Random thoughts on Laurel Hill and Saunders Farm

[[TFM]bobcat]

replaying the CSA campaign got me to thinking about these 2 battles. First of all I thought it was odd that the requirements for a draw at laurel hill are also 1 of the 2 possible combos to achieve a victory:

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/991260674615634245/FF2B70074138BE4332400795B89832AA244318E1/

so is it basically impossible to get a draw for this battle?

On another note, I looked back at the old thread that was done on saunders farm a while back in order to try to develop a best case casualty efficient way to win and PaloAlto's advice from that time sparked something. So if you don't care too much about inflicting casualties, this is the cheap, sort of gamey alternative I developed. Send the leading corps elements (organized into mostly infantry) on a wide diverging march to the left and then all the way to the top of the map and then ambush the cav and union reinforcements that show up there. you will want to wipe them out as quickly as possible. then have those units get into cover and hide. In the meantime, keep the units that arrive later away from the first objective and hidden. The union will not move beyond the second flag at all if you do this. Then after the battle at the top of the map is done and as time is running down, advance them towards the first flag. This will draw union attention towards them and away from the north. After a short pause to wait, maneuver the northern force directly behind the 2nd flag into the woods just across the river, its then just a matter of taking the casualties necessary to take the flags and then finish. these were the results:

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/991260674615634499/20D7008BFC7465032CA9EAF6422E4AB94E82A8AA/

This solution go me to rethinking about laurel hill (which unfortunately I'd already fought) and I came up with a possible alternative strategy. Defend only laurel hill and place the troops that would have defended the other hill across the river in the line of trees there. They can then cross fire any troops attacking laurel hill from that direction and enemy troops will have to cross mostly open ground and a river to get them. Its then just a matter of retaking the second objective or alsops field, whichever is least defended

[CivWar64]

Very interesting and a brilliant idea, but what does that do to the size of the Union army going into Cold Harbor since you're inflicting fewer casualties on their army?

[[TFM]bobcat]

It doesn't really matter that much for me for Cold Harbor because I usually win on phase 3 and there is a max of like 20,000 union troops for that as I recall so its actually really easy. I can't really speak to the scaling if you play all they way through

[pandakraut]

Not sure what is going on with the left draw condition. Maybe if you only hold Laurel Hill and inflict 50%+ casualties the right condition triggers for the draw?

That seems reasonable for a low casualty run of Saunders Farm. You're hitting the point in the campaign where it's almost impossible to drive scaling up or down much so the extra kills might not matter much. More fun to full clear it though.

For cold harbor do you mean you win on the opening phase? Or is phase 3 the one with the first major union attack on the right?

[[TFM]bobcat]

Could be I suppose, I never take draws anyway so its not really a major concern for me but I did think it was odd.

lol, for me personally, taking casualties, even in the service of inflicting more casualties, is not very fun which is why I always go for the least suffered casualties needed to achieve victory. This does sometimes mean wiping out the enemy (as at battles like Antietam, Fredricksburg, chantilly etc) but with some battles, like this one, the field is so ill suited to an attack and the union force so large and so densely concentrated as to make it nearly impossible to fight an economical battle of annihilation, especially if, like me, you prefer to fight side battles with your worst equipped/newest troops both in order to increase their experience and save on veteran and weapon costs.

I've always found it very hard to to express what phase I'm referring to with Cold harbor because there are just so many of them. In this case, phase 1 refers to the very first skirmish near old cold harbor, phase 2 is the skirmish in the heavily wooded area and phase 3 is the semi-significant battle in the old cold harbor area with the expanded map (though not fully expanded) from phase 1

[pandakraut]

I agree with the taking casualties part, but I'm willing to let them go up slightly as long as I come out positive on manpower and am getting enough in return for it. Also, I just like the challenge of finding a way to completely clear every map with low casualties. Though the CSA campaign timers are so short in a few battles that I just can't justify what it would cost to pull it off.

I think with the distract on the left, flank on the right approach Saunders farm can be full cleared with a reasonable amount of casualties. On my most recent attempt I only failed to clean it up completely because I forgot I had an extra hour in the battle and capped the second VP to early. Cost was just over 9k casualties before medicine and I think with better play it'd be possible to get it down around 8k. This was in the UI mod so in the base game where the oversized artillery and skirmishers are doing far less damage it is probably possible to get it down even further.

Agreed on the Cold Harbor phases. I played through it earlier this week which is the only reason I have any clue what that phase might be. Winning in that phase seems to be the first easy opportunity. Though if you destroy enough in that phase the rest of the battle tends to be pretty easy as long as you can handle the attack on the left flank.

[[TFM]bobcat]

Originally posted by pandakraut:

I agree with the taking casualties part, but I'm willing to let them go up slightly as long as I come out positive on manpower and am getting enough in return for it. Also, I just like the challenge of finding a way to completely clear every map with low casualties. Though the CSA campaign timers are so short in a few battles that I just can't justify what it would cost to pull it off.

