Let's rank career skill usefulness

[Shad]

To invite discussion on relative usefulness and balance of the different aree paths. Ranking each skill from (+) to (+++).



Politics (+++): Probably the strongest tree at the moment, the extra cash and manpower gives an all-round bonus for whatever you want to do.

Economy (+): Far weaker that it could be. The discount on buying/selling equipment is quite specific and in my playthoughs so far, manpower, not cash is the true limiting factor.

Training (+): Again, weaker than it could be. Cheaper veterants will let you have somewhat higher stats on your troops, but it still is a very narrow skill, which is not always what you need.

Medicine (+++): The other strong skill, due to being an all-rounder. Casualties recovery both helps you planpower, helps your troop veterancy and equipment (since healed wounded recover their equipment)

Army Org (...): Hard to rank this one as its usefullness grows with campaign. You need to a at the very least unlock the 3rd corps by the time you reach the large battles (and presumably more as more campaign gets added), but it's never something you really sink you points into due to both manpower limitation and enemy scaling.

Logistics (++): A useful skill which makes your troops less dependent on the supply wagon. Very good in large battles.

Recon (varies): Again this one is hard to rank. The first 2 poins are (+++) as a basic requirement for knowing what you are up against. The next 2 points (for the bar and extra info) are (++) being useful, but not essential. The rest of the tree is (+) as the extra intel is not really worth the points investment.

[Koro]

Economy makes officers cheaper too, though I agree that other factors are more limiting. I can't quite decide between medicine and economy though.. in my latest playthrough I went for medicine after politics and I just felt like everything was so expensive!
Medicine I also dislike because you have to lose men for it to function and well, it's not like I'm trying to get my army killed here :).
I never take logistics. With a little management of cannons to make sure they don't waste their supplies when there is nothing worth shooting at, you can get through any battle without running out of supplies.

[DrDemento]

Depends on your side Union or Rebels.

Rebels

Politics (+++): Strongest skill atm. 25% more money and recruits is a must have for the rebs.

Economy (+): Nice skill especially in the late game when you start to buy more expensive Weapons like Fayetteville etc.

Training (+): The rebel recruits are superior by nature. So this skill is ok but just a nice to have skill.

Medicine (++): Very usefull for the rebs because of the small amount of both recruits and money.

Logistics (++): Very usefull if you are permanently outnumberd.

Recon: No need for that. Could be usefull if your troops get a recon buff as well.


Union

Politics (+++): Best skill.

Economy (+): Ok but nothing special. Usally you should have more than enough money for the finest stuff.

Training (++): Very usefull for the union. You will need some really good veteran brigades later in the game and those union recruits are horrible.

Medicine (++): Nice skill to keep your experience on a decent level.

Logisitics (+): Ok but nothing special. Full supply wagon + logistic skill of your generals is more than enough.

Recon: No need for that.

[uhamster9]

I add Recon only to game the scaling system.

[limith]

Recon (++/-)
First 4 points are mandatory, everything else is okay

Politics (+++?)
Increases money and recruits. I think it is currently bugged howeever as rewards are capped at 300,000 for me per battle and doesn't matter how many points I have in econ it won't go up. I think it capped at around 5 Politics so maybe no point to having greater than 5.

Economy(---)
Utter trash as long as you capture weapons. This ability needs to be converted into + Weapons in Armory every campaign to be useful. You don't need to recruit that many officers and if you shuffle officers around well you can level yours up. Better weapons you can get via reputation points and once you have them the enemy should begin dropping capturable ones on normal and hard.

@DARTIS please change economy. Please? + weapons gained in armory in each campaign phase would be a godsend for many players, even those who don't use snipers. Or for an easier coding time, make it +weapons recovered.

Medicine(+++/+)
Reasonable since it gives you weapons back and if you use snipers very important. Otherwise not so useful if you don't take many casualties and use weapons that are plentiful

Training(++)
Useful once your units are veteran. You should in general not only be recruiting veterans though. Late game this becomes much more important.

