Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: jchastain

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ORIGINAL: madflava13

I'm curious about your decision not to upgrade weapons and attributes of your units knowing an offensive is coming soon. Also, if it's not too much trouble, I'd love to hear more about the specific upgrades and specialized traits available.... How you choose which units to give traits to, and why. I know you've touched on it some already.
Thanks in advance!

What I've been trying to do is upgrade the weapons of the highest quality units. In combat, quality becomes morale. So low quality units route quickly. It isn't worth spending a lot of resources giving good weapons to troops that will only fire them once. I pretty much NEVER upgrade the weapon of any unit with a quality of less than 2.0. I pretty much ALWAYS upgrade the weapons of any unit with quality level of 3.0+. The area in between is the gray area. Improvised weapons are just awful. Shotguns and muskets are slight better. Minies and springfields are slight better than those. Other than VERY VERY high quality troops, I won't pay to upgrade one level. So anyone who has shotguns or muskets, I leave alone (until I get something better). Decent troops with improvides weapons I tend to upgrade to minies.

I also wasn't anticipating the offense in the east so I was holding off on upgrades there. Why do interim step upgrades for units that won't be fighting - just upgrade to something decent once it gets close for time to engage them. Then at the last minute, I've decided I need to commit them. That decision was made based on the overwhealming troop levels so I think I'll still be fine. Last turn I could and likely should have given them some attention as it become obvious they'd be deployed. More than anything my failure to do that was laziness and not strategy.

The specific upgrades are much more defined in detailed combat. The devs have said they apply to quick/instant combat as well roughly in proportion to their cost, but none of us know exactly how those formulas work under the covers (except the devs themselves). But again, the investment makes the most sense for high quality troops that won't turn and run with the first shot. I thought about buying more attributes in the last few turns, but they all cost money and money has been tight. I basically made the decision to focus on diplomacy, supplies and building out key containers instead of improving the current units. Over the next few turns, we'll see if that was the right decision or not.

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ORIGINAL: jchastain


Great questions. Let's step through them...

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ORIGINAL: Grotius

I'm enjoying this AAR a great deal. This game is already a must-buy for me, but I do have a few questions.

Great! That's why we're doing it. It really is good to hear people are enjoying it and getting something out of it.

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First, I'm surprised how expensive diplomacy is. What is this expense intended to simulate? Don't get me wrong, I like it; it adds depth to the game, and it's forcing you to make some hard choices.

I think the expense really is more for game balance than to model anything specific. The CSA gets benefits with every level of relationship they build. If they get to level 6, England or France will enter the war in support of them and that's a pretty big deal. If it were too cheap, both sides would just max it out and leave it there making it irrelevant. The USA has the economic advantage, but they are playing defense. They don't know where the CSA is investing and therefore have to cover the board or take their chances. With modest focused investment, the CSA can achieve some real gains by nudging a pwer their way. With modest spread investment and a little luck, they can get the USA to spend a lot trying to cover it all (which is close to where I am right now).

okay just to be a pain here :), you need a level of 7 to get either France or England to join the war on the side of the CSA, Europe will never join the war, but will keep sending goodies

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Also, I notice that your screenshots sometimes show more than one unit in a province per turn. Do they all occupy the same location, or are they presumed to be in different parts of that province?

All units are assuming to be in the same place within a province. You have have independent units in a province. One of the game options is whether you want them "stacked" with one icon representing them all or whether you want to see separate icons. I prefer to keep them separate. Within a province, you can also choose to combine or divide units. The "container" concept allows a lot of flexibility in reorganizing units, though I am sure some will find that flexibility to be a management burden. I tend to like it.

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Finally, I'm interested that you can pull garrisons from, say, Wisconsin and send them to the front. Do you pay any political penalty with the Wisc. governor for doing so? Or any other kind of penalty?

There is no immediate penalty. You'll see that governors make occasional demands. The governors of Virginia and Tennessee have both demanded a certain number of brigades within their borders already in this game (both players see demands from governors on both sides - politicians aren't very secretive). If Wisconsin makes a similar demand, I'll have to decide what to do about it. But for now, I can empty the state and not worry about it.

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ORIGINAL: Grotius

Very interesting. You asked for questions, I got plenty o' questions. :P

One question is about research: do you accumulate a set number of "light bulbs" automatically each turn, or is the gain in research somewhat randomized, with a greater chance of a gain if you invest more?

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Also, a strategy question: why is your focus in the west? Does this reflect the starting disposition of forces or your own choice?

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Finally, I gather you plan offensive operations in the west and holding operations in the east. When you go on the offensive, what's your ultimate objective?

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ORIGINAL: Grifman

One thing I'm not seeing any naval strategy by the Union. I've read in CSA AAR's about blockade runners, etc. Can you describe what naval options (blockades, amphibious landings, etc) that the North has. And are you planning on doing anything in these areas?

As an aside, why is Ft. Morgan on a river north of Mobile and not guarding Mobile Bay? Seems like there are a couple of misplaced forts here and there.

Lastly, can you build forts in locations you later deem important? Thanks.