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"Get there first with the most." Nathan Bedford Forrest Or as I have seen it written: "Git thar fustest with the mostest."
1. Don't spend money on veterans and expensive weapons early in the game.
2. Don't build massive 2K+ brigades early on. They are not an efficient use of manpower. I start out with 1k-1.2k brigades and build up from there as my manpower increases
3. Try to keep your brigades within supporting distance and always attempt to hit the enemy's flank.
4. Although there are exceptions, think of your cavalry more as mounted, very mobile infantry not Napoleonic shock cavalry. I use them to capture supply wagons, harrassing the flanks of an enemy's battle line an occaisionally killing or disrupting your oppent's commanders and his staff. Use cavalry shock tactics against the flanks or rear or in a combined arms action with infantry. Isolated frontal charges are tantamount to suicide.
5. Use the terrain to your best advantage. The woods and forests are your "best friends".
6. While learning the game use "Colonel" (easy) mode.
These 2 things contradict each other. If you are not fielding the total sum of your army in the first few battles this is a grand mistake, and often to do this you need the largest brigades possible. After bull run every infantry brigade should be 1500 if not 2000 men when possible, in order to allow the player to field artillery and possibly cavalry/skirmishers in the opening campaigns. Of course if you cannot even field enough 2000 man brigades to fill the max number of brigades you can take to minor battles, more smaller brigades is better.
I don't see the contradiction at all. I didn't say not to field the sum total of your army. I would rather use two 1200 man brigades versus one 2400 man brigade, and I mentioned that it is inefficient to organize your forces that way - especially in the early stages of the game when your manpower is very limited. I have 600+ hours and have tried many different organization compositions. I started out on "Colonel" (easy) and played several campaigns with both the union and CSA and never built a brigade greater than 1200 men. Eventually I built a few 1500 + brigades in the later campaign cycles. I routinely used my 1200 man brigades to defeat and rout the CSA (at Shiloh) when they were using 2500-3000 man sized brigades against me. I have been able to win every single battle (no draws) with both Union and CSA using mostly 1200-1500 man brigades. I also rarely use arty batteries greater than 12 guns unless I have tons of excess weapons. In one campaign I deployed mostly 12 gun brigades with a few 15 -18- 24 gun batteries. Above 15 guns I noticed diminishing returns on casualties inflicted.
My point is that as early as the missions preceding Shiloh you should already be fielding 1500 man brigades. It is already very possible to field the maximum number of 1500 man brigades at this point in the game and unless you want to put 5 or 6 points into army org for Shiloh you can also hit 2000 per brigade with a few leftover brigades for cannon (12 total brigades allowed with level 4 army org). I certainly agree that if you have the space that 2 smaller brigades are better than a single once twice its size, but unless you invest a ton very early into army org you would be hampering yourself in the early missions if you only brought 1000-1200 man brigades.
So far 1500 men brigades were sufficient and very effective. But I've heard that during battle for Washington there is counter-attack with serious USA forces. So what is better? Grow my 1500 men brigades to 2000-2500 or to recruit 4th or even 5th corps with rifle-armed rookies? Do you know how many corps player can deploy in final battle? If just 3 there is no other option than go for high numbers, but if it's 4 or 5 then cannon-fodder corps should be better. Any advise?
Tip # 2: It is nice to have recon on 2 to see how much soldiers the enemy army have, so you ll always know how much you need. So, when you ll create new brigade than go to the battle and see that the enemy army has increased as well than you ll know that your army is big enough for the battle. Tho, its always ups to you, but id recommend to save money and men for where you will really need them
Tip #3: Don't go for training and dont buy veterans unless you want to keep your brigade on veterancy 2. You ll save tons of money. Skill points is better to spent on Economy and medicine
Tip #4: Go for 2k brigades with cheap weapons like Springfield muskets and even farmers and use them as your main frontal force. Those guys should take all the fire, while the smaller 1.5k (or less if you want) brigades stay in reserve for support or doing flanking maneuvers or anything else but those guys should take as low as possible fire. So, make sure its 2k brigade taking fire, then advance with elite smaller brigades and do damage. Tho, try to keep those 2k brigades in cover as woods. They are cheap but not a canon fodder. Those 2k guys are just great to fight in woods to woods, as even modern weapons will have almost same efficiency as old muskets and in close combat, you ll have even advantage with 18 damage. Also, old guns have good melee qualities.
