RE: You are kidding me, right? (Full Version)

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Snydeman55 -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 7:06:13 PM)

Kentucky, after modifying the diff level to easy settings.

[image]local://upfiles/12051/3D5E4CA7D8ED4EC2913465F88068E2F8.jpg[/image]



Snydeman55 -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 7:06:51 PM)

Battlefield

[image]local://upfiles/12051/638EA8AB141E4AF8A750AF7A66137C0B.jpg[/image]



Snydeman55 -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 7:07:14 PM)

Battle's end

[image]local://upfiles/12051/31C9F4C937034E12B419BF8A791FF530.jpg[/image]



Snydeman55 -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 7:09:21 PM)

So, either:

Setting diff level to corporal, power to Union at +1, power to CSA at -1, and enabling the setting where I - and not the AI - upgrade unit weapons, I get much better results. Today if I get a chance I'll restart at the levels I had issues with, enable weapon upgrades, and see if I do better, becuase at Corporal I feel like I'm cheating somehow. I played CoG at higher levels just fine, so I can't imagine I'd need to play at the kiddie level on this one.



Joram -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 8:00:50 PM)

I play with all the options on (but thinking of turning the damn stupid governors off!) and haven't experienced what you are saying.  As the Union I did indeed encounter some early difficulty and it didn't help that Kentucky felt like deciding to join the CSA, but I was able to consistently win the tactical battles (on 1st Sgt).  I only had to decide I lost after the CSA emancipated before I did and was able to bring the Europeans on his side!  I had spent so much time reconquering Kentucky I ran out of time.  Yikes.

Anyway, the point being is that either there is something to the options you've selected making the results appear different than you expect or perhaps, simply, you are just doing something wrong.  

Here's some tips playing the Union, first and foremost, lure the CSA to attack you so you get a morale bonus (I think it's up to +2!).  Once you have a few battles under your belt your troops will be much better quality and you can go on the offensive.  Furthermore, you should be able to replace losses quicker even if the casualty count isn't in your favor.  If you are doing fine in the resources as you say you are, then you should buy troops, preferably in cities with training grounds but regardless, buying troops are much better quality that mustered or impressed troops.

When doing tactical battles, if there aren't vp hexes, line up so you are in the best possible terrain and let them come to you.  Even if there are vp hexes, you can do this but you have to be more careful as if he captures them all, you rout.  But terrain, especially hills or behind rivers, can add a big advantage (river prevent flanking bonus for example).

When firing, remember that the strength of your attack also depends on how many movement points a unit has in relation to his starting movement points.  So if you are rushing up to attack and moving around and then spend your last 6 movement points on the attack, you will not have a very strong attack.  Furthermore, his counterattack is at full strength so naturally he will blast you for more than you blast him.  I tend to move just out of firing range and stop, let him move up on me and fire.  He may get a decent shot but I'll get the most effective shot I can.  Then, depending on my position, I won't move at all or move one space to try to get around his flank.  I will send my reserve around his flanks in column formation, switch to line, and if I don't have enough mp's to fire, I will wait one or even two turns before I have them fire their first shot as I maneuver them in position. 

Also, concentrate fire on one unit as if you make it rout, every unit of equal and lower quality than the one routed will take a big morale hit (I think higher quality take a hit to but it's half as much).   If you are spreading your fire, you will get decimated.

I will admit I don't do very well with charges.  I can't quite figure it out but I do know this, fatigued units suck at charges.  Low morale units are likely not to complete the charge.  I believe line charges are better than column but any charge in the flank (back three especially) will have a better chance than one in the front.  If the enemy is disordered, your charge may not succeed but you are unlikely to take major casualties so you might want to try anyway.  If you happen to displace a unit, charge it with others as it's obvious it's vunerable (my "flys to the crap theory").   Expect a countercharge if the enemy is the least bit ordered.  For this reason alone I usually charge only when I know I will rout a few (and cause a chain reaction) or if I have a significant manpower advantage and want to end the battle as quickly as possible.

Maybe these are all obvious and what you are doing already, but I tell you it works for me and I'm no military genius.   Hard Sarge's AARs did make it seem deceptively easy but it's not as easy as it looks initially.  I still think it will be easy once you get the hang of it which I think I quickly am (until I bump up to the next difficulty level at least).  So stick at it and you will soon wonder why you ever thought it was hard.  :)  Good luck.

PS One more thing, make sure you at least have muskets.  I prefer Minie's as a minimum with all my troops and it makes a big difference too.  But I've won battles with half my troops with improvised weapons too.  It's just harder.



marecone -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 8:29:52 PM)

Very informative Joram. Any tips on strategy and economics? I play captain level with all options except rebel emancipation.



