AGEOD Forums

In building an army from scratch, which units go where to be best utilized? Naturally, infantry is best used in divisions. Up to four artillery elements, but not more, equally in a division; any others go in the corps or army structure. A sharpshooter unit per division, I believe I read somewhere. Where do engineers go? Marines? Cavalry - in divisions, or corps level? Etc.

Pointing me to a document or thread where this has been discussed is fine. I found some pointers in the quick reference guide, but not on all those things.

I think what everybody is saying is that engineers, medics, and whatnot all go in corps where they help the entire stack.
I'm not sure about marines, I really haven't ever messed with them, but playing as the rebs, I'm usually stuck with one or two cav units per division and it's fine.

Hope that was any help

Marines go in the division I believe. I find they are very valuable in out of chain divisions that you raid/recon in force with. It gives them that extra edge in the mobility area.

If you can pair that with a 'surpriser' and sharpshooters, you have a pretty lethal small stack to play with.

An ideal corps should be formed something like this:

1.- ARMY leader near command -> The best you have! STRAT is the key in my opinion. A 2-STRAT leader adds no CP bonuses to the corps, even adds some negatives to the strat corps rating.

1.- Corps Leader -> The best one you can have after the Army leader. A standard leader with no extra skills should give 16 CPs (4 full divisions can be added). If the army leader has strat above 2, every point adds 1 CP extra for the corps.

2.-Divisions.
An ideal division should have. 1 Skirmisher, 4 artillery, rest Line Late infantry, and if possible one of the units should be an Elite. Add some tremendous bonus leader (Longstreet is the better for me, until late in the game) for maximum effect.

Note some Elite brigades have Skirmisher Skill, so no "Sharphooter" needed, just the elite brigade. Elite brigades add for extra 5 cohesion points to the DIVISION.

Some Cavalry regiments can be added but just a few in the corps can do the job. Cavalry units perform better as "independent" units be they regiments / brigades or divisions (cavalry divisions should have 4 horse art...) ..

3.- Support units. Medic / Balloon / Signal / Engineer / Supply can be added to the corps (out of divisions), as they cost 0 CPs. There is some thread explaining about these units to add into divisions... Lower Total strength then for the corps but some speed is gained.

4.- Special units & leaders. There are lots of leaders who add bonus to the ENTIRE stack. The marines & sailors add for 50% river bonus, so add them 1 per corps. It is better to get them into divisions if they cost CPs. Also, leaders giving bonus to militia or cavalry should be added 1 per corps only.

5.- Difference between ATTACK / DEFENSE corps.
Well I believe it is very hard to achieve so much specialization (USA can do, but CSA not so easy).
Some ideas---
There are 2 basic artillery types... the cheap (golden barrel in picture) and the expensive (black)... cheap performs better in defensive role, expensive in Offensive.
Elite troops are excellent in offensive role. Marines are some like 13 attack-17 defense, while Line troops are 11-20. (So line seem better than marines in defensive...)

soloswolf wrote:Marines go in the division I believe. I find they are very valuable in out of chain divisions that you raid/recon in force with. It gives them that extra edge in the mobility area.

If you can pair that with a 'surpriser' and sharpshooters, you have a pretty lethal small stack to play with.

For the Union, marines or sailors should be included in a minimum of one division per corps, because the pontooneer effects apply at the stack level. They are not that much more expensive than line infantry, and fight well, so I try to spread them out - one to each division - for flexibility.

I tend to use marines in my divisions, sailors brigaded with a zouave or upgraded militia (1CP - around 50 strength) for smaller forces. Pair that unit with a leader and sharpshooters - a perfect stack for amphibiously killing lone entrenched militia.

When the Union Brigade and Bull Run Brigade show up, marines can create brigades with them. I believe marines can also create brigades with other marines, if you want to go that route and buy "over the limit".

Excellent advice, Gentlemen. Thank you! For the moment, my possibilities and hence my needs for specialization are more basic (September 1861), but I'll keep this in mind for the days of plenty.

Coregonas wrote:Some ideas---
There are 2 basic artillery types... the cheap (golden barrel in picture) and the expensive (black)... cheap performs better in defensive role, expensive in Offensive.

The "bronze" barrels are 12 or 6 pound smoothbores ("Napoleons") - as you say, very good on defensive fire representing the ability to fire canister at short range.

The "iron" barrels are various rifled cannon (Parrotts, Whitworths and others) that were excellent at long range accurate fire. They were great at counter-battery fire, but most did not have the ability to fire canister.

There is a nice summary table showing ranges here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Artillery_in_the_American_Civil_War