There are more good tips but those are the most important
You will want to mix your fresh recruit brigades in with your veteran brigades as you must take many forts when capturing Richmond and your elite brigades will take too many casualties if they must spearhead the assaults themselves. I'd also rather see brigades larger at this stage in the game, with only elite units on the smaller side.
I think you're failing to see his point.
It is better to fill every brigade slot available, than to have an army with half the number of brigades.
Having more brigades means you can have a wider line. A wider line means you can more easily overlap the enemy's flank. Once that is accomplished, you basically roll up their entire army.
It is intertwined with tactics though. If you prefer to do head on assaults and charges, you need to have large brigades that can absorb a ton of damage and still come out on top. However, if you prefer to execute flanking maneuvers, you want many more, yet smaller brigades that can extend the line past the enemy. A small brigade can hold off a larger one for a time. Less charges means less casualties.
Using this, by the time you're hitting Gettysburg/Chicamauga and further, you'll be fielding tons of 3 star brigades at full strength and an army that doesn't have enough room for all the extra recruits. And this is because you weren't taking 10-15k casualties in the early battles by doing frontal asaults.
Thanks to both of you for good advise!
I was thinking about mixing before. In my USA campaign I mix vets and rookies in every division, in CSA campaign I focus on growing vet brigades. But was thinkig about mixing vets with new rookies for CSA. So far it wasn't necessary, but for Washington it seems the best solution.
Probably I will leave my vets with 1500 and create 2000-2500 rookie brigades. Got some rifles stockpiled and hope that Cold Harbor will bring some new. The problem might be with commanders for rookies, but with some shuffling it should be alright. If I create new brigades now and play some battles with them, they should gain some ranks.
BTW - is it worth to grow 1500 men 3 star brigades with rookies to 2500 men at the cost of loosing one star and some skills?
You described precisely my preferred tactical method and organizational deployment. I am not saying that this is the only optimal way to organize and equip an army but it seemed to work best for the way I like to fight. After successfully winning several battles with minmal casualties, you'll have the manpower to flesh out your Corps organization or to build larger brigades depending your needs for the upcoming battles. By the time I get to Cold Harbor and beyond I sometimes disband some of my arty batteries. Artillery seems next to worthless against forts and somewhat ineffective against heavy fortification trenches. For the Richmond and Washington battles I often disband all of the artillery in my 4th and 5th Corps and fill the slots with infantry. After spending 600 hours playing on easy and refining my tactics by paying close attention to the stats, I am in my 2nd BG Campaign as the Union and winning as easily and almost as successfully as on the easy mode campaigns. On my BG CSA campaign I even did better on some battles. At Shiloh and Antietam I drove the entire Union Army off the map. If my current BG Union campaign goes just as well, I will be moving up to MG mode after this campaign.
I created a Corps consisting almost entirely of cavalry with a few skirmisher units to round it out.
They just steam rolled everything... Forts, Trenches, didn't matter. I'm talking Dothraki horde vs. Lannister supply train.
AI will attmpt Charge if AI outnumber players army(when Attack side is AI)
you have to INF brigade at back of that charge receiving brigade
(little distance for not to be in melee)
before melee your charge receiving brigade blocking Fire line of brigade at behind
but melee starts, backling brigade can give a critical close range volly.
So, deploy reserve brigade in highly danger zone.
(deploy arty closely for shell/canister too)
Just curious - did you attack forts with mounted or dismounted cav? I would like to know how you tactically employed your Cavalry Corps with supporting skirmishers. At Cold Harbor I noticed the AI attacking my fortified trenches in conjunction with infantry but they were always severely repulsed. At Laurel Hill the Union cavalry launched multiple cavalry charges with the infantry against my fortified southern hill defense to little avail other than severe casualties. I would be interesting to see a video of your Cavalry Corps in action.
I had skirmishers to basically provide sustained firepower and protect the flanks.
I definitely would not use this tactic against trenches. Due to flank and rear attack bonuses, your cav will take wayyy too much damage for it to be economical. It worked well against the forts around Richmond where there were a few units in a concentrated area with very little supporting infantry to the flanks (I had decimated said infantry with my own infantry corps).
As I said, I just wanted to try something different. I had over a 1,000,000 in cash and 4 full Corps of almost all infantry. I didn't need more infantry and had huge stockpiles of cavalry weapons (i usually only use 2-3 cav brigades per corps, mainly to capture supply wagons and disrupt enemy arty).