Brigade size 2500 worth it?

[Sandermatt]

Do you think it is worth going to the 2500 brifade size. It seems a lot of people are suggesting to stop at the point you have 20 brigades per corps. What is your opinion?

[JJPettigrew]

The facts are :    you need a number of CORPS to be allowed to progress,,  and withouth the proper number of brigades you can have a difficult time in some others..

 being able to field 2500 men in a brigade is good,  but filling those brigades with the limited number of recruits available you can be surprised in the next battle withouth sufficient number of brigades.  .... of course this can be avoided with careful planning due our capacity to "see the future" and knowing the requeriments of future battles

[Koro]

It depends solely on the number of troopd you have in your army. I have 137.000 at Fredericksburg now and without the 2500 size I'd have a ton more brigades. 

Build up the 2000 ones and when you feel your army needs to stop growing in numbers of brigades, you can put the extra point in to AO 

There can be some advantages to having 8 AO points there too since the deployment matters to your strategy. 

[MikeK]

I am assuming that the game reflects that larger brigades can take more moral damage before getting shaky, so green troops would benefit from a 2500 size, while this would matter much less for veterans, who have a more practical eye for the battlefield. 

[Hitorishizuka]

Depends on side and your opinion on trying to game around AI auto-scaling. Union has a much easier time having enough rifles in the armory to equip more men and also has some tetchy requirements on # men/brigade to hit minimums. I would go to 2500 on Union definitely but even when I had 2500 on Confederate I usually only used 2000 simply for lack of rifles.

The other thing to note is the AI gets 3000 cap so if you stop at 2000, you're going to be at a big disadvantage in melee and need to make that deficit up somehow. (Crash a second brigade in, have multiple artillery brigades right behind to canister, etc)

Edited December 21, 2016 by Hitorishizuka

[Destruct1]

1 hour ago, Hitorishizuka said:

The other thing to note is the AI gets 3000 cap so if you stop at 2000, you're going to be at a big disadvantage in melee and need to make that deficit up somehow. (Crash a second brigade in, have multiple artillery brigades right behind to canister, etc)

Are 2 x 1000 man brigades worse in melee than one big 2000 man brigade?

[Hitorishizuka]

16 minutes ago, Destruct1 said:

Are 2 x 1000 man brigades worse in melee than one big 2000 man brigade?

No, they may even be slightly better since the other one can come in with fresh condition after the 2000 man brigade has run out and still hold the position (though the first one will get hurt a lot more in trade) -but- you are rarely in position to have local brigade advantages in the kind of situation we're talking about. More likely the AI will crash a 3k and 3k into your 2k and 2k and you'll be sad.

[waldopbarnstormer]

I wanted to ask what the consensus is on brigade size, I am starting a new campaign for 0.70, should I go for a small number of big brigades or lots of 1000 man brigades?

[berwatchey]

I have noticed its better to have the maximum number of brigades first, then increase size. Fun fact AO skill increases the brigades you can have, as well as size. The AI wont scale to your POTENTIAL size, only what you actually bring. so high Organization lets you bring 20 brigade corps, of 2000 men each. and the AI is not scaling to the 2500 theoretical maximum, just what you brought. this lets you fight the AI a little more easily. you can also do a little math at the beginning of the deployment screen if you have 4 recon to help you figure out when the AI hits a scaling point. Look at the number of brigades he is bringing, then divide the brigades into his total soldiers. gives you a rough idea of the size the AI is scaling to you. I did this on my normal union campaign and had much better scaling results then on my easy union campaign. 

I cant stress enough though, on the big battles, make sure you can fill the brigade requirement or as close to it as possible.

The small battles tend to have division size elements. so you will have more brigades then you can deploy, just pick the ones you want in the deployment square at the start of the battle, and cycle through your troops to get them all experience over each battle. IE dont fight every battle with the first division of your corps because the other 3 will be green. and spread the love, allow your 2nd/3rd corps to fight small battles too.

Edited December 21, 2016 by berwatchey

[JaM]

thats good to know.. i always thought its to the max possible... which means, its better to bring more brigades, then join them together into a fighting division, which will give you a big unit that can overpower the enemy...   (at least in theory)

[berwatchey]

exactly.

[Lillibullero]

Usually I use 1500-2000 brigades size, but sometimes thats not enough. I use 3-4 big brigades with good melee and morale stats and with general aura for the breakthrough of enemy lines on important positions.