SCENARIO: American Civil War - C3C only

Why am I losing population to disease so frequently?

Disease is triggered by the number of grassland, floodplain and marsh tiles there are around a city. Thus larger cities have a tendency to get hit more frequently than smaller cities.

This was done to simulate the draining effect of disease on the fighting power of each side's armies and to maintain the overall population base at something relatively close to historical levels.

On average during playtesting the Union side 1 population point in 3-5 cities per turn, while the CSA lost 1 population point in 2-3 cities per turn.

To combat this you absolutely have to build engineers / slaves and irrigate tiles around your cities. You also have to manage your city production to adjust those cities who have been hit by disease. You can very quickly build a city back up if you do these things.

How do I change the disease settings?

If you wish to remove or reduce disease settings you need to edit the appropriate scenario BIQ file. To do this open the file using the Conquests editor, then go to the RULES menu and select Edit.... Terrain.

Each terrain type can be selected from a pulldown menu. To greatly reduce disease, go to the Grassland pulldown select and uncheck the "causes disease" checkbox. Then save the scenario.

To moderate the effects of disease, uncheck Grassland but also go to Forest and ADD disease to that terrain type.

If you need further instructions on the possible variation combinations that were tested, or require further assistance please post an inquiry to this forum thread.
 
Why can't I place a Division unit inside a Corps?

During gameplay we discovered that allowing Division units to be combined into a Corps resulted in a game breakingly powerful unit. The computer AI would never built such a unit and as such was greatly disadvantaged.

We therefore restricted Corps to being built by brigade sized infantry units only.

When I captured an engineer or slave, why don't I get a worker unit?

Engineers are combat units with worker functions. They cannot be captured.

Slave units that are captured are set free, you don't retain them as your own workforce.

I've built the Intelligence Agency, why can't my spy steal technology?

In multiplayer games, spies can steal technology once the Intelligence Agency is built and a spy successfully inserted into enemy territory.

In human vs. AI games stealing technology is a diplomatic function which is only enabled after the Improved Propaganda technology is discovered. You will need to use your diplomat to steal technology, not your spy. This was done because playtesting showed that human players would rob the AI of all its techs, while the AI never stole technology from a human player. Making stealing technology a later tech tree action balanced the game more fairly.

How can I destroy Union Naval stations like Ft. Gibson and Dry Tortugas?

All infantry brigades beginning with Union and CSA Riflemen have amphibious assault capabilities. The initial Union and CSA forces (US Regular, Volunteers etc.) and Divisions do not have the ability to execute a naval assault.
 
This guide was written like a military briefing to officers of a West Point graduating class. Its not as explicitly obvious as the version in the next post. Read this one if you want some hints, but not necessarily everything explained to you.
 

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Don't download this if you like to figure things out on your own. This contains tips and tricks which can allow you to win MUCH more easily than if you had to make mistakes and figure it out yourself.
 

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Originally posted by Klyden
Couple of comments:

First, keep in mind that artillery prices went up. I usually don't build training centers in every city. They cost to much and put an additional strain on the economy. I use cities without that to produce things like scouts, milita, and artillery. Artillery is taking about 20 turns to produce by the way.

I like to suggest that for the tactic I described, you are building the wrong artillery. You are building Howizters which are quite expensive, relative to game start artillery (which can be upgraded to the respectable Napoleon unit).

Please keep in mind Klyden that I'm just offering an opinion and am not critizing the way you played the scenario. It would certainly appear that you got screwed on a number of occasions by the RNG.

Next is the academy is in a good spot if you look at what that city produces. I put it there last game and with some improvements I put in, I had it cranking out a corps marker every 3 or 4 turns. You will note that city does not have a training center, because it won't need one. The first game I put it in New York.. my top producer and it was a mistake. Not only did I shut down a significant producer of units and a training center went to waste, but it did not significantly speed up the production of the corps markers. The city it is in now will produce a corps marker every 10 turns, which is right on goal with what you wanted as a target. It will probably drop to around 8 turns after I get done with improvements around the city.


Okay, but there is a lot of underdeveloped territory around this city, particularly some hills. I would probably have built the crap out of this city area so that I could switch back and forth between population expansion or shield production as needed.

In the two games prior I had played as the Union, one of the top priorities they need to do is to develope a road south of the Ohio. I did not do it in the first game and it was tough until I figured it out. The second game I did it pretty quick and it paid huge dividends. I got it done in this game as well and it has allowed me to hold the area. Look back at my turn reports and count the number if CSA divisions that have been in the Pikeville area alone (I am thinking around 8 or so). Doing that ties up engineers, but is something that I still believe is key for the Union to do at this point. The road net just sucks too much to the north to shuttle units back and forth along the front.

