Army Setup Tips and Guides?

[ubermatt3]

Can someone point me to some tips or guides for army setups?

[Chip Chipperson]

I’m on my first Union Campaign and this works for me:

-Career Points in Army Organization and Politics first. Money is #1 priority for me.
-INF brigades first, then ART, then CAV. Skirmisher brigades only later in the game.

EXAMPLE: when I can have only 4 Brigades in a Division, early game 3 will be INF, 1 ART. I’ll only add CAV when I have at least 7-8 INF in a CORPS.

-always check the battle screen first (where you deploy your armies), so you know how many Brigades you’ll be allowed to deploy.
-I used some of the minor battles to “train” new, green Brigades and get them bloodied.
-don’t skimp on Supply wagons. Running out of ammo will make your armies vulnerable and far less effective. I put 2-3 points in Logistics early on, but later you don’t seem to need more since you can bring wagons with 35,000 supplies (thanks to having lots of money), and different commanders also bolster your supply.

Hope that helps. I’m just a novice but ask away if you need to.

[Kristoph42]

Solid advice. There is a "newbie guide" written by a new player that will help you out a lot. I highly recommend that you give it a read. It should answer just about all your questions. If you have any others, just post them on the boards, someone will be able to help you out.

[Bramborough]

+1 to everything Chip said...sounds like he and I have a very similar approach to army mgmt.

And +1 to the newbie guide. CivWar64 did a great job with it.

[Malkor2]

To add to what has already been said: Infantry is your bread and butter in this game, followed by Artillery. Usually my Divisions are all Infantry with one Artillery in each Division and my 1st Corps also has one Cavalry unit. That is the only Cavalry unit in my entire Army. Cavalry and Skirmishers are highly specialized units that can work really well if you can handle the micro management. Sadly the devs never solved that problem and if you want to try these units out then do it. But start with only one of those until you get the hang of it or decide it's not for you and disband them.

TFM Bobcat made a guide for Cavalry and Skirmishers, you should read those before you decide to try these units out for yourself. Don't forget that you can switch units within a Corps around as you want. You don't want your 3 star units to be the first on the battlefield? Put them from the 1st Division into the 4th Division, problem solved. You can even switch units between different Corps but that requires you to have at least one open unit slot in one of those Corps. That and the much needed micro management are the reason why i have only one Cavalry unit in my entire Army. I can switch it around where i want and need it to be, depending on the battle i am fighting.

Don't forget to buy additional Officers whenever you can. The Barracks, just like the Armory, resets after each Major Battle (1st Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam etc.) which should give you enough time to buy all the Officers you need and more. Officers in Brigade and Division Command can get wounded and killed and if you have no Officers to replace them with you are basically screwed because your units don't do well without Officers. Also buy good weapons whenever you can. Lorenz, Enfields, Springfields 1855, Harpers Ferry, 24pdr Howitzers, 20 pdr Parrots, Withworths for your Skirmishers etc. Obviously you need to find a balance between buying all the weapons you need and the Officers (both cost money) and you also need to replace the losses you suffered. Pick two Infantry units and give them only veteran recruits, your Artillery always gets veteran recruits and the rest of your Infantry just gets rookie replacements. Later on in the campaign you can fill your 2 star units with rookies until they are about to drop to 1 star, then stop and fill the rest up with veterans to keep them at 2 stars. You save a lot of money doing this and you save the veterancy of the unit. Skirmishers and Cavalry should also get veteran replacements because otherwise it's just such a hassle to get them to 3 stars. And since they are highly specialized units they perform much better with lots of XP and a good Officer.

Career Points: On Colonel difficulty Politics isn't as important as on BG or MG difficulty, because you have a built in maxed out Politics on Colonel. On BG and MG you need to max out Politics first and fast (although on MG you might want to go for Army Organization 6 first) and after that it is Army Organization 6 (later 9), Medicine 10 and what comes after that is up to you. How you spend your Career points also changes slightly depending on what side you play. When i play as the CSA i go for Politics 10 really hard because you need that additional money and manpower you get from Politics. Later on in a CSA campaign you might face some serious manpower problems if you don't plan ahead. I go for Army Organization 6 a little bit later playing as CSA because i need Politics 10 first.

With the Union it changes a bit. Politics 10 is still very important but not as important as it is with the CSA. I make sure to have Army Organization at 4 before i do Shiloh (that allows me to field Infantry units of 2000 men) and i put some points into Logistics simply because of Shiloh. I try to get Logistics to 4 for one simple reason: Your 1st Corps won't have its Supply Wagon at Shiloh in the beginning of the battle and i had cases where some of my Infantry units ran out of ammo during that first phase of the battle. And with the Artillery it's even worse, especially considering the fact that the most important Artillery perk (the ammo perk) does not work. So when the map opens up and you retreat to the Hornets Nest your units from Shiloh Church might be very low on ammo or even have no ammo at all. And it takes quite some time to refill all those units with ammo. Infantry units have the biggest ammo supply, followed by Artillery, with Cavalry and Skirmishers sharing the last spot.