Corps: When and why to make a 2nd? 3rd?

[MikeK]

So long as one corps has enough brigades to fill available slots, when does creating further corps make sense, and how to fill and use them.

2 corps commanders should be better than 1, offering operational flexibility and  (I assume) they give a bonus (reduced?) bonus to troops not of their own  corps.  

A very good division commander would probably be a good corps commander as well, but is there a good argument for leaving him with a good division for use in elite tasks?

 

[Sandermatt]

I think you just create them when the campaign requires you to have multiple corps.

[Col_Kelly]

As CSA you won't need a second corps before the battle of Gaine's Mill, as Union not until Shiloh. I'd advise you to make sthe strongest 1st corps possible until then.

[Hitorishizuka]

7 hours ago, MikeK said:

So long as one corps has enough brigades to fill available slots, when does creating further corps make sense, and how to fill and use them.

2 corps commanders should be better than 1, offering operational flexibility and  (I assume) they give a bonus (reduced?) bonus to troops not of their own  corps.  

A very good division commander would probably be a good corps commander as well, but is there a good argument for leaving him with a good division for use in elite tasks?

 

You can create extra Corps early for stashing Veteran/non-ideal troops that you don't want the game to potentially give you in situations where you get auto-deployed.

Corps commanders do not give special bonuses to troops not of their own Corps unless they get to level 3 and have the active aura.

Highest rank generals should be Corps Commanders, no exceptions, because the power of their skills across the entire Corps outweighs a local Command bonus for a Division. I would probably advise I and II Corps have Trainer for +XP for all your Green brigades, then III and upwards can take a different Rank 1 perk.

[Koro]

5 hours ago, Col_Kelly said:

As CSA you won't need a second corps before the battle of Gaine's Mill, as Union not until Shiloh. I'd advise you to make sthe strongest 1st corps possible until then.

You technically don't need a 2nd corps before you get to Gaine's Mill as Union either, you just have the option of deploying it.

 

To OP: You can of course do as Hito advices and shuffle your brigades around but otherwise I advice to bring your strongest brigades in your first corps to the grand battles and have any left over brigades in your 2nd and eventually 3. corps that you won't need until Antietam. This gives you the most use of them in battle. So sometimes you might find yourself simply have a 2nd corps as a placeholder with only 1 brigade in it, which is ok. At Antietam, you do need to have a few there to hold initially but can otherwise reinforce the south as CSA.

 

[General Hancock]

I will look to see how many units the next battle is asking me to have and go from there.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

4 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

You can create extra Corps early for stashing Veteran/non-ideal troops that you don't want the game to potentially give you in situations where you get auto-deployed.

Corps commanders do not give special bonuses to troops not of their own Corps unless they get to level 3 and have the active aura.

Highest rank generals should be Corps Commanders, no exceptions, because the power of their skills across the entire Corps outweighs a local Command bonus for a Division. I would probably advise I and II Corps have Trainer for +XP for all your Green brigades, then III and upwards can take a different Rank 1 perk.

The question is at what point does deploying more troops than necessary begin to affect you negatively because of scaling. 0 

A lot of the side quest minor battles are great for leveling up XP and getting your army fat on victory, but when does attrition begin to negatively affect your force pool for the major battle on the horizon. 

I think this is a primary goal in this patch, addressing this. I'll be interested to see how it plays out. 

[Koro]

I think you should just play without paying any attention to scaling. I do that on every playthrough and do just fine. Never had issues with supplies either. You help yourself a lot by taking the 1. option for cannons. There is a limit to how far the AI scales in side missions, just in case you were worried.

I just arrived at Fredericksburg with 132.000 men and 9.000 in the bank by going all in on men, buying as many as possible and had no problems due to scaling. I find it a greatly exaggerated problem. 

This is normal btw.. For hard there might be other concerns but well.. Hard is hard. 

[Hitorishizuka]

6 hours ago, Koro said:

I think you should just play without paying any attention to scaling. I do that on every playthrough and do just fine. Never had issues with supplies either. You help yourself a lot by taking the 1. option for cannons. There is a limit to how far the AI scales in side missions, just in case you were worried.

I just arrived at Fredericksburg with 132.000 men and 9.000 in the bank by going all in on men, buying as many as possible and had no problems due to scaling. I find it a greatly exaggerated problem. 

