Report on the ACW

[Stryder99]

In my current game it is Late November 1867 and no event fired to free the slaves, even though the Union won the ACW.

During the entire war 5 leaders emerged for the Union, and 2 of them should not have been Union. Those leaders were: A.S Johnston, but he died 2 turns from disease after emerging, so no harm done. J. Johnston, I McDowell, H. Sibley, and finally G. Custer.

As an aside, I just had J. Johnston die, and he was replaced by R.E. Lee!

Below is a list of cities that were destroyed by the Confeds in their retreats: Wilmington, Charlotte, Savannah, Montgomery, Mobile, Memphis, Vicksburg, New Orleans, Jefferson City, Little Rock, Dallas, and Austin.

Were the Rebs equipped with nukes? And if they were, why not use them on the Yanks? Obviously, this list of cities nuked is way too many, IMO.

The war began Late December 1859, and ended by Early July 1864.

In my opinion, the ACW, as it is in PoN, is flawed beyond comprehension. No leaders, nothing to free the slaves, and too many cities, even ones like New Orleans, are being destroyed.

I never had enough leaders to command even one good-sized Union Army. So darn near all of my combats were at serious command minuses. The Confederacy was even worse off, I only ever saw Davis and one other leader emerge.

All I can say is this is disappointing. I had expected the makers of such a fine ACW game would have had, at the minimum, a good representation of the ACW.

Stryder

[Hohenlohe]

In my current game it is Late November 1867 and no event fired to free the slaves, even though the Union won the ACW.

During the entire war 5 leaders emerged for the Union, and 2 of them should not have been Union. Those leaders were: A.S Johnston, but he died 2 turns from disease after emerging, so no harm done. J. Johnston, I McDowell, H. Sibley, and finally G. Custer.

As an aside, I just had J. Johnston die, and he was replaced by R.E. Lee!

Below is a list of cities that were destroyed by the Confeds in their retreats: Wilmington, Charlotte, Savannah, Montgomery, Mobile, Memphis, Vicksburg, New Orleans, Jefferson City, Little Rock, Dallas, and Austin.

Were the Rebs equipped with nukes? And if they were, why not use them on the Yanks? Obviously, this list of cities nuked is way too many, IMO.

The war began Late December 1859, and ended by Early July 1864.

In my opinion, the ACW, as it is in PoN, is flawed beyond comprehension. No leaders, nothing to free the slaves, and too many cities, even ones like New Orleans, are being destroyed.

I never had enough leaders to command even one good-sized Union Army. So darn near all of my combats were at serious command minuses. The Confederacy was even worse off, I only ever saw Davis and one other leader emerge.

All I can say is this is disappointing. I had expected the makers of such a fine ACW game would have had, at the minimum, a good representation of the ACW.
Stryder

Dear stryder, although not have been playing the US until now adversary to some other games(VIC2) I assume from some practice that there could be some failure in the event chain, which could eventually has happened alongside the latest patch...it could also to have to do with your save game use...if you consequently have used an older save file it would not allow the appropriate events to fire but if you have started with a completely new installation of PON plus patching it the right way then it would be a major bug belonging to the US faction it would be necessary to zip-pack the related savegame and to ask either Generalissimo or anyone else for some insight view to clear the problem...

Thus before you do any complaints it is always useful to consider your approach to the current problem...thus please copy away this install of PON and then de-install the original installation and then re-install it completely new and then patch it like it is useful...
1.) if it is a retail version then use first the appropriate first official patch version and only after that install the latest beta patch and then try to play the game anew because your older savegame could not be compatible,sry...
I am certainly no AGEOD team member but what I has learned sofar from my own faults and problems and from the kind of approach the good boys did sofar with the latest games and the current I think that my advice is somehow useful for you...

I suggest to spare yourself any silly complaint because first the current development team is simply very small and what they did sofar for their games is much more than many other developers did so although getting a much bigger team at hands...and this really matters and second if you ask them kindly and show some patience you will get a good support and help as I really know...

