SCENARIO: American Civil War Full-Release Version

[Procifica]

The new Division units should make it harder to bypass Manassas/Winchester.

Some of the suggestions made above aren't historically accurate, and I'm trying to maintain historical accuracy as much as possible, though something needs to be done about the early Richmond rush. If only there was some way to convince the AI, DEFEND RICHMOND.

 

[Procifica]

I think I'm going to add one more coast square, which will make Manassas and Washington DC able to build naval units (which is realistic, since transports could go all the way to DC), and will block the "east" bypassing of Manassas for a straight run to Richmond.

With city defense going up 5%, and fortify going up 5%, I think taking Richmond should be a little harder in that regard.

Fortress type guns also are going to receive a small increase in defense, these aren't meant to be easy to knock out.

 

[Procifica]

I've also decided that until Army Organization is researched, Division type units will have less HP than I had quoted above. This is realistic in that in 1861, Divisional units were smaller in size. This will go for both USA and CSA.

Once Army Organization is researched, these will be of the size posted earlier in this thread.

Once Advanced Army Organization is researched, Corps will be directly buildable.

Also, Garrisons will be available in Divisional strength as well (which should improve the defense of Richmond among other places).

 

[Misfit_travel]

I modded v3.10aT yesterday to come up with a better AI defense of Richmond.

Experiment 1) Sustained assault on Richmond

MAP / UNIT CHANGES: I took the Drewry's Bluff Garrison and Fortress Gun and moved them into Richmond. Made both units Elite status. Added one road between Manassas and Fredericksberg.

COMBAT METHOD: I always bombard first, then attack with the strongest unit first, down to the weakest unit in the stack. Playing the Union side I took all of the troops from Washington and made a beeline for Richmond. The two Divisions from Harper's Ferry followed up. The only units left behind were the Skirmishers and the artillery units from Harper's Ferry. (They were intended to act as a garrison / deterent force). There was a one turn pause on the Union side to let the Harper's Ferry divisions catch up with Washington based units.

On Turn 4 I had one Division attack Fredericksberg, resulting in 1 Conf. unit killed and the division remaining behind the mainforce at 50%.

On Turn 5 that damaged division was killed a combination of Conf. Militia and Volunteer units.

On Turn 6 attacked Richmond by bombarding with 5 artillery units, the following up with 5 Union divisions.

RESULT: All six Union divisions destroyed. One Fortress Gun (Elite) was down to 2 HPs, the other fortress gun was down to 4 HPs. No Conf. forces destroyed. The Elite Fortress Gun I added was murder on the Union attack force.

Experiment 2) All out assault on Richmond

MAP / UNITS CHANGES: I took the Drewry's Bluff Garrison and Fortress Gun and moved them into Richmond. Made both units Regular status. Added one road between Manassas and Fredericksberg.

COMBAT METHOD: I always bombard first, then attack with the strongest unit first, down to the weakest unit in the stack. Playing the Union side I took every single unit that could move from Harper's Ferry and Washington and moved straight for Richmond. The only units that remainded behind were fortress guns and garrison units. There was a one turn pause on the Union side to let the Harper's Ferry divisions catch up with Washington based units.

Turn 3

Conf. Milita take out the fortress gun at Harper's Ferry

Turn 4

Conf. Militia destroy Hagerstown Falls

Turn 5

Bombarded Richmond with artillery followed by attacks by 7 Union Divisions. Richmond holds with a loss of 1 Union Division and 3 Skirmisher units. (Skirmisher were used as ground troops on this assault after I had exhausted all my Union divisions killing CSA units).

CSA losses; 2 fortress guns (1 veteran / 1 regular). 2 volunteer, 2 garrison

Turn 6

Bombard Richmond with artillery followed by attacks by damaged Union divisions (ranging in strength from 80% to 50%).

Richmond falls. No Union losses.

CSA losses; 1 volunteer (which had been moved in by the AI on its turn), 1 garrison unit.


CONCLUSIONS:

Adding the road between Manassas and Fredericksberg didn't accomplish much. It did not appear (from visual observation) that the AI did much troop movement along that corridor to defend Richmond.

The Elite strength Fortress Gun was impossible for the Union to break. The combination of HPs and defensive strength broke Division after Division even with a significant bombardment. This might be an indication of an acceptable defensive change for Richmond.

Garrison units (even at Elite status) were not strong enough to stand against even the weakest Union Division. Richmond's defense will need to be made with a combination of strengths of fortress guns, nothing else is strong enough to prevent the blitzkreig.


NEXT EXPERIMENT:

I'm going to go back and again move the Drewry's Bluff Garrison and Fortress Gun back into Richmond. I'll make them both Veteran strength units. I'll remove the road I added to the map between Manassas and Fredericksberg. Then, I'll run the entire Union army from Washington / Harper's Ferry at them Richmond to see if they can hold.

I think the garrison units are of limited value against Division strength units, but they would be more than effective against the smaller Union Militia and Skirmisher units.

Regards
Misfit

 

[Rocoteh]

Let us hope that these changes will make a
"ligthning" attack against Richmond a bad idea.


