Inaugural FoF AAR - Union side

[cillmhor]

Unfortunately I cannot devote too much time to my AAR for Forge of Freedom, but what I will try and do is give some insight into my thinking as the North. I am hoping that Peter will be giving details of the game's workings for people not familiar with the game, what I will do is give some thoughts on my strategy.

Firstly, this is my first Advanced game of Forge, and my first PBEM, so my strategy to some extent is being made up on a hoof at first as I get to grips with the game engine. The game looks at first quite intimidating, but a couple of turns in, and I am becoming more familiar with the workings and how to find things. The interface is actually quite intuitive as you progress.

One of the biggest problems for a new player like myself at first is sorting through my armed forces ad trying to organise them. Also creating Corps and Division containers takes quite a lot of the early turns to give my forces some structure.

It's now early August 1861, the scenario 'Coming Fury' started in July with my Army of the Potomac (as I've chosen to call them) in Fredricksburg opposing the Army of North Virginia. Whilst extricating them to Maryland there was the only battle of the game so far where I lost around 5000 men to my opponent's (Peter) 3000.

The CSA are at present beseiging Pensacola and it will fall eventually. In the first couple of turns some of my troops have been lost to disease, so I'm trying to train hospital attributes for some units to keep this to a minimum.

My over strategy is to build up naval forces to effectively enforce a blockade and use muster in the first few turns to produce infantry brigades. I will try and use the double attribute trick to produce some artillery and cavalry units, as it's cheaper than producing them from states. I plan to make some cavalry divisions and corps, and have artillery attached to each of my divisions to see what effect this has. Corps and Armies will also have cavalry brigades attached to improve scouting.

I also plan to arm my troops well and may not go down the road of mass producing loads of troops who are poorly armed. I aim to have a small well-armed army - try and max out Sharpshooter ability for some troops to see if I can pick off enemy generals. The south has a clear advantage with quality of troops and generals at the start.

I doubt Peter will look to start any major offensives before winter, but who knows. Hence the hurry to arm my troops. One worry is that if I lose a battle, which I will unless I have overwhelming odds, is that my troops will drop their arms and the enemy gets them! Happened after Fredricksburg to some of my units, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

So 1861 July to April strategy, build up naval forces and technologies, and assemble a well-epuiped fairly small army in the easty and a small well-epuipped army in the west. Kentucky came over to the Union in the 1st turn, a good bit of luck, and I may try a push towards Memphis before winter, but at the moment I'm simply trying to organize my forces. This includes bringing down the garrisons from the north to make up inferior divisions which can hold the line further south. If nothing else they will give the impression of numbers to Peter.

As I do not have good intel/scouting forces at present, on turn 2 I saw an army of 200,000 men at Memphis, but I know there cannot be that many men in the west, or anywhere in the CSA, so it shows how poor my intel is at the moment.

More from the North to come, sorry for the lack of screenshots, if I get time I'll try and post a couple from time to time.

[Steel God]

First off, thanks to both you and Peter for tackling this. I am looking forwarding to following this, as Victory Games title Civil War was always one of my all time favorite board games, I am highly motivated to purchase this game and maybe actually get back into playing some thing for a change. This title may be that motivation.

Anyway, my question is this. You used the phrase: "I will try and use the double attribute trick"; please explain what that means to those of us who don't own the title.

Thanks, Paul

[cillmhor]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for moving the thread, and for your interest. Yes, the double attribute. Sorry, I'm learning a lot myself as I go along in this one, and so everything is so new to me, I forget how new it will be to most other folks too.

In the game there are options to train up individual brigades with a certain skill/attribute for a certain set of resources, whether that is money/iron/labour/horses or a combination of some or all of those. I'm not sure how many possible attributes there are, or if some require further building of research facillites or accumlation of research bonuses (depending on what type of buildings you have and the number across the states gives you research points in various categories such as naval/training/weapons etc which in turn give you bonuses).

But there are various attributes available to me at the moment such as Sharpshooters (improves fighting ability of troops and gives you a better chance of wounding/killing enemy general), Zouaves (improves initiative chances when fighting) and so on. You can also give a unit a cavalry attribute, which has some bonuses. If you choose to train an infantry brigade twice in the cavalry attribute or twice in artillery, they turn into a brigade of that type but drop down an XP/quality rating. This is a much cheaper and quicker way of generating cavalry or artillery units than producing them. So hence my strategy to go with some double attribute brigades to give me some low quality cavalry and perhaps some low quality cavalry.

I'l try to explain some other things as I go along, but as I said I'm a bit overwhelmed myself by all the detail, and as can be seen am not familiar with all the intricacies of the game. The game seems to me to have a good feel, lots of options on how to spend your resources and on how to research, depending on your strategy. Other than the blockade and two small well-armed armies, I haven't thought too far ahead. Hopefully if I can get to winter without any disasters, I can plan with a little more thought. Movement in winter is very difficult and so as a result is campaigning. Though again troop and general attribtes can help this. You cannot train general attributes I don't think, but perhaps experience in battles can give you extra ones? Also some general attributes are hidden and are only slowly revealed, so you don't always know how good your generals are until they have tasted battle!

