The Blue and Gray

Here is a screenshot in the middle of the 3rd Battle of Paducah. The CSA has not had a great deal of success taking this city (or its neighbour city Cairo).

At the start of the turn in location "A" there were 2 CSA Corps (stacked with 3 Riflemen brigades each), 1 Elite Rifleman brigade, 1 Elite Militia and 1 Elite Skirmisher. Two Corps attacked each destroying 1 Union Riflleman brigade. The Elite Skirmisher took out a Napoleon artillery in the city (and generating MGL Longstreet as pictured here). The Elite Rifleman took out another unit, but the Elite Militia died without damaging the Skirmisher it was going after.

Side note: I've been keeping track of elite unit attacks. These attacks brought me to 225 elite unit attacks, for which I've been blessed with my FIFTH Military Great Leader. MGL Longstreet was transfered to Columbus where he sacrificed himself for a CSA Division.

By the end of the turn location "B" had 3 Rifleman along with an artillery unit. They are positioned to give me the option of attacking the 1-2 Union Corps in the Cairo area should they move to reinforce Paducah. (I think they are two because I remember seeing two of them side by side recently in a faint attack toward New Madrid).

Location "C" consisted of 2 CSA Division units. I moved them into Columbus, loaded them on transports and dropped them on the stack at location "A". The 2 Corps at location "A" were damaged in the attacks so I retreated them back into the woods due south of Paducah / east of Columbus.

GENERAL MISFIT PULLS OUT HIS CRYSTAL BALL:
I think Eric_A will reinforce Paducah on his turn with 1 - 2 units from the transports. My guess is he has some Division units on them (which would be consistent with his earlier tactics). I suspect the 2 Union Corps units will also move out of Cairo to threaten my flank on the Paducah attack.

Depending on the size of the force, and the level of success his gunboats stack sitting in Cairo will have in reducing the strength of my Divisions will dictate whether I continue to press the attack or retreat (yet again).

Worst case scenario is he will bombard with his gunboats, attack with his divisions and kick my butt.

Misfit
 

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I can't get a look at that image :confused: :( . Could you re-do? :scan:


Edit: THANKS! I got it now! :cool:
 
The CSA has launched a huge attack on Washington
while at the same time using raiders to destroy the last road
into the city. This makes it undefendable and I am retreating all my mobile
forces.

Misfit seems to have about the same production capacity as I do.
In my opinion the population control mechanism is just plain broken.
Some of waht were my largest and most productive cities are now
small towns. Chicago is size 4 and Philidelphia is size 6. I don't think I
will play this scenario again until this is fixed.
 
I agree with Eric_A. The disease mechanism is broken as Union cities seem to suffer a disproportionate amount of pop loss. Maybe we will have to adjust pop costs for Divisions and Corps upwards rather than use disease to moderate city sizes.

As for the productive capacity.....

I've been building plantations, factories and coal plants in every major southern city since the start of the war. Its taken almost 2 years, but I have a very strong economy to fight out the rest of the conflict.

One other thing that is broken is the Raider unit. Its WAY too powerful with its movement points. One hole in the lines and they can run for hundreds of miles in a single turn. As such I've sent Eric_A screen shots of where all of them are that are on his side of the line, so he can kill them with regular units (they're invisible to non-scout units). I've stopped building them and will maintain the balance of the remaining units on my side of the line as scout type units (and infiltrator killers). I think they need to go down to 1 movement point. In combat they are quite weak against main units (it took 2 raiders to kill a conscript militia outside Marysville) so I'm comfortable with the cost and combat ability of these units.

The cities that have been taken have not been pillaged (other than what is lost when a city is captured). I won't destroy any tiles or city improvements in order to let you regain your three cities without further loss.

I'll post some screenshots tomorrow of the battle for Washington (which netted me another MGL) and a large skirmisher outside Chambersburg. At Chambersburg I lost 3 Veteran Cavalry, 1 Elite Rifleman, 1 Veteran Rifleman, 1 Elite Volunteer in exchange for 1 Union Corps, 1 Divison and 1 Howitzer destroyed. Definitely not one of my better battles. The attack on Washington did not result in any CSA unit losses. The Union lost the fortress gun, 4 garrison units and a home guard. Washington has also not been pillaged.

I guess this is why we beta test. To find the weaknesses in the game. It sucks that there are still some major holes in the scenario.

I hope you will consider continuing Eric. I'd like to see if any of the later game units are also broken. (I'm guessing long range artillery will be).

Misfit
 
Battle for Washington

As Eric_A mentioned, a massive force of CSA troops converged on Washington. The plan hinged on being able to take out the rail line connecting Washington to Annapolis and Baltimore.

In late 1862 I had a cavalry unit make a suicide run to destroy the rail link on the elephant resource tile north of Washington. I had then stationed a sizable number of troops on the hill west of the elephant resource tile to prevent Eric_A from rebuilding the rail link.

In late 1862 I acquired the Total War tech which allowed me to build the Raider unit (5-2-2 with invisibility and ignore all terrain costs). I build a fair number of these to be used in several campaign areas. On the eastern front the original plan was to build 6-8 of them and attack Annapolis, sinking the Union squardron based there. Eric_A of course didn't leave them in port long enough from me to do that, so the secondary target was to cutoff Washington and pound the city defenders with my army before the Union could respond. (My Scouts told me that Eric_A had based a large part of his army north of Baltimore, ready to move wherever I threaten an attack).

So the Raider took out the rail line, isolating Washington. I then moved the Army of Northern Virginia, 2 Corps, 3 Divisions, and a mass of riflemen, skirmishers and artillery. I doubt there has been a larger concentration of men in one tile in the entire war.

Eric_A was right, Washington was doomed. I thought he might leave his defenders there and respond by moving his army back to reinforce it one turn after I slaughtered the defenders. It would have made for a huge battle but it would have cost him all the units in the city first.

My attack on Washington was conducted with only the Divisions and skirmishers. The Corps were not required and moved back into Mannassas. I'll need them to stop the Union advance against Cumberland.

Battle outside Chambersburg

This was a target of opportunity. I threw my forces against a Corps & Division of the Union hoping to kill them. I did but it cost me 3 Cavalry, 1 Elite Rifleman, 1 Veteran Rifleman and an Elite Volunteer unit. My Division stationed (pictured here) was severely damaged and might yet be killed by the Union counterattack on his turn.
 

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Still lurking faithfully ;) :cool: . Thanks for all the screenies :thumbsup: . I'm sure you guys will come up with some good solutions for the scenario ;) .
 
After some discussion Eric_A and I have decided to stop this game here.

This beta has told us a fair bit about some corrections we need to make to some unit types and to moderate disease effects.

If anyone would like to continue this game, I'm happy to make the game file / passwords availabe.

Regards
Misfit
 
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