SCENARIO: American Civil War Full-Release Version

Did you enjoy playing this scenario?

  • Yes, this is one of the best ever, please send it to Firaxis.

    Votes: 62 39.5%
  • Yes, this scenario is well-made.

    Votes: 26 16.6%
  • Yes, but improvements could be made.

    Votes: 11 7.0%
  • I cannot vote at this time.

    Votes: 47 29.9%
  • No, I didn't really like it.

    Votes: 11 7.0%

  • Total voters
    157
So far, I'm increasing the attack of most units by 2-3, and defense by the same. This is resulting in a tighter variance, as well as a little less emphasis on unit defense.

I'm going to increase regular fortifying to 25%, to make up for this change. This will make attacking units in the open easier to kill, and those in fortresses or cities harder.

City/Metropolis also will be put back to 10%/20%.

This is post #1000 for the thread. :)
 
I have now tested to add a continent in the east
with France as CIV. I was hoping for that AI should
start to produce naval units when the "one continent"
situation no longer existed.

Bad news: It did not.

Again there must be a reason!

Rocoteh
 
I intend to continue to find a solution on the
AI-naval problem.

Ideas on how so solve it are welcome.

Rocoteh
 
Could be the way the map is designed, with the mountain barriers.
 
Yes, you maybe right.

I will remove the mountain barriers and see
if anything happens.

Rocoteh
 
In my case I think almost all of the retreating Union ships had damage. Might this be the cause? Land units do it too. If I inflict one damage on a unit then it returns back into its borders.

Also many turns after the Union fleet retreated I noticed a Union transport(guided by a warship) going in the Atlantic going south. I wonder if it ment to make a landing somewhere? It went way south of Norfolk when I sunk them.
 
With regard to Rocoteh post #998, I use a similar tactic for the CSA.

In a prior post I commented on the need to kill off Union troops whereever and whenever possible to avoid the mass buildup and swarm tactics of the Union AI.

On method for achieving this is to attack stacks of Union troops, but leave the last unit alive. This allows you to safely attack from within your city enclosure (in which you have presumably built a Training Center). You can signifcantly "prune" the Union troops as they attempt to move by, but not expose your units to the "fishing" strategy outlined by Rocoteh.

Cities like Wincester and Manassas are strategically vital to the CSA player because most Union troops will have to move past one or the other. Build Training centers in them ASAP so your units can quickly heal combat losses. Gather as much of artillery as you can in these two cities (mobile coastal batteries from down South are excellent for this since you don't need them in the South after the first 5-6 turns). Soften up the Union stack with mass artillery, then attack with your division (or strongest brigade) units until the last unit is the stack remains. Never kill the last unit unless you can withstand the inevitable Union counterattack the following turn.

This will allow you to weaken the Union while not exposing your fewer troops to attrition type losses. (IMO the CSA needs at least a 3 to 1 kill ratio in the ACW scenario to stand a chance of winning. If you trade the Union unit for unit losses you will be beaten within 50 turns by Union swarm tactics).

One other useful strategy is to recognize the military AI will retreat any combat unit that has been damaged by artillery. Thus if you have a Union advance coming at a weak point, use your artillery to weaken the critical units of the advance, even if you have very little other troops to stop the advance. In the case of brigade sized units, 1 or 2 HPs artillery damage is usually enough to force a retreat. Division sized units need to be damaged until their color changes from green to yellow before they will retreat.

The Union AI will retreat those slightly damaged units back across its line. This will buy you some time to shore up your defenses in that area. Once you have moved in some supporting units, the AI will pick another area to probe you (hopefully somewhere near where you can concentrate your "kill" stacks mentioned above).

Regards
Misfit
 
Rocoteh:

I think that the naval stalemate is caused by having two major powers, which are at war with each other, on the same continent. I seem to recall in previous CIV games that real naval combat only occured between units of hostile powers which were resident on separate continent masses.

The easiest way to test this is to cut the CSA and Union apart by an ocean and view the resulting naval combats. (Obviously this wouldn't solve our ACW problem but it would tell us what needed to be done to encourage a sustained naval engagement).

Regards
Misfit
 
Misfit_travel,

Very interesting comments on strategy and tactics.

Misfit_travel and RobertLee

It seems that I have been unclear with regard to the naval problem.

The problem is that AI will never produce any naval units.


Rocoteh
 
Rocoteh

I believe that both the AI lack of sustained naval combat and the lack of naval builds are related to the fact that we have two combatants on the same land mass.

I've always found that when I play single continent games the AI almost never builds any significant naval force (usually only enough to explore). When I play two continent games I only ever see naval combat with countries on the other continent.

