♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Chancellorsville.

[The Greg Machine]

Day One: Take both objectives.

Day Two: Haha, you thought you took those objectives? WRONG. Do it again. both objectives taken. Jackson's main force stonewalled on the right, Stuart's cavalry defeated in detail, and Lee's infantry seriously weakened.

Day Three: Hah! You thought you were supposed to take the objectives? Wrong. Defend this position which was not threatened in slightest at any point during Jackson's pitiful "attack". Sure. Destroy the bulk of the Army of Northern Virginia with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ EASE and even manage to capture their entire artillery corp.

Day Four: Haha, I was just playing with you, man. I DO want you to take those objectives. Envelope half of Lee's forces and force 4000 men to surrender and drive the other half off the field.

Day Five: Man, ♥♥♥♥ YOU. You're not allowed to win. Take this unwinnable battle with some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Union relief forces and turn it into a victory. buuuuuuuullshit.

And then Lee's army is superpowered for the Gettysburg Campaign.

[SaltyFish]

This battle has to be the most fustrating of all.

I have a very similar problem with playing as Confederate, the first day deployment is not set for all forces on the initial flank but it does it anyways and then when nearly all objective are achieved the second day event resets all positions and then magically moves a mixture of my forces to the popposite side of the battle area. Having to redo it all on the second day.

Please, eliminate objective requirements (game wide) as essential requirements for winning.

"Robert E. Lee" has destroyed the entire union army, in this battle, and still lost because he did not take the objective "flag".

If the war has to adhere to history then what is the point of a "what if" simulation. We can simply read the unaltered historical records and not play a game at all.

Still, I really, really love this game, but it needs improvement in the area of flexibility, if were lucky, even more so than CWG2 from the last century. I understand that this is not Total War, Making History or even a country wide complicated hex based game that lasts literally all year.

[Akhorahil]

Not sure what you're talking about for the Union. Initial attack is easy. Then you sit still and defend for a bit, smashing the Confederacy. Then you counterattack (very easily at this point after all the Rebel losses) and win.

While I often had little idea what was going on in the battle, it was an easy one.

[The Greg Machine]

No dude. You misunderstand, I crushed the rebs. every. single. day. I captured the objectives. every. single. day. Lee did not have an army by the end of the battle. The problem here is that I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ destroyed them and had to keep going on even though I accomplished the mission.

The really annoying part? The REALLY, REALLY annoying part though? Because I destroyed so much of the Rebel army their magically replaced new army is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nightmare strength during the Gettysburg Campaign. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ man.

[cromagnonman2k]

I juat had a similarly frustrating experience. 2 days in a row my I Corps advanced from Chancellorsville, driving all before them and capturing the points; each night we apparently retreated to camp. I was actually rather surprised when the third day came around and the game recognized that I had obliterated Lee's army and presented my army a chance to advance en mass to the East, opposed only by a few cavalry brigades that my artillery pounded into nothing. I was ecstatic!

Then the game skipped right over the Battle of Chancellorsville result screen to Salem Church. I won that, too, by the skin of my teeth, with my totally raw NPC troops being outnumbered and outflanked by hordes of veteran Rebel troops in brigades I had annihilated THE DAY BEFORE at Chancellorsville. If Salem Church is going to be part of the Chancellorsville grand battle, Rebel units should keep their strength from the battle, and maybe the Union player should have access to his own (or somewhat skilled) troops.

[maniacalpenny]

Originally posted by The Greg Machine:

No dude. You misunderstand, I crushed the rebs. every. single. day. I captured the objectives. every. single. day. Lee did not have an army by the end of the battle. The problem here is that I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ destroyed them and had to keep going on even though I accomplished the mission.

The really annoying part? The REALLY, REALLY annoying part though? Because I destroyed so much of the Rebel army their magically replaced new army is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nightmare strength during the Gettysburg Campaign. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ man.

I guess you'd rather have the computer not field an army for the rest of the game.

Honestly, the minimum army size for the Confederacy when playing the Union isn't that bad, even on Legendary. The real complaint is the Union army, with 50k men according to intelligence, fielding over 250k soldiers at Washington.

[Caramirdan]

Originally posted by maniacalpenny:

The real complaint is the Union army, with 50k men according to intelligence, fielding over 250k soldiers at Washington.