Joram -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 8:39:45 PM)

I don't, yet, to be honest. I tend to take things slowly which may be ok for the Confeds but isn't for the Union. As the confeds, you have a huge advantage with the plantations so I build them whenever I need to and then fill in the space with mints or factories. I had my economy roaring by '63. I do my best to lure the enemy onto my battlegrounds but with Union, you need to take initiative quicker than I tend to do which means you will have to attack them on their terms.



marecone -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 9:02:05 PM)

Thanks. I didn't play rebs yet but you have a point there about the union. You need totake initiative.



Snydeman55 -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 9:02:55 PM)

Well, if you look at the Washington battle, it's not like my troops were moving, and I'm not playing with advanced buildings yet, so no training grounds are needed.  Otherwise I did everything else you mentioned.

Marecone, the problem is that people like Hard Sarge are saying the Union can't really get moving until 1863. By 1863 the Union was close to zipping up the Mississippi, had taken major ports along the southern coast, had New Orleans, Kentucky, and was making serious advances on Tennessee. If I have to wait until 1863 to NOT get slaughtered on the field, the war will be lost from the get go.



Gil R. -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 9:08:30 PM)

Oh, I thought you were claiming that there were 171,000 Union troops in forts on the strategic map -- an impossibility, since it would require 28 Type III forts to contain all those men. What happened here is that you are fighting a battle in the Potomac River province, which is one of the provinces in the game that can have lots of forts in detailed battle. Sorry, we were talking apples and oranges.



Joram -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 9:26:25 PM)

Actually, I can't tell as when I download your picture it's super tiny.

I do think it is extremely difficult to re-create where the Union actually was in '63 but not impossible. One thing I would do is take out a chunk of the AoP and move it by navy to New Orleans (definitely with engineers though and preferabbly with a siegegun). The CSA doesn't have enough troops out west to prevent New Orleans from falling and prevent you from besieging the upper mississipi. It will have to decide which one to go after unless it chooses to seriously weaken the east and then you can start making inroads. As the Union, you have to sieze the initiative almost right away to have a decent chance.

If the CSA chooses to advance on the potomac, retreat and let it siege for a couple turns before you counterattack. They will, hopefully, be severely weakened by the forts and when you move back in, you still get the morale bonus for controlling the province (and are considered on "defense").



ericbabe -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 10:09:04 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kipper

I have given up until all this is fixed as well. In some opening battles much of my union army would rout BEFORE contact with any CSA!!! And yes, I have read the whole manual, been wargaming for 20+ years, played a lot of COG etc etc. so I am not a naive wargamer - some people on this forum seem to conclude this is the problem with anybody that has an issue with the game.


This happens when their disposition is low -- so low that the modifiers start their morale below zero as the battle begins. It's important to check disposition before a battle; an army whose disposition is too low simply cannot fight effectively.

Players who don't like this can play with the disposition rules turned off.

EDIT: I should add this to the FAQ in the ReadMe file...



ericbabe -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 10:11:34 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Snydeman55
Setting diff level to corporal, power to Union at +1, power to CSA at -1, and enabling the setting where I - and not the AI - upgrade unit weapons, I get much better results. Today if I get a chance I'll restart at the levels I had issues with, enable weapon upgrades, and see if I do better, becuase at Corporal I feel like I'm cheating somehow. I played CoG at higher levels just fine, so I can't imagine I'd need to play at the kiddie level on this one.


We made the difficulty levels more severe in FOF than they were in COG. The hardest "general" levels are much more difficult -- the "colonel" level now corresponds roughly to what the "Bonaparte" level was in COG. Also, it's very hard to win a battle as the USA against the CSA on CS territory early in the game, that was a design goal... we were worried if the US could just march into Fredericksburg early and knock out the AoV then the game wouldn't be much fun.



Hard Sarge -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 10:29:26 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Snydeman55

Well, if you look at the Washington battle, it's not like my troops were moving, and I'm not playing with advanced buildings yet, so no training grounds are needed. Otherwise I did everything else you mentioned.

Marecone, the problem is that people like Hard Sarge are saying the Union can't really get moving until 1863. By 1863 the Union was close to zipping up the Mississippi, had taken major ports along the southern coast, had New Orleans, Kentucky, and was making serious advances on Tennessee. If I have to wait until 1863 to NOT get slaughtered on the field, the war will be lost from the get go.


in RL, they were making advances, you can also, I am saying you are not going to be able to take on the ANV in a toe to toe fight, until you are ready for it, and for most people that fight is not going to happen until around 63, you can still take most of the West and most of the Middle South, and still not be ready for the battle with the ANV



darthsmaul -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/16/2006 11:24:10 PM)

I read the book again last night on tactical battles and the firing strength vs movement points left was one I missed and teh biggest one is when a unit is low on ammo its morale drops quickly?  didnt knwo that so Ill work on those 2 and see how it goes as well.

steve



Alan_Bernardo -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/17/2006 2:31:01 AM)

quote:

Is someone over at Matrix smoking crack?


