Campaign battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing) as Union.

[TamaDasha]

So... At this point in the campaign I have 2 corps totalling 10000 infantry (4000 with Harpers M1855, 6000 with Springfield M1842), 40 guns (24 12pdr napoleon, 8 24pdr howitzers, 8 10pdr ordnance), 300 saber cavalry, 500 carbine skirmishers and 200 rifle skirmishers.

Combined with the "free" troops in the mission itself (that arrive god knows when because I haven't seen them), the battle of Shiloh starts with 27000 union soldiers. Intelligence tells me the enemy army is anything up to 54000 troops. Despite me massacring grays left right and centre in the previous missions with anything from 2.0 to 5.0 K/D ratio. Apparently their manpower supply is ♥♥♥♥ing inexhaustible.

The problem arises from the very beginning. My own brigades get completely overwhelmed at Shiloh Church by grays outnumbering them at least 4 to 1. Rifle advantage goes out the window once CSA closes in and just charges into melee. Even supported by backline fire a 1000-strong rifle brigade just can't hold up to 4000 musketeers rushing it.

I also didn't receive any artillery at Shiloh, and then had ALL of my artillery with a single skirmisher brigade dropped onto the left flank defence. Apparently the game hates logic and deploys them by division - well I usually spread my units in such a way that each division is as homogenous as possible - it makes sense, you click on the division icon during a battle and it selects all of that division's units. Which is a lot more convenient when the entire division is the same type of unit.

No worries, that's fixable. However, I don't really see artillery changing the situation much. I need twice the amount of brigades deployed than what I have if I want to even stand a remote chance of surviving their zerg rush.

How the hell do you win that battle?

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/868481724762350942/1301F877B2016228C5A263EE498D819528452F19/ <- battlescene ends up looking something like this.

[ceutermark]

For Shiloh Cav and skimishers don't really help that much i usually go into the battle with one full corp of 20 infantry brigades and 4 artillery batteries and i make sure my unit of 24 pound Howizers are in 1st division so they can back up the infantry that in front and when the map opens up to the hornets nest i put the troops you get from the Army of the Ohio which the first bunch containes Bruce,Hazen,Ammen around the hornets nest and run my line from shiloh church running along the woods to the Hornets nest then my line goes from there to the river and then i wait for the rebels to focus their attack on the hornets nest and then i take the troops from around the church and roll up the flank and surround them and destroy the rebel army on day1 also what level are you playing on.

[Imbezile]

Originally posted by Makro:

So... At this point in the campaign I have 2 corps totalling 10000 infantry (4000 with Harpers M1855, 6000 with Springfield M1842), 40 guns (24 12pdr napoleon, 8 24pdr howitzers, 8 10pdr ordnance), 300 saber cavalry, 500 carbine skirmishers and 200 rifle skirmishers.

Combined with the "free" troops in the mission itself (that arrive god knows when because I haven't seen them), the battle of Shiloh starts with 27000 union soldiers. Intelligence tells me the enemy army is anything up to 54000 troops. Despite me massacring grays left right and centre in the previous missions with anything from 2.0 to 5.0 K/D ratio. Apparently their manpower supply is ♥♥♥♥ing inexhaustible.

The problem arises from the very beginning. My own brigades get completely overwhelmed at Shiloh Church by grays outnumbering them at least 4 to 1. Rifle advantage goes out the window once CSA closes in and just charges into melee. Even supported by backline fire a 1000-strong rifle brigade just can't hold up to 4000 musketeers rushing it.

I also didn't receive any artillery at Shiloh, and then had ALL of my artillery with a single skirmisher brigade dropped onto the left flank defence. Apparently the game hates logic and deploys them by division - well I usually spread my units in such a way that each division is as homogenous as possible - it makes sense, you click on the division icon during a battle and it selects all of that division's units. Which is a lot more convenient when the entire division is the same type of unit.

No worries, that's fixable. However, I don't really see artillery changing the situation much. I need twice the amount of brigades deployed than what I have if I want to even stand a remote chance of surviving their zerg rush.

How the hell do you win that battle?

