Conscription vs Volunteers

[CoachMac]

Hi guys,

I wonder if a strategy to only use Volunteers is viable or not.
And if not then i believe the sooner we get conscription the better.
And last i wonder if there could be a difference between union and CSA.

Opinions are welcomed :)

[Luxiwow]

yes it is.

Numbers of Volunteers are less to my knowlage, Drafts gives more numbers but tanks State Support when recruited.

[CoachMac]

I wonder if avoiding conscription has a benefit in term of work force in the states to support economy.

[Luxiwow]

knowing this game probably not.

[BookishBread]

I play almost exclusively as the CSa, never drafted a unit

[Stale Baguette Police]

Originally posted by BookishBread:

I play almost exclusively as the CSa, never drafted a unit

Yes, but this is probably only possible by playing every battle against the bad AI, and causing 2:1 casualties or more in evefy battle. If you autoresolve, which will give you closer to real casualties, you must use conscripts eventually.

[Ketsa]

I've not touched conscripts and it's completely viable. I plan on trying it out though at least once.

[BookishBread]

Originally posted by Stale Baguette Police:

Originally posted by BookishBread:

I play almost exclusively as the CSa, never drafted a unit

Yes, but this is probably only possible by playing every battle against the bad AI, and causing 2:1 casualties or more in evefy battle. If you autoresolve, which will give you closer to real casualties, you must use conscripts eventually.

i do play every battle, kinda ruins the immersion for me if i don't. but the 2:1 causualties, not always, sometimes its not even 1:1

[lasmith03]

In my first campaign as CSA. Learning everything. Union has tanked their economy causing riots building everything up. I didn't do conscripts until 1863. I was outnumbered 300k to 100k by then.

[CoachMac]

The real question is what is the downside to use conscription.

I mean if the cost is just 2 points of national morale then that is not much.
If it creates issues with lack of workforce everywhere then it is another story.

[Stale Baguette Police]

Originally posted by CoachMac:

The real question is what is the downside to use conscription.

I mean if the cost is just 2 points of national morale then that is not much.
If it creates issues with lack of workforce everywhere then it is another story.

The conscription act itself I don't think tanks workforce, but the more volunteers or draftees that are actually added to the army, the more workforce is affected.

[Targaryen22]

I've never once recruited a drafted unit in any of my many campaigns lol

[Bramborough]

So the way conscription works mechanics-wise:

- Yeah, it's suboptimal to recruit draft units. They will have morale issues.
- The main benefit of conscript manpower is that they will feed into already-existing volunteer units as replacements for casualties, attrition, etc. Also increases the replacement rate.
- Because those units are still characterized as "volunteer" (the game afaict doesn't track what percentage of individual troops in a brigade are draft vs vols), there isn't a direct morale hit at the unit level.
- That doesn't mean that it's entirely "free" manpower with zero negative impacts though. Even though those units don't take a direct morale nerf, overall those conscript replacements do start to wear down the state support in the states from which they are drawn. Which in turn will affect that state's units Fighting Spirit morale cap.

Also worth mentioning, the Union and CSA draft acts aren't identical in their effects. Their respective tooltips spell out the differences pretty adequately. In a nutshell, iirc CSA Conscription also extends all existing units' volunteer contracts to 36 months, whereas the Union Enrollment does not.

[CoachMac]

Excellent thank you for making a good answer as such, I noticed indeed difference in volunteer contracts while playing with Union:)

[HenryPigLatin]

I've not ever drafted a unit either as CSA or USA in dozen games on extra hard. Draft replacements into volunteer units don't impact morale, and are lovely fast replacements.

[mogami_99]

I raise small volunteer units and fill them up with drafts.