastain

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So, I go ahead and start construction on an armory.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 7:54:12 AM

jchastain

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Here's where my troops ended up by the way. Not much movement really.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 7:57:00 AM

jchastain

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And a quick look at the details in the east. I did end up moving some troops out of Washington and into Annapolis to reduce the risk of massive losses due to disease. Let's hope Lee just stays put as the Army of the Potomac really isn't doing anything to get ready. In fact, I still have their supply priority all the way down. Maybe I should have assigned McClellan to command it after all since I seem to be using his exact strategy.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 8:01:03 AM

jchastain

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And I end my turn. Despite my caution, it is Gregg who commands the AoP and therefore he earns his promotion as my second 4 star at the end of this turn.

That's it for turn 2. With any luck the Rebs are also sitting back and prepping. I have the economic advantage but time is on his side so by Spring I'll need to be ready to get to work. I think my initial offensive will be out west, but we'll wait and see what he does before finalizing any plans.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 9:11:25 AM

jchastain

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Time to discuss the dark side of this game. It is 2AM. I am about to go to bed. I have to be at work in 6 hours. I receive an email from Gil with his latest turn. Do I...

A Go on to bed and get some rest so I don't look like garbage at work
B Stay up playing a game and get very little sleep despite the fact that the game will still be here tomorrow

Since you are reading this, it is obvious I didn't make the smart call. Tomorrow is my wife's birthday. Now that we have established that I'm not very bright is anyone taking odds on whether I will spend the entire evening with her or try to sneak away and look for yet another email?

OK... back to my turn. This will be a short one since we are now in the winter but again, we'll start with the events report.

TURN 3

Things are basically quiet, just as I had hoped. The siege of Wheeling has begun. I'm taking some nasty casualties - roughly twice those of the defenders - but we're making some progress and at least now I have the other two divisions in place since they both made it.

Gregg received his promotion. So far, so good.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 9:19:16 AM

jchastain

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And on page 2, we find some good news. While his raiders did some damage, a band of the criminals were caught and hung. That will help stem the damage. I was thinking about building another cavalry unit to help solve the raider problem but with one out of commission (he can replace them, but they're expensive) I think I might purchase some artillary instead.

Two more generals are available. Again, nothing special but one does have some cavalry skills so he can attach with them once I get that unit built. Reinforcements continue to come in but we're in decent shape still - we better be since we haven't done anything yet.

England continue to grow in power, but at least this time they responded to our investment. When diplomacy works, you can either get them to like you more or get them to like your opponent less. This time, they decided to like me more. It is a small step, but it is a step.

Governor requests are public for all to see. When the governor of a state announces he wants something, it tends to make the papers and we have sympathiz.... er loyal citizens everywhere. So, we now know the governor of Virginia is asking the rebs to keep a few troops in Virginia. Something tells me he was planning on doing that anyway.

All-in-all, another rather uneventful turn. Good.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 9:21:07 AM

jchastain

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I'll go ahead and get the artillary in process. You can build artillary units in cities with Foundries. Cleveland has one and is centrally located and can afford to lose a unit of population without too much effect, so that's where it will be built.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 9:22:11 AM

jchastain

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The NY Gov is still wanting a hospital and I'm in a decent position to take care of that, so I'll go ahead and give him what he wants.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 9:23:26 AM

jchastain

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I don't want to go wild with barely adequate weapons, but I'll go ahead and get a few more minies for Keyes' army.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 9:29:38 AM

jchastain

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And now that we are in the heart of winter, let's examine supply once again. The 19th Division has 8. That's likely as high as he's going so I'll cut off additional supply there. He's fine. The 18th is dragging a bit behind, so I'll leave him on low supply.

For those not following, the first number in supply is their supply level with the range running from 1 to 10. In the parenthases is the current supply status. 0 = No Supply (foraging). - = Low Supply. N = Normal. + = High.

The Black River Army expended some supply running around but I'm not worrying about him quite yet. 6th Division is also fine without additional supply for now.

