AGEOD Forums

Im playing confederate and at the beginning of the war and there is a small but sizable amount of troops in Clarksburg wv. Is it worth trying to defend or send reinforcements or should I pull out and go south into Virginia.

Depends upon several factors, but if you are playing a human opponent and are willing to invest some resources, including a better leader, you can keep West Virginia in the CSA and gain a few objectives. Against AI or an aggressive Union player, go South. This is a decent reinforcement for Tennessee or Virginia.

I always immediately retreat. I see no point in defending there.
If your forces are forced to retreat, changes are they will suffer greatly during the retreat.

get out of there before the winter hits

CSA has three places where investing in a small force causes the Union to have to divert major resources: Northern Missouri, New Mexico and West Virginia. Taking St Joseph, Sante Fe or Morganton/Wheeling provides a place where you can park a small force with ample supply to make your opponent need to dig you out or you can conduct opportunistic hit and run attacks.

So while it is sound advice to get the heck out of West Virginia at the first opportunity to do so, do not make this the only play you make in that area.

I usually pull them out, but either way I send a fast mover or a supply ranger with at least a 4 activity to take over for Floyd. He is useless, (and has annoyingly high seniority) and they will get stuck in the mountains because he is inactive and starve to death before they can reach safety/Wheeling. If you play with Historical Attrition, the WV forces are missing a lot of elements, and need to fall back to, capture or build themselves a depot in order to be at full strength.

As Durk says, if you want to make a play for WV think Wheeling first and Morgantown later.