I think with the distract on the left, flank on the right approach Saunders farm can be full cleared with a reasonable amount of casualties. On my most recent attempt I only failed to clean it up completely because I forgot I had an extra hour in the battle and capped the second VP to early. Cost was just over 9k casualties before medicine and I think with better play it'd be possible to get it down around 8k. This was in the UI mod so in the base game where the oversized artillery and skirmishers are doing far less damage it is probably possible to get it down even further.

Agreed on the Cold Harbor phases. I played through it earlier this week which is the only reason I have any clue what that phase might be. Winning in that phase seems to be the first easy opportunity. Though if you destroy enough in that phase the rest of the battle tends to be pretty easy as long as you can handle the attack on the left flank.

Some battles it feels good to clear the enemy's but for others it feels more like work and this one feels like work, certainly had many a headache trying to win it the hard way each time lol. BTW I forgot I had downloaded your UI mod and I was thinking to myself "Arty was always annoying but I don't remember it being this deadly before", now I know why lol. Oddly enough, it hasnt actually increased my suffered casualties though it has made it a lot harder for me to use my cav.

I tried fighting all the way through once and I did get fairly good results (I think like 7-9k) but I didnt like how it gave you so few units for the left flank part and maybe it was because it was my first time playing it but I found it very hard to fight a very efficient battle with only the units it gave you and the units there suffered painful casualties for victory I think like 1/3 - 1/2 of the total casualties

[pandakraut]

I think I forgot to comment on it when I recorded Saunders Farm, but if there is a battle that is worth skipping or cheesing it's way up on the list. More often than not you're just going to break even in losses vs rewards anyways. I'd probably put the entire CSA campaign past Chickamauga in the same category. Sure you can get good results, but it's just not a set of battles that I enjoy. I normally just consider my campaign completed around that time.

Not sure if your second paragraph is referring to Cold Harbor or Saunders Farm. A little short on units in both cases though.

I'm not sure if I've just had ridiculous luck or something else is going on but the left flank of Cold Harbor has been really easy the last few times I tried it. But I do remember that being the hardest part of the battle in my older campaigns. Seems to be if the Union attacks heavily in the north the phase is hard, but if they mostly attack in the south it's easy?

I've gone to some ridiculous lengths to get rid of enemy Arty in the UI mod. It really hurts if you leave it around all battle. Considering fixing the size damage bug alone triples how much damage that unit does compared to the base game, or 30% more than an 12 gun unit, it makes sense though.

I really need to put in the time to go through and fix all the reinforcement amounts in the major battles. Continually getting shorted units makes the big multi day battles rather annoying.

[[TFM]bobcat]

ugh, for both sides, Chickamauga and on are just painful battles to have to fight, especially with the CSA armed all with Fayettevilles and the Union with all 1863s.

the 2nd paragraph was in reference to Cold Harbor. It would be nice to have more troops for saunders farm but, for me at least, even having 2 full corps for the battle would not ultimately change the factors that make this battle so difficult. With cold harbor, as I recall you get like 2-3 divisions for the left flank while for the other half of the battle you get a full corps and parts of the other 2 and you get just as many Union attackers on the left as the right and that really throws off everything to the left. Like I said, I only tried the once so idk but I can fiddle with it and see if things change.

Even in vanilla I'd go to great lengths to get rid of enemy arty so not too much has changed except that its much harder to get rid of it now lol.

It would be awesome if that could be fixed! so many times its just a very annoying headache. Though, that said, there's no need to trouble yourself with reducing the battles where you get more than the listed number of brigades :P

[pandakraut]

I'll probably be removing the supply wagon counting as a slot for reinforcements and setting the last reinforcement for a given corps to deploy any remaining units.

Going back and making everything match exactly would be way more work so the bonus units in side battles are safe :)

[[TFM]bobcat]

sounds awesome dude, look forward to that addition :)

[Kristoph42]

As for someone who loves killing as many troops as possible, there is a valid point to what you guys are talking about. It is a fine line to walk to kill everything and not lose to much in the process. It is the risk versus reward factor. You need to have a ballpark of your loses and know the manpower reward as to whether or not you kill as many as possible. (((Side note, I love how the Corps general has a % of men lost so far. I write down how many I bring and use that % to know my loses))) I also agree that once you get past Chickamauga the game isn't as fun for either side, because the battles involve 2 corps on each side and those side battles are like mini-Grand battles. It is always good army policy to remove ART as soon as possible.

Fixing the reinforcement bug would be super duper awesome and something to look forward to, like Christmas in March or April at the latest. LOL

[[TFM]bobcat]

Lol I suppose for me, part of what sways my evaluation of which is more important is that I like to set myself the challenge of building the biggest army possible for the final battle as, especially for the CSA, having 5 corps on legendary is not an easy feat. So far, on my latest replay of the CSA campaign, I can predict that my final army will be at least 10k larger than my previous record as the CSA if not more and I look forward to posting that later

[Kristoph42]

Looking forward to seeing that bobcat.

[[TFM]bobcat]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1674480219

well, I didn't quite beat my old record by as much as I'd hoped but that is due more to a lack of funds than a lack manpower

[Kristoph42]

Still, bobcat, it is an impressive army. Curious to know how large the Union army will be in your battle.