This is normal btw.. For hard there might be other concerns but well.. Hard is hard. 

Koro...I just watched your video for Antietam and you do actually run out of supply on a number of brigades. Not sure why you're trying to whitewash this. You're also, respectfully, not very aggressive in the end and seem content to let the AI dictate the pace and not push the engagement to try and sweep them off the field, so your units end up fighting less.

[Koro]

I'm just giving my view of it. You're of course free to have your own but I feel I have plenty of supply. The only thing that could perhaps be changed is to allow you to go above 25.000 supplies and get two wagons instead.

Antietam is perhaps special since you are so outnumbered but then it's still an interesting choice to decide who to give supplies to.. as I remarked, it's like giving oxygen to dying people.

So the supplies might limit you from decimating the enemy completely in battles where you are greatly outnumbered and that could be solved with adding more supply wagons for players who wish to do this  

[KaleRaven]

In Antietam as the Confederates, I rotated brigades out of the heaviest fighting area (Sunken Road) when they ran out of ammunition. Limited ammunition was a real historical concern.

[Koro]

37 minutes ago, KaleRaven said:

In Antietam as the Confederates, I rotated brigades out of the heaviest fighting area (Sunken Road) when they ran out of ammunition. Limited ammunition was a real historical concern.

Also this. If supply was infinite, you might as well not have the mechanic at all.

What I would like to see is supply split in to ammunition for guns and for bullets so you are not forced to waste it on artillery if your men are running short and your wagon is almost empty. It would give a bit more depth to it as well, deciding from the start how many rounds of artillery you want to fire and how many bullets.

[Hitorishizuka]

51 minutes ago, KaleRaven said:

In Antietam as the Confederates, I rotated brigades out of the heaviest fighting area (Sunken Road) when they ran out of ammunition. Limited ammunition was a real historical concern.

When you get enough men on the field, -everywhere- is the heaviest fighting area.

[RobWheat61]

7 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Koro...I just watched your video for Antietam and you do actually run out of supply on a number of brigades. Not sure why you're trying to whitewash this. You're also, respectfully, not very aggressive in the end and seem content to let the AI dictate the pace and not push the engagement to try and sweep them off the field, so your units end up fighting less.

It has nothing to do with whitewashing and the given amount of ammunition is fine in any battle. I don't bother with scaling as well while building my army since my very first campaign.

32 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

When you get enough men on the field, -everywhere- is the heaviest fighting area.

But that is very much dependent on your personal choices. Usually only parts of my line are involved in heavy fighting. Even the AI is moving troops to shift its point of attack during battles like Antietam.

Edited December 18, 2016 by RobWheat61

[Hitorishizuka]

1 minute ago, RobWheat61 said:

But that is very much dependent on your personal choices. Usually only parts of my line are involved in heavy fighting. Even the AI is moving troops to shift its point of attack during battles like Antietam.

Nope. They had wave attacks on everywhere going pretty much the entire battle.

[vren55]

On 12/17/2016 at 10:28 PM, Koro said:

I think you should just play without paying any attention to scaling. I do that on every playthrough and do just fine. Never had issues with supplies either. You help yourself a lot by taking the 1. option for cannons. There is a limit to how far the AI scales in side missions, just in case you were worried.

I just arrived at Fredericksburg with 132.000 men and 9.000 in the bank by going all in on men, buying as many as possible and had no problems due to scaling. I find it a greatly exaggerated problem. 

This is normal btw.. For hard there might be other concerns but well.. Hard is hard. 

Dangit I want to see Fredericksburg sooooo badly... I want to unleash my Union Army onto the CSA.

I srsly have no idea how you pulled a 132000 army. I replayed Union, throwing nearly everything into army organization and politics (I currently have 8-9 points for both), and had a 70,000 man army that took 24,000 casulaties... which is good, b/c the confederates took 28K out of 46K, but to get to an army of 132,000????? Just... hooooow?

Also, I don't mind the scaling in the game either, I'm just confused as to how you managed 132k...

 

Edited December 19, 2016 by vren55

[KaleRaven]

2 minutes ago, vren55 said:

Dangit I want to see Fredericksburg sooooo badly... I want to unleash my Union Army onto the CSA.

I srsly have no idea how you pulled a 132000 army. I replayed Union, throwing nearly everything into army organization and politics (I currently have 8-9 points for both), and had a 70,000 man army that took 24,000 casulaties... which is good, b/c the confederates took 28K out of 46K, but to get to an army of 132,000????? Just... hooooow?