I totally agree with you on this. Particulary since massed union engineers can make short work of any road requirement.

Your artillery tactic is something I was able to accomplish once in the east with the help of the navy. I was able to wipe out a lot of brigades doing it, but also lost a full strength 12 pip division against a 3 pip brigade in the open. That is BS and I had a lot of it happen in the game. I lost a vet div in the west attacking a 3 pip brigade as well.

As far as producing too many divisions, I hate to let you in on a secret, but the CSA has produced more divisions in this game than I have. I have seen at least 8 in the Pikesburg area (and no, they did not move anyplace, most died attacking my divisions in the hills) and I also got assaulted by 4 at once in the Nashville area and I think there is another one there someplace. I know of at least 2 in the Washington area and suspect more are there.

My divisions are the only thing that has held off the hordes of CSA brigades. The brigades appear to be very reluctant to attack anything with a full strength division. I have had to have a division in Annapolis, Baltimore, Washington and a few of the other locations there, just to keep the CSA out. The CSA brigades will attack Union brigades and there are so many of them, they win. Granted I cause them losses, but when I am as badly outnumber as I have been, he can afford them more than I can. It doesn't help when I have been burned losing a vet brigade to a vet CSA brigade when I was on a hill behind a river and he still wins. (More statistical BS). The bottom line is the only unit that can stand up to a vet CSA div is a Union Div in most cases and even then, that Union div had better be in a good defensive spot and/or have some help.

I agree that the Divisions are what keep the CSA brigades at bay. The point I was trying to make was to use Corps as the attackers and Divisions to hold the line from counterattacks. The CSA unit advantage begins to erode in Era2 with the introduction of the Springfield rifle for the Union. The Springfield rifleman is a powerful unit that is MUCH cheaper to build that its CSA counterpart (Enfield).

If you build the game start artillery instead of the Light Howizter you would have almost twice as many artillery units. At the Deity level, with the hordes of units you are facing, numbers matter more than quality.

What I proposed is an attrition strategy that will take the better part of 1862 to accomplish. You are buying time for your superior tech research to get you to some key techs to swing the balance.

Cleveland, Rochester, Detroit and Buffalo are good cities to work on, but both Rochester and Detriot have been pummeled by disease repeatedly. Rochester has been smacked a couple of times as well. Buffalo has been the only one really left alone. Pittsburg is doing better this game as well and it has made a difference. (Last game, it spent a long time at 2 or 3 and it sucked).

Look at St. Louis. You have a major city with a population problem, but two or three of the tiles are misallocated to underproducing terrain. Changing this would double or triple the growth rate of the city. There are a few of these underperforming cities throughout the Union. Stressing population growth over shield production, particularly in cities that have been repeatly hit by disease will help them bounceback quickly to more productive levels.

I found in playing testing at Deity level that you really have to closely watch your city production. You have very little room to move in balancing growth versus production. You can't afford too many turns underproducing whatever the max the city will do.

Some of the cities you mention I have newspapers in I would have to check but might be that I replaced churches in the production que or might be having them build those for the time being until something else comes along and I switch them over. (I use that tactic a lot.. start something and then switch while I am waiting for tech to become available).

I use that tactic too. I do however build many more Training Centers and Stock Exchanges (to pay for them) than you appear to. At game start I crank out engineers in small / medium cities, and Coal plants in the big ones. From there I build training centers to crank out veteran infantry units. Before I hit Long Term Volunteers, I use my big cities to crank out artillery, then after LTV I switch to about 75% infantry, 25% artillery production. It gives me a different ratio than I think you have in your game.

By the way, the leader I got in the east, since it could not do anything else, did a quick build on the military academy.

This comment concerns me. I've never had trouble converting a Leader into a Corps, but this comment would indicate that you could not do so. I wonder if this is related to the Spy problems you are also having?

Also, as far as forces in the east, I would estimate he has more than what one brigade/turn would suggest, so even if I had the 3 corps, I would still be behind and I would still be facing issues in Tennessee.

I don't know.. I am not used to what an AI can do on Diety. Will have to rethink things and perhaps I will give it another try, but I have to have the feeling that between absolutely statistical BS (makes me absolutely believe the AI "cheats") that I had to deal with in this game and some adjustments of doing things a bit differently I still think there are issues just by the sheer number of CSA units.

I agree that we should readjust the AI cost factor upwards from its current 60% level. Would you suggest going back to the Regent level 70% or somewhere like 65%?

Regards
Misfit
 
I just started up a game as the CSA against the Deity AI Union. After hearing of Klyden's misfortunes I've got limited hopes of pulling this one thru, but if I shall fail, I intend to do it amidst a big pile of blue-clad corpses.
 
