Mandingo wars

[sirhiggins]

Hello,

Any hint how to deal with monsieur Samory Toure?
I've run out of ideas... i sent in a lot of colonial troops (african and european too), the Legion is occupied in Indochina,
tried to send some line infantry (i know it not the best but got nothing only the home troops from France), but he managed
do defeat all of my divisions, even corpses.
He's besieging Falaba and got something around 40.000 infantry and some cavalry and arty.
I know he is the Black Napoleon, but oh come oon

[Siegfroh]

I haven't played for some time, waiting for the next patch. There is nothing new I can contribute than what you will already know:

Send in more troops !

Maybe you might need even two infantry corps. Eventually the bigger battalions (or, more precisely: the higher combat efficiency) will win. Combine the forces you have got and land them at the same time. If you send them in piecemeal, they will be beaten individually. And see that they are well supplied so that manpower (red column) and cohesion (blue column) will be recovered quickly, both are equally important in order to have a high combat efficiency (small number on the unit's or army's icon).

Here an example (from the web, seems to be another game, but still the graphics are the same): three units, all of them with full manpower (hit points), two of them with 60% cohesion, one with 100% cohesion. The latter is not a combat unit, therefore it doesn't have any combat efficiency, which is "20" for the other two. The green column indicates their level of supply.

The attachment cw (6).png is no longer available

Or wait for a few years and for an army reform which will give you better weapons, and thus a higher combat efficiency for the same number of men.

[sirhiggins]

The thing is that the troops has to walk through a harsh weather and only tracked province.
For example the strength of the regular corps was something around 1200, when they arrived to the
destination it was only half of that.

[Siegfroh]

The units recover cohesion if they rest (don't move for a turn) and are in supply (a harbour in the province and a merchant in the adjacent maritime trade zone, or train units).

Or, if you want to arrive with a combat efficiency of 1200, and half of it is inevitably lost during the advance, you have to send in troops with a total combat efficiency of 2400 ...

[sirhiggins]

Evident, but i have to send the defeated troops to Dakar via sea which is the nearest supply base.
I know that the regulars are poor in colonial warfare, but the expedition troops are useless against Toure also.
And by the way, the bigger the army, the bigger the losses in every aspect, in hostile, jungle conditions if i'm right.

[Siegfroh]

It took the French more than ten years to defeat Touré ...

You could build a supply base in a neighbouring province and start your invasions from there, after the base is operative.

[sirhiggins]

And the strategy was to send in more and more troops?
I decided to withdraw my regulars and give up Falaba, where this guy makes fun, the only problem is that it's intended to be the capital of Guinea.

[loki100]

Your best approach is to reduce the area such a rebel force can operate in.

So create a reasonably powerful force of colonial and native units, move into one of the contested provinces, get full military control then build a supply generating structure (even a mission will help). Move in a regular division and combine it with something that has high detection values (native troops?).

Move onto the next province, same trick. You're not trying to fight at this stage, simply to constrict space.

At some stage you'll have them boxed in, then build an army that can fight - light infantry, mountain troops, colonials etc and go hunting. You may lose if so pull back and recover. If you win, hopefully you set up a ping-pong between all your static bases.

Don't think there is a quicker method though.

[vaalen]

I have beaten Samary rather regularly, after he defeated me a few times.

It is important to remember that he is usually much better at defending than attacking. If your troops are at full cohesion and supply, he will have problems attacking them.

The key is to advance your supply lines through building depots and railroads, where you cannot rely upon river supply. Expensive and slow, but you will never beat him if your troops start the battle low in cohesion. The only way I have found to keep the cohesion up is to advance slowly, and have forward supply bases. And supply units. Lots of supply units should accompany every combat force.

The other thing is weather. If it is raining, I do not even try to move or attack in jungle if it raining. Wait for the dry season.

I never use corps or regular European troops in the jungle. The large numbers will not help, and they will be very hard to supply, and they will get constantly defeated, as yours did. Light brigades and Marines can be useful.

The best troops to fight him, the absolute best, is the Legion. See if you can build more Legion units in Algeria, you should be able to. A lot of the fighting in west Africa begins at close range, where the bayonet is needed, and the legion, with their higher morale and inherent love of the cold steel, are ideal for this. The Black troops from Senegal are also very good in the jungle, the European colonial troops less so. But they will all fare better than the regulars.

Most of the troops I use are brigades, as they are more mobile and take far less supplies, which enables the supply wagons to be useful longer. A few columns, each with at least one brigade of the legion, with varying amounts of Black native troops, marines, light infantry, and colonial brigades, are my attack forces. Usually not more than three brigades in a column, with what ever colonial leaders I can find, and supply wagons, as I try to keep them in command.