I know that not many of us have the time to for themselves solving any problems either due to not existing programmer knowledge or because of too much work professionally but that is very true for much of us...

Most of the old AGEOD guard consists of usual older socalled grognards with a certain level of games' knowledge for more than a decade and even more and many people complaining are (sry for that) either people with a less time or even more casual gamer which wants to try a new game...

But in case of especially this game you now know that it will need some decent time to play thru until an end and it will be helpful to have some patience...sry, if you feels yourself somehow criticized not in the right manner if I even has misunderstand you...

As an old socalled grognard since 1991 I know how many companies had some problems after releasing a somehow more buggy game as PON(it is still well playable as I think...) with any upcoming bad mouth propaganda in the NET and then these users even are somehow astonished if this developer disappeared from the market...

If you take a certain view on the past games you should aknowledge that the support to some older games is still available thus show me some other publishers which will give that to you freely for nada...especially in the usual software market you get not many patches for free...

heartly greetings

Hohenlohe, who is somehow disappointed about some users complaints...*sigh*

edit: not everyone, dear stryder has a good day everyday, thus please do not misunderstand me, I do not want to be too personal...

[McNaughton]

Tweaking events, leaders, etc., are still happening. It is difficult to get every little loose end tied up, with such a small team at hand. For one, just the leader file itself, with 3000+ historic individuals had to be all researched, added, edited, then to make sure that every era had enough leaders, further research done to find the 'unknown' people of history who just did not make it into many history books.

With leader-death systems being out of wack, it is really disappointing to hear people say that this was not thought out well, or a lot of work done for it. In fact, this was years of my work (yes, years), which is still happening (indeed, have vastly overhauled the leader files, with new leaders, notably for the CSA). Without the DeathChance bug, the leader files would be providing players with adequite manpower. So, it was not a matter of no work being done, but rather an error in value % that is affecting the generals not lasting beyond 3 years of gameplay.

No, we are not lazy, or incompetent, just very short on manpower and time. We are definitely receptive to things, I am in the midst of trying to get the leader death rates working correctly, as well as to ensure that nations like the CSA do not require events to get leaders.

I personally have no clue as to why 'cities' are being destroyed. Are they depots being blown up? Are they industries being eliminated? What exactly do you mean by 'cities destroyed'? I have never seen it myself, and I have been testing the purposely designed ACW scenario (yet to be released).

[Stryder99]

Tweaking events, leaders, etc., are still happening. It is difficult to get every little loose end tied up, with such a small team at hand. For one, just the leader file itself, with 3000+ historic individuals had to be all researched, added, edited, then to make sure that every era had enough leaders, further research done to find the 'unknown' people of history who just did not make it into many history books.

With leader-death systems being out of wack, it is really disappointing to hear people say that this was not thought out well, or a lot of work done for it. In fact, this was years of my work (yes, years), which is still happening (indeed, have vastly overhauled the leader files, with new leaders, notably for the CSA). Without the DeathChance bug, the leader files would be providing players with adequite manpower. So, it was not a matter of no work being done, but rather an error in value % that is affecting the generals not lasting beyond 3 years of gameplay.

No, we are not lazy, or incompetent, just very short on manpower and time. We are definitely receptive to things, I am in the midst of trying to get the leader death rates working correctly, as well as to ensure that nations like the CSA do not require events to get leaders.

I personally have no clue as to why 'cities' are being destroyed. Are they depots being blown up? Are they industries being eliminated? What exactly do you mean by 'cities destroyed'? I have never seen it myself, and I have been testing the purposely designed ACW scenario (yet to be released).

@ Hohenloe, there were no errors and so no need to reload the game. I looked in the events files and noticed the events were there, but they were either not firing as planned, or would misfire and do something completely weird. That was the cause for the strangeness of the game, not some imaginary game install issue.