Army Organization(?)
First few points are mandatory at certain points of the campaign. Otherwise due to scaling you should never invest in this

Logistics(+/-)
Useful to get a few points in prior to getting corps Ammo bonus and artillery ammo bonus. Afterwords useless since you get +20% ammo corps wide and +50% ammo on artillery brigades.

[Shad]

Originally posted by xhh2a:

Economy(---)
Utter trash as long as you capture weapons. This ability needs to be converted into + Weapons in Armory every campaign to be useful. [...]

@DARTIS please change economy. Please? + weapons gained in armory in each campaign phase would be a godsend for many players, even those who don't use snipers. Or for an easier coding time, make it +weapons recovered.

Absolutely agree with both suggestions.

[HughMyronbrough]

I think Logistics can be handy for the Rebels, because there are many battles where you spend a large amount of time entrenched and blasting away at the Union (2nd Bull Run, Antietam, etc).

I agree that Economy is trash, and Politics is basically mandatory.

[GeneralPITA]

Originally posted by HughMyronbrough:

I think Logistics can be handy for the Rebels, because there are many battles where you spend a large amount of time entrenched and blasting away at the Union (2nd Bull Run, Antietam, etc).

I agree that Economy is trash, and Politics is basically mandatory.

Agreed on all points.

I have 25k supplies in all five corps and even with the 60k or so supplies that are automatically provided at Marye's Heights, I STILL blasted through all my ammo. Logistics is handy for CSA.

[Hiero of Syracuse]

Politics - best and most important skill in the game. I max this out first. It's benefits (money and manpower) compound over time. The earlier you take it for longer and more overall benefit you get.

Economics - meh. As others have stated it would be better if it made the availability of weapons in the armoury better. It may be useful in the later stages of the game once you start equipping troops with Springfield '61 and '63, once the game matures. I'd love to equip a skirmisher group with Whitworths or JF Browns but I can't buy enough to equip even an understrength unit.

Medicine -very nice skill. At first it doesn't seem like it makes that much of a difference but like Politics its effects compound over time.

Training - Very strong skill but not as essential early on as Politics (or maybe even medicine). Once your troops start getting multiple skills it becomes important to keep them up in strength. I've tried cycling in green troops to get them experience but at the end of the day I always rely on my most dependable, veteran units to get the job done.

Army organization - the game automatically puts points here. I've never put more than a point or two in here myself.

Logistics - pretty weak skill. I don't really have any suggestions. My supply wagons are always maxed out. Even troops who are low or out of ammo still keep fighting.

Recon - I never put any additional skill points here. Maybe if it gave a bonus to spotting range? it would be usefull.

[[TFM]bobcat]

the logistics skill and recon are basically useless. sure logistics gets you more supplies but like you said its manpower thats more the problem most times rather than money so why would you ever waste points on logistics. Same for recon, if you play the battles enough times, its pretty easy to know what the enemy will likely bring. As of right now, there is nothing that recon offers that is at all worth investing anything on it.

I would say that Army Org has a limited usefulness. I usually only fill it out to about level 6 which gives you 3 corps 4 divs 5 brigades per. That is really all you need to win most battles and trying to fill out units beyond that point will be pretty expensive in both men and money especially if you care about maintaining veteran units.

which brings us to training. if you value veteran units, this is definetely a musthave as it will save you tons on the cost of veterans. same for Medicine which not only saves you money on replacing veterans but also saves you the money of having to replace their weapons.

economy is less important to be sure but having extra cash is never to be sneered at.

