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For Shiloh as the CSA I find the trick is to take the Army of the Mississippi and flank to the very far right, essentially just rushing to Pittsburgh Landing while you slowly push forward with your own troops on the left (if you can push them into the marsh that also works). You do end up defending the landing from two directions but it allows you to surround the reinforcements and wipe them out (a gamey strategy using the edge of the map I know).
For Stone's River, I think how hard this is dependent on your performance up to this battle. If your army is 3 corps strong and well equipped I find the battle goes quite well ending with a surround of them by the river. Cavalry is also helpful given the size of the map for flanking and wiping out units e.g. when they retreat in the south.
To your point though, Bragg was considered one of the worst generals of the war (though Shiloh was really Johnston and then Beauregard primarily).
In Shiloh go all in against Union center (send player corps extreme right/east on the first map and npc-corps on the second map- left/west) and make a hole there, ignoring any other objectives.
After that march to Pittsburg Landing, leaving some rearguard in the forests. You will reach landing before Union troops, it will be defended by nothing but 2 artillery batteries. Deal with them, fortify in suitable terrain around VPs and now it's you defending for the rest of the battle. Be wary of Union reinforcements coming to the landing from the north later, prepare troops to greet them.
That's more or less the same, which Kaveski suggested above.
In Stones River main force securing Nashville Pike should be your flanking corps, which starts on the other bank of the river. Once they cross the ford, they are basically threating Union fortifications from behind. You can send some brigades from your starting corps along western edge of the map, to help them, but main task of starting corps is to prevent Union divisions deployed in the south from reaching VPs. For that you most likely will have to clear that hilly forest with bayonet charge, but only to place your own boys there and hold off Union.
No need to attack final VPs from the south at all, let your flanking force do the job.
And Lee at Gettysburg could defend/retreat too. Civil War era generals had offensive mindset for a reason, to achieve decisive victory, which they wanted, it was mandatory to attack.
There is also the option with cavalry, if you find a way to deal with that annoing Union Cav. Division coming from the north. Btw, some times I've the feeling that the AI cheats since it reacts to my steathed snipers which get the command to shoot a Union cav. unit, since the second i click on them they start to move away, even if I did not even shoot them (while being still in stealth). Interestingly it only happens with cavalry, and not with Union Commander Units.
You can try to work with your own northern flank and go thourh the River to attack from the north, which is hindered by the fact, that your Corps Commander start out in the center, seperated from his own corps. (Seriously, who thought this is a good idea?)
Most of the time I handle Shiloh by crushing the UnionRight with my own Corps, pushing them to the little river in the west into the open, where they take hideous causalities by my boys. This leaves the Union right Center somewhat open- Most of the times I send Bragg with 2 or 3 of his big juicy Brigades to the small forrest a bit west of the VP.
There he has good cover and can catch the Union reinforcements coming from the north and control the open field at the VP at will. Speaking of Bragg again, another aspect, why I don't like him and Shiloh is, that his Supply waggon is filled with two sandwiches, one cannon ball and three pounds of black powder (Read: It is already empty early in the battle.). Leaving me to send him my supplies, which takes a long time because of the hideously slow movement in forrest and is some what risky, cause you never know, if one little pesky Union Cav. Unit or Skirm. made it though your line and is waiting to capture it. (And you cant see it in time, because of the dan woods everywhere.)
Well, still better than his colegue Breakinbridge, who SOMEHOW for got his Supply Wagon at home.
Gettysburg is clearly a case of overestimation by Lee for me. Someone wrote that Gettysburg was the price the South had to pay for Lee.
But, there are still some redeeming factors for that what happened at Gettysburg, first of all was the momentum of the Confederate Army. Second of all, Lee needed a strategic victory in face for the upcoming elections in the north...
Regarding the offensive/devensive mindset you mentioned, in my opinion there were only two widely known CW Generals, who understanded the devastating effect of the new weapons combined with old napoleonal tactics.
The first one was Longstreet. That explains also his unwillingless to make the Picketts Charge, as he exactly knew, what was gonna happen. The second one was (Brace yourself) McClellan. I think he had a very exact imagination about the war and was not really eager to throw his troops into the meatgrinder. Unlucky for him, that it was interprated as cowerdice.
