Ideal Army Composition

[Ashantai]

I'm on my first playthrough, playing on easy to get a handle on things. As a result of that I've obviously gotten more gold and men than players on harder difficulties. I've played Confederate and am up to Antietam.

My question is though; when I try Union what's my ideal army composition? Currently I have the following, feel free to point out what's wrong, I know I've made some mistakes.
- 3.5 corps.
- 20 brigades in 3 corps, 10 in the 4th. This is mainly because at Antietam I can't use more than 20 in any one theatre.
- Average division layout: 3-4 infantry, 1 artillery, 0-1 skirmisher/cavalry.
- 1st and 2nd division, first corps has veteran infantry, rest of the infantry topped up with rookies where needed.
- Average infantry brigade size of 1500-2000. Lack of high ranking officers prevents me immediately pushing units to 2500.

So my question is, apart from that; is it better to have more, smaller units, or larger, fewer units? Aside from organisation and recon (up to 6 points) where should I put my career points?

[heinz]

dont bother with recon, who cares what the yankees have? go all army org and then economy. max out you cav and skirmies, but dont go above 2000 infantry cos the AI will get big scaling bonuses (but not with cav or skirmies) - so more smaller units. i dont think you need more than 15 brigades in a corps. Keep it small keep it elite - you are the Confederate States of America so you want to be cool. Like the British Army.

Get some skirmies with some short range high damage repeating rifles to flank engaged enemies, tell them to hold position and watch the forest burn. Then send in a big melee cav brigade with a general to keep their morale high and see how they trample those poor bastards.

[Koro]

Originally posted by heinz:

dont bother with recon, who cares what the yankees have? go all army org and then economy. max out you cav and skirmies, but dont go above 2000 infantry cos the AI will get big scaling bonuses (but not with cav or skirmies) - so more smaller units. i dont think you need more than 15 brigades in a corps. Keep it small keep it elite - you are the Confederate States of America so you want to be cool. Like the British Army.

I've played around with this and it doesn't matter if you have large or small brigades. Army Org. 5 doesn't give the AI more than AO 6 for example. It scales according to the number of men in your army, not number of brigades either.

[GeneralPITA]

Originally posted by Koro *T*R*Y*:

Originally posted by heinz:

It scales according to the number of men in your army, not number of brigades either.

Useful information, thank you.

[Koro]

Originally posted by GeneralPITA:

Originally posted by Koro *T*R*Y*:

Useful information, thank you.

Np.
I don't care much about scaling when I play, I just go for max size, but I saw a lot of misinformation floating around so I decided to test to be sure :).

[Ashantai]

That is very helpful.

So if I went for smaller, elite units they would not have the same sort of scaled up forces?

As for division composition was my formula OK?

[chesspaladin]

I think so. My primary rule of thumb is at least 3 INF in each Div. But there is no one composition that is best. Keep in mind you can tailor composition to fit the upcoming battle.

Also I encourage you to experiment.

[ceutermark]

My army comp i like is 3 INF and 1 Art in a division.

[uhamster9]

There's a lot to take into consideration when "gaming" scaling. The more you bring, the more your enemy will bring, but the ratio between your two armies will grow in YOUR favor, albeit asymptotically. If you bring an army right at the scaling threshold, the ratio will still be pretty bad.

However, the bigger the battle is, the more casualties you will take, which you can only replenish with fixed amount of rewards baring politics.

Fighting in larger battles also allows you to gain more experience for your troops and capture more weapons, though the latter is now broken.

[uhamster9]

I usally use mass INF, limited ART, 3~4 full strength Shock CAV brigades which I micromanage intensely, and an as big as I can get sniper brigade. I am also keeping scaling to a minimum in my current hard playthrough.

[edwardstoner]

Koro, on scaling, you wrote:

"I've played around with this and it doesn't matter if you have large or small brigades. Army Org. 5 doesn't give the AI more than AO 6 for example. It scales according to the number of men in your army, not number of brigades either."

Does this also mean that it scales according to the number of men in your Army, not the number of men in the brigades that are going to be in the upcoming battle?

So, if I understand this correctly, .... if a battle is based upon me having 10 brigades, it scales differently to the number of men in my 10 brigades ... based upon the number of men in my Army that will NOT appear in the battle ? (They remain in CAMP.) That seems so odd to me that I suspect I am not understanding you correctly. ?

So, then if I selected brigades of INF no bigger than 2,000, it scales differently if my idle units have 2,500 men than if they were idle units of 500. I wonder why that would be, .... why would the other side need more/fewer men to oppose my selected units of 2,000 based on brigades I am not using? Herumph. I am stumped.

Also, are the "scaling threshholds" revealed in a Guide or Manual or did y'all just find them based upon your experience and testing?

Happy New Year to all!

[uhamster9]

It scales to your total army size. If you have at least two points of recon you can see how many man the enemy is bringing: it doesn't have anything to do with what you actually bring into the battle or what you potentially could bring into the battle due to brigade/corp limit.

[Ashantai]

Which is absurd since small battles where you can only take 10 brigades has you facing vast hosts because your overall army (which you can't use) is big.

[Koro]

The minor scenarios have a max limit they scale up to.. With 2.000 man brigade sizes all of them are winnable and usually with few casualties to boot. So yeah it might scale up to forces you don't being but are balanced around the max size of the AI in them and it works just fine like that.

[King_nothing]

It seems like a lot (not everyone) in this thread is really under valuing cav. Melee cav is arguably the best unit in the game. When in defense, their counter charge ability is almost broken. In offense, if you can get 2 or 3 of them together, you can completely annihalte entire brigades in a space of around 30 seconds. They do require some micromanagment and you just can't straight charge if you want them to live, but when used properly, they should be inflicting 5-6X the kills that they recieve. I've even had battles where individual brigades of cav have inflicted 10X their losses.

[apocal43]

Originally posted by King_nothing:

It seems like a lot (not everyone) in this thread is really under valuing cav. Melee cav is arguably the best unit in the game. When in defense, their counter charge ability is almost broken. In offense, if you can get 2 or 3 of them together, you can completely annihalte entire brigades in a space of around 30 seconds. They do require some micromanagment and you just can't straight charge if you want them to live, but when used properly, they should be inflicting 5-6X the kills that they recieve. I've even had battles where individual brigades of cav have inflicted 10X their losses.

Tell me about the proper use of melee cav.