For blocking forces, the same, though usually just one or two brigades. Depending on the situation, they may or may not need a supply unit.

The attack columns go after his main force, while keeping their cohesion up and staying in supply. They can usually defeat him, though he will then withdraw most of his force.

That is where the blocking forces come in. I try to have one in every territory next to the one I am attacking, though this can be hard to do. If he retreats into an area containing a blocking force set to attack posture, most of the time he will have to fight when his cohesion is low, and will get defeated again. Sometimes he seems able to just slip through.

this is a long, slow, process, much like a real guerrilla war in Africa during this period,but it can be done.

What usually happens is that I drive him away from my valuable areas, and his greatly reduced force camps out in a remote area with no roads, very difficult to move into and very difficult to be supplied. Sometimes it is an area I have not explored, so I cannot even follow him there. But he can be contained. I have tried to explore these areas with explorers, but the success rate is really bad, perhaps because his troops are there, ready to kill any explorer foolish enough to come into range.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Vaalen

[sirhiggins]

Thanks, i'm thinking on mostly the same, the legion is occupied in Indochina at the moment -it's 1884, and there's only 1 bde what i've got.
Any idea about supply wagons? There'sa big loss of complete train units, and i've got no option to train new ones, is this normal?

[vaalen]

Thanks, i'm thinking on mostly the same, the legion is occupied in Indochina at the moment -it's 1884, and there's only 1 bde what i've got.
Any idea about supply wagons? There'sa big loss of complete train units, and i've got no option to train new ones, is this normal?

Do you have the option to train any more legion units in Algeria? It was possible the last time I played France, but there have been some patches since then and something may have changed.

The supply wagon situation seems like a bug to me. When I lost supply wagons in previous games, I had the option to rebuild them later. Maybe the Devs could answer this?

[sirhiggins]

Nope, only the existing 2 rgt available with no option to train another.

[vaalen]

Nope, only the existing 2 rgt available with no option to train another.

That is an unwelcome change. I used to be able to recruit a lot of legion brigades in earlier versions of the game. But, since you cannot construct any more, I would rely on Black colonial troops, light infantry brigades, marine brigades, and colonial brigades. It will be tougher without the legion, that much is certain.

The lack of new legion recruitment should be fixed. The French increased the size of the legion when they had a need, and there certainly were more than two regiments during this period.

[loki100]

...

The supply wagon situation seems like a bug to me. When I lost supply wagons in previous games, I had the option to rebuild them later. Maybe the Devs could answer this?

Depends - if you have captured some it will put you over the build limit. Problem also occurs with heavy/siege artillery which is a real issue as you can't upgrade captured stock and end up with 1860 tech stuff filling up slots in your potential builds

[sirhiggins]

Another one, the british moved in an army into Samory occupied ex-province of me, i've got CP around 35-40%, they occupied the town and
the depot what i've built and got mil.cont 100%; the issue is that if i move an army into that province i can't rise my military control not even with 1%.
The status is french influenced territory.

[czert2]

The thing is that the troops has to walk through a harsh weather and only tracked province.
For example the strength of the regular corps was something around 1200, when they arrived to the
destination it was only half of that.

solition is simple, marsh with a lot of supply wagoons, and evey few provinces build here supply depot, to be not only sure for steady imput of supply from port (since i dont think that corps sized force can live off land there), but you can easily use builded depot to shlter troops for fatest posible recovery of coheresion.

[czert2]

Depends - if you have captured some it will put you over the build limit. Problem also occurs with heavy/siege artillery which is a real issue as you can't upgrade captured stock and end up with 1860 tech stuff filling up slots in your potential builds

thats why i if posible use captured supply to build supply depots, especialy outside europe in regions i plan to conquer or i expect rebelion. and i allways disbandd any captured arty once im at peace.

[czert2]

Another one, the british moved in an army into Samory occupied ex-province of me, i've got CP around 35-40%, they occupied the town and
the depot what i've built and got mil.cont 100%; the issue is that if i move an army into that province i can't rise my military control not even with 1%.
The status is french influenced territory.

well you cant get mc from any civilized state, unless you are at war with him, and most likely uk got mc from rebels.

[sirhiggins]

well you cant get mc from any civilized state, unless you are at war with him, and most likely uk got mc from rebels.

Fantastic... imbecile Brits, what the hell are they doing in Cote de Ivoire anyway, by the way the Samory guy beat them also, what i have to do is
just to wait until they occupy the settelment also, and then start from the beginning and try to defeat the barbars
Just for info, they f.ked up my retaliating force too (the legion, 1 bde light inf, 1bde marines, 2 bde senegali tirallieurs, 2 bde colonial infantry) ...