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Chuske
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Useful Threads for Beginners

Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:01 pm

Ok this game has quite learning curve for beginners, and the main beginners thread (by Dixiecrat) is not accessible for people who are new to the forum so I thought I'd start a useful links for beginners thread starting with Dixiecrats beginners links and then extend it with other threads and links that helped me.

Feel free to suggest threads you'd like to see added!



Manual

AACW Manual
This is a link to the online version of the AACW Manual which came with the game.

What's not in the Manual
This thread covers several topics which might not be clear, even after you've read the manual.

Quick Reference to Game Manual Additions.pdf
This links to an illustrated pdf guide to many of the major changes in AACW since the manual was published. It is current to release 13b.



Wikis

AACW Wikki
This is a link to the dedicated AACW Wiki main page. Make sure you check out the FAQ and strategy guide

AGEWiki
The AGE wiki, a wiki with info common to all the AGEOD games. Some is a bit advanced for beginners so I've just linked to the game concepts section



General Advice

Quick Reference Guide
This handy guide is packed with a lot of information that even experienced players sometimes forget!

Let's Play AEGOD's ACW on Youtube
Great Youtube Tutorial Video Series for 1861 Campaign vs AI by Zerotasker

AGEOD's American Civil War 1863 Campaign on YouTube
Another great Youtube Tutorial Video Series for 1863 Campaign PBEM vs Meagher by Charlesonmission

CSA & USA Checklists
A helpful checklist of considerations for each turn.

Top 5 Priorities for 1st Year of War
Very useful advice to get you started in the main campaign game

Engineers, Balloon etc
Advice on your support units such as engineers, signals, balloons etc

USA Events
List of early war events for the US side, really helps you plan what is coming up.

CSA Events
List of events and reinforcements for the CS side, really helps you plan what is coming up.

Early War Strategy
Advice on how to fight before divisions are enabled in October 61 and Corps in early March 62



w/ Kentucky Scenarios

Campaign w/Kentucky
Gives some information on how the with Kentucky scenarios differ to the standard ones. Basically KY starts neutral and can permanently ally with either side depending on various factors.



Game Concepts

Zones of Control
This thread explains important concepts about ZOC in AACW.

Artillery Analysis, Artillery Analysis 2.0, and Artillery Divisions
These three threads discuss AACW artillery and presents a few conclusions which might be easy to miss.

Frontage Primer
This thread explains important concepts about Frontage. (This is an advanced topic.)

Supply Page on Wiki and Supply Primer
Without general supply and ammunition your units won't be able to fight. Use these threads to see how to stay supplied.

Leader and Unit Abilities also here
Generals and Units can have special abilities. Some apply only to the unit, some to whole stack and some to whole region. These threads explain each ability and how to maximise its benefits.



Economic War (Conscripts, Money, Supplies)

Drafts & Finance
Advice on drafts and finance

Places to Attack
Lists cities which have recruiting centres (tent symbol) and discusses good strategic points to prioritise

Purchasing Artillery & War Supply
Highlights some issues you can have trying to build artillery particularly in low loyalty rural states.

Building Supply Wagons
Advice on when you need supply wagons. Important not to build too many of these expensive units.

Blowing Depots
If you're depot is about to be attacked you might want to blow it to avoid those supplies going to the enemy

Industrialization
Discusses ideas on how best to use industrialization to boost supply & ammo production.




River Strategy

US River Strategy
Basic advice on how to use your riverboats and ironclads

Blocking River Crossings
Really important to prevent your opponent crossing rivers at key places

Double Adjacency Rule and more advanced discussion of the rule
Explains rules on whether a fort or emplaced artillery can fire on river ships



Blockade, Blockade Running & Naval Strategy

US Naval Strategy, build strategy and Naval Strategy Ideas
Really good intro to naval game concepts and strategies

Blockade Basics
Explains the ideas behind blue and brown water blockade

Maintaining the Blue Water Blockade also see The Naval Game
How to maintain your blockade by supplying you blockade ships and cycling out low cohesion units for a rest in port

Blockade Running Diminishing Returns
CSA Brigs / Transports in the blockade boxes count as blockade runners and earn the CS money and war supplies by blockade running, but the increasing return diminish as you add more units

US Shipping Diminishing Return
US transports in the shipping box earn the US money through trade and provide transport for your units. Like blockade runners the money you get per ship diminishes as you add ships.

