My Union Campaign: Wrapped Up Georgia Railroad: Nearly There

[Bigjku]

How many men though?  All those brigades full to 2,500 or are they skimpy ones?  IMHO you are very light on artillery for this stage in the game but that isn't a huge issue until Gettysburg as the Union where you will need good guns and can employ them to huge advantage.

To me Chancellorsville is all about holding your right flank (left side of screen as you are facing south).  You need good but not necessarily your best troops out there.  The key early is to run away from that flank and control a relatively straight line of woods that run North and South.  That will occupy one whole corps.  The line is a bit broken up North with a grove of trees somewhat detached from the forest north of the turnpike you want to hold.  But you need some considerable guns up North to back it.  The woods south of the turnpike I have never had much trouble holding in earlier builds.  Lean North of the road, that is where trouble is.  Be prepared to swing reserves out of line if they get disjointed and beat on their flanks.  You aren't taking the offensive here.  Just maul them enough to get breathing space for your line and fall back.  Rinse and repeat.

Your middle corps and some skirmishers from nearby units have to ensure that confederate cavalry can't cross the creek southwest of your camp and get in the rear of your corps holding your right flank.

Get that middle corps out of camp and into defensive positions to the south.  You will have a third corps stretched out to the east (your left flank) that needs to get forward into decent defensive position and prepare for a potential strike towards the eastern CSA victory flag.  If you feel like you are winning use your middle and left flank corps to go for those victories but your first priority is to stop Jackson.

Personally I do nothing aggressive on day one but that is just me.  Others may differ.  The day that follows is a whole different issue.  Will let someone else address that.

[PegLegFatty]

Can someone please tell me a better way to take out artillery? The siege of Suffolk was fairly easy but I still feel I really played poorly taking out the enemy arty.

[Bigjku]

As a general rule I never charge artillery.  It seems like it just exhaust your units for little damage.  Pin it down on a couple sides and fire until in shatters.

[PegLegFatty]

On 6/14/2017 at 2:09 AM, Bigjku said:

How many men though?  All those brigades full to 2,500 or are they skimpy ones?  IMHO you are very light on artillery for this stage in the game but that isn't a huge issue until Gettysburg as the Union where you will need good guns and can employ them to huge advantage.

To me Chancellorsville is all about holding your right flank (left side of screen as you are facing south).  You need good but not necessarily your best troops out there.  The key early is to run away from that flank and control a relatively straight line of woods that run North and South.  That will occupy one whole corps.  The line is a bit broken up North with a grove of trees somewhat detached from the forest north of the turnpike you want to hold.  But you need some considerable guns up North to back it.  The woods south of the turnpike I have never had much trouble holding in earlier builds.  Lean North of the road, that is where trouble is.  Be prepared to swing reserves out of line if they get disjointed and beat on their flanks.  You aren't taking the offensive here.  Just maul them enough to get breathing space for your line and fall back.  Rinse and repeat.

Your middle corps and some skirmishers from nearby units have to ensure that confederate cavalry can't cross the creek southwest of your camp and get in the rear of your corps holding your right flank.

Get that middle corps out of camp and into defensive positions to the south.  You will have a third corps stretched out to the east (your left flank) that needs to get forward into decent defensive position and prepare for a potential strike towards the eastern CSA victory flag.  If you feel like you are winning use your middle and left flank corps to go for those victories but your first priority is to stop Jackson.

Personally I do nothing aggressive on day one but that is just me.  Others may differ.  The day that follows is a whole different issue.  Will let someone else address that.

Most of my brigades are skimpy.  1k to 2k.  Most around 1.5k.  As for guns I really only have about 2-3 units per corp.  I will give your advice a go for Chance, thank you kindly sir.  Just about ready to get it done.  

[Bigjku]

With the manpower pools you may be outnumbered it sounds like.  Be aggressive when the opportunity presents itself to kill without return fire.  But pull back to continuous lines of defense with open fields of fire if their numbers threaten to swamp you.

Jackson is going to pile into your right and will slide off North as he attacks.  Don't get flanked.  You can trade a lot of ground all the way back to camp.  You may just want to leave a screen of a division or so plus some skirmishers from other divisions on your left (east flank) from your corps over there and march the rest to the west to deal with that problem.