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/868481724762350942/1301F877B2016228C5A263EE498D819528452F19/ <- battlescene ends up looking something like this.

You´ve gotten yourself a nice mess there. Going all in with the quality over quantity leads to such situations with you having top of the line weapons but not enough troops. 10k infantry spread to two corps is about 1/3 of what you can have by Shiloh. (My golden rule is 10k infantry/division as soon as possible and number of divisions is usually not the maximum allowed)

Infantry is the key in all battles. Cav and skirms have their uses but in early game having more than a couple of units each is a serious waste of resources.

There might be a way to still beat this by using detach skirmishers-command to halt the CSA charge. As soon as you see an enemy brigade charging you pause the game, detach skirmishers from the target brigade, double tap the pause key and reattach the skirmishers -> the enemy stops (in 98% of cases)

Just make sure to use the terrain to your advantage (best positions are woods behind rivers) And you seriously don´t have to fall back anywhere. All VPs other than pitt landing are expendable though.

[Timur]

What difficulty is this?

From what I see and read I have the following suggestions:

Army Organisation:

- Have larger brigades. It seems tempting at first to have smaller but more brigades, but since almost all battles are limited by the number of brigades you are allowed to use and the phases also often work by a certain amount of brigades, having larger brigades is preferable.

- Design your Corps in such a way, that the 4th division consist of less important and/or fast units. I generally put additional artillery there and my cavalry. The 4th division either doesn't appear at all during some battles or it will be the absolute last division, so it needs to be quick and/or expandable. Also put artillery in your infantry divisions (like one battery of 12-16 guns).

General positioning:

- I take it the screenshot is from "mid-battle" when your units were already pushed back, but your original positioning should have looked somewhat like this:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=957112271

The goal is to get all brigades into cover while the enemy needs to stand in the open to attack them. Walton's position isn't the best due to the terrain, but when he gets attacked, I just move him up into the thicker woods around the building for better cover. Also play around with the fall back and hold commands, to lure enemy units into the open, while your units can move back into cover.

Cheesing charges:

- This is something you can do, if you want, but it is a bit of an exploit: When the an AI unit is charging one of your brigades, detach skirmishers from that brigade and re-attach them right away to interrupt the charge.


Specific advise for Shiloh:

- You can play the battle as the briefing texts advise you to...or you can just immediately move all your units as far to the North and North-East as possible, to trigger the next phases as fast as possible until you reach the landing. The landing is an excellent defensive position and you get reinforcements form the Army of the Ohio. With those it should be easy to hold it, flank the enemy and destroy most of the CSA army before day 2.

[BigJKU316]

Would agree with most of the above advice. I am guessing you bought a fair number of veterans too? If you are really rocking HF 1855's at this phase that is where most of your money is and I bet you have a reasonably large number of unused recruits you can't deploy?

My general advice on army construction is size before weapons before veterans at least early. Once I have mostly 1855's or beyond I start buying more veterans very selectively to get my experience levels up and because I don't feel compelled to replace 1855's with anything better for the majority of my troops.

Going into Shilo I am generally sticking to 1842's and maybe a couple brigades with Lorenz rifles.

For historically minded people the Union won't get enough weapons but I have found you need to be content with 1855's as your base weapon and you can outfit everyone pretty well. Just expect that parts of your second and third corps are going to be carrying 1842's and sometimes worse until after Antitem.

How many troops are in your manpower pool?

[Kristoph42]

@Timur . . . Your screenshot looks identical to how I fight. Although, my brigades are a little more up in the trees and that Artillery unit is in the trees right in front of Shiloh church. Also, I use the sucker brigade like Walton, except he is at that little house and he falls back and the rebs chase him up and they get flanked . . .

@BigJK size before weapons is like gospel and it is true.

As for original post. Your army is a little to weak. You want to have about 5-8 thousand men per division and a 12 gun battery. So that way you have about 15-24 thousand INFANTRY per corps, I would start over and make your Army bigger.

[BigJKU316]

Originally posted by Kristoph42:

@Timur . . . Your screenshot looks identical to how I fight. Although, my brigades are a little more up in the trees and that Artillery unit is in the trees right in front of Shiloh church. Also, I use the sucker brigade like Walton, except he is at that little house and he falls back and the rebs chase him up and they get flanked . . .

