Battle of Chickamauga

[Koro]

On 14/4/2017 at 9:17 PM, jennison said:

I've lost the CSA version about 8 times..  I can never hold Brotherton and Kelly's Ford long enough.  By that point in the scenario, my forces are so thin, I just end up rushing single depleted brigades to those objectives in between the union lines.. I'll grab the objective for a few moments, but the lone brigade is eventually surrounded and routs.. 

I start the scenario with about 60k men which seems like enough.  I don't understand because I consider myself a pretty decent player--I've had victories on all scenarios up to this point.  I'm about ready to throw in the towel and accept defeat, but I don't know if I'll be able to continue the campaign with my decimated army.  Frustrating..

You can fall back from them for most of day 1 and recapture them later by encircling the overextended Union forces since they will form a . It allows you to bring up your forces and hit them with one concentrated blow. You will still suffer a lot of casualties but it makes "holding" the two points easier. The treelines behind the points is much more defensible

[jennison]

18 hours ago, Koro said:

You can fall back from them for most of day 1 and recapture them later by encircling the overextended Union forces since they will form a . It allows you to bring up your forces and hit them with one concentrated blow. You will still suffer a lot of casualties but it makes "holding" the two points easier. The treelines behind the points is much more defensible

Well I didn't have too much problem capturing the objectives on my last go, but again I think I lost too many men and it ended in a draw before I could even advance to the last day..

[Kloiste]

1 hour ago, jennison said:

Well I didn't have too much problem capturing the objectives on my last go, but again I think I lost too many men and it ended in a draw before I could even advance to the last day..

Don't try to hold the objectives at first, just take the woods which are a way stronger defensive position. Let them overextend bleed them out, and then counterattack. When the map opens up to the south, don't attack their points. Instead, move your men into the woods, and when they start shifting their line to reinforce one area, they will move troops out of their barricades/woods and you get to fight them while you have cover. Shatter then then push forward and take the points then. Attached screenshot of how I arranged my right flank for pretty much the entire battle on Legendary.

Patience is the key to victory. There is no need to rush.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Kloiste
Additional Screenshots

[jennison]

Thanks for the informative post, Kloiste.  I've already accepted the draw and have moved on to the Overland, in which I'm suffering even worse defeats... lol  I think my Army is about spent.  I'm at the point where I may need to backtrack a few battles and re-consider my strategy to conserve forces.  It seems like from Chickamauga on, the battles become punishing.  Saunders Field, Laurel Hill.... brutal..  "Yay I barely defended the ridge!  Oh wait, now I have to counter attack with the few men I have left?"

I suppose it's pretty historically accurate though--at this point in the war the CSA was clinging by a thread.  It's just not very fun in game form. 

[dsfgsdfgsdfgdsfgsdf3q4]

Why do you guys even play these battles that drain manpower and resources. I just skip them, i just retreated at Antietam and did the same at Chickamauga because there is no point in fighting them (i'm playing as the confedarates), you get to preserve your army and you will have your reputation back to 100 in the next 2-3 battles.

[Wright29]

5 hours ago, Acika011 said:

Why do you guys even play these battles that drain manpower and resources. I just skip them, i just retreated at Antietam and did the same at Chickamauga because there is no point in fighting them (i'm playing as the confedarates), you get to preserve your army and you will have your reputation back to 100 in the next 2-3 battles.

This guy gets it. Don't completely agree, but this is an attitude you need to take when playing this game. 

[deltahill]

One issue that should be implemented is the fact that even when you win every battle the enemy still manages to be stronger then you and larger then you. The AI should also have to play by the same conditions if they lose lower troop reinforcements and supplys. However the sandbox idea is best as your supplies would be generated by the strategic locations you captured on the grand campaign map. Maybe the div's will sort this out some day soon

Edited April 23, 2017 by deltahill

[deltahill]

I think that when you win the victories you have prior to chickamauga that the AI should have been more depleted to fight this battle any ways. Why don't they have torn and reduced units that carry over from previous battles they lost? for example they fight one battle with 2500 troops in a brigade and the very next battle they got the same strength again and full supply even when they were all captured or dead prior .... This is one of very few concerns i have about long term play-ability with out sand box generated campaign map options. Playing the same maps over and over the designer may not have much choice but to give the AI historical numbers and force the players to fight depleted wile the AI gets off Scott free. The AI does not lose any supplies when you win a battle like the players do. If the game was sandbox it would balance this out more so that captured strategic location on the grand map would dictate the tactical options of every fight not make the fights more progressively harder as you go but erratic with more fluctuations of the AI units strengths accordingly. I am hoping that the designers consider these ideas. If you look at games like the total war series they are great games but are missing the element that ultimate General has. Put the 2 concepts together and now you have a game.

