My first AEGOD Game and game play settings.

[GraniteStater]

I think if you go to the old AACW forum and Search for 'Checklist', you will find at least two threads, one for the Union, one for the CSA.

[nickaepi]

I think if you go to the old AACW forum and Search for 'Checklist', you will find at least two threads, one for the Union, one for the CSA.

Yeah. I checked that. All the links are no longer valid. If someone knows where they went, I will be sure to take a look.

[Durk]

This is a pretty good guide, it is for the older game, but much except building, is still relevant.
http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/AACW_strategy_guide

You have seen some good advice above -
For me, it is easier to play both side in solitaire than to play AI. AI is a challenge, but it is not really historical, so reasonable decisions are not always rewarded.
Pick one of the small scenarios you are playing. Make the Union move and save. Then enter the game as the CSA and make your move and save. Then run the turn.
This will be a quicker way to learn and provide you more sensible defensive and offensive targets.

[ArmChairGeneral]

OK, I am going to assume that you are playing the 1862 West Scenario as the CSA, and am warning that this post will be long.

The first thing you need to do is entirely re-organize all of your forces in TN. Your goal is to defend Memphis using two or three Corps and an Army against Grant's invasion along the rail line crossing the Ohio at Ft Henry/Ft. Donnelson. This is historically the battle of Shiloh, and it will usually happen on turn two or three, so the first task is get ready to repel him. The first turn will take an hour or two, after that the turns will go by quickly.

Click through all stacks in TN, AR, northern MS and AL. Identify your 2 and 3 star generals (off the top of my head I can't remember who is the 3 star, I think it is PGT Beauregard) and separate them into their own stacks. Go to every region where you have troops and put them all into one placeholder stack for each region so you can easily see what you are working with, and then start building divisions within those stacks and then transferring them into your Army/Corps stacks in those regions once you have them complete. (I am just talking about the regions they start in, we are not moving anything around yet.)

Pay special attention to the elements that are labeled as conscripts (you can see which are conscripts on the element panel on the bottom right when you click a unit) put as many of these as feasible into Hardee's stack since he helps train them to regulars more quickly, which you will need (don't bother moving them to his location, there are plenty in the spot he starts.) You should also have several elite brigades with a special yellow icon on them, build a division around each of these, only one elite in a division.

Strip out all "loose" artillery from the divisions you start with and make separate divisions with them using your best division general in the region, ignoring the artillerist trait for the moment. Ideally you will have a division of artillery for each of your Army Corps stacks, but there will probably not be enough arty for all three. Some divisions will have arty that you cannot separate because they are integrated into brigades, this is fine. You should end up with 5-7 primarily infantry divisions with some Cav and artillery mixed in, and probably 2 arty divisions. Divvy up the divisions roughly equally among your Corps/Army stacks with excesses going into your Army stack.

Look at the special abilities of your generals. Ideally, you want every stack to have an Artillerist and a Cavalryman in them. They do not have to be in command of anything, just being in the stack gives the whole thing their bonus. If you do not have enough special ability generals to go around, prioritize the Army stack, which definitely needs to have one of each (Leave one of your cavalrymen in Madison there so it can join up with the Army stack that is going there).

You should have some militia inside some of your back line towns in TN and MS. Place them in their own stacks, outside of the structure and leave them alone, these are your entrenchers, and when you need to retreat into those regions you will drop your stack onto them so that they enter the already built entrenchments. Do not put any militia or volunteers into your primary fighting divisions and stacks, they can really hamper your combat effectiveness.

You do not want to have any brigades that are not combined into divisions in your primary fighting stacks. Spread any loose cavalry or arty that you don't have a dedicated division for roughly evenly so that you do not have any divisions that have too many in any one division. You should have two or three Corps stacks and one Army stack with 2-4 divisions each, and nothing else except for generals. Then find your supply elements and add one for every two divisions to your primary fighting stacks.

Once you have your primary fighting stacks (the Corps and Army stacks) organized, look at the map. March the Army stack (which should be the largest one and should have your arty division if you could only make one) to Madison, march your smallest stack to McNairy and the middle sized one goes by rail to Fort Pillow, creating a line of three regions that are next to each other so that they can MTSG to each other. Set all three stacks to Blue/Red orders. Use a Build Outpost RGD card in Madison so that your Army stack will have a stockade built when they arrive.

Grant will advance along the rail line through Humbolt to Madison, where he will attack across the river (probably after turn two) to your entrenched Army stack and when he does both the Corps stacks on either side of you will enter the battle to support your Army. You will most likely win this battle.

Once you win, you should be in a playable position, and I leave it to you to figure out what to do next.

Of course I am leaving out a lot of other important things like what to do with forces near Nashville and in the Far West, what to build, (actually build all the arty you can, then infantry after that) what to do with Forrest and his cav stack and what other RGDs to use, but this should at least repel Grant's initial thrust toward Memphis and put you on solid footing to make a game of it.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Sorry that isn't as clear as I had hoped to make it, don't have a lot of time today to re-write it, but hopefully that will get you started. Also, that is mostly from memory, I haven't played the scenario in a while, but basically reorganize into three stacks and dig in along the Ft Pillow-Madison-McNairy line.

[nickaepi]

Thanks guys ! That helps a LOT! I guess my 2 hour "1st turns" are normal then. That makes me feel better.

Thank you for the the detailed break down on stuff I should be looking to do ArmChair. That's perfect. Gets me on the right track and I can go from there.

I promise I have tried to learn things on my own and am not being lazy.LOL . This is more of a psychiatric session to make sure "I'm not the only one".

It appears I have been corrupted by other strategy games. I am so accustomed to the "END TURN" button flashing for me. I really love the WEGO system but it's taking me a little time to get the 'IGOUGO' mentality out of my head.

I'm starting to get it now. Anticipating my opponents next move VS. just reacting. It's a real strategy game..

[ArmChairGeneral]

There is not any laziness involved This game has a VERY steep learning curve, but once you get the basic mechanics figured out you will be pleasantly surprised at how intuitive gameplay and decision-making becomes.

If you are having trouble with the initial battle, there is no shame in rewinding and playing the initial turns over again.

Pro tip: once you have your stacks re-organized, save the game and go into the file tree (in Explorer, not in-game) and make a duplicate of that save and rename it. Then play using the first version and if you have to start over go back to your renamed version which will have your re-org already in place. The re-org is the longest and most tedious part, and if you need to start over you don't want to have to repeat that task over and over again.

Also, the Shiloh scenario is almost identical to what you find yourself facing in the first turns of the 1862W scenario, it may be helpful to play through that a couple of times using the same plan I outlined above just to get in some reps with the initial battle. The downside of course is the overhead involved in the initial re-org....