Cheers

Alasdair

[cillmhor]

Early September 1861:

I am beginning to switch more production to money and horses, as they are what I need to produce troops and weapons. My hospitals that I built and the hospital attributes I trained on some troops seems to have done the trick as disease is now claiming far less of my troops.

Building more naval acadamies to improve naval research, also building some ships. My blockade of Norfolk has caused some unrest (5 turns) as has my blockade of New Orleans (1 turn). Going to leave the muster option alone for a little while as the attitude of some governors has dropped quite low. May now have to produce some units, which is more expensive.

The fort at Pensacola will fall in the next couple of turns. In the west I have moved into southern Missouri and I am looking to at least strike a threatening posture on the Mississipi. In the east still trying to scramble to get men together in divisions and corps and under command, oh and equipped. Meanwhile the Army of Northern Virginia and a separate Corps under Longstreet have moved north and west of Richmond threatening the Cumberland Gap and Washington. Looks like Peter is going to strike before winter comes...

[cillmhor]

Early October 1861:

Peter moves the AoNV into the Cumberland Gap to threaten Maryland and southern Pennsylvania. A small battle ensues where my two brigades do remarkably well taking only 150+ casualties and inflicting 550 on the large CSA army of around 79,000 men. I have the Army of the Potomac sitting in eastern Maryland protecting Washinton and two Corps of 25,000 and 45,000 men in southern Pennslyvania, and I moved two divisions into Franklin to threaten the southern supply lines of the AoNV.

In the west I have moved the army south towards Memphis as Peter moves his main army east into Tennessee, let's see if he moves them back to counter the threat.

Ft Pickens at Pensacola finally fell, and Peter told me that the unrest in his port areas was not caused by my blockade as I thought, but by his impressment of goods in those states. Any impress of goods from a state carries a risk of causing unrest which stops production in those areas for a number of turns.

I'm beginning to get the right number of Corps and Division containers now and most are under command, and I continue to equip the Army of the Potomac and give them extra attributes. I hope to contain the AoNV in the Cumberland Gap, as I hope that any attack on my troops in defensive positions should favour me. What I do not want to do at the moment in the east is go on the offensive. I may try and push him a bit in the west.

[cillmhor]

Late October 1861:

The Army of Northern Virginia sits in the Cumberland gap still causing some unrest locally, while the Army of the Potomac and two Union Corps wait to the north and east of them. I decide to move two divisions of Union troops further east into Virginia into the Shenandoah Valley region threatening the AoNV's route back and supply lines to Richmond, I'm hoping this will bring the Confederate Army back south where they will stay for the Winter.

I continue to build mints to try and up my money output, and order the production of my third Army, I also add scouting to a few units as Special Abilities to try and improve my recon of the enemy. I move the Army of the West south into northern Tennessee to threaten Memphis and try and draw the CSA western army back as they have been moving east to threaten Kentucky I think.

I'm going to have to build more shipyards if I am going to meet my blockading plans, and I want to produce a cavalry division in the next 3-4 turns.

I continue to use the muster to produce infantry, running the risk of losing the support of the governors.

Our armies manouevre around each other, but no one is willing to attack yet, as the attacker suffers pretty bad penalties usually.

[cillmhor]

Early November 1861:

Two small battles in this turn, one where my 2 divisions met Longstreet's Corps in Shenandoah and were beatan back with heavy casualties - 2000+ lost to approx 450 casualties inflicted.

Out west my Army making incursions into Hatchie, Tennessee, met a CSA force which retreated without a fight. I continue to push forces south out west to try and distract Peter in the East. I have joined one of my Corps to the AotP to bring up the Army to 104,000 men and the AoNV is at 72,000 men. Still not near enough to the at least 2-1 advantage I need to take the Confederates' superior training and leadership on. I'll keep equiping them as best I can to see if I can at least have an advantage on that front.

I have a lot of mints in production at the moment which I hope will up my money production, as my limited resources don't allow me to do too much each turn.

It appears that Peter's strategy is to try and win in the east, but that allows the door to swing open in the west, if my sketchy intel of his forces is correct?

I have sent a Corps down to reinforce the two divisions which were mauled in western Virginia. I leaves southern PA open, but further threatens the flank of AoNV.

[cillmhor]

Early December 1861:

Well I've received a couple of maulings in the east, especially when the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia met in the Cumberland Gap. I recall a loss ratio of 12,000 to 1-2,000 in favour of the CSA. Not good news. Out west Peter surprised me by slipping a division and corps past my Army of the West into Missouri, a division now sits up in central Missouri threatening all kinds of unrest so I'll have to go back and see if I can't persuade them to go back south.