I'll eventually have to rev up supplies again for these various units. But for now, I'd rather keep funneling the extra money into diplomacy.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 9:31:01 AM

jchastain

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Speaking of Diplomacy, let's go see what the actual impact of the NY Gov supporting French diplomacy is. Hmmmm. +15%. I likly should be taking better advantage of that.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 9:32:13 AM

jchastain

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So let's notch Britain down one and notch France up one. I'll be spending the same amount of money - just trying to use the French bonus while I have it to use.

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RE: PBEM AAR - Long Live the Union! - 11/10/2006 9:36:27 AM

jchastain

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If I wasn't so tired, I'd use my remaining rail movement to cart a few brigades down from the far north down closer to the front but I'm about to fall over so I'll just hope I can get that done sometime soon. I end the turn, and get to choose another promotion - though only to 3 star this time.

I haven't gotten a lot of upgrade in for the army. The new units under construction won't be finished in time and the individual unit improvements have been pretty modest. Let's hope my opponent hasn't done any better. But it looks like I just need to pick my fights carefully. I am also hoping Kentucky falls my way and soon. I could use their extra production and especially their heavy concentration of horse farms.

OK, files on their way back to Gil and I'm on my way to bed!

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TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:08:25 AM

jchastain

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Lincoln did his duty on his wife's birthday too.

TURN 4

The siege on Wheeling is costing me in blood. With no engineering skills and no siege artillery, progress is slow. I continue to make progress, but I also continue to lose troops faster than the rebs.

Emory got his promotion and again a governor is happy - this time Maryland, though he still isn't exactly a fan of mine. That's fine though as long as he doesn't cause any problems.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:16:55 AM

jchastain

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On the second half of the report, things begin to look interesting. He sabotaged my RRs. That will hurt - guess I should have stayed up that extra 10 minutes last night and take advantage of the unused capacity. Ooops.

The 16th Infantry was disbanded due to low strength. I don't remember them, but they must be a part of the siege on Wheeling. That's not good. I'll be sure to look to see that no other units are close to disbanding. Reinforcements seem to be roughly equal to losses from the siege, so I'm pretty close to breaking even and just have to worry about concentrated siege losses.

In the political section, we have some good news. France support for the CSA fell and the NY Governor changed from supporting French diplomacy to supporting Logistics research. It appears my decision to make French hay while the sun was shining was the right thing to do. With them terring back away from the CSA and with no bonus anymore, I'll try to remember to shift my emphasis back to England.

The big news though is that Kentucky has entered the war in support of the union. Kentucky is fertile grounds for horse farming and that will be a real boost to my efforts to build up some cavalry.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:18:34 AM

jchastain

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Before I forget, I'll go ahead and shift some diplomacy focus back to England. If I can get the CSA support of France down to 0, I'd likely stop investing entirely but for now I'll keep some money there.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:20:33 AM

jchastain

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Now that I own Kentucky, I can move my troops in. The Army of Kentucky is still busy with Wheeling, but the 6th Division should move in. Because it is still winter, I cannot march effectively but RR movement is unaffected. Ideally I'd like to steam all the way up to the front.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:21:43 AM

jchastain

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But with his raid on my RR infrastructure, I don't get very far. Oh well, there's nothing I can do about it now. At least I was able to limp in one province.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:26:15 AM

jchastain

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Looking at the East, I don't see any danger but he's clearly on the move. I didn't notice last night that the ANV had pulled back but there is no way he moved it during the winter so I must have missed it. Also, Stonewall Jackson is now in command. Hmmmm. What is Lee up to? I'm definitely going to leave the Navy right where is in to prevent anything tricky and I need to keep an eye out for him to pop up somewhere. If the rebs are shifting forces west then I either need to do the same or think about what it would take to overwhelm them in the east - a high risk strategy to be sure. Nothing to do quite yet, but I'll keep my eye on this development to be sure.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:29:07 AM

jchastain

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I am glad to have some governor support for logistics. I was a bit worried about that and was thinking I'd need to invest some more money in research sooner rather than later. It is still only 6, but that's better than 1 by a long shot and should lead it to make at least some limited progress. As we've already seen though, Governors can be fickle so I will need to expand that research capability at some point - just not right now. My focus now has to remain on getting ready for a spring offensive.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:39:33 AM

jchastain

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OK, let's focus on building up th army. I have the resources to buy one more cavalry and one more artillery. I'll get both into queues. The city screen is actually the best place to manage macro events in my opinion. From here I can see the manpower available, the economics that might be disrupted and can click on production and select to build a cav - I'll go ahead and add one in Des Moines.