For example, in my game the Johnstons were Union leaders, but in the CSA Events file they are to appear as Confed Leaders.

Another example, the Union Mississippi Fleet is scheduled, by event, to appear in St. Louis, but appeared in New York instead. This one could, possibly, be due to it being Late December and the Mississippi river near St. Louis being iced over. Where the game defaulted it to NY. But i'm not sure, since I don't know exactly how naval placement happens.

Last example, The Emancipation Proclamation never fired at all in my game.



@McNaughton, I never said you folks were lazy, so please, do not put words into my messages. If I had thought you lazy, I would have said so.

As for the cities, it is exactly as I have reported. When the Union would take a city I would, for the ones nuked, get a message saying that the Confeds blew up said city on their retreat. So, no, it was not just depots, but actual cities like New Orleans, Memphis, and Savannah. All rather large cities.

Stryder

[StephenT]

Regarding the cities, what seem to happen is that when the Union captures a province, there's a chance the city (and its industry) is destroyed. But because the province's population is unaffected, a turn or two later you'll get a message saying that the city has been re-established in that province. (An exception might be those cities, like Vicksburg, which are themselves created by event at the start of the ACW. Their province population might be too low to immediately trigger a new city pop-up.)

In other words, this simply represents refugees fleeing the city, along with pillaging, arson and destruction. See, for example: Atlanta 1864. A couple of weeks or maybe a month later, law and order has been re-established and the people return to their homes. The city hasn't been "nuked", it just temporarily loses its game effects.

But maybe to stop complaints, the event text could be reworded a little? Instead of "retreating forces destroy the city of X", something like "Pillaging and looting in the city of X force the population to temporarily flee their homes."?

[cebuguy]

As I recall the Union did have one or 2 leadership problems to say the least.

There was a bit in the movie Glory where a Rebel soldier was offered a trade, the leading Union general for a broken down mule as I remember. He kept the mule.

[alastair]

Just giving up on an ACW game as it is so one sided (to CSA) as to be ridiculous. The startup was a bit strange with some units in CSA territory magically reappearing in other locations. Unfortunately moving ocean going ships to the heart of the Mid Westt did rather immobilse them :-) I think out to sea would have been better. Also though some Union garrisons did NOT relocate but were somehow evicted from their forts (incuding their fortress guns) and a whole new garrison (with some new guns magicked up) were installed. Surely the Union side should have been kept in the fort as happened in real life.

The main problem was that my manpower reserve went to 0 and stayed at a very low level. This meant that I could not even replace attrition let alone get any ship repaired. I note in the event file that set all this up a line

ChangeResStock = $merConscript;1400 under actions - if that wwas to give me 1400 conscript at the start it didn't although other things in the same action section like the VP change and the chnage in money did fire.

Then came the 8:1 casualty rates against the South [whatever I did or didn't do every combat had casualties like 40000 USA vs 5000 CSA). This has meant that all my forces are so depleted that I might as well retreat to Canada! (after all I have no replacements available)


I would have liked to have seen what the CSA side looked like but that option about see all files in load doesn't seem to work for me

Oh well I'll try again from scratch in case changing version some time in 1854 messed things up

[cebuguy]

Just giving up on an ACW game as it is so one sided (to CSA) as to be ridiculous..................
Then came the 8:1 casualty rates against the South [whatever I did or didn't do every combat had casualties like 40000 USA vs 5000 CSA). This has meant that all my forces are so depleted that I might as well retreat to Canada! (after all I have no replacements available).........

8:1 huh?
I gather that Frank Miller is interested in turning your game into a graphic novel and movie, rather like the 300.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Miller_%28comics%29)

[Eugene Carr]

For example, in my game the Johnstons were Union leaders, but in the CSA Events file they are to appear as Confed Leaders.

Both the Johnstons and Lee have USA as well as CSA models so maybe the game wasn't picking up the Civil War and allowing them in on the 'wrong' side?