Considering that D.C. was just a river's width away from the enemy, why doubt that the Union was ever-ready to defend it with mass troop transport via rail and water? Yeah, it's a nasty surprise the first time a player not thinking historically plays it (e.g., me), but it's completely rational.

[morgondag76]

It´s not hard, but it´s annoying, specially if you raced the clock to take the objectives then it turns out it didn´t matter untill the third day. This could be the battle where the lack of dynamic scenarios between days is most notable.

Salems church is far from unwinnable though (BG). Try to rush some units to get a foothold in the woods to the right of the church before they can set up an optimal defence line, then march up other units into that foothold.

As for all the complaints about the enemy comming back stronger... once and for all, this is not a strategic-level wargame. It is a series of historical battles with a customized army because it is fun to recognize the elite brigades you built up over the years and so on. There is just no way to combine a logical progression between battles and decent challenge, specially not in the Union campaign. Get over it. This is not a weakness in game design. On the other hand the clunky transition between days WITHIN the battles I think IS a weakness.

[cromagnonman2k]

Oh I won Salem Church. Barely. And I think that several of the Rebel brigades were fresh and not involved in Chancellorsville. But still probably should have allowed some of my victorious main army to arrive from the West

[ryanwfrederick]

Having had Chancellorsville end half a dozen of my Union campaigns (playing on normal difficulty), I have a lot to get off my chest about this one:
1) how do you guys have such huge armies by this point?! Somehow I get to roughly Stones' River, and then I can't grow my army anymore, because I'm busy trying to replace casualties left, right, and center. My last campaign I made it to C-ville with 32,000 troops - still not enough to remotely have a chance.
2) this particular battle is badly bugged - you take the objectives (at a tremendous cost, I might add), and then BAM - take them again. Like, what the hell? If you take the two roads on the first day, then Hooker's plan has succeeded, and Jackson's flank attack never even happens. This is one of the few things I detest about this game - the battles aren't dynamic at all.

All-in-all, the difficulty of Chancellorsville demonstrates just how damn useless Joe Hooker was, but the game-iness of how this one plays out just really makes me mad. Even if I did survive it (in my current game I have enough prestige that I could lose it and keep playing), there's no way I'd have enough army to play Gettysburg with any effectiveness (which I've never had the chance to, because this damn battle ruins all my games).

I obviously haven't gotten the hang of this game yet, but I find myself sitting here trying to figure out what the "hang of this game" actually IS.

So, help. And stuff.

[The Greg Machine]

32k? that's pretty brutally smalll. Either you're getting absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ on the field or are investing too heavily in elite troops.

[The Greg Machine]

also, its not bugged--youre just not expected to actually take them.

[maniacalpenny]

Originally posted by ryanwfrederick:

Having had Chancellorsville end half a dozen of my Union campaigns (playing on normal difficulty), I have a lot to get off my chest about this one:
1) how do you guys have such huge armies by this point?! Somehow I get to roughly Stones' River, and then I can't grow my army anymore, because I'm busy trying to replace casualties left, right, and center. My last campaign I made it to C-ville with 32,000 troops - still not enough to remotely have a chance.
2) this particular battle is badly bugged - you take the objectives (at a tremendous cost, I might add), and then BAM - take them again. Like, what the hell? If you take the two roads on the first day, then Hooker's plan has succeeded, and Jackson's flank attack never even happens. This is one of the few things I detest about this game - the battles aren't dynamic at all.

All-in-all, the difficulty of Chancellorsville demonstrates just how damn useless Joe Hooker was, but the game-iness of how this one plays out just really makes me mad. Even if I did survive it (in my current game I have enough prestige that I could lose it and keep playing), there's no way I'd have enough army to play Gettysburg with any effectiveness (which I've never had the chance to, because this damn battle ruins all my games).

I obviously haven't gotten the hang of this game yet, but I find myself sitting here trying to figure out what the "hang of this game" actually IS.

So, help. And stuff.

My best guess is you probably need to utilize cover better. How are your early campaigns going? Are you winning all the battles? Do you ever go back and replay a battle because it went poorly? What difficulty are you playing on?

You are obviously doing something wrong but we need to know a little more about you as a player to give good advice I think. This game is also snowbally, so if a player manages to get 10k more men by say, Malvern hill this could easily translate to 30k more men at Chancellorsville as his larger army can win battles more efficiently.