I noticed that my Army of the Potomac did not have my best general in command in terms of battle prowess, so I'm looking to put a better commander in command at least until the threat of Southern action in the east has receded slightly. But what I really want to do is put a good training general in command to help improve the quality of my troops. This is a longer term aim.

I now want to build some forts along the Ohio river and southern Kentucky to try and give my front some security and I will try and adopt the same strategy in the west. Then build my armies up without trying to fight the South on the attack, I want to take advantage of any and all defensive bonuses in these early battles. Something I have not done until now.

I have managed to dislodge a Corps from Cumberland while the AoNV was south in Fredricksburg, and caused 2500+ casualties. Some good news finally.

Two research categories allowed me to gain some special bonuses: Rifle manufacture which adds +1 guns producition to all arsenals (which means I can arm my troops more quickly), and cavalry dragoon tactics (which makes cavalry attacks more damaging).

I now need to train up a cavaly division and equip them to take advantage of this.

Naval build-up is on hold for the time being, so the blockade plan is also on hold. I am blockading some ports, but not with enough ships to make much of a difference it appears.

The Union is going to try and keep things quiet now, and fill in any gaps on the front lines. Which is what I should have done in the first place.

[cillmhor]

Late January 1862:

The winter months have meant that I haven't been able to do much movement. I'm trying to do some reorganization of my generals and troops. And I've trained a division of cavaly now, although since I used the double attribute trick to form them, they are very low quality.

Out west Peter has clevely sneaked a small Corps of men into Missouri and captured the state capital turning the state confederate. I'm moving the Army of the West north to counter them, but winter is making it real tough to do that.

I've put 3 more ships into production and I've taken the Blockade Operations upgrade when my naval research gave me a chance. This makes it 50% more likely I'll catch a blockade runner, although I've had a real tough time catching any so far. I don't think I have enough ships in my fleets yet.

I continue to keep the European support of the CSA low by spending there. My next aim is to swing European opinion in the Union's favour. Not sure what happens there, but I think support in goods will drop.

That's if for now. Consolidation is the name of the game at the moment, and keeping my troops near or in cities to fight off the worse effects of winter attrition.

Disease hit the Army of the Potomac again and I took fairly heavy losses depsite my building of hospitals and medical attributes I gave a number of units.

[cillmhor]

Late March 1862:

Sorry I haven't been able to update for a couple of turns, but the general gist has been Peter sending two divisions behind my lines into the west with one of them taking an undefended Chicago, much to the displeasure of the Governor of Illinois!

Peter is cleverly spreading unrest which is in turn effecting output and so some of my plans for building up my armies and production are behind schedule.

I know know the value of building forts and keeping some of my garrisons in place, as I struggle to force the defenders out of Jefferson Missouri. I've sent three divisions, one cavalry division west to deal with Peter's roving raiders, and I hope attrition will take its toll as they are no next to adjacent friendly provinces which I think has a supply effect on them, although I'm not sure.

I have not been able to muster much lately for two reasons: manpower is low is some provinces and as I have done it a few times already the Governor attitutes have taken a hit, so I'll have to wait a while so that % chance of success goes up again. In April manpower increases again, it does so each year, so I should be able to muster a few more units.

Peter seems to have troops everywhere, but his numbers in many units must be pretty low. As he goes on the offensive in the west, I can only assume he is on the defensive in the east?

He has a largish force north of Richmond, but I am able to move one of my armies into Shenandoah again, and I am toying with the idea of plunging that army (the 90,000-strong Army of the Potomac) into the south towards Lynchburg in order to try and sow some unrest in Peter's provinces and perhaps stall his offensive manouevres in the west.

I have another army of 50,000-plus sitting on Washington, so the north will not be totally unprotected. The move south in 1862, with the Union forces still so woefully unprepared would be a massive gamble. But I can already feel, with the unrest and roving CSA divisions in the west, that the game might be slipping away from me due to some crucial early errors in my strategy - not building forts, and being slightly too aggressive in the west early on, drawing a response from Peter, and I should have mustered first turn and much more earlier on.

If I can start to effect his production in the Carolinas? Then we both might go into the winter of 1862 with economic and political troubles. In another battle, we are both spending quite a bit on diplomacy in an effort to win over the European powers. I have gained access to French and British rifles for money as a result, I don't need to spend guns on them, which if I had more money could be a valuable choice!

Money is the thing which is holding the Union back at the moment. I continue to build mints and I am thinking of building a bank in the next turn or two - but they cost a lot of money. They are supposed to make you 1% interest on saved money. But I'm not really sure what saved money is, as I have to spend all my money each turn to keep up with Peter.

When I get the next turn, I'll have a big decision to make. Do I take the Army of the Potomac down south and risk a battle on southern soil where I would lose my defensive bonuses?

Or do I continue to remain passive and allow Peter to dictate the course of the war?