S!

[StephenT]

Just giving up on an ACW game as it is so one sided (to CSA) as to be ridiculous.

Wow. Guess I must be an über-elite player then, and I never knew. I won the ACW fairly easily, in about two and a half years of fighting.

The business with the ships relocating to the Upper Mississippi has already been patched. Some fort garrisons get evacuated, some don't: this seems to be based on history.

Yes, your replacements get used up, probably becauae all your manpower went into creating a massive army ten times larger than what you had before the war. After about a year of fighting (that's 24 turns) you should have plenty of replacements available, assuming you build them. And yes, that means that you should spend the first part of the war building up your strength, not charging straight into the attack.

For battles, look at the number of elements destroyed, not the manpower numbers which are just cosmetic. If you're really losing battles at that level constantly, I suggest experimenting with the battle scenarios a few times until you're comfortable with how combat works in AGEOD games. Remember that the Confederates should have better generals than you, so you can't expect to just send a bunch of troops at them and win. Watch your cohesion!

[alastair]

I've played AACW since it came out so I have same idea how the system works. When I said all my relacements vanished I meant just that. I was playing a historical game so the total forces in the State were the regiments in the Indian Territories. At that time I had a manpower level in the 400's. Suddenly the game created these units from nothing - including a navy needing 500+ hit points just to make it seaworthy - and the manpower dropped to nothing. As to the battles these were defensive. A 45000 corps of theirs would hit a 40000 corps and I would be wiped out. With no replacements all I could do is hide with the unit or lose it. Somehow the CSA could repair its ships - the blockade squadrons were so weak that even deploying them was a no-no

[StephenT]

When you say "manpower" are you talking about your conscripts and officers? Because it seems pretty realistic that you'd lose your stockpile when the US Army grew from 16,000 to over two million overnight. But you should still be getting your normal per-turn growth of conscripts. You just have to wait until you've built up a stockpile before you start attacking. And yes, that does mean "hiding", or at least avoiding combat with superior enemy forces until you're strong enough to take the offensive. The first three years of the Civil War were a story of one defeat or Pyrrhic victory after another for the Union, after all.


What were the combat strengths of these "45 000" and "40 000" corps? If the Confederates had a strength of 400 and were defeating you with a strength of 450, there might be something wrong with the game. If their strength was 1000 but yours was only 300 because of leadership or cohesion problems, the battle result is much more credible. Or if they had a leader with huge combat bonuses and you didn't, maybe?


To maintain a blockade you have to shuttle your ships in and out of port every two or three turns, especially in bad weather: you can't just leave them out at sea permanently.

[alastair]

Wish I could see the other side to check that they at least were suffering as well but that option didn't seem to be there on load - also would have helped if Congress has voted the manpower increase but "c'st la vie". I might wind it back as many turns as I can and see if I can do better

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Czert]

You can switch sides in any AGEOD game including PON.
.

WOW, NEVER noticed it in any game. Man learns new things every day, even after some years.

[Aragos]

A couple of things:

The ACW has a series of events. It sounds like some/all of the events didnt fire or didnt fire properly.

Second--see note by McN about leaders. Known bug, it is being fixed.

Third--replacements. You have to build replacement elements (units) on the F2 screen. The numbers at the top of the main screen are just how much you have available.

Lastly--If you have replacement elements available at the start of the ACW, some of those may be gobbled up by the large (event-based) Army Corps that you get. Also, if you've avoided putting replacements in your line units before the ACW, they will start using up replacement elements as well. Same with your ships.

