CS Shiloh tips

[Rochefort]

So I've been working my way through a fresh Confederate campaign on hard now that the game is out, (I played one through Gettysburg a while ago, but got stuck there) and I've discovered that Shiloh is now a tad harder than the last time I played it.

I have about 14k troops in the one corps I'm allowed to bring, with mostly Mississippi rifles, and the NPCs provide about 21k with muskets. By my count the Union has about 50k troops on day 1 and an extra ~20k troops on day 2 for a total of 78k men according to the ending screen. All of their brigades are 2000-3000 men, though thankfully none are above 2-star veterancy.

Going with my usual strategy, I can encircle and destroy elements of their left and right, and completely cut off all of their initial troops from the Landing while I move on it, but even if I do that they seem to have another 10k troops freshly spawned there waiting. (Rather than moving to support their dying allies like they used to do, the spawns at the Landing sensibly man the battlements and wait.) I've taken the landing, but it still ticks over to the 2nd day, where they have another 20k fresh troops, while my troops are out of ammo, demoralized and depleted.

I think part of my issue is that my old strategy involved wiping them out piecemeal, but I hadn't accounted for just how long it takes to destroy those massive 3k brigades with the NPC muskets. I've backed them into a corner of the map on an open field, or pushed them onto the mud flats and it still takes 2 hours of point-blank shooting for brigades with 1842 muskets to break them. The only good option I've found is to roll up some napoleons to canister them, which isn't always doable.

In any case, I would appreciate any advice from folks more experienced with how that battle works now.

[Durruti]

Have asked - essentially - the same question. The Union -computer- simply teleports fresh supplied troops in vast numbers into strong fortified positions at the landing, and dares my weakened, mostly out of supply Confederates, to dislodge them. Final portion of Shiloh battle appears to need Re ballance.

[Imbezile]

Originally posted by Durruti:

Have asked - essentially - the same question. The Union -computer- simply teleports fresh supplied troops in vast numbers into strong fortified positions at the landing, and dares my weakened, mostly out of supply Confederates, to dislodge them. Final portion of Shiloh battle appears to need Re ballance.

Those troops arrive from the north (one by road the other by the woods by the river) and can be engaged upon arrival. I´ve never managed to allow them into the fortifications thus far. There are two artillery brigades that spawn as the map expands to the landing but that´s it. Last time I played it through was on MG (hard).

[Durruti]

Originally posted by Imbezile:

Originally posted by Durruti:

Have asked - essentially - the same question. The Union -computer- simply teleports fresh supplied troops in vast numbers into strong fortified positions at the landing, and dares my weakened, mostly out of supply Confederates, to dislodge them. Final portion of Shiloh battle appears to need Re ballance.

Those troops arrive from the north (one by road the other by the woods by the river) and can be engaged upon arrival. I´ve never managed to allow them into the fortifications thus far. There are two artillery brigades that spawn as the map expands to the landing but that´s it. Last time I played it through was on MG (hard).

After defeating these Arrived Union Troops (the ones you refer to) with strong troops (& a general for morale), I bring up from the south of the battlefield,

***I have been forced to play yet another Round*** - against Teleported and Fortified Union Troops. These latter Union Troops I cannot defeat - with my depleted and mostly out of supply soldiers. Why do I (& my General Longstreet), have to fight one more round, after we cleared the Union troops out of the Landing area in the earlier Round?

If the Developers of UGCV have not all gone home to count their money$, it would be nice if they would peruse this and the other most serious Game-Breaking issues that remain to mar such a Promising Computer War Game.

[Imbezile]

Originally posted by Durruti:

***I have been forced to play yet another Round*** - against Teleported and Fortified Union Troops. These latter Union Troops I cannot defeat - with my depleted and mostly out of supply soldiers. Why do I (& my General Longstreet), have to fight one more round, after we cleared the Union troops out of the Landing area in the earlier Round?

You didn´t take the landing in time did you? That specific phase only ends with the timer running out. The D2 only starts if the primary objective has not been achieved in time. Most of the time taking the VP would end the battle after the cap timer so I assume you concluded not to take it in order to throw a few extra bunches at the blues.

@ALPHA{Rochefort}: As for advice on the advice part. Slugging it out in the woods by the landing should be avoided at all costs. It it a superior position and that is a reason enough for me to finish the battle on day one even on MG. Ammunition simply becomes too much of an issue that makes it extremely difficult to maintain combat efficiency.

[Rochefort]

So I was able to win the battle by punching through their center and capturing the Landing. Something I discovered the hard way is that if the landing is still contested when the timer runs out, it still ticks over to the 2nd day. That means that if you want the day one victory you need to capture the point at least half an hour before the end of the day and hold it the entire time. I think that's probably the cause of all the people who captured it but have reported still having to fight the difficult day 2 battle.

