Union campaign too easy after Malvern Hill? (in normal)

[John_Douglas]

Hi everyone,

Playing for the Union I have a sense that once you've gone through the hell of Shiloh and managed to get through Malvern Hill and Gaines Mill you outnumber the CSA in such a manner that missions become too easy.

I found myself fielding armies twice the size of he confederates and resorted to restringing my armies size myself: I was simply steamrolling over them for the sheer power of numbers, rather than tactics.

Now because this is the internet: I am not saying I am too god for the game in Normal, I'm questioning whether the ability of fielding such large armies in comparison to the CSA does spoil the Union campaign after Shiloh. Any thoughts?

Final question: the main thing that draw me towards this game was the promise of a hard AI capable of giving someone used to strategy games a challenge. So far it has proved true, I really like the game and want to keep playing it - if I simply set the difficulty level higher will the problem mentioned in my first paragraph go away?

Thanks,
John

[Wrigley]

It honestly depends on how you handle battles. If you're playing in such a way that you bleed the enemy more than pursue your objectives, you're "playing the game" and not fighting the battles. If you actually pursue objectives that are achievable then the Confederates will expand their forces to a better ratio for them.

Example: If you take the objective on the first stage of 2nd Bull Run, the total casualties in the battle will probably be less than 15k. Same for Gettysburg, if you are able to hold the objectives on the first day and do, the Confederates lose but barely suffer a scratch.

My policy, "house rule" you might say, is to only fall back or not pursue the objective if the AI forces me to do so. If the AI is weak and I still "draw them in" for a protracted battle where I'll inevitably inflict 3:1 casualties or more (a common occurence at Gettysburg), then they simply can't recover their losses.

On my normal Union campaign I haven't lost a battle (3 draws) and at one point I outnumbered the Confederates almost 3:1 (Chancellorsville), but I played the objectives there and they recovered their strength for Gettysburg.

[The Greg Machine]

See... it also works the other way too unfortunately. I literally destroyed the ANV at Chancellorsville, like 80% of brigades not only forced off the field, but "destroyed." Johnny Reb actually had a much better army at Gettysburg than Chancellorsville as a result.

[Cockpuncher]

So what do you suggest? Eliminate enemies or just push them from objectives?

In my CSA Chancellorsville I've enveloped and destroyed over half of Union army (40k losses). Haven't played Gettysburg yet, but initial intel claims 25k Union army (of course expecting reinforcements for later phases).

I'm going to play USA Chancellorsville next. So what is better? Going to eliminate as much as I can or just take objectives and allow rebels to bleed in counter-attacks?

[Wrigley]

Originally posted by Cockpuncher:

So what do you suggest? Eliminate enemies or just push them from objectives?

In my CSA Chancellorsville I've enveloped and destroyed over half of Union army (40k losses). Haven't played Gettysburg yet, but initial intel claims 25k Union army (of course expecting reinforcements for later phases).

I'm going to play USA Chancellorsville next. So what is better? Going to eliminate as much as I can or just take objectives and allow rebels to bleed in counter-attacks?

Better for what? If you're going for winning as decisively as possible you let the Confederates bash against your defenses and then counterattack. I've fought Chancellorsville where by the time the battle reaches the final stage the total strength of the enemy army was less than 5,000.

If you're going for having reasonably difficult later battles, you focus on the objectives. You hold your ground elsewhere and push for what you're "supposed" to push for. Once taken, take up positions and let the rebels counterattack if they want. If they're weak they won't.

[Kyo Gnome]

I have found this to be the case on legendary difficulty as well.

Union is easy mode. the first and only union campaign was on legendary and it was reasonably easy (outside of the first couple missions).

CSA is F'ing hard mode... I just started my 4th legendary attempted after my third stalled out trying to face ~250,000 troops vs my 84,000 at washington...

[maniacalpenny]

The Union campaign is significantly easier in the later stages than the Confederate. People usually say the early parts of the Union campaign are hard and the late parts of the Confederate campaign are hard. This is true to an extent, but the Confederate campaign is just harder in general as well.

Setting the difficulty higher will solve your problems to an extent. This also has to do with minimum army deployments: no matter how small or depleted the enemy army gets (min cap is around ~50k), they will always deploy the minimum army size for a map and difficulty. This never gets too low on Legendary: I was even or outnumbered by the Confederates for most of the game until the Overland campaign, where I now enjoy a modest advantage (~100k Union soldiers, vs 60-80k Confederates). FWIW the minimum army size deployments for the Confederacy at the first 2 battles of the overland campaign are 60-70k, and the Union may only bring 1.5 and 2 corps respectively.

Still, the Union campaign on Legendary is rather easy as you do not face the crippling manpower restrictions as the Confederacy, and you have access to an abundance of money in the later stages of the game. Even with only ~10% enemy loot, when literally every confederate infantry soldier is armed with a Fayetteville and you can sell them for $86 each, you quickly amass a huge treasury as wiping out a Confederate army could easily yield $400000. (I opt to sell mine as at level 10 economy, they sell for $86 and you can buy 1861's for a mere $33).

[morgondag76]

Every major Union battle (BG) after Gaines Mill up to Chickamauga (which I actually found very hard and only drew) was relatively easy on my first playthrough. Then Cold Harbour was little bit easier and then again Richmond was hard (I never finished it, started again with the lattest version). Some minor battles were still rather challenging though.

[cromagnonman2k]

I thought so as well until I got to Brock Road in the Wilderness. Lost more men in a couple hours than in any 2 precious fights. Although it probably would have gone better if I didn't rush my Corps forward so I could go to bed

[Hugh de Salle]

Union Campaign is a nighmare on MG diffuclty and if you dont reload battles like i do you end up restarting the campaign over again im on my 4th attempt.

Distress call , Logans crossroads , and Shiloh are horrid battles earlier on for the union but then it gets slightly easier , I would take with a pinch of salt when people say MG and Legendary are easy there are cheat engines and people reload failed battles so nobody can bragg (excuse the pun ) about achieving whatever.

Just plod on and learn , MG diffculty is very hard and will give you a great challange.

[maniacalpenny]

Originally posted by Hugh de Salle:

Union Campaign is a nighmare on MG diffuclty and if you dont reload battles like i do you end up restarting the campaign over again im on my 4th attempt.

Distress call , Logans crossroads , and Shiloh are horrid battles earlier on for the union but then it gets slightly easier , I would take with a pinch of salt when people say MG and Legendary are easy there are cheat engines and people reload failed battles so nobody can bragg (excuse the pun ) about achieving whatever.

Just plod on and learn , MG diffculty is very hard and will give you a great challange.

Not reloading (e.g. ironman rules) is an entirely different beast and greatly increases the difficulty of a game. So of course handicapping yourself by playing with ironman rules is going to make the game a lot harder. But most people don't play with that kind of mindset, so assuming that a player won't use the tools given to him (e.g. saving the game) and measuring the difficulty of the game like that is kind of silly. Ideally we would all give disclaimers about how exactly we play (difficulty, personal saving rules, personal rules on exploits, etc) when giving advice but that is a massive pain and the people we are giving advice to often don't share that info either.

Either way, relative to the Confederate campaign the Union campaign is quite easy, comparing across all difficulties.

As for cheat engines, I doubt anyone giving advice is relying on cheat engines for their results.

[stadtpark-hartmut]

I'm in my first campaign playing as the North and on normal difficulty, and my next battle actually is Malvern Hill - I haven't started it yet, but just reading the winning conditions ("losing less than 55% of your men") scares me...

So you are saying you outnumber the South after Malvern Hill or already before?

I didn't outnumber the enemy in most battles before (- I think it was pretty even but once, where I had the lead). For kills I think I had two minor battles where I ended 1:1 ration; all other battles I had 2:1 kill ratio.

Wrigley says in his answer, that you do better in "gaming the system" by not pressing the objectives? - Maybe I should try that. I have always felt like time is running out on me... - I don't feel I have the time to drag the enemies around the field. My Reinforcements often had to go in a straight line anyway to save their comrades or the objectives in time...

Maybe I did something wrong with my Command Points?
I went for 10 politics first, organisation is only at 3 - I have like 17k recruits reserves, that I can't deploy. But my money is already spent anway; to buy veterans for my 1st corps (plus Lorenz and Harpers Ferry rifles, since I like accuracy and my logistics skill is 0), plus two dozen of the the most expensive artillery pieces. (2nd corps has one reasonably good division and two greens.)

Maybe I should have gone for more Organisation and cheaper recruits and rifles instead.

But tbh: 1500 soldiers per Brigade seem good enough: cover usually isn't all that large, and since the whole brigades needs to reorient to do flanking manouvers before it shoots, I thought having even longer frontlines would only make them reorient slower... - or is the reorientation time always the same, and the game makes it so the soldiers on the ends of the line move faster? Is the width of a brigade fixed, and more soldiers just make it "deeper"? How about the time to reorient a brigade? do smaller ones turn faster? What's your impression? (I guess I should watch a Let's Play video... and use a stop watch, while the player isn't fiddling the game-speed^^).

Or I should read some more before I continue playing. On the other hand: I had great fun so far playing the way I do - if I find out now, that I was doing it all wrong, it might diminish my joy - makes me want to do it all over again (- which I'm not ready for: I want to finish the campaign and play South next...).

Edit: I continued my campaign, and now see what the original post the and the first answer is about: yes, meanwhile I outnumber the south regularly; and with battles where it's me on the attack (like 2nd bull run); you can just outwait the timer until you get your reinforcements, before you really walk over the enemy lines.

Now that I've finally found out, how to re-arrange my brigades by drag and drop (you only need free spots), and learned how to undeploy / deploy only the brigades I want in the small battles, I even went so far to just "try out" a complete 20 brigades rookie army on a side mission - cost me 6k lives vs 4k enemies, but I played on speed 3 and just drew two big lines, and let it run ;-) (- that's what happens when I get tired of actually playing the game proper... - well I won't do it again, but it was only a side-mission - and it was interesting to see that even green 1k-brigades can win a batlle with standard rifles just by numbers...)

[morgondag76]

I was outnumbered at Malvern Hill I think, but you just have to hold a good defensive position so it isn´t hard anyway.

I split career points mostly between medicine and politics, with some in logistics. Army organisation you need at certain levels at certain points in the game i.e. in Chickamauga it is useful to have it at 9 bc then you can have one extra brigade in each of your division and you can only bring 2 corps. Up to that necesary level it can be very important, above it is useless. I don't remember exactly the crucial levels earlier.
I build my fresh brigades up to 2000 or even a bit more, my reasoning is that then they can lose some men and those who remain keep the experience, I don´t need to spend money on veterans to keep their level. Otherwise I mostly keep my brigades on 1500-1800, the inexperienced ones a bit more, the elite a bit less. If I need to beat a particularily hard minor battle with limited forces I may temporarily max them out a bit larger.

Just fought Chickamauga again and it was significantly easier this time, even though I was outnumbered about 55.000 to 70.000. Don´t know if it is because of the patch, because I played better, and/or because I played better earlier in the campaign.