[alastair]

Won an ACW in 2 years - what got me was that the size indicator is odd. A Corps two generals suddenly became an Army Group. Once I started looking at the little strength number on the stacks it became easier. Saved having my corps being eaten alive by a stack that showed XXX as a size but actually had 4 or 5 corps in

In my 1.01h that see other stacks button is not working at all if I press it nothing is happening at all

[yellow ribbon]

well, after i had the trouble mentioned in another thread with F6

i experience ACW the same way as noticed in this thread:

just my view this moment

Beginning ACW December 1859

so, guess merely one turn after John Browns cold body hanging

far too late to be related to the Harpers Ferry incident, and too early for Lincolns / whigs influence in war policy which historically was a huge burden the first two years.
(i did really liked it how you fellows had solved this his in AACW with the political cost and do have to agree, it was a better way than that start of ACW here)

Officers down to 42

recruits down to 4

both will decrease even more, both (-4)

had build 3 cav.-divisions and supplies in the mids 50s and recruits had been restored to close than 300 again (lately growth rate of 14 per turn)

I do know, the provinces are to big sized for tactical campaigns and i see that some corps are fixed for three or six further turns, but as i see now:

UNION does appear like Germany in 1938, just waiting to give someone a brawl

too many corps nearly full equipped

regarding Generals: well, lets see upcoming turns, but in December 1859

four Generals in Washington D.C

one in St. Louis (or was it an Admiral)

two in Missouri / Iowa

let me claim, unless these will not die next turn, this is far more than AACW had the first couple of patches, isnt it (older days you started with 3 Generals in DC)

regarding replacements, somehow MILITIA is nearly completely covered from the beginning 100/112, also light and field artillery.

Line troops have 1/5 of needed replacements,

light warships 1/3 of needed spare parts,

transporter even more 36 out of 41

and historically incorrect, there is strong cavalry in the north: 8 replacements needed, 20 given

originally they never made big use of Cav. till Sherman wasted them in 1864 in the ineffective raid west in the Virginia campaign, am i right. crazy to have so much horsemen waiting

i will try to increase this numbers with the partially mobilization


I REALLY DONT UNDERSTAND THE COMPLAINS

I only regret to say, Generals are killed to often:

Winfield Scott is already dead for years in my game, since he was responsible for the strategy it fells like having one boot off

i dont know your algorithm, but have you ever thought about relating it roughly to active duty timespan

[PhilThib]

We are right now working on the leaders' death issue, it should be fixed in next patch

[Hohenlohe]

We are right now working on the leaders' death issue, it should be fixed in next patch

Thx, dear Phil, keep up your good work...

heartly greetings

Hohenlohe...

[yellow ribbon]

thx PhilThib for fast reply

excellent work lads, i do trust in your work regarding patches.

I am striving to create a "minor AAR" in this thread for giving an overview what might draw attention.

************

turn three:

replacements changed with partially mobilization (decision was accepted promptly)

Line troops: needed 62 / in stock 47

Militia: needed 2 / in stock 122

Cav. needed 13 / in stock 27

no complains about the system!

garrisons are behaving weird:

Fort Sumter Gar. was overrun, Infantry and Guns just fled to next province. I gave them command to retreat to D.C via seatransport
third turn, and they are back in Charleston after they had made half way to Norfolk.

Fort Pickens Gar. UNION captured just FIVE units prisoners from Fort Pickens Gar. CSA
and took the Fort Pickens (with over 14000 Prisoners)

got news, MOBILE was destroyed by fled of population, but town is still there with every structure i ever built

[McNaughton]

I have noticed that units will not move into areas that are under extreme enemy control. You simply cannot direct march through enemy territory and to safety in all situations (even under leader control, especially an over cautious leader). Sometimes even though you are giving commands, they will be over-turned by the unit because it is 'impossible' to move on given your low control over territories (when you select units to move, you will notice at times, red flashing provinces, this denotes that you cannot move there due to control of blocking territory issues).

That could be what is going on with you.

It is useful to see the information as experienced in average ACW campaigns, are there enough troops (i.e., do you have enough replacements coming in?), are there enough/too many types of builds, etc..

Thanks for the reporting!