Grant converted to a army with no issues.

The leader that appeared in my capital was on the turn of a science advance and he had no name. I was speculating it was as a result of a scientific advance as I am guessing you have no names allocated for that contingency. He was not able to increase the scientific rate of Washington nor produce a corps marker, but was able to quick build. I can check some of my other saved games and see if I still have him someplace. I saved him over a couple of turns to quick build the military academy.

I would suggest trying to reset to 65%. To me, part of the game is "feel". The North should feel they are the economic power house in the game and the way the CSA was producing troops, that was not the case at all. We do have a couple of things in play here and that is artillery is more expensive along with the Corps marker.

I agree on the cheaper artillery. I kept looking at the cheaper artillery and thinking about it and will probably make that adjustment in the next game. I pretty much follow the pattern you suggested (build artillery first as tech gets worked on then look at switching over).

St Louis is doing ok for the most part as it got hit by disease once recently I think and just completed an infantry unit. I don't like going too nuts on developed areas at the start of the game because they wind up causing unhappyness issues. Perhaps I screwed up a bit, but I typically build cathederals for the big producers and also draft a bit from them to keep their populations productive. A lot of the coastal/river cities, if they are in good shape, I will switch from the 4 food (especially if no coin) of a irrigated tile to the 2 food of the sea. I keep good coin coming in that way and also control population growth and help contain unrest until I can get the luxaries into the road net and get cathedrals and newspapers as city improvements. The early milita I use as emergency defenders or stockpile them for future use as garrisons in captured cities.

Good luck on your game TLC as terrible luck was one of my biggest undoings. Just as a quick example, I can recall at least 3 cases where a Union division that was regular (12 pips) or better lost attacking a 3 pip CSA brigade. In one case, I did 1 pip damage and the CSA unit got promoted when my div died. (I would promote them too). I also lost a vet brigade to a CSA skirmisher and lost a vet skirmisher in the hills to a CSA milita. I also had my typical luck in dealing with disease striking key pop centers instead of hitting pop centers no one cares about. (Although Beloit must be the disease capital of the world as it pretty much spent the entire game at 1 pop).
 
Thanks! I'm gonna need it, methinks.

That was indeed a Scientific Great Leader you got, Klyden. They can't start Science Ages, because the relevant special action isn't checked for the Leader* unit in the Editor. We discussed this once, and the consensus was, IIRC, that Science Ages made no sense in ACW, and that there are now enough Wonders around that that's a decent use for them. IIRC, they can also rush units (just like MGLs), which means it's an instant Div if you feel like it. Very nice if we're speaking about an Enflied Division!

* The editor appears to treat MGLs and SGLs as they same. No-one seems to've worked out how the game actually discriminates between them.
 
I've been thinking about this all morning.....

How about this for an idea. Create a King level variant of the game that keeps the AI cost rate at 70%, but leaves the rest of the setup the same as Deity?

Deity looks like its pretty hard, and only those who thrive on a little frustration will get the most out of it.

How about I also leave instructions for modding the game disease settings in the FAQ section? That way, if players find themselves losing interest, they can quickly mod downwards the effect of disease and play again.

That should give potential players a range of choices out of the download, which some quick mod options should they want to tone down certain aspects of the game.

Misfit
 
It's actually pretty easy the way I've saved my previous files, so I'll go ahead if Klyden chimes in.

BTW, switching to our PBEM beta4 game, why did you backoff New Madrid?

Misfit
 
Actually, that is a great idea Misfit.

The science leader can't rush production of military units if I remember rightly. (I think I checked). I will double check if I can find a saved game. In my case, it made sense to rush the academy.

For the record, I would not turn off disease.. just lessen it a pinch. ;)
 
Hi, I'm a newcomer to the boards. I downloaded the Civil War mod for C3C the other day and was having a great time whuppin those damnyankees until I got a fatal error which caused the game to exit. It was something about UnionDiv.ini Is there a patch or some way I can fix the mod, i was having a hell of a good time and would like to continue.
 
Originally posted by NilesR
Hi, I'm a newcomer to the boards. I downloaded the Civil War mod for C3C the other day and was having a great time whuppin those damnyankees until I got a fatal error which caused the game to exit. It was something about UnionDiv.ini Is there a patch or some way I can fix the mod, i was having a hell of a good time and would like to continue.


NilesR:

To fix the problem, go to the Conquest/Scenarios/ACW/Art/Units/UnionRifleDiv folder. Inside this folder is a file named "CSARifleDiv", it needs to be renamed "UnionRifleDiv". (Spelling is important).

That should fix your problem. You can then reload from your last saved game turn and continue playing.

Regards
Misfit
 
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