While I didn't want to gut my manpower on low quality forces, it is obvious that even with my economic muscle, I won't be able to buy all high quality troops. Just getting some cavalry and artillery going is taking its time. I need to go ahead and expand the army through muster and conscription.

Muster means asking people to join. Whether or not you succeed is determined by the SUCCESS percentage shown. If you fail, you get nothing but it doesn't hurt anything. Consc(ription) is the draft. That always works, but the DANGER shows the likelihood that the city will experience unrest. Since I want my offensive to be out west initially, I'll focus my build activities there. Davenport, IA is a good spot. The economy is weak and it is out west. There is only a 50% chance of raising troops through mustering and only a 10% risk of unrest through conscription. In this case, I'll go with conscription. Quality is slightly lower, but I want to be a bit more confident than 50%. Cairo, IL is another good place to build. I still don't like the 50% chance of success, but 40% is much to high a risk of unrest for drafting.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:41:48 AM

jchastain

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Going to the bottom half of the city list, I'll start building my new artillery in Pittsburg. I see two more cities to raise more free infantry brigades (Muster and Conscription always produce infantry) so I'll put those in the queue as well.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:44:31 AM

jchastain

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There was a new govenor request but I don't remember the details. This is likely a good time to discuss the filters at the bottom. By hitting the "Governor Request" filter button at the bottom, the list only includes cities in states where the Governor has an open request. Since it takes specific buildings to build certain units, these filters can also help you see where you can build such units. Though I didn't discuss it above, this is how I determined where to build my new cavalry and artillery units.

Anyway, obviously it is Deleware where the Gov wants something.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:46:21 AM

jchastain

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Just as I can build troops directly from this screen, I can also build buildings. When I click on the BUILD section, it brings up the build screen - which tells me the Gov wants a camp. Ooops. I don't have the horses to do that. OK, no camp for the Gov this turn. At least I tried.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:50:49 AM

jchastain

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Really not much more I can do right now. I did want to take a look at the Army of Kentucky and make sure I won't lose any more brigades in the siege. Pulling them up, I see that there aren't any that are especially weak. I do notice a different issue though. While most of the army has plentiful supplies (8), one division is down to 4. That's likely due to a bag logistics rating on the staff officers of that division. At some point, I'll need to replace the worst containers with bad support officers. For now though, I'll just fix the immediate problem. I'll boost that division up to Normal supply priority. I'll pay for it by cutting the rest of the army to none. Robinhood supply management - take from the rich and give to the poor.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 1:55:50 AM

jchastain

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End of turn and the promotion window again. A 3 star will eventuall be commanding a corp. So long as that corp isn't operating independently, initiative isn't as important - that determines your chance of moving on the strategic map and depends on the commander of the top commander. Anyway, though he has poor initirtive, Collum should do fine as a corp commander within an army so he'll get the nod.

And with that, we end turn 4...

Not getting many (ok, not getting ANY) question or comments in here. I'll say it again - Feel free to join in.

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 2:10:44 AM

madflava13

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No questions - just enjoying reading this AAR!

_____________________________

"The Paraguayan Air Force's request for spraying subsidies was not as Paraguayan as it were..."

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RE: TURN 4 - 11/11/2006 3:42:21 AM

jchastain

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quote:

ORIGINAL: madflava13

No questions - just enjoying reading this AAR!

Thanks! We really do like hearing that folks are following and enjoying it.

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Post #: 59

RE: TURN 5 - 11/11/2006 3:44:20 AM

jchastain

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OK... on to turn 5.

The event repot is longer this turn... and not nearly as encouraging.

It starts off well enough. The casualties at Wheeling are trending much better since I embedded the lose divisions into the sieging army there. I'm liking what I am seeing there.

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