I am usually pushing 40,000 men per corps by Fredericksburg (think I just fought it with 112k or so) and maintain that for the rest of the campaign until I find reason to add a 4th corps.  But I rarely have any 3 star brigades until the end of the campaign.  The veterans just cost too much money to be worth it in my eyes.  I don't buy more than a handful until I have three fully maxed out Corps with all the artillery they need.

Try to make it through this with minimum losses even if you take a draw.  Gettysburg will give you a chance to make up some numbers.

[Bigjku]

You also might consider tearing down your 4th corps to boost numbers on the other 3 depending on what's in there.  Generally there are few battles where you can take a 4th corps and it almost always is a late reinforcement.  Someone can correct me if I am wrong but I don't think any battle requires a 4th corps unless maybe Richmond does...

[Fred Sanford]

Overall, Suffolk was a bad outcome.  You lost more troops than you gained, and had 2 or 3 of your brigades shatter in a battle that should have been a lopsided victory in your favor.  Couple of points:

• You know you can choose which brigades start the scenario and which come in as reinforcements, right?  There's instructions on-screen.  You would have been better off with more artillery at start.  Coming in late and having to move through forest to get up to the fighting made their contributions negligible when they should have racked up major numbers.
• When you have units that are not a part of your army (i.e. Peck's units) use them to do the bulk of the fighting. This helps you two ways- it reduces attrition of your own units, and when they get killed, the weapon drops end up in your armory.
• 3* units should only be used in major battles.  You will spend too much money replacing losses in those units if you keep using them.  Napoleon's Imperial Guard was only sparingly used for a reason.  Spread the experience opportunities around.
• Put more money into your supply wagon $8800 isn't enough.
• You overuse charge.  It drains condition and is a waste when ordered from far away.  
• Super-sized artillery brigades still suffer from diminishing efficiency returns.  I think 12-16 gun brigades provide the most bang for the buck (others may think different).  One thing about having even smaller (6-8 gun) batteries is that it gives something for captains and majors to command without penalty and gives them experience and thus promotion potential.  Also they provide more coverage as you will have more artillery units to spread around.
• Beware the all-artillery division.  In the major battles, the 4th division of a corps may not be available until late in the battle (or not show period), leaving you without artillery support.  It's best to have 1-2 smaller units in each division.
• You flashed your camp screen briefly at the end- I saw that several brigades had MG's commanding (in first corps anyway).  Are all of your Corp and Division commanders MG's?  I saw 4th division wasn't, and I suspect your other corps are full of noobs.
• Consider fighting minor battles with different corps to spread the experience around.
• What did you do to my poor brigade?  I don't know if "fragging" was a thing in the Civil War or not, but watch out.

[PegLegFatty]

Just finished Supply Raid and as you can see I still suck using skirmisher cavalry.  Next up Chancelorsville. 

[Bigjku]

Give serious consideration to filling out your first and second corps with troops and weapons from your fourth.  It shows up very late in this battle.

[PegLegFatty]

7 hours ago, Fred Sanford said:

Overall, Suffolk was a bad outcome.  You lost more troops than you gained, and had 2 or 3 of your brigades shatter in a battle that should have been a lopsided victory in your favor.  Couple of points:

• You know you can choose which brigades start the scenario and which come in as reinforcements, right?  There's instructions on-screen.  You would have been better off with more artillery at start.  Coming in late and having to move through forest to get up to the fighting made their contributions negligible when they should have racked up major numbers.
• When you have units that are not a part of your army (i.e. Peck's units) use them to do the bulk of the fighting. This helps you two ways- it reduces attrition of your own units, and when they get killed, the weapon drops end up in your armory.
• 3* units should only be used in major battles.  You will spend too much money replacing losses in those units if you keep using them.  Napoleon's Imperial Guard was only sparingly used for a reason.  Spread the experience opportunities around.
• Put more money into your supply wagon $8800 isn't enough.
• You overuse charge.  It drains condition and is a waste when ordered from far away.  
• Super-sized artillery brigades still suffer from diminishing efficiency returns.  I think 12-16 gun brigades provide the most bang for the buck (others may think different).  One thing about having even smaller (6-8 gun) batteries is that it gives something for captains and majors to command without penalty and gives them experience and thus promotion potential.  Also they provide more coverage as you will have more artillery units to spread around.
• Beware the all-artillery division.  In the major battles, the 4th division of a corps may not be available until late in the battle (or not show period), leaving you without artillery support.  It's best to have 1-2 smaller units in each division.
• You flashed your camp screen briefly at the end- I saw that several brigades had MG's commanding (in first corps anyway).  Are all of your Corp and Division commanders MG's?  I saw 4th division wasn't, and I suspect your other corps are full of noobs.
• Consider fighting minor battles with different corps to spread the experience around.
• What did you do to my poor brigade?  I don't know if "fragging" was a thing in the Civil War or not, but watch out.