The only exception to this is if the country on my continent is at war with me, but has first been at war with a country on the other continent. Its seems they build the naval units to strike at the other country (since they have no other way of doing so) and just so happen to have naval units already built when they go to war with me).

Regards
Misfit
 
Misfit-travel,

I think that you are right (and what I have said earlier
on the subject is right.) I earlier tried my "distant continent"
theory without result. Maybe I should have given that test more
time. Anyway I now intend to test your idea and make U.S.
and CSA divided by water, since I want a definite answer to
why AI is acting as it does.


Rocoteh
 
Version 3.10aT playtest teminated on Turn 7.
(Human versus CSA)

I managed to repeat what I did in the previous playtest
(see post 949). I launched a lightning attack against
Richmond and it fell on Turn 7.
Union losses were 1 division and 1 division damaged.
Since its still so easy to take Richmond I will wait with
a new playtest until 3.10bT is up.

Rocoteh
 
Rocotech: Did the AI go to war with the transoceanic civ you introduced? I don't think the presence of a foreign continent is enough to prompt the AI to build ships - someone to fight on that continent is likely required.
 
Procifica:

To improve the defensibility of Richmond, why not add a second fortress gun (elite) and make all non-mobile defenders elite garrison units. (ie replace the home guard units, which are cannon fodder anyway against Divisions, with garrison units). That would give Richmond something like 2 Fortress guns, and 4 elite garrisons. That's a strong defense but the lack of mobility makes unhelpful to a human Conf. player.

You could justify this by removing the fortress gun (and garrison) from the south of Richmond. For all practical purposes this fortress is pretty useless in game play. Having those units in the Richmond city proper would significantly increase the defense.

Two fortress guns and strong garrisons units should be able to put more of a fight up against 5 Union divisions. I don't think the idea is to stop a 5 union assault, rather make it EXTREMELY expensive to carry it out.

Also consider adding a road between Manassas and Fredericksberg, this would aide the AI in quickly moving units from Manassas to attack the column of the blitzkrieging Union units.


Question for Rocotech:

Did the Conf. artillery units damage your divisions at all as you passed Manassas? Or did you bypass them by coming along the coast of Chesapeake Bay around Frederickberg and straight at Richmond?

If the Chesapeake Bay bypass is being used, why not relocate Fredericksberg one square closer to the Bay and add a fortress gun? (Just a thought). It would make the end around harder to do.

Misfit
 
Since I've been reporting from my game this far, I might mention that Richmond fell on week 14, '62.

Richmond's defenses didn't put up much of a fight - the Union lost no units, and the Home Guard are a joke - I finished the last of with a unit of Massachusetts Militia. You could always have Garrison units renamed as "Richmond Home Guard".

Out west, the AI has been sacrificing alot of Cavalry to try and stop me from getting into Memphis (Elvis freeks!;)). I'll see if I cannot break thru anyway, but to really ruin the AI's day I'm constructing a "task force" to strike against Chattanooga. On past experience, surviving Conf Cav is going rush there, hopefully dying against the wall since my troops will be manning them. :D

Update: OK, had to give up on Elvistown for the time being, to cut my losses.

And a possibly interesting observation; in the eastern theatre, the AI has something like half-a-dozen Riflemen units per Cav unit, whereas in the western one, the ratio is closer to 1:1. While the later is way too high, there being a difference as such seems appropriate, given the greater distances and smaller population densities in the later theatre. Would I be right if I guess there was a such difference in ratios also historically?
 
The Last Conformist,
No, AI did not got into war with the new civ.
Thank you for the advice. I will run a new test.


Misfit_travel
I bypassed Manassas without problems.

Regarding Conquests:

I hope Firaxis will have a broad documentation about
how AI works.
There is one very positive thing to say about Firaxis:
They are listening!!!

As I have stated before: CIVIII is the last bastion
of serious strategy-gaming.


Rocoteh
 
A general comment on The American Civil War:

Although I live in Europa, I think its incredible that
so many people here seems to regard the ACW as "uninteresting".

Just think "what if" the CSA had won the war, it would
have impact on history. GREAT IMPACT!.

I have spend 50% of my life in study WW2, but I always
come back to the ACW. What if CSA had won at Gettysburg
and so on.


Rocoteh
 
While the American Civil War isn't one of my "favourite" conflicts - as my ignorance has surely already made clear - I too cannot see how anyone could find it uninteresting, unless that person saw History as such as uninteresting.

It's also a good war from a gamer's point of view; it could plausibly have been won by either side, and it provides a bunch of important battles that could easily have gone either way.
 
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