I don't get it

[Thorstorm]

How do you even fight the Union in 1861?
You can barely recruit in time or the amount necessary and the frontline is ridiculous, the Union comes with 70-80k men, what are we supposed to do?
Is there a way to recruit faster or more men that I'm not aware of?
The pool of volunteers is not even close to the Union's units.

[Barticus]

i agree

[Balher Marzor]

Did you research the 3 volunteer acts you get them right at the start and by 62 you unlock the 2 conscription act that should help with manpower also I wouldn't recommend getting 3k brigades at start you don't have the men instead get brigades of 1500 or 2500 those are much more reasonable and gives you room to flank with more units sure union brigades are bigger but 3k men getting shot by 1500 from cover will end in your favor 70 percent of the time in my experience

[Barticus]

yes using those definitely help but also inhibit/slow using other techs. Still i prioritize them and being the opponent knows exactly where all units are and what size, is able to attack, with impunity and somehow better equipment seemingly at multiple locations from washington to kentucky

[Balanced Integer]

By September 1861, you should've been able to pop the Recruitment Offices project (at least) twice and the Farm Mechanization project once. That's +20% more volunteers.

[pnowkr]

That's funny, the same thing happens in reverse when I play the Union in 1961.

[guderian]

It was a good game with a few tweaks that were needed. Now it's just ridiculously overpowered AI blitzkrieging around the map in 1861. Hardly realistic anymore.

[Stone]

Originally posted by guderian:

It was a good game with a few tweaks that were needed. Now it's just ridiculously overpowered AI blitzkrieging around the map in 1861. Hardly realistic anymore.

I hope they address this issue with the patch and give us a little more difference in the difficulty selection instead of it feeling like it doesn't matter what we pick.

[Oubley]

I mod in 21k missy guns for csa and 48k union sprinfield rifle muskets for union.
to me that gives you a good balanced game start for '61

as other said, you're going to want to use 1.5 or 2.25 sized brigades. I'd use this regardless if you're union or csa.

As csa you're probably going to have a lot smaller reserve, as you need bodies in the field.

With the 21k mississippi you can distribute semi evenly across theatres to attack divisions.
your other divisions are going to be more support until you get guns.

regardless if you mod project costs or not, to me '61 is a bigger gun problem then # troops problem. as other said >>> farmer mech and that recruit project for bigger troop buffs.

things like rebore/farmers guns can be handy to help flesh out the gun problem even if it isn't the main weapon.

I don't play on the hardest setting though, mine are like medium/medium or medium/low?(second setting).

the harder settings don't seem hard to me, they seem more gimicky to sheer ridiculous buffs, so personally don't play on those.

[SAS]

I recruit all the volunteers I can early, then take the regulars act, then combine all into three armies, one in west, tennessee, and VA. The Union recruits an insane amount of troops early but they lose a lot after that 3 month enlistment ends

[guderian]

The cheating in this game by the AI is outrageous. Strategically it's unplayable now. And what a shame. It used to be a great game, but it's degenerated into an ADHD Fest.

[Mallear]

heh i still remember the days when people said winning as CSA early was waaaay too easy

[Oubley]

The last time I took it, the regulars act pulled from your troop pool, so I wouldn't take that as you then have no control where the troops are coming from. All you're getting is troops now at some kind of military proficiency hit.