Secondly if the designers are not planning to look at it, that they at least bolster the Players with historical units to balance out the AIs historical numbers so you have a chance. There has been battles that i fought in this game that were not historical because i lost all my troops prior to arriving on the battle field i should have had at least 3 full corps to start with historically. Instead i had 2 battered corps with troops ranging per brigade of around 200 to 600 lol. The AI showed up with everything pretty much averaging 1500 to 2500 or more troops in each lol. so it seemed lol.

So as i am reading your guys-es posts it seems you are having the same issues i am with the enemy's getting more powerful and we are getting weaker. So is it designed to force the player to keep up to the story line battles? it seems more like a game of attrition with AI getting unlimited supply wile we are forced to keep what we ended up with. 

Regardless i love the concept and playing its still fun. just like to see those fixes, and i be willing to pay for them.

Edited April 23, 2017 by deltahill

[A. P. Hill]

According to many here, "depleting the AI" will not make the game any fun, nor will is sustain any interest.

[Slobodan]

Well, I'm playing my campaign on BG level, and I was able to win every single battle so far with preserving solid manpower in reserve. In last battle (Cold Harbor) I've fielded 72k troops (although depleting my reserves) and, since I won on first day, my manpower reserve will get filled again I guess.

My point is that, with some careful planning, each battle can be won with acceptable losses (lesser than gained from victory)...at least on BG level.

[Bigjku]

18 hours ago, A. P. Hill said:

According to many here, "depleting the AI" will not make the game any fun, nor will is sustain any interest.

I have little issue with the concept of scaling I just don't like how it's executed.  For the Union as the AI troop quality should suffer and weapons might not be as big of an issue after heavy losses.

For the CSA troop quality should fall off as well and weapons should become a major issue.

Balance with large numbers of rookies.  Not veterans.  It makes more sense.

[AJ McCully]

So far, I've enjoyed the challenge of every battle on Major General difficulty, managed to score a victory in every one but for some reason everything after Gettysburg feels oddly unbalanced. I'm aware that there's still a lot to work out before UG is fully released but it feels really odd to feel starved of materiel and manpower as the Union at Chickamauga and beyond yet, at the same point in the campaign, hardly struggle in the same departments as the CSA. It's hard to explain, but the desperate manoeuvring of limited troops and supplies across a large battlefield should be how the CSA player experiences Cold Harbour rather than the experience you get as the Union at Chickamauga. I could rant about the issues of this battle but really it's just balancing problems for the hardest difficulty which will probably get resolved, I just think it's part of a larger issue with how the late campaign works for both sides.

[One_and_Only]

So far I really hate playing as Confederates in Battle of Chickamuga.I have tried so many times but this keeps happening...

[Wright29]

16 hours ago, One_and_Only said:

So far I really hate playing as Confederates in Battle of Chickamuga.I have tried so many times but this keeps happening...

My strategy on this map (for all levels) for the first day: 

1. Don't attack across the bridge immediately. Hang back and hold some unit at the bottom of the screen. 

2. Use the top forces to capture the Top objective and the flanking forces to combine with some of your initial forces to capture the second objective. So now those two bottom ones....

3. RUN as many forces as you can on your side of the river (including those forces you had linger back at the beginning). Swamp one of the bottom objectives with a melee charge.

4. Get one or two brigades flanking the other river crossing from the Union side of the river and combine with pressure from your side. The unit should rout easily. 

You do have to capture the objectives completely (no countdown timer) before the main timer runs out. 

Good luck!

[vren55]

On 4/22/2017 at 6:59 AM, jennison said:

Thanks for the informative post, Kloiste.  I've already accepted the draw and have moved on to the Overland, in which I'm suffering even worse defeats... lol  I think my Army is about spent.  I'm at the point where I may need to backtrack a few battles and re-consider my strategy to conserve forces.  It seems like from Chickamauga on, the battles become punishing.  Saunders Field, Laurel Hill.... brutal..  "Yay I barely defended the ridge!  Oh wait, now I have to counter attack with the few men I have left?"

 

There's a trick to Saunders Field... you basically rush the defenses first and go UBER aggressive. Don't wait for the prompt to take the field. you NEED to get a dagger into the Union's left (in their bloody forest) or else you CANNOT win without taking a goooodawful amount of casualties. Hell, I couldn't even win before trying that and even when I did, it hurt. 