Also, I don't mind the scaling in the game either, I'm just confused as to how you managed 132k...

Did you take medicine? I think it's one of the best skills to take. Each soldier saved through medicine is essentially a free weapon and a free veteran. For the bigger battles, it's a huge boon.

[Koro]

31 minutes ago, vren55 said:

Dangit I want to see Fredericksburg sooooo badly... I want to unleash my Union Army onto the CSA.

I srsly have no idea how you pulled a 132000 army. I replayed Union, throwing nearly everything into army organization and politics (I currently have 8-9 points for both), and had a 70,000 man army that took 24,000 casulaties... which is good, b/c the confederates took 28K out of 46K, but to get to an army of 132,000????? Just... hooooow?

Also, I don't mind the scaling in the game either, I'm just confused as to how you managed 132k...

 

Going full in on politics help and this was kind of an experiment to see how far I could get. I bought recruits for reputation before each major battle though I couldn't always afford to equip them. 

A bug in the beta made Antietam a little hard with 100.000 of my union troops against 90.000 CSA do my army was hit a little there with 20.000 casualties. 

I still have 9000 unused recruits before Fredericksburg

[vren55]

1 hour ago, KaleRaven said:

Did you take medicine? I think it's one of the best skills to take. Each soldier saved through medicine is essentially a free weapon and a free veteran. For the bigger battles, it's a huge boon.

As part of my initial choices I had 2 medicine. I didn't realize that saved veterans though... so I probably will take more later on.

53 minutes ago, Koro said:

A bug in the beta made Antietam a little hard with 100.000 of my union troops against 90.000 CSA do my army was hit a little there with 20.000 casualties. 

 

... you managed Antietam against 90,000 confederates and only took 20,000...

what kind of monster Ronald Spiers/Richard Winters commander are you (that was a Band of Brothers reference)

[Koro]

4 minutes ago, vren55 said:

As part of my initial choices I had 2 medicine. I didn't realize that saved veterans though... so I probably will take more later on.

... you managed Antietam against 90,000 confederates and only took 20,000...

what kind of monster Ronald Spiers/Richard Winters commander are you (that was a Band of Brothers reference)

16.000 actually. While bugged as hell, it was probably the most fun I ever had in the game. Col_kelly was watching the broadcast and acting as strategic adviser.

I swung an entire corps, 40.000 strong down the confederates far left and toward the city. Not much happened in the first phase except lining up and clearing the northern west woods. 

Then 2. Corps attacked towards dunker church and eventually forced them off the the fortifications and out of the woods. 

The 1 corps then pushed in to the city and surrounded them at the sunken road linking up with all of 3 corps. all crossing the northern bridge 

The entire time all of my guns were directed at the sunken road from 3 sides and rather close 

[vren55]

Just now, Koro said:

16.000 actually. While bugged as hell, it was probably the most fun I ever had in the game. Col_kelly was watching the broadcast and acting as strategic adviser.

I swung an entire corps, 40.000 strong down the confederates far left and toward the city. Not much happened in the first phase except lining up and clearing the northern west woods. 

Then 2. Corps attacked towards dunker church and eventually forced them off the the fortifications and out of the woods. 

The 1 corps then pushed in to the city and surrounded them at the sunken road linking up with all of 3 corps. all crossing the northern bridge 

The entire time all of my guns were directed at the sunken road from 3 sides and rather close 

... the flanking maneuver you did to the city... that explains it. I usually attack through the woods to get to Dunker church... which works b/c the woods gives me cover... but also means I have to clear em.

[MikeK]

17 hours ago, Koro said:

I'm just giving my view of it. You're of course free to have your own but I feel I have plenty of supply. The only thing that could perhaps be changed is to allow you to go above 25.000 supplies and get two wagons instead.

Antietam is perhaps special since you are so outnumbered but then it's still an interesting choice to decide who to give supplies to.. as I remarked, it's like giving oxygen to dying people.

So the supplies might limit you from decimating the enemy completely in battles where you are greatly outnumbered and that could be solved with adding more supply wagons for players who wish to do this  

That would work, but maybe the design idea is to have just one mobile supply source to avoid ahistorical flexibility and limited abilities to fully coordinate widely separated forces.