@BigJK size before weapons is like gospel and it is true.

As for original post. Your army is a little to weak. You want to have about 5-8 thousand men per division and a 12 gun battery. So that way you have about 15-24 thousand INFANTRY per corps, I would start over and make your Army bigger.

Agree with you on the house just across the creek. I put a brigade in it and have some detached skrimishers ready to rush and occupy the fortification in front whenever there is a charge. Then I murder them from three sides.

Shilo as the Union is great over there. I murder tons of CSA troops on that side of the map to the point I can just move my troops off once the map comes together and smash in the flank of their troops pressing up at the Hornets Nest area. They usually end up a shattered mess pressed up against the river. The next day is just sending a division of the Army of Ohio to each of the three VP's as there are usually just one or two odd brigades of infantry left along with some cavalry to chase away.

I am not a convert to the retreat to the landing approach though I might bring my losses down doing it it just feels wrong.

[Kristoph42]

Originally posted by BigJKU316:

I am not a convert to the retreat to the landing approach though I might bring my losses down doing it it just feels wrong.

Agree 100%. It is just to much fun to move those boys from the church over to the other battle and watch his whole army crumble. I have those other boys fight for a while and then move them up or fall back to the hornets nest and of course the rebels pursue and then the Church boys hit that flank and they all crumble and lose their artillery and supply wagons. Oh . . . what a glorious site. Brings a smile to my face

[Marcomies]

I started my first campaign (Union) on medium difficulty and by the time I got to Shiloh I had only 3 rifle infantry Brigades of 1.5k men each. 2 musket armed infantry brigades with 1.2k men each. One battery of 10 guns (10pdr), one dragoon unit of 400 men and one skirmisher units of 300 men armed with Sharps rifles.

I managed the first two stages without too much issues or losses although in the second stage I only had three units to work with (musket infantry, sharpshooters and dragoons). By the time the last stage of the battle started I noticed that two 2,5k man enemy units had already walked around my defences and were at the hill by the same time my first units got there.

I managed to delay the enemy long enough to get my remaining forces behind the fortifications and was causing heavy damage to the enemy but then the mission failed because apparently I had lost the landing... Not sure what happened there, I was holding the fortifications around the flag and while I was not manning the two fortifications closests to the river I still had two infantry units holding the flank there from the forests. There was one enemy infantry unit behind my defensive line that got trapped there and kept attacking and routing between my units and the edge of the map but overall I was holding the area.

I deleted my save since it seems like I had built my army too small from the beginning, spending too much on veteran reinforcements and weapons. I think I had over 15k men waiting in the pool by the time I started Shiloh.

[Dr Duh]

Yeah, I find the between-battles screen organization isn't optimal for telling you what you need to know about your next-battle options. Sure, you can switch from the camp screen and see which alternate battles are available, but to see how many brigades and how many corps you can bring, you need to 'start' each battle.

So after I 'start' each battle, I go back to the 'camp' screen, now knowing I can bring 10 brigades but only one corps to battle #1 etc. You need to scout out this sort of thing so that you don't make mistakes like starting a second corps too soon when you won't be allowed to bring it to battle yet, and figuring out when you need to start putting points into army organization (early) so that you can utilize all your manpower with a limited number of brigades.

As far as tactics, yeah detaching/reattaching skirmishers to stop a charge is an exploit that ought to get fixed, but telling your brigade to fall back when you see a charge and you don't have enough supporting fire to feel confident you'll be able to break and rout the attacker if you melee is perfectly legit. You may have to give up a good spot on the terrain, but his charge will stop short with his men exhausted and you giving him some point-blank volleys.

Also, skirmishers are very good for delaying the AI's advance - actually probably too good. The AI seems to be programmed to go all-out for charges at a certain point when time is running out to take objectives, but isn't able to think strategically about not letting skirmishers delay an advance over a longer distance to approach objectives in the first place. So you can get the AI to waste a lot of ammo and time shooting at your skirmishers that keep slowly falling back.