Grant was not that great general people say he was, in my opinion. He just played his superiour Manpower out, producing horrendeous causualities. (Cold Harbor)
Regarding Gettysburg in game, ever fought a Iron Brigade with a total of around 7k men in it? I did. (Thanks autoscale)
One problem with these things is hindsight however: we knew Lee had been missing his reconnaissance up to then and this lack of information, alongside the relatively good performance in the fighting on the first couple of days, seems to have not made a frontal charge not seem so absurd.
Also, moral was clearly quite high for his army up to that point. I don't know if Lee got carried away for thinking he could not walk away from the battle or whether retreating would genuinely have shook the confidence of the men, but I suspect not however.
On Grant and McClellan: completely agreed. Grant understood the Union could win a war of attrition so actively pursued battles so long as he could achieve odds at least close to parity. McClellan gets a lot of criticism (I suspect due to Ken Burns) but without reliable intelligence and given the stakes/impact another large-scale defeat would have had that early in the war it was worth being cautious (though he was excessively so).
There are lots of battles where I go, OMG I have to take THAT??
Yet somehow you do it and still inflict more casualties on the enemy. In this game, I've come to appreciate how, time and again, you CAN take a position though various means against entrenched forces across an open field. (Flanking, charging at the right time, etc.)
I'm less inclined after playing this game to criticize those old generals who thought they could take a position. (That said, I'm dreading Laurel Hill as the Union, since I know how badly I blasted them in charge after charge with my 24 pounder as the CSA).
With Gettysburg in mind, I learned recently that Lee was fighting a severe case of dysentery throughout the campaign: he could barely stay in the saddle due to calls of nature and his fatigue. (Similar thing happened at North Anna River, apparently, before the Cold Harbor stage. Missed opportunity for CSA.) Tactically, he was apparently counting on close support of Pickett's charge by massed arty as well as flank/rear attacks beyond Culp's Hill -- neither of which happened. This doesn't change Longstreet's perceptiveness nor Pickett's misgivings, but... let's stand in those shoes for a bit and see what we see, eh? Humbling for me, anyway.
As for Bragg? Well... I can't find much sympathy for him, either. Then again, I've only led a handful of teams in my day, 5-30 folks at a time. And never in life/death circumstances...
There is a saying in Germany: After the battle everyone is a general. So don't take me all too seriously on that matter.
To Lee: I think Gettysburg was his most unlucky day. He was ill, he was not informed and he was overconfidental. Meade had nothing else to do than sit on his hills. He had it quite easy.
He wasn't in command at Shiloh until Johnston died and most of his men were busy looting and exhausted from fighting to be of any use for taking Pittsburgh Landing. At Stones River, his initial attack was disastrous for Rosecrans but he failed to exploit that victory because he was told of Union reinforcements that did not exist. At Chickamauga, he defeated Rosecrans but failed to exploit his victory to the fullest because again, he expected Union reinforcements.
"Bragg had a reputation for being a strict disciplinarian and one who adhered to regulations literally. There is a famous, apocryphal story, included in Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs, about Bragg as a company commander at a frontier post where he also served as quartermaster. He submitted a requisition for supplies for his company, then as quartermaster declined to fill it. As company commander, he resubmitted the requisition, giving additional reasons for his requirements, but as the quartermaster he denied the request again. Realizing that he was at a personal impasse, he referred the matter to the post commandant, who exclaimed, "My God, Mr. Bragg, you have quarreled with every officer in the army, and now you are quarreling with yourself!"
If he'd had working relationships with competent subordinates, he likely would have done somewhat better. He still probably wouldn't have been good enough to forestall defeat in the Western Theater though; his decisions were at best par for military training prior to the Civil War, which in and of itself was out of date by the beginning of hostilities.
Grant was the best Genereal of the War imho his only stains on his record was Cold Harbour and getting caught with his pants down at Shiloh and even then he turned it around , Grant understood War he proberly was the first modern general his actions in the War were always decisive in fact he virtaully won that war on his own i ♥♥♥♥ you not.
Grant also lost less men than Bobby Lee in total by a good 30k , Every action Grant took was another nail in the coffin for the Confedracy i actually rate him in the same league as Ceaser , Napoleon i have that higher regard for him.