Rocoteh

 

[The Last Conformist]

Editting in my comment on relative Cav/Inf ratios in an old post probably was a bad idea. I reproduce it here:

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?

Has anyone else been seeing this sort of thing, or is it just a fluke in my particular game?

 

[Misfit_travel]

I've found that once the Union researches Long Term Volunteers they build swarms of Riflemen and not much Cavalry. Once they research Cavalry Organization they seem to build a lot of Cavalry Divisions. Best case scenario in a Union AI situation would be for there to be a big gap between the discovery of L.T.V. and Cav. Org. since it would allow the Union to build massive amounts of Riflemen units which, at least playing against me, have been very effective in large numbers.

I've never notice a huge difference in unit types on Eastern and Western fronts, but then you might want to keep in mind that the superior movement rate of the Cavalry unit may account for it seeming like there are more of them in the West (they would get their faster).

As a human player I've noticed that once I research Cavalry Organization, the City Governors almost always select the Cav. Division unit if I have not specifically indicated another unit in the build queue. I find Cavalry to be virtually useless on the Union side and build very little of it, so I wind up having to change alot of the build queues.

I believe it was Rocotech who pointed this tendency out before in one of his early playtest reports.

Regards
Misfit

 

[The Last Conformist]

Under Preferences, there's an option which makes city governors always start producing a new unit of the same kind when their city's built a unit. Saves me alot of time during major wars.

You're surely right that the high movement of Cav is part of the explanation I see so much of it in the West. It may be noted I'm not seeing any Cav Divisions yet - I wonder if I'll see any infantry out there once those come around.

I primarily use Union Cav to kill off stragglers - they can kill of the last survivor of an AI stack and retreat back to the protection of my city walls or a Union Division, where an Infantry unit doing the same would be caught in the open and annihilated the next turn.

 

[Misfit_travel]

MAP / UNIT CHANGES: I took the Drewry's Bluff Garrison and Fortress Gun and moved them into Richmond. Made both units Veteran status.

COMBAT METHOD: I always bombard first, then attack with the strongest unit first, down to the weakest unit in the stack. Playing the Union side I took all of the troops from Washington and made a beeline for Richmond. The two Divisions from Harper's Ferry followed up. The only units left behind were the Skirmishers and the artillery units from Harper's Ferry. (They were intended to act as a garrison / deterent force). There was a one turn pause on the Union side to let the Harper's Ferry divisions catch up with Washington based units.

On Turn 5 Conf. militia attacked and destroyed Baltimore (primarily because I wasn't paying all the much attention and hadn't moved a PN militia unit to bolster the defenses.

On Turn 6 attacked Richmond by bombarding with 8 artillery units, the following up with 6 Union divisions. Bombard destroyed City Walls and Capitol, nothing less was damaged.

RESULT: Each Union division destroyed the Conf. defender with no losses. Conf. losses 2 Veteran Fortress Guns, 2 Conf. volunteers and 2 Garrison units.

On Turn 7 Richmond fell with Conf. loss of 1 volunteer and another Garrison. No union losses.


CONCLUSIONS:

It would appear that Veteran strength Fortress Guns will not get the job done. I'll up both to Elite and try again. I'll add the coastal square like Procifica suggested he would which will force the march past Manassas. CSA artillery should weaken the units somewhat.


Regards
Misfit

 

[Rocoteh]

The Last Conformist,

I have also seen "overproduction" of Cavalry in the
West. I think with regard to history, AI overall produces
to much Cavalry. Probably the main reason is the speed
factor.


Misfit_travel

Interesting analyze concerning the defence of Richmond.
You had the same result as I had in my playtest:

Richmond fell on Turn 7.
Something have to be done to stop the Union blitz.
Although I agree with Procifica that one should not
manipulate the historical OOB, its not good that the
Union can take Richmond within 7 weeks.

With regard to ZoC, I wish that Firaxis would reintroduce
the Zone of Control rule (at least as an editor option) that
was "holy" in wargaming until 1970.
That is: Moving directly from one enemy ZoC to
another enemy ZoC was forbidden.


Rocoteh

 

[Misfit_travel]

MAP / UNIT CHANGES: I took the Drewry's Bluff Garrison and Fortress Gun and moved them into Richmond. Made both units Elite status. Change Richmond Fortress Gun from Veteran to Elite. Turned forest square south of Washington into Coastal square.

COMBAT METHOD: I always bombard first, then attack with the strongest unit first, down to the weakest unit in the stack. Playing the Union side I took all of the troops from Washington and made a beeline for Richmond. The two Divisions from Harper's Ferry followed up. There was a one turn pause on the Union side to let the Harper's Ferry divisions catch up with Washington based units.

On Turn 2

4 union artillery and 1 union skirmisher damaged as army moved past Manassas (by ZOC artillery / divisions)

On Turn 3

Harper's Ferry US Regular and 1 artillery damaged moving past Manassas

NOTE: Fredericksberg was virtually undefended. As the Union player I could have taken it easily and waited there to repair before moving onto Richmond. For this simulation I bypassed it and went straight for Richmond.

