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