Similarly with Cold Harbour. Instead of drawing the battle out over 3 days, RUSHHHHHHH with 15000 of your BEST picked infantry brigades. There's a gap, a small wood that leads into the Union L shaped thingy barricade and so you can flank and then take their position. You set up a cordon with those brigades (and detached skirmishers) and win b/c they won't have enough men to retake the point. I did take 1/3 casualties (4994 out of 15671) but it was worth it rather than throwing my whole army at the bloody Union. 

Edited May 13, 2017 by vren55

[Andre Bolkonsky]

15 hours ago, vren55 said:

RUSHHHHHHH with 15000 of your BEST picked infantry brigades.

 

I can't imagine trying to manage 15,000 brigades. Your micro must be awesome!

BTW, liked the 'dagger in the side' comment. 

[vren55]

6 hours ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

I can't imagine trying to manage 15,000 brigades. Your micro must be awesome!

 

... lol I meant 15,000 men worth of infantry bridgades though I think you got that XD. 

Oh and yeah I'm a bit of an old fashioned Master in history so I like prosing off on the occasion. How did you win Saunders Andre Bolkonsky?

[Lif]

I was going in with 79k and lost 36k (Union on normal). And I really can't say I screwed up terribly. Longstreets Veterans at the end of the battle were huge damage dealers and they got 12 hrs time to wore my men out. But in fact I hold my defences and destroyed the rebells pretty good. I really don't want to fight this thing again. But I tried the next small battle already,...it seems I have little chances of winning now that half my army is lost.

Edited June 11, 2017 by Lif

[jennison]

I planning to start my CSA campaign over.  Hopefully this battle will be a little less suicidal with the new campaign updates.  I've played it probably a dozen times (trying out all tips in this thread) and never even get far enough for Longstreet to show.

Edited June 15, 2017 by jennison

[Major Grigg]

I'm beating a dead horse, but this battle is extremely tough. There is A LOT of ground to cover. 

[A. P. Hill]

37 minutes ago, Major Grigg said:

I'm beating a dead horse, but this battle is extremely tough. There is A LOT of ground to cover. 

Here!

Let me help!  

 

[i64man]

Guys, I have a question, How do you reinforce your Bdes? Can you merge units from one corp to another? Say you have multiple 3 star units in one corp and want to merge then to the max size, what happened to the rest of that Bde that cannot merge with the other due to the unit limit size? I am about to start this same battle as the CSA, have 3 Corps with a roughly overall strength close to 70K but you can only have 2 on this battle.

Edited June 23, 2017 by i64man

[Bigjku]

5 hours ago, i64man said:

Guys, I have a question, How do you reinforce your Bdes? Can you merge units from one corp to another? Say you have multiple 3 star units in one corp and want to merge then to the max size, what happened to the rest of that Bde that cannot merge with the other due to the unit limit size? I am about to start this same battle as the CSA, have 3 Corps with a roughly overall strength close to 70K but you can only have 2 on this battle.

All you can do is disband units and return them to the pool.  Then they can re reassigned.  If you want to do what you describe do the following in order.

Transfer any high experience units you want to keep directly to the corps you are taking and swap out the lowest experienced units.

Dump all your recruits BEFORE YOU DISBAND ANY EXISTING ONES into placeholder brigades so you have zero troops available.

Disband your less experienced troops (but much better than raw recruits) and then fill up your ranks using the recruit setting and not the veteran one.  This will distribute experienced troops you disbanded into the other brigades.

Disband any placeholder brigades you need to to finish filling out ranks with raw recruits.

That should maximize your experience distribution in your two corps.

[Bigjku]

As an aside I have come to find most of the time that three star brigades are more trouble than they are often worth, at least to me.  Replacing the losses is so expensive.  By carefully deciding when to buy veterans and when not to I have managed to have almost 100,000 men at two star status going into this battle as the Union (out of 140ish total).

In the vast majority of situations I find having an army of good staying power with good weapons beats having a shock division or two of elite guys.  Well handled my 2-stars will hang in there just fine against enemy elites and I have more flexibility to launch attacks with any unit in my army.

I previeouly tried the shock division approach and while it worked I always felt a bit like the Germans at Stalingrad.  I had a hard core of guys but elsewhere across the line it was asking a lot of the one star types to do much more than hold a defensive position.  Advance against enemy infantry and artillery?  Forget about it.

[A. P. Hill]

https://www.civilwar.org/learn/civil-war/battles/chickamauga

 

https://www.civilwar.org/learn/maps/chickamauga-animated-map

 

Enjoy.