I don't think it's anyone on the Matrix team smoking crack. Maybe you are inflating numbers, out of frustration. Maybe what you think you see you don't.

In war, no matter the odds, the battle isn't going to be over in a matter of seconds. This is especially true when one side, with a huge advantage in numbers, is attacking another side that is well protected or entrenched. All this takes time.

Those on the pipe sometimes don't have all that much time, and want things to be over the instant that they start.

Alanb



Snydeman55 -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/17/2006 3:56:01 PM)

Alan,
I'll be the first to admit that my comment about 'smoking crack' was born both out of frustration with the game and a sincere exasperation with how out of balance the battle results were. For implying that anyone was actually smoking crack, I apologize.

However, I did not imagine the battle numbers, nor did I inflate them. Having played through on other settings I know that the numbers were born from two things: a) improper weapons and b) bad troop disposition. Once I switched disposition to "normal" and took over weapon replacement on my own, things got MUCH better.

Here's the thing though; I had the setting enabled where I wouldn't have to bother with weapons upgrades or advanced buildings, but I turned ON unit disposition. I am pretty sure that the AI did NOT upgrade my weapons (the battles I am referring to, by the way, happened in early summer 1862) and without the training grounds (advanced buildings) I wasn't really able to "upgrade" my unit dispositions without the assistance of good leaders - which of course the Union has a cornucopia of in the early years. (Insert sarcasm) I also think it didn't help that despite putting 80 money a turn into diplomacy, the Europeans were pumping nice weapons into the CSA to help THEM upgrade weapons.

So here's my particular advice for anyone having the same battlefield problems as me:

1) IF you play with unit disposition ON, then do Advanced Buildings as well. Otherwise keep it off.

2) Turn off those pesky Europeans. Diplomacy with Europe wasn't a bribe game anyways (it was based on the slavery issue and battlefield performance of Southern armies) and it drains your economy without - at least in my case - being very effective at keeping things out of the South. Now, had I the ability to even start constructing a viable blockade fleet sometime before, oh, I dunno, 1864, this would be less an issue. Maybe tweak the cost of fleets? *shrugs*

3) Turn ON the upgrade weapons option. The AI will never do as good a job as YOU will. You know to upgrade the arms of the Potomac and Kentucky armies before the guys slogging through the mudwaters of Arkansas, the AI may not.

Now, the OTHER reason I was so flustered was because I use the "historical" result of the Civil War as a guideline to my own performance. If I capture the Mississippi before summer 1863, I'm doing really well. If not, I'm performing badly. After reading another post about this issue, I realize now that this was in incorrect paradigm. I should play the game without judgement of my performance being based on the historical timeline of the war, because it can not be a totally accurate reproduction of the War. It's a game.

In any case, and I REALLY hope Eric, Gil and HardSarge see this, I've concluded that the issues I was having with the battle results - which I state again were NOT inflated - were a result of my incorrect menu/game settings. My troops were the worst possible combination: Low disposition that couldn't be altered by training, horrid leaders, bad guns due to not being upgraded by the AI in the manner that would have been most effective, and unduly upgraded Confederate weapons due to very high levels of European assistance.

Oh, and for the record, I truly love the game. (Or else I would have put it aside and forgotten it rather than get frustrated and post about issues I was having) If I could change ONE thing though, it'd be something in the European diplomacy code....and I have no idea what that would be, as I'm NOT a coder or programmer.






ericbabe -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/17/2006 9:55:14 PM)

Thanks for the suggestions Snydeman.

We've been talking about making battles influence European diplomacy, but we haven't come to a consensus on how this might work... still fishing for ideas if anyone's got any.  There is some historical precedent, I would argue, to the payment of money for influencing European diplomacy: the South withheld exporting cotton in an attempt to provoke European support.

On the easier difficulty levels, I've managed to capture the Mississippi in the Summer of 1863, but haven't been able to do this on the more difficult levels.  I haven't tried this since late in beta testing, so maybe things have changed... now I'm itching to try it again!



Joram -> RE: You are kidding me, right? (12/18/2006 2:50:10 AM)

quote:

1) IF you play with unit disposition ON, then do Advanced Buildings as well. Otherwise keep it off


A perfect example of having too much flexibility. I agree with you 100% and they should be linked. Maybe you may want advanced buildings without the hassle of disposition but I can't imagine you'd ever want disposition without advanced buildings.




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