I done messed up your Brigade pretty bad Sanford.  You give some really solid advice here.  Advice that I feel I have been learning slowly the hard way myself to a degree.  Your point about arty makes sense too, I will spread it out more.  As for spreading out experience to different corps I'm just starting to do this now.  I'll see if I can learn from my mistakes and get my way through Chancelorsville, thanks for the feedback and I may just rename a unit in better shape Sanford as I hosed yours so badly.  

[PegLegFatty]

4 hours ago, Bigjku said:

Give serious consideration to filling out your first and second corps with troops and weapons from your fourth.  It shows up very late in this battle.

Thanks for the tip I will do that.  Also it sounds like I may need to spend a bit of time in the camp screen pre or post battle so you guys can give me better feedback on how I'm doing.  Thanks again. 

[Fred Sanford]

1 hour ago, PegLegFatty said:

Thanks for the tip I will do that.  Also it sounds like I may need to spend a bit of time in the camp screen pre or post battle so you guys can give me better feedback on how I'm doing.  Thanks again. 

One principle to go by: The best get the best.  i.e. the 3* units get the best rifles and best leaders, and so on down.

[PegLegFatty]

Just wrapped up Chancelorsville. What a battle. I actually thought it was over a day before it was over and maybe oopsed up with being overconfident. I also way over did Corp and Division orders. I'm learning. Oh this one was a hot mess.

General McFatts would like to offer his condolences to all the families who lost men that day.  

[PegLegFatty]

I'm on to Gettysburg next, any tips?

Also sorry it's been so long since an upload.  

[Fred Sanford]

At the very end of your 2nd Winchester video, I saw you have ~50-52k across 4 corps and the reserve manpower, vs estimated 120k or so CSA.  Ouch.  This is about the reverse of history.  Gburg is mainly a defensive battle for the Union, so you should still be ok, but you need to start killing lots of confederates or you're going to run out of troops for the 1864 battles, which are big & bloody (even the minors).

Are you on Col or BG difficulty?

[Fred Sanford]

Is your rep at 100? I saw it was at the end of C-ville. It doesn't go higher, so you need to spend it or it goes to waste.

[Bigjku]

3 hours ago, Fred Sanford said:

At the very end of your 2nd Winchester video, I saw you have ~50-52k across 4 corps and the reserve manpower, vs estimated 120k or so CSA.  Ouch.  This is about the reverse of history.  Gburg is mainly a defensive battle for the Union, so you should still be ok, but you need to start killing lots of confederates or you're going to run out of troops for the 1864 battles, which are big & bloody (even the minors).

Are you on Col or BG difficulty?

The difficulty is going to be day 1 really.  After that IMHO it's very hard to lose unless you really screw up.  Day 1 he is gonna get piled into with superior numbers.  

Day 2 is cake.  Just bail on the forward exposed positions down south and run everyone back to the roundtops and cemetery ridge.

Day 1 will be a struggle.    My short advice.

Don't sacrifice much of Buford's fire power holding seminary ridge.  Make a demonstration and fall back North of town and out of sight.  You need to hold them so your corps can hold a line running Southwest anchored by town to the East. Establish a strong line there backed by artillery and make the opposition fight on open ground.  When they try to swamp you near town cave in their flank with Bufords cav in dismounted actions on their flanks.  Then have the cav disappear again.

You will need to fall back as the map progressively opens to the East because they will get around you.  The cav division can hold them for quite a while in town.  Ignore the fortifications south of town IMHO.  Secure a line far enough South to defend the VP but not fight the enemy in the cover of town.  Pull the surviving cav behind your lines.  Usually you can work it around your west flank to really disrupt their artillery support which they don't often bring through town but instead move down the ridge.