On Turn 7

CSA Division from Manassas moved in behind my now combined army which was about to attack Richmond. I could have either defeated this unit in detail, or attacked Richmond. I opted for assaulting Richmond.

Bombard destroyed the capitol, walls and plantation. No unit damage.

RESULT: 1 Union division, 1 US Riflemen (Harper's Ferry Garrison) lost. Conf. losses 2 Elite Fortress Guns, 3 Conf. volunteers and 2 Garrison units. Richmond held by CSA.

NOTE: 2 Union divisons were down to 1 and 2 HPs respectively in the assault. (with a little more luck for CSA the Union losses could have been much higher).

On Turn 8
CSA Division attacks and defeats one damaged Union Division sitting outside Richmond.

I split my bombards between Richmond and the CSA division.

RESULT: CSA division destroyed. Richmond lost with no additional Union casualties. I split my skirmisher units between Richmond and the Union division next to Fredericksberg to protect the Divison units. (by now they in very weak shape).

On Turn 9

CSA counterattacks from Fredericksberg with 2 conf. volunteers. 2 Union skirmishers are lost but the CSA runs out of units and the 2 HP Union Division doesn't get attacked.

CSA counterattacks Richmond with 1 Carolina Militia unit. The attack is unsuccessful.


I stopped at this point. In theory the CSA could still hurt the Union pretty badly with an all out counterattack since the union divisions are down to under 5 HPs on all of their units. Unfortunately the AI has never shown the slightest inclination to do this......


CONCLUSIONS:

It would appear that Elite strength Fortress Guns will almost get the job done. It might take upto 3 Elite strength fortress guns to hold Richmond against anything but an absolute assault by the Union. One other thing to consider is a DIVISION strength Elite Fortress Gun in Richmond. That would be a pretty nasty piece of work that might be worth playtesting.

Maybe Division strength Garrison units might stand a chance at doing something useful, but as it stands now I don't think so.

Creating a coastal square south of Washington (rather than the Forest) does slow down the Union march on Richmond and does result in some damage by ZOC artillery in Manassas. Unfortunately its not enough to make a difference particularly when you consider that a smart human Union player would probably take Fredericksberg first, heal up and then march on Richmond.

Hope the feedback is helpful.

Regards
Misfit

 

[Rocoteh]

Misfit_travel,

I agree the garrison in Richmond must be stronger.

Changing the map will not stop the Union.


Rocoteh

 

[The Last Conformist]

Rocoteh: I realize that 50% Cav is totally ahistorical for any sort of major fighting in this period. My question was whether there was any difference in Cav/Inf ratios between the different fronts in reality.

 

[The Last Conformist]

If you're reluctant to meddle with historical troop placements and troop strengths, how about creating a special "Richmond Garrison" unit as well as a "Richmond Fortress Guns" that looks like the normal stuff, but have nastier stats?

 

[Rocoteh]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
Rocoteh: I realize that 50% Cav is totally ahistorical for any sort of major fighting in this period. My question was whether there was any difference in Cav/Inf ratios between the different fronts in reality.

I have not seen any sources that would support that.

With regard to Richmond I think the Fortress-guns and
the garrison must be made much stronger.


Rocoteh

 

[Rocoteh]

Warning! PTW-patch 1.27f Europan English version.
I bought a new computer today. Positive..
....until I installed 1.27f Europan English PTW-version.

Total crash. Now I have to reinstall Windows.
The Patch was downloaded from an official site.
It works on my old computer, but not on the new....

Rocoteh

 

[The Last Conformist]

I would heed the warning, weren't if for some snafu by which my UK English CD only accepts the US English 1.27f patch. It's amazing they still can't make the patches work smoothly.

 

[Rocoteh]

Yes I agree. 4 hours and the new computer still will not
work. The Patch obviously destroyed the config-file
for Windows...


Rocoteh

 

[Procifica]

Alot of activity here.

The new Division sized units will all have ZoC on them, this will make bypassing Manassas or Winchester more difficult than it currently is. With Fortress Guns getting a boost to defense (and probably another HP), city defense rising (5%), fortify rising in bonus defense (5% also), and a tightening of the variance in attack vs. defense, plus the Richmond Garrison becoming Divisional strength, I think the assault on Richmond will be harder in the next version. The current 2 regular brigade units in Richmond also will be made Divisional strength.

The idea here is with the AI actually using Divisions instead of brigades to defend things, the Union Human Player no longer will be able to pick off weak brigade units as it currently can with its Divisions.

I don't see myself adding another Fortress Gun to Richmond, or changing the current HP total on the one there now, until I see how ALL of those changes listed above, going into Version 3.10bT, play out.

I agree with Rocoteh's comment above, ZoC needs to work as it did in Civ2 (the method he described above is how it worked in Civ2).

 

[Procifica]

Work on Version 3.10bT probably will not continue until at least Tuesday of next week. The playtests and other tests above though are of IMMENSE help, and will definitely help the new version.

Cavalry still seems to need some work, and that's going to be addressed as well. I'm working on a new formula for Division unit costs, to make them a bit less attractive to the AI.