Moving Monitors
The monitor units cannot go outside coastal regions, here is advice on getting them to the gulf if you need them there



Amphibious Landings

Where to land and what to do with marines

Invading New Orleans
Good discussion on amphib invasion of this key city and tips on its defence.

Taking Coastal Forts
How to take forts on the coast



Leaders

List of Leaders
Pdf lists of leader, their stats and when and where they appear

What to do with weak generals
Overrun with mediocre generals? This thread has some suggestions.



AEGOD Forum Info

Main AACW forum
This link will take you to the main forum for AACW.

AGEOD Forum FAQ
A very useful thread which answers questions you might have about the forums.

Acronyms, abbreviations and general glossary
The first entry in this thread provides a list of many common abbreviations that you'll find on the AGEOD forums.

Medals
This thread is fun! In it, you can learn about the different medals that AACW community members can earn and proudly wear!
Useful Info for Beginners

"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast."
William Tecumseh Sherman

gbob
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Fri Feb 22, 2013 6:31 am

Thanks Chuske! Very valuable summary of resources. :thumbsup:

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Ethan
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Fri Feb 22, 2013 12:45 pm

Nice initiative, Chuske.

It will be very useful for newcomers. Thank you for your contribution. ;)
[color="Navy"][font="Georgia"]"Mi grandeza no reside en no haber caído nunca, sino en haberme levantado siempre". Napoleón Bonaparte.[/font][/color]

[color="Blue"]Same Land. Different Dreams. - Photobook[/color]

[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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John S. Mosby
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Location: Virginia, CSA

Sat Feb 23, 2013 5:29 am

Thanks Chuske. Appreciate your time and effort to put this together. :thumbsup:

charlesonmission
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Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 5:55 am
Location: USA (somewhere)

Sun Feb 24, 2013 7:56 pm

If you want, you can add Newman's and my PBEM against Meagher on the 1863 campaign. It had 3 1/2 hours of YouTube videos. The playlist is here.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0elpXyl8LDXi-sW_3YCNmfCEUnxF1dBh

Charles

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Chuske
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Location: Exeter, UK

Mon Feb 25, 2013 11:54 am

charlesonmission wrote:If you want, you can add Newman's and my PBEM against Meagher on the 1863 campaign. It had 3 1/2 hours of YouTube videos. The playlist is here.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0elpXyl8LDXi-sW_3YCNmfCEUnxF1dBh

Charles


Thanks, added. Coming soon to a beginners thread near you amphib threads :)
Useful Info for Beginners



"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast."

William Tecumseh Sherman

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DrPostman
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Location: Memphis, TN
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Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:40 pm

Thanks for this. I've been playing for a couple of years now and still learned a thing or two ;)
"Ludus non nisi sanguineus"

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Chuske
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Location: Exeter, UK

Fri Mar 08, 2013 3:33 pm

Do people think this thread should be stickied? If so I hope lodilefty will stickify it as otherwise it will disappear from sight fairly quickly.
Useful Info for Beginners



"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast."

William Tecumseh Sherman

charlesonmission
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Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 5:55 am
Location: USA (somewhere)

Mon Mar 18, 2013 5:25 pm

Brillant job! I love this!

Charles

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Stauffenberg
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Sun Jun 16, 2013 2:02 pm

As others have said--excellent work Chuske, just the sort of "command central" a new player needs to feel that someone, somewhere, has all (ok most) of the answers.
You've put together what is on the way to become the definitive player aid. Get Captain_Orso on board as resident AACW Mentat[SUP]1[/SUP] for the project and it will be.

Bravo! :thumbsup: :winner:

[SUP]1[/SUP] For those unfamiliar with the term, a Mentat is a profession or discipline in Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. Mentats are humans trained to mimic computers: human minds developed to staggering heights of cognitive and analytical ability.Used tongue in cheek here of course. ;) ;)

LFFVET
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Thu Jun 27, 2013 3:32 pm

I completely agree, great piece of work, to help newcomers get deeper into the game.
Well done :thumbsup:

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Chuske
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Fri Jul 05, 2013 4:43 pm

Good idea on asking our esteemed captain to mentat. Think though as Civil War 2 is out sometime in the near future maybe instead we should focus on that game? Certainly if Captain Orso (or any other vets) reads this and wants to suggest threads or advice to add hear I'm really happy to add to this thread.