[yellow ribbon]

hello McNaughton,

i offer you a gentlemen´s agreement:

since i am running the game in the background at work i cant write a complete AAR and only write some curiosities from time to time, thats what i meant with "minor AAR"

you just drop me your email address and i will make screenshots from the war ministry folder every turn.

this would give you a perfect glance on my way i played it.
You certainly know better what was part of the scripted game, than me.

BTW:

got treaty of Defence with 3 of the 4 tribes in the west, Cherokee just forced CSA to rally troops from eastern theater to Texas

Hohenlohe, if you remember, it does appear we have a VERY BIG LITTLE BIG HORN

**********
EDIT:

NAY, i got same problem like Fort Pickens now with Fort Fisher

Fort Fisher Union is besieging Fort Fisher CSA

[yellow ribbon]

ok, even the battles do appear weighted like AACW

example attached

just remember the intended idea of the game
NATIONAL MORAL influencing battles and velocity of moving troops

in this game: moral RAISED be my genius (Patton: Keep advancing,no matter the odds) from about 30 to 41 within four months

but you need a limit of 60 or rebels are walking around in your own country?

(sorry but WTF have you smoked: AACW had about 80, PON about 30 in the beginning of the war)

however, even without Generals, i am doing fine with some AACW experience in my background.

AND PLEASE NOTE:

I do build additional replacements, recruited three brigades of foot and still have 150 recruits five months after ACW started, means about 1/3 of maximum i had most of the time in the 1850s

[yellow ribbon]

gosh, maybe my last report on PONs ACW for a time, have to go on site to customer

the aftermath of ACW:

first, i took more than 90.000 prisoners from the CSA and fixed their remaining troops in Atlanta, New Orleans and Charleston within 19 months.

means, more than 1 prisoner of CSA to 3 dead Union soldiers. total loss of CSA unknown

alone in Atlanta there is a force about 100.000 CSA troopers remaining, i did had 9 breaches and barely made scarcely 5 hit points success by turn due sieging the city. (yeah, had plenty of combat engineers, artillery and siege artillery)
once i tried to attack with 280.000 men, mainly line troops, plenty of guns, engineers, full supply... and thereby got my half army destroyed and fled to neighbor province (only time i used POS1)

so, may i asked you: have you changed the algorithm since AACW? only a wild guess, but that time ago it was possible to hit harder with sieging a city


******************************
regarding replacements:

never ever had major problems, invested nearly only in replacements for artillery and did fine the whole war.
however, i did know that Union recovers slowly in the field and i suppose i watched to fast recovery of whole armys of the CSA close to instantly. someone wrote about same situation with the ships above

have you changed it, compared to AACW?

****************

regarding combat behavior:

sorry to say, i played it head on. no offensive order to keep losses low. assembling my troops.

brigades, even divisions are only useful to cover conquered cities against partisan action.

CSA had mainly three stacks operating:

1. Stack)

about 1100 combat points / 150.000 men either at Richmond or, mainly, Nashville
as long the most corps were fixed for a couple of turns, this stack destroyed EVERYTHING it had on its way and caused me a third of all losses in the first three month, annihilating my forces

i forced them out of Indianapolis, than out of Kentucky with a huge deathtoll and they had still 150.000 men when i nailed them down in Atlanta.

2.Stack)

about 450 combat points / 80.000 men tried to operate from Texas to the west.
Again, everything i had in the first turns was annihilated even with the order to avoid enemy (green/green and bypassing ordered)

they were still superior when all but this depot they got from me was seized by Union troops


3. Stack)

mixed cherokee - CSA Stack with about 700 combat points doing nothing but invading Missouri and blocking my troops very good to marsh against New Orleans.
unfortunately they took nearly no damage, even with 7 breaches meanwhile entrenched in New Orleans.