Its going to be messy.  No way around that.  If you have a full up 40,000 man corps you can often go on the offensive day one and each subsequent phase. If numbers are in the 20,000's per corps I would be worried about that.

[Bigjku]

Here are some shots of what I did.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628087

That is my initial defensive position for my troops.  You can see the Cav division kind of lurking off to the edges.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628210

You can hopefully see what I mean by using the cav against the flanks to disrupt attacks.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628252

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628306

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628442

You can see the results.  There are broken brigades that have to reform and then a division worth of infantry chasing around against troops they have no hope at all of catching.  This relieves all sorts of pressure against your infantry.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628497

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628544

As the numbers build up you can see the use of the Cav as a screen in town to buy me time to get redeployed south of town.  With their cover bonuses getting the cav out of those spots isn't all that easy for the CSA.

Here you can see the ultimate final position I tend to occupy on day 1.  You can eventually see the Cav division retreating through my lines.  Beaten up but having served their purpose.  My units get a good amount of time to rest while the CSA units march and fight.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628594

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628776

I like this picture just to show the crap pile of CSA bodies I can make in that position.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628645

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956628976

They finally come in and attack.  Reserves move in at times when there are threats to the line.  Some cover to the east gives us holding power there.  Guns to the west really hurt the enemy badly if they move in that direction.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956629050

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956629087

We are able to cave in their right side by massing for a counter attack on that open ground.   Look at all the dead traitors.   Warms the blood really.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956629016

There you can see the final act of the cavalry division.  The guns are left exposed.  Might as well trade that division for some dead artillery.  Will pay off later.

I would say don't be overly aggressive when you are unsure.  If the CSA starts breaking your units they can and will pressure you enough that its hard to rally anyone.  Don't get flanked through town or to the East of town.  When its time to pull back do so.

 

[mainiac]

On 6/16/2017 at 9:48 PM, Fred Sanford said:

One principle to go by: The best get the best.  i.e. the 3* units get the best rifles and best leaders, and so on down.

I want the best rifles in the hands of the guys with 100 shooting skill but why the best leaders?  If you put a 3* with raw recruits, you can unlock a perk on them.  If a unit is just a little short of a perk a one or two star general can get them that perk.  Also green troops might suffer efficiency penalties if they are under a low ranking commander while veteran troops wont have a problem under the same leader.

[PegLegFatty]

I brought Corps of 25 brigades each with and average brigade size of 1.2k.Let's just say that I cleaned house on day one and the rest of this battle was me being on the offensive the entire time.I suspect the battle scaling was a bit messed up as I know my skills at this game are lacklustre at best. Was this is a normal Union Gettysburg battle experience?

Also I did remember to spend my rep so don't worry.  

Gburg was the most one sided battle I have ever fought. 

[Fred Sanford]

Maybe there is something weird with the scaling- the intel report said the CSA army was like 121-126k but they brought nothing near that.  Frankly, you should have been getting overrun with rebs.  I'm also not a fan of they way they render Heth's division as regiments, not brigades (the first day initial CSA units).  Too fragile.

Also you wasted 5 rep.  You may have spent rep down to 75, but winning the battle gets you 30.

[PegLegFatty]

Just finished Bayout Furche, any tips for Chickamauga?

[quicksabre]

The first time I tried Chickamauga I pushed too hard and too forward and didn't keep a solid line. Confederate troops marched right through my lines without my noticing. The second time I played it I tried to inflict as many casualties as possible and then withdrew to LaFayette road as soon as I could, anchoring my line on the impassable river in the south and whichever the northernmost objective was in the north. It's one of the few places where you I could create a solid line protecting all of the key objectives. It was a really bloody fight for me but in the end I wiped the confederate army.

One other thing to note is that neither Wilder's brigade nor Minty's Cav will show up the next day. So use and abuse their Spencers while you have the chance! (The second time through I also chose to use my rep to buy Spencer rifles before the battle, so between that, what I could buy after the battle, and what I salvaged, I had enough to outfit a good-sized elite unit once the battle was over).

[PegLegFatty]

Just finished Chickamauga.........it was a quite a bit harder than Gettsyburg is all I'm going to say.  Onwards. 

[Meagre Heart]

Keep on goin' PLF! It's very encouraging for me as a new player to learn from so many people.