sbr wrote:I am playing my first PBEM game (No reading this if you are out there Zoid) , actually my first campaign of any sort to go past July of '61. I am the Union and it is late December '61 and I have a few questions.
- How do you all treat the stacks of the Corps/Army Commanders, are they combat units with Infantry and Artillery or just support units, or a combination of both? Do you treat the division commanders any different?
- Does cavalry in a stack give you any advantages in combat? I understand it's recon role and movement speed but am not quite sure if there is any inherent advantages for cavalry once you are in combat.
- I just had the Trent Affair event fire. It lowered the Confederate's Foreign Help from 70 to 35; it seems from the description it should have raised it not lowered it, not that I mind
. Did I misunderstand the description or did the event not work properly?
I thought there was something else but I am drawing a blank now so I may be back.
The Corps are the most important combat formations you can have. They have the highest available command points and can call in other corps or the army hq (corps and army of the same army only) from neighbouring regions to join a battle. Therefore you should have most of your divisions and other combat units within the corps (obvious exceptions are raiding forces or remote areas like Missouri, along the eastern seaboard etc.).
Armies on the other hand function as reserve formations. They will not initiate combat unless alone in a region, if not alone they may support other forces in the region in combat. Armies are most effective to support their subordinate corps, that is armies are most likely to march to the sound of the guns, they are also more likely to call in other subordinate corps to do likewise. So armies are best used only as support to their own corps, they can act alone if no other friendly forces are present (even a single fixed militia unit in the same region means they won't initiate combat).
Once corps command is possible (early in the game you should not be able to form any on either side) divisions should most of the time be added to corps and not operate separately. Some exceptions are if you wish to conduct a raid, a secondary attack (while the main part of your army attacks Fredericksburg a single division attacks Charlottesville), leave a strong garrison on a depot etc.
Cavalry iirc also affects your forces visibility and evasion, if a force avoids combat or retreats after combat both sides cavalry come into play to determine casualties incured in the retreat. At least that's how I've always understood this. Cavalry can also charge in combat giving it a slight advantage, particularly if a cavalry commander is present.
Some events and strategic choices concerning intervention seem to have been switched (recently I believe) so they give points to the wrong side. I'm sure this will be fixed in the next (probably final) patch.