1A) military 1 is probably going to be the emphasis during prewar, particularly if don't mod so you can get higher military fund potential.
1B) 1 year contracts should be researched by time war starts
2 ) if you struggle on how to distribute/pick troops don't pick a second policy or act >>> wait until war starts
>>> Pick 2 year contracts militia on April 15th when war starts should be about 21 days to research
3) I mod my projects, unmodded I'd probably go heavy military funding and farming for subsidy funding >>> goal to unlock guns for purchase and get Farm Mechanization
4) Regardless if you mod Reenlist % or not, you're going to want to get some troops , like 1 per state min and 2 at most if CSA (if playing as union I'd probably be more selective particularly if not modded)
doing more then this is probably a waste for most states, 2 year contracts will have kicked in by time those later units would "start" >>> there extra day arrival penalties for having more units from same state.
4B) utilize theatre HQ, particularly in the East to collect new arrivals >>> great a new Virginia Corps/army utilize Hampton and WV starter corps as engineer corps
5) May 5/6 2 year contracts done >>> flesh out those armies >>> again going to want to use 1.5 or 2.25 sizes. CSA probably almost strictly 1.5
6) Research Military II personally wouldn't do 3 Year contract, 2 year is 1863 and there are buffs compared to 3 year in term of recruitment time
7) draft????
8)3 year?????? though might do credit rating at this point and the imports, particularly if union
9) after draft researched flip those volunteer units to pull from the draft pool
10)??? I've never got this far as CSA as I've typically flipped states like Kentucky or captured washington dc by this point so I tend to get bored

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Notes) as csa I like to pull the shenandoah army and potomac back to the richmond area and ship the missouri/mizzu forces to arkansas

Theatre HQ in west aren't as important as there isn't a lot of important stuff out there so corps tend to work fine; that and you're to far apart in a lot of cases to utilize theatre hq as intended >>>> better of west using department/region corps over theatre hq

Utilize smaller engineer corps to build road blocks(forts)/depots.

Other then Richmond, it probably isn't important to lose sleepless nights over, default settings union starts with Mizzu and kentucky so you don't have to worry about those flipping against you.

Union marching on Arkansas can be annoying when it does to it but there really isn't anything to capture (no offense to Arkanasas) you can typically counter attack or draw there attention back elsewhere, if they don't completely go brain dead and leave Mizzu open for taking

Tennessee need to be slightly more careful but Union tends to be more passive here and there just a ton of places needed to capture in order to flip.

Defeating an army forces it to retreat. So pick targets carefully, both city and armies. Taking a city often causes enemy to attempt recapture, knocking back an army you don't tend to have to worry about it for another 7 days or so.

While green readiness is bestest, orange in home territory can often work when supported with another corps/army at least in yellow/green.

[guderian]

Originally posted by Mallear:

heh i still remember the days when people said winning as CSA early was waaaay too easy

Yes. A great game needing just a few tweaks. The OBVIOUS thing for the development of the game was to add to each potential general an historical Mobility factor. Some generals would just sit there until everything was perfect before moving out, others had more modern ideas of strategy like Grant.

Instead what we got is a generalized AI cheat in which the command in Washington DC can potentially move to Winchester, VA and take it off the Confederates...within 3 days. And did so in my last campaign. What's more, the AI moved into Washington an even stronger force to defend it with purely New York troops...all the while my Confederate force, which started just across the river, could not get into Washington before those two events took place.

Now it's just not worth playing anymore. Even on the easiest setting. It's not a challenge, it's general developer cheating and if there's anything I can possibly hate more I don't know what it is. Except games that play themselves. And after having lost control of my forces on the map in that last campaign to the tune of their own destruction, and there was nothing I could do about it to save them, I quit until it's fixed.

Now I find out, not only were those issues not properly fixed, but we've progressed to the first DLC which fixes nothing of the sort. AND people who don't know any better are calling for yet another game to be started in development.

No, I won't have any of it.

[Ketsa]

I've taken DC enough times to know it's a skill issue lol.

[guderian]

Originally posted by Ketsa:

I've taken DC enough times to know it's a skill issue lol.

Doesn't matter to me. If the game is unrealistic it gets binned. Don't get me wrong, I'm here to change history and have many times. But it's no longer any fun when I waste entire evenings setting up a campaign only to have it ruined by enemy AI doing whatever it wants whenever it wants. It gets relegated to the garbage bin with Red Dragon, Hearts of Chaos IV, and now we can add Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts to that list as well.

I'm starting to think that the major qualification to becoming a game developer these days is Diversity.