Politics is important too but like army org, I would say it has a more limited benefit. It does give you more money and recruits per battle but by the same token those benefits can be balanced out by medicine and training. for instance, lets say you have a battle where the base resturn is 10K recruits and 200k money (just for ease of doing the math). at 20% for politics, you would boost those #s to 12K recruits and 240k money. however, if you havce 20% in medicine and veteranand lets say you suffer 10k in losses during the battle, you will save 2k in casualties plus their weapons plus their verterancy which not only negates the politics bonus in recruits but when combined with the savings provided by the veteran skill, you will be saving a ton of extra money, especially if you have very very high veterancy levels for your units.

With this in mind, my ratings would be

Politics: ++
economy: ++
training: ++
medicine:+++
army org: ++ (up to lvl 6)
logistics:+
recon: +

[Ashantai]

My problem with medicine is that it takes a lot of ranks to be really useful.

Even maxing it out at 20% you could be getting 25% more cash and manpower with politics. Furthermore, 20% still means you have to buy back 80% of the losses. So if you take 500 casualties you get 100 back...but still need to buy 400.

I like having recon even up to level 8 in order to see what weapons I'm facing, but only level 4 is necessary.

Logistics I find to be useless. If you take the artillery specific level 1 perk for the guns you already get a stack more ammo. Infantry really don't burn through ammo as quickly.

[[TFM]bobcat]

Originally posted by Ashantai:

Even maxing it out at 20% you could be getting 25% more cash and manpower with politics. Furthermore, 20% still means you have to buy back 80% of the losses. So if you take 500 casualties you get 100 back...but still need to buy 400.

ok... and whats your point here? I have yet to see a battle in which, without politics, you would get less than 500 recruits. not only that but like I said, the point is that with medicince, the troops you get back are veteran troops and still have their weapons which is especially helpful if those troops are equiped with rare/expensive weapons like Witworths, Browns, Lematts, 24pdrs or Fayetevilles.

I am not saying politics is not important, It still has a high ranking in my book and its usually my second pick for skill points but it just doesnt provide nearly the same level of benefits to my mind.

As for recon, once again why would you need to know any of that? most of the time its pretty easy to guess what the enemy force you are going up against will look like including their weapons. If recon did something more valuable, like allowing you more options for how to deploy your army in the army deployment phase (i.e. having multiple possible starting deployment areas) I would revise my opinion.

[Ashantai]

I agree it could be useful recovering rare weapons as you'd rescue more of them than you would normally.
I've not tested it, does it recover artillery guns or the crew? And does it round up?

Recon is useful the first playthrough I've found. Subsequent campaigns you have more useful intel, so just 4 ranks is enough.

[korben dallas]

Originally posted by Ashantai:

Recon is useful the first playthrough I've found. Subsequent campaigns you have more useful intel, so just 4 ranks is enough.

I don't see a shred of usefulness in recon. To determine if you don't even want to attempt the battle, or what?

Seems like 4 more points of medicine, politics, or even economy would be a much better choice.

[jdturner1987]

All of these are good. I would only add that I would like to see the possibility of either politics or A. Org. to allow the player to be able to promote a few officers to certain rank. This can be tied to the players current level, and use one of the aforementioned traits to cap that. For instance, if the player if a Maj. Gen., then he could promote a Lt. Col to a full Col, or perhaps a Col. to a Brig. Gen.

Just an idea, as it could help fill out officer ranks after some bad luck in battles. Maybe it can use some reputation points as it is a reputation risk to promote an officer based on your recommendation?

[Shane]

Lets talk Generals, once you win the battle of Antietam for the Rebs you get the bonus General Robert E. Lee and you can get all 3 skill points in his skill tree that give extra skills to your army, lets say in anticipation you set up your General you named after your self or some other cool name, but you give this General all different skills then R,E.Lee is given. will your army in range get the bonus skills from both Generals if the men are in range of both Generals ? or do your Corps that General is in charge of only get the benefit from that General ? so if the later is true then you would want to keep your corps that the General in charge of that corps close to that General. if the 1st is true which I think should be the fact then your men are under the charge of the closest General or and in range of both Generals if that is the case. please discus, thank you all the Ultimate Generals out there.