Stauffenberg wrote:As others have said--excellent work Chuske, just the sort of "command central" a new player needs to feel that someone, somewhere, has all (ok most) of the answers.
You've put together what is on the way to become the definitive player aid. Get Captain_Orso on board as resident AACW Mentat[SUP]1[/SUP] for the project and it will be.

Bravo! :thumbsup: :winner:

[SUP]1[/SUP] For those unfamiliar with the term, a Mentat is a profession or discipline in Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. Mentats are humans trained to mimic computers: human minds developed to staggering heights of cognitive and analytical ability.Used tongue in cheek here of course. ;) ;)
Useful Info for Beginners



"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast."

William Tecumseh Sherman

Compass Rose
Civilian
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Sep 21, 2013 8:58 pm

Sun Sep 22, 2013 8:16 pm

Thanks for taking the time to create this newbie list. It is very helpful for us....um...newbies!

chocko101
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Joined: Mon May 01, 2017 6:54 pm

Re: Useful Threads for Beginners

Sat Sep 02, 2017 3:45 am

I realize this is a some what older post but appears that the link to the suggested posts are dead. Am I doing something wrong or are these links no longer part of the forum?

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Captain_Orso
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Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Useful Threads for Beginners

Sun Sep 03, 2017 4:09 pm

No, you're not doing anything wrong. The forum software has been changed since those posts were made. The new software uses different PHP calls to access those posts, so the links do not have the correct format in the new forum software.

However, the important part, the thread (topic) and post numbers have not changed, thank goodness, so we still have a direct path to access those threads and posts.

Here is a quick description of how to do it I wrote in a different sub-forum: Re: Struggling with broken links and such like. . This will show you how to access those old posts. It's actually quite simple; just requires a little typing to modify the links you want to open. Happy reading ;)

Taillebois
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Location: Nr GCHQ Cheltenham

Re: Useful Threads for Beginners

Sat Sep 09, 2017 9:19 pm

Sorry, but that might as well be Chinese to me. Can some kind person redo the links so they work with the new forum and post it after this if the top part of the thread can't be edited?

I only came here because I was about to boast about getting a Union win on the Seeing the Elephant scenario with McDowell in Richmond.

It is about time I got beyond playing short scenarios and actually learnt to play the game properly.

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Gray Fox
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Re: Useful Threads for Beginners

Tue Sep 12, 2017 3:36 pm

So if I fix the links in my old posts, do these then work for everyone who tries them from then on or does the fix just work for me?
I'm the 51st shade of gray. Eat, pray, Charge!

ruppert29
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Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2019 12:48 am

Re: Useful Threads for Beginners

Sun Aug 28, 2022 8:13 pm

My attempt at trying to fix the broken links from the beginning of this thread:

What's not in the Manual
viewtopic.php?t=10483

CSA & USA Checklists
viewtopic.php?t=6772

Early war, Union, Mc'Dowell's AoV.
viewtopic.php?t=25128

List of Events
viewtopic.php?t=21437

Top Five Priorities for First Year of War
viewtopic.php?t=24484

Leader and Unit Abilities
viewtopic.php?t=8670

Question for players of the April 61 Campaign - Draft and Finance
viewtopic.php?t=17435

Supply Primer
viewtopic.php?t=14929

Places to Attack
viewtopic.php?t=20527

1861 Campaign Scenarios w/Kentucky Neutral ADD-ON
viewtopic.php?t=12372

Maintaining Blockade Fleets in Ocean Box
viewtopic.php?t=15688

The Federal Blockade??
viewtopic.php?t=15688

CSA Transports as Blockade Runners?
viewtopic.php?t=12924

Union shipping
viewtopic.php?t=24209

What to do with my Marines (or where to do an amphibious landing)?
viewtopic.php?t=9322

Taking Coastal Forts
viewtopic.php?t=24874

Possible solution for weak generals
viewtopic.php?t=20426

US River Naval Strategy
viewtopic.php?t=5364

Blocking movement across a river
viewtopic.php?t=27007

Using the bombardment button outside the double adjacency rule
viewtopic.php?t=18279

Purchasing Artillery with and without WarSupply
viewtopic.php?t=25060

ZOC: The Untold Story
viewtopic.php?t=13103

Artillery Analysis 1.1
viewtopic.php?t=10849

Engineers, Balloons, etc.
viewtopic.php?t=18532

Building Supply Wagons
viewtopic.php?t=24854

Blowing Depots
viewtopic.php?t=24859

Industrialization - for or against?
viewtopic.php?t=23995

Couldn't recover links leading directly to other documents. Hope this helps.

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