My strategy was to seperate and pin their left and right and keep the middle open as a highway for my troops to get to the Landing. As troops started pouring in from the top of the map (about 18k fresh troops, more than my entire corps) I had to pull back my envelopement and hunker down.

By the end I was pretty well surrounded on all sides, but had enough warm bodies and unspent ammo on the point to hold.

I'm dissapointed that I wasn't do more damage, but I think considering how this battle went I'm happy that my army still exists.

Ending screen

[limith]

It's so easy due to how broken and useless cavalry is. There's absolute no counter to artillery right now. Also skirmishers are op since they kill EVERYTHING (read no counter).

Take Howitzer artillery, put them rignt behind your infantry line, shell them in crossfire, enemy flees. Push up, repeat. Tell your infantry to shoot at enemy artillery while in forest cover. Use your fresh recruit units to do so (general behind them). You will kill artillery faster by shooting than by ordering a charge (utterly stupid). Skirmisher detachments also do well vs enemy artillery. Have skirmisher detachments hit at the flank of enemy units and have them kill AI cavalry.

[pissy*****acct]

I lost Shiloh, playing as CSA. BUT was so close.

Supply up as hvy as you can.
Keep them busy center and right.
Push left,
use Skrims & Cav (they move faster).
i PREFER hitting with a large Inf unit, & flank with a faster moving unit,whilst trying to get the faster units to their rear. ALONG WITH, any bigger units they can get their soonest.

so after you open their left,
then turn to the right for the final fight.

Don't let yourself get stalled.
and don't run out fo supplies.

[Flharfh]

As CSA, your goal is to cap the landing (and wait out the 'contested' timer) by the end of the first day, not to destroy the union army. If the battle goes to day 2 with all the Union reinforcements, you're probably going to lose. I've had good results attacking up near the river side of the entrenchments as union units on the other side seem to stay put instead of trying to re-take the objective flag.

[amimai002]

ive found a rather easy way to win even with only 15 brigades that i had at the time : dense human wave tactics along the entire west flank very early

most of the time I try to finesse a win with skillful strategy but on that particular map there isn't any advantage to it because its too big and the enemy keeps being reinforced with bigger and bigger brigades while your men will become exhausted just walking to the other end of the map...

I simply bought raw recruits, 15000 of them, and put them all on the shilo church deploy and ordered them to walk in a wave straight across map and kill everything with number advantage and suicide rush by detached skirmishers. unsurprisingly it made the game easy, i was already on the other side of the map with 90% of the church defenders dead and their reinforcements down to a couple hundred units.

(on hard mode btw)

[wrenchman.rk]

For shiloh, I take the landing by distracting on their right flank with a strong attack. Once their artillary is mostly turned away, use napoleanic column charges at center with a half hour left on timer. As long as you capture the objective, victory should trigger even if it still says contested. You want to charge more with CSA early in the war to take advantage of the one plus side to having a lot of farmer musketts to the union springfield 1842. The union guns outrange the farmers, reload faster and have better accuracy. You cant really go toe to toe and just shoot at each other. You need to cycle brigades as well. I usually put one veteran unit behind 2 less experienced ones. if one loses too much condition or morale, i use fallback and put my better troops out front. Or, front troops use springfields with better melee equiped troops behind them. After a few good volleys, charge the melee through your front line.

[wrenchman.rk]

focus more on pushing the enemy line back as fast as possible rather than encirclement and destroy. This will give you more time at the end to take the landing. My first runthroughs on shiloh I took too much time in later phases just trying to march to the landing.

[Savethetigers]

Ending game on first day.I saved the game just before timer ended on first day, i did not press the finish button and scenario ended with a win as confederates.
If its not working the first time try again from that save.Gl ppl.

[Sakbullets]

I still do not understand why when I take Pittsburg landing on Day 1 it doesn't end there and then goes to Day 2 where I attack and I'm up against 2 to 1 odds against a dug in enemy. I hate Shiloh more than any of the maps.

[pandakraut]

This is a bug which seems to affect some users more than others. There is not a set answer for resolving it but here is a list of various things players have reported as working.

First make sure the landing is under your control and not contested when the timer in the top right hits 0. You cannot have taken 75% casualties, this includes allied units.

From there try the following and hopefully something works for you:
Don't click finish right away, let the end of day timer kick in to end the first day.

Don't click finish right away, wait till the button shows up in the top right corner, then click it.

Don't save/load in the battle and follow one of the above.

But also make a save close to the end of the timer hitting zero, so if you get the bug you can reload and see if doing something different ends up working.

Sorry for not providing an exact answer, but the solution seems to vary by person.

[Don-Meisner]

I never go for the win on Shilo. Its never worth it.
You will lose too many men compared to the reward.
Looking at the rewards for a draw vs a win, its not worth it.

I focus on defending against their assault on day 2 and inflict maximum casulties