***

Rest of battles were rather piecemeal than strategy. After i had all corps given from the beginning available, it took me three month to take Richmond, Norfolk, Savannah, Charleston, as mentioned fixed the major troops of CSA in Atlanta and steamrolled rest of CSA, just building Cav- brigades to fight partisans.
and of course Engineers and siegeguns.


additionally to mention, CSA had barely two or three depots and was every time, everywhere better supplied.


*************

To summarize, i cant complain about given troops, replacements or something in the gameplay but:

the size of the provinces is to large to use army corps at the first stage of war.
AI showed me a bad style, a single doomstack is enough to win nearly all battles, unless you make it and fix it in a fort or town.

if it would be X-mas, i would like you to think about the solution known for some of us from AACW:

Divisions and Corps were only able to operate in later phases of war. Generals needed therefor (i DO know you are working on that).

Either divide the first units from corps size down to many brigades or give higher penalties for stacks over 900 combat points (means about 9 divisions and more in one single stack)
if you do so, you have opportunity to use same way like AACW: CORPS are supporting each other, not building a nearly invincible wall

[PhilThib]

Remember the game scale, and also the fact we must cover 70 years, so we can't tweak too much the DB for the sake of one single conflict accuracy...

I could change Corps to divisions or brigades in the early ACW events for USA and CSA, but I would be unable to prevent the USA player to build corps before the war and have them ready at war start....which in turn would give a very unrealistic and a-historical advantage to the Union...

On the other hand, although I know the CSA has corps in her setup (and that is a-historical indeed), this in theory should give her a bit of an advantage, which would represent better initial command...

A perfect solution is difficult to find, but I am taking good note of all your comments...

[yellow ribbon]

Hi PhilThib,

since i am in project management i do know absolutely the situation u r in.
triangle of project management

I am absolutely well with the idea CSA using corps first, for they used later this three huge corps in the Army of Virgina meanwhile the even larger Army of Potomac had a bad struggle to command and organize all the subunits of the peninsula campaign for instance.
Also, subunits of CSA were often bigger than Unions, for Union scarcely refilled regiments with replacements, but raised new ones instead and made it up to more than a dozen corps this way.

problem is just, with this kind of map and use of corps it is far to easy to build doomstacks and in the ACW i got the impression that divisions and brigades are even useless as a garrison.
You can only use them as kind of suppressing force against uprise of partisans.

in AACW this was solved superb.

so, kind of way would be as mentioned a higher combat penalty for huge stacks in a single province or bundling the combat behavior of corps more to having a General attached to, one General per corps or unless working with merely a factor of 75% or so.

and NO, I AM NOT EXPECTING ANY AD HOC SOLUTION within minutes, it is just an observation made in game.

i got plenty of time to test other nations first

As USA you have only the ACW and the 1.WW / parts of the Great war. Thats it!
time between them, nearly 50 years of the 70 years of gameplay. 66 years done.

the latter war was not about strategy, but was won about the fresh unbleeded resources of USA (US troops even used mainly the french machine gun and british mortars), so would be a gain from 60 years of development of the strategy. thus absolutely in the sense of your game PON

If I remember right there was only one major conflict between them, the war against Spain.
But you cant compare that as a war. Remember the story about "Teddy" Roosevelt who was a cavalrymen entering Cuba without horses for the unit was neither well equipped, nor were there enough transports to get the horses and the men over to Cuba at once.
USA lost about 400 in the whole war. Cubans / Phillipinos lead by USA more than 20000, for USA intervening so late

Also Indian war cant be compared to war. however, this was excellent implemented by your three colonial options with different degree of aggressiveness you can use in indian territory as long having colonial status

heartly greating from Anvers

PS:

ok, i admit it, after years (since times of HOI2) i just did it, i had an glance into the PARADOX forum to see, whether my observations regarding the problems with strategy is a familiar one.
as far i can see, same problems i encountered are mainly also known for players of the Prussian campaign.
I read a good bunch of notices about foreign doomstacks and people just copying this method by combining a couple of corps. leure: